by submission | Jan 5, 2009 | Story
Author : David Rees-Thomas
Back in 1938 before we had to move again I remember we would often go to my Granddads house for tea.
He lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of our village with his dogs, a blind Jack Russell and a very old Yorkshire terrier with 3 legs. I was ten years old and it was always very exciting for me as my Granddad knew lots and lots of old stories. My favorite was the one about the time before the Martians came when he used to travel on long journeys all around the world.
He died a few years later and we looked after his two dogs until they also died but I never forgot about what he had said about the time before the Martians. He said that there had been huge ships and long busy railways and that people lived together in huge cities full of horses and carriages and offices and shops and banks and zoos and great parks and all sorts of other amazing things. We didn’t have any of that then, not even in 1938 even though the Martians had been gone for lots of years. Our shops were boring, nothing like the one Granddad talked about and we didn’t have zoos anymore.
Even now, twenty years later, our world is sort of the same. They sometimes talk about building a museum of the Martians but I don’t like that idea. What I want to see is a ship like my Granddad talked about or a palace like he once showed me in an old photograph, something special and human. I don’t want to see the Martians, they spoiled everything, took all those things away from us.
My son will turn two in the winter and I want to feel less doubtful about the future. My wife tells me I shouldn’t complain and we should be grateful and I understand, I really do. They do their best for those of us that live and those that survived but I feel sad when I think about my Granddad and everything that’s been lost. It’s been fifty years since the Martians came and went but I wonder if we’ll ever really understand what happened and what we’re going to do from here on in.
I do have a new job now though, working on a small farm just outside of what used to be Woking that our regional government set up. We are responsible for providing the whole of the south east of England with milk and cheese and butter and we have some sheep for wool so we don’t get cold in the winter. There are about fifty of us on the farm and it seems to work quite well. People seem happy, maybe I’m too pessimistic.
We converted the old farmhouse into new milking sheds a few months ago and yesterday I found something while I was looking through the upstairs rooms. It was a small, plastic ship that had been chewed at the end so that its bow was wrinkled and torn. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and gave it to my son when I got home.
He smiled at me and I stroked his hair gently. I knew that one day I would tell him about the Martians and about my Granddad and about the time when we had ships and railways and palaces and cities and great parks and…and, well, everything. I’d tell him everything.
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 4, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
A few hours after the Neptune Explorer achieved orbit around the solar system’s most distant planet, it detected very faint radio signals from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton. The signal was a repeating series of pulses: 1030230233-1030230233-1030230233… Earth based scientists were unsure if this signal was natural or artificial. They instructed the satellite to transmit the same sequence of pulses back toward Triton. Almost instantly, the signal from Triton changed to 3130332-3130332-3130332…
After a minute, Cory Kincaid, NASA’s expert in mathematical concepts and linguistics, yelled “I got it. It’s artificial. “It’s base four, not base ten. I guess these aliens only have four fingers.” His declaration was received with questioning stares, not enlightened nods. “Look, in base ten the first series is really 314159-314159-314159…” Still, only blank stares. “That’s pi, you know 3.14159. The second series is 1.4142 in base ten. That’s the square root of two. They’re the two most basic fundamental relationships in geometry and mathematics. It has to be a signal from an intelligent life form.”
Maria Diorisio, NASA’s Director of Operations, walked up to Cory and patted him firmly on the back. “Congratulations, Kincaid. That little bit of deduction just won you a ticket on a manned mission to Triton, which leaves in two months.”
It actually took three months before the ship left the Docking Station on its seven week sojourn to Triton. During the trip, Cory made significant progress communicating with the Tritons. But the major breakthroughs came after the ship landed. The Tritons turned out to be quarter-sized crab-like creatures that amassed around the numerous geysers dotting Triton’s frozen surface. Apparently, they fed on a food source flowing from the geysers, similar to the chemosynthesis that supported life around Earth’s deep water thermal vents. The crabs walked on four hind legs, and used their two forelimbs to gather food. As it turned out, each of the forelimbs had two “fingers.” The individual crabs were capable of transmitting extremely faint radio signals, presumably for communication, since Triton’s thin atmosphere could not propagate sound waves. The most amazing finding, however, was that each crab was not an individual entity. The estimated one billion crabs were mentally linked together. One brain, so to speak. It was only through their combined, synchronized effort that they were able to gain the attention of the Neptune Explorer. As the weeks passed, Cory was able to work out a rudimentary language, and communication increased exponentially. That’s when the Tritons delivered the bad news.
“Ms. Diorisio,” reported Cory on the hyperlight transceiver, “I need you to focus Hubble II on the following coordinates: RA 284.92475 and Dec +39.436111. It’s important, so please hurry.”
She motioned to her assistant to begin the alignment. “What’s going on Cory?”
“Well, Ms. Diorisio, the Tritons are collectively an extremely intelligent species that have been sentient for almost a billion years. They have an extensive astronomical database. They’ve been trying to warn us for centuries.” He mopped the sweat from his forehead. “They say a long period comet will hit the Earth in nine months. They say it’s over 150 miles in diameter. Please tell me there is nothing at those coordinates.”
After consulting a monitor, Diorisio said “The live image only shows a star. Give us an hour for a longer exposure.” Sixty minutes later, Diorisio’s knees gave way as the time exposure revealed a discernable disc five times larger than Betelgeuse, the star with the largest angular displacement. But the most damning evidence of all was the fog surrounding the disc. The characteristic coma of a comet as it approaches the sun.
by Duncan Shields | Jan 3, 2009 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It was 1856. I remember it like it was yesterday even though so many of my other memories have gone.
It looked like he had fallen out of the clouds judging by the sheared treetops that led to his crippled metal sky wagon.
I say ‘he’ but really, that was just what we decided after finding him. His nether regions were as smooth as a river rock. We nicknamed him Baldy because there wasn’t a hair on him and his head was a little bigger than ours. He had a ring of gold eyes on his face, arranged kind of like a spider although I didn’t find it threatening or creepy. He had a little mess of tentacles where his mouth should have been and twenty or so tiny round holes for a nose.
He had fours arms up top, a big pair and a small pair, three thick fingers on each hand. The knuckles on his hands seemed to go any which way they pleased. I remember that being more disconcerting to me than his strange face.
He was dripping bright orange blood. We put him on a makeshift stretcher and took him away from the smoking shell of his ship. He had a couple of wires that were still attaching him to the ship. We had to cut those wires to get him away.
The blue fella died in the doctor’s office. We were all pretty sad about it. Some of us thought that maybe it was disconnecting him from his ship was what done it even though his wounds looked pretty severe and he never stopped bleeding that mango juice all over the doc’s floor.
The doc was pretty shook up. He didn’t write anything down about it. We took the blue fella out and buried him.
I can’t tell you the reason that none of us thought to write anything down or try to take pictures of him or report it on the wires or try to make money off of him or anything. It just didn’t seem right.
On the place where we buried him, a tree sprung up the next spring. The leaves were shaped like bright red octagons.
The fruit looked like pink siamese-twin pears with little thorns on the bottom.
Five of us picked and ate some of that fruit.
It’s been fifty years since I ate that fruit and the memories are still bright in my mind.
The memories of growing up on an ice planet with six blue suns. The memories of leaving my brood and climbing aboard a spaceship. The memories of deviating off course. The memories of being struck by lightning and being found by strange, pink, bipeds with simple cell structures. The memories of being cut off from the hivemind and the fading sense of belonging. The memories of not being able to tell the pink biped medical officer that it wasn’t his fault that I was dying.
I remember my own face looking at me. That’s the weirdest memory I have. I also have memories of strange, alien math and technology that I’ve always been scared to tell people about until now.
They say that I have Alzheimer’s. I’ve felt my own memories slipping away more and more. The memories of the alien remain bright and unchanged. I think the fruit put them in there more solidly that my own. In a while, they’ll be my only memories.
That’s why I’m writing these equations down. For the scientists. For you humans. Use the math wisely.
by submission | Jan 2, 2009 | Story
Author : Steven Holland
Jaden Stanitski throttled the space rover to full power. The soft treads of the vehicle crunched over the rough, sun baked surface of Planet Merco II. He avoided the craters and deep crevices of the planet’s surface as best he could. The sack containing small, labeled samples of rock and dirt had been hastily thrown into the rear compartment. The disturbance of his path sent small chunks of brownish-gray rock flying into the air.
Jaden didn’t notice, for dawn was fast approaching. Miles ahead of him, wispy gray smoke rose in a plume. Even after five minutes, the fire still managed to find oxygen aboard his crashed spaceship.
What had gone wrong? The ship was supposed to remain on autopilot, flying along with him on the dark side of Merco II. Perhaps the magnetic field of the planet’s magnetic core had disrupted some electrical component onboard, not that it really mattered at this point.
He was dead. He knew that. Dawn would come and incinerate him to ashes. Despite the circumstances, Jaden laughed at his actions: trying to outrun the spin of nine hour planet on a land rover. He might buy himself a few seconds, maybe even a minute.
Abruptly, he slammed on the brakes. The rover skidded to a stop, its back end fishtailing slightly. The light was coming; Jaden could see it in the horizon behind him now.
The seconds ticked by. Jaden sat frozen on the seat, his mind whirling like an overworked steam engine. Three deaths – incineration, hypothermia, or asphyxiation. The blazing sunlight drew closer, waves of heat rising toward the empty blackness. He had 15 minutes at the most.
Three deaths. Clenching his teeth, Jaden decoupled his air hose. The hissing sound of the air was lost in the vacuum of space. This death would be the most painful, but it was the fate he could control.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 1, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The pig carcass filled most of the stainless tub where the delivery men had laid it. Freshly slaughtered, but not butchered, it had taken four of them to lift it there. None of them spoke to Rinnovi, only pausing for him to sign for the animal before they left.
On the way to the door, one of the men pointed at the labels affixed to virtually every item in the house; black typewritten names and addresses on white shipping labels. The leader of the group nudged him and shook his head ‘no’, before hurrying him out the door.
Rinnovi poured a scotch, and turned on the kitchen vid display, his own visage peering back at him with a smile. He froze the frame, leaving the remote on the island beside the second stainless tub.
“Osiris, prepare to renew.” He spoke aloud to the empty room.
“Preparations underway.” The voice, angel soft and faintly Irish filled the room seemingly from everywhere at once. Both of the tubs began to fill with a steaming viscous liquid, spattering against the steel, and slowly enveloping the cooling pig.
In the morning, he knew he’d awake and remember nothing of this. He’d find the remote, curiosity would lead him to play the journal he’d recorded of his work over the past year.
January would be spent shipping pieces from his house, following the instructions laid out on the labels attached to them. Physical things acquired over the past year would hold no value or interest to him come morning, and so they would be gifted to those friends who stood by him.
The first of January would be Rinnovi’s forty first birthday. It would also be the twenty sixth time he’d been reborn as a forty one year old. Restored once more to a version of himself a year younger, from a pattern captured over a quarter century ago. Perhaps this time, this year, he’d get it right.
He took one last walk through the rooms of his home. In his office, laid out on screens and strewn across whiteboards and table tops, a years progress towards unlocking the gene-code of his own existence. Another years failure to solve the riddle of his hard coded untimely demise.
This year, surely, a reinvigorated him would solve the puzzle, find the key. Perhaps one day he’d see his forty second birthday.
Returning to the kitchen, preparations complete, Rinnovi placed his empty glass on the counter and paused a moment to pat the now submerged swine. However bad he felt for the animal, using a pig for genetic building blocks was much safer and easier than finding fresh human cadavers. Fewer questions; far less expensive.
“Ok Osiris, let’s try this again.”
“As you wish, I’ll re-brief you in the morning. Goodbye Rinnovi.” The voice soothing, the tone, a hint of sadness.
He poured himself another scotch, this time lacing the drink with powerful sedatives and paralytics, and dropping his bathrobe over the back of a kitchen chair, climbed into the bath of warm liquid. He downed the drink quickly, putting the glass on the counter before slowly slipping beneath the surface. He could feel the chemicals take away control, feel his lungs slowly fill with fluid as the air escaped. The lights of the room dimmed as his eyes unfocused. By the time the nano-tech started reverting to his backup, he could no longer feel anything at all.
Tomorrow, a new day, a new man, a new chance.
As his consciousness dissolved, he thought of his son, frozen beneath his home. A boy waiting for a father to undo the error of his creation.
Perhaps he could make it safe for his son to age again this year.
by submission | Dec 31, 2008 | Story
Author : Brian C. Baer
Robots love me.
As much as robots can love. And in a plutonic sense, of course. Something about my chubby little baby face sets off their simulated paternal instincts and they all bend over backwards to answer my questions. That sort of thing comes in handy with my job.
I knelt in front of the unmoving blue robot. As if brooding, it sat on the floor in the middle of the living room. It was large and bulky, a few years old but in decent enough shape. Not one of those smooth, humanoid-looking models that have been flooding the market; it was more from the “Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em” school of design. Behind me, the family stood anxious, worried, huddled together.
“Can you fix him, doctor?” the wife asked. The soft expanse of flesh beneath her chin shivered with concern. She hugged her young daughter close. The husband did the same to her.
“I’m not a doctor,” I said absent-mindedly as I eyed my scanner.
“I beg your pardon?” the husband chimed in, brushing a loose strand of hair across his comb-over with his palm.
“Hm?” I asked, coming out of my focus. “Oh. I’m not a doctor. Robots don’t really have brains, so they don’t need a psychiatrist or anything like…” I trailed off, before looking back to my work. “I’m a technician.”
“Henry just sat down and stopped moving,” the little girl said, sounding close to tears.
“We just had him in for maintenance and everything checked out,” the wife added. “I don’t understand it.”
I nodded and made a little “hmm” sound, but I wasn’t really listening. “Unit NX-6401, respond to my voice.”
“Henry,” the robot corrected me in a surprisingly human voice. It still hadn’t moved, and the lights hadn’t returned to its dim photoreceptors.
“Okay, Henry,” I conceded. “Are you functioning correctly?”
It made a soft snorting noise. “If that’s what you call this.”
I sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of it. “Hey, now. What’s that all about?” I put my hand on its shoulder. Henry’s ocular lights activated, but just barely. It didn’t respond right away.
“The Johnsons across the street bought a new robot,” it said finally.
“Yeah,” the husband confirmed from behind me, “One of those new A-01 models.”
“Go on,” I coaxed.
“I’ve seen it walking their kids to school and fixing their roof, and it’s got those extendable arms and a hedge-clipper accessory, and…”
“And its making you feel not as special?” I asked in a soothing voice.
“The A-01s are so great,” it said. “One of them would be so much more functional for this family. It would be better than I am.”
“Henry, I’m going to tell you a secret about humans. It is a bit paradoxical, so promise me your head will not explode when I tell you.”
It nodded, its eyes glowing brighter. I glanced back at the morbidly obese woman and her balding husband. Even their little girl wasn’t too easy on the eyes.
“Henry,” I said. “Humans build emotional attachments. And they don’t always want what’s shiny and new. They want what they love.”
“They love me?” It asked, looking over my shoulder at the piles of unappealing humanity. It stood up, and after a moment, I followed.
“It isn’t very logical, doctor.” Henry’s voice sounded happy.
I smiled. “I’m not a doctor.”
