Here Be Dragons
Author: Beck Dacus
One half of the sky brimmed with stars, the Sun at one light-week’s distance barely outshining the rest. The other half was utterly dark, as if the universe ended at a sheer cliff. As I approached the blackness, detail started to emerge, my headlamp ...
Better Left Undead
Author: J. Scott King
“Can he continue?” A familiar voice, distant, urgent.
And nearer, “The Seconds are conferring, Captain.” Then, more urgently, “Come no closer, sir! Resseaux, control your man!”
A gruff, mumbled reply I can’t make out.
“I’ll have him done!” ...
A Chest In A Room
Author: Aubrey Williams
The cheap hotel room was draughty, the shadows ink in the recesses. Each sheet of green William Morris wallpaper was peeling in at least three places. For all the dinginess, though, it was a room, and I needed one. By a feeble light I’d tried to ...
Imagine a Creature
Author: Rollin T. Gentry
Imagine a creature crafted from crushed bones and entropy. It may or may not have fangs, or claws, or even a face. It rides from calamity to calamity, crisis to crisis, along ley lines the scale of galaxies.
Wait. There he is, knocking at the ...
The Time Capsule
Author: Milo Brown
William Smith was very proud of his name, not because it was a very good name (although it was) but because it granted him a certain level of anonymity. In William’s opinion, the only better name would be John Doe, since the name John Smith was made ...
The Trees Are Chatty
Author: Majoki
“What a poetic way of expressing it, Sibyl,” Cassie warily admitted.
She was walking along the stream that meandered through the glade, the aspens chattering in the stiffening evening breeze.
*It’s true, Cassandra. The trees are chatty. They’re ...
The Last Resort
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Abby whips her wing-tentacles about, making little ‘cracks’ of delight as a gigantic silver dinosaur walks by, its crystal eyes filled with icy fire. Every footfall causes things to shake and drinks to splash about in their cups - unless ...
Book Mouse
Author: Brooks C. Mendell
“Where is she?” asked Dr. Nemur, holding her glasses in place while looking under a chair.
“Relax, Doc,” said Burt. “It’s only a mouse. We’ll find her.”
“Only a mouse?” said Nemur. “Her frontal cortex packs more punch than your bird ...
The Tower
Author: Mark Renney
The island is getting smaller, but those who reside in the Tower are in denial. Hiding behind the steel rafters and columns and the reinforced sheets of glass that comprise the walls of their homes, they won’t accept that a very real danger lurks beyond ...
The Other SETI
Author: David Barber
This was back in 1937, in Wheaton, Illinois, where Grote Reber built a radio telescope to track down persistent background noise that was annoying Bell Telephone Labs.
The Depression still lingered and Bell wouldn’t employ him, but in his spare time ...
The Art of Learning a Language
Author: Stuart Wilson
The Art of Learning a Language
̈Japanese must be easy. ̈ I had to shout over the traffic.
And the person to whom I was shouting was quite far below now. ̈ ̈There are not so many unusual sounds, ̈ I continued, trying to twist my neck into the sort of ...
The Fells
Author: Majoki
Silence Wildgoose was lost. Not an uncommon occurrence in the weighty mists that formed on the fells. Getting turned around on the moor was not something that ever put her on edge, but she sensed something else had descended to earth with the mists as well, ...
Tabula Rasa
Author: Justin Anderson
[Begin transcript]
I wear different shoes and take a different route every time I come down here. The last thing I need is to be tracked by the cameras and the drones hiding all over this sector.
On the way here, I kept my mind empty. Didn’t ...
Waiting for the Scan
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Did you see that?”
I look at Lopaka.
“What?”
He indicates with the muzzle of his laser.
“Over there. To the left of the big blue rock that’s right of the black cube.”
“Between the dark monolith and the blue boulder?”
He gives me the ...
The Arecibo Voyager
Author: Jade T. Woodridge
Cogito ergo sum…
The crater Hathor is 107.5 miles in diameter. I stand in its center and am lost to the constant firings of my mental cortex. Flashes of pictures, texts, and movies blur my vision. I am blinded and deafened by recordings of ...
A Minor Negotiation
Author: Rick Tobin
Boswan Raz screamed with limited breath as he raced into the Earth Alliance council chambers. “They are here, Eric!” He paused, stopping finally, panting in excitement. “All of them. They’re landing their ships around the capital.”
Eric Hamilton tried ...
Reincarnation
Author: Haley DiRenzo
The seven bodies that you could come back as stare back at you after your death. Four men and three woman whose vessels are still capable of withstanding the Earth’s elements. You’ve been selected to inhabit one of them, not knowing how your soul and ...
The Raconteur from County Galway
Author: John Szamosi
It was the old Irishman’s stories that would bring scores of people to his table every time he sat down for lunch. Sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, sometimes scary, other times just plain provocative, they had one thing in common: they were all made ...
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