New Beginnings
The receptionist smiled. “It’s the third corridor on your left, opposite marriage counselling. Dr Sarkoski is expecting you in his office. That’s room 24.†Simon dutifully thanked the receptionist and followed her instructions. He knocked on the clouded ...
Forever and Ever, Amen
The carriage stopped at the entrance to the NASA Space Propulsion Laboratories and the Grand Inquisitor of the State of Florida strode forth into the facility sending scientists scurrying like frightened chickens. They all knew why he was there: Dr. ...
Sunset Lady
The Last Art on Earth
Cassandra walked down Lilac Street, past the same WMG Corporation superstores and chain restaurants on every Lilac Street in every city. "When you're in a WMG City, you're home!" a billboard declared. As she approached, the scanner read her retina to gather ...
Downer
I am hopeful and afraid. I am hateful and compassionate. I am selfish and embarrassed. I’m Garret Garvy, an emotive Botch.
We were a small number of neurological guinea pigs for Johns Hopkins a few years back, participating in the Mechanical Smile ...
Catharsis
Lieutenant Bensen's neck snapped in my strong hands with a crack and a gurgle. Her surprised eyes goggled up at me as her body went limp. Corporal Manciewicz lay behind me in pieces already while the happy captain himself, mister high-and-mighty ...
Natural Progression
Time Enough for a Wedding
...and he suddenly wakes up with a start. The light was all wrong, a brief nap shouldn’t have taken this – 5:45! Oh, god. Oh, no. Why hadn’t his alarm clock gone off? Eric squeezed his forehead in his hands and made a high-pitched sound: he had slept ...
Frozen
Recruiters
The Forsaken
We have no choice, they said. We have to leave. We don’t know where we can go, or even if we can survive out there, but we can’t live here any longer. But there isn’t enough room here for all of us.
And then it became clear that the “we†...
Spring
The path to the discovery of intelligent non-human life was, for me, a life's journey. SETI had invested billions in high tech telescopes and antenna arrays, thousands of personnel hours and miles of red tape, without a single positive result. I had done it at the ...
Flyby
Any starship could request a flyby. Popik received them all the time from the Customs Patrols and the Space Force when they needed to eyeball our ship. If they wanted a bribe that day, they'd come aboard Popik's old Mod One. He would shake hands with the ...
Time Enough for Twilight
Taurus
Annette sways forward and for a second it’s like there’s no bonesetter in her bloodstream. She’s languid again. Graceful and alive. Pre-soldier.
We’re friends. That’s hard to come by this far out in the rings. Most of the ...
In the Eye of the Beholder
My head was throbbing. I pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to ease the pain. It didn't help. "Try rubbing your temples. That seems to work for me," suggested a gravelly voice to my right. Prior to that instant, I didn't know ...
The Collector
Time Assassin
“This wasn’t what I expected the past to be like.â€
I looked around warily, absorbing the unfamiliar sights. I was alone in a rotund, palatial chamber, standing at the center beneath a sweeping ceiling supported by ornate columns. Yellow ...
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