by Julian Miles | Jul 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Thundering down the kaleidoscopic tunnel at point four light and all’s well. Got a cold vodka sliding down to join the steak and chips delivered from the catering car as I look over to where old Max is interfaced to the drive arrays. The screens show that the drives are lime green across the scales. Not even straining.
I flick the broadcast switch and pass the news: “Fems and Gens, we are now riding the fastest man-made thing in all creation.”
We’re due to arrive at Stevenson Station in an hour. It’s in free space, as the wormhole generators and deceleration matrices work better the less gravitic influences they have about them. I’m looking forward to the look on Corvanto’s face as we pull in a full hour ahead of his much vaunted express.
Max slaps me on the head and points to where an urgent message flag is lit. I’m meant to be handling the peripheral boards while he has his hearing, taste and smell slaved to the drive arrays.
I hop from my seat and hit the read pad: MATRICES DAMAGED BY UNSCHEDULED OVERSPEED ARRIVAL AND TOTAL LOSS OF MALLARD TWO AT POINT THREE-ONE LIGHT. FLYING SCOTSMAN TWO MUST ENTER MATRICES UNDER POINT ONE-FOUR LIGHT OR RISK OVERSHOOT.
Overshoot? A slight understatement for becoming technicolour mince smeared across two star systems. Corvanto had obviously only partially succeeded in his industrial espionage: he got the accelerator plans. The greedy fool had implemented them without thought for the ability to stop several thousand tonnes travelling at double the speed rating of current catch matrices. I slide into the seat next to Max and slap the auxiliary interface cap onto my head.
“Max, we’ve got a problem. Corvanto’s express just tore up the sandpit and buffers at Stevenson as it smeared. We have to come in under point one-four.”
Max nodded: “Point one-four? They’ve had to switch arrivals to the old catch matrices. Our decelerators are only designed to resonate with the new units.”
Oh yeah. Forgot that little complication.
“I’m open to suggestions, Max. You’ve been riding star-locos since they first pulled out. If anyone can stop us becoming fractal patterns on infinity’s cloak, it’s you.”
“Your confidence is touching. Really. Now go and tell the luminaries to sit down and strap in while I think.”
I had just finished when the Scotsman shuddered and creaked. A big, unhappy, metallic groan that vibrates your bones. Things this big just do not do that, especially in the midst of wormhole transit! I leap across and slam the interface back on my head.
“Max!”
“All under control. There’s going to be more noises, but don’t worry.”
“Worry? I’m about to spontaneously pass kittens.”
Max smiled. “Then we’ll have three firsts to declare on our arrival.”
“Okay, give. We’re going too fast to slow down in time using the usual drop-off. The matrices at Stevenson cannot hold us. What have you done?”
“This loco is a streamliner. Each car has drive arrays, instead of putting big grunt up front and pulling the carriages in its wake. Simply put, the rear cars are now trying to go back home instead of forward. I’m keeping the stress margins under eighty percent and adding cars to the reversal as the hulls accommodate the stressors. I calculate we’ll enter the catch matrices at point one or less. I don’t want to push the impact loading after stressing the hull in strange ways.”
“That trick could make big decelerator matrices redundant.”
“I know. I had the idea decades back, but no-one would let me test it.”
by Duncan Shields | Jul 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
The priest wheezed on the other side of the confessional screen. It wasn’t uncommon. Cryogenia malathusmia. Freezer lung, we called it. Or the holy cough. Most people that traveled by cryo in the sleepships ended up with it. That meant that the priests had it.
“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been six weeks since my last confession.” I started. I heard the priest let out a rattling sigh and shift position.
The priests believed that transporters stripped a person of their soul. When a body is transported, it is completely destroyed and then reassembled on the other end. Technically, you die. All holy men only traveled by cryoship. Popesicles, my dad called them.
“Twice I disobeyed my father this week and willfully looked the elder settler statues in the eye in the town’s main square. I have had wanton thoughts about two of the miners that came here for work. I was approached by the whorehouse manager and turned him down. He said he’d ask again on my fifteenth birthday. I was scared but also excited.”
I’ve never been anywhere except here. Newgodsville, Tantalina, Zeta-2KB7. A rock big enough for one town, my daddy used to say. Before he was killed in an evac when I was 8.
The priests wouldn’t hear the confessions of workers that were brought here by transporter which meant he didn’t hear a lot of people. We were far away from most systems but rich in tungsten ore. Mostly ‘porters with a few dollars to stake a claim came here, not sleepers. I’d heard that to get here, he’d been on one ship for nearly fifty years, sleeping in the cold. And I’d heard that this was his fifth posting. I’m not good at math but that meant he might be two hundred and fifty years old.
I found him handsome. That should have been part of my confession but I couldn’t ever tell him. That’s why I kept doing bad things so that I’d have to confess.
“I took the lord’s name in vain twice down by the river when I lost the washing. And I stole a toffee stick from the general store on my way here.”
Mustering up my courage, I stuck the toffee stick out and around the divider into his booth. After what seemed like half an hour, he took it. I heard him laugh on the other side of the screen and I heard him sigh as he put the toffee into his mouth.
“Thank you my child.” He said. “Say three hail marys and come back to see me whenever you want.”
Smiling, I pushed my curtain back and left the booth. I stepped into the green twilight of our never-dark night, Tantalina’s rings sweeping across the sky.
I skipped home.
by submission | Jul 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Aldous Mercer
Septu’s core-temperature rises as soon as he steps out of the wind. But he keeps his eyes to the ground. The trembling of his father’s hand has nothing to do with the heat and everything to do with gathering other Master-Miners every sevenday.
“Greet the Heptarch, child,” says the Priest behind them. His father’s fingers tighten around Septu’s for a moment. But then he lets go and Septu walks forward till a pedestal, waist-high, enters his field of vision.
DORSALIS PEDIS; POSTERIOR TIBIAL
His first glimpse of the Heptarch is of the Heptarch’s feet: bare and dusty, they don’t look any different from miner-feet. But higher up, molded perfectly to the shape of the Heptarch’s ankles, are two metallic cuffs. Pyramidal extrusions of copper rise from their surfaces to form a miniature stalactite-forest of copper spikes. Septu is so absorbed in counting spikes that the Priest has to prod his shoulder till Septu leans forward, kisses the Heptarch’s feet and darts back.
“Your son will make a fine Priest.” The Heptarch’s voice is strong, like Septu’s father’s.
“Wh…what?”
“You didn’t think we came all this way to quell a rebellion, did you?”
Septu’s father is silent.
ULNAR; RADIAL
Septu travels in the Heptarch’s own chariot. The jolting motion has upset his balance often enough that the Heptarch’s hand now rests permanently on Septu’s shoulder. Sometimes the bumps make the Heptarch’s wrist-cuffs dig into Septu’s skin. One such bump draws blood. The Heptarch hisses and removes his hand. Septu, who has been absorbed in twists of the ore-road, looks down at the single drop of blood blossoming on his shoulder.
“Blood,” says Septu, “carries the heat-beneath-skin…”
“…from extremity to center, and back again,” finishes the Heptarch. “I am surprised you memorized such an obscure syllogism.”
Septu knows others. “The heat-over-head begins at–”
“Not now,” says the Heptarch. “Concentrate on balance.”
Septu returns to watching the road that carries ore from the mines to Church, and copper back out again.
FEMORAL; BRANCHIAL
The suns rise, limiting Septu’s ability to radiate heat. The chariots rumble to a stop, and Septu wonders how they will survive outside the dark of the mine-caves. Then a Priest takes him aside and drenches his body with a bucketful of glasslike green unguent. Septu feels the heat within him recede; he feels like running and jumping, without worry that it will raise his temperature, that he will collapse gasping to the ground.
“Temporary,” says the Priest, whose loins and upper-arms are girded with copper spikes.
Septu has to be drenched with unguent–gel–three more times till they reach Church.
CAROTID
The Heptarch takes gel-covered Septu to a table with small pieces of copper-spiked jewelry on it. Septu cannot help but stare at the glittering green-and-copper web of a tiny neckplate—too small for a Priest.
“Septu,” says the Heptarch, “do you know what the Heptarch does?”
“He drains the heat-within, and the heat-without.”
“So today the son of a rebel becomes Septarch. Do you understand?”
Septu shakes his head.
“You will, eventually.”
EXTERNAL MAXILLARY; SUPERFICIAL TEMPORAL
The Heptarch places a knuckle under Septu’s chin and draws his face upwards; Septu sees the Heptarch’s face for the first time. He is younger than Septu’s father, his head framed with the green-and-copper spikes of the Heptarchy’s crown.
“Pulse Points gather the heat-under-skin.” Septu remembers all syllogisms he has ever heard.
“Yes,” says the Heptarch. Then he reaches over, and picks up a tiny crown from the table. Septu stands still, not daring to breathe.
The Heptarch grins down at him. “This,” he says, “is called a Heat Sink.”
by submission | Jul 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Dan Whitley
My people called me a fool.
They said it was impossible to leave the surface. That was why no beasts flew through the air. It mattered not if I could imagine a machine that could. My people offered me hollow aphorisms; what goes up must come down.
My people called me a madman.
They said we had degenerated. That was why we could not walk beyond the sky. It mattered not if I could somehow free myself of the surface. My people declared we had become unlike Our Ancestors, and could not survive where They had once tread.
My people called me a heretic.
They said my endeavors were hubris. That was why we did not know how Our Ancestors came here. It mattered not if I could survive Their realm. My people believed attempting to exist as They once did was the worst blasphemy.
I defied my people.
For decades I toiled. I spurned friends and relations as my creation grew with my hopes. I would leave the surface and find the realm of Our Ancestors.
I called my machine a “rocket.”
No one came to witness my launch. My people did not care to watch an old man burn himself on history’s most extravagant funeral pyre. Such was their conviction.
Yet it worked.
I left the ground at an amazing speed, tearing apart the clouds as the glass bubble of my cockpit shot through them up into the sky. The blue faded slowly to black as I gained altitude.
And then, failure.
The last dregs of fuel erupted behind me, shattering my creation and sending me hurtling up and out away from it. I entered free-fall in nothing but my clothes. My canvas parachutes would never debut.
I never cared. As I tumbled through space, I knew I had not reached Th’erth, the realm of Our Ancestors. But They rewarded me in my final moments. I saw beauty in the curve of the world stretched out below me. I heard God in the dead silence of the black beyond. I felt my soul escape in my breath as vacuum tugged at it.
I died in rapture.
by submission | Jul 20, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The Shallivak landing craft detached itself from its mothership and began its descent into Earth’s atmosphere. Turrox, Subjugator of the Jor’demm Empire, Conqueror of the Rinnt Confederation, Destroyer of the Hegemony of the Hyojexxi Star System, Absolute Monarch of the Shallivak, and owner of a dozen other titles watched the Earth through the windows of the vessel.
“This world will be the crown jewel of the Shallivak Imperium,” said Turrox to no one in particular.
“It is a great prize,” noted Turrox’s chief military adviser, Forlen.
“Forlen,” said Turrox turning to his companion, a veteran of a score of successful campaigns and conquests, “I’m going to handle these humans as I did the Waroon Dynasty on Dremla VII.”
“Ah,” replied Forlen. “I remember it well, Majesty. Under the pretense of establishing a trade agreement, you met publicly with the Supreme Dynast. And then, with your legendary speed and agility, you slew him before his horrified subjects. The Waroon put up almost no resistance to our forces after witnessing Your Majesty’s unanswerable fierceness.”
“And so it will be with these primitive Earthers,” said Turrox.
The vehicle made its approach to the designated landing site, a place the humans called Edwards Air Force Base. Turrox, Forlen, and several other Shallivak donned their encounter suits, entered the ship’s airlock, and waited. At last, the outer hatch opened and a motorized gangway extended itself. Two guards descended and took their positions on either side of the ramp. When they saw the human delegation in the distance, the guards exchanged concerned glances. A few moments later, Turrox and Forlen walked down the ramp. Forlen gasped.
Finally, the Shallivak monarch and his entourage stood before the humans. Or, rather, they stood beneath them. Turrox looked up at the American diplomat who rose over him like a skyscraper. The tallest Shallivak who ever lived might have stood even with the top of the Earth creature’s shoes. Forlen looked back anxiously at the landing craft, fearful that one of the humans might pick it up and walk off with it.
Turrox, Victor of the Battle of Vendicor Prime, Subduer of the Chelminar Alliance, Vanquisher of the Pudraki Dominion, said to the towering Earthling with a meek and nervous voice, “Would a five percent customs duty on imports be acceptable?”
