by Patricia Stewart | Apr 5, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“It was one hundred years ago today, on April 6, 1992,” stated Joshua Noyle, “that one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind passed away.”
“And who might that be?” inquired Tom Vittna, although to be honest, he didn’t really care.
“Isaac Asimov, of course,” was the matter-of-fact reply. “And today, I will continue the legacy of his favorite story, The Last Question.”
“Is that why you dragged me out here to the edge of the solar system, to pay homage to some long dead science fiction writer?”
Annoyed, Noyle raised his hand and began ticking off his rebuttal. “One, he was much more than a science fiction writer. Two, that story encompasses the essence of universe, the ebb and flow of time, the very…”
“Okay, okay, I yield. What’s the plan?”
“I plan to decrease entropy in a closed system.”
“What, reverse entropy? Violate the second law of thermodynamics. That’s impossible. Damn you Joshua, if I knew you were bringing me out here for such a lame brained scheme, I would have…”
“I can do it, Tom. I just need you to stay on the ship and watch my back. If the experiment goes awry, I need you to shut it down remotely.”
“Whoa, what experiment?”
“I’m going to take the Entropy Reverser with me in the shuttlecraft and establish a reverse entropy bubble around it. I’m not sure what will happen on the inside, so I need you to collapse the bubble by throwing this switch five minutes after I start the experiment.”
At this point, Vittna was more concerned about his friend’s sanity than anything else. Better humor him for now, he thought, and figure out how to get to the medical cabinet for the hypo sedative without raising suspicion. “Alright, Joshua, I’ll stand by the switch. But tell me what you expect to happen, er, inside the bubble?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure,” Noyle replied. “In many respects, entropy is a measure of the direction of time. As time moves forward, entropy is always increasing. I suppose that when I reverse entropy, time will move backward. I’m taking an atomic clock with me to measure the effect.”
“Is it safe?” inquired Vittna as he meandered toward the storage closet. As Noyle began answering, he ducked onto the closet. He found the sedative and returned to the bridge, but Noyle was already gone. Looking out the forward viewport, he spotted the shuttlecraft moving away at maximum speed.
***
When Noyle was far enough away from the mothership, he primed the Entropy Reverser. A few seconds later, three green lights flashed across the control panel. Smiling, Noyle activated the Reverser. Instantly, he regretted it. He tried desperately to inhale, but the cabin air refused to fill the partial vacuum within his lungs. Millions of chemical reactions within his body no longer sought to lower their free energy, but to increase it. The fluids in his body froze solid. He died an agonizing, but rapid, death. The bubble began strengthening exponentially. It reached out beyond the fundamental force of electromagnetism, and began reversing the nuclear forces, and finally, gravitation.
***
Back on the mothership, Vittna watched as the shuttlecraft collapsed in a flash of blinding light, followed by the explosion of space itself. In a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, the cosmological inflation consumed his ship and raced outward in all directions. In a few minutes, the new expanding universe would be cool enough to begin nucleosynthesis.
by Duncan Shields | Apr 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
“Wow, you’re so small,” said the pink humanoid creature looking at me. It had created eyes for itself and a very primitive nervous system to replicate as many human senses as it could. It had used me as a model but standing here looking at it was nothing like looking into a mirror.
When the creature looked back behind itself at the pink ocean, it used its brand new vocal cords to start screaming.
The pink ocean on the surface of Steinaway-9 was glutted with life according to our sensors but all recon missions had confirmed that the ocean was empty. Nothing was swimming in the pink fluid. It wasn’t until we got down to the microscopic level that we found that it was full of dendrites and what looked like neurons with more receptors that usual.
Our science team captain, Dr. Renoir, mentioned that it might just be one giant life form. The planet had a population of one and we were looking at it.
There were a few islands scattered around and I was part of the away team that shuttled down to the surface to take samples and attempt communication.
Touch was all it took. There was nothing infectious in the pink soup and I’d been sterilized. I took off my glove and put my hand in the water.
I shook hands with a world.
A giant child-like peaceful mind said hello to me. I felt it shuffling through my mind. All of my secrets were catalogued. All of my memories were examined. My training was picked up, looked at, and mulled over. My life and by extension my experience of the human race was completely devoured and extrapolated upon.
I jerked my hand out of the water and stumbled back.
The other members of the away team came up to steady me and see if I was okay.
“Yes. Yes. I’m fine.” I answered. I knew a serious debriefing was going to be necessary.
Near the shore, the water turned frothy. Vanessa took out her weapon and pointed it at the disturbance. I told her to stand down to but keep the weapon drawn.
Like a candle melting in reverse, I saw a human body boil up out of the ocean and assemble itself out of pink slime. When it was finished, it opened its pink eyes and took a step out of the water onto the beach. It took its first breath, looked at me, and smiled.
That was thirty seconds ago. Now it was screaming.
For the first time in the history of the planet, there was a population of two.
The mind I had encountered was an innocent mind and I could tell this experience was terrifying. A sense of otherness, a sense of division, a sense of us and them, the concept of loneliness, the concept of privacy, the concept of being many organisms, and a terrifying sense of being small came crashing down on this poor creature all at once. It was like being left at kindergarten for the first time but on a universal scale.
The ocean trembled. A large wave rose up and came crashing down on the creature, dragging it out to sea. It flailed and dissolved, re-absorbed into its home.
All around us, the ocean started to ripple. I saw a shockwave of unrest spread out from our island as the information from that being’s experience was transmitted to the entire creature.
“Let’s get out of here.” I said to my away team.
We sprinted for our shuttle.
by submission | Mar 9, 2012 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
Thraewen hangs in the middle of the view-pool, pretty and pristine. Dillon and Three can see the nightside’s cities, bright constellations scattered across the Capwen Archipelago. Three strokes the Starfish’s controls and the bioship moves. Night gives way to day. The view-pool displays high clouds until Three fiddles with the resolution, magnifying an image on the surface.
The house is ceramic, all bright white curves, surrounded by green moss-grass and a white fence. Inside the fence, Dillon sees a child playing with a dog.
“Well?” asks Three.
Dillon glances at the alien. Three almost looks human, only the gill-slits in his throat and the webbing between his fingers suggesting otherwise.
“Well what?”
“Do you want them to die?”
“Back home, the government says the Thraeweni are monsters. Why would they lie?”
“Propaganda? Misinformation? Blind stupidity? Take your pick.”
Dillon frowns. He had met Three at a bar, back on Tranin. At the time, Dillon just thought Three was trying to pick him up. They talked about art and science, politics and the war. The war really interested Three.
After the bar closed, Three invited Dillon back to his place. Dillon was expecting a hotel, not a living starship able to cross interstellar distances in the blink of an eye! Now, Three had brought Dillon to Thraewen, to judge the people and decide if the war was worthwhile.
“Why do you care what I think?”
“I’m getting a second opinion.”
“For what?”
“I have to decide whether or not to stop the Tranin Armada and I can’t make up my mind.”
“How would you stop the armada? You’re one man, in one ship!”
“It wouldn’t be that hard,” says Three. “My species is much older than yours. We can do all kinds of things. I want to make the right choice here, but I’m not human. I won’t interfere if you tell me not too.”
“So you want me to make a decision that it took my government months of analysis to make?”
“Yes.”
Dillon looks into the view-pool. The girl is rolling around on the moss with the dog. If the armada attacks, she’ll probably die. He glares at Three. Why couldn’t he have just wanted to shag?
“You’re not human,” says Dillon. “You shouldn’t interfere.”
Three nods. “The Thraeweni girl said the same thing.”
“You spoke with one of them about this?”
“I had to be impartial. She agreed with you, although her reasons were different.”
“Were they?”
“She said the Tranin Armada was a joke. The Thraeweni Navy and their allies would obliterate it before it even got out of the Tranin system.”
Dillon shrugs. “It’s just bravado. Can you take me home now?”
“Of course.”
Three strokes his controls and the Starfish leaps across the parsecs. The interior lights dim and the image in the view-pool changes.
Dillon stares in horror at the wreck of his world. Tranin burns, reduced to cinders by a fleet of monstrous alien ships that hang in orbit around the planet.
“Well,” says Three, “I suppose it wasn’t bravado after all.”
by Clint Wilson | Feb 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The Neptune was a first class luxury star liner, the finest of everything from stem to stern; from her massive chandeliers hanging from cavernous twenty meter and higher ceilings to the never-ending filigree of intricately wood-carved railings and archways. The richest of the rich gathered in her grand ballroom, the behemoth ship orbiting the young star Epsilon Eridani close enough to see its violent magnetic storms through the tinted plexi-panes along her port side.
A whistle sounded and the crowd turned to the grand entrance stairway where the captain was descending with the president of the federation. The people ooed and aahed while applauding heartily. Both men were escorted by lanky, scantily clad, fem bots. Large security bots kept the masses at bay as the two celebrities and their posse made their way to the captain’s table.
“But I must get through, they have to be warned!” a voice came through to the inner circle.
The gruff metallic voice of a security bot stated sternly, “You’ll have to step back sir! Autographs will be signed at the meet and greet session at o-twenty-two-hundred.”
“You lumbering rotard, I don’t want autographs, I must warn the captain!”
As two security bots began to escort the interloper away roughly and without empathy, the federation president asked the captain. “Do you know who that is?”
Captain Rexxon looked both bothered and put out. “He used to be my chief science officer but the new budget cuts caused him to be transferred to a different post at a lesser wage.”
He turned to one of his assistants, “Where is Higgins working now?”
The intern answered, “In the galley sir. He has been learning his new trade of…” The assistant double-checked his hand held, “Cook’s helper.”
The president’s brow furled. “You had your chief science officer transferred to the kitchen? Well that doesn’t make sense at all. Maybe we should see what he’s trying to tell us.”
“Don’t worry Mr. President, he’s obviously disgruntled about his sad but necessary career change.” Then the captain rubbed his hands together. “Ah good, our round of drinks is here!”
By then the poor distraught man was already out of the ballroom and down an access hallway headed for the brig. It made no matter anyhow. Even if the captain had listened to and believed the former science officer and his sudden prediction that a massive bombardment of solar wind was on its way with unknown ramifications, there was no possible way to get the ship into hyperspace in time now.
And as the door slammed shut on the all-purpose cell and the SS Neptune’s newest cook’s helper, Jonathan Higgins, stumbled to the white padded floor, the flare hit.
A gasp came up from the startled ballroom crowd as the entire ship shuddered momentarily. Then there was the briefest instant of stillness followed by a sudden violent shaking as Neptune’s hull was bombarded by the surging wave of radiation.
And then it happened. Up became down and down became up as the surge suddenly cut through the tree trunk thick focused beam inside the ship’s gravity generator, separating it momentarily and then instantly reversing its poles.
In the ballroom and in other parts of the ship’s grandiose causeways and parks people suddenly found themselves falling from a sky of endless carpet, through twenty to sixty meters of air toward harsh landings on metal ceilings and endless chandeliers of diamond and glass.
Inside his prison Higgins sat up dazed but unscathed on the cell’s white padded ceiling; while all around him elsewhere on the ship people were screaming and dying.
by submission | Feb 2, 2012 | Story |
Author : John Conway
Grant pushed through the crowd, ignoring the direction indicator. He longed for elbow room and privacy, luxuries of a forgotten past. But rumor had it there were still places–distant, underpopulated islands. He only dreamed of reaching their shores … until today.
He shoved and nudged through the ebbing crush until he found Cali at 5th and Main–brown hair, golden eyes–now she would finally take him seriously.
“You again?”
“We need to talk.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Alone,” he whispered.
She laughed and gestured to the throngs around them.
Grant scanned the nearby faces. No one paid attention. It would have to do. “I have a way out of here!”
“Of where?”
“The crowd.”
“Oh, please …”
Grant yanked a device from his pocket. “With this!”
He turned it in his hand.
“What is it?”
He leaned into her ear. “A teleport.”
“Teleport?” she said.
“Shhh!”
Several passers slowed, glancing at them. Grant’s face flushed. He shoved the gadget into his jacket. “Move along,” he said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
He waited for the throngs to shift and change. With new faces finally around them, he returned his attention to Cali. “It’ll take us away.”
She seemed doubtful. “Where’d you get it?”
Grant smiled. “I was minding my own business. The crowd I was in wandered through a science building of sorts. We passed this tight clutch of government people and a technician. They had this and they were tense. As the crowd shifted, I lingered. I finally heard the technician explain it. Then, as I’m standing there listening, without looking like I’m listening, some pack of chaos–parents trying to coral their children–the technician was bumped — and it dropped.”
“That still doesn’t–”
“There was commotion. It got kicked. They dove at the floor. I stepped away … and it got kicked right to me!”
“They’ll come get you.”
“They didn’t notice.”
She glanced around. She regarded him. It was more attention than she’d ever given him before. “Let me see it again.”
He gulped. “Sure.”
“It’s kinda complicated.” She touched the Instruction Manual button. An 80-page holographic tome appeared. She whistled. “I don’t know. I’ve seen you stumped by vending machines.”
Grant canceled the display. “Never mind that. I listened. He explained. We don’t need those.”
They heard a disturbance up the street.
“It’s them,” said Cali.
Grant tried, but couldn’t see the source of the approaching uproar. His heart pounded. “We haven’t much time. Will you come with me?”
She scrutinized him. People were tossed aside in the distance. It was the government people.
He could not wait for Cali to make up her mind. “Now or never,” he said, twisting the dial. Finally, she slipped her hand around the crook of his arm.
“You won’t be sorry,” he said.
The government people closed, throwing pedestrians like sticks. “There it is!” one shouted.
“Prepare for peaceful surf.”
Grant and Cali smiled and waved.
Arms reached. “Don’t!”
The machine hummed … and vanished from Grant’s hand.
In an instant, Grant found himself off the ground, lifted by the lapel.
“Where did you send it?” shouted the strong woman holding Grant.
“But?”
“He didn’t set the proximity,” groaned another.
The woman shook him. “Where?”
“K-Kiribati ?”
The woman threw Grant to the ground. He saw that Cali received a similar treatment.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Cali brushed herself. “Directions,” she said in disgust. “You need to read directions.”
