by Patricia Stewart | Jul 15, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
A few hours after Tom and I had the science module operational, we decided to explore the terrain around the base camp. Silex IV was a warm, barren, desolate planet. There was no oxygen in the atmosphere, and no water anywhere, surface or subsurface. So, imagine our surprise when we found a walking rock. It was bipedal and about a foot tall. It was relatively light, so we took it back to the science module. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “DON’T DO IT! That’s the fatal mistake all explorers make in sci-fi movies.” But, come on, it’s just a rock.
To make a long story shorter, when we placed the creature on the examination bench, it began to tremble. Seconds later, it started to crack and split apart. A white liquid began to ooze out of the cracks. It was a viscose fluid that had a strong ammonia smell. The liquid began to boil almost immediately. We pried open one of the cracks to discover that the rock-like exterior was just a thin shell, presumably an exoskeleton. Tom analyzed the fluid, and it turned out to be predominately Silanes (long hydrosilicon chains analogous to the hydrocarbon chains present in Earth’s carbon-based biology). On Earth, however, Silanes are extremely unstable because of our oxidizing atmosphere. The oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere would destroy them instantly. But, on Silex IV, with an Oxygen-to-Silicon ratio less than two, silicon-base life was apparently possible because there was no free oxygen to react with the Silanes. As we watched, the oxygen in the lab reacted exothermically with the silicon atoms in the Silane molecules, and turned the creature’s insides into a boiling caldron of liquefied sand.
As we stood there in shock, the science module began to sway on its base as though there was a planetquake. We looked out the ports and saw a dozen eight foot tall rock creatures pushing at the airlock. The realization that we probably just killed an alien child sent a cold shiver up my spine. Then it dawned on me that the adult population was now intent on reaping their revenge. We were in big trouble. Tom said, “Crap, what are we going to do? This place wasn’t meant to withstand a siege from a bunch of rock creatures. If we can make it to the ship, we can take off. Do you think we can outrun them? Damn, we don’t have any weapons.”
“Perhaps we do have a weapon,” I replied. “Put your suit back on. We’ll fight our way to the ship.”
“Are you nuts? Look at the size of those things.”
“Oxygen kills them, right?”
“Have you forgotten? The oxygen tanks are stored outside, with the rock guys. And the ship is more than 200 meters away.”
“Trust me. We have plenty of available oxygen in here. It’s all about bond energy and kinetics. And, if I remember my thermodynamics, on this planet, we should have a spontaneous reaction. Now, where do we keep the surgical gloves?”
Fifteen minutes later, we were suited up and ready to fight our way to the ship. We opened the inner door of the airlock. I handed Tom two dozen ‘bombs.’ “Okay,” I said resolutely, “Open the outer door. I’ll start to clear us a path.”
The door slid open and the escaping air momentarily pushed the lead creature back a few steps. It regained its balance and charged forward. I reached into my sack and grabbed a water filled surgical glove, and let ‘er fly.
by Patricia Stewart | Jul 8, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Dr. Kathleen Haley walked into the dimly lit Advanced Physics Laboratory at Cambridge and spotted Dr. Thomas Mitchell staring intently at a one meter in diameter, hollow transparent sphere. “Hey, Tom. How’s the experiment coming?”
“Great so far,” he replied. “There are only ten helium atoms remaining in the sphere. In about 5-10 minutes, they should all have passed through my one-way atomic barrier. If all goes well, this will be the first ‘Perfect Vacuum’ ever created. After that, I’ll be able to get funding for Phase II.”
“Phase II?”
“Ever since cosmologists have shown that the outward expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down, we’ve been looking for the reason. My theory is that in the ultra-low vacuum of intergalactic space, the Universal Gravitational Constant becomes negative. Gravity repels, rather than attracts. Once I prove that I can produce a perfect vacuum, I’ll rerun the experiment, and measure the gravitational force within the sphere.” That’s when Mitchell noticed a faint glowing ball of white light in the center of the sphere. “Whoa, what the hell is that?” It was about the size and brightness of a flashlight bulb. He glanced at the atomic monitor; it indicated only eight atoms remained in the sphere. Mitchell grabbed an optical spectrometer and focused it on the light source, which had brightened further as the atomic count dropped to six. “The light doesn’t have a spectrum. It’s pure white light. That’s impossible. He grabbed a prism. To his amazement, there were no colors exiting the prism. “Monochromatic white light. It can’t exist.”
“Maybe it is a natural consequence of a perfect vacuum,” suggested Dr. Haley. “Tom, I think you should shut the experiment down until you understand what’s going on.”
The light was brighter than a 100 watt light bulb when the counter indicated three. “Are you nuts,” he replied? “It took three weeks to get the vacuum this low.”
“Hear me out, Tom. We don’t know what happens in a perfect vacuum. To our knowledge, the only time one ever existed was prior to the big bang. How do you know that you won’t spontaneously generate a new cosmic egg? You could destroy our universe.”
“Even if you’re right, Kathleen, empty pre-space could have existed for a trillion-trillion years before the big bang. I’m only going to hold my vacuum for a few minutes.” The count dropped to two, and the light became too bright to look at.
“If there is no matter within the sphere,” she asked, “how do you determine entropy? Without entropy, time has no direction. It can go backwards, forwards, stop, or move infinitely fast. A trillion-trillion ‘sphere-years’ might only be a few seconds in our time.” The count dropped to one. “Don’t take any chances,” she pleaded. “Break the vacuum before it’s too late.”
Tom reached over and grabbed the handle of the vacuum line, but didn’t rotate it. “Kathleen, you’re being crazy. It’s just a vacuum. I’ve invested a year of my life in this experiment. I don’t…” The last helium atom passed through the barrier. The sphere was empty. The bright light began to pulsate. Through squinted eyes, Tom watched its light begin to fade.
“Tom, break the vacuum. Hurry!”
Beads of perspiration began to form on Tom’s forehead. He watched the light continue to fade as though he were in a hypnotic trance. His fingers twitched, and then tightened their grip on the handle. Blackness crept in from the periphery of his vision as Tom fixated on the slowly dying ember. Then…
by submission | Jul 6, 2008 | Story
Author : Sharoda
My father died today, not from the invaders but from old age.
When the First Wave was discovered heading for earth I was still young. I can remember everyone sitting around the TV watching the talking heads as they pretended they had a clue what was going to happen; everyone except my father.
I remember him talking to friends and relatives about how bad this was and how people should prepare. They called him a doomsayer; he said he knew how Noah felt when he started building the Ark. He didn’t care, he started to organize.
By the time the First Wave hit most of the world was convinced that E.T was coming to welcome us to the wonders of the universe.
Hundreds of millions died in the first attack, they hit every major population center. Few places were able to mount any kind of defense much less a counter attack. My father’s group of “crazy’s” from their bases in the Adirondacks was one. They were the core of what became the North American Resistance.
After the devastation of the First Wave many people were ready to give up and let the invaders take over. My father called a meeting of what leaders could be found. The assembled leaders were filled with a patriotic fervor by my father’s impassioned speech. It ended with what became our rallying cry.
“Not one grain of sand, not one blade of grass, not one leaf from one tree will I give up. This planet is ours!”
“NOT 1” was painted, scratched, chiseled, and blasted into every surface.
The resistance grew and within a month we brought down an intact machine; more followed. We learned their language, their science, their codes, their history and their plans for earth; we learned that, though still far away, the Second Wave was already in route.
We fought them on the ground and developed tactics that took advantage of their weaknesses.
Still it was years before we were back in orbit, in ships that combined their technology and ours. In the first attack on a First Wave mega ship my father was the commander. Many told him he should stay on the ground where it was relatively safe.
“What if you get killed”, he was asked more than once.
“What if I don’t go”, was always his answer.
Three of the seven ships came back but the mega ship was destroyed.
Years of grinding war continued as we drove them from the skies and from every corner of the planet; then more years of preparing for the Second Wave.
We met them just outside the orbit of Saturn. We destroyed or captured most of their ships. When commanders asked about prisoners my father, now the elected Planetary Leader, answered simply “Not 1”.
My father was not young when the invasion started. Now, as the new fleet is nearing completion, the years have finally caught up with him.
Every day dozens of people come to the house, just to see him. We don’t turn anyone away as long as they’re quiet and respectful; they always are.
Tomorrow I’ll talk to the fleet commanders as they prepare the Third Wave, our Wave, our attack on their home world. I’ll remind them of my father’s last words. “Not 1”, he said and then closed his eyes for the last time.
My father died today, of old age.
In a world that was invaded, where more than a billion died simply for being human, which has been in a planetary war for decades, it means only one thing. We’ve already won.
by submission | Jun 28, 2008 | Story
Author : Peter Carenza
The rain poured relentlessly outside. The micro-God was wistful this morning.
I turned down the shade, walking back to the recliner with stealthy footsteps. You never knew when one might hear, and perhaps deduce the wrong intentions… to them, intentions were everything.
And really, ironically, our good intentions were the start of this whole mess.
Our obsession with environmental purity, our fear of what might be and relentlessness in our pursuit of an all-encompassing solution drew laser-sharp focus from the world’s brightest minds. They all agreed that the technology, tools, and science were there for a quick resolution. Our rapidly growing skill set in the field of nanotechnology, they claimed, provided the potential to remove any excess carbon, ozone, methane, and many other kinds of pollutants from the atmosphere in short order. The money was there, as was the intent, and now there was nothing to stop it from happening.
The designers gave these nanorobots the ability to fly, or rather to glide , on prevailing wind currents.
They were given the ability to absorb certain molecules. The molecules would be “eaten”, until the nanobots were laden, at which time they would sink earthward and become part of the earth itself, as it had been so long ago.
They were given the ability to self-reproduce. That, I think, was the hitch, because once they evolved what appeared to be a primitive consciousness, there was nothing that could stop them.
You really didn’t want to upset them.
On a bad day, when the nanos felt threatened by a run-of-the-mill passenger jet that just happened to penetrate their masses, a built-in defense mechanism activated. Reproduction doubled, tripled, and more. Something just shy of anger erupted, and we soon knew what was in store for us when the plane got tossed from the sky by a sudden downburst from a supercell thunderstorm that appeared in just minutes out of a clear, blue autumn sky.
We knew then that they could control the weather, on a whim. Were they supposed to have whims?
They could control the flow of wind, the clouds, even the content of the air we breathed. They had, in essence, become God-beings.
The volume was muted on the television at the other end of the room. I couldn’t risk their comprehension of what was going on. I was watching CNN. Something important was going to happen in the next few days. I was impressed at the bravery of the reporters for even daring to break the story… but I knew they knew what was at stake. We needed, if only for a moment, to experience a small sensation of hope. Which of us remembered what that felt like anymore?
In the banner, there were indications that somehow, they were sensing what was about to happen. Hail storms destroyed crops in Italy, where a leading scientist lived. A typhoon like no other seen before threatened the coast of Japan, from which observers made the latest calculations and concluded that yes, this was probably the last hope for humanity.
The report grew bolder as time passed. We were instructed to seek shelter as far deep underground as possible. The God-things would not be happy, and that was the least of our troubles.
I think they knew. After all, it was raining. Everywhere, it was raining.
The scrolling banner now read “Asteroid expected to hit in three days – seek shelter now!”
Imagine that. Our only hope, coming from something that nearly rendered our world desolate many eons ago.
My thoughts? I think the real God didn’t appreciate the competition.
by Patricia Stewart | Jun 25, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Mitera was a beautiful semi-tropical world orbiting Alpha Koritsi in the constellation Virgo. Mitera was the first known parthenogenic planet; that is, all species on the planet were exclusively female. Although this asexual form of reproduction had been observed on Earth in some plants and insects, and an occasional reptile, it had been inconceivable that a diverse and flourishing ecosystem could evolve with only one sex.
Because of its fertility, Mitera was the third world selected for colonization. However, within a year after the arrival of 859 Earth colonists, all of the men had died. As a precautionary measure, Earth-Gov quarantined Mitera, abandoning the remaining 412 female colonists on the planet. The stranded colonists vehemently protested, but since Earth controlled transportation, their pleas went unanswered.
As the colony limped along with 48% of the required human assets, they were alarmed to discover that 10% of the women became pregnant after the last male had died. They all gave birth to healthy baby girls. However, the babies were not exact duplicates of their mothers, as was expected. Besides the subtle superficial differences in eye and hair color, etc., the babies developed quicker, and were stronger, faster, and more intelligent than their Earth-based counterparts. Over the next 100 years, the population of the colony grew to over two million. And with the growth in population, came an exponential growth in science, technology and medicine. During that century, the Miteran scientists discovered that the planet originally had two sexes, but approximately a million years before the arrival of the humans, Alpha Koritsi began to evolve off the main sequence, and started spewing significant amounts of high energy radiation and heavy metal ions. These mutagens dramatically affected the evolutionary rate on Mitera to the point where two sexes were no longer required for natural selection to advance the species. In fact, two sexes became detrimental to viable long-term survival. Within a thousand years, a virus evolved that solve the problem; it killed the males, and promoted self fertilization of the females. The scientists named the virus Nullusvir, meaning “No men.”
Due to their superior intellect, the colonists eventually developed the technology to break the planetary blockade. However, prior to initiating “Project Liberation,” the colonists had high-level discussions about developing an antibody to counteract the virus, in case the women were carriers of the Nullusvir virus. They ultimately voted against the proposal because none of the living Miteran’s had ever met a male, or considered them necessary to run a society. Males were considered less valuable than livestock. The Miterans broke the blockade and spread to the other colonies, and eventually to Earth. As it turned out, they were carriers of the Nullusvir virus, and the male populations began to get sick and die. Within a decade, all males had either died, or were hiding in some remote corner of the galaxy.
The women ultimately discovered that the virus would not allow them to become pregnant unless they were on Miteria. Apparently, it had something to do with the planet itself, or the unique radiation produced by Alpha Koritsi. It really didn’t matter; if a woman wanted to become pregnant, she only had to visit Miteria for a few weeks. For the next thousand years, the women-only societies thrived. With their superior abilities, and lack of testosterone driven aggression, progress and peace prevailed everywhere. The universe was truly on its way to becoming the Eden that God had originally intended when she had first created “man.” That is, until Alpha Koritsi went nova.
