by submission | Jan 7, 2011 | Story
Author : Jason Frank
She asked for more.
I asked something like, “More? More? It’s all yours already. Look around. Everything, every single thing is yours. The couch decided to settle into a shape that complements your rear, not mine; the curtains, you painted on them, they must be yours; that shelf, it has to be yours since it’s overflowing with knickknacks from your home world; the refrigerator isn’t full of anything I can eat without wincing; even my dog likes you better; the shirt off my back, looks better on you anyway (you did add a sleeve); the air we’re breathing has more sulfur in it than I require (or desire); the house, the sum total of all this, must then be yours. So I’m sorry if I don’t have anything else I can give you right at this very second, okay?
She said a bit more of the tea we were drinking would suffice.
I said… I didn’t say anything. I felt… how could I feel? Nothing I said was technically untrue but the way it came out was wrong, all wrong. I sent my gaze to the floor while I took her cup and kept it down there all the way into the kitchen. I turned the burner back on under the cooled kettle and leaned against the wall. I had to ask myself if I were seriously cracking up. Could it have been the strain of our interplanetary love, the gravity of all those celestial bodies between our home worlds? Could the various pressures have been greater than I thought? I looked out the window so the pot would boil somewhere on this side of eternity.
This wasn’t about her at all. It was about Kat(e)rina. What was it about that woman? The pretentious parenthesis in her name was an early indication that I should hate her, a notion repeatedly supported by her frequent social missteps. Was there anyone in the Center she hadn’t offended? Her social skills were on par with those of a four month old, eyeless Miltumbriate (an analogy that also went some way towards illuminating her fashion sense).
But… there was something about her, something so… human. I mean, sure, I was usually the only Earthtard in my social circle, but that was an inevitable consequence of being accomplished, right? Kat(e)rina represented basically everything that I, and pretty much everyone else, hated about humans.
The kettle was warming to the touch. Was I having a quarter life crisis ten years later than everyone else? It seemed at least possible if not particularly plausible. I hadn’t, after all, done many foolish things thus far in my life. Could all the bad decisions and incorrect impulses I pushed down over the years be building up pressure, forcing their way back to the surface? I was over thinking this like everything else. So what, some stupid girl got a job at the Center and now I was acting stupid. It was nothing. It would pass. Out the window, it looked like the neighbors were all going into seventh stage Vubialt molt together. That was going to be messy.
The kettle was just getting ready to scream when I took it off and refilled our cups. I had a long and complex apology ahead of me so I figured I needed to start pretty soon. She’d probably understand. She knew I was under a lot of pressure at the center and I’m pretty sure she was aware we were at a decisive point in our relationship. This blowup would be forgiven. Something I’d never expect from Kat(e)rina… that bitch.
by Duncan Shields | Jan 6, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There is a clarity that comes with crisis, he thought, a simplicity that comes with emergency.
That’s why this movie night on a space station named Heron 6 pinned in the perihelion lagrange point between Triskus and Constantine became a sudden trial. There was a crack in the hull and there were eighteen of us. There were six life boats. Two to a boat equaled twelve. That left six people that would have to stay on the space station and die.
The chances of being holed in that part of space were very low and the ticket prices to this station were super cheap because of the poor safety measures.
We were all experienced spacers. We knew without speaking that the first to the lifeboats would survive. The movie, something hideously outdated from Original Earth, stayed cycling on the screen as we scrambled without language to the porthole irises of the lifeboat pods.
It was an interesting race. Jason and Tanya had my ankles at one point. I broke his nose with my foot. She let go when Jason’s blood got in her eyes in the zero gravity. None of us had weapons and we knew that if we were to detour to pick them up from the weapons locker, we would lose our chance to get to a pod.
The scramble was made more intense by the dropping temperature and air pressure. My ears popped and the cold numbed my extremities frighteningly quickly.
Peter shouldered past me with his larger frame and I careened over into the wall. I knew that I was going to die if I didn’t keep going but if I was panicking, I couldn’t feel it. I think that the entire group of us were experiencing what cattle in stampedes must feel, or rabbits trying to escape flooding warrens, or groups of people trapped in burning buildings. I scrambled forward through the thinning air, watching Peter receive a sharp elbow from Lorenz and double up, winded in the rapidly declining atmosphere. He floated back past me.
The whole race for life must have taken two minutes but I remember it as a timeless extended moment bereft of clocks. I felt as if I joined the mindless fight for survival that every single living being has experienced. The chase to beat death with the certainty that there would be losers amongst your number.
I slammed into a life pod and Tanya slammed up against me. I struck out with my fist and hit the button to close the door. The doors shut and sealed loudly. The thuds of fists echoed on the outside. The thuds stopped after a minute.
Tanya must have clawed her way back to the forefront after our tussle. When she looked at me, breathing deeply of the emergency air supply gushing into the sealed lifepod and smeared with Jason’s blood from earlier, she smiled with the nervous, bright-eyed smile of animal triumph. There was no resentment of my earlier clash with her and Jason.
We held each other there and waited for help. It arrived seven hours later. We didn’t say a single word to each other in those hours. We shared the bond of beings that had survived a crisis. We were in a place beyond the usual banality.
The others that survived met up with us back in the rescue ship with sighs of relief and knowing nods and tears over who we had lost but beneath it all was a joy. A completely placid, guilt-free aspect of gene-deep peace. I still remember that.
by submission | Jan 5, 2011 | Story
Author : Ian Rennie
“I look ridiculous.”
“You look fine.”
“What is this garment made of, anyway?”
“A stretchy polymer filled with some kind of foam. It simulates the effect of muscles on your thorax.”
“Why would I want to have muscles on my thorax?”
“Because that’s where the mammals have them.”
Metr and Edlai walked, talking in voices too high for the collected mammals to hear. Around them walked alines, mechanoids and cybernetic creatures of every shade and stripe, none of them real.
Well, almost none.
“Why do we have to have this meeting here anyway?”
Metr hissed softly in exasperation and turned to face his friend,looking him directly in his slit-pupilled eyes.
“We’re having it here because this is neutral ground, as neutral as it gets. Between us and the Vaex, there’s about a hundred systems, only one of them has a breathable atmosphere, and that’s where we’re meeting. Neither of us has an advantage here.”
“I understand that, but why meet at this ludicrous carnival?”
Metr had wondered this himself, until he had seen video of the event. Hundreds of mammals in costumes, simulating a variety of weird races that they had dreamed up with no knowledge of the rest of the galaxy. With this range of shapes and faces, nothing humanoid would get a second glance.
“So,” said Edlai after the pause had started to stretch, “Do you think this will work?”
“The alternative to this working is the kind of war that rewrites the sky. Unless they’re insane and we’re insane, this will work.”
Metr said the words with a confidence that he didn’t feel. Nobody present, and very few still alive, could remember how the Vaek and the Na’taa had gained such antipathy towards each other. The source of the grudge was variously thought to be mineral rights in a variety of systems, trading deals gone bad, or just the overarching fact that insectoids and reptillians liked each other even less than they liked mammals. And now they were going to have to forge peace, or throw a third of the galactic disk into a slow and murderous war.
“Are you all right?”
Slowly, Metr became aware that he had stopped, and was staring into the distance.
“I’m fine,” he lied, “I just need a little air. You go on without me.”
Edlai moved away, leaving Metr looking out over the hall of mammals in their costumes. They were innovents, playing childish games of make believe. Their civilization had got little further than their own moon, and yet if things went badly, their planet could be snuffed out without them ever knowing why.
A drunken mammal bumped into him, nearly spilling a plastic cup of something.
“Whoa, sorry mate,” The mammal said, “Hey, nice costume. Star Wars?”
Metr shook his reptillian head.
“I hope not.”
by Patricia Stewart | Jan 4, 2011 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“Exactly what do you expect is going to happen, Dr. Erwin?” asked Captain Podolsky as he stared out the aft viewport.
“Well, Captain, if Schrodinger’s unpublished theorem is correct, when I create a quantum bubble around that asteroid, it should cease to exist in our universe.”
“I’m not a scientist Doctor, but doesn’t that violate a law of physics?”
“Several, Captain. But in science, laws evolve, or are rewritten. So, shall we revise science as we currently know it?”
But before Dr. Erwin could activate the Quantum Bubble Generator, the emergency claxon sounded. “Bridge to Captain, long range sensors are picking up a Deneobian attack force closing in on our position.”
Damn, thought Podolsky. He had tried to convince Central Command that it was better to test the device with a battle ready escort, but they had elected to conduct the experiment with a low profile. “Under the scanners,” they had said. Well, that’s plasma out the exhaust. “Unfortunately, Doctor, it looks like the war may delay your date with the scientific legislature. Lieutenant, set a course for the delta sector, maximum warp. Let me know it they attempt to pursue us. Maybe their appearance was just a coincidence.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” After a tense minute of silence, they got their answer. “No luck, Captain. They’ve altered course and are following us. And sir, they must have improved their warp drive, because they are gaining, fast. I estimate that they’ll overtake us in twenty minutes.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. I’m on my way to the bridge.” Then he addressed Erwin, “We’re only a frigate, Doctor. We’re no match for a Deneobian attack force. Command thought a lone ship would go unnoticed, but I suspect that their spies have found out about your experiment. If we can’t outrun them, I’ll have to initiate the autodestruct. I can’t let them get the bubble generator, or the scientists that built it.” He started to leave, and then abruptly stopped. “Doctor, is there any way your device could make their ships cease to exist?”
“Unfortunately, Captain, no. At least, not while they’re in hyperspace. The quantum bubble wouldn’t be stable. However, if you engaged them in normal space, I could give it a shot.”
“Sorry, Doctor. I can’t take that chance.” Again, he turned to leave.
“Captain,” called out Erwin, “if you have to go the autodestruct route, can you give us a minute’s notice? We may come up with something.”
Podolsky nodded, and left.
***
Eighteen minutes later, the captain called down to engineering. “Doctor, they’re right on our tails, and help is more than an hour away. If you got a trick up your sleeve, now would be a good time.”
Erwin and his team had spent the last fifteen minutes reprogramming the Quantum Bubble Generator. “We think so, Captain. It seems the hyperspace equation may have more than one solution after all. Please maintain our current course,” he replied as he activated the generator. As the frigate streaked through hyperspace, a star sized elongated cloud of antimatter gas formed in its wake. Seconds later, the Deneobian fleet plowed through the rarified cloud of antimatter only to explode in rapid succession a heartbeat later. The science team erupted into cheers, and Dr. Erwin simply smiled. Some laws, he thought, were meant to be broken.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Jan 3, 2011 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“With the launch of Grimace 4, the MacDonaldCorp orbital facility will be completed on time and ready to begin dishing out delicious meals at competitive prices to our brave astronauts as well as the astronauts and cosmonauts of all nations.
We go now live, to Sharon Davit at MacDonaldCorp’s CapCom in Houston, Texas to speak to MacDonaldCorp spokesperson, Ronald MacDonald himself.”
“Thank you Terry. I have with me Mr. Ronald MacDonald, spokesclown for the MacDonaldCorp’s orbital restaurant and hotel and President of the United States. Mr. MacDonald…”
“Please Sharon, call me Ronald.”
“Okay … Ronald. Tell me. What does this mean to the corporate growth of space?”
“Well Sharon, we just want to deliver a delicious and familiar taste of home to space farers of all nations.”
“Any plans beyond the restaurant and hotel, Ronald?”
“’House’, Sharon. Not ‘hotel’, ‘House’. No, we don’t want the Moon… Yet. Waka waka, waka.”
“Thank you, Ronald. Back to you Terry.”
“Tragedy is connected with the completion of this, the latest and undoubtedly greatest, achievement of corporate manned spaceflight. Famed Science Fiction writer and winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards for his visionary work, Roi R. Czechvala, died by his own hand early this morning at his home in Corpus Christi, Texas.
According to his full time nurse, Dorothy Fontana, the infirmed writer was heard to mumble, ‘I’m Lovin’ It’, before producing a large calibre revolver where after he ended his life. Mr Czechvala was 114 years old last September. According to those closest to him he died “still pretty pissed off that that jet pack they promised him in the early seventies never materialized.”
In related news, strange sounds appear to be emanating from the graves of such men of science as Doctors Stephen Hawking and Isaac Asimov, as well as Science Fiction luminaries Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Phillip K. Dick, and S. R. Smith.
With us in the studio is the director of the MacNASA Parapsychology Centre in Bowling Green Kentucky, George J. Kreskin III. Mr. Kreskin, what can you tell us about these bizarre phenomena?”
“First of all Terry, thank you for having me. I need to point out that this is not a new phenomenon. It was first noticed after the launch of Big Kroc 1 which successfully placed the restaurant module into a LEO or Low Earth Orbit. The intensity of the sound emanating from these graves was noted by a marked increase in frequency after the launch of Hamburglar 2, carrying the playground component of the habitat or rather, the ‘MacSpace Station’”.
Today, the noise again shifted tremendously and is clearly audible to those standing even several feet away from the graves of these lauded men, with the launch of Grimace 4.”
“Dr. Kreskin, can you tell our audience what is making these strange noises.”
“Terry, it’s too early to tell. Right now we are seeking court orders to exhume the bodies of these esteemed men. All I can tell you is that the sound is a sort of whizzing noise as if something were being spun at a tremendous rate.”
