TW

by | Jan 27, 2006 | Story

Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on Io, I thought I would sail about a little and see the most distant reaches of space.

Despite the limitations of technology, the endlessness that spread before our ship pulled me with a unique gravity. The bounty itself was naught. In retrospect, it was a meaningless and futile obsession, but the captain persisted. I followed, as I was wont to do given the limited quarters of the starship, and it never occurred to me that the quest was impossible. After all, I longed for nothing but the sight of stars through the viewscreen, so I was content to drift along in the wake of his unwavering determination.

TW was regarded as the most feared man in the seemingly endless reaches of the solar system, and despite the minimal reward I was compelled by the captain’s inexplicable, unwavering persistence to pursue the ghost of the pale ship through the asteroid belt, through the orbits of nine planets, and through the gentle and burning licks of solar flares.

“He’s out there,” the captain said. “He’s out there.”

TW had claimed innumerable victims, and even in my green and formless years the myths had flickered across television screens as the magnetic residue of a legend. I must admit that I was infatuated with the concept. When the captain himself raised the bounty my interest was piqued, and the lot of us were incited to impossible action.

“Have you sighted the ship?” he broadcast over all frequencies, but the replies were foreboding or outright prohibitive.

In my quarters, I dreamed of the solar system stretching out before me like an arm that never reached a hand. Doubtless, he dreamed of whiteness streaking the dark of space.

“He’s out there,” he said. “He’s still out there.”

Months passed like days, occupied by the dreariness of daily duty and the shadow of passion that the captain cast upon us. I kept a log of activities, though it was surely tedious by the standards of occupied worlds.

“He’s out there,” the captain said. “He’s still out there.” Despite the protests of the senior staff, he continued. Our transmissions were denied by ships which busied themselves with far more likely prospects.

Behind me, Io was a frozen world. I watched the great shroud of space roll on as it rolled five thousand years ago, and I followed orders and monitored the empty radio broadcasts. Space collapsed into distance and the blackness of the signal screen revealed no blips of existence.

“He’s out there,” the man said. “He’s still out there.”

Walltalkers

by | Jan 26, 2006 | Story

Turnstyle aimed carefully, took into account the drift from the barely oscillating fan, and hit his brother Alphonse in the back of the head with a cigarette butt.

“Quit that,” Ingram said. Watching this is why she never liked being at Turnstyle’s place, but it beat staying at school.

“Why? He ain’t gonna notice. Fucking walltalker.” Turnstyle lit another cigarette and offered one to Ingram. She shook her head violently. “I think I still got some nanites left from the other night. I know for a fact there’s soy sauce in the kitchen.”

“Not on your life. My stomach still hasn’t recovered from the cooking oil wine you made last time.” Ingram started absent-mindedly picking at the exposed foam that blistered through a hole in the sofa.

“That was good shit,” Turnstyle said. “Good shit. You’re crazy. We could go see if we could find Al’s Roulette stash.”

“Oh, hell no!” Ingram said. “You do know why they call it ‘Roulette’ right? ‘Cause every time you take it there’s a chance your brain’s gonna explode! You wanna be a walltalker?”

“Maybe. Least Al’s never bored.” Turnstyle looked at his brother releasing a steady stream of words toward the wallpaper. Alphonse’s voice was barely above a whisper, and his face was blank. But he never stopped talking.

“I invented Roulette,” Turnstyle said, abruptly.

“Fuck off.”

“No, seriously. Somebody had to turn grandpa’s stroke medicine into a rec drug. Why couldn’t it have been me? You’re saying I don’t see the entertainment value of something that connects your neurons in new ways?”

“First off, you don’t even know what a neuron is–”

“Do too!”

“Secondly, if you had, you could afford some proper alcohol, and you wouldn’t have to reprogram the decontamination nanites.”

“Well, yeah…but…” Turnstyle scrunched down into the sofa. He took what was left of his cigarette and flicked it–still lit–at Alphonse. He missed by a good three feet.

“Was that lit? You’re going to burn the walls down, you are. What would your Pa say, you did that?”

“Same thing he always says: ‘Fuck! Why aren’t you in school?’ ” Tunrstyle stared at his 14-year-old older brother, who was staring at the wall. “Goddamn walltalker.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. Go get your soy sauce.”

“You sure?”

“Why not?” Ingram said. “Nothing else to do.”

Writer's Block

by | Jan 25, 2006 | Story

“Space-faring monkies with a mirror fetish?”

“Yup. In The Day Ambrosia Paled by Kinstev Ramod, chapter six.”

“Damn. Okay, uhh… how about ice cream that turns your teeth green and carries a rare strand of the bubonic plague? Unleashed on a modern colony?”

“As a government experiment: Fire Warden by Jack Strapley. As a mad scientist’s coup de grace: On Being Trembleton by Emilia d’Oernga. With a time travel sub-plot: Terra Infirma by Marguerite Bloc. Sorry, Glenn. It’s all been done.”

Glenn groaned and leaned back in his chair, running his hand through the long part of his hair and pulling it out over his eyes, staring at the brown strands in frustration. “Damn it all! How am I supposed to write if there aren’t any original ideas?”

“Hey, come on, Glenn.” Neil grimaced at his friend in sympathy. “You’re just not thinking outside the box. Look, I know it’s tough, but there’s got to be something you can do that’s not already in here.” He gestured at the Central Database terminal he’d been using, the letters on the keyboard nearly worn off from the fruitless searches he’d made.

Neil’s words were encouraging, but his tone was not—it’d been months since Glenn had come up with his last viable story idea, and he still remembered the celebration they’d had. Now their fridge was bare, and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the house. Neil let out a long sigh. “Look… maybe you need a rest, yeah? Let’s go out for a while. We’ll go to the club, see Jeannie and the guys, and just relax. I bet it’d help. What do you say?”

Glenn made a noise of frustration and sat up straight again. “No. No! We’re almost out of cash. What good is going out going to do? That’ll just make things worse. I have to think of something, and fast!”

Neil sighed and turned back to the terminal. “Glenn, we’ve been at this for hours. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

“No. No, I’ve got one.” Glenn turned sharply, his face lighting up as his eyes latched onto Neil. He paused dramatically. “How about… a guy with writer’s block trying to figure out what to put in a story?”

Neil groaned loudly and threw a stylus at Glenn. “Do I even have to answer? I think it’d break the database if I tried a search on that. Billions of billions of hits.”

Glenn chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Geez. I just wish that for once I could write something without caring that someone else already did it.”

“Wouldn’t sell.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

The two men stared in silence for a moment, Glenn at the ceiling, Neil at the screen that was nothing more than one massive search field.

“Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“How about a story about a writer who hacks into the Central Database and erases the old records so that editors will think his story is original?”

“You know,” Neil said with a slow grin, “I don’t think that one’s been done yet.”

Object Of My Desire

by | Jan 23, 2006 | Story

Here in the Quiet Dark, a raygun can be your dearest friend. It warms to your touch, responds to your requests, and clears your way. It is the best partner one can expect to have in the Quiet Dark.

I’ve had Lizzette here for longer than most of my friends. Certainly longer than my living friends. It is not a weapon, it is not a tool. It is a partner, a friend. A lover.

That’s not queer, or nothing. But Lizzette’s saved my life far too often to be anything but a lover. And here in the Quiet Dark, love is a rare and flowered thing. You best find it where you can. Some of us up here, some claim to love their crate. But that’s a parasitic relationship, and any crate knows that, from the little cargo rockets to those faster-than-light frigates. They know who runs ’em to the scrap heap. No, me and Lizzette, here, we’re partners.

I tried giving her, up you know. Lizzette, the crate, the Quiet Dark, all of it. Settled down on a orb, found a woman who didn’t care when last I felt the sun and tried to live a life of noise and brightness.

I was warned. They all warned me, just like I’m warning you now. It never lasts. Not for us. Not after all the time in the Quiet Dark. I saw stars collide, you know? Watched a dark hole form and drag in the cosmos inside it. You think I could explain that to someone used to blue above? You think you’ll be able to?

The whole time, I wanted Lizzette there, at my hip. She’d been with me, she’d seen it all. But my girl didn’t want none of that. Proper men don’t carry guns, she said. But Lizzette wasn’t just a gun. She was my partner.

Don’t go thinking you’re any different. I can read a man’s scars as well as a veiwport. You’ve seen too much, same as me.

I suppose a fight between Lizzette and such a woman was destined to end only one way. I wish I had something to remember her by, like that necklace she always wore. But that went in the blast.

Probably just as well. I have Lizzette, after all. What more do I need, way out here?

Next to Nothing

by | Jan 22, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

“I’m sorry, will you repeat that?” Admiral Bunka was squinting to hear, even though his very nervous ensign was right beside him.

“We, uh, are at full stop sir. There’s nothing left.” The young man was sweating and the two continued to look out the viewfinder towards…well, nothing. The whole crew was there, staring out into what should have been space but where space stood it wasn’t black. It wasn’t white. It wasn’t molecules. It was nothing.

“Nothing?” The Admiral began to blubber off non-sense like an ancient car tries to shoot off its muffler when it starts. He pointed at the viewfinder and glared at his ensign with a twitch just above his left brow. “Ba…d… er… don’t give me that nonsense, ensign! Move us forward at once!”

The ensign nodded nervously and returned to his post. They’d been traveling for seven years now, at about five hundred times light speed, when they suddenly came to this rather impassable juncture. The ship just stopped, and the crew had been clueless for the past hour trying to decipher just what was in front of them.

Someone from across the room yelled out, “Ensign! Don’t! We… we can’t!”

Bunka rose up and cleared his throat, “And why not, Sergeant Gimble?”

Gimble was a stout man, but his eyes glowed with the seriousness of his words, “We… we can’t just go forward into nothing! Then it will cease to be nothing!”

“What fimble-tossle! Of course we can go forward. It’s…it’s just a cloud.” The whole crew heard the Admiral, but they knew that he was lying. It was like telling someone who just had their arm cut off that they still had use of that limb. The ensign glanced at his Sergeant.

“Well, if nothing is nothing, then maybe if we go into it we’ll change it into something.” In any moment other than this, those words that the ensign spoke would cause any man to bleed from the eyes, nose, and ears. As it was, the words unfolded a debate in the main cockpit.

Admiral Bunka was the first to try and add in his opinion, “Well, if we’re next to nothing, then nothing is next to something. Therefore, nothing would be something. It can’t be something if it’s nothing.”

“Aren’t we looking at nothing? Isn’t it something we’re looking at?” said the Sergeant as he stood up to get a better look at nothing.

“Uhm. No. We can’t describe what we’re looking at. We may not even be looking at it. It’s barely even an it. Nothing, people. We’re talking about nothing here.” Now that the ensign had everyone thoroughly confused everyone on the deck, the three took a moment to look at each other before turning back to the viewfinder. The definition of nothing had these men absolutely confused, and they were suffering from a mild case of brainpan rupture.

Admiral Bunka appeared understandably perplexed, and rather upset at the whole situation. He stood up straight and nodded in personal acceptance of the decision he had made. “Full reverse then! We’ll go back the other way.”

The Ensign returned to his seat and began typing the orders until he stopped and glanced back to Admiral Bunka, “Sir, wouldn’t that be going away from nothing?”