by featured writer | Dec 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer
“You the new guy?” A massive Velorian Lobster asks me, a clawed hand over his head mic as I stand in the doorway of the busy office. There’s a muffled squawking coming from his headphones. I catch the hawkish profile of an elderly human female in his video globe.
I nod.
He gestures toward a vacant desk with a crimson pincher. I silently take my seat.
“Yes, maam,” he speaks casually into his mic, “Still here. Yes, maam. No, maam. Did you read the brochure? You didn’t?”
His beady eyes wobble momentarily. His antanae are laughing, but his voice is all business. “Well, maam, there’s your problem right there. The brochure states very clearly that the Dem-Lok eat dogs. Especially fond of poodles.”
The squawking escalates.
“Sorry, Maam. PGTA takes no responsibility for the actions of indiginous populations. No, Maam. Your insurance doesn’t cover pet loss.” He winces. “Let’s not get personal. A word of advice, maam. Next time, read the bloody brochure.”
He flicks a button silencing an indignant squawk as his globe darkens. The large tub of briny water serving as his office chair swivels to face me.
“Welcome to PGTA.” He says, thrusting a pincher at me. I shake it amiably. “Name’s Jammarl. Your first day on the job?”
I nod.
“Don’t talk much, eh?”
I grin and nod.
“Well, you’ll get to do your share of talking here, let me tell ya.” Jamarl’s mucus slick antennas gesticulate as he speaks. “The first thing I tell every newbie is, ‘Make sure clients read the brochure’. Our job would be so much simpler if the bloody gorbies just took the time to read the damn thing. I mean, if you’re going to visit an alien planet, wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a little research first?” He pauses.
I nod. It seems appropriate.
“Do they bother?” he queries.
I shrug.
“Not a single one of ‘em. But, who do these cosmic jet-setters blame when they ignorantly blunder into an embarrassing, if not deadly cultural faux pas? Us. ‘You sold us the travel package!’ they whine. ‘You shoulda warned us!’, they simper. To which, I always respond, ‘did you read the – ” He looks at me meaningfully.
“Brochure?” I finish.
“You catch on quick.” He winks, I think. “It’s all in there. What not to wear. What not to say. Who not to look at sideways. Everything you need to know about visiting the home world of a species is in the brochure. If you don’t read it, you’re an idiot. Plain and simple.”
“I had these client’s once,” he says, stifling a laugh. “Her husband shnerd-ed in a room full of Sliggargathians. I mean, he really cut one loose. A real zinger. Didn’t cover his gloopus expeller or anything. If he’d read the brochure, he would’ve known that you never shnerd around a Sliggargathian. He might as well have Fthulu-ed in their Kol-tuth-pak. I mean, these guys take their skeeking seriously.” Dramatic pause.
I take my cue.
“What happened?” I ask, forcing curiosity into my voice.
“They gorthed his Chuth-vetch.”
“No kidding.”
“You should know this stuff, kid. You could save a life.” I’m not sure if he’s joking. “Of course, it’s all in the brochure.” He taps a massive tomb on his desk with a claw.
“Is that –“
“Yup.”
“Does it cover all the planets?”
He chuckles. “Heck no. This is just the brochure for Xelios III.” His antennas gesture toward the wall; a vast library of brochures. One for each race and their customs.
My globe lights up with a call.
Oh, Fthork!
by submission | Dec 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Do you like them?”
The voice snapped me out of my concentration. Things reverberated in my head. I turned it right and saw nothing.
“Who said that?”
“I did.”
My eyes pivoted down and found a small girl looking up at me.
“Oh. Hello. What?”
“Do you like them?”
“Yes.”
They were majestic creatures – hooves beating the compact earth as they galloped in circles, manes and tails flowing, teeth gripping steel bits.
She smiled: “I love them!”
That was a funny thing for a child to say and I bared my teeth as well: “Yes, fantastic aren’t they? All that muscle, all that spirit. Mind you it’s not often that they’re seen in groups like this. Let alone being ridden.”
“Really? We ride them all the time.”
“Then you have a braver heart than me, little girl.”
“Are you scared of them?”
“Terrified.”
She frowned: “But you said you liked them.”
“I can see the beauty in such a sublime hunter, little girl,” I tried to mimic her frown but botched it pretty badly and ended up looking at her through one squinted eye, “Have you ever seen them in the wild?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. But I know the stories. They roam the forests for miles and miles, always alone – but one is quite enough. It will slip into the trees like a ghost when it finds you. It will stalk you for days, weeks, months if it must. It will always be there, always just out of sight. You will hear it though, maybe catch a glimpse every now and then. It does that on purpose. It wants you to know you’re being hunted. It wants you to be afraid. That’s what it feeds on. And that’s how it kills you in the end. It kills you with a final stroke when it lets you see it. All your nightmares, all the monsters you have ever thought could be hiding under your bed, all in one horrible form. The natives have a name for it: intoki. The fear in the dark.” I tried the frown again and nailed it this time, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, actually.”
Silence hung between us. Something had changed. The little girl’s eyes had taken on a reddish hue and small amounts of water were pooling beneath them. She turned and ran off in a flutter of brightly-colored coat, shawl and rubber boots.
“Jeb, what did you do?”
Jim was walking up to me.
“Nothing. I think.”
“There’s something wrong with these intoki.”
“Yes.”
“They’re not intoki.”
“Oh.”
“In fact I think we’re not even on the right bloody planet.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s get back to the ship.”
by submission | Dec 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
It seems like it was only yesterday when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. From my perspective, of course, it literally was yesterday. July 20, 1969. But it shouldn’t have happened then. It was April 18, 1966 when Alan Shepard, not Neil Armstrong, became the first man to walk on the Moon. If the perp had stopped there, I might have let it go. Correcting history is a tricky business. And it’s never, ever totally restored. You can’t step twice into the same river.
The Bureau had sent me out to investigate. This guy wasn’t hard to track. He was leaving a chronon trail any rookie could have followed. I followed him to 1992 and discovered two things. First, he’d already jumped ahead. Second, the Soviet Union had collapsed. Trite. I’m surprised he didn’t try the old Kill Hitler act or the Rome Never Fell routine. Why do I always get assigned the mundane stuff? Rodriguez and Thanasukolwit always get the good cases.
I trailed the perp to 2001. No Moon Colony. No Mars landing. The Internet, of course. Funny how society always goes into a postindustrial information economy whenever somebody derails space colonization. The Twin Towers in New York City knocked down by terrorists with thousands dead. Barrett took care of a similar altered timeline last year, except it was a bioterror attack on New York using a weaponized virus.
I finally caught up to the guy in 2012. A house in Kennesaw, Georgia. I kicked in the door and leveled my web gun at the punk. He wore jeans and a t-shirt and had a few tattoos and was playing with a smartphone. These guys always seem to “go native” in whatever alternate timeline they end up creating.
As I read him his rights, he glanced to his left, hoping I hadn’t noticed the temporal hoist on the chair. Of course, I had. He leapt for the chair. A split-second later he fell to the floor completely enmeshed in a web of contractile filaments. I went over to the chair, picked up the stolen temporal hoist, and inserted my Bureau override key into a slot on the back of the device. I placed the machine on the floor next to the perp and stepped back. The Bureau locked onto the chronon beacon and pulled the guy and the machine 4,218 years into the relative future.
Now I have to go and try to put history more or less back the way it was. I always dread restoring World War III. Nearly one billion dead. But you have to be detached and professional if you want to do this job. As I turn to leave, a newspaper on a table catches my eye. A war in Iraq? It’s a separate country? There’s no Ottoman Empire in 2012 in this timeline? I sigh. The paperwork on this one’s gonna be a bitch.
by submission | Dec 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : Kevin Crisp
The segutar’s primary “facial” orifice oozed with puss and gurgled as it laboriously produced sounds that be interpreted by the translator unit. “We have some additional questions for you, Mr. Anderson. Many of your earthly artifacts and customs seem devoted to a concept that has no parallel among us.”
“And what concept is that?” Anderson asked.
“What is ‘religion’?” it gargled.
Oh boy, thought Anderson. “Religion? Well, I guess it’s a set of theories in things beyond what science has shown to be fact.”
The segutar paused for a moment, as it tended to do when communicating new information telepathically to the hive mind. “So religion is a term that describes theories earthlings have yet to test scientifically?”
“No, I mean religion involves belief in things that are ultimately untestable.”
“We do not understand ‘untestable’. Do you mean that your scientific instrumentation has not been developed to test the hypotheses?”
I’m not handling this well, Anderson thought. “No, I mean religion is founded on questions to which the answers are ultimately unknowable.”
“What does ‘unknowable’ mean?”
“It means we can never really prove it or disprove it.”
The segutar sucked thoughtfully for a moment. “How can you be certain about what you will or will not know in the future? Do you not wish to know?”
“No, that’s not it. See, these beliefs are very old, and people are really psychologically and culturally invested in them. They pre-date scientific methods and are not founded on evidence.”
The segutar drooled pensively. “Why would you believe something for which there is no evidence?”
“Well, I don’t believe in any religion. There is no evidence in my view, but I have a neighbor who disagrees.”
“Is he defective? Does he rave?”
“No, he’s a pretty normal guy, just a bit eccentric and old fashioned, I guess.” Anderson felt his neck and face beginning to flush, and a strong desire to terminate the interview possessed him. He tried to change the topic. “Do you have insanity in the hive?”
The segutar paused, then slowly dribbled, “When the part cannot serve the whole, it must be eliminated.”
“Well, my neighbor’s not crazy, just different.” How do you explain differences of opinion to a hive mind? Anderson wondered. “To him, there’s plenty of evidence, at least in support of his particular religion anyway. I’m sure he’d be pretty adept at discrediting the evidence other people base their religions on, though.”
“His religion? Their religions? Are there different, conflicting systems of untestable, unknowable hypotheses?” The segutar was beginning to show the intergalactic equivalent of exasperation.
“Yes, there are literally hundreds of different religions. And even within a particular religion, believers believe in them to different degrees. Some take them to be 100% literal, and others accept only subsets of the beliefs. Look, this conversation is making me a little uncomfortable. Can we move on to the next topic?”
The segutar was quiet, but somehow Anderson didn’t think he was communicating with the hive mind. He thought the alien was simply flummoxed.
Finally, the segutar blubbered, “You are uncomfortable discussing religion?”
“Yes. It’s sort of considered to be rude to talk about it.”
“When we uncover nonuniformities in the fact matrix, we consider it of utmost importance to end the crisis immediately by seeking a common resolution.”
“Yes, well, we’ve tried that but we just end up killing each other.”
The segutar sat back in its chair and communicated telepathically with the hive mind. After several moments, the hive mind resolved the issue for ‘their-self’. Earthlings were defective and required elimination.
by featured writer | Dec 20, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer
“Not a single shot was fired during the Centauri Conquest.” General Kark says, stirring his cold narth-noodle soup. “Little known fact. They just rolled over as soon as our battle cruisers broke atmosphere. Signed the treaty before nightfall. Total subjugation. Easiest planetary occupation in the Hegemony’s history. Not a single casualty.” He smirks. “Well, not one of ours anyway.”
President Niboogi nods, feigning interest. Conquered slaves shouldn’t even be seen, let alone discussed, especially one as utterly servile as the Centauri. He casually plucks a bubbling drink off a passing tray carried by one of the ubiquitous legless and headless Centauri, walking on four prehensile feet, its eye tentacle extended beyond the heavy platter. He sips his frothing beverage and smiles. The Centauri may be a tiresome topic of conversation, but they make damn fine poon punch.
“Fascinating,” Senator Waboo’s wife clucks, “And to think how wonderfully compliant and versatile they are. I couldn’t imagine life without them. They were obviously made by the Onetruegod to serve us.” The two grey-furred Centauri contorted into her settee shift slightly beneath her ample weight.
“Well, there’s one good thing about them,” the Senator cuts in, “They’re quiet.”
They share a condescending chuckle.
“I hear the Emperor only uses Centauri servants.”
“Because they’re so quiet?” asks Mrs. Waboo.
“Because they don’t talk back,” quips her husband.
More laughter.
“What about their strange hand-talk? Is it true they have a secret language?” Mrs. Waboo queries with an air of mystery. Rumors of a covert Centauri language have been the hot topic of gossip tables for decades, attaining Urban Myth status.
“Hardly. They’re trained monkeys; able to convey simple commands to each other, certainly – we’ve all seen it – but they’re hardly intelligent enough to have a sophisticated language, let alone a secret one. Any race that uses its hands to eat, walk and talk can’t be that smart, now can they?” This from the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“But what of the rumors, Minister? Their supposed martial prowess?”
“Utter hogwash. The Centauri are completely benign.” The General takes command of the conversation. “Their alleged martial skills are a child’s fantasy. They’re docile to the point of idiocy; wouldn’t even raise a hand in self-defense.” Demonstrating, he lifts his bowl with one hand, and, wielding his spoon with the other, jabs his Centauri table hard in the fleshy dimple on its back where its four shoulder bones meet. The creature winces, elbows bending slightly, then, uncomplaining, resumes its stoic tabletop composure. “By signing the treaty,” the General continues, “they became the Hegemony’s first volunteer slave race. Simple as that.”
“We’ve had Centauri slaves in our family for over ten generations,” the President’s wife boasts. “Nowadays, anyone who’s anyone has at least three.”
“Well – “The General is silenced on account of having a bowl of cold narth-noodle soup forced down his gullet by his Centauri table.
The President’s elite dinning party find themselves unexpectedly restrained, held captive in the ultra-strong arms of their Centauri slaves.
There’s an ever-so-brief scuffle near the foyer where Hegemony bodyguards battle with, what appears to be, a whirlwind of fists. When the martial dervish ends six guards lay in an unmoving mass crowned by two muscular Centauri.
Simultaneously, across the Hegemony’s hundred light year empire, within every household, every office, street and shop, even within the Emperor’s throne room itself, the Centauri, having bidden their time for a century, overcome their slave masters in a brief, but effective coup.
Not a single shot is fired.
