by Roi R. Czechvala | Apr 28, 2011 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
“Who are they,” the chief officer of the starliner, Raumfahrer, asked Captain Kurtzmann.
“They’re a group of fanatic pilgrims,” he replied through a tight smile as he nodded perfunctorily at a small mass of red cloaked figures marching by. Several of the men smiled meekly and made odd gestures to the Captain and his crew. “They’re followers of the Slain God.”
“I’ve heard about them. They worship an ancient myth. Their God was violently murdered for preaching peace to his followers. Very ironic, if a bit anachronistic.”
“These ‘anarchists’ chartered an entire liner for their pilgrimage. Please bear that in mind,” the captain hissed in a ‘watch your ass’ tone.
A figure, conspicuous by his white raiment and the ornate staff he carried, broke from the group of crimson frocked men. “Are our quarters ready?”
“We have cleared an entire hold for your group. Your uh, uh Your Eminence,” he quickly added, remembering the term of address from an article he had read.
“Please, so such formalities. I am but a humble pilgrim. I’m sure what you have arranged is adequate.”
“I must implore you to reconsider, Sir. There are only 30 of you, and you have the entire ship of 450 staterooms. Surely, you would be more comfortable…”
“Is everything prepared as requested,” the wizened figure interrupted.
“Yes Sir. The hold has been cleansed and spread with the leaves you provided.”
“I’m sure it will be most adequate for as far as we need to go.”
“I don’t know how comfortable it will be for the entire journey. Even with the torch drive, Copernicus is a long way off.”
The old man smiled warmly. “As I said, as far as we need to go.”
“Weird group, this,” remarked the helmsman as the captain stepped onto the bridge.
“Yes, they’re friendly enough, but they make me uncomfortable. There’s something about their leader that bothers me.”
“Do you think there’ll be trouble?”
“It’s not that. It’s as if he’s expecting something. As if he’s got an inside joke and I’m not in on it.” The captain became lost in contemplation for a moment. “Pull up the feed from hold three, please,” He said turning to the communications officer.
In an empty space in front of the bridge, the cavernous interior of hold three appeared. Before a large mass of palm fronds, the men had erected a wooden structure and now knelt before it. It consisted of an upright, neatly bisected by a shorter cross brace. A low chant came from the men. “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.” The chant was repeated, rising and falling in volume.
“Well, nothing sinister there, but I just can’t shake…”
“Sir,” a sharp ejaculation cut him off, “what the hell is going on?”
Startled by the brusqueness of one of his officers, Kurtzmann spun around to confront an ashen faced ensign pointing at the ships forward view.
The bridge crew stared as, one by one, the stars winked out.
by submission | Apr 19, 2011 | Story
Author : Jake Wagner
Space was our grandparent’s final frontier.
Nobody really noticed when the satellites started falling. And even if they did, nobody cared. They burst into flames, streaking brilliantly across the night sky as they tore to pieces in our atmosphere. But nobody cared enough to look out their windows to see.
Space grew so much colder and darker and so much more infinite in our lack of knowledge when we turned our attention away. Sometimes my grandfather would visit and we would talk about how exciting space was back in the day. About how they sent people to colonize other planets, and that as he spoke there were people out there begging to reach out to us. To make contact.
And I would laugh at him. The idea was ridiculous.
People out there!? Why would anybody want to go out there? It’s so cold, and boring and empty.
Old timers and their stories of outer space. Distant planets. Stuff of the past, full of planets and galaxies, and universes. I’m sure it was cutting-edge once. I’m sure it was interesting once. But like I said, that’s just old people stuff. They can continue searching out that way as much as they want.
Nobody cares anymore.
Inside. That is where the excitement is.
Thousands and thousands of people make the transition yearly. They sign the contracts, say good bye to their friends, and give their homes and objects away. They don’t need money where they’re going. They don’t need homes, or food, or pets, or clothes. None of that is important when you transition.
I learned in school that every week newer and better things are added inside. That they have automated programs that keep their body and mind in absolute perfection as they just go around living their lives. Inside you don’t need to worry about being hungry, or needing to pee. Things like cancer and diseases don’t exist. Everybody is happy inside. Everything is perfect.
My teacher said that in three to four years it’s expected that everyone will have made the transition inside. Everyone will be living in the new space. Except a few old timers or crack-pots who think that the real world is better.
This won’t be the real world after long. In there will be.
Eventually, I suppose, only a few of us will even remember Earth. The oceans, and mountains and stuff. I guess some aspects have been brought inside, recreated to mimic the real world. But in there it’s just so much better. Colors are so much more vibrant. Everything is so fantastic and exciting inside; as opposed to the dull things out here. Or the cold boring out there.
Grandpa says that when mom and dad and I make the transition next week, he’s going to stay outside. He’s going to watch over the Earth and watch the sky as all of us march inwards.
He says that after long people won’t even remember the magic and beauty outside holds. And he says that my children would think I was stupid for ever even living outside. He says that they will look at Earth the same way I look at space. Something old, and boring, and forgettable.
But I mean, what’s so great about out here? Or even out there? It’s nothing but emptiness.
Inside is so much better.
by Duncan Shields | Apr 18, 2011 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
No one misses prisoners with life sentences. That was the key. Mars was turned into a prison planet.
NASA had set up fledgling terraformed domes on Mars and teleportation technology was a reality. After a life sentence was passed on a criminal for a crime, they were teleported to Mars.
There, it was alleged that they were put to work as slave labour. It was astounding what humans could do once they set their minds to it.
Leroy Pedersen was being escorted to the teleportation chamber by two burly guards. He’d been found guilty of killing three families in upstate New York. His sentence was life imprisonment on Mars. He was walked in chains into the capsule that would scramble his atoms and rearrange them on Mars.
“I’ll find a way back here, bitches.” He said to the guards as they finished strapping him into the sender.
The guards smiled politely and left the room. A scientist came in to operate the machine.
“You got a wife and kids, egghead? I’ll kill them. Just you see. I’ll make friends up there. We’ll hijack a ship and come back. You’re a dead man.” Leroy snarled.
The scientist smiled. “You think so Leroy? You know, I’ve never told anyone this but I worked on the terraforming domes up there. That’s why I’m happy to throw the switch.”
Leroy tilted his head like a dog to listen to the scientist’s words. There was something not quite right about his attitude.
“Here is some top-secret information, Leroy. Decades. That’s how long it will take before a human can breathe unaided on Mars. You know what?”
Leroy stared coldly at the scientist.
“Decades.” He said, staring at Leroy. His smile was gone now. “We do have teleportation technology. What we lied about was how long the terraforming will take. We’re beaming you prisoners to mars but there’s nothing there. We’re thinning the herd.”
He threw the switch and Leroy screamed. The tang of ozone hung in the air and Leroy’s molecules zipped through space to the receiving station on Mars, a receiving station set outside of the domes on the naked surface.
Leroy’s breath crystallized as he collapsed and died, gasping like a fish and bleeding on the red sands. The terraforming robots came out to collect the body.
The one thing Mars needed most for the next few decades was fertilizer.
by submission | Mar 29, 2011 | Story
Author : Sevanaka
It is an unnatural sensation. A man is meant to stand; two feet solidly planted on the ground. Oh, for the sweet touch of earth between toes, grassy shoots tickling bare feet. Instead there is only a sinking sensation while the wind whispers its secrets; its guarded words lost to the noise of a singing hull slipping through the sky.
One by one the stars fade. Streaming clouds and slowly forming atmosphere obscure the shining motes. Constellations dim, and vanish. The radiance of the heavens, now reduced to a dull blur beyond the screens. This man is going home.
His hands ache from the grip he keeps on the console before him. His head throbs from the swinging acceleration. Planetfall used to be much worse, he knows, but that doesn’t mean he must enjoy the transition. Yet a ragged smile teases his lips with its presence – it had been ages since he had last seen home. He ponders, for a moment, the woman he is returning to. It has been a year. He has seen the stars, in all their glory, unfazed by clouded nights or city lights. He has been to the far reaches of human space. The quiet blackness that threatens to take you into itself. The edge, where the stars themselves beckon the souls of men with songs of light and brilliance, echoing secrets of a furious inferno.
And still he returns, to the woman he once loved. He stares again at the picture taped to the console. Stares and wonders. He remembers the struggle, out on the edge of sanity, where the pull of those fiery pins of light was almost too great… where the tug was in fact too great for some of the crew. She will not remember this. He remembers the fight, the struggle, to turn the ship back. He remembers the men that lost themselves to the blackness, who walked off the ship and into the nothingness. She will not. He remembers the siren call of the stars, how they begged for his company. She has never heard them speak, let alone sing.
He tries to clear his head, to shake loose these lingering thoughts of the stars beyond the stars, as the capsule jostles his tired body. A sharp jab of turbulence catches him off guard and he bites his tongue. He hears a curse growled in the cabin, and is surprised to realize it is his voice echoed back to him. Turbulence means atmosphere. Turbulence means he is moments from… his scowl quickly turns to a laugh: one of relief, of satisfaction – this man is going home.
But to what? It has been a year. The smile in the photograph seems so unfamiliar. But the feeling that tightens his chest, that feeling the stars could never provide, reminds him.
Falling. It is such an unnatural sensation.
by submission | Mar 27, 2011 | Story
Author : Eric Poch
“So there’s nothing I can do?”
“That about sums it up, yes”
Martin had been pacing in a damp field for the better part of an hour, speaking to his companion in increasingly hostile tones.
“Then why the hell did you tell me!?” Martin rubbed his hands together. His palms were becoming soggy. The friendly tone of his companion did not change.
“Please understand, it’s nothing personal. It’s simply protocol, Martin”
His friend did not shout, or pace, or sweat. He simply stood in the wet grass; staring dreamily into space.
Martin increased his pace.
“But why do you have to tell me? Why do you have to tell anyone?”
There was a period of silence, during which his friend did not avert his eyes from the stars. Finally he answered.
“Guilt”
Martin stopped dead in his tracks and allowed himself a burst of hysterical laughter.
“Guilt?! Telling someone makes you feel guilty? So, what- the knowledge that you are destroying a planet isn’t enough to make you feel bad? You have to tell someone!?”
“Yes”
“WELL ISN’T THAT JUST PEACHY?!”
“Martin, please. You must understand…the process-”
“Don’t tell me.”
“But protocol dictates-”
“Don’t!”
“Martin-”
“LALALALALALA-”
Very well, said a cool voice in his head. If you will not listen, I will show you, Martin Denson.
Martin, who had clapped his hands over his ears in an attempt to drown out his friends voice, found himself suddenly staring into the empty void of space. The damp grass was no longer beneath his feet. In fact, there was literally nothing beneath his feat. The cool november air was sucked out of his lungs. He screamed, but there was no sound.
Don’t panic, said the voice in his head, You will not die.
The voice was soothing. Martin could feel his heartbeat slowing. He breathed in, and his lungs expanded, but not with oxygen. He breathed out, but it wasn’t carbon-dioxide.
Out of the darkness he began to see tiny pinpricks of light. As they swarmed around him, Martin realized they were stars. He reached out to one…
They are 36 light years away, Martin. You cannot touch them. Please, watch.
Martin look down- or more appropriately- beneath his feet, and saw the Earth. He watched it spin silently through the void.
Now…listen.
Martin closed his eyes.
…
He heard nothing, save the beating of his heart.
…
Then there was only silence.
…
Then… something beneath the silence… something that had been there all along. It was as old as the moon and the stars… a deep, bone-shaking wail of pain that he could feel the in back of his skull.
It was the Earth.
He began to cry. The tears froze to his face. He knew. He knew why the earth wept.
Watch, Martin.
He saw every human being; Every man, woman and child. He saw them going to work, skipping class, eating lunch, playing, murdering, screaming, praying…
And then he saw them fall asleep. All of them. All at the same time. They simply stopped what they were doing… laid down their heads ..and fell asleep.
And that was it.
Martin closed his eyes. He was back in the field. His friend was gone, and he was alone; standing in the wet grass.
He stood there for a while, staring into space. Finally he sat down, laid back on the grass, and closed his eyes.
For the first time in his life, Martin felt the earth turning beneath him.
