by submission | Oct 14, 2009 | Story
Author : William Tracy
Philip had never been very interested in history.
If he had been, he might have known about the Fertile Crescent in the ancient Middle East. He might have known how, paradoxically, a barren desert became the birthplace of agriculture. In a parched land, those who control the water can control all things that grow. The ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians built elaborate irrigation networks that supported crops on a scale previously unimagined.
That water could just as easily be cut off. A field overrun with weeds could be starved by shunting a channel a different way. The weeds dead, the field could be reseeded, and crops grown anew.
Then again, Philip had never been very interested in agriculture.
If he had been, he might have known that he was carrying on this ancient tradition himself. This time the fluid being controlled was not water, but air itself. There are many pests that can survive a long time without water, but there are few that can survive the combined assault of hard vacuum and strong ionizing radiation.
Philip had never been very interested in engineering, either.
If he had been, he might have known the hows and whys of the agricultural space station that he happened to work in. He might have known that this was one of the first orbital stations to abandon hydroponics and return to soil-based agriculture. The soil was composed of lunar regolith, painstakingly spun in a tumbler to smooth its sharp edges, phylosilicates extracted from asteroid mining byproducts, and a combination of organics carefully synthesized from chemicals or lifted from Earth by heavy rockets at great expense.
Philip was interested in none of these things. In fact, Philip was not interested in very much at all. He was not interested in the instructions he was following, or in the holographic control panel flickering in front of him, or in the cylindrical greenhouses spread out before his tiny control cabin.
He was not interested in the safety override code that he had to punch in, or in the bulkhead lockdown sequence that he had to execute, or in the warning he had to call out over the loudspeakers, or in the compartment identification code he had to enter.
He should have been interested in what happened next.
The terminating lock on greenhouse 42—not greenhouse 24—opened and vented into space. As the air eagerly escaped from its chamber, it liberated two hundred and fifty cubic meters of topsoil from the grip of the artificial gravity. It billowed and boiled madly, then leaped free to the final frontier.
Also freed from their constraints were thirteen thousand zucchini plants. The vines danced frenetically, losing and and then finding each other again. Exhilarated, they slipped the surly bonds of greenhouse 42. Free at last, they relaxed, and slowly shriveled as the vacuum lapped the water from their vascular tissue.
Also relaxed was Philip’s lower jaw. His eyes were round, as though they too were swelling in the vacuum. His hand twitched, suspended above the very button that had unleashed this spectacle in the first place.
Philip began to be interested in keeping his job.
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Arway sat down gently at the desk. Dust was already starting to gather, defying the environment scrubber’s valiant attempts to keep the air spotless.
Two weeks, maybe three.
Careful not to disturb anything, he leaned as close as he dared to the desk’s surface and breathed in slowly, deeply. Hundreds of particles raced through his sinus, and he unconsciously rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth as they were identified, cross referenced and catalogued.
Without realizing, he’d closed his eyes as he took in the recent history of the space. He opened them quickly, hoping no one had noticed. Turning slowly, first left, then right, the entire gestalt of the working space was absorbed. Conventional writing instruments, ink dried on their rollerball tips. A collection of sticky notes, brief and cryptic impressions left behind from notes long taken and discarded. A transceiver for the holodeck pickup that he’d stepped over at the door. The contents of the machine it had last interfaced with was already downloaded, its information being indexed against the new data as Arway absorbed it. As he worked, patterns flared up in his line of sight, connections drawn in faint light-lines between objects in the real space around him; hyperlinked notes, tags associating items with each other and her file. There was a nearly infinite number of rabbit holes, each ranked as to their relevance by the intensity of their colour signature.
Arway stood up, and stepped back into the middle of the room.
Two uniformed officers and a plain clothes detective stood by the door, murmuring to each other in hushed tones. Their conversations were also logged, but their words were just so much static to Arway. He was used to their discomfort and resentment.
When he spoke, the three other men stopped talking and listened.
“She was here. She disconnected from virtual sixteen days ago, but stayed here for two days unplugged before leaving. There’s no evidence of electronic funds transfer anywhere near her.”
While he spoke, he stood staring blankly at the desk, not looking at the men behind him.
“She was living off soup and bread, but not it eating here. Probably visiting a food line nearby. She was bringing coffee back, dark roast – mostly Sumatra. That’s not food line coffee, she had to be buying that though there’s no evidence of hard currency. No paper dust, no ink scent, no trace. Whatever she’s spending she’s keeping it vacuum sealed for safety. We won’t be able to trace where her money’s coming from until she slips.” She wasn’t going to slip.
He flexed his shoulders underneath the heavy trenchcoat before continuing. The cramping muscles would soon bring on a headache if he didn’t work them out.
“She was alone. Her clothes are not laundered. No soap, lots of body residue. Dermis samples are present but no hair. She’s either shaving outside or inhibiting. Wherever she is, if she’s not laying down, she’s not leaving much of a footprint. While she was online she logged on average eighteen and one half hours of activity per day. Targets encrypted, currently decoding, information to follow.”
The detective interrupted from the doorway. “Targets? Multiple?”
Arway turned to look at him, the milky sheen of his implants catching the detective off guard as he tried to keep eye contact, forcing him to look away.
“Targets. Multiple.”
It was one of the uniforms that broke the silence that followed.
“Looks like your partner’s gone right off the reservation, eh Arway?”
The comment he filed away with the static, too immersed in the data of her presence to care what they thought.
They expected him to hunt her. He just wanted to understand.
by Patricia Stewart | Sep 30, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Dominating the center of “The War Room” was a large horseshoe-shaped mahogany conference table. At the head of the table sat the President of The United Earth, and his Joint Chiefs of Staff. Along the two sides of the conference table sat the Cabinet Members, Ministers, and Regional Governors. A large holographic 3-D map of the “Local Galactic Region” filled the space within the horseshoe. Glowing red spheres about five centimeters in diameter represented Sol, and the systems controlled by Earth Gov. The star systems controlled by the Eridani were glowing blue. Currently, there were thirty-seven red spheres creating a thin crescent that nearly encapsulated the eleven closely packed blue spheres.
Also within the horseshoe stood Fleet Admiral Fritz Haber. He purposefully walked through the hologram of the Centari System, and stopped within arm’s reach of Sol. He gave a sweeping gesture with his right hand toward the small cluster of blue orbs a few dozen meters behind him. “Mr. President,” he projected in a baritone voice that radiated both power and confidence, “the Eridani have retreated into a small defensive shell, and our noose is tightening.” He balled his extended hand into a fist. “It is time, Mr. President, to use the hyperspace transporter, and end this war quickly and decisively.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, Admiral,” responded President Rutherford with more than an edge of agitation in his voice. “The hyperspace transporter is a cowardly form of warfare, which does not commend itself to me or Earth Gov. We will win this war using conventional weaponry.”
“With all due respect,” protested Admiral Haber, “that will likely cost us billions of lives. The Eridani will not give up easily.”
“Perhaps,” conceded the President. “But transporting bombs directly onto the bridge of enemy starships, or into Eridani factories, is unethical. Need I remind you of Earth’s pre-stellar barbarism? Poison gas, biological warfare, and nuclear weapons were used against defenses soldiers and civilians. This new hyperspace transporter can penetrate all known mass and electromagnetic barriers. At lease there are countermeasures for conventional transporters. We must engage the enemy in a fair fight. If we use this new hyperspace technology, history will not look favorably upon us.”
“History is written by the victors, Mr. President. Besides, it would be naive for us to assume that the Eridani aren’t also developing this technology. Fortunately, we beat them to it, which gives us a brief strategic advantage. I emphatically recommend that we use it with impunity now, and deal with the consequences after the Eridani are crushed. Then, if a Galactic Convention wants to outlaw its use, so be it.”
“No, Admiral. I will not authorize the killing of defenseless beings.”
Admiral Haber realized that he needed to change tactics. It was clear that he was not going to win this argument, so he decided to attempt a compromise. “Understood, Mr. President. But, sir, can I at least offer a counterproposal? What if we only use the weapon once? Would that be acceptable? Perhaps we can kill the snake by cutting off its head. My tacticians say that with proper trilateralation, they can place a bomb under Emperor Sune-ku’s bed. Without Command and Control, the Eridani resistance may crumble. We could still achieve a quick victory.”
Just them, a metallic object about half a meter across appeared at the admiral’s feet. It had the Eridani phrase “Ezel on-ze k’ussen” printed in bold letters around the circumference. Seconds later, The War Room, and its occupants, were vaporized in an antimatter explosion.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 29, 2009 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
She left me for a space trucker. I wasn’t even mad. Hell, I understood.
The thing about space truckers is that they drive space trucks. They go from place to place. They come in to port, drop some stuff off and then, and this is the important part, they leave.
I liked it here. She didn’t. I thought that marrying her might change that. She was eighteen when we married. I was thirty-one. She was my second wife.
Susan grew up here. Ever since her fourteenth birthday, she couldn’t face a single day without illicit drugs to make her feel like it wasn’t so bad. Her doses were increasing. Her late-night searches for anything to distract her from her existence were becoming more frequent.
This rock isn’t a very big place. There are only six bars.
I’d heard stories about her late-night carousing with other men. I put it down to being young. Given time, she’d adjust. I forgave her. It’s not like her behavior was unusual. Anyone in their teens here tended to go a little insane for a while.
Anyone can watch the screens and see that there’s a whole connected universe out there with excitement and input. For teenagers, it’s the biggest tease there is.
For us folks over thirty, it’s a little reassuring to know that we’re safe from all that noise down here in the rock, away from the noisy universe.
Here, we have the rock, each other, and a perpetual night sky. If I were to wear an outsuit and walk around the entire asteroid, I’d be back home in a month. It’s not a big place.
Mining runs in my family. I honestly don’t know what else I would do.
Susan was the soft body that took the edge off of my constant world of grease, dust, and machinery.
Turns out she was doing more than just carousing in the bars with other men. She was, like a lot of the girls and boys here, looking to trade sex for transportation and get the hell away from here. The prettiest ones succeeded.
It’s a shame. It seems like our second highest export besides the ore is beautiful teenagers.
I’ll always remember Susan.
by Stephen R. Smith | Sep 28, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Nathan hated fighting with Claire. It was inevitable; they’d been awake and otherwise alone with the ship, tending to its needs, granting their minds a temporary reprieve from the long sleep. If you spent a few months alone with only your partner hurtling through deep space, you’d find things to disagree on too.
He never meant to argue, she was just so pig-headed sometimes. Before he knew it a rolled eye and sharp comment became a tennis match of barked recriminations and rebuttals, and the inevitable storming off to opposite ends of the ship.
He watched her from his perch in the observation deck as she moved among the rows of plants in the greenery below. The outer hull plates were transparent now, the ship having rolled towards a star similar enough to Sol, so close as to provide light, yet distant enough not to scorch the delicate plant-life. He studied her as she stripped to the waist and soaked up the sun’s rays herself.
It was his captivation with the sheer beauty of her that afforded him the best possible view as a cluster of meteoroid’s lacerated the hull, tearing through the weakened greenery hull-plates like hot knives through fresh snow.
Nathan screamed at Claire’s upturned panicked face before the defense systems hardened the hull, opaquing his view and hers.
Nathan ran. He barely heard the warning messages describing the breach, and the steps being taken to contain it. He threw himself headfirst down the vertical shaft towards the core channel, grabbing the lower rungs of the ladder as he exited and with jarring force flipping himself to land feet first on the floor below. Sprinting to the greenery doors, he found them sealed tight.
He could only watch through the window of the door, pounding with flattened palms until his hands stung while mechanical spiders attached plate and injected alloy to repair the damaged hull inside.
On the ground, scant metres from where he stood helpless, a maintenance droid methodically held and sliced the scaffolding and shattered structure that had Claire pinned to the deck. Carefully removed pieces were set aside as it busied itself with freeing her. While it carved, a surgical droid scanned, glued and stitched the broken pieces of her body as they became accessible, it’s hands flitting in and around the cutters and clenched claws of the much heavier machine towering over it.
By the time the atmosphere was stabilized, and the doors opened, Nathans hands were numb and Claire was fully exposed on the floor. Her body was a latticework of suture lines and micropore patches, and while her chest raised and lowered, he could see the labour of her breathing. The surgeon stood still, its chest a billboard of vitals, its work done save for the occasional jolting of Claire’s heart back to motion. Nathan could see she was struggling, the muscle repaired but the shock to her system too great.
“You can’t leave me here, you can’t leave this all to me.” His voice caught in his throat, tears rising unbidden.
“You can’t quit, I need your help, I can’t do this by myself.” There was a too long moment of silence until the surgeon reminded her heart to keep beating.
Nathan felt his anger rising. “This is just like you, storming away from anything that seems too hard.” He found himself yelling without meaning to.
In his mind he saw Claire at their last argument, balled up fists and the fire of purpose in her eyes.
Nathan dropped to his knees, gently placed his cheek against hers and whispered, “I don’t want to live without you. I love you. Please don’t go.”
His tears fell warm against her skin, the only sound the now steady beating of her heart.
