by submission | Aug 23, 2009 | Story
Author : Yubin Kim
“I can see time, you know.” She said.
He looked up from a piece of paper full of scribbled equations, frowning at the interruption. “What?”
She plucked the pencil out of his loose grasp, quelling his half-formed protestations with a mysterious smile. Holding the thin object between her thumb and index finger, she closed her eyes. She could almost feel his frown deepening into a scowl, but she ignored his displeasure and instead, _looked_.
“I can see where this pencil was. In your hand, your pencil case, in the desk drawer, in the manufacture plant which it was made.” She narrated in a whisper, as she saw the pencil’s glistening shadow floating through time and various points in space.
“I don’t have time–”
She overrode his frustrated outburst, calmly continuing her narrative. “I can see where this pencil will be. Back in your hand and then–”
She opened her eyes with a startled gasp and glared at the pencil.
“What now?” He growled.
“It ends.” She explained in a slightly troubled tone, dropping the pencil back into his open hand. Rising from her chair, she lightly stepped away from the cluttered desk, and walked out of the room in wide, swinging steps.
He studied her sudden exit with bemusement, then shaking his head, he bent over his task. However, when he pressed the end of the pencil to the paper, the thin body broke in half with an audible snap. Blinking, the he stared at the remnants, and then raised his gaze towards the door where he saw her standing there with a smile. In her hand, she held up a new pencil. He suddenly found himself speechless.
by submission | Aug 20, 2009 | Story
Author : Liz Lafferty
Jonathan Wolf had grown old in space. His craft chugged across the Milky Way on its return journey to Earth. As the first solo explorer and the first man who’d left the galaxy, he was anxious to return home.
Potential candidates had been selected based on hereditary aging DNA. His family members had routinely lived into their hundreds and prior to his departure, one of his uncles had reached the age of one hundred and thirty. He would be long dead by now.
The other trait happened to be one of his strong suits. He enjoyed being alone. The mission involved mind-numbing, insanity-inducing loneliness, unless one had prepared both his mind and his body against such predispositions. He’d rejected the idea of a mate. Why inflict further torture when one outlived the other, as would eventually happen. In the depths of space, he didn’t believe he could endure the absence of a cherished partner. He’d work alone. He’d study. He’d read. He’d explore.
The craft library was stocked with media, all digitalized from Moses to Plato to Hawking. The bay area of the craft was largely empty. A few rocks from distant planets. He was especially fond of a glow-in-the-dark purple specimen he kept in his night room.
His mission had been a failure, or at least a failure by mission standards.
He had found no one. His only discovery: the universe was a vast, empty place. Space was aptly named.
Twelve years ago, he’d lost contact with Earth. There’d been no incoming messages, though he believed his messages still got out. Since most information about space was theoretical, he’d had to theorize about the disconnect. Messages could have gotten lost, scrambled, gravitazationlized.
Or maybe they simply vanished into the ether.
As he sailed into the solar system, the familiar planets came into view. Saturn and Jupiter, beloved twins, their trajectory nearly aligned. Efforts to hail Earth failed. If he hadn’t gotten used to twelve years of silence, he might have been alarmed. Instead, an excitement unlike anything he’d felt since the day of his launch hummed through his veins, making him feel light-years younger.
The gentle hum of his craft soothed him as he neared Earth’s planetal rotation.
John scanned the limited horizon of his viewing screen. Earth should be coming into view. But wasn’t. He ran the program for the star date to determine Earth’s location. A small cluster caught his eye. The white cheese pocked moon came into view. Without its planet. The computer scanned, confirming his suspicion. The moon wandered, ripped from its gravitational anchor by some unknown event.
John blinked, allowing the weight of his emotion to darken his hope. There was no one. The Earth was gone.
He couldn’t be the only one. Others must have been sent out. They would eventually come home, too. He would wait. John Wolf set his craft to orbit the sun in Earth’s orbit – every 365 days. If he lived the rest of his natural life, he might get to see another human again.
His only mission now was to make sure the next person who stumbled upon him was not left alone in the universe.
by submission | Aug 17, 2009 | Story
Author : Michael Varian Daly
~About a million miles out from the planet, space began to quiver and distort.
After a few seconds, the Susapan scoutship Illaun dropped into normal space. It was small by Susapan standards, twenty six miles on its axis, a bit over seven at its widest diameter, its smooth ovoid surface a mother-of-pearl swirling.
But only a half dozen Triads called Illaun home, so there was plenty of room.
Noseemateemah, voted Captain for this voyage, checked the instruments, wrinkled zir’s massive brow.
“No electromagnetic activity whatsoever,” zee beamed to zir’s shipmates. Zee received collective Dismay/Confusion.
“There should be at least a basic technology available,” beamed Kashiatosopate, Illaun‘s XO. A collective Sigh went through the ship.
“Blind landing,” was the Group Thought. An atmospheric shuttle was activated.
“I’m going down myself,” beamed Noseemateemah. All knew zir well enough not to waste time debating the matter.
Close in, biosigns were detected. Noseemateemah chose a spot nearest the largest grouping, a community of about six hundred or so clustered on a temperate coastline.
Saamerah looked up from reweaving her fishing net to watch the spherical shuttle land upon the beach. She kept sewing while observing.
A seam in the sphere opened and out came this huge being, somewhat pyramid shaped, with six flexible looking arms around its thick midriff and walking on..Saamerah counted, ‘seven, eight’…ten legs. She estimated the creature weighed a quarter ton at least, though it moved quite gracefully.
It stopped in front of her, held up all its arms, palms out.
“Universal sign of friendship,” she thought. She stopped sewing and responded in kind.
The creature looked at her with a pair of wide green eyes, made squawking sounds with its lipless mouth.
“I do not understand what you’re saying,” said Saamerah.
“Ah, thank you,” said the creature in Saamerah’s tongue. “I am Noseemateemah. Is this Dirt?”
“Dirt?”, she said. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Is this the world called Dirt?” Noseemateemah said.
Saamerah thought for a moment, then laughed.
Noseemateemah recognized amusement. “Why is that funny?” zee asked.
“Earth,” said Saamerah. “This world is called Earth, which granted is a word for ‘dirt’”
Noseemateemah turned a bright purple. Saamerah though it a lovely shade.
“Deity, I feel like a fool.” Zee bowed slightly. “My apologies, friend.”
“No worries, Noseemateemah,” Saamerah smiled, “It’s an obvious semantic mistake.”
She extended her hand. “My name’s Saamerah, by the way.”
Noseemateemah gently grasped Saamerah’s hand. “Greetings, Saamerah.”
Zee then looked around. “What happened here?” zee asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The cities? The civilization? Where did it all go?”
Saamerah heard some distress in Noseemateemah’s tone and felt a kinship for this odd looking being.
“Got rid of all of it,” she said.
Noseemateemah’s eyes got even wider, which actually amazed Saamerah, and zee’s mouth hung open. “Got rid of it?”
Saamerah laughed again, felt a bit guilty about that.
“Oh, we have buckets of tech, just not here.” She gestured around. “Only a few hundred thousand Small Earthers like me live here. The rest, about two billion or so, live on the Orbitals on the other side of Sol.”
Noseemateemah made a trilling sound that Saamerah swore was laughter.
“Deity Bless, I nearly had a stroke.” Zee huffed a great sigh. “I was worried.”
“So, what brings you to these parts, friend Noseemateemah?”
Zee’s lipless mouth curled up in an actual smile.
“This was our home world once, about twenty thousand Solanums ago,” zee said, “Some of us got nostalgic and wanted to see what was going on with the old place…”
Noseemateemah looked straight into Saamerah’s eyes, “Cousin.”
It was now Saamerah’s turn to gawp.
by submission | Aug 16, 2009 | Story
Author : Subsplot
Alex carefully swung his arms back, making sure he kept his posture right and his hips level. The head of the gold club reached past its apex, and then smoothly but with some force he brought it back in a graceful arc that lifted the ball cleanly of it it’s makeshift tee, spinning it up and away from him. ‘Yep,’ he thought to himself, ‘that’s a good drive, it probably even reached escape velocity. Shame this suit gets so encumbering’.
His partner, chief pilot of the mining support vehicle, watched the ball zip away towards the lunar horizon before returning his attention to the sensor readouts of the flat-backed floater rig.
“I’m pretty sure these environmental conditions are considered cheating,” he remarked over the intercom. “Who brings a club and balls as their luxury items anyway?” Lex gestured at his face plate with the club in a mock show of anger, his intercom erupting in a burst of white noise.
“You, my friend, don’t know your history. The first missions here used golf to prove the laws of gravity. The simple physical model anyway.”
“Those twentieth century Neanderthals played golf! Did they have time between trying to kill each other? What are you aiming at, anyway?” Lex could tell by the tone in his colleague’s voice that he wasn’t really interested in the answers. Still, it wasn’t as if they had anything important or pressing to do so he decided to indulge him, as much to wind him up as anything.
“Golf is a truly ancient pastime, the sport of gentle men of all ages,” he mocked, “and I’m aiming at that piece of junk with the old flag on the Tranquil Sea. I stuck some piping and a location signal in the ground, there’s now a proper hole and I always know its direction.”
“Why? I mean, why trip over there?”
“Slight detour. I was doing some physical checks on a group of surface sweepers, I don’t know, was curious. It must be an old piece of junk, it’s a national flag, the United America’s I think. Pretty good way point actually, you should add it in to your template. I’ll give you the signal frequency.”
“Now who doesn’t know their history.” The driver laughed as he maneuvered over a particularly large crater rim, locking on to the atom forge contained deep at its center. “It’s a US flag, planted on one of the first ever missions, the junks some sort of landing strut, there’s already a locator there.
Lex started. “You mean I’ve been smashing golf balls at a piece of ancient heritage!”
“And desecrating a national flag. I hear they used to kill people for that.” More chuckling, Lex threw his partner an evil side glance as he lifted the gold cover on his face plate, the shadow in the crater making it less then helpful now.
“Who in mercy lands on the Tranquil Sea. There’s nothing there.”
“Think that was the point, makes a good soft landing. Space in case you overshoot.” Lex looked over his shoulder again in the direction of his makeshift green.
“You’re not going to tell control, are you?” Lex was suddenly nervous. This was less than the professional behavior expected of the Luna surface teams and his group liked to believe they were more than that, made a point of being the best, efficient, safe, consummate professionals.
“What’s the point, in one sixth of a G it’s not like you’re going to have dented it. Doubt you’ve even hit it.” Lex gave him another spiteful glare.
by submission | Aug 14, 2009 | Story
Author : Debbie Mac Rory
“This ship represents the cutting edge of our technologies. It’s fitted with both near-light and dark-light engines. It even has solar sails installed, if you ever wanted to cruise on silent. The ship is designed for a skeleton crew of 6, though it can accommodate up to 25 comfortably, while still allowing personal space for each crew member at maximum capacity. All resources, food, water, medical provisions, have been supplied for up to three times your estimated mission time, with apparatus to synthesize more should you wish. The data banks have been filled with the most up to date journals and papers, as well as a full directory of social materials. In short, this ship has everything you could need. It is a home away from home”
“And what do you want me to do with it?”
“Get lost”
* ** *** ** *
Gavin sighed, stretching tired muscles as he got up from his chair. His shift had finished over half an hour ago, but he hated giving up the view from the bridge. Alex nodded at him as he left. Brid, already deep into her spectral analysis data was too absorbed to notice his exit.
Morale on the ship was high, as you would expect following an all night party. The last solar system they’d encountered, while still primitive had a wealth of life, both micro- and macroscopic. Since the probes had started coming back with samples, he’d barely seen Selene, Liz or Niall and at times he wasn’t even sure they’d come out of their lab. He smiled as he walked by them, heads down, taking sample here, cuttings there, lost in their own little worlds, even without the haz-mat suits.
He turned shortly after passing the environmental section, entering his second favourite place on the ship; the library. The tones were muted and relaxing here, with plenty of seats for solitary of social relaxation. Elin was already there, and her eyes lit up as she saw him enter. Abandoning her e-book, she crossed the room to the sunken mid-section of the room, facing a wall-wide screen. The formal meeting room had been abandoned in favour of this area; it led to a much better atmosphere among the crew.
Elin quietly took a seat beside him as he tapped the notebook he had carried, connecting to and then loading the new data to the map that hung as the default view on the screen. A series of images, ones they’d taken themselves flickered by as the new data was incorporated. Slowly an image resolved on the screen, a flattened disk of the Milky Way, home shining as a bright blue dot on one edge. A small uneven ring of coloured information points surrounded the dot, conspicuous against the grey-scale of unexplored space. Piercing out from one side of this area, a thin wedge, making its winding way outwards. At the point of the wedge, a small cursor glimmered, indicating their current position.
“We’re doing well”, Elin said, leaning against his him.
Gavin smiled as he laid his arm across her shoulders.
“We haven’t even reaching mid-point yet. Do you think we’ll make it all the way to the centre?”
“With everyone still excited about the samples from Tryprin, I think you could bring them right out to the far side and they wouldn’t complain”.
Gavin chuckled, hugging Elin close before resting his head on top of hers.
“And do you think we might actually decide on a name for this boat by then?”
