by Patricia Stewart | Jul 8, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Dr. Kathleen Haley walked into the dimly lit Advanced Physics Laboratory at Cambridge and spotted Dr. Thomas Mitchell staring intently at a one meter in diameter, hollow transparent sphere. “Hey, Tom. How’s the experiment coming?”
“Great so far,” he replied. “There are only ten helium atoms remaining in the sphere. In about 5-10 minutes, they should all have passed through my one-way atomic barrier. If all goes well, this will be the first ‘Perfect Vacuum’ ever created. After that, I’ll be able to get funding for Phase II.”
“Phase II?”
“Ever since cosmologists have shown that the outward expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down, we’ve been looking for the reason. My theory is that in the ultra-low vacuum of intergalactic space, the Universal Gravitational Constant becomes negative. Gravity repels, rather than attracts. Once I prove that I can produce a perfect vacuum, I’ll rerun the experiment, and measure the gravitational force within the sphere.” That’s when Mitchell noticed a faint glowing ball of white light in the center of the sphere. “Whoa, what the hell is that?” It was about the size and brightness of a flashlight bulb. He glanced at the atomic monitor; it indicated only eight atoms remained in the sphere. Mitchell grabbed an optical spectrometer and focused it on the light source, which had brightened further as the atomic count dropped to six. “The light doesn’t have a spectrum. It’s pure white light. That’s impossible. He grabbed a prism. To his amazement, there were no colors exiting the prism. “Monochromatic white light. It can’t exist.”
“Maybe it is a natural consequence of a perfect vacuum,” suggested Dr. Haley. “Tom, I think you should shut the experiment down until you understand what’s going on.”
The light was brighter than a 100 watt light bulb when the counter indicated three. “Are you nuts,” he replied? “It took three weeks to get the vacuum this low.”
“Hear me out, Tom. We don’t know what happens in a perfect vacuum. To our knowledge, the only time one ever existed was prior to the big bang. How do you know that you won’t spontaneously generate a new cosmic egg? You could destroy our universe.”
“Even if you’re right, Kathleen, empty pre-space could have existed for a trillion-trillion years before the big bang. I’m only going to hold my vacuum for a few minutes.” The count dropped to two, and the light became too bright to look at.
“If there is no matter within the sphere,” she asked, “how do you determine entropy? Without entropy, time has no direction. It can go backwards, forwards, stop, or move infinitely fast. A trillion-trillion ‘sphere-years’ might only be a few seconds in our time.” The count dropped to one. “Don’t take any chances,” she pleaded. “Break the vacuum before it’s too late.”
Tom reached over and grabbed the handle of the vacuum line, but didn’t rotate it. “Kathleen, you’re being crazy. It’s just a vacuum. I’ve invested a year of my life in this experiment. I don’t…” The last helium atom passed through the barrier. The sphere was empty. The bright light began to pulsate. Through squinted eyes, Tom watched its light begin to fade.
“Tom, break the vacuum. Hurry!”
Beads of perspiration began to form on Tom’s forehead. He watched the light continue to fade as though he were in a hypnotic trance. His fingers twitched, and then tightened their grip on the handle. Blackness crept in from the periphery of his vision as Tom fixated on the slowly dying ember. Then…
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 19, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Carter had watched the glittering mass approach his ship with a strange kind of indifference, simply stared as it washed over his bow view port and coated his freighter without ever considering the possibility it may be hostile. As he stood by helplessly while it ate holes in his hull, he wondered how he could have been so stupid.
The cloud hadn’t appeared on his scanners, hadn’t appeared to have any mass at all until it surrounded his ship, sticking to his hull like glue. He could only watch, fascinated at first, then terrified as blisters appeared on the inner surfaces of his ship’s skin, bursting and depositing little spheres of quicksilver inside. It wasn’t the balls that terrified him, though the smell of rotting egg meat burned his nose, it was that the little balls solidified, unfolding into lithe multi-legged, long bodied eating machines. They burst into his bridge and forward walkways by the hundreds, and as they hatched, began vomiting on and then literally drinking up anything their stomach juices contacted and dissolved. Once satiated, the gleaming silver bug-beasts folded back into balls and just as quickly dissolved into liquid again, before dividing into several smaller balls that would start the process anew.
Carter watched long enough to realize he had a serious problem before high tailing it to the lower cargo hold. He had hoped to get into the tow craft and out into space before it was eaten too. Hitting the cargo bay door release at the far end of the corridor while still at a full sprint, he ran hard into the door itself before he realized it wasn’t opening. Shaken and bruised, he could see through the window that the silver vermin had eaten through the bay door seals, evacuating the atmosphere, most of the cargo and a good portion of his escape vehicle. Carter noticed that in the now airless bay, the silver creatures moved sluggishly, their cycle of dissolving, gorging and reproducing having slowed to a crawl. This gave Carter an idea.
Bobbing and weaving to avoid the falling balls of liquid death, Carter sprinted the length of the ship to the aft engine compartment, then down into the maintenance room below it. The engines were offline, and the silence was deafening as he pulled the environment suit on feet first, engaging the autoseals once he’d pulled it above his shoulders, and clamping the helmet onto his head, he watched the light strobe from red through amber to green as all the seals engaged, and the atmosphere stabilized.
Carter carefully picked his way across the cramped space, keying the override for the airlock and cycling the outer door, leaving the inner door wide open. Alarms screamed in the small space, and he was sure they echoed elsewhere in the ship, but in a moment he ejected himself into space and let the evacuating gases carry him away from his vessel and into the peaceful calm of total vacuum.
He turned to look at the remains of his craft, floating amidst the wrecked and half eaten cargo containers and shrapnel from the shuttle. As he powered up his suit thrusters in short bursts to accelerate himself away to safety, he wondered how long before someone picked up his beacon, and whether his oxygen would last. It was then that he noticed the flecks of silver congealing into tiny balls on his visor, and by the time the smell of sulphur reached him from the depths of his boots, he didn’t even have time to wonder if anyone would hear him scream.
by submission | Jun 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Aaron Springer
Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.
The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.
Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.
I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.
I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.
When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.
On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.
Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.
On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.
I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.
I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?
by submission | Jun 13, 2008 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala
The orbiter hung inverted over the blue and white sphere of Earth. Three suited figures darted around her, checking for damage from the launch.
“How’s it looking Alexi,” came a disembodied voice over the suits com-link.
“There are a few small chips in the bay door, but nothing to worry about. I’ll take some photos and send them dirt side for the groundhogs opinions. Shouldn’t cause…what the hell?” As Major Alexander Pichushkin spoke, an inch wide crater appeared in the surface of the shuttle bay door.
“Hey guys, get over here now, we have a serious problem.” as he spoke, a second and third hole appeared. “Meteoroids… take cover in the bay…Move”
The men scrambled for the safety of the ships cargo bay. Commander Swarovsky’s voice boomed in their helmets. “What the hell’s going on out there? Report.”
“Sir, I observed what appeared to be three micro-meteor strikes in the starboard bay door. We have taken cover within the bay.” Pichushkin replied.
“Get back in here now. We’ll let this blow over, and continue our damage assessment…” The commanders’ words were cut of as the entire cabin section of the orbiter was neatly, almost surgically shorn off and sent plummeting to the Indian Ocean below. The men stared in stunned silence as they looked forward. Where once the hatch to the interior of the ship, not to mention four crewmates, had been, there was now only empty space and the gentle curve of the Earth.
“There goes our ride home comrades. Ever wanted to be a moon before?” Alexi inquired derisively.
“What are we going to do?” Piotr Wrezsien asked. He was the youngest of the crew, only twenty five, with a young wife and newborn boy waiting his return at Baikanour.
“I imagine we shall die, Comrade,” Anton Tsilokovsky answered calmly, always the stoic.
“Can’t we make it to the Katerina?” Piotr asked, the desperation evident in his voice.
“She’s too far away. We would never be able to match orbits with her. There isn’t enough propellant left in our suits to maneuver,” Alexi Answered.
“Can’t we contact them. They could rescue us.” Piotr’s voice was cracking.
“Calm yourself, young malchick,” Anton replied in a soothing voice. “Katerina isn’t a ship, she can’t maneuver to save us. Relax and enjoy the view.”
“It is beautiful,” said Alexi. “Pity I shall never see the green hills of Texas again.”
“They could rescue us in a re-entry vehicle. Couldn’t they?” Piotr’s voice was shrill. “That’s it, we’ll call them and have them send an REV. They can save us.”
“No Piotr. The REV cannot move like a true ship. You know that. Its thrusters are designed to check its attitude and slow descent on re-entry. It is not capable of the complex maneuvers to rescue those as unfortunate as us. Our destiny is God’s hands.” answered Tsilokovsky, always the unruffled realist. “Well, Comrades; it was always my dream to set sail for the stars. Das vidanya moiee druggies.”
Tsilokovsky rotated one hundred eighty degrees, and kept his finger on the thrusters until the fuel was completely expended.
With a sigh, Alexi silently turned his suit, and headed back for home. The last sounds he heard over the radio were Piotr’s tearful pleas not to leave him.
Outside of Winona Texas, a young boy and his mother gazed up at the night sky.
“Look moya matb, a shooting star.”
“Yes Greggori, that is very lucky. Make a wish son, make a wish.”
by submission | Jun 11, 2008 | Story
Author : Andrew Segal
Brachyuran Shifter ships poured themselves though the Dreen wormhole; in seconds they would deliquesce to reform light years away. Then the skies above the bulbous undulating Freddyan busker hive would darken and collapse into a million blood red shards…
That was further than Carl thought he would reach tonight, he scratched his head. Eric’s email, in its insulting tone, had really annoyed him. Yes, Eric had been correct, he had been running out of ideas for describing inter-galactic space travel, craft stuttered, jumped, Flittered, FTL’d, gated, stardrived, vortexed, hyperspaced, particle crunched, teleported, warped, weaved, sieved, impulsed, bussarded, ramjeted and otherwise flung themselves across the universe. So what? So it sounded better than silver spaceships being fired across the galaxy, but he liked the silver spaceships, redolent of the rocket powered optimism of the fifties. He felt sick of the constraints of the logged on internet junkie tech savvy reader who bemoaned the very existence of gleaming rocket ships, of robots wired together with valves and transistors, of a.i.’s that burned out analysing jokes. Rocket ships should just land on alien worlds; Cosmonauts should fight it out amongst hordes of multi-armed barbaric mono-cultured insect men without the requirement of quantum mechanics or oxygen masks or thinly disguised contemporary political machinations.
Carl lazily dragged the ringing phone from its plastic nest,
“Hello”
“Swim!”
The phone rocked back in the cradle.
No star ship in a Carl Acumen novel was going to swim the cosmic ether, (one had once in ‘Water Planet; Wet Express’, but well, it was for kids), whatever Eric thought. Eric was a fossil; literally, a desiccated zombie of a man, according to the doodle Carl had sketched on the pad beside the phone, during the previous evening’s interminably long and wildly unnecessary discussion into the propulsion systems of non-existent plot devices. Carl had argued that all real star travel would have consequences; opening wormholes would be ridiculously dangerous, Eric just wanted a new word.
If Eric wanted his star ships to swim, he could correct the proofs himself. He never would, Elaine would, just as she always corrected Eric’s editorial flights of fancy before they reached the printers. Carl knew he was safe, he returned to the final chapter of ‘Dreen war; Plasma Suns’. The real sun projected an intense white moving line of early morning light across the desk, as he continued typing out to the beat of a high octane track crackling out of tinny computer speakers. The climatic ending, set high above the immense Freddyan busker hive, turned out fine, for the heroes. Admittedly, Carl had been saddened by the destruction of the millennia old hive, an ancient cultural artefact destroyed for story expediency, but the readers never gave a damn about it so why should he. The book was finished. Carl managed to save it just before the electrics went off. Just another East coast brown out.
He headed to the kitchen, past the small grouping of family photos, some faded by the bright sunlight. He ignored them; a habit which had began to form after Isabelle’s last phone conversation. He turned his head away, as he passed them.
This book would keep him above water for a little while if the car avoided its rust coronary.
He grinned and looked out of the kitchen window, across the bay.
There was another sun in the sky, smaller, but becoming increasingly brighter, growing in intensity and expanding across the horizon.
Standing in the kitchen, He watched the immense wave of light approaching.
Carl wished he could swim.
