by Patricia Stewart | Mar 26, 2008 | Story
Author : Patrica Stewart, Staff Writer
“It’s not a great analogy, Professor, but think of it this way,†explained the chronotechnician, “time flows like a river. Something we call a ‘world line,’ which is the sequential path of an object through space-time. I can select any object, say you, and follow your ‘world line’ back through time, and project the image on the Chronoloviewer screen. Would you like a demonstration?â€
“Absolutely. Show me what I was doing yesterday, at exactly this time.â€
The chronotechnician spent five minutes entering the appropriate data into the control panel, and then activated the Chronoloviewer. Although there was some noise in the image, the Professor saw himself at the lectern in front of his 10:00 Paleontology class. The notes on the computer screen at the front of the class were clearly from yesterday’s lecture. “Wow, that’s incredible. Do you have sound?â€
“Sorry, Professor, not yet. Would you like to go further back? Maybe see if O. J. killed Nicole?â€
“Hardly necessary,†he replied with a trace of disgust. “Can you go back 65 million years, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, and show me what killed the dinosaurs?â€
“Huh, I guess so. I believe I can follow Earth’s world line.†This time the data entry took about an hour, and the image was slightly noisier, but the dinosaurs on the screen revealed they were viewing the correct time. However, the scene was right out of a sci-fi B movie. Streamlined aircraft, firing energy weapons, were hunting the dinosaurs. The forests were being set ablaze, and all the animals were being driven into large nets and transported up to gigantic hovering saucers. The Professor didn’t know what to make of these images. Why were space aliens hunting the dinosaurs? Was it for food, or sport? Did the aliens cause the mass extinctions? Maybe the Chicxulub impact was a big coincidence, and had nothing to do with the actual extinction of the dinosaurs. The fires the aliens were setting could explain some of the contradictory soot evidence found by Paleontologists. “Quick,†he said, “go to the Triassic mass extinction, around 195 million years ago.â€
It was the same scene, although the ships were visibly more primitive. But this time the aliens were using pulsating energy beams from orbiting space ships, concentrating most of their firepower in the centerline of Pangaea. The continent seemed to split in half as horrific lava flows were driving the animals toward large metal cages. Shuttlecraft were ferrying the trapped animals into space. The Professor realized that the lava trench could be the start of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. And, there was archeological evidence of extreme lava flows coincident with the Triassic mass extinction. This was extraordinary!
Over the next six hours, they viewed the Permian-Triassic extinction, the Late Devonian extinction, and the Ordovician-Silurian extinction. The scenarios were always the same; alien spaceships harvesting Earth’s animal population. “Nobody will believe this,†mumbled the Professor.
“Ah, sir, I don’t want to be an alarmist,†said the chronotechnician, “but this could be very bad news for us. I’ve done some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations; if you divide the dates of these mass extinctions by 32.5 million years, you get whole numbers: 2, 6, 8, 11, and 13. It’s like these aliens live on a planet or space station that approaches our solar system every 32.5 million years. I’ll bet there were minor-extinctions in between the major ones, say at 32.5, 98.5, 130, or 162.5 million years ago. If I’m right, it’s been 32.5 million years since their last visit. The hunting parties are due back at any time.â€
by submission | Mar 22, 2008 | Story
Author : Randall Bennett
“Take me to your leader,†said the squat, green, bug-eyed creature, in an oddly modulated voice.
Carl leaned down, and looked down at it, and his eyes opened wide. He had never seen anything like it before.
“Um. You’re talking to him,†Carl said.
“You are the leader of this planet?†The alien’s eyestalks slanted sideways, in a gesture that Carl interpreted as a quizzical look.
Carl laughed, part of his tension coming out at the outburst. “No, I’m not the leader of this planet, I’m the leader of me.â€
“Query. Misunderstanding. What?†The alien retracted its eyestalks in a way that made Carl laugh again.
“Yeah, a lot of people have trouble with the idea. Although you’re not people, so I guess I should explain. Ever hear of anarchy?â€
The alien just raised its eyestalks again, which Carl took to mean that it was listening.
“Look, there is no government. There is no leader for you to see. No officials. This place was founded by people that didn’t believe in the waste that goes with those outdated ideas. When we need something than more than one person can provide, we join together.â€
The alien was silent for about 20 seconds, and then said “This being does not understand.â€
Carl said, “Look, the problem is that when someone creates a government, it starts to exist for itself, rather than the people. So we eliminated it, and we organize as necessary.â€
The alien raised its eyestalks higher, as if looking around, and stated “First contact subject is recalcitrant. Must find other contact for relation to hierarchical structure top leader for first urgent communications between species of danger then sharing technologies culture.â€
“What’s urgent? What do you mean by danger?†Carl said, beginning to look concerned. Just then, another man walked around the corner up the street, and waved to Carl. Then he did a doubletake, and quickly joined the two.
As the man walked up, he narrowed his eyes at the alien, then looked at Carl, and pointed at the alien, saying “What is…â€
“It’s an alien, Johnny.†Carl said. “At least, I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, in all of our space travels, we never met a non-human race. So I guess this is a first. It says that it has something urgent to tell us. About some kind of danger. But you’ll never guess what it asked—“
As if on cue, the alien faced Johnny–at least, its eyestalks did–and repeated its first question in that oddly modulated voice: “Take me to your leader.â€
Johnny laughed out loud. “You’re talking to him.â€
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by Patricia Stewart | Mar 18, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
David Erwin, the lone human inhabitant at the Eunomia mining station in the asteroid belt, was just suiting up to make his rounds when his door chime sounded. Erwin shook his head in mild frustration. Robots never seem to get it. He had instructed them hundreds of times to just enter his quarters without waiting for authorization, but they never do. He hypothesized that some early programmer must have gotten into trouble when a robot interrupted someone important at an inopportune moment, so he wrote “etiquette†code that couldn’t be overridden, except in emergencies. Well, at least in this case, hearing the chime was a good sign. It meant the robot at the door didn’t consider this visit an emergency. “Come in,†he instructed.
The door slid open, but the robot didn’t enter. It was Rector, the leadbot of the Delta team. “Excuse the interruption, sir” it said in a polite simulated male voice, “but we encountered an artificial object in tunnel K-13.†Rector paused, waiting to be prompted. Erwin said nothing. He continued to suit up as though he were alone. Rector decided to continue, “I believe, sir, that it is an ancient extraterrestrial spacecraft.â€
“Fine,†replied Erwin as he sealed and secured his helmet. He gently pushed off the far wall and drifted toward the door. He grabbed Rector’s arm, and scrambled onto its back. He attached his retaining clips to Rector’s shoulders. “Okay,†he said, “take me there.†Walking or driving was not an option in the microgravity of Eunomia. You had to fly. And robots were much better at it than humans. So it was best to leave the transportation to them.
They passed through the airlock, and navigated through a myriad of tunnels and shafts. There was never a question of Rector getting lost. It had the network of tunnels programmed into its memory, which were updated every hour, so it knew every inch of this asteroid. But it made Erwin wonder. What would happen if Rector chose to abandon him here in this tunnel? Could he find his way back to his quarters before his oxygen ran out? Probably not, he concluded. Fortunately, Asimov’s three laws of robotics made that scenario impossible. Rector’s forward thrusters fired, bringing them to a full stop 50 feet in front of the artificial object Rector had mentioned.
Rector’s robotic mining crew had continued to excavate around the object. Approximately twenty feet of it was exposed. Rector’s assessment had been correct, it was a spaceship. Erwin could identify the bow, and the forward viewport. Since Eunomia was at least 4.45 billion years old, these travelers were ancient visitors indeed. He unclipped himself, and flew toward the ship’s viewport. He used his light beam to illuminate the inside of the ship. There were four beings inside; all dead of course, and fully desiccated. Apparently, he thought, the cold vacuum of space can prevent decomposition indefinitely. Erwin wondered how space faring beings like these could end up entombed miles below the surface of a nondescript asteroid, orbiting a run-of-the-mill star. Oh well, he decided, that’s for the scientists back on Earth to figure out.
Erwin pushed himself back from the ship. “Okay Rector, I’ll notify headquarters. Instruct your crew to finish digging it out. Then put it in the yard with the rest of alien ships. These things are starting to become a nuisance.â€
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by Sam Clough | Mar 17, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
“Where am I?”
“A sub. We’re in the middle of the Deneb main belt.”
“Name and designation?”
“This is the Catlike Tread. Ess-ess-you-nine-seven-four.”
Orig got to his feet. The inside of the sub was cramped: the design didn’t allow for more open space than was absolutely necessary for the mental wellbeing of the crew. An outsider might expect the sub to smell disgusting: Orig silently thanked whoever had made artificial bodies mandatory for sub duty.
He’d come in over the wire, and appropriated the body of the sub’s commander. The commander’s psyche was still present, quiescent, behind Orig’s awareness.
The sandy-haired wire-and-weapons technician that had answered his questions turned away and went forward to the cockpit. After the disorientation of the wirejump, his active memories came flooding back.
He spent a moment inspecting the commander’s body. The model was a couple of years old, just one of the glaring signs that this sub had been out on silent running for years now. Crew were rotated every six months standard, but this was the first time the situation had required a troubleshooter of any stature.
He went forward, and found the tech sitting in the cockpit with the only other crewmember, a remote-sensing engineer.
“Can I get a breakdown of what’s happened?”
“We’ve spent the last fortnight running rings around denebian ships. They’re coming from the the third planet’s orbital, sketching every rock and bit of black space with laser. They seem to be sure that we’re here.”
“Any idea how?”
“None at all, sir.”
“Damn.”
“What should we do, sir?”
“Well, they think we’re here, but they can’t find us. Next step is to make them think we’re dead. What’s the status on your weapon stocks?”
“We’ve still got two dancers, sixty crows and six proximity mines. We’ve got a clanker, too. One of those remote repair drones.”
“Okay. We need to hack together a couple of comms packets. Just enough to broadcast noise on whatever the hell channel the denebs are using. Use the clanker to strip the engines off the back of thirty ravens, and attach them to three good-sized rocks. And ready a single dancer. Call me when you’re done.”
Orig abdicated control of the commander’s body, and settled into the secondary core. He spent the time running simulations, sipping data from the Tread‘s passive sensors to refine his plan.
He opened the commander’s eyes again, a few hours later. A display popped up, showing the three chosen rocks in a split screen, the dark spikes of the broken missiles sticking out perpendicularly from the surface.
“Pick your favourite, tie the dancer to it, and set the trigger for a hundred kilometres proximity to that orbital.”
Orig waited long enough to see the engines ignite, and every denebian ship sunside of the belt started speeding towards the rocky decoys. He wirejumped away, leaving the Commander to watch the decoys die. Minutes later, the dancer detonated in a smooth wash of x-rays, and the commander grinned as a clean slice of the orbital shimmered, and faded out of existence.
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by deviantArt Contest Winner | Mar 15, 2008 | Story
Author : wordworks
Sally Baker considered herself a good mother. She grew her own baby and gave birth to a daughter, Jane, by natural means, barring the odd shot of hormones to hold off genetic defects. She refused sensory enhancements despite the doctor’s advice. Sally produced one of the last NL (Non-Lab) babies in the state.
The very next year body-bound birth was declared illegal, on grounds of threatening the mother’s health—especially singles. Jane arrived not long after the father crawled off, having lost the argument with Sally over population control. The man, like many, went on to happily procreate via the DigiBreed system. He now has seven virtual children which he proudly keeps stored on a keychain attachment.
Sally raised Jane alone. She reared her on a diet of real food, when she could afford it, and had her daughter’s ovaries locked before she reached a vulnerable age. Jane never wanted for upgrades once her brain was linked to the public server. She was given the best education available for download.
Sally didn’t mind working overtime to pay for such luxuries; as the mother of a NL child, she understood the special needs associated with raising Jane.
So when Jane demanded at thirteen that henceforth she be addressed by her binary name, 01001010, Sally offered little resistance; teenage fads were relatively harmless. She recalled her own adolescent ache for identity—her neck wore the barcodes to prove it.
The binary obsession was brief, as expected. Those that followed were equally short-lived, until her daughter turned sixteen. Jane begged for a brain jack to pump the latest technology: some storage device that cleaned up the cluttered mind and improved memory functions.
According to Jane, all of her classmates were using the devices—called “Keepsakesâ€â€”and reaping the benefits of clearing out brain space for study. Not to mention the new mark of “cool†became the telltale bruising of the nose from feeding wires through the nostrils. Lately, Jane had become more concerned about such things.
Sally hesitantly consented to the surgery. She only saw the Keepsake once, when Jane first brought it home, her face heavily bandaged; yet she looked happy. And for the first month, Sally proudly displayed her daughter’s improving grades on her personal feed.
The second month, her daughter started to dive. Jane was apathetic, lacked energy, and was often silent. Sally noticed her daughter appeared haggard, when she did appear from her room, and when she attempted to make conversation with Jane her daughter merely looked at her vacantly. Then one day, Jane asked her mother when her father would be home.
Like any concerned parent, she saw the solution to her daughter’s estrangement clearly: hack into her Keepsake and determine what she’d stored there. She waited until Jane was out and found the device on her bedroom floor. The cords were attached, each ending in a many-fibered head that plugged into the brain jack. Sally took one in each hand and tested how they fed through the nose.
The Keepsake woke up, and the cords responded, driving up to the expected jack; they bit into the exposed brain and immediately met a confusing mass of signals.
Device is corrupted. the Keepsake determined. Restore process initiated.
***
When Jane returned home that evening, she found her mother still twitching as the Keepsake neared the end of its reconstruction process. The box hummed; Sally mumbled and drooled. Jane touched her mother’s shoulder.
Sally raised her head and confusion reared into her eyes. The bridge of her nose had gone nearly black from bruising and the burn of the fibers.
“Mom, it’s Jane. I’m here,†her daughter assured her.
“Jane?†her mother asked. “But I’m Jane.â€
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