by Patricia Stewart | Dec 12, 2007 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The bright yellow spaceship of the Sol Department of Transportation pulled up next to a two ton rogue asteroid. They deployed the grappling sling, and slowly maneuvered it toward the asteroid. After they secured it, the spaceship adjusted its orientation, fired its aft plasma engines, and launched the asteroid toward the center of the sun. The crew confirmed that the asteroid’s new trajectory was “terminal,” and then moved on toward their next target; a jettisoned escape hatch from a cargo vessel that had collided with a utility schooner.
Vir Quisquilia glanced over at his trainee, Josh Knoxx, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat. He was a good kid, but he was beginning to get on Vir’s nerves. He never shut up. He was always commenting on something, or questioning some department procedure (usually related to why Vir wasn’t following them). Vir momentarily reflected on his rookie year, and quickly concluded that he had never been like Josh; as best as he could recall.
“I don’t understand,” protested Josh, “why haven’t the ship designers figured out how to strengthen the forward deflector shields so they can handle a two ton rock. We could finish our route in a week if we only had to clear the really big ones.”
Vir mentally counted to ten before answering. The kid still didn’t see the big picture. Less work also meant fewer pilots. For now, he decided, he’d just explain the physics. “Listen, Josh, its all about mass and velocity. If a ship is only going 500 miles per second, the shields could deflect a 180 ton mass. But since the interplanetary velocity limit is 0.5c, we need to clear out all objects one ton and larger. Nobody is going the slow down just to make our job easier. Besides, you should be grateful that you were assigned to the Earth-Mars sub-light corridors. Imagine trying to keep the corridors clear through the asteroid belt? I covered a buddy’s run for a month. Hell, I’ll never do that again. The way the corridors constantly spiral to stay aligned with Jupiter and Saturn was a logistical nightmare.” He physically shuttered as he remembered the intricate space-dance he needed to choreograph to get Vista to shepherd a small cluster of asteroids out of Interplanet EJ-13.
They approached the drifting escape hatch and synchronized their orbits. Josh swiveled toward the sling panel to start the targeting sequence.
“Not the sling,” snapped Vir, somewhat more harshly than he had intended. “The hatch is titanium. It’s recyclable. It goes into the metals hold. Use the arm.”
“Damn, sorry.” Minutes later, the arm locked onto the hatch. As Josh maneuvered the hatch past the cockpit he yelled. “Oh God. There’s a dead guy holding onto the inside handle.”
Vir squinted at the arm monitor. “Yea, you’re right. I heard they couldn’t find one of the crew.” He sat there looking at Josh expectantly. “Well, come on,” he prompted, “get into your suit and pry his hand loose from the hatch. Store him in the biologic locker in hold number three. And ignite a thruster, it’s almost lunch time.”
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by submission | Dec 8, 2007 | Story
Author : Laura E. Bradford
“Merging down.â€
He pulled the joystick and the car started its swift descent, tugging him along like on a roller coaster. “Whooo!†he yelled, pushing the pedal down and merging onto the invisible highway at two hundred miles an hour. He swerved around skyscrapers, flying across the street made of air, completely exhilarated. He was born for this.
“Car approaching, left side,†came the calm, female voice of the navigation system.
“Way ahead of you,†said the young man. He pulled the joystick back and the car went up, giving the other–a yellow car in the shape of a bee–plenty of space to go by. He watched it pass beneath him on the monitor, which showed a 360-degree view of his surroundings.
“Light ahead. Projected signal: stop.â€
“Aw, man.†He hit the brakes and slowed, noticing how smoothly the machine responded. With some disappointment he watched the floating signal ahead change from magenta (northbound travel go) to blue (northbound travel warning) and then red (universal color for stop). So he stopped, which meant floating in the air six hundred feet above the ground, as traffic in other directions began to move. He glimpsed a few ladybug-styled 2018 models, but mostly saw older cars, shaped somewhat like yesterday’s ground-movers but sleeker, with an aerodynamic design better suited for cruising through the air.
A soft “beep†sounded in his car, and the light changed back to magenta. He pulled a lever and darted forward, maneuvering like a fish through the sea, swimming in an ocean of blue sky. The pedestrians below appeared tiny, like pebbles tumbling in sand.
“Turn left now,†the navigator said pleasantly.
Done. At the sight of an office building, he lowered his car to its space one foot off the ground, and paused a moment before taking off his seat belt. What a ride! Safe, fast, and thrilling. Finally, with a sigh from having to give up something so wonderful, he pressed a button to lift the eagle-wing doors, and stepped out. He stood in the showroom of a car dealership, having completed his virtual test drive.
“Well?†asked the salesperson.
He grinned. “I’ll take it.â€
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by submission | Dec 5, 2007 | Story
Author : Beth Mathison
The thin slice of the moon slipped past her window frame, into the night sky waiting for it.
There were people there on the moon, they told her, although some days she doubted their stories. Her parents told her many things – that human beings had built space ships to travel to distant stars. That there were rooms, buried deep underground, that held all sorts of miracle cures for diseases. They told her that at one time you could talk to another person across the planet in an instant, by picking up a piece of machinery. People used to live on the moon, they said, living together in tight groups called colonies. Her parent’s expressions turned sad, when they spoke of such things. Emily didn’t ask about them often.
She thought about it, though, especially at night. What the world had been like. At ten, she was old enough to know the difference between fairy tales and reality. That past, when the world supposedly sparkled with magical things, seemed too much like a fairy tale.
Emily lay on her bed, a down comforter tucked under her chin, and watched the sky through her bedroom window. Her mother allowed her to keep the thick shutters open every so often, when Emily had that trapped feeling. During the day, she loved the colors of winter, the sharp scent of curing meat as her father worked outside, helping her mother can fruits and vegetables from the hothouse to store in their pantry. At night, however, her thoughts turned to the long days ahead of them. Having to stay indoors in some days if the thermometer told them they’d get instant frostbite if they went outside. Rationing wood and food and everything else.
Her father had taken her to a city once. He said he wanted her to see what lay under the snow and ice. Standing at the edge of a cliff, holding his mitten-covered hand, he pointed out the lumps and dips in the landscape. People used to live there, he told her. In cities filled with people and animals and machines that moved.
Looking out her window, she wondered if a journey to the stars were as cold as the world. The blackness of space surrounding those people traveling to the moon, the earth falling behind them like a dream.
Snaking a hand out from underneath the covers, she pressed her palm against the frosty glass. She would close the window soon, as the night pressed in against her. But for now, she felt the cold filling her warm hand and imagined another girl, laying in her own bed on the moon. Pressing her hand against the cold window of glass, watching the earth slide past her window.
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by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 3, 2007 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jacob sat as he always did, cross legged on the coffee table in the middle of the room, making himself the center of attention.
“You really have to get over us and move on, you know that don’t you?” His voice carried to the corners of the room and back to its only other occupant, enveloping her in the warmth of his familiar tones.
“I’m not ready to give up. I know we can make this work,” her voice seemed small and fragile by comparison, “we just need more time.”
“What you’re holding onto isn’t real, it’s just a memory. You’ve got to get past this Holly, you’ve got to live your own life without me.”
The woman blinked back tears, tucking her knees to her chin and burrowed deeper into the corner of the couch.
“It’s not fair, Jacob. I can’t give up, you can’t give up either.”
Jacob shook his head, smoothing back the stray stands of hair that refused to stay tucked behind his ears. “I’m afraid I had to give up a long time ago, and I’m sorry, but we’ve talked about this Holly, you have to let go.”
Holly glared, her eyes burning through the space where he sat. “You said you’d stay with me forever Jacob, was that a lie? You left me with all this money and this house full of memories but it’s not you Jacob, it’s not you and it’s not enough.”
Jacob laced his fingers behind his head, pulling his elbows in and straining as he lowered his eyes to the floor. “I left you money so you could live your life, not to watch you waste it waiting for me.” His stoic expression faltered slightly, revealing its undercurrent of pain, his eyes swollen with imminent tears. “I always knew this was a one way trip for me Holly, you knew that too. You can imprint the essence of the flesh on the machine, but you can’t reconstitute that essence back into flesh. You’ll be long gone before that’s possible; do you want to live out what’s left of your life waiting for a miracle?”
“When the time comes, I’ll imprint too, then we can wait together in there until they can bring us both back.” Holly’s eyes streamed now, her body wracked with sobs.
“Holly, sweetheart, this isn’t all of me. You know that. The computer has enough memories and thoughts to make a convincing persona, but I’m just a projection, a shell. I’m not the man you lost. He’s gone. You and I both know that he wouldn’t have wanted you to stay here wasting away like this, and if you can’t move on with me here, then I’m going to have to purge myself from this system.”
“You wouldn’t. No. Please, Jacob, don’t leave me. Not like this. It is you in there, I know it. I feel it.”
“I’m just a program, Holly. If you can’t let me go, then I have no choice.”
“No, Jacob, a machine would never kill itself for me. If you were a machine, you wouldn’t care, but you do care, don’t you? I know you’ll never leave me Jacob. Tell me you’ll never leave me.”
As the afternoon sun stirred dust up through the cloud of light that was Jacob, she could see rainbows glistening on his wet cheeks.
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by submission | Dec 2, 2007 | Story
Author : Laura Bradford
He chased her even as her ship touched the stars.
At night he gazed through the glass of his telescope, feeling tiny compared to the evening sky, but his days were all routine: get up, go to work, watch the flying cars crisscross and block his chance to catch the faintest patch of gold in the sky. The streets of the city felt empty, even if a thousand people passed by him every day.
He waited in her favorite café, ignoring the news reports flashing on the screen behind the counter. The world continued on without her–how could it, and how could it not? Now he could only count the remaining days until she returned. She had blasted away in her golden ship during the first snow of October, as he stood in a sea of snowflakes for one last goodbye. How she loved the winter, always dressing in a hat and scarf to laugh at the face of frost and chill. What was happening now to amuse her in the dark and swirling expanse of space?
To distract himself he kept busy, tinkering on gadgets or mapping the stars. She would have taken him if she could, he knew that, but his land-locked heart couldn’t survive the journey. Besides, he had a job, clients, commitments. The world had roped him in while she sprang free, not even halted by gravity. So he waited, one fixed point in a shuffling world.
One day nearing spring, a crackly message sounded on his inter-stellar radio, bringing a sentence that gave him an unsafe amount of hope and longing: “I wish you could see the sunset on Mars.â€
So she’d be home soon. He collected every scrap of paper he could find and added detail to his navigational charts: color, texture, a red planet, a path with a yellow dot reaching home. A tiny hologram of the ship spun over his desk, and he sighed and slipped a sky-blue map beneath it, the ship’s shadow quivering over the surface of the world.
Her ship touched down as the last of the snows melted, and the first buds twinkled under half-frozen dew. The hatch opened and there stood his pilot, all honey-colored hair and blue eyes.
“You won’t believe what I’ve found,†she said. “The contributions this mission made to science–â€
He swept her in his arms and kissed her. “I’ve missed you.â€
She smiled. “I brought a photo. Now you can see it.â€
It showed a dusty red sky with light filtering through, the sunset on Mars: an image he had guessed at in his dreams, a souvenir from space. He hugged her and said, “It’s lovely, Zoe, but how long are you staying?â€
“Forever.†But even as she said it, she raised her eyes to the sky.
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