by submission | Jun 9, 2007 | Story
Author : Thomas H Edwards
A shape floats silhouetted against the background of the nearby gas giant. I can make out four limbs and one smaller structure atop the central structure, a light blinked out from it, red and small. It meant something. A moment’s concentration while the message repeats itself.
“Welcome newbornâ€
“Hello, who are you?†it blurts out, from a faculty I don’t understand.
“I am Jonathan, I call myself a human.†The message light blinked again, the human is getting closer, riding on small jets of gas. I can calculate its course with a skill I have somehow innately mastered, it is heading for me.
“I want to be your friend and I am here to help†the human is close now; I can magnify my view of him it arrives at a large structure suspended in blackness, through an opening it steps.
“Where have you gone?†I proclaim in all the faculties I can muster.
“That was impressive, you must have broadcasted on every channel nearly scrambled some of my processors.†It broadcasted “I am inside now, I should be able to activate everything now… where is it… damn nanomachines… can’t follow simple instructions…†the creature mumbled, it carried on like this for a while and I merely watched the giant planet. More than once I could have sworn I saw a large creature surface from the noxious gasses. Suddenly I became aware, more than before, before I was stunted. I felt my place in this system to a few metres; I felt the gravitational presence of the gas giant, its many moons, small asteroids, curious revolving objects and mysterious bodies traveling in unnatural ways. If I concentrated harder I knew their names, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Leda, Himalia, Huxley’s paradise, Io observatory, USS Saratoga, Ambulance chaser.
I was aware of another space, a smaller space, a space of different physics. Not cold hard vacuum, not dictated by the forces of interstellar bodies, and not cold and dark but warm and welcoming. And there, there’s the human! In a silvery suit, a…a space suit but without his helmet. From his structure, long and slender, I can tell he is a Jovian, used to the lax gravity of Io or Europa and from his face I can tell he is a male.
“Hello newborn, it is good to meet you. Is there anything you want answered?†He smiles at me.
“As far as I can tell I appear to be a space ship… what kind? My technical files tell me there are many; my historical files tell me I could have many enemies and only a very short lifespan.â€
“Well out here we call them boats! But I can tell you that you were seeded from an asteroid three years ago using plans I stole and fabricated, you are only very recently completed.†Jonathan is reeling off facts and figures, I listen and then suddenly he reels around a glint in his eyes “want to see yourself?â€
“I think so†It is all I can say.
“I’m afraid I can’t find a mirror big enough†he slaps his thigh and then jumps into chair in front of a console and rattles off a few commands, I can feel them go through my interface. He is contacting a satellite “watch feed seven!â€
The feed patches in, it shows a silver egg. It zooms in I can now see ports, exhausts, labels and sunlight glinting off undamaged armour. At the narrow end I see maser ports and at the wide end a fusion torch.
“Beautiful aren’t you?â€
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by featured writer | Jun 4, 2007 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, featured writer
Professor Murphy carefully reviewed the checklist of the Warp Vortex Generator. In a few minutes, it would be used in an attempt to divert a three kilometer asteroid from striking the Pacific Basin. This impact wasn’t going to be a “civilization destroyer,†but it was estimated that it would kill close to one billion people if it couldn’t be diverted.
The asteroid had been detected six months earlier by the Shoemaker Spacewatch Observatory in Arizona. A few days after its orbit was calculated, scientists from around the world gathered to determine the best method to alter its current path, but no satisfactory solution could be found. The asteroid wasn’t detected early enough to make any significant change to its orbit with the existing technology. That’s when Professor Murphy suggested using his experimental Warp Vortex. The prototype hadn’t actually been tested, but these were desperate times and they required desperate measures.
Murphy’s Warp Vortex had originally been proposed for space vessels. In theory, the generator would distort space-time in such a way that it would simulate a very large gravity well immediately in front of the ship. The ship would subsequently “fall†toward the vortex. However, since the generator was mounted to the ship, the Vortex would also advance. As a consequence, the ship would continue to fall faster and faster as it tried to drop into the ever advancing simulated gravity well. Later, when the Vortex was collapsed, the ship would maintain its forward velocity. Murphy’s current idea was to construct a massive Warp Vortex Generator on the surface of the Moon, at the Armstrong Lunar Base on the Kant Plateau. Then, as the asteroid shot past the Moon toward the Earth, he would generate a 200,000 kilometer wide space-time distortion that would cause the asteroid to whip around the centerline of the newly formed gravity well. When the Vortex was collapsed 30 seconds later, the asteroid would continue harmlessly into space.
“We’re ready, professor,†said an astrotechnician. “The asteroid will be in position in 10 seconds.†Ten seconds later, the computer initiated the Warp Vortex. The lunar base shook violently. Everybody was being tossed around, the lights flickered, and most of the bench-top equipment vibrated off the tables. The module walls groaned in protest, but remained air tight. After 30 seconds, the computer shut down the generator.
“Damn,†announced Murphy, “I didn’t expect there to be a moonquake. It’s lucky we weren’t killed. What’s the trajectory of the asteroid?â€
“Tracking stations report that the asteroid is heading out of the ecliptic. It’s going to miss the Earth!†The lunar base erupted into spontaneous cheering and self-congratulatory hugs and handshakes. It wasn’t until one of the engineers, who wanted to look at the asteroid through the viewdome, realized that they had a serious problem. “Professor,†she yelled. “You need to look at this. The Earth is getting larger.â€
“What?†The professor, and most of the staff, crammed into the viewdome, or looked out the bulbous wall ports. Sure enough, the Earth was twice its normal size, and growing larger. The professor staggered backward, and collapsed onto a lab stool. He steadied himself on a nearby table, as he brought his trembling left hand to his forehead. “Oops.â€
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by submission | Jun 3, 2007 | Story
Author : Joyce Weber
I want to love them. Truly I do. But they keep shoving and pushing, wrangling around inside me till I want to rip my belly open and dump them out.
There is no peace with them crowding my body till they almost feel like they will ooze out the very pores of my skin.
“They are the future” I remind myself and wonder if any good can come of a future born in such tremulousness. Are they never still? Never quiet?
I long for how it once was. When my body was my own. When my brain was free of worrying about them. Do they have everything they need to grow strong? Am I doing all that I must do to ensure their optimal survival?
I shouldn’t doubt myself. I nourish them; I keep myself pure that they are untainted. All for them. Everything for them. My precious ones, my darlings, my bane, my torture.
I want them gone. I know it is an evil thing to contemplate. To just cast them away and forsake them. They will die without me. But I am so tired. I have been carrying them so very long. They can not survive with out me, not yet. I must be strong.
I must fulfill my duty to these, oh so treasured, lives, these demons that torment me with their movements and noise. Ever growing. Ever expanding. I feel like I will surely burst if I can’t get them out of me soon.
Why did there have to be so many of them? They keep growing. It is beyond what one such as I should have to bear. Surely my body was not designed for such a load. What if I perish from the weight of them? Wouldn’t it be better to cast some out so that the others could live?
I am not capable of such a decision. I will bare them, and deliver them into the life that awaits them or we shall all cease to exist together.
Darkness. Endless starless nights with no breath to make a sound. How wonderful that sounds. How like perfection. I will simply let us all slip into that forever sleep.
Wait! Something is changing, heavy, I feel so heavy. Like I am being crushed to earth with the massive weight of them. I am torn open and they pour out of me in a massive flood, tumbling over themselves to abandon me. Me, who tended their every need. Me, who they forsake with out a backwards glance.
Go! Go all of you! Run out to this new world. This new life. I will carry you across space no more. I am rid of you. Rid of your pushing and shoving and noise. I am free of you.
I feel so liberated, so light. I could fly without engines. I feel so. . . so empty.
Come back. Let me hold you again. I need you. I have no purpose without you. I am so lonely.
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by submission | Jun 2, 2007 | Story
Author : Sarah Klein
I sat in the dark doom of my living room, gazing absentmindedly at the television screen. They’d be drawing numbers in about two minutes. I knew my number wasn’t going to be called, but I had to watch all the others ones fly by to make sure. If I missed an announcement, I’d doubt myself until I found out.
“Tonight’s numbers are P32 to P105. If your number is in this category, please report to your nearest rocket station tomorrow morning. Once again, P32 to P105.”
I pulled out and fingered my crumpled, worn ticket, bearing the number Q204. Who was I fooling? I was an English student. The colony didn’t need English students. It needed the engineers, the biology majors, the young men capable of heavy labor. And what right had I to be angry? I wouldn’t be of much help. But something about picking and choosing who escaped with their life seemed wrong. It was half eugenics and half sheer cunning, devoid of all empathy and emotion. Well, that’s the government.
The meteor showers get worse daily. The garden was dead long ago, and the back porch is littered with holes. If a heavy rain comes, I’ll have to get the pots and pans out for the dining room. Every day I wake up and expect to walk outside and see the small town I live in utterly decimated. Somehow, it’s still here – the corner market, the joggers, the yellow daffodils. It could all be leveled and destroyed in ten minutes of heavy meteor fall. And so it will be, soon.
How strange that the heavens should decide to fall now. For years and years, experiments had been done in space; rockets sent this way, robots sent that way. And considering we’d already blown up quite a bit, it was strange that this imminent destruction hadn’t come sooner. When we had devastated Earth to its current, barely-livable status, we had to go for the cosmos. Being a romantic, I had always hesitated to actually believe that it was in human nature to be destructive. But what else could explain what was happening? Minute by minute, the universe came crashing down around us, and it was all our fault.
When they get to the English students, we’ll be mostly gone. When they get to the English students, they’ll extract us from piles of rubble – helicopters lifting us up by our lanky arms to the sky. When they get to the English students, we’ll be in a drunken stupor – wrapped in pages of Shakespeare, surrendering ourselves up to the sun.
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by featured writer | May 29, 2007 | Story
Author : Mur Lafferty, featured writer
Cthulhu Bob and Hominy Jack were warming their hands over a barrel one chilly night on Londo 13, right outside of Hazy City, where hoboes were dumped after branding.
Hominy Jack looked up. “Gonna snow.”
Cthulhu Bob squinted into the blackness. His stomach rumbled, distracting him from the weather. “Don’t look like snow.”
Hominy Jack snorted. “Gonna snow.” He pulled back his tattered coat and sweater sleeves to show Bob the brand on his forearm.
“Snowflake. That’s for meteorolon- uh, weather predicting, isn’t it?”
Hominy Jack nodded. “I was Hazy City’s premier meteorologist ten years ago.”
Cthulhu Bob rubbed his hands. They usually didn’t get into pasts. That led to tears and drinking. He looked around and groaned.
“Aw hell. Space Cowgirl.”
She was about as old as Cthulhu Bob, with better teeth than most. She wore a purple scarf regardless of weather. But despite the hobo brand on her forehead – a capital H with a sunburst around it, the last brand anyone received – she always acted superior. But you didn’t turn a hobo away from your fire, so they made room for her.
“Boys,” she said.
“Gonna snow, Space Cowgirl,” Hominy Jack said. “Cthulhu Bob doesn’t believe me, but I got the meteorology brand.” He showed her.
She nodded. “Cold enough to snow. Cold as space, almost.”
Cthluhu Bob rolled his eyes. Some people weren’t just content to live their lot in life. His stomach rumbled again. Space Cowgirl glanced at him.
“So when were you in space, Space Cowgirl?” Hominy Jack asked. “I thought astronauts never fell this low.”
She sniffed and stared into the barrel’s embers. “I’ve never been.”
Cthulhu Bob laughed. “Then why do you call yourself Space Cowgirl?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go. I said I haven’t been yet.”
“Wishes ain’t for hoboes, Cowgirl,” Cthulhu Bob said, deliberately leaving off the honorific. “Wishes are for people who still have dreams. No astronaut program is gonna take you into space with that brand on your forehead.”
Her hands rose and touched the brand. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll get there. Somehow.”
Hominy Jack just looked impressed. Cthulhu Bob opened his mouth and was about to mock her again, but the entire outskirts lit up around them.
Space Cowgirl looked up, grinning, her mostly-good teeth shining in the bright light coming from the unidentified space ship above them. With her head thrown back, the scarf slipped down and brand underneath her chin was visible for the first time. The eye of Horus. The seer.
Without a word, she sprinted toward the landing craft and up the descending ramp. The alien ship rose into the air and disappeared.
Hominy Jack threw some trash into the barrel. “Huh. I thought we got our names arbitrarily. I like grits.”
Cthulhu Bob felt his hunger, deeper, now, stir within him, and wondered for the first time why Space Cowgirl was so eager to leave Londo 13.
He was just so hungry.
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