by submission | Mar 31, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Nightshift was almost over when iHUD flashed:
unknown abscess.
“Great! More lumps and bumps” My sarcasm catching Turing’s interest.
“Yeah, I scanned him in. Big and green. I’ve never seen anything like it” Turing exclaimed.
Khomyakov, a deep space medical ship was stationed strategically to serve the needs of the frontier marine colonies. Providing care via live virtual links with ground based medical technology so advanced it was experimental.
The report explained that during a sustained ground attack on B, a green planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, a Marine reported a pinch in his back, he was comatose within the hour. By the time he arrived at Base Hospital the abscess had begun to form.
The young Marine lay prone, his biological deep scan danced like haunting spirits across iHUD. The green capped abscess barred examination and was growing fast.
accelerated growth, no prognosis.
Time for a closer look. I let loose a spider, a medical robot, to start with a tactile assessment. The hand sized spider emerged from the bedside recess, it’s elegant scissor legs delicately eased onto the Marine’s back
The EyePaint applied to every available surface mapped the treatment cell in 4D. It gave me omni-presence but at the moment it was giving me nothing.
The spider prodded and massaged the abscess mound. Leg tip sensors fed tactile and ultrasound data, identifying an internal mass. As I viewed through the spider’s 42 micro-lenses, I thought I saw the mass move. Or was it just lens distortion?
“This abscess is telling me nothing!” I said to Turing.
“Stick it. Lets see what’s inside” Turing’s avatar joined in.
I instructed Spider to setup a needle probe and immediately it’s white steel leg shivered and from within, a needle articulated into a functional form.
Bracing itself against the Marine’s spine, the needle tip targeted its entry point while micro nozzles lacquered the skin in topical anaesthetic. The tip pushed slowly against the skin causing a slight depression and then abruptly broke through. The green mass shivered in response.
“Did you see that?” I exclaimed to Turing.
In the background, physical and digital security lockdowns cascaded. Nothing would get in or out. Turing had my back and was playing it safe.
I pushed deeper through the pus filled outer sac, receiving feedback from the nacelle sensor array.
white blood cells – high concentration
Strong natural defences meant the Marine was winning the battle. High concentrations meant he was losing the war.
I advanced the needle toward the mass, now a silvery green bladder before me and flicked a handful of collectors. They clung like limpets to the fibrous skin.
complex muscular cell formation.
I advanced further, the needle tip meeting resistance from the muscular mass. The Electromagnetic spider legs powered up 50% punching through. Turing shuddered.
Through the lens array, a sinewy tendril faded into view, spiralling away through green fluid. I followed it blindly to the centre of the mass where a tiny arm hovered, resting against the tendril. I panned across, following the length of the arm and held my breath as a large pink alien shape with veiled green eyes stared down at me. In shock, I reversed immediately bringing it fully into view.
The human foetus, a delicate shade of pink was unmistakeable, suspended within its liquid womb.
Clone Parasite, 99.99% DNA matchup to host.
As I contemplated humanity’s demise via substitution, a pinch in my side made me wince. Turing stared at me with deep green eyes, a small woven tube in his hand.
“I thought your eyes were blue?”
by submission | Mar 30, 2013 | Story |
Author : John Arcadian
The lag has made us patient. Not humanity, just Marie and I, and maybe a few others. You see, I’m on the lunar launch station on the farthest part of the moon that is viably habitable. It’s a spider-webbed grid of interconnected, but autonomous, pods that contain living space, communal areas, bureaucratic offices, and all those other little fiddly bits that make launching deep space rockets feasible. I took a 1 year contract up here for the paycheck. While I walk through the tunnels to visit other workers and friends, my real contact comes when I talk to Marie by satellite relay. It’s cheap, reliable, and almost everyone up here uses the relays to video chat with their left-behinds on that big blue-green marble that we all want to get back to.
We’re just far enough for there to be a bit of continuous lag, maybe 20 or 30 seconds, even if you are just sending bytes of text. So we’re used to periods of silence and stillness while waiting for a response. You get very zen about it because there’s no other option.
When the explosion knocked me off my chair, the emergency lights flooded my pod with their yellow glare and the alarm klaxons started blaring. Marie was still telling me about the movers transferring her desk out of her office. I was busy locking down the airlocks and ensuring my seals were tight, so I didn’t get a good look at her reaction as my pod started to float away, but I could tell she was freaked out.
My living pod, including the relay dish, is powered by high-efficiency solar panels. The algae tanks are intact and will pump out enough oxygen and protein mass for me to “live” indefinitely. Command sent a message explaining about the exploding rocket and the pod eject procedures that saved most of us. Rescue ships are on their way. Most of the other pods are in stable, so the risk of death before rescue is minimal. It’s a very smartly designed system. Just have to sit back and wait for rescue. At least I’ve still got contact with Marie.
The first days were the worst. You could watch the lag getting worse the farther out you drifted. I’ve got a notepad with the calculated lag times for the first 4 days. After a few hours of drifting it took roughly 4 or 5 minutes between replies. By the second day it was at 13 minutes. The third day had it out to 49 minutes. We’re on week 3 now. It takes about 65 hours or so for a reply. Most of the pods are floating in a steady pattern, emergency beacons and maneuvering jets keeping us bunched together.
The rescue ships are still a week or so out. The trajectories from the earth launch pads take a lot longer to line up. I think we’re all talking to loved ones back home. I can see patient faces illuminated by the screens of monitors when I have my external camera zoomed out and pointed at one of those thick pressure restraining windows. Yeah, we’ll get rescued eventually. We’re not worried. The lag has made us patient. Marie has moved back in front of her screen and is telling me about her day, or a day she had a week or so ago. Apparently, the movers broke her desk when they switched her office again, but she’s not angry. The lag has made us patient.
by submission | Mar 26, 2013 | Story |
Author : Aaron Koelker
I had eaten a ham sandwich the morning we found God. It wasn’t exactly the foundation of great literature. Perhaps they would write in a great feast and how our crew was a likable bunch both humble and imperfect. You know, a “twelve apostles” sort of crew, all dedicated to our own view of a higher power. Which wasn’t too far from the truth. We were a pretty diverse crew, and whether it was planned that way or just poor luck I’ll never know.
The creature that floated before our bow was certainly god-like in scope, but little else. It looked like a planetoid gourd covered in warts and veins, gently pulsing in sync with the starry background.
“My God…” the co-pilot gasped, her eyes wide.
“Which one you talking to?” the engineer laughed.
“That thing is a monstrosity,” the co-pilot finished.
The engineer made way for the coffee machine, smiling to himself. “I don’t know”, he said. “I find it sort of humbling.”
The head science officer walked into the room.
“Well, the scanners confirm it,” he said. “That thing is expelling organic matter in every direction. A spore-like vessel; just like the ones we’ve been finding.” He stopped in front of the forward port and gazed upon the beast. “We’ll need more time to derive its age, composition, metabolism…and of course its origin.”
“The Panspermians are going to go nuts,” I said.
The science officer turned toward me.
“Granted we can prove it’s really the source.”
“Everything we’ve collected and studied; all the sleuth-work has brought us to this place. This backwater space on the edge of nowhere.” I paused as I watched the creature, not yet sure what to think of it, only that it existed. “It has to be.”
“We should leave it,” said the co-pilot. “We should get out of here. That thing,” spoken with the utmost disgust, “wasn’t meant to be found.”
“Oh don’t get all prophetic on us,” said the engineer. “Why the fuck would you sign onto this expedition?”
“I don’t know. But it wasn’t to find that.”
I saw her discreetly twiddling with the bracelet she wore under her sleeve, the one bearing the sign of her faith. She had shown it to me the night before.
“Where are the other three?” I asked.
“In their cabins, I believe.”
I left and found the medical officer sitting on his bunk, the door to his cabin ajar. There was a thick book in his hands from which he read aloud, fast and mumbling.
“You alright in here?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. I waited a moment longer before leaving to find the other two science officers. They weren’t in the lab, so I figured they must’ve been down in the cargo hold, looking over the collected spore samples.
The hold was dark, and upon entering a sharp acrid smell filled my nose.
“Anybody in here?” I called.
No answer. I ventured toward the back where the samples were kept. There, half-wedged onto the bottom shelf, was a makeshift chemical bomb thrown together with spare parts and lab supplies. A puddle of leaked fluid slicked the metal floor.
Beside the bomb lay one of the science officers, a long stain of blood running down his collar. In one hand he held a scalpel and the other a metal charm strung on a silver chain. I recognized the symbol; an extremist cult. One that lead a world power and over two billion people through its strict law; one that couldn’t afford to have that law grow fallacious.
Perhaps we hadn’t found God after all.
by Duncan Shields | Mar 20, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It was China that finally did it.
So little was known about the whys and hows of explosive decompression of the human body in space. There had been assumptions and guesses but nothing had happened yet in terms of accidents to give the scientists any bodies to study.
China’s space program was also curious.
It also happened to have ten criminals that it had condemned to death and were in good enough physical condition to qualify as astronauts.
They were strapped into their roller coaster chairs and kept in the back. Funny how the government didn’t balk at the idea of how much ten bodies would cost them in terms of fuel but they felt it was okay to skimp on anesthetic.
China’s government wasn’t doing it completely independently. They had been caught early on in the planning. After some top-secret political wrangling, the other two major governments of Earth had given China the silent go-ahead with the proviso that they share their data. They’d condemn the action if it ever came to light but other than that, they wouldn’t interfere. The information would be valuable and no one except China had the balls to do something like this.
And since there were no civilians up in space at the moment, eyewitnesses would be scarce.
The chairs were fitted with restraints bolted to the floor of the cargo bay. At no point would the prisoners be released. They’d simple be exposed to the vacuum of space for ten minutes and then the cargo bays would close and the shuttle would head back down to Earth.
Simple. Easy. Effective.
Like all horrible plans.
First of all, two of the criminals were adept at escaping locks. Second of all, space agencies weren’t as good at designing criminal restraints as prisons were. Third of all, the plan was to do the mission in radio silence. And fourth, the shuttles these days were mostly automated except for landing.
Weng Pen got out first when the G’s stopped. Pei Sheng followed suit. They freed the others.
One of the crew needed to do a final check on their bodies before the decompression. If only he’d checked the feeds coming from the inside.
That open door was all they needed.
The prisoners overwhelmed the crew, killing them or rendering them unconscious. They prisoners strapped the five crew members into the chairs.
The prisoners gathered into the cockpit and watched the red numbers count down.
The doors opened. Ten minutes passed. The doors closed. The ship turned slowly on its pre-programmed course back to China.
The dead bodies of the crew were the first images that ground control saw when the ship was back within accepted broadcast range parameters.
The other thing they saw was the laughing faces of the prisoners in the cockpit as manual control was restored to them for the landing.
One hard right later, the entire shuttle port and ninety government officials were ionized gas in the crater of the shuttle’s impact.
The rest of the governments of Earth have gone back to waiting for an accident to provide them with what happens upon an explosive decompression.
by submission | Mar 16, 2013 | Story |
Author : Holly Jennings
“January 18th, 2311. Patient is Makayla Jenson. Session one.” Dr. Rhan sets the recorder down on the table between us and clears her throat. “John tells me you’re having trouble with your dreams?”
I glance down at John’s ring on my finger. I try to wear it as much as I can when I’m not working.
I like when I’m working.
“Yes.” I nod. “They’ve taken over my sleep.”
“I’d say so. The whole crew has heard you screaming to wake.”
She squints over her glasses at me. The blue-speckled frames cut through the center of her eyes as if she’s half blind to the world. Everything else about her is so plain that she blends into the ship’s stark grey walls behind her. I let my vision blur. She disappears. Only the frames remain behind like the grin of a Cheshire cat.
Screaming to wake, I repeat to myself and chuckle inwardly. Screaming to go back.
“What do you dream about?” she asks.
Sunlight. Warmth on my face. Dry air percolating in my lungs. I never thought a desert could be so refreshing, especially when I rouse to John’s touch, icy as the galaxy around us.
I could have chosen a bigger ship. No, had to take John’s vessel so we’d be together all the time.
All the time. No escape. No way out.
After some piddle-paddle about the latest research on nightmares and how common it is for space dwellers to dream of being elsewhere, the doctor says our time is done and I’m to come back tomorrow. When I turn to leave, she deposits a little white pill in my hand.
“Put it under your tongue before bed,” she says.
More like down the sink.
I nod to satisfy her and leave the room.
I return to my quarters. The far wall is a sheet of clear aluminum silicate, like a floor-to-ceiling window. It catches glimpses of my reflection as I move about the room though none of my dark features show: my raven hair, brown eyes or tanned skin. Just a shadow of myself.
I walk up to the window, press my forehead against it, and look out the cold, empty vastness that doesn’t seem nearly as deep as the one inside. Against the backdrop of a foreign world and its lifeless moons, I can still see the faintest image of a girl I once knew trapped in the tiny space between the ship and the universe.
There’s no smile on her face.
I wave at my reflection with the tips of my fingers. The phantom image waves back from within her prison.
Something tiny nudges my palm and I looked down at my other hand. My fingers uncurl and I study the sedative resting in the cavity of my palm. I put the pill where it belongs. It spirals around the sink until it disappears into darkness of the drain. Then I crawl into bed to escape into my dreams, the one place where I’m free.
The one place where John can’t find me.
I look back at the window. The ghost girl appears again and the heaviness in her face tells me she’s tired too. I watch her drift to sleep. Though still trapped within the glass, I notice something’s different just before she closes her eyes.
She’s smiling.
