by Julian Miles | Dec 18, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The Neosatian hits me at the base of my spine so hard that I flip over backwards and land heavily, knocking the wind from me. By the time I get my breath, I cannot breathe properly because it’s sitting on me, front paws on my shoulders.
I stare up into the trio of glowing green eyes while slowly sliding my hand toward the shock-rod at my belt. Its burgundy-tipped ears cant forward and it shakes its head in negation. I stop moving.
“Damo Adraste. You are under arrest for sentient slaughter in the thousand-being range. You are also charged with fleeing penalty, your fugitive run of eight years removing all appeal options for both charges. Although it will be duly noted as the longest evasion on record.”
The owner of the dulcet voice strolls up, still beautiful in the bodysuit that leaves nothing to the imagination whilst simultaneously scaring you out of any interest beyond survival. She settles down by me, resting against the alley wall after relieving me of the rod. She catches my gaze and smiles.
“It was always going to end like this. Did you really believe the bollox about Neosatians being avoidable?”
I had hoped it was true. The Mondocalm had gifted humanity with twenty of these enhanced creatures, saying they were all we would need to usher in a new era of crimelessness. The huge black lupines were immediately labelled ‘godwolves’ by the media.
“This furry gentleman is Ebenezer. He’s very pleased to finally meet you.”
The jaws part to reveal a lot more teeth than I am comfortable with at this range.
“While we wait for the custody patrol, Ebenezer wants me to tell you why you could not escape.”
I look up at the godwolf. I would swear that the damn thing is grinning at me.
“Imagine that every living thing leaves a trail. Think of them as multicoloured lines drawn through time and space, with every one being unique. Normal dogs can do amazing things with scent alone. The Mondocalm took the lupine variant of that ability and mated it with their ability to perceive these sentient contrails in a four dimensional continuum. Ebenezer and his kin can never lose your trail as long as you exist.”
Well, that explains a lot. From the deep mines on Spira to the skytowns of Ruben, from the asteroid fields of Cantor to the spiral wastelands of the Eternal Reaches, Pursuit Marshal Sheba Griffon and her loyal godwolf had kept on reappearing, no matter what I did. The fact that the rest of humankind treated the godwolves with an almost religious awe meant I could never get any support for trying old fashioned methods of losing pursuers permanently. Sure I had blown up several places, but bombs are so damn inaccurate.
“Why exactly does he want me to know?”
“So you can tell all your fellow inmates. Eventually you felons will realise that getting away with it is not even an outside option.”
I had done it. Five years and the tariff for my original crime went from mortal to custodial.
“So I’m going to jail?”
“I think there will be several jails between here and Earth.”
And a free trip home. I smile.
“Then you’re going to be incinerated. Tariff reduction is waived as crimes during flight are deemed contiguous with the causal felony.”
Damn.
by Duncan Shields | Dec 13, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There was one thing I missed more than anything else when I was planetside.
A zero-g bath.
I’d think back. I’d remember turning the taps on and seeing the water spill out in braids of steaming hot water, glittering in the light. Seeing it hit the tiled wall and scatter into millions of tiny droplets that would float around the room like a swarm of swallows.
Each ricochet would make the droplets smaller and change their direction until the room was filled with droplets, no two heading in the same direction. I could stand there for minutes, silently trying to see patterns in their slow, dream-like motion.
I remember the tiny rainbows.
The water system would hit the bath limit and the taps would shut off. I’d be there, floating in steam, eyes closed, arms out like Jesus, while the water coalesced.
After ten minutes or so, the water would be one big sphere in the center of the room. I’d help, tapping the drops towards each other until they’d conjoin and shudder into one larger drop. It was like rolling snow on a planet in the winter to make a snowman except that it was three-dimensional instead of just based on the vector they called ‘ground’.
Slowly, I’d step into the sphere of water, leaving my face free, trying to dissipate it as little as possible. I’d take a deep breath, close my eyes and submerge, curling up and going back to the womb in the truest way possible.
I’d soap up slowly, scrubbing until the water became choked with soap and skin cells and I was clean.
I’d walk into the drying room and close the airlock behind me. Once I was safely out, the bathing room would open a crack to the outside, creating a hurricane to vent every drop into the cold vacuum of space.
The water from every bath was turned into a small snowstorm flurrying out into the endless night.
I feel so heavy in my planetside bathtub if I have a bath. Even if I close my eyes and submerge, it’s not the same, feeling the tub pressing the skin on the back of me. If I have a shower, it almost depresses me to see the drops of water fall so quickly to the floor and swirl down the drain. A slave to gravity like the rest of us.
I can’t wait to finish my assignment and get back up the well.
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 11, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
As far as pirates went, Jack Hoorn was not the brightest star in the constellation. To be sure, what he lacked in reason and forethought, he made up for with guile and spontaneity. Even as he presented his stolen security clearance to the guards at the Telsela Research Station orbiting Proxima Centauri, he had no real plan. All he knew was there were valuable things there, and he aimed to steal a few. He moved though the corridors with an air of entitlement, pausing at all intersections hoping to overhear a conversation between some careless individuals. He hit the motherload when he spotted two laboratory technicians guiding a lev-sled toward him. One man was berating the other because he had almost toppled the one meter in diameter sphere they were transporting. Hoorn almost had an organism when he heard the man say, “Dammit Ed, that prototype cost over one billion credits”. If someone paid a billion to make something, he reasoned, they’d spend millions to get it back. He pulled out his phaser and stunned the two technicians. Then he grabbed the sled controls and started racing down the corridor with his booty. As he hefted the sphere onto his ship, the station’s intruder alarm sounded. “Too late, losers,” he boasted as he took the pilot’s seat and fired up the impulse engines.
His speedy little ship streaked away from the station, but was quickly pursued by a dozen security craft. Hoorn smiled at the large scale pursuit. It meant his prize was definitely valuable. He set a course for Sirius and punched her into warp. In mid-course he reprogrammed the ship to divert to Tau Ceti. After traveling a few more light years, he set a new course to the crab nebula. He was confident that no security ship could follow him through three jumps, and if they did, he could duck into the ionized mass ejecta of the onetime supernova and become invisible to their sensors. After returning to normal space, he piloted his ship into the Helium-rich torus cloud, and shut down everything but his passive sensors and life support. To his surprise, six ships, flying in a tight delta formation, arrived seconds later. Damn, he realized, the Varangian Rangers. He may have underestimated this foe. He shut everything down, including his stolen antique electronic watch.
“Spread out into a reverse diamond arrangement,” ordered the wing commander. “Establish a perimeter of half a billion klicks.”
“I have him on sensors, sir,” announced a seasoned sharpshooter. “Give the word, and he’s toast.”
“Negative, Lieutenant. He’s already toast. There’s no way that moron knows that he stole a star buster. That radiation cloud he thinks he’s hiding in has probably already activated the automated detonation sequence. At this very moment, the device is probably flooding his ship with fusion juice. Just set your recorders on maximum resolution. Let’s at least get the lab boys some useful data.”
Back in his ship, Hoorn was sweating profusely, so he partially unzipped his flightsuit. That’s when he noticed that the sphere was humming. He stood up to investigate, but was overcome with a wave of intense nausea. He collapsed to his knees and began to vomit. The cockpit began to spin as he crumbled to the deck. Even with his eyes closed tight, the light was blinding. The hum became a roar.
“There she goes boys. Pull back at point five cee. Keep recording. This will be quite a show.”
by submission | Dec 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Ian Florida
Jack was grateful he had never been human. He was thankful that he’d skipped out on that entire sliver of Earth’s history. He knew humans: pink bundles of flesh with more emotional baggage then a type IV psychic could ever hope to unravel. That he didn’t want to be human wasn’t strange at all, what was surprising, however; was that he kept falling so madly in love with them.
He kissed her. Her breath tasted like wine and chocolate. Pulling away he looked into her eyes which shone as brightly as Andromeda’s galactic core. “Will you upgrade?”
“I’m already H+, I’ll live forever if that’s what you’re worried about, my little Metal Man.
They’d had the conversation before, and part of him didn’t want to bring it up again. He knew it’d be painful. But if he could only make her understand… “But we can’t interface.”
She caressed his bare chest.“I thought we just did?” She cooed.
He tapped his soft polymer head. “I mean up here.”
“You mean you can’t read my mind. You don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s about intimacy.”
“You don’t love me as much as you’d love another robot.”
He tried to kiss her again hoping she’d forget it. But she wasn’t interested in a truce. Her long aquamarine hair slapped him in the face as she turned her head.
He hissed. “Don’t be like that.”
Her eyes were hard and cold. “I-Should-be-more-ro-bot-ic,” she mocked the way he spoke.
“I don’t like that word. I’m an AI, I don’t sit on a line riveting space ships.”
Her tone was smooth but still not quite as warm as right before the kiss. “Is that robot racism?”
“All I’m saying is if you were to upgrade, just to Cyber, not even full body, we’d be able to Link.”
She spat. “Like you and Aurora.”
Jack groaned. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“Why do you keep winding up with women if what you really want is another bot?”
“I hate that word.”
Her slender fingers wrapped around the control disk on the wall. “Fine, bodied AI.” I’m going out for a bite, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see anything so crude so you can stay here.”
“Stay, please. Let’s talk about this. You know you don’t need to eat.”
“And you don’t need to Link. But they’re both a part of who we are, and if you can’t love me for what I am….”
She slammed the door. Humans loved slamming things, but her especially. She’d even found a way to slam the automatic ones.
She was always partly right. He attributed it to her being such an advanced Bio, reorganized at the genetic level. She wasn’t natural, any more than he was really. But Bio’s and Metals had two different ways of thinking about things. Maybe I just love the conflict. He mused. He closed down his physical inputs and plugged into the Global Link.
…
Kate’s gentle voice whispered into his ear. “Wake up.”
His eyes came back online. He glanced out the window, it was light outside. She had let him “sleep,” all night. She was nowhere in sight. “Did you sleep well?” She asked.
His eyes darted around the room. “Where are you?”
She cooed. “Next door.”
He stepped into the bedroom. A wave of ecstasy washed over his mind, at that moment he realized it was not her voice he was hearing.
She was spread out naked on the bed. Her amber body glowed with the light of early dawn. On the surface she looked exactly the same. But he could feel her thoughts washing over him, like a shower, warm and comforting. He could see all her past and all her fears. He crawled into bed beside her and took her into his arms.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
“I didn’t get a full conversion, it’s just the wireless.”
“But we can still Link, that’s all that matters.”
“I did it for you Jack, and now you’ll have to do something for me.”
“He grinned as she pressed her warm body against his.”
“I want you to learn Salsa Dancing,” she cooed as sent him the image of a man in a sombrero.
Their lips pressed together. He linked directly to her mind, the sensation overpowered him. Made his whole body tremble. Their mouths pressed tight his words danced out directly from his mind to hers. “The things we do for love…”
by submission | Nov 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Minerva City had a population of one thousand and greater financial resources than all but the largest countries. The great aerostatic city-state floated 50 kilometers above the surface of Venus and moved along in the super-rotating atmosphere at 300 kilometers per hour. The airborne habitation circled Venus every four Earth days even as the planet itself sluggishly completed a single rotation on its axis only once every 243 days.
Without Minerva Incorporated, the solar economy would collapse. Just as Earth was dotted with oil wells during the 20th and 21st centuries, the skies of 23rd century Venus were dotted with floating fuel refineries. The automated aerostat platforms mined the Venusian air for raw materials and processed them into fuel. Then the orbiting skyhooks hoisted the payloads into space where they entered long, cycling orbits between the inner planets. It was this cheap and plentiful commodity that was the lifeblood of interplanetary commerce.
Daniel Sperry, president and CEO of Minerva Incorporated, watched as the shuttlecraft that looked like a miniature version of Minerva City itself made its careful approach into the docking bay. Fifteen minutes later, Sperry found himself sharing a bottle of exorbitantly expensive wine with Ng Yeow Chye, the Prime Minister of Mars.
“Fifty thousand people. That’s what the population of Mars will be by the end of the century,” Ng said. “Aerostats are fine outposts, but a true civilization must be built on land.”
Sperry poured Ng more wine. “Why just fifty thousand? Why not five hundred thousand? Or a million?”
Ng knew that Sperry knew the answer to his own question. The habitation domes, of course. Each one was an engineering marvel, massive both in size and cost. Ng stood with the assistance of a powered exoskeleton. Venus’ 0.9 g of gravity was over twice that of Mars. “You have a proposal, Mr. Sperry?”
“Paraterraforming,” said Sperry as he tapped a control on the table. A holographic model of the solar system filled the room. Sperry showed Ng a dozen carefully selected comets that could be made to collide with Mars, their disintegrations and impacts thickening the red planet’s atmosphere by dozens of millibars. He showed him the massive drilling machines that could pierce the planet’s crust at six different locations around the equator. He showed him the six huge induction motors that he claimed could magnetically stir Mars’ liquid metal outer core until a magnetosphere enveloped the world. He showed him images of genetically engineered bacteria that could turn sterile Martian regolith into lush soil.
Over the course of three days, Sperry answered the Martian Prime Minister’s questions and translated arcane technicalities into layman’s terms. Sperry allayed his doubts with reassurances and met his skepticisms with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
“Two hundred years to transform Mars?” he asked Ng with a laugh? “We’ll do it in twenty!”
Ng finally boarded his shuttlecraft and left Minerva City bound for Mars a veritable disciple of Sperry. After Ng was gone, Sperry sat alone in his study. He tapped a control on his desk and a hologram of Mars appeared before him, large areas of wasteland highlighted in blue. The marked real estate would be his payment for paraterraforming Mars. The image gradually changed to show what a transformed Mars would look like. The highlighted areas now described the borders of beachfronts and fertile plains.
“A true financial empire must be built on land,” Sperry said aloud with a smile. His desk’s display showed Minerva’s quarterly profits. Enough playing around with a few hundred trillion credits, he thought. Time to make some real money.
