by submission | Jul 27, 2011 | Story
Author : Julian Miles
I opened a channel to the Finnvael;
“This is Handler Orchus, what is your intent within the Olympus Theocracy?”
The long silver needle rotated itself rapidly to orient at least nine firepoints on me. Well, that was a clue.
“Orchus, this is Captain Rufus Hartnell of the Sol Three Alliance. We are coming to offer assistance with your situation.”
No honourific. Rude, but acceptable and allowing an informal stance.
“Thank you, Ser Hartnell. But we do have the situation, as you put it, in hand. It happens every couple of centuries and we have procedures to deal with it.”
There was a chuckle over the channel. Rufus sounded like someone I could get to like over a tankard of ale or two.
“Orchus, my respects to your Theocrats, but a rampaging war machine that threatens S3A vessels demands our intervention.”
My scans came back at last, void eagles are quick but a light year or two still requires noticeable travel time. I ran a quick eye over the details: Twenty-two thousand marines in full atmosphere armour, twenty-eight atmospheric sky fortresses, one hundred and ten near orbit interdictors, fifty-two open space cruisers. I tapped my gauntleted hand on the console. Hardly a cargo for assailing a single space bound monstrousity. Then my eye lit on the last line; Sixteen planetary pacification drones. Ah-ha. As my ancestors would say; “Gotcha.”
“Captain, I see that your ordinance is architected for planetary governance.”
There was a startled silence, then I caught a few words before the channel was cut.
“Dammitall, how do they do that?”
My console emitted a ruddy glow as my Ares meters went critical. Oh, they were trying this again, were they? So be it. As the Finnvael unloaded an indecent amount of violence at my tiny, unarmed ship I switched channels to one only the Handler ships are permitted. Despite the gravity of the situation and the way my ship rocked under the onslaught, I smiled as a deeply primitive bond was renewed.
“Here boy.”
Behind the Finnvael, something quicksilver manifested, an impossible immensity, a masterpiece of nanofluid, cryonic majesty and void. Great eyes spun with whorls of red as my lifelong duty, companion and terror sank all three sets of molecularly phased teeth into Captain Hartnell’s doomed command. I felt my smile turn to feral joy. It would be like a puppy for months after this, something so big that it could use all of its heads, plus hundreds of bits to be chased across near-space as they flailed, died or fled.
by submission | Jul 26, 2011 | Story
Author : Charley Daveler
Ron electrocuted himself.
A surging pain, followed by numbness, shot up from the red wire through his arm. He slammed the torso closed, using such force that even the robot knew anger was involved.
The man’s face softened as he looked to the little machine staring up at him. The metal head blinked with wide eyes, silver shutters flashing in a very convincing manner.
“Okay,” the engineer said. “Did it work?”
The robot did not respond, uncertain on how to.
“Magellan! Did it work?”
“What were you trying to do?” it asked, its little voice still giving no inflection.
“The AI chip,” Ron spat, growing irritated. “Is it functional? Did the update work? Or did I break something?”
The robot looked himself over before shuddering the metal shielding about in a dog-like fashion.
“I do not know,” it said. “What was supposed to happen?”
The engineer did not respond, his brown eyes narrowing as he began to round the robot studiously. After a moment, he sighed and turned. Walking to the far table, the man snatched up a piece of paper. He put his glasses on.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions. You’re going to try and answer them for me.”
“I cannot try. I can only do or not do,” Magellan said.
“Shut up,” the man replied, looking the paper over. “Okay. ‘To see if you’re AI chip is overriding programming to allow for decision making, please answer the following questions as honestly as possible.’ So the first one is easy. ‘You see a spill on the ground. Do you clean it up?’”
“No.”
Ron paused, staring at the robot with thoughts to press further. The man just shook his head. He continued.
“You see a supervisor tell your superior to clean up a mess. Your superior then orders you to do it. What do you do?”
“I do it.”
“You clean up the mess?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were told to.”
“Yes.”
Ron tapped his pencil on the paper. “Okay…”
He moaned a little, scanning through the questions quickly, then flipped the page over. “Alright. He’s a good one. ‘A teacher and your classmate are debating heatedly over an objective point the teacher made. Do you a) argue with the teacher, b) argue with the student, c) mediate, d) stay out of it?”
“I will remain silent until I am ordered to do otherwise.”
The engineer sighed, going back to the first page. “Okay. Which do you believe is more likely? Humans are the result of evolution, humans were put on Earth by God, or… humans were placed on Earth by… alien visitors.”
Ron frowned.
“It does not matter. That does not concern me.”
“It doesn’t, huh?”
“No.”
The engineer wrote something down. He scratched his head with the tip of the pencil. “Alright,” he said putting the paper back on the table. “I think I already know where this is headed. Maybe I should try crossing that blue and black wire again.”
“What did I get?”
The engineer stared at his robot before huffing and turning back. He took only a few moments before fishing out the answer key from his pile of papers. Ron pulled it out and looked at it. He paused.
“It says, ‘Congratulations. Your answers are equivalent to the high school students polled. Your AI chip now allows for human decision making skills.’”
Silence filled the workroom. Ron glanced to his robot. It stared back. He look again to the paper. Ron frowned.
“Well, that’s insulting.”
by submission | Jul 25, 2011 | Story
Author : Timothy Marshal-Nichols
“I haven’t time,” Ujala said, “where is it?”
She set the House Bot on the kitchen table and stared at it intently. It looked like a small upside down metallic tea cup, pure white and hovering millimetres above the perfectly smooth table surface.
“Come on. I have to get to work,” she pleaded. Ujala was already late, she was always late, and miserable job that it was she needed the credits.
Ujala was becoming more frustrated as the Bot remained stationary, watching and – was it grinning? If it was then it was extremely annoying.
As Ujala bent down to scrutinise the bot. Her long straight hair cascaded across the table. One of the Bot’s six antennas telescoped out and almost stroked her brown hair. Annoyed Ujala flicked it aside and the antenna slunk back into the Bot’s frame.
“Next time I’ll remove your power cell,” she said.
The Bot looked up at her forlornly. Why did they give these bots these evolving characters? When it had first been allocated to her it have been so docile, so compliant. Now it was becoming so mischievous and always wanting to play.
“Where’s the transport keycard?” she demanded. “I have to go. Please.”
The House Bot waggled its antenna and started to dance about on six mechanical legs. Its movement reminded Ujala of something – what was it? – something she had seen in the old days. It was like one of those dog type things when they wanted to play.
by submission | Jul 24, 2011 | Story
Author : Eric L. Sofer
Gwen and Naomi came in from the vegetable field and sat down with two large cold iced teas in Naomi’s parlor. “Naomi, I’m so glad to see you and your neighbors doing so well after the Great War! When our supplies ran out in the Survival Vault and we had to leave, we thought we’d find the country devastated… but we came home here to find you and Franklin thriving!”
Naomi sighed and answered, “We were just lucky that our part of the state made it through untouched, and that we have so many farms that are so productive.”
“And you didn’t have any problems?”
“Well… I didn’t say that,” the older woman sighed. “Near the end, the government was insistent that we all use their products and procedures, and about six months before the bombs dropped, they switched over to using robots as county agents.
“They wouldn’t take no for an answer, demanding we use their wheat seeds, their food supplements, their growing methods. And after the war, the robots kept coming and coming. Nobody switched off the robots, so they started destroying things if they weren’t paid.”
Gwen gasped. “Is that why Scotty only has one-“
“YES!” Naomi answered sharply. “Yes, they attacked our crops, our houses, even us, unless we cooperated. The robots would only move on if they were told someone else needed them more… which a few of our neighbors did to us…
“Made of all that metal we so desperately needed… but coming to attack us weekly… it was terrible, Gwen.”
“What did you do?”
Naomi smiled wryly. “My boy Kenny gave me the idea. Franklin was out in the wheat fields, and Kenny smarted off to me. After I spanked him, I forgot about it. Until the day the Master Agent came. Eight feet tall, big as a tank.
“It would have destroyed our house… and as I stood at the front door as it bristled at me, I suddenly remembered what Kenny said. I told it that it had to go to the McCormick home, next door, and that I’d meet it in the back corner of their granary storage building.”
Naomi stood up. “In fact, let’s go check on it. I just sent another of those agent robots over to McCormick’s yesterday, just before you arrived. Here, take one of these burlap sacks,” as she handed Gwen a large bag, and they headed out the front door.
They go to the neighbor’s farm, and approached the grain storage building. As they got close, they saw machinery parts littering the way. Naomi said, “Take those pieces, Gwen… those power supplies will be useful… oh, and don’t miss the mechanical arms.”
“They look like they’ve been torn apart, Naomi.”
“They have- ah, here.” The two women saw the gigantic Master Agent as it finished ripping apart the other robot that had come to Naomi’s door earlier.
Throwing down the pieces of the destroyed agent robot, the Master Agent bellowed robotically, “You have not met me yet!”
Naomi calmly answered, “When you get to the back corner, I will meet you.”
“Very well!” the giant robot replied, and it stomped back into the granary.
The older woman picked up useful remnants of the newly destroyed robot as Gwen said, “But how did you convince him not to come back?”
“It’s what little Kenny said. He told me to go stand in a corner… and that’s what I told the Master Agent,” she said, smiling and patting the side of McCormick’s big, red, round grain silo.
by submission | Jul 23, 2011 | Story
Author : Alia Gee
While the care and feeding of your child in ideal non-planet-dependent conditions has already been covered in Dr. Krugheimer’s “Happiest Baby on the Space Station” holoseries, I feel it is important not to neglect those new parents who are in more extreme states of habitation.
To whit, here are a few hints I picked up while raising my little family without the blessings of gravity. I only hope they may assist others in their domestic efforts.
My initial concern when faced with my first infant in space was, “Oh, no, the diapers!” Yet here Mother Nature aids us, even when far from our natal gravitational fields. Newborn waste sticks to diaper or bum with great tenacity. Merely make sure the child is securely fastened to the changing table or wall, and the vacuum on your trash receptacle is functional, and sanitation is a breeze.
Moving up the alimentary canal, your next worry will likely be feeding your wiggling spawn. Nursing, bless those mammary glands, is not dependant on gravity.
If you, like me, discovered this knowledge was insufficient to your needs, the standard advice is to use a squeeze bottle and hover. I found that this allowed too much air into the poor infant’s stomach unless always vigilant. And, gentle reader, what parent can exert constant, even pressure over a long period of time when wakened mid-sleep cycle?
Vexed and sleep-deprived, I created a container much like a balloon: small and flaccid when empty, but able to expand to hold up to a liter of nourishing liquid. As the infant sucks, the vessel constricts of its own accord with textbook gentle, even pressure.
As the child gets older and tries to squeeze the bottle, life can get more colorful. In these cases, and also when the infant gaily burps up more than air, my best advice is to remind your parenting partner(s) that (t)he(y) got you into this mess and now (t)he(y) can jolly well help clean it up.
Note: For more on how to create your own blobule from common chemicals you will have in the lab, please see the link at the bottom of the article. Stockists also available on request.
I have occasionally seen the Ideal Space Infant caricatured as an adorable hydra: bottle, blanket and toys tethered neatly to the little darling by long strands of some anonymous fiber.
For shame! This, as any experienced parent can point out, is one big, pastel choking hazard.
Still, it raises a valid question: How does one keep all the essentials near at hand? Some (Jennings-Ho, Xiao Universe-al Baby Care 101) are wild proponents of industrial strength Velcro.
Velcro and its cousins do have their place, make no mistake, and I was grateful for them when trying to keep my young ones in their sleep sacks. However, no one product will solve all your parenting problems; it is best to think creatively when facing those hurdles our mothers never dreamt of.
In my own case I found that the simple application of some adhesive to humble hose-clips worked a treat. For preference, I glued the item to the handle, and attached the pinching end to my child’s clothes. One could go the other route, of course, gluing the hose-clips to the clothes; but if your aesthetic sensibilities are not offended by this, may I suggest that you stick with Velcro?
Whatever methods work for you, I leave all you star-hopping parents with one final happy thought (assuming your precious offspring is one of those individuals who can survive in vacuum): In space, no one can hear your baby scream.
