by Patricia Stewart | Jun 17, 2008 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
The Martian comedian had the audience at the Olympus Mons Laugh Factory rolling in the isles. They roared approvingly at his popular “green-neck” humor. Well, everybody in the audience was laughing but Martin. Martin was an astrophysics professor at Valles Marineris University, and his idea of humor was reading the answers on freshman astronomy finals. For entertainment purposes, he usually included a question about what happened to living matter as it crosses the event horizon of a black hole. The student’s imaginative attempts at feigning knowledge always drew out a few chuckles. But now, he felt like he was the one who needed to feign knowledge. “I don’t get it, Eridania. Of course we have green necks. Our entire bodies are green. Why does everybody consider that so funny?”
His primary wife was drying the tears from her antenna as she waved a sucker at him in an attempt to shut him up. Undaunted, Martin turned to Iapygia, “What’s so funny about going to family reunions to get dates? Where else are you going to find eligible mothers and daughters? It would be perverted if your primary wife wasn’t the offspring of your secondary wife. And really, who puts a shuttle up on blocks? That would damage the reentry tiles.”
“Martin, will you be quite!” snapped Iapygia in a controlled whisper.
“Well I don’t get it, Iapygia. Besides, what’s an opossum, or Bondo, or a Bubba? Why can’t he just talk Martian?”
“Were you born before the Great Tharsis Dust Storm?” Iapygia asked sardonically. “This is a classic parody of an ancient Earth comedian. Dogworthy, or something like that. They’re called theme jokes. He’s sort of making fun of all of us, but mostly the Martians living below the Hellas Planitia. The jokes are particularly funny when he tells them because: One, he was hatched down there, and two, the jokes are pretty much true. But Martin,” she said in a stern whisper, “don’t you ever try to repeat any of these jokes to anybody. You’d probably end up with a fat snout.”
“Don’t worry, Iapygia. I don’t even know why you’d want to take a flashlight with you when you go to the bathroom.” A few minutes later, the comedian thanked the audience and left the stage to a standing ovation. He was replaced with a heavyset comedian wearing a plaid poncho. “Oh good,” remarked Martin with relief, “somebody new is coming on. Maybe I’ll be able to understand his jokes.” A minute later the audience erupted in laughter. Well, except for Martin. “Aaaggghhh, not again,” he said with clear frustration in his voice. “What does ‘Git-R-Done’ mean?”
“Honestly, Martin,” said Eridania as she made a threatening gesture of her right pincer, “if you say one more word, the next comedian to come on stage is going to hang an ‘I’m Stupid’ sign around your big, fat, green neck.”
by Sam Clough | Jun 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
Peter sat on the harbour wall, coat high around his neck in an effort to keep out the spray of water in the air. The freezing mist had a way of insinuating itself between layers of clothing. The sea roared defiance to sky, and at the horizon air and water intermingled, melting together into a gray mess.
Savannah drew her gloved finger through the patch of grey, brought it to her nose, and sniffed. Still unsure as to what was causing the mystery liquid to bubble out from underneath a drive plate. She stood up, and retrieved a nanowelder from her kit. Before she could set to disassembling the plate, the entire ship rocked, and proximity alarms started droning like a swarm of very, very angry bees.
Able carefully reassembled the hive, his confident motions fruit of long practice. Tending his father’s beehives was one of his favourite hobbies, and had been ever since he’d got over his fear of stings. He felt a slight rumble through his feet. An armoured column was in the area. The sheer mass of unwillingly moving metal always bought an earthquake with it.
Bernard kicked the seismograph: the needle abruptly ceased its shiver, and registered one slight peak. Seismic surveys of outworlds were about as dull as ditchwater: Bernard was reminded of enthralling times that he’d had watching alcohol evaporate.
Moll groaned, wishing that she could transpire alcohol. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then it always did. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her head was pounding, a rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump. The wreckage of the party was still ankle-deep. Neb was slumped over the table, and Zal was picking his way towards the door, to answer the incessant knocking.
Tac pressed a hand to his armoured helmet, a useless attempt to ease the pain of the drumming piped through his implant. The drums, the call to war. They focused you, and drove away your fears and nightmares. The drumming never stopped, it modulated — your orders were embedded in the beat. The rest of Tac’s squad took up firing positions around him. Railguns cracked the air, forming gusts which threatened to knock him over.
Nathalie felt the displaced air, and flinched. The brick shattered on a policeman’s riot shield. She had gone to the demonstration because the politics had finally touched her life, restricted her freedom. Like thousands of others, she’d turned out to voice her rejection of the government. But it had got messy. The demonstration had turned into a full-blown riot and Nathalie was just desperate to get out. She spun round, looking for a way through the press of bodies. Someone caught her arms, wrenched them up behind her back: two policemen were pinning her, a tonne of bricks keeping her stuck to the ground.
Graph gasped as the rubble settled. It sounded like his ribs were splintering. One of his legs was definitely broken, and both of his arms were at least dislocated. This was, he assured himself, the last time he followed a radio signal into an ‘abandoned’ warehouse. He coughed, and grimaced at the pain. The explosive had left a residue in the air that was playing havoc with his lungs: his mouth was full of the taste of sulphur and metal.
Indar stared out at the blackness. The effect was electrifying. His hair was standing on end, and he could taste the metal tang of a forcefield.
“This is it,” the girl said, “you’ve reached the top, just moments before the earth will stop…”
by submission | Jun 15, 2008 | Story
Author : JT Heyman
Joe Zimmerman was walking down Main Street when the Cken Confederation teleported him aboard their ship. He found himself standing on a small dais in the ship’s central chamber, surrounded by the staring eyes of several dozen Cken council members.
A Cken arbitrator, atop a much higher dais, called for order in a singsong voice. Slowly the noise of the council subsided.
“Where am I?” Joe asked. Not the most clever words he could have said in his first contact with the Cken, but then not many humans had actually met Cken by that point.
A tall Cken , standing between Joe and the arbitrator, handed him a translation module and said, “You are here as part of a survey to confirm that Humans are complying with the Cken-Human Peace Treaty. I am the Cken Advocate.”
“I haven’t broken any laws,” Joe said.
“We’ll see,” the Advocate said. “State your name and place of residence, for the record.”
“Joe Zimmerman, Oldbridge, Massachusetts,” Joe said. “Earth,” he added after a moment’s thought.
“Are you familiar with the terms of the treaty?”
“I know some of it,” Joe said. “No military ships in orbit without announcement. You got some planets and we got others. I’m not a lawyer but it was in the news last week.”
“You know enough. You will be the Human Advocate.”
“What? Wait!” Joe turned to the arbitrator. “I’m not qualified.”
The arbitrator peered down at him and said, “Under the terms of the treaty, all Humans were to be made aware of its contents. You were made aware. You are the Human Advocate.”
“Where were you going when we subpoenaed you?” the Cken Advocate asked.
“What? Oh, the grocery store.”
“Do you have a list?”
“Yeah … I mean, yes, I do.”
“Present the list as evidence.”
Joe suspected he was being set up. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The Cken Advocate took the list, read it quickly, then gave it back. Joe couldn’t read the Cken’s expressions. They were too … alien.
“What is the first item on your list?”
Joe looked at it. “Cake mix. My wife is baking a cake.”
“Baking. How … quaint,” the Cken said mockingly.
The Cken councillors whistled in derision. Joe recalled that Cken ate their food raw.
“The second item?”
“Milk.”
“Milk!” the Cken crowed. “A liquid produced by mammalian mothers for their young, taken by the Humans for their own consumption!”
The councillors called their disbelief in their singsong voices. Joe knew this was not going well.
“It’s soy milk!” he shouted.
“That may be,” the Cken Advocate said, “and we will certainly investigate your claims. Cooking food, though distasteful, is a Human fashion, and therefore irrelevant. Your consumption of milk does not violate the treaty, although it reveals Human willingness to use other species for your own benefit, which is troubling to anyone who signs a treaty with you.”
Joe began to relax.
“However, I dare you to explain the final item on your list, in direct defiance of the treaty! Read it!”
Joe looked at the list and his eyes widened. He read it softly.
The arbitrator said, “You will read it so we can all hear, Human.”
Joe Zimmerman never wanted to be famous He never wanted to have schoolchildren know his name and his place in history. Sometimes, you get what you don’t want.
He gulped and said, “A dozen eggs.”
The Cken councillors flapped their wings in horror amidst the calls for war.
by submission | Jun 14, 2008 | Story
Author : Aaron Springer
Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.
The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.
Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.
I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.
I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.
When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.
On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.
Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.
On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.
I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.
I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?
by submission | Jun 13, 2008 | Story
Author : Roi R. Czechvala
The orbiter hung inverted over the blue and white sphere of Earth. Three suited figures darted around her, checking for damage from the launch.
“How’s it looking Alexi,” came a disembodied voice over the suits com-link.
“There are a few small chips in the bay door, but nothing to worry about. I’ll take some photos and send them dirt side for the groundhogs opinions. Shouldn’t cause…what the hell?” As Major Alexander Pichushkin spoke, an inch wide crater appeared in the surface of the shuttle bay door.
“Hey guys, get over here now, we have a serious problem.” as he spoke, a second and third hole appeared. “Meteoroids… take cover in the bay…Move”
The men scrambled for the safety of the ships cargo bay. Commander Swarovsky’s voice boomed in their helmets. “What the hell’s going on out there? Report.”
“Sir, I observed what appeared to be three micro-meteor strikes in the starboard bay door. We have taken cover within the bay.” Pichushkin replied.
“Get back in here now. We’ll let this blow over, and continue our damage assessment…” The commanders’ words were cut of as the entire cabin section of the orbiter was neatly, almost surgically shorn off and sent plummeting to the Indian Ocean below. The men stared in stunned silence as they looked forward. Where once the hatch to the interior of the ship, not to mention four crewmates, had been, there was now only empty space and the gentle curve of the Earth.
“There goes our ride home comrades. Ever wanted to be a moon before?” Alexi inquired derisively.
“What are we going to do?” Piotr Wrezsien asked. He was the youngest of the crew, only twenty five, with a young wife and newborn boy waiting his return at Baikanour.
“I imagine we shall die, Comrade,” Anton Tsilokovsky answered calmly, always the stoic.
“Can’t we make it to the Katerina?” Piotr asked, the desperation evident in his voice.
“She’s too far away. We would never be able to match orbits with her. There isn’t enough propellant left in our suits to maneuver,” Alexi Answered.
“Can’t we contact them. They could rescue us.” Piotr’s voice was cracking.
“Calm yourself, young malchick,” Anton replied in a soothing voice. “Katerina isn’t a ship, she can’t maneuver to save us. Relax and enjoy the view.”
“It is beautiful,” said Alexi. “Pity I shall never see the green hills of Texas again.”
“They could rescue us in a re-entry vehicle. Couldn’t they?” Piotr’s voice was shrill. “That’s it, we’ll call them and have them send an REV. They can save us.”
“No Piotr. The REV cannot move like a true ship. You know that. Its thrusters are designed to check its attitude and slow descent on re-entry. It is not capable of the complex maneuvers to rescue those as unfortunate as us. Our destiny is God’s hands.” answered Tsilokovsky, always the unruffled realist. “Well, Comrades; it was always my dream to set sail for the stars. Das vidanya moiee druggies.”
Tsilokovsky rotated one hundred eighty degrees, and kept his finger on the thrusters until the fuel was completely expended.
With a sigh, Alexi silently turned his suit, and headed back for home. The last sounds he heard over the radio were Piotr’s tearful pleas not to leave him.
Outside of Winona Texas, a young boy and his mother gazed up at the night sky.
“Look moya matb, a shooting star.”
“Yes Greggori, that is very lucky. Make a wish son, make a wish.”
