by J.R. Blackwell | Mar 24, 2006 | Story |
The Immortal danced.
The colony world smelled like new spring, and the night air was cool on the Immortals skin. He whirled around the bonfire the settlers had made to rejoice in the spring and celebrate the barn raising. The immortal flung his feet in a wild and practiced dance and thought about suicide. His parents were dead, his friends were dead, and a month ago, his last living child was killed. His daughter had been one of the few accidental deaths. Even with all the safeguards, spaceships still crashed. His daughter had been three hundred years old.
The Immortal whirled like a dervish. The colony honored him, he was the oldest among them and they treated him with distant reverence. The colonists brought him baskets of food. The young people built his wooden house. No one spoke to him unless he spoke first.
This was the start of a new world, and he thought that surrounded by young people he would feel their excitement. He hoped their wide-eyed joy would bleed over to him, but they just made him feel older. He was living like a runner in a marathon, looking forward to the next mark, promising himself that would be his stopping point.
He could easily have an accident, just like his daughter. He could fling himself off a cliff, or sink himself in the lake. He could die too. It could be over. They would not bring him back, they would respect his wishes.
He whirled and found a young woman spinning towards him, into his arms, her waist slim under his fingers, her eyes pale as a morning sky. She danced with him, and he thought he might live a while longer.
by Kathy Kachelries | Mar 23, 2006 | Story |
The cryocrate rested unobtrusively in the corner of Sanitation Engineer Edward Holmes’s broom closet. It was metal, like most cryocrates, and marked only by the blinking temperature meter and a yellow sticker declaring CAUTION: MAN-EATING SNAKES to those who cared to read it.
Most of the flight staff did not care to read it. Their cargo was often covered with such warnings: CYANIDE, EBOLA, KRYPTONITE. In reality, the boxes usually contained smuggled Terran cigarettes or other things best kept from prying eyes. Not in this case, however. This box actually contained man-eating snakes.
The first three months of the journey were uneventful. The navigator navigated, the communications manager communicated, and the captain capted. Edward cleaned, as he’d been hired to do, until he ran out of the blue-colored stuff that smelled like mothballs. Edward had never been terribly bright.
“What in space are you doing, Holmes?” the captain exclaimed as he poured a bucket of used bathwater down the stairs.
“Washing, sir!”
“Why aren’t you using that blue-colored stuff that smells like mothballs?” she demanded. The captain had never been terribly bright, either.
“We’re all out of it, sir!”
“Well, get some from the storage closet!”
The captain stormed back towards the command chamber, leaving Edward Holmes to stare at the small bubbles and gray soapy liquid that coated the stairway. He prodded the liquid with his mop, to no avail. “What a mess,” he said. He propped his mop against the wall and headed off to the broom closet.
“Blue-colored stuff,” Edward said to himself as he stared at the boxes before him. He tried several, most of which were filled with test tubes, though he did find what he assumed was a human heart. Although all of the boxes contained stuff, none of them contained stuff that was blue. “The captain’s gonna be mad,” he said as he opened the lid of the final box.
The last thing Sanitation Engineer Edward Holmes heard was the bony click of an unhinging jaw.
Meanwhile, back in the command chamber, the captain was doing what captains do with remarkable efficiency. She’d long since mastered the art of making thoughtful grunts and sipping powdered coffee, and she’d almost perfected simultaneously casting condescending glances towards the other members of her crew.
“Captain!” exclaimed the exclamations officer. “I’m receiving a danger report from level 13!”
The captain sighed. “What’s wrong now?” she asked.
“I’m not sure!” he said. “It seems that some of the cargo has escaped!”
“Escaped?”
“I advise we secure the command chamber! And set course to the nearest station!”
“What cargo do we have that could escape?” the captain wondered aloud. Ever since the sentient fetus incident in the Alaran system, she’d refused to transport live cargo.
“Maintain course, Chief Exclamations Officer Jones. I’ll look into it.”
“As you wish, sir!”
The captain stood up and strode to the door, which she opened with a tap against a glowing panel. No sooner had the metal panel opened, however, than a slithering scaly mass made its way into the chamber. “Snake!” she screamed as the large form wrapped itself around her leg. “Jones, do something!”
The Exclamations Officer, however, had problems of his own. The keyboard of his station exploded forward in a spray of plastic, immediately followed by a dozen ringed reptiles. He screamed as one creature’s fangs pierced his neck.
The security officer, who’d never had excellent aim and neglected to consider the logic of using a heat-seeking weapon on a reptile, managed only to stun three members of the crew while trying to target his legless adversaries. “Snake, I kill you filthy!” he screamed as a cobra slapped the gun from his hand with its tail.
The chamber was alive with serpents. The violent hissing was a battle cry unequaled by the sounds of any Terran revolution. Valiantly, the officers and engineers tried to defend their ship, but it was in vain. The snakes, those cruel, cold-blooded bringers of despair and death, had won in a matter of minutes.
“Nooo!” was the final human cry to penetrate the tumultuous sibilance. Then, the Exclamations Officer too was devoured.
by Jared Axelrod | Mar 22, 2006 | Story |
I have a fine grandson named Lorenzo, and he and his mother and father came down to visit me. He brought his wonderful burnished helmet and beautiful, shiny aeroboard with him when they came. I felt very proud, and I thought at last I would be able to interest him in what I did professionally. We walked over to Daedalus Park, and I dare say he was suitably impressed and sputtered off, keeping clear of the couples on their hover-carpets and the small children in the Zero-G playspace.
As I was watching Lorenzo careen among the floating statuary and flora, a woman who can only be described as pinched approached me and told me I had to rein my grandson in.
Of all the planning I’ve done for this city, Daedalus Park is the one closest to my heart, having worked with the aeronetic engineers every step of the way, and pushed it through endless committees when everyone said I was mad. Now you see AeroSites all over, but I take no small amount of pride in stating that Daedalus Park was the first. And I do not remember any regulation such as this pinched woman mentioned, so I proceeded to ask her why I needed to bring the poor boy down to earth.
“Because he’s not allowed,†she told me, pointing. “He’s not allowed to do that.â€
At this, I threw myself up to my full height, and, as the author of this entire project, loudly and in no uncertain terms, said, “By what right do you have to deny this young man the public air?â€
Some people wilt when confronted with my full not-quite-six feet, especially when backed by my formidable baritone. This woman, however, was far too strengthened by the imaginary authority in her veins, and proceeded to argue with me—with increasing volume—exactly what could and could not be done in this park. So much so that Lorenzo came down from his whirligigs and whatever other complex maneuvers he does on that board of his, and said he didn’t have to use the park in that fashion.
The woman tilted her head in satisfaction at this, which burned me more than I believe anything in the conversation had yet. I informed both the woman and my wonderful grandson that if he no longer wished to use this public air in the fashion it was designed for, then I would.
Naturally, the moment I set foot on the aeroboard, I fell off. But I did not let that daunt me. I continued my ham-footed attempts until the woman, disgusted at my flagrant mockery of her pseudo-rules, left in a huff.
I am told by his father that Lorenzo enjoys telling this story almost as much as I do. Though I believe he focuses on different aspects.
by B. York | Mar 21, 2006 | Story |
Before we go any further, let me stop to ask you some questions. I’m so excited to have met you, but there’s something I want to tell you before you enter the port. You see, I haven’t really been honest with you and you must have wondered why I was out here all alone.
Surely you have noticed by now that there are no fusion reactors. No glorious buzz of electricity and a lack of any sort of decent vegetation or animal kin. Oh, so you have noticed. Then let me skip to the worst part.
This is all that is left. You’ve come from so long ago and hoped that somehow life has improved itself? I’m sorry to disappoint you. I am not a proud man, nor am I any sort of leader. Just last week, the previous leader disappeared and the others voted for me to control everything that was left.
Noticeably, I am no handsome fellow either. No woman would bear my children, and I’m lost to a life of thanklessness and a tomorrow that is one day closer to my end. Did I mention how excited I am that you are here? Please, have a seat.
The Port was supposed to be grand once. Perhaps my grandfather said something about it, but now the dust clouds come and go and the nutrient reactors shut down years ago. Port Walden is nothing more than survivors who are losing at their daily professions. What is it you said you did…an engineer? You’ll find little use for your abilities without electricity.
I’m getting to the point, please be patient. I’ve seen children gasp their last breaths as the hunger overcomes them and becomes a deathly starvation. Scraps of leather became chew toys and after they were gone, well, no man calls dog their best friend any longer than he can swallow. Gruesome? That’s life. It is what it has to be so that we can survive. Survival is key.
Look up and see the grey clouds above you, stranger. Your time once held blue skies, I suppose, and purple at times, yes? The bark from these husks we once called trees are gone and I don’t need to tell you what use came from that bark. Look at my face, stranger. My face is more robust than anyone in the village but it by far much gaunter than yours.
Well, I suppose I’ve ventured further from my point. I came out here with this pistol to end the suffering. To watch children die is a nightmare and to know that others are watching the same happen to me is a slow agonizing hell. Perhaps they would have found me and taken what they could from me to help them survive just a little bit longer. I haven’t been honest with you at all. When I saw you I didn’t care where you were from. What I do care about is that you will feed many children for a few days at least; a few days for the hell to subside. Please, don’t run. I may be weak but I can still shoot and I’d prefer to aim somewhere that won’t spoil too much meat. I am so excited you are here.
by J. Loseth | Mar 20, 2006 | Story |
Venusians do not worry about being on time, and I think I know why. It’s the fog—the dense fog that permeates the atmosphere and keeps visibility so low. Every terraformed planet has its quirks, and this is ours: though the poisonous gases have been removed, the fog is still here, and it follows us wherever we go. Travel is always problematic on Venus, no matter how many new sensor techniques are developed, and it is accepted that a meeting will take at least an hour to start. That’s how the tea ceremony developed. I hear it came from one of the immigrant cultures back when the planet was first colonized, but it’s different now, a ceremony of waiting. We’ve evolved.
The fog is everywhere, no matter what time of day or night, and though it does lighten during the hours when the sun hits us, it never breaks. A life on Venus is a life of isolation. We don’t need to be told not to talk to strangers; we are not inclined. Movement through the fog is like stepping into one’s own world, secret and secluded from everyone else on the planet, and the presence of others is an intrusion rather than a blessing. It is impolite to cross paths with someone on the street, and if a Venusian should be so crass as to do so, it is expected that he ignore you in order to preserve the sense of privacy.
For some time, the leading social problem on Venus was the declining birthrate, brought on not by sterility but by disinclination. We are not interested in meeting others. The family is the core of Venusian life, and we stick to it, preferring our own brightly lit homes and the familiar faces of parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins to the grey mists of the outside world. A century ago the government was forced to issue a mandate that all young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-nine would meet at city-sponsored social gatherings in order to increase matchmaking potential. Though it was met with resentment at first, we all knew it was necessary. Mutations and inbreeding were not a problem that could be ignored.
Families are still large and close, but the government now subsidizes housing for couples who want to move out of their families’ homes, even providing space for those family members who cannot bear to be left behind. Our old practices have become deep taboos, so much so that even twins can no longer share the same cradle without becoming the subject of hushed whispers and aghast looks. I am twenty-seven years old, and I know that soon I’ll have to choose. Unspoken custom dictates that we select our lifemates by twenty-five, so I am already an outlier, but Venus—Venus is in my blood.
Earth natives say they find the fog depressing, even malevolent, and will spend as little time here as they can manage. I embrace the fog. It is cool and smooth, not suffocating but comforting. It envelops me and preserves my privacy. Behind the curtain of fog, I can lie in my cousin’s arms without fear of persecution. The family knows—there is no way to keep secrets, not from family—but like strangers on the street, they turn their eyes away, ignoring what they know they are not supposed to see. What is done within the fog of Venus is not meant to be known, but every so often I will catch the eyes of my family and see the hidden glimmer of approval. They know that the old traditions are still alive.
