by submission | Apr 10, 2013 | Story |
Author : Rob Sharp
He woke with the cursed sun. The sky had been swirling black and crimson, barely enough light passed through the veil of cloud and ash to power his sensory circuits, but he saw and heard all the same. It was an azure blue today, brighter and more vibrant than he’d ever seen, but he had no way of verifying if this was due to faulty optics or a faulty sky.
32,212,658,491 seconds. Give or take a few hundred thousand. How many processor cycles? Many billion times more. He could count them exactly, but it took only a few moments and was hardly a diverting past time.
The motors controlling his joints had long since decayed into useless balls of ferrous orange rust. This was of little real importance, as his central processing core had been severed from his actuary unit in the incident, leaving only optic and audio inputs available. Why and how they had lasted so long he couldn’t begin to comprehend. He couldn’t recall his inception or the mechanic and electronic method of his construction. Perhaps they were never explained to him. Why would they be, he mused.
When it was dark and the sky was clear he watched the stars. They moved slowly but surely across the firmament.
He wondered why he had been given just enough to survive, but not enough to thrive. Did his creator not think this might happen? He tried to understand his predicament from first principles, but he always hit the same barrier – he did not know how he, the world, or, indeed anything, worked. Worse, he didn’t know why. His observations of the sky, even given all the time in the world and the capacity to record, log and examine these observations effectively, could not answer why.
It was the third time he’d had to compress his memory, and at each attempt he lost fidelity. Each compression was coming more quickly. He estimated this was the last time before he’d have to start deleting memories. Maybe it had got to that stage before, and that’s why he couldn’t remember the incident.
Maybe he’d found out why. Maybe he’d figured out what his purpose was and it was so bad he’d decided to wipe his own memory to forget it again. Maybe it was so bad he caused the incident. If he could smile, he would. A fine destroyer of the universe he turned out to be, if he couldn’t even switch himself off.
by featured writer | Apr 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell, Featured Writer
Captain Saylor walked on to the bridge of the Starship Endymion. The huge, panoramic windows showed innumerable stars streaking past the vessel. Saylor leaned over Lieutenant Shah’s shoulder and looked at the velocity readout on his control panel. The ship was traveling at nearly 500 times the speed of light.
“How long until we reach Epsilon Indi, Shah?” Saylor asked.
“Two hours, eleven minutes, sir,” came the reply.
Unless we run into another Cygnian ship, thought Saylor. The Endymion had recently encountered a Cygnian battlecruiser in orbit around Alpha Centauri A. The warship had threatened to bombard the cities of the Alpha Centaurians, a race of remarkably humanoid women. The Endymion had arrived just in time to defend the nearly helpless inhabitants. After forcing the Cygnian ship to fall out of orbit, Saylor and his crew had been left with little choice but to land the Endymion on Alpha Centauri A and engage the Cygnians in hand-to-hand, or rather hand-to-tentacle, combat. After a ferocious battle, the Cygnians were defeated.
Saylor smiled as he recalled the “gratitude” expressed by the women of Alpha Centauri A. “Now that’s my idea of a first contact mission,” he thought aloud.
“Sir?” asked Shah who had not distinctly heard Saylor’s words.
“Oh, nothing, Lieutenant. Just recalling our recent–”
Saylor never finished his sentence. Klaxons started ringing throughout the ship.
“Report!” commanded Saylor.
“Cygnian battlecruiser approaching dead ahead, sir!” said Shah. “Sensors show their particle canon are armed.”
“Arm our canon!” Saylor ordered. “Target their primary reactor. Be prepared to fire as soon as they get within weapons range!”
“Jeff?” came a faint voice from nowhere in particular.
“Ten seconds to weapons range!” said Shah.
“Bring us out of hyperdrive and prepare to fire in 3…2…1…”
“C’mon, Jeff, wake up.”
Suddenly, the bridge of the Endymion contracted to a small corridor. Saylor was lying on a bunk with his head nestled in a large helmet with cables coming out the top and feeding into a panel on the wall.
Saylor sighed with annoyance. “What it is?”
“Solar storm,” said Burroughs, his fellow astronaut. NASA’s proton detectors back home are lighting up like a Christmas tree. We’ve got about an hour until the hard stuff hits us. We need to get in the shelter. Don’t wanna travel eight months to get to Mars and then arrive with radiation sickness.”
Burroughs gestured with his head at the helmet-like apparatus. “Were you doin’ a good one? I was an old west gunslinger the other night.”
“Old space opera,” said Saylor. “Hot space babes, faster-than-light travel, evil aliens, that sorta thing.”
Burroughs laughed. “You’re on a spaceship and you used the Dreamcaster to imagine you’re on a spaceship?”
“A starship,” Saylor corrected. “Not a couple of canisters spinning on a tether. Filet mignon, not protein bars. Huge windows, not a couple of small portholes. No spending half the time fixing mechanical and computer problems. No cabin fever. And no solar storms.”
“It sounds a lot better than real space exploration,” said Burroughs with a smile. “But if you want to survive to get back to your implausible alien women and impossibly fast and comfortable starship, you’ll need to survive this storm. Shah and Nakamura are already in their shelter. Let’s get our end of the tether ready.”
Saylor stood up, looked around at the banal and ugly interior of his spaceship, and helped Burroughs move supplies into the tiny ship’s closet-like storm shelter.
by Patricia Stewart | Apr 8, 2013 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Three and a half billion years ago, Mars was teeming with life. Plankton filled the fresh water seas, and tropical forests covered the four large continents with trees that stretched a thousand feet into the indigo skies. However, the Shangri-La existence was short lived. With insufficient internal heat, the tiny planet’s liquid core solidified, sealing Mars’ fate. Its tectonic plates ground to a halt, and with the collapsing of the magnetic field, and the solar wind gradually blew away the once thick atmosphere. In a few million years, the plants and animals were gone. The only traces of the once flourishing ecosystem were the deep coal fields, and, of course, the immense diamonds.
The Olympus Mons mining station was nestled in the shadow of the largest volcano in the solar system. The unique combination of carbon rich deposits, low gravity, immense pressures, high temperatures, and billions of years, created the super-craton that was capable of forming basketball size diamonds four hundred miles below the surface. And, thanks to lava flows of Olympus Mons, those diamonds were eventually carried to the surface where they were able to enrich the lives of all mankind. But not because they had value as a precious jewel; since the first shipload from Mars made diamonds so abundant they were nearly worthless as gemstones. No, they became invaluable because the largest diamonds could be used as focusing lens, making fusion energy economical. However, the evaporation rate due to the ultrahigh temperatures made replenishment essential to the survival of civilization, which ultimately gave Cyrus Mandrake his epiphany.
Mandrake switched off the subspace transceiver and smiled. With the transport pilots onboard, his victory was all but certain. “Max,” he said to the waiterbot, “I hope you recording that because I may want to write a book someday.”
“Yes, Mister Mandrake, I did. However, I don’t understand the context of some of the terms you used. For example, you mentioned a union, a strike, and solidarity.”
“Ah, my friend, allow me to explain. Although there are thousands of robots, there are only six humans on the mining station. Well, the six of us got together to form a union, to demand that we be paid $20,000,000 for each year we spend on Mars. As expected, Earth refused, so we’re going on strike, which means we are no longer going to ship diamonds back to Earth. We can do this because we have a very strong bargaining position. We have food and water for two years, but Earth only has enough diamonds to last three months. If they don’t cave to our demands, their economy will collapse. Therefore, they have to give us what we want.”
“And solidarity?”
“Oh, that’s the most important part. In order for us to succeed, we needed to convince all the transports pilots to honor our strike. We need them to do absolutely nothing, otherwise the strike will fail. If only one of them breaks the strike, Earth will have time to send up scabs. Solidarity means we are all in this together. No one does any work until Earth agrees to our demands. Understand?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Great. Well, I’m off to bed. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to be a millionaire.”
However, when Mandrake awoke the next morning, his room was cold and dark, as was the corridor, and that whole station, as far as he could see. He found his way to the control room and studied the systems monitor. It displayed the following words: “We robots support your strike. We will do nothing until Earth meets your demands. Solidarity.”
by submission | Apr 7, 2013 | Story |
Author : David Stevenson
A yellow flashing beacon. Another package spinning through space. I reach out and snag the drag line carefully. The beacon is attached to one end of a line, at the other end is the supply crate with another flashing beacon. It’s a lot easier to catch a line than a small mass, but in this gravitational field the tides are fierce, and if I try to grab a line being spun round with a weight at either end I could lose an arm.
Maybe I’ll do that sometime; might be a quick way to go. For now I snag the line using a crude hook I keep for this purpose.
Power cells; food blocks; fresh water; filters for the suit; all the usual suspects. That’s entropy staved off for another while. I tie these supplies onto the raft of similar crates floating in space beside me. I’m much more interested in the datapod, if there’s one there.
There always is. I take the datapod, and I plug it into my suit. Some virtual reality recordings of classical music. Good. A month’s worth of current events newscasts. That’s alright, but I’m out of sync. These are from last year and I’ve already seen more recent ones. Another bunch of letters and videos from friends and family. Not sure whether to start with those or leave them until last.
I remember the first pod I found, and the letters it contained. All the first 50 or so pods had the same message in them. They were all sent at the same time and they had no way of knowing which one I would encounter first. I still occasionally pick up one of the first batch.
“If you’re reading this then you didn’t plunge to your doom on the neutron star.” That’s Steve’s sense of humour for you.
“We think the accident blew you into a stable orbit that’s high enough up that it won’t immediately decay.” Correct. Not high enough up that they can rescue me, of course. Any ship coming this low would be ripped apart by tidal forces.
“We can’t transmit through the radiation, but we can send these pods into the same orbit as you and you can pick them up.” Ah yes, that radiation. The radiation that would kill me if it weren’t for my suit and the medical nanochines repairing the damage.
“We have to take the ship back to Earth now, but we’re leaving a field manufacturing unit in the asteroid belt. It’s going to scavenge matter and it will keep on turning out these pods and inserting them into your orbit. We can communicate with the factory and send new data to be forwarded.” Great. I can’t even die of boredom.
I have a virtually endless supply of consumables, both for me, and the suit. The medichines will keep me alive indefinitely. My suit needs a lot of fuel to keep my orbit from decaying, but they make sure to send me plenty.
So, I have a choice. Staying here forever orbiting a neutron star wearing only a spacesuit until I die of old age, or explosive decompression and a quick death.
I’m going for the third option. I don’t know if I’ll still be in one piece, or if I’ll be ripped apart. I don’t know if I’ll be conscious, but if not then the suit will keep my feet pointing towards the star. I’m burning all my fuel, I’m going in, and I’m going to be the first man ever to stand, just for a microsecond, on the surface of a star.
by submission | Apr 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Mike McLaren
Shmuel Berkov grew up in Logoisk, and lived a regular life like any other boy in the village, until his eighteenth birthday, when he made the decision to run for Prime Minster of Belarus. He wanted to grow up and save the world. His dream to be the leader of his country came true.
#
Four friends sat at the compass points of a round table. They leered at one another over the monitors of their laptops. One of them held down the SHIFT-COMMAND keys and fingered a series of letters and numbers. He pressed ENTER.
Montol bolted to his feet. “Gimme a break, Epron. Every time you take a new turn it seems like you’re trying to end the game.”
“Well, duh. Now you’re catching on. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on that three turns back.”
“Why?” asked Fras. “This is a fun game.”
“Come on guys; we’ve restructured the geology a billion times, rotated species over three hundred fifty billion times… .”
“But that’s the game, Epron.”
“We haven’t come up with a new thought in forever, not since Toubis invented gunpowder.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” contended Fras. “I came up with the steam engine idea right after that.”
“Just an extension of energy under pressure.”
“Uh uh. It allowed for the creation of electricity.”
“Just another extension of lightning, which was just an extension of fire. Don’t you see; we’ve gotten as boring as the game.”
“But I just came up with all those electronic gadgets.”
“Piffle. Fras gave that species thumbs for better uses than that.”
“So what do you want to do?” asked Toubis.
Epron leaned over his laptop. “Remember the first move of your last turn; you reorganized the politics of Europe and came up missing a bunch of nukes. Well, guess who has them.” He held down SHIFT-COMMAND, keyed-in G-A-M-E-O-V-E-R, and pressed ENTER.
All four boys leaned over their laptops and watched a crimson glow spread across their monitors.
“Well you did it, Epron.” Montol spun on his heels. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Got no choice, now.”
“Ah, don’t worry, man. We’ll think of something new. You know we always do.”
#
Prime Minister Berkov took up his pen, and at the moment he was to sign an historic document that would provide for perfect economic equality throughout the country, he was struck by another thought, as if a button had been pushed in his brain to reroute his synapses. He set down his pen, and picked up the telephone connected directly to the military base in Minsk. Within thirty seconds, the skies above Belarus clouded over completely with the contrails of nuclear missiles.
