by submission | Aug 17, 2010 | Story
Author : Kent Rosenberger
The vidphone at the other end picked up on the second ring. “Family Affairs, how can I help you?”
“Customer number 26337NS-24.”
The attendant typed in the numbers in her computer. “Ah yes. Mr. Johnson. How can I help you?”
Johnson gave a wan smile. “Look, I’m glad you’ve been working with me at that end, but I just can’t keep up with the payments anymore. Tough economic times and all that.”
The attendant nodded. “I understand, sir. Did you want to downgrade to a cheaper program? Just until you get back on your feet?”
Johnson shook his head. “No. No, I think at this time I’d just like to cancel my subscription, if you don’t mind.”
More typing. “Of course, sir. Did you need some time, or should I make this effective immediately?”
Johnson had already made up his mind. “Immediately would be best.”
“Of course, sir. You’re paid up through the end of the month. I’ll backdate to today’s date and we’ll send you a refund directly to your account for the difference. We will inform all of your contacts on our end; work, school, church and so forth. Will there be anything else?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“Alright then. If you ever want to re-subscribe, just give us a call. And sir, I am sorry for the loss you are about to suffer.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, sir. And have a good day.” The screen went blank.
Johnson turned away from the video viewer just in time to see his wife and two children, gathered in the living room with him, wink out of existence in a static-filled blue haze. The artificial family he had come to know and love for the last twelve years was suddenly gone, more victims of the crumbling economy.
In less than a second, Bruce Johnson was no longer a husband or father. As he sat in the abrupt loneliness of his home, he wondered if he would now be considered a bachelor or a widower.
by submission | Aug 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Chris Amies
Mewi Lupa suli sat and inspected the heel of one boot, which had come adrift revealing an odd honeycomb pattern in the structure. With her tongue she dislodged a small piece of carrot between two teeth – the relic of her morning’s teethcleaning. On Hydris the only use of carrots was to clean teeth. Mewi had never known it otherwise. She was shipborn, a daughter of the ‘Long March’ who had never set foot on a world until she was three years old.
Her work was to produce books for the community. The new language had taken root like a plant aboard the ‘Long March’ and all books previously aboard – in English or in Chinese – had been used for fuel as soon as their tongues’ last speakers were too feeble to protest. Instead the 120 root words of Toki Pona were used, spoken, written down in various combinations; you could say most things in them. Mewi had originally been called Mavis, and her surname ‘Lupa suli’ had been ‘Trench’: ‘Lupa suli’ was literally, ‘big hole’.
In the new language you had to weigh words very carefully. The elders remembered the old tongues and how dangerous, how imprecise they had been, and they told Mewi and her age-clade all about them.
Mewi’s hair was spiky and orange. She washed it in the null-grav washer in the ship – an affectation, but she had few others and she was still young. The null-grav sphere was fun and the power that drove it wasn’t about to run out any time soon. Those who were shipborn gravitated back to it time and again.
That evening as the orange and violet sky of Hydris was darkening, Mewi and her friends Luka and Ewani regretfully left the null-grav sphere and stepped out into the echoing grey space of the ship. Ship was home for the elders; Mewi and her age-clade, a foot in each camp, slept in bunkhouses down below on the planet’s surface. But the ship drew them back, especially now they were becoming adult and their games had changed.
The oval door of the ’Long March’ led to a ramp, and the three walked down, hand in hand.
The scents of the night-blooming trees filled the air and some strange creature – a scaly thing that in ten million years might evolve into a bird – shrieked.
There was a small knot of children at the bottom of the ramp, nine-year-olds or less, planet-born. As the three said ‘hello’ to them, they chattered curiously. Mewi thought their eyes glittered yellow but it must have been the light of the setting sun.
The children followed Mewi and her friends, talking between themselves, but although Mewi tuned in –
“Listen to them,” she said, “can you understand what they’re saying?”
“Not a word,” Luka agreed.
“Me neither,” said Ewani.
The children streamed past them, strange words hovering in the air and fading away.
by submission | Aug 15, 2010 | Story
Author : William P Sanders
The man trod the dusty, broken path, poorly-shod feet disturbing the detritus of a hundred years of decay and rot, sending up small plumes of filth as his heels impacted with the grime and rose again, each step propelling him onward into a future full of uncertainty and doubt and the weight of the knowledge that whatever lay beyond the next rise, it was as cold and uncaring as the earth he traveled.
Night came with a sense that nothing was different, that no changes, good or bad, were in the making, and that the dawn would come, grey and pitiless as always, a bright and yet dull point on the eastern horizon, if only he’d wait for it.
He did.
That morning, he pushed himself into a crouch and then stood, loose dirt falling from the sleeves of his coat and back to the shape he’d left in the scummy earth, that of a man curled up as though a child, a shape that would likely lay undisturbed until changed by the wind and the rain, the rain that never seemed to come, and the earth would once more forget his passing.
He trod onwards, down the same broken road, over gently rolling hills topped with brittle vegetation and the scarce whispers of a time long gone, pieces of metal or other materials shaped specifically for tasks that none were able to perform anymore.
Minutes went to hours and they in turn were lost to the vast infinity of time. He’d no notion of whether he’d covered inches or feet or yard or miles and when he thought maybe he would turn to look over his shoulder, to see if the hills were still visible, his neck ached and he stopped thinking about it.
The dull bright point hung low in the silvery western sky when a time came that he’d reached a great divide in the earth where once a bridge had spanned from one side to the other, and it came to him that this had been a river but he didn’t know how deep or wide, and anyway it didn’t matter because he couldn’t see the other side or the bottom and every muscle and fiber in his being hurt and the idea of trying to cross this, now or ever, made him physically ill.
The man sat down on the road, slender, aching back against the metal ribbon of a guard rail long gone into rust and all full of holes, and closed his eyes.
The night passed in silence with nary the chirp or chatter of even the smallest creature, and when the dull bright point rose slowly and lazily in the east after the passage of the hours, the earth found its population reduced by one.
by submission | Aug 8, 2010 | Story
Author : Dale Anson
Seventh Contact
The ship was nothing but a bit of gossamer, wrapped in a smallish chunk of spacetime and plasma, elongated to impossible dimensions. Krista’s thougths, stretched by relativistic time, traveled from synapse to synapse in mere seconds. Ahead, the red star grew from a suggestion to a dot to a period to a disk to an orb to a sphere to an overwhelmingly large object that dominated all thought to absolute brightness bending her course slightly to the right to merely large to not so large to diminishing to what was that, anyway?
Krista looked outward, considering the trigonometry of the center versus the reddish star disappearing rapidly behind her versus the nebula at 9 o’clock versus the smallish galaxy below versus the leftish edge of the spiraling arm directly ahead. It would be at least a quarter turn, she decided.
She napped.
She blinked. She heard it now, low level, but distinct. She heard the sound of organization, of civilization, of thought above the slime level. Hours later, fully aware, she triangulated. She had entered the second arm, her journey across the void had been successful. Krista backtracked the signals: correlation, confirmation, origin. She ran pattern matching routines, deep archival retrieval processes, and bounced everything against her last known intelligence registries. She ran her data through the subspace routines, then through the species identifier, then through the spacetime geometry stacks, then through the hyperspace stacks.
It fit.
The bluish star pass to port, then she aimed toward a yellowish star down and to starboard.
Krista passed a small planet, then an orange gas giant with a ring, then a small white planet, then she contracted, swelled, and slowed to visibility. As she rounded the yellow star, she saw the blue marble from ancient days. She angled toward the equilibrium point trailing the orbit of the blueness, and set up her defenses to repel the incoming nuclear warheads.
Contact was never easy, even when it came from home.
by submission | Aug 7, 2010 | Story
Author : Christopher Booth
The life support system wheezed. Not that it made any difference. Yahwee could barely hear. Eons in space and the ability to communicate without making a sound made Yahwee’s ears barely usable.
His big black eyes wanted to cry, but the ability to cry had been lost some time (time? A concept he never really got comfortable with) ago.
“And Jesus wept”.
Yahwee remembered he had heard that somewhere. Or written it…or something.
A pale white figure slumping in the chair, long white fingers pawing the panel in front. The damage to the ship will not be repaired. That knowledge was lost. The ships never need this kind of repair. Five light years away from where Yahwee is suppose to be. And Yahwee will never make it back…
Yahwee’s eyes drifted. With the first contact with the race they were primitive. Yahwee had seen this a thousand times before. Take a primitive race. Teach them and let them teach themselves. Watch them, love them, nurture them. Never hide, but never be seen. Give them language and morals. Give them the freedom to grow and the guidance to grow straight. Give them an occasional “Miracle”.
This planet was exceptionally bright. They were difficult to lead. As they entered into their middle ages they resisted to being led. Their creativity interpreted Yahwee as a god…more than once. Their lust and brilliance led to their wars. Their learning made them dangerous. The ease in which they learned made them bored. Yahwee has dealt with these civilizations before.
But they were such beautiful creatures. No one creature’s skin was the same color. The soft subtle hues delighted Yahwee every time he saw them. They were tall and strong. They had physical love which Yahwee never got to experience. Their eyes were different colors. Rare for any race.
And they built glorious temples to Yahwee. By themselves. Pyramids and domes and spires. The fashioned their meager resources by hand and later by the machines they built. They wanted to please Yahwee, and he was pleased. When they join the cosmos, they will bring a beauty to awe most races found.
The key is to reveal one’s self before the civilization destroys themselves. Some civilizations allow themselves to be led into Yahwee’s bliss. It was the ones that did not want to be led that blessed the cosmos the most.
At times Yahwee considered what it would be like to be a part of this race. He was comforted to know that one day they would become a part of his.
Yahwee’s heart broke. Yahwee knew the Yahwee would not be there. The souls he committed to ashes were the souls he was supposed to save. He would not be there to save them. What would they become when their god does not return. They will destroy themselves. The flower will bloom and wilt. Never to be frozen in the cosmic time as it was meant to be. Their beautiful skin, their puzzling eyes, their strong bodies, their art and their architecture. Yahwee had heard of it before, but never one of his civilizations.
Yahwee was dying. The ship is lost and will not be repaired. Yahwee lived 10,000 lifetimes…but no more. Where will they be without their god. Yahwee wanted to cry…but not for Yahwee.
