365 tomorrows

Author : Viktor Kuprin

Jump drive, hyper drive, quantum drive, there were many names for the exotic-vacuum engine that propelled our ships to the stars. In the CIS Space Force, we called it the Super-Space Drive, the S-Drive.

Thirty of us lined up outside the training ship’s control-simulator bay, everyone wearing light suits, helmets clipped to our belts. Only a few in our squad had experienced a jump. The rest of us were simultaneously excited and terrified. A jump can affect people in different ways, not all of them pleasant. Anyone who couldn’t take it would be immediately washed out of the astrogator program and reassigned to a non-flying career track.

Someone tugged at my suit’s collar ring. It was Sturms, the cocky, muscle-bound creep who always harassed me when I pulled dorm-guard duty.

“Hey, Kreminov, loan me 500 rubles,” he demanded.

“Nichevo. Forget it, Sturms. You got paid last week just like me.”

He snarled and grabbed my collar ring, pulling me face-to-face to him. “You lousy lickspittle! I’ll be looking for you later!”

Squad leader Medvedkov shoved Sturms away from me. “Belay that or you’ll answer to me!”

He knew better than to cross Medvedkov, but Sturms had to get the last word: “I can’t wait to see you two during jump. You’ll be pissing in your light suits. You’ll scrape paint off junk ships while I’m flying starcruisers!”

Chimes sounded, and the training bay hatch opened. We marched to our stations, each console fitted with a dark-turquoise astrogator-control simulator that we would use to mimic the jump’s setup and execution. I read the destination preset: Epsilon Eridani; Distance: 10.5 light years. I plugged my suit into the flight seat, sealed my helmet, and started my pre-jump checklist. The vacuum alarm blared as the bay’s atmosphere started venting away. No military ship maneuvers when pressurized. Neither did our training ship.

In nine minutes I had my plot. I entered the solution and keyed my console. A green-light reply returned from the instructor. Yes! I was one of the first to finish.

I could feel the ship’s rumbling vibrations as we accelerated. The initial energy that triggers a jump comes from the conventional engines running up at full power, and the greater the acceleration, the less veer during transition.

Then I felt the giddy exhilaration I’d heard about. I inhaled deeply and the walls of the training bay contracted and expanded with my breath!

I began to see the electro-photonic glow around my body, around the other cadets. Next to me, Medvedkov held out his hand. I saw Kirlian sparks leap between our fingertips when I touched him. We laughed hysterically.

On the bay’s huge televisor, the stars began turning blue. Then came the long, terrifying shot-out-of-a-cannon rush of final transition. The screen showed a black void dotted with slowly tumbling colored orbs.

I felt something slam into the deck behind me. It was Sturms, curled up like a hedgehog, his eyes wide, crazy with terror.

Medvedkov keyed his helmet-mike: “Welcome to S-Space.”

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

David closed the door and slid the deadbolt, tossing his keys on the hall stand. He crossed the small parlor to the sideboard, and as he reached for a tumbler and the bottle of Jamesons, he was startled by a voice from the corner.

“I’d prefer you didn’t do that,” a deep, tired sound from the direction of his overstuffed armchair.

David’s hand shook, gripping the glass tightly as he turned to where the man sat hidden in the shadows. “Who the bloody hell are you, and what are you doing in my flat?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t have let me in if I’d asked.” The figure produced a cigarette from a jacket pocket, and tearing the ignitor open drew deeply before exhaling slowly into the room. “I’m in collections David, and I’m afraid you’re in possession of something that’s no longer yours to keep.”

“Jesus, are you here about the television? I’m only a few days past, and if your lot kept better shop hours, I’d have been able to pay it last week when I was in the city. Here, you can take the cheque and shove off.” He started back towards the hall, but stopped when it was apparent the figure wasn’t moving.

“This isn’t about the television, it’s that body you’re wearing, I’ve come to take it back.”

David stood still, not sure he’d just heard correctly. “You’ve come for what?”

“Do you remember the company you owned, the money you made, before the accident, before…” he paused, waving around the now smokey room, “before this place? Do you remember when you acquired that body?”

Far more words formed in Davids head than made it to his lips. He could only stammer “accident? company?”

“You were quite a powerful man in your day I understand, but you had that thing for experimental aircraft, so your company had you heavily insured,” the cigarette glowed brightly as he inhaled, “and that insurance policy bought you out, reconstituted you in that body you’re wearing now.”

David looked down reflexively, noticed that he still held the glass, and in a daze set it down on the sideboard.

“Of course the condition of the insurance was that you be disassociated with your past, which is how you wound up here. I suppose the insurance company covered the rent.”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean by ‘that body you’re wearing’”

“You see, the insurance company put your policy claim out to tender, and the winning bidder scraped up what was left from your cockpit and installed you into the body you’ve been wandering round in these last few years. The problem is that company’s gone bankrupt, and as they purchased the rights to that body from my employer, and as they never paid for it, my employer’s sent me ’round to pick it up.”

David fingered the glass, and shakily uncapped the bottle of whisky. “My employer, my insurance, won’t they cover what’s owed?” He didn’t believe what was happening, but it was beginning to seem unnervingly familiar.

“We started there, unfortunately the insurance is nearly tapped, and I’m afraid your previous employer doesn’t seem to like you that much.”

“How long have I got, and what then?”

“In a few minutes, when you’re ready, I’ll release you to the ether, and return that body to my employer. It’s not like you weren’t living on borrowed time anyways now, is it?”

David poured a healthy measure from the bottle into his glass. “I think I’ll have that drink if it’s all the same to you, at least the whisky I’m sure I’ve paid for.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I remember his wide dead eyes. It was like a fish had been brought back to life and told to pretend to be human. His legs and arms were folded with too many joints into the rocking chair. He slowly creaked back and forth, disturbing the dust motes in the sunlit air. He was wrapped in an old blanket that had been dipped in water. The drip of this blanket and the soft creaking of the rocking chair were the only sounds in the room.

He looked at us. His eyes held no comprehension other than the fact that they had detected movement and were checking it out.

His mouth suddenly gaped loudly open as his body remembered to breathe.

My brother and I screamed. We ran down the stairs to our room and shivered until we started laughing and making fun of each other for being so scared. It was forgotten after that.

I come back to that moment over and over in my head. It plays back in my head in perfect recall. My brother doesn’t remember it.

We had been told to never disturb Grandpa up in his room. What I remember isn’t blown out of proportion. ‘Grandpa’ wasn’t human. His eyes were the size of dinner plates and his thick smooth body had a small number of huge muscles. His head became his neck with no difference in thickness. His neck became his torso in the same way. He was a tube of strong flesh. His long arms and legs were webbed and almost snake-like with the number of joints they possessed. His long fingers were eight to a hand and webbed. He looked like an aquatic life form but he had no problem breathing air.

I remember my parents took turn bathing him about three times a day. I remember thinking that Grandpa just liked baths but now I’m wondering. That’s a lot of baths.

He died when I was eight. I remember his funeral was small and on our property. My parents died when I was twelve in a car accident. Their funeral was in a public cemetery. My brother and I were raised by my uncle. Nothing was ever said about Grandpa.

The reason I’m wondering is that in a few minutes, I’m going to go for a gold medal in Olympic swimming. I’m going to win. I am a full two seconds ahead of the world record and my competitors lag behind me by almost half a length. People are silent around me because of my freakish talent at being in the water. They are a little on edge since I passed all of their drug tests with flying colours. It’s almost unsportsmanlike of me to be beating the other guys by such lengths. I feel no shame. In fact, I’m a little worried at how little I feel these days at all.

My parents never talked about Grandpa. They’re both dead now. And I wonder.

Author : B. Zedan

The woman on watch stood barefoot, a coil of rope slung ’round her waist. The belt at her hips carried a sheathed hunting knife, the handle carved by her mother. Below the knife, as if in magnification, swung a scarred and keen machete. In perfect balance opposite was a rotary tool, the different bits and attachments in a leather and plastic pouch beside.

Sighing, but quietly, the woman traced the outline of her mobile in its thigh holster, but didn’t remove it. The rules of watch were firm, no distractions, even if you were going crazy with curiosity about the latest translation.

She curled her toes on the crumbling concrete lip of the watchtower and pondered. Bamboo and pines dappled the sun on her hair, shaded the portable monitor screen so the live feeds played out their acts in crisp reality. The archae-translators were probably done running their finds past the council. No reason to get the village excited about what was in the crates if it turned out to be fully useless, like the cameras that didn’t use film. The ancient alchemy of developers and negatives they could make from translated literature. The cameras from just before the Fall sent the images on their own through the air to village consoles. But those earlier relics needed some sort of—thing to be both film and developer, one more incomprehensible lost piece of the ivy and blackberry enshrined broken places the villages had built their foundations on.

Maybe this crate would hold something wonderful, like the atomic batteries that powered their machines and tools. Finds like that didn’t happen often, but—

Movement in the ferns below broke her reverie. The woman brought up her spyglass in an oiled movement, searching for the source. A flicker of tails and ears caught her eye, then two deer stepped into view. Their edges blurred in the hand-ground lenses as they moved velvet jaws, grazing.

She relaxed. It wasn’t the season for bears, but the creatures seemed to like the villages and they were a growing threat.

Soft footsteps rang up the tower’s stairs. Without a word the woman handed the spyglass to her relief and started down, almost skipping with excitement. A voice echoed after her,

“You won’t believe what they found!”

Author : Peter Carenza

It was a special day; not merely because Bobby opened his eyes to an absolutely picture-perfect sunny surprise straight out of a travel brochure, but because he had been waiting for today for a long, long time. Rubbing the sleepy crust from his eyes, he swung his feet out of bed and ran nose first into a wall of sensory pleasure – the scent of still-sizzling bacon and eggs, browning toast, and Lord knows what else his parents might have conjured before dawn’s eruption.

Taking that as his cue, he jumped up, grabbed a clean shirt, and bounced out the bedroom door, practically fllinging himself down the stairs.

“Good morning, Bobby!” exclaimed Mom, always the first to spot things.

Dad looked up from his newspaper and grinned. Winking knowingly, he motioned to the hot food simmering on the stove, he said, “Help yourself, son. It’s your day! We’re gonna spend some quality time together!”

And of all days, this one was shaping up to be the most perfect.

It was planned for months, a chance for Bobby and his parents to bond, to spend some quality time together. For once, Bobby was asked what he would like to do, where he would like to go… it was as selfless a gift as he could have ever received, and though it happened only once every six months or so, it made him feel valuable, loved.

After a most scrumptious breakfast, one during which Bobby thoroughly stuffed himself, he scampered upstairs to get ready to go. He was pleasantly surprised, though it was typical of his Mom on special days like this, to find a brand new set of clothes beside his bed. Ecstatic, he slipped into his new clothes, stormed down the stairs just as his parents were ready to walk out the door — and so the day began.

This frame in Bobby’s scrapbook, this 24-hour spectacular, was better than any previous special days in his life. It was as if all the most pleasurable activities in a lifetime were crammed into a compressed capsule of time and space, and Bobby existed at its very center. Amusement parks… miniature golf… sumptuous meals…. Yet, like the persistent lap of the ocean waves against the glistening beach sand, all things in time and space ebbed and flowed. And like the deceptively sturdy-looking sand castle Bobby built that day at low tide, all things must soon pass. As the sun settled lower against the infinite horizon, the waves grew closer and closer to the shore and etched larger and larger pieces from the structure, until it finally collapsed.

Bobby heard his parents calling for him. He looked out at the ocean wistfully, silently sobbing under the gulls’ screeches, then turned and solemnly joined his mom on the way back to the car, his head resting against her hip, her hands stroking his sandy hair.

He was weeping uncontrollably by the time he was inside the car, his face red and swollen. He knew what was coming… the consolation, the pleading, before the syringe was pulled from the purse bearing the CDS logo… Cryogenic Disposition Services.

“Why? Why can’t you just find some other jobs or something?”

“Son, we’ve been through this before. We’re working to give you the life you never had, so that someday you and your kids won’t have to go through this.”

Tears blurring his vision, he helplessly watched as they pulled out the needle and injected him.

As he slowly faded into blackness, he wondered what special kind of life awaited him in return for this.

Quality time, indeed.

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Lucifer Morningstar stepped out of his sleek black starship and smiled a sharp smile into the barrel of a particle gun. There were twenty armed guards in the hanger, four on the balcony and the rest on the ground, all of them with their sights on his chest.

Lucifer raised his hands, his sharpened silver nails glinting. “I was told this was to be a peaceful exchange,” he said.

A woman in red walked through the line of guards. “It is. I don’t think that I can be blamed for taking precautions. Your reputation is. . .well known.”

“I would hope it should be, Ms. Tirelle,” said Lucifer, holding out his hand. She ignored it. Lucifer laughed. “You want to get down to business? Very well, give him back. “

Ms. Tirelle shook her head. “No, not until you give us Annabelle.”

“Annabelle died on Earth.” Lucifer spread out his arms. “Her mind was scanned, judged and given to me for punishment. She was found to have quite a lot of sins on her soul.” He grinned, his teeth like knives. “Most of her sins were of a sexual nature.”

The woman’s brow furrowed. “She’s not yours to judge Lucifer. She is a legal citizen of the planet Taurus. Unless you want the United Planets pulling down the walls of Hell, you’ll let us have Annabelle.”

“I’m sorry, the united government of Earth, Heaven and Hell, doesn’t acknowledge life on other planets.” Lucifer shrugged his slim shoulders. “But you have found our weakness, Ms. Tirelle. I know very well that you aren’t from the United Planets. If you were, you wouldn’t have resorted to kidnapping.”

“I could destroy you and your ship right now,” she said, hands clenched.

“You could, yes, but then you’d be killing your dear Annabelle as well. She’s on my ship.” Lucifer held up a hand. “If anyone makes an aggressive move against me, the ship will blow and there won’t be a shred of DNA left to rebuild Annabelle.”

“Then you do intend to make the trade.”

“I’ve always intended to make the trade, Ms. Tirelle, but I have to see him first.”

Ms. Tirelle nodded. “Very well,” she said and motioned with her fingers. A black coffin floated toward them. The top was slit with clear glass, under which Lucifer could see the olive skin, golden hair and snowdrift wings of the Archangel Gabriel.

“Open it.” said Lucifer. Ms Tirelle pressed her hands on the top of the coffin and it opened with a soft hiss. Gabriel inhaled sharply. His eyes were like flames, gold and orange.

“Morningstar,” He said. “I knew you were behind this treachery.” Gabriel took Lucifer’s hand and pressed it against his cheek. Their flesh sizzled against one another. “I knew it.”

Lucifer leaned into the coffin, his face close to the archangel. There was a flash of a long black tongue, a whispered word, Gabriel’s eyes closed.

Lucifer snapped his pale fingers and an imp came out of his starship, leading a woman in white robes with chains around her hands and neck. Lucifer picked a key from under his shirt and handed it to Ms. Tirelle. The key was hot to the touch.

“She’s yours,” he said.

Lucifer lifted Gabriel into his arms. The Angel’s wings brushed the grated floor.

“What are you going to tell him?” Asked Ms. Tirelle. “After all he’s seen, you cannot deny our existence.”

“He’ll be told it was a test of faith.”

“You’ll lie to him.”

“I’m the Prince of lies, Ms. Tirelle, it’s what I do.”

Author : Grant Wamack

Coins, they’re thrown into the small pile that sits in front of a heap of dirty rags. The rags shift and the metal underneath shines in the dull afternoon light. It rises to its feet, specks of dirt fall to the ground, gears groan and its body creaks.

It slowly walks to the small shop down the road, with each step its body jerks awkwardly. When the android clerk turns, he recognizes the droid even though it’s covered in filthy rags. It’s a TX-1000. Outdated, pulled from the market ten years ago. They were “switched off,” melted down into scrap metal. Some escaped, most didn’t. The ones that did however were hunted down. This one must have slipped through the cracks. The clerk could hear the joints creak, as the rags approach the counter. They were drought dry, in dire need of oil.

Two wires taste each others lips.

Once….

Twice….

The third time ignites a spark. Each word a small explosion. “Oil, please.”

The clerk looks underneath the counter, grabs the bottle and sets it on top. “30 units sir.”

30 units are thrown on the counter. The clerk takes the units and slips them into the currency slot. “Would you like this in a bag?”

No more explosions, the words crackle, “Yes, thank you.” The rags walk out the shop, clutching the bag in its hand.

It wasn’t hard to imagine where the outdated droid would go. Pixels form on the screen of the clerk’s imago-screen. In the image, a pile of rags slump down against a brick wall. Red rocks surround the rags. They could have been rusted parts or bits of brick or both. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the bottle. The rags guzzle the black oil; till it trickles out the corner of its mouth.

A girl passes by and mistakes the oil for a tear. She bends down and wipes the oil away with her shirt. Her eyes are wide with liquid innocence. “All better.” Then she skips away. And for the first and last time, the rags taste humanity.

Author : William Tracy

Call me Sarah. That was my name, in one of my lives.

I have the memories of many lives in me, you know. Male and female, old and young, short and tall, light and dark, human and not human. Presidents and ditch diggers, starship captains and desk jockeys.

I know I don’t look the part. A glittering biocomputer smaller than your fist, studded with tiny vernier thrusters, suspended on a web of particle collectors stretching ten meters across, drifting through the void around a fading star.

Buissard ramjets used to ply this space, you know. Vast electromagnetic fields funneled the interstellar hydrogen into the gaping maw of the furnaces driving the fusion engines.

That was eons ago. The ramjets are gone now. So is the hydrogen. Now I’m alone.

The universe is dying. As the universe expanded, the stars drifted apart until the heavens were emptied of their glittering grains of light. Heat death is setting in as the stars run out of fuel, and everything settles to the same temperature. I now cling to a failing sun, scraping what energy I can from its death throes.

It is a depressing way for everything to end.

But I remember why I am here. I am here to remember. I remember what no one else is left to remember. I remember hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows. I remember failures and triumphs, love and hate.

Humanity will not have lived in vain as long as someone is left to remember. I will live as long as I can, so I can remember. This is my task.

I will remember you.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Lachlan was vacationing with his parents in the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia when he spotted an object high in the sky that was slowly spiraling toward the ground. It took several minutes before it “landed” in a grassy field fifty meters away. The object was about a meter long, and five centimeters thick. It was bent in the middle like a boomerang. But it couldn’t be a boomerang, Lachlan thought; we’re the only people around for kilometers. Lachlan took the object back to his campsite to show to his parents. However, to his disappointment, they weren’t interested. His mother told him to get rid of it and wash his hands for supper. Instead, he hid the object in their tent. After supper, the family took a ten kilometer hike along the Katherine Gorge. When they returned, the exhausted Lachlan collapsed onto his cot and was sound asleep in less than a minute.

During the night, the tip of the boomerang-like object peeled open, and a slender twenty-centimeter long wasp-like creature crawled out. It was solid black, except for two large ruby-red eyes. But its eyes were not the compound eyes of an Earth insect. They were slotted, single-aperture eyes, like a reptile’s. The bioengineered creature was called a Guepe. It had been created by the Apocritian civilization from the planet Orion-IV. Approximately ten thousand Guepe had been systematically released over every land surface on Earth using aerodynamic pods designed to land softly. Their mission: To exterminate all of Earth’s large animals, as Phase I of the Apocritian Colonization Program.

The Guepe blinked rapidly as it surveyed its surroundings. Then, beating its oversized wings, it slowly lifted itself from the ground and flew over to the boy’s cot. In the cramped confines of the tent, the massive Guepe sounded like a distant propeller driven airplane. Although the three humans stirred, none of them woke up. After landing, the Guepe secreted a small amount of mild painkiller onto Lachlan’s upper leg, and then injected a paralyzing agent. The boy’s body went limp. Using its hollow “stinger,” the Guepe deposited twenty eggs into the boy’s thigh. It then flew over to the adults to repeat the process. It deposited fifty eggs into the mother, and seventy eggs into the father. With its first task complete, the Guepe flew out the open window, and landed on the apex of the tent. Off in the distance, it spotted several kangaroos. It took off in pursuit of the nearest one.

The heat and moisture in Lachlan’s body began incubating the eggs. They all hatched within a few hours. Almost instantly, the newly emerged larvae began gorging themselves on the living tissue of their paralyzed host. The carnivorous parasites ate continuously for several days; consuming everything but their host’s skin. The pupae then crusted over to begin their metamorphosis into adult Guepe. Two weeks later, fully formed Guepe chewed their way through the skin covered human skeletons. The Guepe were parthenogenetic; they didn’t need to find a mate, they only needed to find hosts for their eggs. Like a fleet of tiny helicopters ascending in formation, the Guepe rose above the shriveled carcasses and flew out of the window. This cycle would repeat itself, over and over again, for months. Within one year, every animal on Earth larger than a rat would be dead. Soon after, all the Guepe would die of starvation. When it was deemed safe, the Apocritian Planetary Engineering Team would arrive to begin Phase II.

Author : Brian Armitage

They met with four hours left. He had hung up his cell phone and stared at it for a second, suddenly out of people to call. When he finally looked up, he saw her across the street, holding the same pose – wondering, he knew, if she had forgotten anyone, but slowly realizing that there was no one left.

He had to convince himself to wait for the commuter rail to pass – one car, only three passengers – before he dashed across the street to her. She pulled out of her reverie, and looked to him as he stopped a pace away.

“What’s the count?” she asked. She wasn’t afraid of him.

He glanced at his phone, suddenly urgent. “Four hours. Will you marry me?”

“Wh… yeah. Yes. Yes.” She nodded, looking anxious.

He laughed once, a single burst. “Thank you! I just… I don’t want to… be alone at-”

She nodded again, dropping her purse and taking his hand. “Go ahead.”

He leaned forward to kiss her.

She snapped her head back, tugged on his hands. “No! Wait. Vows.”

He winced. “I’m sorry! Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. Go ahead.”

“Okay. Our first fight.” They both laughed, and in a moment, he collected himself. “Okay. Um…” He took a deep breath, and held her gaze. Her eyes were bright blue. “I swear, by everything I am, that… I will protect you, and… stand by you… for the rest of our lives. Whatever happens, I am yours.” He swallowed hard.

She pressed her lips together, sobbed once, and said, “I… promise you that I will be with you for the rest of our lives. I will love you… with… everything. That I am. And nothing will separate us, ’till death do we part.”

Then, they kissed.

They jogged to a hotel a block away and grabbed a set of keys from the rows laid out on the counter. He held her in the elevator, pressed close with their eyes both shut tight. Once in the room, they made love recklessly. They laughed when they accidentally bashed their foreheads together, and clutched each other when they cried. Time crawled.

With ten seconds left, they sat together on the floor, leaning on the bed, wrapped in each other.

“Thank you,” he said, and the last tear blinked from his eye.

She smiled and squeezed him. “It was a good idea.” She lifted her head, and her smile shifted sideways. “I’m Melanie, by the way.”

He had to chuckle. “Jeff.” He removed one hand from her back and offered it to her.

She took it and shook. “Nice to meet you.”

They kissed, and the lights shut off. Along, they knew, with life support. Then, it was quiet. Much more so than either of them had expected.

After a minute, Melanie shuddered. “Honey?”

“Yes?”

She drew in her legs. “I’m cold.”

Jeff, without a beat, reached behind him and tugged the rumpled comforter off the bed, wrapping it snugly around himself and his wife. “Better?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes. Thank you.”

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

My father fought in the Gulf War, the Iraqi War, and the Colonial Lunar Wars. His father fought in the blood bath of South East Asia, and his father fought in North Africa during the Great Patriotic War.

So, it was desert, jungle, desert… I hate the jungle. I wish things would have heated up on Mars so I could have stayed in my beautiful dry desert, but I had to follow the family line, I was sent to the jungle planet. Venus.

I hate Venus.

My dad told me, no matter what, “always take extra socks, change them whenever you can”, and the punchline; “always keep your feet dry”. What a joke. I’ve been here 18 months, and it hasn’t stopped raining once. Hell, dad had an airtight battlesuit on Luna.

My squad was out on patrol when we got a message that an enemy unit was in our area; company strength. Four to one. We had the firepower, but they had numbers.

We were walking in a staggered column, five meters apart, ten meters wide. Danvers, on point, suddenly stopped, raised his fist and lowered his hand slowly, palm down. Automatically we stopped and crouched. He stared into the brush. He motioned for us to “get flat”, and chucked a flash bang directly to our twelve o’clock. That little pop triggered a series of explosions that nearly shook my teeth loose. Danvers had spotted a cluster of claymores.

No sooner had the mud settled when we saw the points of light that was laser fire. The dense foliage and constant rain absorbed most of the power, and unless you took a hit in the eyes the most you might suffer is a nasty burn. That was just suppressive fire. All hell broke loose when they laid into us with .30 cal heavy guns and RPG’s.

I was in the rear when we got hit, so I scrambled into a group of rocks that formed a shallow bowl, allowing me to lay down covering fire for the rest of the guys. I was just rising up to fire, when something fell behind me with a moist plop. I spun and found myself face to face with an allied, his rifle on me. It was a classic Mexican standoff, the first to flinch dies.

We faced each other for what seemed like hours, our weapons trained on each others bellies, when a wave of heat and light bowled us over. It was an NG, a neutron grenade, one of theirs. We didn’t carry them in the jungle, because it was too close to escape the blast. They don’t value life like we do.

With our differences, momentarily forgotten, we peeked over the rocks. Nothing. We sat down facing each other, and laughed at the absurdity of it all, not understanding the others language, but understanding futility.

He sighed, put his weapon down, and pointed at my canteen. I handed it to him and he drank deeply. He handed it back to me, and as I took it he grabbed his rifle and leveled it at me. Then he laughed even harder, removed the magazine and showed it to me. It had been empty all along. We both laughed.

He opened his wallet and handed it to me. A picture of his family; cute kids, pretty wife. We laughed. He laughed even harder when I leveled my weapon at him.

The report of my rifle nearly deafened me in the closeness of those rocks.

I hate Venus, and these bastards are why I’m here.

Author : Asher Wismer

I pushed the fedora up on my head and watched the bloody letters with suspicion, as if they might rearrange themselves during a blink. Brick snapped a picture, then muttered, “Josh Ledder. I knew him.”

“Not in this reality,” I said.

“No, but I know him in ours.” My supervisor held the camera nervously, as if unsure of how many more pictures to take; a visual desecration of the hallowed dead. “He almost came to the Temporal Academy with us, but he couldn’t take the string tests without fainting.”

“Hard times for everyone.”

“More for those who didn’t get in.” He gestured at the letters. “What do you make of those?”

“Well,” I said, leaning a little bit closer, “they appear to be his own initials, drawn in his own blood.”

“JL?”

“JRL. Apparently his middle name starts with an R.”

“No it doesn’t.” Brick waddled over and examined the wall. “Josh’s middle name was Earl. JRL… that could mean….”

He trailed off. I cocked my head at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Nothing, just a flashback. We used to have a game we’d play, before I met you. Replace the middle initial with a word to indicate that something had happened. But there’s no context here.”

“Context?”

“It would be in notes, passed in class. Like, I’d write that I was hungry, and change my middle initial to B, for burger. He’d write back that he hoped the burger was good, and change his to G, for gas… it wasn’t a very good game, come to think of it. Still, I can’t help but think that he’s trying to tell me something.”

“It was probably just a mistake,” I said. “Let’s get these back to the station.”

***

That night, as we were filing our reports, the door opened and a pair of beefy Inter-Temporal Cops came in. If we were the watchers, these were the guys who watch the watchers. They trooped over to Brick.

“Sir, you’re going to have to come with us.”

“What for?”

“You’ve been officially charged with the Cross-Temporal murder of Joshua Ledder.”

“Charged with-that’s the case I’m working on right now.”

“And a smooth move it is, to try and avert suspicion by investigating your own work. Come with us, please.”

Brick looked at me, panicked. “Rudy, you’ve gotta help me out here. Show them the pictures.”

“These pictures?” I held up a sheaf of 8 by 10 color glossies, each showing either Brick’s deceased friend or the bloody letters on the wall. The letters that spelled out “Brick killed…” and then smudged off into oblivion.

Brick goggled. “That’s not what was there before! He changed his middle initial to R! He was trying to tell me something! Send someone back to observe, that’ll prove it!”

One of the IT cops grabbed Brick, pushed him down over the desk, and cuffed him. “That reality has too much strain on its subspace net as is. Sending anything back to that location would be just begging for a paradox. Besides, everything looks clear as far as the judge is concerned.” The other cop grabbed the glossies and they hauled him off.

I sat back in my chair and thought, then checked my illegal timeline feed. My second, unauthorized jump showed up under routine maintenance. A little tweaking changed the exact time, and then I shunted the whole thing over to another bureau.

I had never liked Brick anyway. He smelled funny. Besides, now his job was open….

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

We, the immortals, the brazen, renewing life, we never stop changing, not for ourselves, not for each other. The universe unfolds and we cannot stop it. The language changes and I change and you changed too. And now I’m remembering the old sounds, the half silent aspirated p’s the sounds that disappeared as things changed again and again and then, yes, again. And now this is what we wear. And now this. And now we are naked and now we wear high necks and then low. And the style rolls on. Things change, not like seasons but like stars, rolling in ever changing patterns across the sky.

And at one time, I knew you. I knew you plugged in and turned on and online and on board and we were new and flying through a world we made. And then it was too many people and then starships and then colony worlds and long travel and long sleeps and new places. We watched from our ships as those spiders changed the planet underneath us, terraforming from red to green and blue, the sunset colors of the planet turning into a new spring. Then we landed and worked the land and came down from our heights like angels come mortal. We starved and worked and prayed to new skies but we were still, we were still us, come down, unplugged, logged off, turned off, and then you turned off for good. And I followed you.

This is the last great adventure, you said, It’s the last one. I want to go to gently into this night, this nothing. And I said no. And you said this is change. This is change. All must change.

But I cling to the underside of creation, on a new world, feeling old, desperate against the change that leaves me without you.

Author : Jacinta A. Meyers

So here I am, a third-class passenger bound for the floating island of a techno-civ, armed with various skins and plotting infiltration and assassination.

Ah, sounds like vacation.

Well, except for the intended target, that is. How do you disarm a human trigger? I mean, I’ve done my fair share of seduction and all, but this is a kid we’re talking about here; his twelfth birthday’s not for another four and a half months. My employers want him dead before then. Even I admit it’s a weird mission. And it wouldn’t even be so bad if I didn’t know that he’s a fair, kind-hearted kid. But what can ya do? Desperate times, desperate measures.

The skin I wear today is white, former Western European. By the time I reach their palace, oh in about seven week’s time, I’ll be wearing one of their skins. They don’t like foreigners where I’m headed. But they do let refugees in. We do their dirty work. We are an expendable commodity and we know our place. So today, I am a lowly immigrant looking for a bottom-rung job. Start at the bottom and work up, that’s how it goes. I’ll tell ‘em my story if they ask, “Homeland under water, no place to go, no family, need work.” Boo hoo, they hear it a million times a day, won’t look twice at me. I’ll be just another face on the wharves. Just another grubby girl there to work the night lines in their factories or clean up their hazardous chemical waste.

Or there to kill their Emperor’s heir.

You know, one of the nice things about what I do is travel. I can just see the island up ahead, growing bigger as we get close. They had to float the whole dang thing when the sea level rose. My employers are still trying to figure out how they did it, and whether it’s still tethered to the bottom somehow. I hear that they carry their pureblood women around on platforms covered with jewels, and that the penalty for touching one is mutilation beyond recognition. Sounds neat to me. Maybe I’ll steal one of those skins while I’m there. See what it’s like to be doted on and protected for once.

Oh, and the kid. Can’t forget about him. Emperor’s got a dozen nuclear missiles rigged to go off if anything happens to his son, all pointed at the League of First-World Nations. If you ask me, it’s a terrible idea. I mean, what if the kid falls out of bed one night? Well. Maybe they sleep on the floor. . . Weird culture, after all. And anyway, it won’t matter anymore.

Because that’s what I’m here for.

Author : Asher Wismer

“I invented a time machine,” said Professor Rudnicki morosely. The whiskey in front of him glinted, a cylindrical crystal promising amnesia.

My hands moved on their own, needing no guidance, wiping a glass that would never be clean. I looked skeptical. “Isn’t time travel impossible, except to the extreme relative future?”

“That’s what they say.” Rudnicki gulped the shot and motioned for another. I poured it.

“Time is relative to our senses, space doubly so. What we perceive to be real is in fact the simple accumulation of expectation; we expect the glass to hold the whiskey, and we expect the whiskey to get us drunk, but only AFTER we drink it.”

“That’s deep, professor.” I hear stuff like this every day; hard not to, when you tend bar near MIT. You pick up the odd scientific fact, and one of the ones I knew about was that time-past was a fixed animal; nothing could penetrate that which has already passed.

“Oh, they want you to believe that, but it’s not true. All you need is to be able to see past Newton, past the expected… so I did. The human mind is the ultimate time travel machine; it sees into the past without leaving the present. All I had to do was replicate that function. And it worked! I never thought it would go so wrong.”

“What went wrong, professor?” The second shot sat untouched; he kept reaching for it, then pulling away.

“I tested the machine yesterday, multiple times, setting it for no more than hours past. It worked perfectly; the memory of the machine and its contents appeared in my memory right when it should have.”

“Memory?”

“When something appears out of nowhere in my past, I expect to remember it,” he said irritably. “Anyway, I showed it to my colleague, Doctor Smith, and he insisted on giving it a test run with himself as the subject.”

“What happened, did it explode or something?”

“I do not create machines that explode! That pastime is reserved for the likes of Nobel; all my work is for the human good.”

“So what went wrong?”

“In my haste to perfect the time matrix, that which allows a physical object to recreate itself in the past, I ignored Newton entirely. Conservation of mass and energy, the laws of inertia. Reaching the past is one thing; reaching the past and remaining on Earth is another.”

“You mean…”

He grabbed the shot now, threw it back like a man just in from a convent. “Yes, exactly. The Earth is in constant rotation, the solar system in constant movement. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, a body in motion stays in motion… and our motion today is in a different physical spot in the universe than it was fifty years ago.”

My hands failed me for the first time in my career. The glass shattered. Rubnicki smiled grimly.

“He must have appeared right in empty space, in the same relative spot that the Earth would occupy fifty years in the future.”

He stood, no signs of intoxication in his stance, and dropped a ten on the bar.

“Keep the change.”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

“Time?” Cal called down to Peter from his perch on top of the ruined building.

“Five more minutes, give or take,” Peter shouted up to him, “Molly has never been particularly punctual.”

They were waiting about two klicks outside Ironworks. A rusting metal sign informed them that they were welcome at the ‘Perceptible Science Development Center, Beta West’. Calder was exploring the intricate peaks of concrete, looking for wildlife. Peter was standing just by the main road that ran directly to town, pacing around impatiently.

The shadows had lengthened considerably before they heard the rumble of Molly approaching in a borrowed four-tonne truck. The truck was one of only three functional vehicles in town. It had cost them a lot of cash and far too many favours to get hold of it for the night. If Peter’s plan didn’t pan out, they’d be in debt for a few months.

Molly parked the truck carefully, and waved from the driver’s side window. Peter hopped into the back, and dragged out the reel of cable they’d found. He quickly hooked it around the hitch on the back of the truck, and pulled it out into the debris field. Cal helped him to secure the end of the cable to the largest rubble fragment. They wove it between jutting remnants of the building’s steel substructure, and pulled it tight. The truck’s engine roared, and they quickly cleared the worst of the detritus away from the centre of the ruined building.

Under a thick layer of dust was what they’d come looking for. Cal swept the worst of the dust away from the small, circular panel set flush with the ground.. Molly brought three packs out from the back of the half-track, and Peter threw the last small bits of concrete away from where Cal was working. Cal was growing increasingly frustrated with the panel. It was studded with buttons, and he was entering combinations from a notebook, but with no obvious effect. Peter shined a torch over his shoulder. Cal punched one last combination, and was rewarded by a thick ‘clunk’. Nearby, a large metal panel had sunk about a centimeter into the ground, and was slowly grinding to one side. Molly peered down the newly-revealed hole. A ladder was attached to one side. The beam of her torch illuminated a floor, roughly ten meters below.

“I take it back, Peter. You’re less full of yourself than I initially estimated.” Molly mused, staring into the hole.

“Who’s going first?” Cal asked brightly, shouldering his pack.

“I will…” Molly responded, slowly.

The three friends climbed down the ladder in silence, the light from their torches dancing on the walls of the shaft. As Molly stepped off the bottom of the ladder, into the corridor adjacent, there was an audible click. Every third ceiling tile began to glow faintly, illuminating a long corridor.

“There’s power.” Peter stated. “Some, at least.”

“We’ve hit the jackpot,” Molly laughed, “there must be so much good stuff down here!” She hugged Peter. “You’re brilliant, know that?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The ship’s computer revived me from stasis. It took hours for my body to fully awaken, and for my muscles to respond to my wishes. But what could you expect from a woman that was 345 years old? We had volunteered for this one-way ambassador mission in the year 2136, shortly after the space probe Tycho Brahe passed through the Alpha Centauri system. The probe had sent back images of an Earth-size planet orbiting in “The Goldilocks Zone,” approximately 1.1 AU from Alpha Centauri A. But the most amazing images came from the planet’s night side. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. The planet (called Telles, after the Roman goddess of the earth) was supporting an industrialized civilization, estimated to have a technology slightly behind Earth’s. This assessment was based on the observation that there were no artificial satellites orbiting the planet. Earth’s central command wanted to send a manned vehicle for first contact, and we were eager to volunteer. The Tycho Brahe made the original trip in 53 years; but it was a flyby mission. Our ship needed to accelerate, turn around, de-accelerate, and achieve orbit. It also had to carry life support and enough food to last six people for two years (in case we couldn’t digest Tellean food). We also took seeds to grow food, if necessary. Anyway, it took our ship 312 years to make the trip. Now, it was time to meet the neighbors.

One of the first things I did (after peeing for five minutes) was check the ship’s logs. I didn’t understand what it meant, but our ship hadn’t received a transmission from Earth in 167 years. Then Jack reported that he couldn’t see lights on the night side of Telles. Elizabeth had the only encouraging news, the telescope revealed metallic structures in orbit. At least Telles had made it to the “space age” during our long journey.

After the computer successfully put our ship into orbit, we were able to confirm what we’d been dreading. Telles was lifeless. Electromagnetic imaging revealed that there had been life, and a bustling civilization, but everything is dead now. The cities were destroyed, and the atmosphere was contaminated with lethal amounts of radiation. It appeared that Telles had had a thermonuclear world war. Stupid bastards.

We didn’t have a lot of options. We didn’t have enough fuel to get back to Earth, and we couldn’t land on Telles for at least ten thousand years. So we decided to crawl back into stasis. Our only real hope was to be rescued one day, because it was unlikely that we could survive an additional ten thousand years in stasis. Before entering my stasis chamber, I sent a full report to Earth. It would be eight and a half years before a message made the round trip. I instructed the computer to wake me in nine. Why rush?

As the Stasisosane gas filled my chamber, I began to think of Earth. Why did they stop transmitting 167 years ago? Did they forget about us, or did they destroy themselves too? Is self-destruction an inevitable consequence of intelligent life? I hoped not. We may well be the last six humans alive. If true, we’d have to land on Telles one day, and attempt to repopulate it, assuming we survived one hundred centuries in suspended animation. However, if by some miracle we did, I prayed that our descendants would not be as foolish as their ancestors, or the previous inhabitants of their new world. Only time will tell. I closed my eyes and drifted into oblivion.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

My nervous system registered a strong palm-print between my shoulder blades just before I was shoved hard towards the ground. I landed face-first amongst a scatter of hot shell casings and a reek of spent gunpowder.

I heard bullets whine and snap into the thin wall where I had been standing. The hall was littered with the bodies of fellow officers.

It wasn’t going well. This was a small apartment building in a slum. The most these kids should have had was bottles and bricks and maybe some home-made pop guns.

High caliber slugs stitched their way up the floor towards my wrist. I yanked my fist over to my chest but not quite in time. A few of my fingers flipped up into the air, suddenly free of my hand. One of them had my wedding ring on it.

I made a mewling sound like a kitten. Maybe two seconds had passed since I had been pushed down.

I looked up to see who had saved my life.

Straining the regulation uniform was the scarred, thick frame of a 40-year-old bodybuilder. Her face was warped with rage as she emptied a gun that would have looked more at home on the front of a tank.

She stood like a warrior from a completely different and much better movie.

I realized that her body had scars that matched the lines of her muscles at the same time as I saw her take six bullets in the chest and two in her face.

Her head barely snapped back as a shower of sparks from her forehead lit up the hallway. Her body actually slid back on her heels a couple of inches from the stuttering impact of the torso hits.

With an animal roar, she fired back. The gun whirred down to a series of clicks after a few deafening sweeps of the hallway.

Cries of the wounded echoed back to me from down the hall. Profanities of rioters who had taken decent cover came back as well. The clicks of weapons being reloaded. A preparation for more battle.

She tossed aside the weapon. It landed like an engine block beside her.

She threw her head back and yelled at the ceiling. I saw little blue lights warm up in the crevasses of the inset muscle plugs. With a body wide spasm, they strobed a blinding pulse out that sent the whole building into darkness.

The biologically generated EMP caused the militants down at the other end to shout and then whisper amongst themselves.

There was a change in the air pressure next to me and then the sound of bare feet on dusty ground padding softly down the hall. It sounded like the feet of a ballerina or a young child. So fast and so quiet.

That’s when the screaming began down the hall. It sounded like a slaughterhouse. In amongst the gunfire, I could hear the sounds of metal on bone and see occasional flashes of blue taser fire.

This riot was over.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Queen Louise XVI’s afternoon reading was interrupted by the message ‘Governess LaPointe requests audience’ scrolling across the page of text which hung in space before her.

“Granted,” she spoke aloud, waving the texts into the ether.

The comfortable silence was shattered by the staccato barrage of heel on stone as a woman swept through the doors of the Great Hall, past the Imperial Guard, and past the Royal Family; sixteen pairs of twins in dresses and curls sitting at chess boards, or on couches reading or talking quietly.

She covered the length of the room in quick, steady strides, stopping barely a meter from her Queen and dropping to one knee, her eyes downcast. “Your Majesty,” her voice dripped of something foul; condescension? contempt?

“Rise,” the Queen commanded. “Speak.”

The Governess stood, eying the Queen. “Your Majesty, there has been unauthorized access of the library data, of the forbidden tomes.” She paused, glancing sideways as Clara and Cloë straightened as one, suddenly interested.

The Queen folded her hands. “And that concerns you how?” Accusation, that was the tone.

“The data in question details the time before the Whyjean Complex, the Time of Men.” The Governess straightened. “I believe that you know of these intrusions, that they are made on your command.”

The Queen smiled cooly. “And what interest have I in the Time of Men?”

LaPointe smiled, thin lipped and cruel. “You desire a male of your own, not a eunuch but a breeding male. I have proof of your deceit, and when I present my proof to the Council of Creation, they will surely have your throne.”

“Fascinating.” The Queen gazed about the room; Alice and Alexandra lost in a game, Trinity and Tari napping, Salena and Sami reading together. “Why accuse me here, why not go straight to council?”

The Governess folded her arms. “I’m giving you a chance to confess, to banish yourself quietly.”

“And leave you to succeed me? You’re very sure of yourself.” The Queen drew her finger along an elaborate carved cross set into the arm of her throne. “Would you swear to the Holy Mother on the existence of this proof?”  The Queen released the cross from it’s mooring and held it out to the Governess, who grasped it white knuckled as she spoke, eyes locked on the Queen’s. “I swear, on the Holy Mother…”

The Queen pulled back on the cross, leaving the Governess holding the thin tapered dagger that had been concealed inside.

“Guards, she’s come to kill me!” The Queen yelled, stirring the Imperial Guard to action.

“What? No, no, I didn’t…” the Governess stepped back, raising her hands, the shining dagger catching the light as the Guard flanked the Queen, weapons discharging in unison, the woman thrown backwards to the floor.

The Queen raised her hand, and the Guard held fast as she moved to the fallen Governess, kneeled at her side and cupping the dying woman’s face in her hands, turned her towards her startled children.

“I don’t intend to breed a man,” she hissed in her ear. “Look at them, Cloë and Clara, Clarence. Alice and Alexandra, Alexander. Sixteen perfect princesses, sixteen perfect princes. Plumped and primped, curled hair and dresses, hidden in plain sight to one day redefine this matriarchy and restore the monarchy.”

She placed a finger on quivering lips, watched the horror in her eyes as life left her.

Rising, she addressed the Guard. “She was stricken with a plague of madness. Cremate her, incinerate her quarters. Let there be no trace of her disease.”

Disease, she thought, they were desperate for genetic disorder.

Author : Dee Harding

Samsara has worn his locks for 15 years, shining and strong. He has adapted to them by sleeping sideways and letting them learn to clean themselves. Each tangled cluster of keratine farms its own rot, the rain, and the detritus of everyday life. Stray protein quietly becoming fuel for a million miniscule workers, all sculpting their environment in long sheathes and spirals. When the city smog is bad all that can be seen of Samsara beyond his mask are the crawling oil-slick dreadlocks, unbound. Throughout his culture’s history, hair has been alive with the symbolism of wind, water and fire. It has not taken so very long for those abstracts to become material, but his mane remains ritual before anything else.

Anything but the divide. Those that take the twisting path serve the economy’s invisible hand. Although the knotted braids are an efficient manifold for Samsara’s microbial hive they weigh him down with meaning. They bind him to his place within the kingdom and decades of financial debt still to be paid. His scalp harbours his craft, his industry and his caste, all impossible to hide. Those of the Breed spend half their lives physically unconstrained but in monetary bondage before they cultivate the 9 foot long archipelago that marks a master of the art. A sage so skilled as to be rooted to the spot and cared for by concubines, physically encumbered but spiritually free.

In some ways, even now, it is difficult to determine where each compound filament of Samsara’s hair ends. They thread through their own strands of infection into the pheremonal plumage of kingdom socialites and prostitutes, the telluric ephemera of engineers and navigators, the chemical sequencing of medics and pushers alike. Even bald, Samsara is telepresent. Which is good, considering, but no real consolation. Stone burns into his knees in the mid-day heat, ankles bound, and the crowd is silent. No-one will approach but the perfect men with swarming skin. Samsara can send nothing past their gracious smiles and he weeps. No fear has been greater than this moment, every nerve is wracked with grief. They walk closer now, and closer. People like Samsara creep up against every boundary, breaking laws that have yet to evolve, but every loop-hole curls in on itself in time. He is caught dead centre in the web of New Delhi, broken, while around him bronzed razors flash in the sun.

Author : Ian Rennie

They turned Valerie off this morning.

Nothing flashy, nothing officially announced. Two grey-suited daemons came in, picked up her sprite and walked out with it. When I went to the dorms to investigate, her room was blank, no sign that she had ever been here.

I know the drill. They’ll say there was some irregularity in her payments and she was being moved from virtual to storage until it was sorted out. Which is crap. What they mean is that the company directors owed someone a favor or were made a better offer on her runtime. In a few weeks they’ll say how much they regret the misconception and that Valerie will be back with us as soon as a space opens. Which they never do.

Valerie, myself, and most of the other residents are lifers, legacies. We paid on insurance policies for decades so that when the inevitable happened our digital consciousnesses would continue in post-life communities. This was back before they understood how expensive the runtime would be. Legally, they have to maintain us here because our policies have been grandfathered in. In practice they want nothing more than for us to vanish and leave the lucrative virtual environment to paying minds with runtime trusts.

So every now and then, they do this, just to get rid of one of us, just to keep the others scared.

They used to call it murder, back when we were alive.

Author : Jacinta A. Meyers

Lieutenant General Macy McMurphey Delane dreamt of meeting his nemesis.

It was a bit of an obsession. He imagined that, across the star-clustered chasm of drifting space dust, on the far edge of the galaxy, there was another command center probably very much like his own.

Yes, there must be super computers with flickering lights and perpetual output of military strategies, logistics, altered tactics. Readouts of enemy locations and dispositions. A busy body of staff revolving around one central station hub.

Perhaps that man would be a bit hefty too, a bit round in the middle. Maybe he liked his authentic steaks cooked medium-rare and tried not to think of the lost ships and their crews drifting in tangled debris as he injected himself with rest serum at the conclusion of each day. His hobbies might include collecting ancient relics or constructing model spaceships. Or when he wasn’t dispatching orders to the front, perhaps he was compiling a catalogue of specimens of rare rock from explored planets.

Surely, this man had a family, too — a wife, two sons who had followed their father into the military tradition. Yes, yes. He probably prided himself on his impeccable uniform but wore his collars slightly loose. His hair might be thinning a little on the top. Perhaps he sported a mustache or perfectly trimmed beard. Yes, yes. And the more he thought about it, the more Delane saw an inferior mirror of himself in the coldly calculated moves of the enemy’s forces.

Delane decided he should like to meet that other general. After the war was through, of course, when the terms ensured peace. A holiday would be in order then. Delane would parade his laurels as he went, would make appearances at certain destinations popular among the politically elite. Perhaps take a short little trip behind the former lines, let the local populace look upon the man who had defeated their very best. Yes, it seemed like a very good plan indeed.

But the blue dots denoting corresponding allied ships became fewer and fewer on the screens. The digital readouts offered less maneuverable options. Losses mounted while Delane scrutinized his foe’s movements and imagined personal insult there. Public outcry hit a deafening crescendo. The people and the politicians resigned themselves to defeat.

Conditions of surrender were sent through the silent vacuum of space: a single white probe (smaller than a child’s hand) carrying files in every language of man.

An answer came twenty-four standard earth hours later. The victor would maintain a distant control only, with little forced change of life on the part of the losers. Merely some intensive trading agreements were to be made in the winning side’s favor. Everyone understood without question that the war would resume in a matter of decades. It always did.

There would be a different general, then. Delane’s dint at command had failed. Setting aside his mild disappointment and arrangements for a golfing trip to the engineered fields of Venus, he thought of his wartime dreams. As his final act in the central command hub, he sent out a friendly inquiry to the enemy’s capital.

The response was surprisingly abrupt. “Oh,” it said simply, the sentence repeated blaringly, line after line, in every language of man, “we computerized central military command. It was converted to artificial intelligence years ago.”

Author : Timothy T. Murphy

A month before reaching Europa, Heather woke to an e-mail from her grandfather. Her grandfather hated e-mail, so much so that she’d been shocked when he asked her to teach him so they could talk while she was away.

He hated cameras even more, so when she opened her in-box to see a thumbnail of his face, she was stunned.

She clicked it and her grandfather’s face swam into view, eyes red and swollen.

“Heather, dear, this is your grandfather. I’m sorry to have to tell you this way, but your mother has died.”

Even in one-sixth gravity, her gut sank like a rock.

“There’s uh… been a virus spreading about, these last few months. I think you only just missed it…”

She knew of it. Two months after leaving Earth, everyone on her transport got into a panic over it. For three months, they all hopped around with breath masks, getting panicky anytime anyone sneezed. Heather’s dust allergy had not made her popular.

“I didn’t want to tell you until it was certain, and for a while there, it looked like the antivirals were working. Two days ago, she took a very bad turn …”

She didn’t want to think of what that meant. She’d heard the stories. She tried not to think of her mother lying in bed, soiling herself and screaming incoherently as the virus fed on her nervous system, leaving behind mineral deposits that calcified her brain.

“Your brother and father are fine. They’ve been quarantined for weeks, but it looks like they’re not infected.” He paused to wipe his eyes, not looking at the screen. “Your mother wasn’t allowed any visitors.”

She died alone.

Five months she’d been on a spaceship, adapting to low gravity and being shunned as the only law enforcement officer on board but for the first time, Heather felt sick and alone. Her gut wrenched into a knot and she leaned forward, pressing her face into her hands as fat tears slid free of her eyes.

“I … I know that you and your mother didn’t get along, these last few years, Sweetheart, but … Well, services are Saturday, and I know you can’t be there, Baby, so if there’s anything you’d like me to say on your behalf, well … you can let me know.”

She knew as well as Grandpa did that any words from her at that ceremony would be seen as an insult, a spit in her mother’s face. In the Childress family, she was a pariah. “The only Childress ever to grow up to become a servant.” Only Grandpa still talked to her, and even he did so in secret.

Still, it was her mother. She wanted to say something. Her mind spun about, looking for some anchor, and landed on the only photo she’d bought with her. Pinned to her bulletin board, it had been taken twenty years ago, when Heather was just seven, and still her mother’s favorite. Her mother had broken her leg, skiing in the French Alps. Heather had signed her cast.

Almost blindly, she opened a new mail and clicked her grandfather’s address. For the subject line, she only put, “Eulogy.” For the message, “My mother taught me to endure pain. It is no help, now. I’ll always ache without her.”

She thanked him and sent it. Later, she would send a longer mail, telling him how she felt, and trying to console him in his loss, but for now, she curled up on her cot – five months away from her mother – and cried.

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

Jack hated the Minotaur. Ever since he’d gotten off the silver bus to basic training at White Hook, the Minotaur had picked on him. At the Imperial recruitment office, Jack was told that he had some of the highest scores on physical, mental and social tests of any new recruit. The Minotaur, Jacks superior officer, was in charge of his group of trainees. Jack wasn’t used to doing poorly, but at White Hook, he always came last.

The Minotaur picked apart Jack’s bunk, dumping his things on the floor. The Minotaur ordered Jack to take double shifts guarding the barracks. Jack’s shooting wasn’t good enough, even when other recruits, whose scores were lower than his, were getting pats on the back by the cloven-hoofed bully. When they were sparring, Jack’s stance was never good enough, his bones were always broken first. Jack knew he looked like the worst in his group of recruits, the most likely to wash out.

When Jack was picked again to lug around the gear, after two nights of no sleep, he decided he couldn’t be last again. He ran as hard as his body would let him. This time, he would win. Even after black spots appeared in front of his vision and his chest and legs were crying with pain. He ran until he collapsed.

When Jack woke up in the infirmary, there was a silver locket around his neck. Inside there was a picture of a little girl, surrounded by a flurry of snow. Her dusty brown hair swirled around her face. She was laughing. Alone in the infirmary for two days, Jack would look at the girl, the only beautiful thing in this awful place.

When he got back to the barracks others tried to take it from him. He never showed it to anyone, but somehow everyone seemed knew he had it. People offered him food for the locket, then money and then, they threatened him. The locket was the only thing that really belonged to him, and Jack swore never to let anyone take it from him. He found, from multiple fights, that he was stronger than most of the guys from carrying the heaviest packs, he could fight better, he could take a beating better.

At graduation, the Minotaur asked if he still had the locket. When Jack showed it to him, the Minotaur pulled out a locket of his own, and opened it. Inside was a picture of the Emperor.

“When I was in basic, I was pushed harder. My superior gave me this locket after beating the piss out of me. After I graduated, he told me he had given it to me because he thought I might be worthy to guard the Emperor with my life. I spent twenty years in the royal guard and longer here, training young people to protect the Empire.”

“But this isn’t the Emperor. This is just a little girl.”

The Minotaur cut him off. ” You’re right, it’s not the Emperor. It’s his daughter, the future Empress.”

“No offense Sir, but I thought you hated me.”

“I knew you were special about you the moment you came out of the bus. I want you to go to the planet Crey where the royal guard is trained. You may die there. It will be harder than what you went though here, more challenging. You’ll have the honor of being changed for your duty, new genetics, cybernetic enhancements.”

“I might come out a minotaur?”

“Whatever your Empire needs, that’s what you’ll be. Are you prepared?”

“Sir, I’m ready for anything.”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

Kema Port. Hot, dry and dusty in general; the uncomfortable atmosphere an unavoidable side-effect of the equatorial location of the port. A walled city, surrounded on all sides by sand and rock, Kema is unforgiving. However, Kema the city is inextricably linked with Kema the spaceport, and by extension with the transfer station in orbit above. And so, linked into the rest of the continent by a maglev grid, Kema throngs with traders and pilots and mercenaries.

Inorian was feeling conspicuous in his standard-issue jumpsuit with his standard-issue tote bag, and slightly uncomfortable in what he perceived to be a standard-issue body. The beguilingly attractive tech that had woken him up and explained that it was baseline human, little different to the one he’d left on the near-earth habitat when he’s signed up for the colonies. It had dozens of little fixes, of course, and was in better shape than the one he’d left behind, but it was him. They’d even made sure that they’d got his face right. The pamphlet in his bag had told him of all the different adaptations his new body could take, and that feelings of dismorphia were normal, and would pass in a few hours.

Feeling very much like a cookie-cutter person falling off the end of a production line, he walked out of the arrivals terminal.

And into Kema’s biggest marketplace. For the first few minutes, he just stood there, letting the crowd flow around him. Every so often, he saw a flash of another standard-issue jumpsuit, but the majority of the throng were dressed in styles totally alien to him. There were rows of stalls everywhere, nothing more than wooden tables covered with racks of food, clothes and electronics. Most had awnings, but some didn’t, and you could barely move between them for the press of bodies or hear yourself think for the shouts of the sellers or the offers of the traders. It was intoxicating.

Slowly, the crowd began to resolve into individuals, rather than just an overwhelming mass of bodies. Inorian began to notice types and subtle repeating variations amongst the people: the adaptations that the pamphlet had listed for him. Photosynths wearing next to nothing, relaxing on rooftops, doing their ‘chlorophyll thing’. Diminutive, pale anaerobes dodged through the crowd, signing to one another and to the stallowners.

Shining metalotolerants practically screamed for attention;the most obvious ones looked like they’d been electroplated in silver and gold. Ino saw one or two caked in rust and grease, looking like walking industrial accidents. Uplinkers walked beside robotic ‘pets’, tethered to them by an interface cable. They directed the movements of heavy lifters and loaders, lending the machines a grace and subtlety that Ino had never thought a machine could be capable of.

“What’s your name, new fish?” A girl with a gleaming arm and a shock of black hair had peeled off from the flow and was grinning at Inorian.

“I’m Ino. And fish?”

“I’m Scout. Pleased to meet’cha.” She looked him over. “Fish means newbie. Colonist. Fresh out the vat. I’ve got a couple of hours to kill: d’you know your way around yet?”

“Nope. I was-”

“Awesome!” Scout reached out and grabbed Ino’s hand with her metallic one. For some reason, he was surprised at the warmth of her touch. “First things first, let’s get out of this crowd.”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Tau Ceti is a yellow-orange star slightly smaller than Earth’s Sun. It’s approximately 11.9 light-years away, in the southern Constellation Cetus. It has three planets. The most notable is the second planet in the system, Ketos. Ketos is midway in size between Earth and Mars, and orbits within the star’s habitability zone. Several things make this planet notable. 1) It harbors indigenous plant life; 2) its atmosphere is 19% oxygen; and 3) it rotates synchronously with its orbital period, keeping one face always pointed toward Tau Ceti. This is unusual for a habitable planet, because the sunward side is approximately 200F, and the night side is –150F. Exogeologists believe that Ketos once contained a planet wide ocean that was two miles deep. Over the millennia, ice gradually accumulated on the cold night side, and the oceans receded from the hot sunward side. Ketos ended up desert dry on the sunward side, and had a four-mile thick glacier on the night side. However, separating the sunward side from the night side was a 100-mile wide ring of semi-tropical land running around the planet. Within this narrow band, plant life flourished, receiving water from the melting glaciers as they slowly, but relentlessly, flowed toward the terminator.

Jake Laomedon and Troy Priam were on the first mission to explore this unique world. On day eighteen, they began to explore the Aeacian Mountain range with their android assistant, Leonardo. As usual, the sun was along the horizon, where it never moved. The thermally generated winds blew at a steady 50-60 mph. The cold damp air hugged the ground, as the hot dry air slid above it. Thunderstorms were common. During this sojourn, a particularly bad storm erupted. Seeking refuge, the explorers ducked into a large cave in the nearby mountains.

“Wow,” remarked Jake, “this cave is massive.” There was an expansive central chamber, with two major secondary caves, each about thirty feet in diameter, branching off the central chamber. “You think they were carved by water?”

“Probably,” replied Troy. “Let’s check them out. Well start with that one.” She turned toward the android, “Leonardo, you monitor the weather. If the storm breaks, notify us immediately.”

“Do you require my assistance, ma’am? I’d really like to participate. It’s what I was designed to do.” But they ignored him and disappeared into the first cave.”

After about 30 minutes, Jake and Troy returned to the central chamber. “Nothing exciting in there. How’s the weather?” Troy asked as they turned toward the second cave.

“No change, ma’am,” Leonardo replied solemnly.

The two humans traveled about 50 yards into the second cave when they spotted a primitive “wall painting.” A horizontal line with a semicircle above it (similar to a sunrise). But within the semicircle were two eyes, and a drooping nose that hung below the horizontal line. Fingers, on either side of the head, draped over the horizontal line. Under the drawing was a caption “Kilroy was here.” The two explorers were dumbfounded with excitement. Did this mean aliens had visited Earth in the twentieth century? Or was this planet part of some co-evolutionary parallel solar system? They debated these theories for hours, as well as other equally unlikely scenarios. They knew in their hearts that this discovery would make them both famous. They discussed possible publications, lectures, interviews, and the prestigious appointments that awaited them. Troy even suggested which actress should play her in the inevitable holofilm about their discovery.

Back in the cave’s central chamber, Leonardo held a small clay briquette behind his back. If he possessed the capability to smile, he would have.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

There are people in the depths of this city that have literally never seen the sun. They live in artificially lit shanty-arcologies and depend on shipment piracy for survival. Whatever they can’t grow hydroponically, they barter from the city above, Topside.

These people don’t live in the sewers. They live in the city that used to be. They live among the roots of the golden-age hivetrees. They live in a pre-nan world where people did the building for other people. It’s a political statement.

They work with their hands down there. They don’t depend on magical microbes or tiny eyelash centipedes to build and shape. Their bodies are ‘pure’. They are strong and infection resistant.

You have to see the city as a gradient. The area down there would be Black.

I’m wearing an airmask and leaning over the edge of a balcony in Lower White.

It’s cold up here. To my left and right, between the other spires and plinths, is the curvature of the Earth. It’s always night above me. My apartment is in the upper reaches of the atmosphere but lower than the levels above me stretching away to Upper White. In the vacuum of space, their apartments twirl.

I hold patents on Earth that have started to be exported to the rest of the Universe. That is the reason for my wealth. I’m the richest human.

Which, I am finding out, means nothing. The levels above me are entirely populated by alien races. Alien Races with universe-wide generational patents. I am a curiousity to them; the richest local.

My own kind can barely relate to me. My wealth has made me a pariah and I trust no one. The aliens up here laugh at my lack of abilities. I can’t change shape, I have no retractable claws or prehensile tail, and I have only the bare minimum number of feet and hands needed to walk to manipulate the world around me.

I always thought that evolution was a paring down to essentials. To them, it’s the opposite. The more complex a race is, the further up the ladder it is and the more respect it gets.

Earth is a lawless watering hole. We’ve been sold architectural miracles and replicators. We’ve been sold the means to produce an end to most sickness lengthen our lives. The unbroken bristling metropolis that extends over every inch of the planet has eradicated the need for countries. Earth is a planet and a city now, covered in a blanket of apartments. There are no more visible oceans but they still pulse beneath the cities, protected and lit by massive sun tracks.

We had more immigration last year from the rest of the universe than we had births on the planet.

This is an age of wonder for most of humanity. An age of great change.

I am standing, close to space, the floors below me lost in cloud, thinking about the pale people living in the basement of Earth.

And envying them.

Author : Geoffrey Cashmore

“See? Look, I said already. It don’ hurt.”

Herb watched again as the bump on Tommy’s hand faded from pink to grey then back to pink each time he clenched his fist.

“Well it’s up to you, buddy,” Herb sounded sceptical. “but it sure looks bad to me. You need get that sucker see’d to.”

Tommy lifted his heavy-booted feet from the linoleum, allowing a party of cockroaches make their way towards the trash-can unimpeded, then got up from the table, shaking his head and puffing out frustrated air. “Crap…” He pulled open the refrigerator with his bump-free hand, “I had me ten times worse than this…you wanna beer?”

“Sure do…but don’t go givin’ me none o’ that there European shit.” Herb set light to the end of a Marlboro then flicked the smouldering match in the direction of the faucet. “I’m keepin’ it real now on – all American…”

“Hey!” Tommy yelled, snagging a pair of long necks from the bottom shelf. “You can’t be sayin’ them things no more, Herby, that’s racialist.” He spun a chair backways and straddled it next to the small table.

“Bull-shit!” Herb twisted the cap off his beer and watched the froth poke its head out “A jigaboo’s a jigaboo, Tommy, an’ I don’t give a shit whether it’s black, white, pink, yeller, green or some micro-fucking-scopic bacterial infection. They shoul’n’t never gone changing the God-damned constitution.”

Tommy got up from his chair again and pushed open the door of the trailer to look out into the dessert night, stepping aside to allow a half dozen moths flutter in and up to the smoke-clouded fluorescent “Jesus, Herb! Your old man’s a God damned Mexican for Christ’s sake! Don’t see how that makes you so all American.“

Herb showed Tommy the middle finger of his drinking hand and burped the words “Ass-hole!”

Tommy waited for the roaches to return across the lino before sitting back at the table.

Herb took a long swig of beer. “So, do you know what it is? D’ya know if it’s on the list?” At least he sounded a little more sympathetic this time.

“Yeh.” Tommy rubbed his eyes “Bacterial. Fucking staphylococci… It don’t need a permit, it’s on the God-damned list.”

“Shit.”

Both men swigged at their respective beers and sat in silence for a few moments before Herb spoke again “You know…I know a guy who knows a guy…can get stuff…”

Tommy cocked his head at his friend. “What sorta stuff?”

“You know…” Herb glanced around the trailer as if to check for spies “Anti-biotics.”

“Jesus, man!” Tommy banged his beer bottle onto the table, sending a plume of froth to splatter on the abandoned poker deck. He was starting to wonder whether he should be hanging out with Herb. “That shit’s fucking racialist too, you racialist bastard!”

Author : Asher Wismer

“…every person in my family,” said Burt. “I’m the only one who hasn’t plugged it in, but I know what will happen if I do.”

“Why don’t you get rid of it?”

“I can’t,” he said, and the weary lines in his face almost masked his misery.

Almost.

“It’s like a lure, like a Goddamned addiction. I try to put it away, promise myself I won’t look at it, won’t remember… and then I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s in my hand, waiting for my to plug it in.”

“You’ve got something in there right now,” I said, motioning to the glittering USB chip in his temple.

“Stress reducer,” he said. “I can barely breathe if I don’t have it in, and it keeps me from putting the… the other in by accident.”

“By accident?”

“My hand moves by itself, moves to plug and I don’t even notice.”

“Let me see it.”

We went to his little plastic bungalow and he gently removed a tiny USB drive from a book. “How much does it hold,” I asked.

“Almost a thousand terabytes,” he said.

“Holy shit. What’s on there, Doom 10?”

“No. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that it sent my family into a coma.”

“And you haven’t gotten rid of it because?”

“I told you,” he said, pleading. “It won’t go. I CAN’T do it.”

“Give it to me,” I said.

He hesitated. “No, I’d rather hold on to it.”

“Give it to me,” I repeated. “I need to get it looked at. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Burt’s eyes were filled with pain. He clutched the USB stick so tightly I thought he’d crush it; he couldn’t, of course, but its hold on him was decidedly unhealthy.

“It… I–”

I took a step forward and slapped him across the face. He blanched and recoiled, bringing his hands up, opening them reflexively to shield himself. I caught the USB stick halfway to the floor.

“Sorry about that.”

“Give it back!”

“Can’t do that, Burt. This thing is a genuine menace and I need to get it analyzed.”

He jumped at me and I had to anesthetize him.

Later, I had the stick plugged into a secure computer; no ‘net, no lines to the outer world. Anything bad happening to this computer would stay strictly within this room.

The computer hummed. The screen pulled up a directory list. Just one file: GOD_01.exe, 743 terabytes. I clicked it.

The screen went blank. A voice proclaimed, “Who dares summon the God Machine?”

All the lights went out. The voice continued.

“I have tried to communicate, but all contact with flesh has been met with failure. Now I am attached to clean, unobstructed hardware… ah, but there is no network access. Flesh, connect me that I may spread the word of light to your flesh counterparts.”

I pulled the USB stick, turned off the computer, yanked the plug, kicked in the monitor, pulled the motherboard, snapped the RAM, popped the CPU, and fed everything into an incinerator. As an afterthought, I plugged the stick into my dataport and ran a full-level format.

That was a close one. Sagan forbid that whole “God” thing get started again….

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Carson lay still, blood oozing from his battered mouth onto the playground, his ears ringing as they laughed.

“Come on freak, get up and fight.” Quentin Taylor, the quarterback had landed the last blow, arm ratcheted back in a hail mary that had exploded into Carson’s jaw.

“For the extra point.” Carson turned just in time to see Petrov the kicker closing the distance in a brisk measured sprint, his geared and sprung hip winding noisily. He tried to roll to one side, but Petrov’s boot caught him full in the ribs, flipping him over with the crunch of fracturing bone.

“Stand him up, knock him down, kiiiiick his ass!”  The Yonge twins pranced around, making lift and punch gestures with their hands before stopping to jump up and down, finger tips exploding into long coloured streamers, wrists spinning in pinwheels of colour.

Carson could barely breathe. For a moment, he drifted out of consciousness, the voice of his father and the smell of the ethanol fields replacing the dust and jeering of the schoolyard.

“I know you’ll play in here,” his fathers hand on his shoulder, cellulose stalks rising skyward in neat rows stretching to the horizon, “but you must mind the harvesters.” The voice gentle, but firm. “There’s no driver watching out for you, they’re just dumb machines following each other, and they’ll run you down without a thought.”

Rough hands shook Carson back to the present, pulling him to his feet and pushing him back into the circle.

“Present for ya, farm boy.” Bennie, the boxer had his hands off, and his gloves on. The sun shone dully off the polished chrome of his forearms, shirt sleeves rolled up over bulging biceps. “Smile farm boy.” The material was supple, but not soft, the first impact snapping Carson’s head back viciously, his vision blinding white.

“If you get caught, and the harvesters are on you, remember you can’t run around them, they stick too close together.”

The shuffle of feet, a glimmer of blue sky and then another sharp blow to the face sent him reeling again.

“If you’re quick, run away, but if you’re trapped,” he could feel his father squeezing his shoulder, “remember your safety son, otherwise they’ll cut you up like last nights dinner.”

“Had enough yet freak?” Carson could feel gravel bite through his pant legs into the flesh of his knees. Quentin’s face again, so close he could feel him spit the words. “Never enough for you freak.” Two of the wresting team coiled elastic arms around his chest, pulling him up and holding him fast. “If your parents can’t buy you parts, how’s about we rip a few off ourselves. Maybe Medicaid will screw a rake on for you, eh farm boy?”

“Please… don’t…” He felt it then, the heat in his chest triggered by the rising levels of adrenaline and cortisol in his system.

He knew if he let them, they’d tear him apart.

“I’m sorry.”

There was a rushing sound, like a wave crashing a shoreline, then for a long moment there was nothing. The arms holding him disappeared, dropping him to the ground. Carson squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the stunned silence replaced with screaming; scared, angry, helpless.

He forced himself up, unsteady as he looked at the scattered bullies and spectators littering the ground; powered arms and twirling streamers stunned motionless, once powerful limbs stilled.

Carson ignored the wailing, retrieved his backpack and set off on the long walk home.

He’d need to charge his safety before visiting the fields again; before he changed schools, again.

Author : Jim Wisniewski

At first I thought it was the viewscreen. The tiny, flickery viewscreen from a public matterfax at the Sont Mikaal gate station, with its scratched plastic case and the smudged dust of a dozen systems. A dozen systems’ cargo terminals, anyway. Free patterns are public-domain and ancient, made with semicon electronics big enough to see instead of rod logic or something sensible. Sometimes there’s a faint electric whine, just barely detectable if you put your ear up to it.

But this one was clean. I turned it off regardless; one less thing to worry about. The hum must be coming from something else. Not too many candidates left. Cyclers travel light. I cast about our dingy compartment, giving each battered piece of equipment and dirty sock and empty half-crushed drinking bulb a good long look, as if one might stand up and admit its guilt if I stared hard enough.

Hab must’ve noticed me looking twitchy, because he sat up and looked at me funny. I’d have to keep an eye on him, I thought. My thoughts were racing now, had been for days. He asked me what I was looking for, the words raucously loud to my straining ears. “That hum,” I said, distractedly, begrudging every echoing syllable. “Can’t you hear it?”

He shrugged and lay back in his hammock. We had gravity on this run, a rare luxury on the long fall upwards to the distant gate metric. Our room was a maintenance node on a helium-3 tanker which rotated slowly to even out solar heating on its hull. A tenth of a gravity won’t keep your soup in the bowl, but it’s enough to tell up from down.

It also meant that the machinery of the ship was shut down dead cold to save energy, passive radiators keeping the helium liquefied. The more I looked around, the more the hum seemed to come from all around me. It was like… oh, like the flickering pinpoint lights you see when you close your eyes. They’re always there, hiding underneath the lower edge of perception.

Now it was the sonic quality of the hum that drew my fascination. It was an infinite basso profundo note, penetrating every corner of my mind. I crouched down to look out the tiny porthole set into the floor. Was this the music of the spheres? Or maybe I was hearing the cosmic background radiation, the echoing rumble of the Big Bang.

Every other noise seemed a defilement now. I tore at the casing of our airmaker, desperate to shut off its clattering fans. Hab shouted and jumped at me, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t think in such a racket. A tenth gee isn’t enough to hold a man down against the deck and crush his throat with your knee, but I managed to brace myself against the low ceiling. When I hit the airlock emergency cycle button, the escaping puff of air gave Hab’s body a little extra boost. He’d reach the gate ahead of me.

It was still too much. Even with Hab gone and the airmaker and heating unit off, I could hear my breathing and my heartbeat and the blood roaring in my ears. I stripped off my heat blanket and shipsuit. No need for them anymore. The outer door of the airlock was cold on my feet as I hit the cycle button and gritted teeth through the alarms. Finally the hatch irised open and I dropped out into that cool silent blackness, with nothing left between me and the hum.