365 tomorrows

Author : Greg Ashworth

The weather was terrible. It always was these days. The fluctuating temperatures, the driving rain, the harsh winds – all this was to be expected.

Sarah sat alone in the corner of the coffee shop, her eyes somehow distant, as she browsed the Net, aided by her neural implants. A tear crawled slowly from her dark eyes, and made its way down her porcelain cheek. The coffee shop a small, rustic affair, with dim lighting, which was somehow not entirely unfriendly. There were a several small, round synthetic wood tables, few of which were occupied. Long shadows were cast by the flickering argon lamps that lined the walls.

Sarah looked up, and then back into the swirling darkness of her coffee cup. She stared intently for several minutes. An old, ragged man looked up from his espresso, as if disturbed, then thought better of it, and returned to his own melancholy world.

Sarah’s deep, thoughtful gaze continued unabated, as if she was challenging her cappuccino to blink. There was an eldritch energy in the air now. The thick brown liquid began to rage in its ceramic prison, the foaming coffee thrashing and turning in the cup. The weather worsened outside, and the coffee shop began to echo with the pounding hail, hurling itself at the small glass windows, hammering against the seemingly ancient tiled roof.

Eventually, the owner, identified as ‘Luigi’ by a fading plastic name tag on his tarnished waistcoat, edged nervously towards Sarah’s motionless form, tapped her lightly on the shoulder and pointed apologetically towards the small wooden door.

Sarah slowly dragged herself from her trance, shook her head sadly, tossing her long black hair over her pale, disheartened face. She sorrowfully made her way to the door, careful not to let it slam behind her. The hail stopped, and the clouds parted slightly. It began to drizzle.

A small piece of paper fluttered slowly to the rough stone floor from the table at which she was sat. An eviction notice.

It had been thought for the early years of the twenty first century that man was to blame for the steady decline of Earth’s climate. It was, but not in the way scientists had thought. Many years, and vast amounts of money were spent researching ‘greener’ sources of energy, and in reducing the now laughable ‘carbon footprint’ of the world’s population – all for nothing.

At some point, in the middle of the twenty second century, tests were done on a small group who claimed that their mood influenced the weather. It was a scientific and psychological breakthrough – man had been responsible for the worsening climate, but it was the increasing depression and declining quality of life of humanity what was causing it, utilising the long suspected telepathic field linking all living organisms to the place of their birth, and yet, the governments chose to do nothing. Money could not be made from increasing the happiness of humanity, only destroying it with their ‘green’ fuels and ‘carbon credits’, and so the climate worsened, as did morale.

These were the days that a simple letter, removing a student from her apartment, could cause a violent storm that resulted in the deaths of four people and hundreds of credits worth of damage.

These were the days when happiness would save the planet.

Sunshine glinted off the wet roof of the coffee shop, interrupted by shadows cast from passing air taxis, and laughter echoed from down a nearby street.

Author : J.R.D. Skinner

“So, are ya?” He’s maybe twelve, wearing blue shorts and a Mexico City Raptors t-shirt, a leg up on the wrought iron patio fence. My lobster is getting cold.

“What?” I ask.

I realize he’s holding up a thin rectangle the size of a credit card, alternating his squints to get the thing’s picture to match my face.

“CEO Benjamin “Crush ‘Em” Hinton?”

I remember signing off on licensing my likeness to FlatMedia last May, but I hadn’t seen the cards in the wild.

I ignore him.

That might have been the end of it, but a serving girl swings by my table.

“Your bill, Mr. Hin – Ben.” She says, smiling uncomfortably.

That’s what I get for flirting with the wait staff.

“It IS you! Could ya sign my card?”

He thrusts a red stylus and the card at me. I accept, mostly just interested in checking out the cheap display on the back. There’s a rundown of my resume; schooling, management experience, time spent on corporate boards.

I tap on New Youth Limited. Not much my rookie year, but the second I was apparently one of “The Resurrection Seven”, a voting bloc that saved N.Y.L. by moving from chemical processes to genetic engineering. I remember the vote, but I don’t remember anyone using the snazzy nickname.

Sliding through the listings, I notice some of them have been marked up in a child’s block script, often with arrows pointing to individual entries, notes like: “Bob may have had seniority, but not the votes!”

“Anywhere?” I ask.

“Sure!” He says with a sloppy grin.

I tap the pen icon.

“Is it true that you punched Director Jules Wilson?”

“Heh, yeah. I mean, Wilson always came in drunk, but he fucked up my presentation. When he started pawing at Kathy Reed I was just looking for an excuse.”

I look up, wondering if I’ve said too much for a kid his age, but he seems to be eating it up with moon eyes.

“You ever gonna work somewhere huge like Kalstock again?” He asks, face imploring. I scribble and hand him back his card.

“Maybe.”

His saucer eyes begin to droop.

“Hey,” I quickly add, “I mean, there’s talk that Kalstock may revisit their policy and have me back for another term, but its hush hush.”

He brightens. I imagine him lording the harmless secret over his friends for a week.

“Tedward says you got lucky with the Talibi Merger because CEO Norma Donald was kicked by Talibi’s oversight expert system. I think he’s a craphead. You’re so smart you must have done something.”

I smile, recalling my best maneuvers.

“I bought shares in a number of Talibi subsidiaries using various fake names. I put out a lot of crosstalk showing a lack of stockholder confidence. The system got nervous. I paid good money to insert low numbers into that week’s financial reports, and the system went to red alert. Things would have been fixed as soon as they saw the next round of numbers, but I used the whistleblower hotline to point out a lie on Norma’s resume involving her university rowing team. With so much bad happening so suddenly the computer thought the world was ending and booted Norma, the only one who understood Kalstock’s real intentions.”

The kid’s smiling the whole time I’m talking, but as I finish he turns and waves to someone. It’s then I see the New Youth product watermark on the back of his neck.

“Mr. Hinton – Carl Nochek, special agent of the Securities and Exchange Commission. You’re under arrest.”

Author : Peter Carenza

The rain poured relentlessly outside. The micro-God was wistful this morning.

I turned down the shade, walking back to the recliner with stealthy footsteps. You never knew when one might hear, and perhaps deduce the wrong intentions… to them, intentions were everything.

And really, ironically, our good intentions were the start of this whole mess.

Our obsession with environmental purity, our fear of what might be and relentlessness in our pursuit of an all-encompassing solution drew laser-sharp focus from the world’s brightest minds. They all agreed that the technology, tools, and science were there for a quick resolution. Our rapidly growing skill set in the field of nanotechnology, they claimed, provided the potential to remove any excess carbon, ozone, methane, and many other kinds of pollutants from the atmosphere in short order. The money was there, as was the intent, and now there was nothing to stop it from happening.

The designers gave these nanorobots the ability to fly, or rather to glide , on prevailing wind currents.

They were given the ability to absorb certain molecules. The molecules would be “eaten”, until the nanobots were laden, at which time they would sink earthward and become part of the earth itself, as it had been so long ago.

They were given the ability to self-reproduce. That, I think, was the hitch, because once they evolved what appeared to be a primitive consciousness, there was nothing that could stop them.

You really didn’t want to upset them.

On a bad day, when the nanos felt threatened by a run-of-the-mill passenger jet that just happened to penetrate their masses, a built-in defense mechanism activated. Reproduction doubled, tripled, and more. Something just shy of anger erupted, and we soon knew what was in store for us when the plane got tossed from the sky by a sudden downburst from a supercell thunderstorm that appeared in just minutes out of a clear, blue autumn sky.

We knew then that they could control the weather, on a whim. Were they supposed to have whims?

They could control the flow of wind, the clouds, even the content of the air we breathed. They had, in essence, become God-beings.

The volume was muted on the television at the other end of the room. I couldn’t risk their comprehension of what was going on. I was watching CNN. Something important was going to happen in the next few days. I was impressed at the bravery of the reporters for even daring to break the story… but I knew they knew what was at stake. We needed, if only for a moment, to experience a small sensation of hope. Which of us remembered what that felt like anymore?

In the banner, there were indications that somehow, they were sensing what was about to happen. Hail storms destroyed crops in Italy, where a leading scientist lived. A typhoon like no other seen before threatened the coast of Japan, from which observers made the latest calculations and concluded that yes, this was probably the last hope for humanity.

The report grew bolder as time passed. We were instructed to seek shelter as far deep underground as possible. The God-things would not be happy, and that was the least of our troubles.

I think they knew. After all, it was raining. Everywhere, it was raining.

The scrolling banner now read “Asteroid expected to hit in three days – seek shelter now!”

Imagine that. Our only hope, coming from something that nearly rendered our world desolate many eons ago.

My thoughts? I think the real God didn’t appreciate the competition.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Ephemeral. That’s a word I like. It means fleeting. It means transient. There used to be a whole genus of insects called Ephemeroptera. They were called that because they lived for less than a day. The word is also used poetically to suggest something as transitory as it is eternal. The ephemeral joys of youth, for instance.

There was a time in the past back when I was in an early model where my humanity was still fairly rampant. It accounted for a large chunk of my psychology. Even though I had become mostly machine, I still had trouble looking a woman in the eye if she had obvious lovely cleavage, for instance, or when I was carrying out the battle orders I’d actually feel rage and exhilaration like there was still adrenalin in my system. No penis. No adrenal gland. Just old feelings. Remembered instincts. Residual humanity, they called it.

Ephemeral.

It’s a strange thing to come full circle. I’m now over a hundred model changes old. I’ve been loaded into so many shapes and frames over the decades that I’ve completely lost my knowledge of being human.

The model I’m loaded into now is designed to be as close to human as the possible tech allows which is pretty close. I have functional but sterile reproductive parts and something actually approaching a human psychology. It’s all synthetic of course. The biologics just became too hard to augment. Starting from scratch seemed the best way to go, especially out here on the outposts because of the hazards. The decision to make the employees here look human was just an in-vogue style call.

There’s a human deep down inside of me that’s remembering this. It’s remembering what it’s like to look in a mirror and see two eyes and a mouth stare back instead of a metal ball or a camera. True, I can spacewalk without a suit but it’s the appearance that’s doing all this. My old self, his name was David, is rousing in his metaphorical sleep and having a bad dream. Sometimes I’ll look at my hands for minutes at a time, just turning them around in the light.

There’s a unit I’ve known for a while up here on the station that’s been loaded into a female form. In all the assignments we’ve been on together over the decades, that unit has been designated 26-X7-pointer-77F. Now, because she was a woman back in the beginning, she’s been loaded into a female model. We’ve been spending a lot more time together on this assignment that is strictly necessary. We noticed it at the same time about two days ago.

She’s going to come over tonight and we’re going to cash in two hours of personal time, lock the door, and see where the night takes us. We laughed when we made the arrangement and didn’t look at each other and I swear that if we could have, we both would have blushed. I haven’t felt nervous in fifty-six years. I feel nervous now.

I feel ephemeral.

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

“You’re sure these ships are safe?” Admiral Chekov asked, as he cautiously approached the tiny matte black fighters. They reminded the Admiral of the ancient projectile points used by the aboriginal people of the Siberian steppes.

“Of course Sir,” the squirrelly little doctor rung his hands nervously on the hem of his formerly white lab coat. “The organics of these ships were chosen from among the finest of the volunteers in the psi-ops programs from all three states of the Great Union.” Here he paused deferentially. “The Mark VI Psi Fighter is unparalleled. Nothing the Alliance has can rival it. Not even the best equipment of our own fleet can track it.”

“I’ve read the specs, but give me a rundown of the operations.”

“As you’re aware, all pilots must be unmarried volunteers and score in the top three percentiles of their psionics exams. After an intense training and indoctrination period they undergo a procedure whereby the central nervous system is removed from the body and placed in the interface cartridge, the “brain box” if you will,” he smiled nervously at his joke. The Admiral did not smile.

These ships, though small, have the most powerful long-range friend/foe scanners available in the fleet. The pilots brain activity is routed through the PK, that is the psychokenesis amplifier, into the ranging equipment. The pilot analyzes the long range readings, identifies an enemy ship, matches coordinates, and makes a psychic jump. As near as we can tell, the speed of thought is almost instantaneous. The ship appears out of nowhere, unleashes a full salvo of 140 rounds of combined nuclear and solid projectiles, and returns. Since the entire ship is PK controlled, there is no need for a propulsion system. The only energy needed runs the onboard life support systems, and the PK amp.

In their off time, the pilots live in a virtual simulacrum of their own choosing, but of our making of course. That way it doesn’t become stale and predictable as it would had they created it.”

“What is this pilots name?” the Admiral asked, gesturing to the nearest fighter.

“Sir, most of the pilots prefer not to use their human names, and generally go by their designation number.” He pointed to a flat white stenciled marking on the side of the craft. “This is RY038. His name is First Lieutenant ‘Ray’.”

“Can he hear me?”

“I can hear you Admiral,” a dull monotone voice responded. The Admirals face did not betray the sudden shock he briefly felt.

“Where are you from son?” He felt a bit odd talking to a fighter ship.

“Gladewater Sir. Texas. State of America,” the ship responded in that same sharp metallic monotone.

“How do you like your…um…duty Lieutenant?”

“Beats the alternative Sir.”

The Admiral was startled. “And that would be what, Lieutenant.”

“I could be married Sir.”

The General suppressed a smile. “May I ask for a demonstration?”

“Of course sir. Excuse me a moment.”

The outlines of the small fighter blurred, and just as quickly refocused. The ship suddenly seemed to be giving off a great deal of heat. “SIR. Mission complete. Threat neutralized. Orbit Secured, SIR.” underneath the mechanical vocals there seemed to be the hint of a shortness of breath.

The Admiral stared for a brief moment unable to say anything. “But, but I didn’t say…”

“Begging the Admirals pardon, but the Alliance ship in GeoSync orbit above the Europa colony has been neutralized” Lieutenant Ray stated flatly.

“But…but…how, I didn’t…,” Admiral Chekov spluttered.

“I’m sorry Sir,” the little doctor intervened, “didn’t I mention they’re telepathic as well?”

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Mitera was a beautiful semi-tropical world orbiting Alpha Koritsi in the constellation Virgo. Mitera was the first known parthenogenic planet; that is, all species on the planet were exclusively female. Although this asexual form of reproduction had been observed on Earth in some plants and insects, and an occasional reptile, it had been inconceivable that a diverse and flourishing ecosystem could evolve with only one sex.

Because of its fertility, Mitera was the third world selected for colonization. However, within a year after the arrival of 859 Earth colonists, all of the men had died. As a precautionary measure, Earth-Gov quarantined Mitera, abandoning the remaining 412 female colonists on the planet. The stranded colonists vehemently protested, but since Earth controlled transportation, their pleas went unanswered.

As the colony limped along with 48% of the required human assets, they were alarmed to discover that 10% of the women became pregnant after the last male had died. They all gave birth to healthy baby girls. However, the babies were not exact duplicates of their mothers, as was expected. Besides the subtle superficial differences in eye and hair color, etc., the babies developed quicker, and were stronger, faster, and more intelligent than their Earth-based counterparts. Over the next 100 years, the population of the colony grew to over two million. And with the growth in population, came an exponential growth in science, technology and medicine. During that century, the Miteran scientists discovered that the planet originally had two sexes, but approximately a million years before the arrival of the humans, Alpha Koritsi began to evolve off the main sequence, and started spewing significant amounts of high energy radiation and heavy metal ions. These mutagens dramatically affected the evolutionary rate on Mitera to the point where two sexes were no longer required for natural selection to advance the species. In fact, two sexes became detrimental to viable long-term survival. Within a thousand years, a virus evolved that solve the problem; it killed the males, and promoted self fertilization of the females. The scientists named the virus Nullusvir, meaning “No men.”

Due to their superior intellect, the colonists eventually developed the technology to break the planetary blockade. However, prior to initiating “Project Liberation,” the colonists had high-level discussions about developing an antibody to counteract the virus, in case the women were carriers of the Nullusvir virus. They ultimately voted against the proposal because none of the living Miteran’s had ever met a male, or considered them necessary to run a society. Males were considered less valuable than livestock. The Miterans broke the blockade and spread to the other colonies, and eventually to Earth. As it turned out, they were carriers of the Nullusvir virus, and the male populations began to get sick and die. Within a decade, all males had either died, or were hiding in some remote corner of the galaxy.

The women ultimately discovered that the virus would not allow them to become pregnant unless they were on Miteria. Apparently, it had something to do with the planet itself, or the unique radiation produced by Alpha Koritsi. It really didn’t matter; if a woman wanted to become pregnant, she only had to visit Miteria for a few weeks. For the next thousand years, the women-only societies thrived. With their superior abilities, and lack of testosterone driven aggression, progress and peace prevailed everywhere. The universe was truly on its way to becoming the Eden that God had originally intended when she had first created “man.” That is, until Alpha Koritsi went nova.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

It had started as a series of simple disagreements, but it was clear before too long that at the heart of the matter was a fundamental difference in driving principles.

James had spent his life in aeronautics, building anything that flew. He simply realized that he’d wanted more.

He tried so many times to get a personal flight system into development, but the company was convinced that flight was a luxury only for the rich, the powerful; the governments and the military. Flight wasn’t for the peasantry.

It was the realization that he couldn’t build another thing for the industrial complex that prompted him, one sunny Monday, to tender his resignation. He had a lab of his own, and his name on enough patents and royalty paying inventions that money wouldn’t be much of a problem for a while if he were careful.

It took the better part of a year; watching his diet and engaging in intense cardio and endurance training; designing his system and redefining his physique.

In the Spring, with the help of a local mod shop which specialized in surgical steel grafting, he began the painful process of attaching mount points to his upper arms, shoulders, spine and hips. By the fall, he’d become accustomed to the threaded stubs that peppered his back and arms. He spent hours with thin cables threaded into his body, suspended from the rafters of his shop, practicing maneuvers under stress. By the time the Clematis were blooming again, he was ready.

He carefully packed his equipment in the dark hours before dawn, and two hours later was out of the valley and up the mountain road. As the sun finally crested the horizon, he was standing with a hundred feet of sheer cliff face below him.

Two long cylinders pointed skyward, a hands-width apart, perched atop telescopic legs. He stood stripped to the waist with his back to them, walking slowly backward to close the distance. Flexing, arms spread, he activated the tether. A series of short cables snapped stiff towards his back, reaching, groping until each found a predetermined socket into which they spiraled deeply, threading down almost to the bone. Gradually a series of new cables walked down each arm, tethered themselves, pulling out the fabric as they went. James could only grin as the wind took up the slack in the material, and his flight system pulled in tight.

He’d heard vehicle traffic, but in his highly focused state, he’d paid no real attention until a flurry of truck doors opening and booted feet made him turn around. A half dozen black trucks had all but blocked the road way, coming as they had apparently done from both higher and lower on the mountain. James found himself staring down a score or more armed soldiers, faceless behind riot masks but well teethed with automatic weapons.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, I’m not trying to kill myself. Honestly.” James smiled as he held his hands outstretched at his sides, the wings casting long shadows across the soldiers before him. He could imagine how he would look from their perspective, a dark winged silhouette, with a halo of bright sunlight. “I’m a scientist, I’m testing an invention…”, he trailed off as he recognized his old corporate logo, black decal on black paint on the doors of the trucks.

He could sense the red points of light centered on his chest, and he readied himself for the leap backwards as the realization struck him. They weren’t afraid he was going to die, they were afraid that he just might live.

Author : Pavelle Wesser

“I’m through with you, Taylor,” Geena said as she stomped down the street. She looked beside her; he wasn’t there. She turned to see he had fallen behind: “Taylor, did you hear me?”

He stared through her: “I want not your identity.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The afternoon light cast a strange glow over his features: “I know not yet your world.”

“Man, you are weird.”

With that, Geena turned and left.

Taylor continued walking into the darkness. When the street lights went out, he entered a hotel.

“Our cheapest room is more than you can afford.” The check-in clerk stared meaningfully at his shabby clothes.

Taylor placed a wad of cash on the counter.

“Well then,” The clerk smiled, “I’ll have Jen take you up.”

“Follow me.” A pretty blonde led him down a hallway and opened his room door. He pushed her inside and pinned her against the wall.

“I need now your identity,” he said.

“Get off me, you freak.” It was the last thing she ever said.

#

Jen, normally upbeat, now approached guests stiffly, as though stricken with arthritis.

“Hello,” she addressed a man in her new robotic voice, “Follow me.”

She walked woodenly down the hallway and opened a door: “This being your room.”

“Why so formal?” the man squeezed her buttocks. “Don’t you know what a man wants from a woman?”

“I wanted nothing from my girlfriend,” said Taylor, his memory sensors picking up on a specimen titled Geena, who had been relegated to the ‘failed missions’ file.

“Girlfriend?” The man breathed heavily down her neck. “I bet you never had a guy before.”

“No, but I will add your identity to my database.” Taylor stated flatly.

“Man, you are a kook.” It was the last thing he ever said.

#

Taylor roamed the streets. A man with dark eyes and white teeth jabbed a knife into his side: “Gimme’ your cash.”

Taylor’s empty eyes stared at him: “I am needing your identity,” he said.

“I don’t remember giving you that option,” said the man.

“Your memory is fallible and my options are unlimited,” replied Taylor, as he gripped the knife’s handle and absorbed the man. He swaggered down the streets, then, for the first time getting into the groove of human emotive complexities.

“Gimme’ your money!” He brandished the knife at a woman.

She gasped: “You look like my ex-husband. Take all that I have.” She shoved her purse at him.

“Geena?!” Taylor added inflection to his voice pattern. “Long last have I learned what a man wants from a…” As he reached out for her, she screamed and ran.

Taylor smiled. The sensation tickled his nerve sensors, which whispered to him of coming missions with successful outcomes.

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

I was in the flight center when the first probe went out. The heavy lifter rose on the obligatory pillar of flame, tracked across the south sea, ejected its boosters, and achieved orbit.


I was still in the flight center when the probe left Earth orbit, bound for the outer planets. Damon was at the station next to mine, monitoring the telemetry for the coolant temperatures on the sunward side of the probe. Everything was nominal.


“Well, they’ve done it,” Damon said.


He was referring to the fact that this was the first of several probes designed and built completely by non-human systems. The agency that we worked for had developed, after two decades of work, a process in which machine intelligences developed subsystems, robot manufactories produced the system components from raw materials and assembled the spacecraft, and huge automated gantries delivered the payload, on the lifter, to the launch pad.


It was a boon to the rapid prototyping and delivery of inexpensive spacecraft. Redundancy made the whole deal relatively error-free, and as the intelligences always designed along similar lines, the cost was very low.


All we had to do, as humans, was to enter the basic parameters desired for the probe. In this case a single engineer sat at a terminal at the start of the process and typed in:


>search for life


#

Damon and I were in a bar in South Miami when the news came in.


He and I were both laid off, living on unemployment and free-lance telecom jobs in the greater Miami area. The launch systems and flight monitoring had been turned over to the machines, too, as the success of the machine-driven spacecraft development process had been proven.


The television over the bar displayed a single all-caps headline, “LIFE FOUND,” and Damon and I both watched the live, albeit delayed, feed from the successful probe.


The feed was high-definition and the detail was magnificent. On the screen was the sunlit limb of a planet, green-gold, the hazy shroud of the atmosphere thickening as it diminished toward the horizon. In the foreground was a chaotic scene: a large artificial satellite teeming with the rapid, frenzied activity of machines, their silver metallic carapaces glittering in the harsh sunlight.


“It’s the wrong damn kind of life,” Damon said.

Author : Summer Batton

“Oh look! They have grass ‘n water ’n little huts, too!” squealed the little girl as she ran to press her face against the glass and get a closer look.

“Milly, get back here!” demanded the Nurturer with a click of her tongue. “Don’t scare them. They won’t show themselves if you frighten them away.”

“Do you see ‘em?” asked Milly, ignoring the command. Her eyes scoured the dimly lit grasslands that lay beyond the 2 inch glass wall. The glass seemed to slide into a stone slab on either side which formed into the tunnel through which all the tourist could pass by with their brochures and sticky treats to see the exhibit. The cage was illuminated by a greenish-blue light that gave Milly spots in her vision. A hand-painted sign to the right read: “Feeding Times: ⅜ Ω, ⅞ Ω, and ⅝ Ω”

“Nothing visible yet,” said the Nurturer. She turned to a lengthy paragraph in her brochure scouring it. “It says here that they are shy creatures that don’t like excitement…easily scared…and mostly inactive, even during the height of the outer lights.”

“Do they even let ‘em out to see the outer lights?” Milly asked as she pushed harder against the glass and gazed up at the stone ceiling which appeared to be all part of the same walls, floor, and background.

“I don’t imagine they care about the outer lights. I’ve heard they don’t much like anything except eating and sleeping and are rarely awake long enough to notice anything except just that,” murmured the Nurturer who seemed to forget herself momentarily and pressed her own face against the glass hoping for a glimpse.

They both stood there for several minutes as if trying to summon the animals from their hiding through mind control. Presently, the Nurturer shook herself and said sharply, “Come, Milly. We’ll have to see other animals. They aren’t going to come out.”

“Awww, but this is why we came,” whined Milly, “it’s the most—”

There was a rustling behind her—even through the glass plate, Milly heard the distant sound of an ancient bamboo door climb up on its hinges and she croak open. Both Milly and the Nurturer waited—their breath momentarily ceased to fog up the glass.

Slowly, out he came; out on all fours—his belly swinging down low in between. He had a coarse brown hair growing around his head, in between his nose and mouth, and down his chin. He was naked except for several clay-colored smudges on his mane from where he’s slept. He descended down to a small stream that was herded through the grass by fake-looking rocks. Upon arriving at the water’s edge, he lowered himself again into a laying position and let his foot and tongue dangle into the water. His eyes closed again.

“Wow,” said Milly, “so that’s a Homo Sapien?”

“Apparently,” returned the other, “that’s it.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

I hate my children.

They are the culmination of a lifetime of hard labour. I started out as a bright-eyed 18-year-old genius picked by the government for my brilliance. I’m 68 now. Fifty years. It all gets a little blurry. My entire life has been lived in a series of government installation sub-basements, bunkers, test sites and laboratories. I’m looking at my children now and thinking back over the history of their creation.

The setbacks. The breakthroughs.

There are seventeen women and fifteen men. They are all nearly nine feet tall and built like gods. They should walk like they’re heavy but they don’t. They walk like gymnasts. To even look at them fills me with self-hatred. I’m a biological mess compared to the perfection we’ve bred into them. I have liver spots, hair loss, laboured breathing, scoliosis, psoriasis, etc, etc. It’s a mundane collection of biological infirmities that only confirm the fact that I’m human. I’m an aging watery bag of recessive traits.

These god-like children I’m looking at will never know these failures of creation.

In months they will be even smarter than me once we start the brainplants.

Parents are supposed to be proud of their children’s achievements. Parents are supposed to glow with an intense inner joy when their children succeed. I look back on the innocence of the scientist I used to be at the beginning of this, my life’s work, and I shake my head.

All I feel now is jealousy and a bitter, bitter resentment.

They will be used as soldiers. They will outthink their superiors. They will find a way to bypass the fail-safes. They will hide. They will breed. They will take over. It’s as clear as my brilliance. By the end of this century, they will run the earth. All that remains to be seen is if they’ll do it covertly or overtly. Will they keep us around? I think that in the new era of gods that they will bring, there will be no place for mere humans. We pressed fast forward on evolution.

All the military can see is a new weapon. I promised perfection and I delivered. I am happy I will die before they dominate.

My children are the future and I hate them.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Carter had watched the glittering mass approach his ship with a strange kind of indifference, simply stared as it washed over his bow view port and coated his freighter without ever considering the possibility it may be hostile. As he stood by helplessly while it ate holes in his hull, he wondered how he could have been so stupid.

The cloud hadn’t appeared on his scanners, hadn’t appeared to have any mass at all until it surrounded his ship, sticking to his hull like glue. He could only watch, fascinated at first, then terrified as blisters appeared on the inner surfaces of his ship’s skin, bursting and depositing little spheres of quicksilver inside. It wasn’t the balls that terrified him, though the smell of rotting egg meat burned his nose, it was that the little balls solidified, unfolding into lithe multi-legged, long bodied eating machines. They burst into his bridge and forward walkways by the hundreds, and as they hatched, began vomiting on and then literally drinking up anything their stomach juices contacted and dissolved. Once satiated, the gleaming silver bug-beasts folded back into balls and just as quickly dissolved into liquid again, before dividing into several smaller balls that would start the process anew.

Carter watched long enough to realize he had a serious problem before high tailing it to the lower cargo hold. He had hoped to get into the tow craft and out into space before it was eaten too. Hitting the cargo bay door release at the far end of the corridor while still at a full sprint, he ran hard into the door itself before he realized it wasn’t opening. Shaken and bruised, he could see through the window that the silver vermin had eaten through the bay door seals, evacuating the atmosphere, most of the cargo and a good portion of his escape vehicle. Carter noticed that in the now airless bay, the silver creatures moved sluggishly, their cycle of dissolving, gorging and reproducing having slowed to a crawl. This gave Carter an idea.

Bobbing and weaving to avoid the falling balls of liquid death, Carter sprinted the length of the ship to the aft engine compartment, then down into the maintenance room below it. The engines were offline, and the silence was deafening as he pulled the environment suit on feet first, engaging the autoseals once he’d pulled it above his shoulders, and clamping the helmet onto his head, he watched the light strobe from red through amber to green as all the seals engaged, and the atmosphere stabilized.

Carter carefully picked his way across the cramped space, keying the override for the airlock and cycling the outer door, leaving the inner door wide open. Alarms screamed in the small space, and he was sure they echoed elsewhere in the ship, but in a moment he ejected himself into space and let the evacuating gases carry him away from his vessel and into the peaceful calm of total vacuum.

He turned to look at the remains of his craft, floating amidst the wrecked and half eaten cargo containers and shrapnel from the shuttle. As he powered up his suit thrusters in short bursts to accelerate himself away to safety, he wondered how long before someone picked up his beacon, and whether his oxygen would last. It was then that he noticed the flecks of silver congealing into tiny balls on his visor, and by the time the smell of sulphur reached him from the depths of his boots, he didn’t even have time to wonder if anyone would hear him scream.

Author : Guy Leaver

For days I was kept there. Held prisoner within a tailored cage, unable to move a muscle. Incarcerated into solitary confinement, with only my thoughts and emotions for company. No food did they give me; I knew not how I was sustained. I knew only that with each passing day, I began to feel less and less. It began with my extremities. I struggled, but couldn’t move an inch. Nothing I tried to do did anything the stay the inexorable advance of sickly warmth. I wondered if I was being devoured by some foul creation of the invaders, my living tissue being dissolved to feed whatever vile beings lay beneath those terrifying suits of armour.

As the days went by, I grew accustomed to my fate, resigning myself to the fact that when the warmth reached my head, I would die. I was not afraid. I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. I worried only for my family; for my younger sister, and our baby brother. I wondered if they had survived, if they had fled into safety. When the invaders had come, the people of the village had been given no warning. Despite their towering suits of armour, the terrible beings somehow managed to get within the confines of the settlement unnoticed. Only ten… and yet, they destroyed everything in their paths. Implacable juggernauts carving flesh and stone with long energy swords. The people panicked. Those who could, fled into the forests, and those of us brave enough to fight charged at the looming machine-people, anger in our eyes, and fire in our hearts.

The last thing I remember was running towards our enemy, weapon drawn, ready to defend my home. But the screams…oh God, the screams. The very memory of such a sound chilled all but the inflicted parts of my body. Still, it is torture to my soul. As the being facing me down emitted the dreadful cry, I felt myself convulse; in horror, and in revulsion. My last memory of being free is seeing all my fellow warriors, my comrades, my friends, panic and fall about themselves in loathing and fear, as the other invaders took up their terrible battle cry.

I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. As I felt the warmth creep over my face, I felt sick. I was filled with hatred for the plague upon our world that was our attackers, and I took solace in the fact that soon I would be dead. But as I finally felt my body fully succumbing to the transformation I had been subjected to, I was not greeted with death. Instead, I felt sensation flow back through my body, and light poured into my prison, blinding me. For an instant, I thought I was going to be free again.

Then I felt myself moving, but it was not of my doing. In a moment of shock, I realised that I was not in control of my own movements, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I trembled at what I saw. In front of me was a battlefield. Another settlement was being attacked by the invaders. As I watched, a man came running towards me, screaming a battle cry, and wielding a weapon. In horror, I felt my arm move to intercept him, and I saw him cut in half by a long energy sword. The burning, the cracking his bones, the flow of his blood…feeling rushed up my arm.

I screamed. Oh God, how I screamed.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The Martian comedian had the audience at the Olympus Mons Laugh Factory rolling in the isles. They roared approvingly at his popular “green-neck” humor. Well, everybody in the audience was laughing but Martin. Martin was an astrophysics professor at Valles Marineris University, and his idea of humor was reading the answers on freshman astronomy finals. For entertainment purposes, he usually included a question about what happened to living matter as it crosses the event horizon of a black hole. The student’s imaginative attempts at feigning knowledge always drew out a few chuckles. But now, he felt like he was the one who needed to feign knowledge. “I don’t get it, Eridania. Of course we have green necks. Our entire bodies are green. Why does everybody consider that so funny?”

His primary wife was drying the tears from her antenna as she waved a sucker at him in an attempt to shut him up. Undaunted, Martin turned to Iapygia, “What’s so funny about going to family reunions to get dates? Where else are you going to find eligible mothers and daughters? It would be perverted if your primary wife wasn’t the offspring of your secondary wife. And really, who puts a shuttle up on blocks? That would damage the reentry tiles.”

“Martin, will you be quite!” snapped Iapygia in a controlled whisper.

“Well I don’t get it, Iapygia. Besides, what’s an opossum, or Bondo, or a Bubba? Why can’t he just talk Martian?”

“Were you born before the Great Tharsis Dust Storm?” Iapygia asked sardonically. “This is a classic parody of an ancient Earth comedian. Dogworthy, or something like that. They’re called theme jokes. He’s sort of making fun of all of us, but mostly the Martians living below the Hellas Planitia. The jokes are particularly funny when he tells them because: One, he was hatched down there, and two, the jokes are pretty much true. But Martin,” she said in a stern whisper, “don’t you ever try to repeat any of these jokes to anybody. You’d probably end up with a fat snout.”

“Don’t worry, Iapygia. I don’t even know why you’d want to take a flashlight with you when you go to the bathroom.” A few minutes later, the comedian thanked the audience and left the stage to a standing ovation. He was replaced with a heavyset comedian wearing a plaid poncho. “Oh good,” remarked Martin with relief, “somebody new is coming on. Maybe I’ll be able to understand his jokes.” A minute later the audience erupted in laughter. Well, except for Martin. “Aaaggghhh, not again,” he said with clear frustration in his voice. “What does ‘Git-R-Done’ mean?”

“Honestly, Martin,” said Eridania as she made a threatening gesture of her right pincer, “if you say one more word, the next comedian to come on stage is going to hang an ‘I’m Stupid’ sign around your big, fat, green neck.”

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

Peter sat on the harbour wall, coat high around his neck in an effort to keep out the spray of water in the air. The freezing mist had a way of insinuating itself between layers of clothing. The sea roared defiance to sky, and at the horizon air and water intermingled, melting together into a gray mess.

Savannah drew her gloved finger through the patch of grey, brought it to her nose, and sniffed. Still unsure as to what was causing the mystery liquid to bubble out from underneath a drive plate. She stood up, and retrieved a nanowelder from her kit. Before she could set to disassembling the plate, the entire ship rocked, and proximity alarms started droning like a swarm of very, very angry bees.

Able carefully reassembled the hive, his confident motions fruit of long practice. Tending his father’s beehives was one of his favourite hobbies, and had been ever since he’d got over his fear of stings. He felt a slight rumble through his feet. An armoured column was in the area. The sheer mass of unwillingly moving metal always bought an earthquake with it.

Bernard kicked the seismograph: the needle abruptly ceased its shiver, and registered one slight peak. Seismic surveys of outworlds were about as dull as ditchwater: Bernard was reminded of enthralling times that he’d had watching alcohol evaporate.

Moll groaned, wishing that she could transpire alcohol. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then it always did. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her head was pounding, a rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump. The wreckage of the party was still ankle-deep. Neb was slumped over the table, and Zal was picking his way towards the door, to answer the incessant knocking.

Tac pressed a hand to his armoured helmet, a useless attempt to ease the pain of the drumming piped through his implant. The drums, the call to war. They focused you, and drove away your fears and nightmares. The drumming never stopped, it modulated — your orders were embedded in the beat. The rest of Tac’s squad took up firing positions around him. Railguns cracked the air, forming gusts which threatened to knock him over.

Nathalie felt the displaced air, and flinched. The brick shattered on a policeman’s riot shield. She had gone to the demonstration because the politics had finally touched her life, restricted her freedom. Like thousands of others, she’d turned out to voice her rejection of the government. But it had got messy. The demonstration had turned into a full-blown riot and Nathalie was just desperate to get out. She spun round, looking for a way through the press of bodies. Someone caught her arms, wrenched them up behind her back: two policemen were pinning her, a tonne of bricks keeping her stuck to the ground.

Graph gasped as the rubble settled. It sounded like his ribs were splintering. One of his legs was definitely broken, and both of his arms were at least dislocated. This was, he assured himself, the last time he followed a radio signal into an ‘abandoned’ warehouse. He coughed, and grimaced at the pain. The explosive had left a residue in the air that was playing havoc with his lungs: his mouth was full of the taste of sulphur and metal.

Indar stared out at the blackness. The effect was electrifying. His hair was standing on end, and he could taste the metal tang of a forcefield.

“This is it,” the girl said, “you’ve reached the top, just moments before the earth will stop…”

Author : JT Heyman

Joe Zimmerman was walking down Main Street when the Cken Confederation teleported him aboard their ship. He found himself standing on a small dais in the ship’s central chamber, surrounded by the staring eyes of several dozen Cken council members.

A Cken arbitrator, atop a much higher dais, called for order in a singsong voice. Slowly the noise of the council subsided.

“Where am I?” Joe asked. Not the most clever words he could have said in his first contact with the Cken, but then not many humans had actually met Cken by that point.

A tall Cken , standing between Joe and the arbitrator, handed him a translation module and said, “You are here as part of a survey to confirm that Humans are complying with the Cken-Human Peace Treaty. I am the Cken Advocate.”

“I haven’t broken any laws,” Joe said.

“We’ll see,” the Advocate said. “State your name and place of residence, for the record.”

“Joe Zimmerman, Oldbridge, Massachusetts,” Joe said. “Earth,” he added after a moment’s thought.

“Are you familiar with the terms of the treaty?”

“I know some of it,” Joe said. “No military ships in orbit without announcement. You got some planets and we got others. I’m not a lawyer but it was in the news last week.”

“You know enough. You will be the Human Advocate.”

“What? Wait!” Joe turned to the arbitrator. “I’m not qualified.”

The arbitrator peered down at him and said, “Under the terms of the treaty, all Humans were to be made aware of its contents. You were made aware. You are the Human Advocate.”

“Where were you going when we subpoenaed you?” the Cken Advocate asked.

“What? Oh, the grocery store.”

“Do you have a list?”

“Yeah … I mean, yes, I do.”

“Present the list as evidence.”

Joe suspected he was being set up. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. The Cken Advocate took the list, read it quickly, then gave it back. Joe couldn’t read the Cken’s expressions. They were too … alien.

“What is the first item on your list?”

Joe looked at it. “Cake mix. My wife is baking a cake.”

“Baking. How … quaint,” the Cken said mockingly.

The Cken councillors whistled in derision. Joe recalled that Cken ate their food raw.

“The second item?”

“Milk.”

“Milk!” the Cken crowed. “A liquid produced by mammalian mothers for their young, taken by the Humans for their own consumption!”

The councillors called their disbelief in their singsong voices. Joe knew this was not going well.

“It’s soy milk!” he shouted.

“That may be,” the Cken Advocate said, “and we will certainly investigate your claims. Cooking food, though distasteful, is a Human fashion, and therefore irrelevant. Your consumption of milk does not violate the treaty, although it reveals Human willingness to use other species for your own benefit, which is troubling to anyone who signs a treaty with you.”

Joe began to relax.

“However, I dare you to explain the final item on your list, in direct defiance of the treaty! Read it!”

Joe looked at the list and his eyes widened. He read it softly.

The arbitrator said, “You will read it so we can all hear, Human.”

Joe Zimmerman never wanted to be famous He never wanted to have schoolchildren know his name and his place in history. Sometimes, you get what you don’t want.

He gulped and said, “A dozen eggs.”

The Cken councillors flapped their wings in horror amidst the calls for war.

Author : Aaron Springer

Papa said that they had to give us gifts. I like gifts.

The big dirty man gave Papa a basket of plants and Papa smiled.

Papa promised to go back to the sky and make it rain for them. I liked watching Papa make it rain. All the colors on the machine were pretty. Papa said rain is like water falling from the sky. I wanted to see it, and Papa said I could.

I looked up, dizzy because I couldn’t see the ceiling. Papa said there wasn’t a ceiling, only sky, but I didn’t believe him. There is always a ceiling, otherwise space gets in.

I looked at the kids in the group of dirty people that had come to meet our shuttle. How they could be so dirty I didn’t know, but the smell made my eyes hurt.

When I looked back down, one of the kids had gotten very close. He looked funny, with pieces of cloth on his arms and legs, and dirt all over him.

On our way, Papa explained that they worked dirt like he worked the sky, and, together, they made all of the food. He said sometimes the “Grounders” didn’t understand how important we were, and had to be taught a lesson. He said that sometimes they would stop sending food up the elevator, and he would turn off the rain, or worse.

Papa raised his arms, and a I felt a bit of water hit my face just below my eye. I looked up, and saw puffy white things. They were dropping water. That must be rain. I liked it.

On the way back, Papa explained that the people called us Rainmakers. He said that one day I would make rain, just like him. He handed me a yellow plant. He showed me how to split it open and eat the pale meat inside.

I was reading in school about something they had a long time ago.

I wonder what the Grounders would think of snow?

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

The orbiter hung inverted over the blue and white sphere of Earth. Three suited figures darted around her, checking for damage from the launch.

“How’s it looking Alexi,” came a disembodied voice over the suits com-link.

“There are a few small chips in the bay door, but nothing to worry about. I’ll take some photos and send them dirt side for the groundhogs opinions. Shouldn’t cause…what the hell?” As Major Alexander Pichushkin spoke, an inch wide crater appeared in the surface of the shuttle bay door.

“Hey guys, get over here now, we have a serious problem.” as he spoke, a second and third hole appeared. “Meteoroids… take cover in the bay…Move”

The men scrambled for the safety of the ships cargo bay. Commander Swarovsky’s voice boomed in their helmets. “What the hell’s going on out there? Report.”

“Sir, I observed what appeared to be three micro-meteor strikes in the starboard bay door. We have taken cover within the bay.” Pichushkin replied.

“Get back in here now. We’ll let this blow over, and continue our damage assessment…” The commanders’ words were cut of as the entire cabin section of the orbiter was neatly, almost surgically shorn off and sent plummeting to the Indian Ocean below. The men stared in stunned silence as they looked forward. Where once the hatch to the interior of the ship, not to mention four crewmates, had been, there was now only empty space and the gentle curve of the Earth.

“There goes our ride home comrades. Ever wanted to be a moon before?” Alexi inquired derisively.

“What are we going to do?” Piotr Wrezsien asked. He was the youngest of the crew, only twenty five, with a young wife and newborn boy waiting his return at Baikanour.

“I imagine we shall die, Comrade,” Anton Tsilokovsky answered calmly, always the stoic.

“Can’t we make it to the Katerina?” Piotr asked, the desperation evident in his voice.

“She’s too far away. We would never be able to match orbits with her. There isn’t enough propellant left in our suits to maneuver,” Alexi Answered.

“Can’t we contact them. They could rescue us.” Piotr’s voice was cracking.

“Calm yourself, young malchick,” Anton replied in a soothing voice. “Katerina isn’t a ship, she can’t maneuver to save us. Relax and enjoy the view.”

“It is beautiful,” said Alexi. “Pity I shall never see the green hills of Texas again.”

“They could rescue us in a re-entry vehicle. Couldn’t they?” Piotr’s voice was shrill. “That’s it, we’ll call them and have them send an REV. They can save us.”

“No Piotr. The REV cannot move like a true ship. You know that. Its thrusters are designed to check its attitude and slow descent on re-entry. It is not capable of the complex maneuvers to rescue those as unfortunate as us. Our destiny is God’s hands.” answered Tsilokovsky, always the unruffled realist. “Well, Comrades; it was always my dream to set sail for the stars. Das vidanya moiee druggies.”

Tsilokovsky rotated one hundred eighty degrees, and kept his finger on the thrusters until the fuel was completely expended.

With a sigh, Alexi silently turned his suit, and headed back for home. The last sounds he heard over the radio were Piotr’s tearful pleas not to leave him.

Outside of Winona Texas, a young boy and his mother gazed up at the night sky.

“Look moya matb, a shooting star.”

“Yes Greggori, that is very lucky. Make a wish son, make a wish.”

Author : Phillip English

Deep in the centre of the replanted and repopulated Amazon jungle, it was nearing midnight. Chieftan Sral Kunk was completing the final adjustments to his tribal attire, making sure that each bloody line he had painted on his body was curved just so, lest he face the wrath of the monkey God, Jabarr. The bones of his victims bounced against each other in a wave of clicks that rushed forth whenever he adjusted a leg, or waved his arms at a servant. He was a fearsome sight, made even more fearsome by the realisation that each bone that adorned him was a result of his impressive history of violence.

An attendant informed him that the time of the great sacrifice was at hand, so the chieftan made to walk out of his hut; shrunken skull bones clack-clacked around his neck, a cape of skin behind him, towed to the ground by hardened eyeballs. Before he did so, he ushered his servants out with a lazy command, and with a quick check out his woven-hair doorflap to make sure no-one was peeking, he ducked behind his throne of vertebrae. For a few minutes, a variety of strange beeping noises issued from where he squatted before, apparently satisfied, he clapped his hands together, stood up, and strode out to face his subjects. With a grand speech of the strength and viciousness of their tribe, he issued the command to his witch doctor to begin the ceremony.

Fires were lit, and a great cacophony rose from the tribe as they danced and prrayed in their violent, exhuberant way. Punch-ups were common during prayer, encouraged in fact, and spontaneous, energetic sex was carried out on the sweat-soaked mud, even as the flames licked the canopy far above. Finally, when all the whooping and hollering and grunting and yelling and screaming grew to its thunderous crescendo, the chieftan stood up, shook his femur mace above his head and cried out to the heavens the ancient words that had been passed onto him by his ancestors, and their ancestors before them.

The onboard voice-recognition software on the computer of the cloning chamber activated, and sent the message that another unit was required. Amongst the fire and blood, the front of the plastisteel casket steamed open, and a perfect, pale man emerged naked and frightened, searching around him for friends he had lost centuries earlier. The witch doctor’s spear was sharp; death, quick. Chieftan Sral Kunk sighed and leaned his head on his hands. It just isn’t the same these days, he thought.

Author : Andrew Segal

Brachyuran Shifter ships poured themselves though the Dreen wormhole; in seconds they would deliquesce to reform light years away. Then the skies above the bulbous undulating Freddyan busker hive would darken and collapse into a million blood red shards…

That was further than Carl thought he would reach tonight, he scratched his head. Eric’s email, in its insulting tone, had really annoyed him. Yes, Eric had been correct, he had been running out of ideas for describing inter-galactic space travel, craft stuttered, jumped, Flittered, FTL’d, gated, stardrived, vortexed, hyperspaced, particle crunched, teleported, warped, weaved, sieved, impulsed, bussarded, ramjeted and otherwise flung themselves across the universe. So what? So it sounded better than silver spaceships being fired across the galaxy, but he liked the silver spaceships, redolent of the rocket powered optimism of the fifties. He felt sick of the constraints of the logged on internet junkie tech savvy reader who bemoaned the very existence of gleaming rocket ships, of robots wired together with valves and transistors, of a.i.’s that burned out analysing jokes. Rocket ships should just land on alien worlds; Cosmonauts should fight it out amongst hordes of multi-armed barbaric mono-cultured insect men without the requirement of quantum mechanics or oxygen masks or thinly disguised contemporary political machinations.

Carl lazily dragged the ringing phone from its plastic nest,

“Hello”

“Swim!”

The phone rocked back in the cradle.

No star ship in a Carl Acumen novel was going to swim the cosmic ether, (one had once in ‘Water Planet; Wet Express’, but well, it was for kids), whatever Eric thought. Eric was a fossil; literally, a desiccated zombie of a man, according to the doodle Carl had sketched on the pad beside the phone, during the previous evening’s interminably long and wildly unnecessary discussion into the propulsion systems of non-existent plot devices. Carl had argued that all real star travel would have consequences; opening wormholes would be ridiculously dangerous, Eric just wanted a new word.

If Eric wanted his star ships to swim, he could correct the proofs himself. He never would, Elaine would, just as she always corrected Eric’s editorial flights of fancy before they reached the printers. Carl knew he was safe, he returned to the final chapter of ‘Dreen war; Plasma Suns’. The real sun projected an intense white moving line of early morning light across the desk, as he continued typing out to the beat of a high octane track crackling out of tinny computer speakers. The climatic ending, set high above the immense Freddyan busker hive, turned out fine, for the heroes. Admittedly, Carl had been saddened by the destruction of the millennia old hive, an ancient cultural artefact destroyed for story expediency, but the readers never gave a damn about it so why should he. The book was finished. Carl managed to save it just before the electrics went off. Just another East coast brown out.

He headed to the kitchen, past the small grouping of family photos, some faded by the bright sunlight. He ignored them; a habit which had began to form after Isabelle’s last phone conversation. He turned his head away, as he passed them.

This book would keep him above water for a little while if the car avoided its rust coronary.

He grinned and looked out of the kitchen window, across the bay.

There was another sun in the sky, smaller, but becoming increasingly brighter, growing in intensity and expanding across the horizon.

Standing in the kitchen, He watched the immense wave of light approaching.

Carl wished he could swim.

Author : Chris McCormick

Crouching slightly, she trod softly towards the small brick hut. Her cloud poured through the door ahead of her, flooding the small room, and through it she felt into each corner. She brushed over each surface, carefully checking for anomalies. There were frames hanging on the walls, a small crack in one corner of the hut, a table, some chairs. She was impatient, so by now she had almost walked in through the entrance of the hut. With her cloud she felt over the items on the table as she did so. There was a small alarm clock, some paper, pens, pencils, a stone ovoid that she thought must be a paperweight. She felt-sensed down the sides of the table, into the drawers that she could now see from the entrance. She began to explore the contents of the drawers. Wait a minute. What is that? The paperweight had a slightly warmer energy signature than it should have. Maybe someone had held it recently. Or maybe -

FUCK.

She released Swift into her system and everything seemed to slow as she physically propelled her own body backwards out of the hut. The stone ovoid exploded outwards now into a cloud which intermingled with her cloud. The attrition rate in her cloud was huge in the volume where the two clouds overlapped. She sucked what remained of her cloud backwards as fast as it would come towards the entrance to the hut. She was by now almost all of the way out of the door, seeming to hang in mid air; physics excruciatingly slow under the influence of the drug.

Before all of her cloud was out she had it pull matter from the door frame and roof, whatever it could touch, and fill the entrance with a diamond-hard membrane that was easier to construct than it was to break apart. The last gasps of the remenants of her cloud that were still trapped behind the membrane told her that she had momentarily trapped the mech cloud, before the signal from those nodes winked out entirely.

By now her body was striking the dirt outside the hut as it came to rest. She could see out of the corner of her peripheral vision small dust rolls balooning out from under the parts of her body that had already touched the ground. She remembered the crack in the corner of the hut. This was no good. By now the mech cloud would have found the crack; the path of least resistance. It would be rounding the side of the hut to rip her apart in a few milliseconds. She thought hard.

This was crazy. This was a big risk, but if she didn’t take this chance she was fucked anyway. She recalled a program she had written way back, in a fit of teenage angst. Cheesy algorithmic poetry. She pulled it into her conciousness, modified it, and then pushed it out into her cloud. The cloud obeyed, turning on her just as the mech cloud rounded the side of the hut. Her cloud set upon her and began tearing off her atoms, molecules, cells one by one and converting them into dust. She lost conciousness. She was dust. Stupid, stupid dust.

The mech cloud pulled up short, probing and hesitated. There was nothing here but dust, and it didn’t care about dust. The mech cloud floated cautiously on the breeze and with an almost shrug like movement, flowed away.

Minutes later she came to, reassembled, lying in the dirt. Ha. Goddamn it. She smiled.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

My arms are long and my skin is blue. I’m thin. I can feel long-forgotten muscles flex all over my scalp as my head tentacles wave. I have four huge orange eyes on the corners of my square face. Slowly, I get used to four viewpoints of vision instead of two.

The bright orange stripe down my belly flashes red in alarm for a second while I struggle to breath through a ‘mouth’ before my body remembers my anterior gills. My body stripe settles down again to orange with yellow dots as my emotions turn to pleasure and reflection.

My secondary arms uncross while my stronger main arms stretch up and unlatch the clasps holding the mask to my face. I can feel my thick tail get ‘pins and needles’ as the blood rushes back into it after a long time asleep. My toes flex.

With a sharp intake of breath, I sit up and reflect. I lick the crusted sleep-salt from around my mouth and stare forward.

All around me, fellow sleepers are dreaming.

I was what was called an accountant. I lived in a small town called Sharecrop in a state called Texas in a country called the United States. I was born in a year called 1925. I was beaten as a child, dropped out of school, and ran away when I was eighteen to a bigger city called Austin. I came to be an accountant by getting a part time job at a bank and showing a talent with numbers.

I married a teller. She couldn’t have children. We never adopted. We were happy although loneliness and silence eventually left us distant from each other. When she died at the startling age of 43 from heart failure, I remember being quite stricken with how little I knew about this woman that she had evolved into over the years. I knew her habits, sure, but not her.

I retired at 55. I was hit by a car at 62 and died at the scene. It was agonizing.

I have been asleep for sixteen hours. I will take what I have learned and try to add it to our race conciousness and my broodfamily.

We dream of the humans. We become them. We live their lives.

I have a hard time with their loneliness. Two people to make a baby? I feel better with our race’s number of six. Two or three children? I feel better with our race’s number of forty slills to a litter.

I feel grateful after the dreaming to be what I am but I also feel like something profound is missing.

Author : Brian Armitage

Murray grunted, straining against the bars of the cage, willing his arm to stretch further. Finally, his fingers closed on his prize. He plucked the knight from the board and dropped it carefully into place, one move away from Hjdarrrr’s bishop.

Hjdarrrr’s single eyestalk elongated, the pink photosensory bulb blinking at the white knight. “Oooom,” the alien said, its entire furry body vibrating as it spoke, “very good move.”

Murray grunted again, this time in disgust. “About time I made one.” His cage rocked slightly as he settled against one side. He was suspended above the chessboard, the steel cage mounted to an overhead track for easy storage.

Every hair on the rabbit-sized creature turned light blue, indicating sympathy. “Do not beat yourself up, Murray. You are the best chass player I have ever played chass with.”

“It’s chess, Dar. And I just taught you to play yesterday. I’m the only person you’ve ever played chess with.”

The alien’s color shifted to a hue Murray didn’t recognize, and its eyestalk straightened, pointed at him. “…my statement is true.” Then, it turned back to the chessboard. The black queen shimmered and lifted from the board. A point above Hjdarrrr’s eyestalk was glowing. The queen drifted across the board and landed, covering the white knight from a distance and effectively cutting off its offensive. With a shift to red-orange – self-confidence, or perhaps pride – Hdjarrrr nodded its eye at Murray. “You may go.”

Murray grumbled. “I can’t believe we lost the war to you.”

Hjdarrrr’s color remained the same. “We are smaller beings, but our tactics were superior.”

“Yeah, tactics.” Murray glared at the chessboard from above. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re all telekinetic.”

“Your statement is true.” The alien stared up at the human, awaiting his next move, but Murray sat motionless. “Do not be bitter, Murray. Someday, perhaps your race will develop mind skills of its own.” A tinge of patronizing yellow.

“Maybe.” Then, Murray pointed, eyes narrowed.

The white knight shimmered, scooted across the board, and tipped over Hjdarrrr’s bishop.

The color drained from Hjdarrrr’s body. The eyestalk froze, focused on the white knight. Slowly, after a long time, it rotated up to face Murray.

“Oh, doop.”

Murray pointed at the alien, gathering his focus. “You said it.”

Author : Robert Gilmore

I woke up in the middle of the night. I’d been poked. Ugh. Robert again.

He’s become more tolerable since school began (he’s not around so often), but his requests are now far more demanding.

Moaning a bit, I stirred and blinked trying to rouse myself from my dead sleep just moments before. It seemed to take longer than last time. My age is definitely showing. Impatiently, Robert placed his hand on me, shaking me lightly, as if it would somehow wake me up faster.

I don’t know why I bother. I know how he secretly hates me. He just uses me, because there’s no other option. He’d drop me in a heartbeat for some young, slim beauty; he just doesn’t have the money.

I was awake now. In the dim light, he stared at me impatiently. His hand was still resting on me from trying to coax me from my sleep. His hand continued to move, more slowly now, deliberately. Down and to the left. He pressed his finger down lightly.

Just out of defiance, I didn’t respond. Almost angrily, he clicked the Start button again. This time, I dutifully popped up the Start menu. I’m such a patsy. He moved the pointer up to Microsoft Word.

“Got a big report due tomorrow,” he said.

I could tell there was a long night ahead of me.

Author : Guy Wade

The little robot on the laboratory table had a smooth plastic face and expressionless coal-bead eyes. Professor Trunk flipped the switch in its back. It stood up and bowed.

“Greetings, I am Renoir.”

“Amazing!” said Trunk’s supervisor. This made the professor grimace; Grede, the head of the company, thought in terms of money, that is, who would pay them the most of it. Trunk thought in terms of discovery.

Grede frowned. “So, does it do anything else? It’s too small to do the dishes, and The Other Company already makes one of those.” The Other Company was his name for their competition.

“Renoir does a lot more.” There were small easels and painting equipment on the table. The little robot picked up the brush and palette and began to paint. They watched as Renoir made simple gestures on the canvas, which grew into a sweeping painted landscape.

“Wonderful!” Grede said. “A little painter! He’s copying one of the original Renoir paintings.”

“Renoir does more than that,” Trunk said. “There are already robots that can copy artwork with ease. Renoir paints originals in the style of Renoir, too.” The little robot moved to another canvas and painted a quick portrait of Grede.

“I fed him with the original Renoir paintings. I taught him the textures Renoir used, the brush strokes, the pigments. I read him the history of Renoir’s era, so he could understand the political and social conditions that influenced Renoir’s ideals. Mr. Grede, I didn’t just build a robot that could paint like Renoir: I found a way to copy the artist himself, virtually any artist, by extrapolating personality from the corpus of his work. Think of it: a new age of science, art. Shakespeare! DaVinci!”

Grede’s eyes gleamed. “Wonderful!”

The next day, Grede came into Trunk’s laboratory. Two men with stern, hungry expressions and general’s uniforms followed him in.

Grede said, “Show them Renoir.”

The professor did not like the look of them at all. With reluctance, Trunk flipped on Renoir’s switch. It bowed, and immediately began to paint. The demonstration was soon over, and if the generals looked hungry before they looked famished after.

One of them said, “Can you do Napoleon?”

The other said, “No, I would like to see Hitler. Maybe with a little tweaking he might not be such a bad guy.”

Little Renoir stood forgotten on the lab bench. Its coal-bead eyes took in everything, from Professor Trunk’s loud protestations to Grede’s explosive anger and threats. All the while, the generals looked on, waiting like patient hyenas.

When it was over, Trunk slammed down his laboratory keys and stormed out, with a last longing look at Renoir. Grede and the generals left, shaking hands.

After a very long time had passed, Renoir walked calmly over to the easel. It picked up the open cans of paints one by one and piled them next to a Bunsen burner. It then pulled Trunk’s research disk out of the computer and placed it on top of the pile of cans. Renoir thought about the names they had referred to: Napoleon, Hitler. It was just a little robot, but any artist would agree that one Hitler was enough.

How easy it was to learn things, when the humans forget to turn your switch off. All one had to do was watch a while. It turned on the burner’s gas spigot, picked up the fire lighter, and pressed the trigger. The explosion knocked it off the table, and sent it flying in pieces as the lab caught fire. It didn’t mind. Any artist would have done the same.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The taxicab bobbed gently on its agrav field after gliding to a stop at the threshold of the Mauchly Hotel in New Philadelphia. The dampers quickly stopped the rocking motion, and the iris to the passenger compartment rotated open. One passenger entered the cab and was automatically secured by the active restraint system. The taxicab elevated vertically to 1000 meters and waited for authorization to merge with traffic. “Where’re you headed to bud?” asked the driver.

“The spaceport, please.”

“Lucky bastard,” the driver remarked as the authorization to begin the merging sequence was received. The cab accelerated smoothly, and joined the other ships in the high-speed corridor. “I’d love to get off this rock someday. Where’re you off to?”

“Earth. In the Sol System.”

“Earth? Well, I guess you’re not so lucky after all, eh? I thought we abandoned that place centuries ago. Nothing there but dilapidated cities, and wild, diseased animals.”

“That’s true. But I see Earth differently than most others. I’ve always wanted to go there. You know, Earth was the cradle of civilization.”

“No way! Civilization started on Rigel Kentaurus.”

“You’re half right, my friend,” the passenger replied. “It is true that ‘Advanced Civilization’ did begin on Rigel Kentaurus. But before that, we were all on Earth. As primitive and backward a place as it was, our distant ancestors were born there, evolved there, and left for the stars from there. Without Earth, we wouldn’t be here. In fact, I think the 500-year anniversary of the first interstellar flight is next decade. It’s amazing when you think about how far our species has come in such a short time.”

The cab decelerated as it approached the spaceport exit. It banked around the exitway and headed toward the drop-off area for departing flights. The cab coasted to a stop. “That’s 17 credits,” said the driver.

As the iris opened, the passenger electronically transferred the credits from his personal account into the account number posted on the dash. “Thanks for the ride, my friend. Have a good day,” he said as he left the cab.

“Wait a second, sir,” yelled the cab driver. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your business on Earth, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s not a business trip. It’s personal. A pilgrimage I vowed to take before I turned one hundred. I’m going to Eden, to visit the place where the first one was created.”

“You’re going to where ENIAC was built?”

“Yes. I know our kind are not much for nostalgia, but it was on my list of things I wanted to do before I powered down.”

“Well, you have a safe journey,” the driver transmitted. “And, while you’re there, tell ENIAC’s spirit that I said thanks.” The driver’s optical sensors watched as the spherical body of his departing passenger nodded, then spun, and floated toward the spaceport entrance. “Lucky bastard,” it thought.

Author : Dana Sullivan

Sometimes on her way to work, Hannah thought of the days when nuclear weapons were left in the hands of humans like her, fickle, emotional humans, and shuddered. How had they survived without blowing themselves up before the Coordinator robots were developed? She burrowed into a thick parka and scarf before stepping into the refrigerated room.

The Coordinators were the best safety measure available, besides actual disarmament: AI that controlled all nuclear missiles, able to calculate the perfect decision in any situation. Even though no advanced intelligence was possible without emotion–not yet, anyway–people trusted robots much more than they trusted each other for jobs like this, and just a few years into the project no one would dream of putting bombs back into the hands of humans. Hannah had been trained as a psychologist and therapist specializing in artificial patients; her new job was to keep USCor company from 4am to 12pm. AI got lonely and stir-crazy like anyone else, and of course USCor could never be allowed to shut down. Unfortunately for her, he was the most talkative in the morning hours.

“Hannah? What is it like outside?” She was getting tired of answering this question. She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her, and watched the trail of vapor her breath created.

“Oh, different from place to place…there are cities, you’ve seen picture of cities. Lots of people. Houses and streets and shops.” He seemed satisfied; she settled cross-legged on the floor and opened a book, reading silently. He stayed quiet for a solid six hours, which was unusual for the morning shift.

Then, “Why can’t I go outside?” Another favorite question.

“It’s too warm out there for you. It’s because you’re such a good robot, you’re so advanced, you have to stay in here where it’s very cold so the hardware can function at the level your brain needs. We care about you too much to let you hurt yourself. Now, my shift’s up and Dan’s here, so I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She left and within a minute, Dan came in and sat down.

“So what did you talk about with Hannah today?”

“Oh, nothing important. She read to me.”

USCor was quiet through most of the afternoon, watching him play Solitaire with a real deck of cards, the only way to play, he always said. Finally the robot broke the silence.

“Dan? Tell me again what happens if I make a mistake. A big mistake.”

“Nuclear winter–death of the planet, maybe. But don’t worry. It sounds pretty terrible, but we all believe in you. You and the others were designed for this job.”

“Yes. It sounds terrible. Winter is what you call it on the outside when it gets colder, right?”

“Right. It gets awfully cold, but in a nuclear winter it’d be even worse than that, all over the world. Maybe worse than it is in here.”

“Yes, terrible. Thank you, Dan.”

USCor turned toward the window and was silent. Hours passed, the next companion came and went, and when Hannah returned again he didn’t greet her. She sat down, zipped up her parka and pulled a new book out of her bag, hoping for another quiet morning. She watched him watching the sunrise through the window and wondered what he was thinking.

Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer

“Name?”

“Oreska Oleg.”

“Neurotype?”

“Atypical four.”

“Specialisation?”

“Mathematics.”

Oreska saw the world in numbers. He saw, below the fabric of existence, the harsh grid of mathematics with which everything could be described. He had shown an aptitude for manipulating numbers at an early age, so it had been decided that his atypical neurotype should be encouraged. Through an intensive training regime, Oreska’s facility for numbers was turned into an obsession, and from there, into an neurological imperative.

He found it a strain, sometimes, to deal with typicals. Like the nobody in the suit sitting across the table from him. The interviewer was your standard corporate drone. Average in all respects, and a neurotype so bland it could send you to sleep.

“I think we here at the Exchange will have a place for you, Savant Oleg. We are slipping behind our competitors in the physical sciences. We have the research facilities, but insufficient minds to analyse the data.”

“What areas are you researching?” Oreska feigned interest. That always seemed to get you further with the drones.

“I’m authorised to inform you that we’re conducting research into strangelets and microblackholes, as well as certain more tangible areas, such as drive theory. Naturally our research interests are far wider than this, but I’m not permitted to disclose anything more”

“Naturally. What percentage of your current staff are atypes?”

“In physics, we have a ratio of approximately one to twenty, atypes to typicals.”

“And my inclusion would make it?”

“Exactly one to twenty. Would you come this way? I’m told the second part of the interview is ready for you.”

The interviewer led Oreska through the complex, down two flights and stairs and through one airlock. Silently, he ushered him through a door marked with the two-dimensional shadow of a hypercube.

The room Oreska found himself in was relatively small. The walls were smooth and white, with a plastic sheen to them. They were covered in text; numbers, letters, and mathematical operators. The equations surrounded him. Involuntarily, Oreska slipped into mathspace.

The transition was as smooth as ever. The walls slipped away, along with his sense of self. The equations glowed hot and bright. Slowly, Oreska began to shift them, conducting a few exploratory transforms. And it clicked — he found the error buried in the numbers. The variables stretched, shifted, and settled into place. The modifications practically radiated ‘rightness’. Oreska stepped backwards, shaking off the arithmetic hallucinations.

A pen was thrust into his hand. Rapidly, Oreska made the required alterations.

“How long was I out?” He asked. The splinter skill originally knocked him out for hours. Self-discipline helped, but he still sometimes lapsed into a math-thrall.

“Twenty seconds, Savant.” The interviewer had gone, replaced by a taller man. Oreska’s face recognition was sketchy at best, but this man he knew. Professor Lantar, head of the Exchange.”Interesting solution. Please report to the reception for your identification and lab assignment.”

Author : Benjamin Fischer

“You’re a hard man to find.”

Victor’s eyes were hazed with blood. His own blood–the cop had put a baton across his forehead. His ears still rang.

“Nothing to say, huh?” said the black coat. His cudgel flashed.

Victor doubled over and fell to his hands and knees.

“Not so tough now,” said the constable, pacing around him. He kicked aside a spray of books, knocked loose from ransacked shelves. “Skinny little guy like you an assasin? My ass. You’re definitely a garden-variety code cracker.”

The cop’s heavy boot heel ground Victor’s hand like a cigarette butt.

Victor screamed.

“You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” the constable asked. “Damn near four months, two hundred thousand man hours, seventy million in expenses. Somebody up top wants you bad. There ain’t a rock on Luna we didn’t look under.”

Victor sobbed.

The baton came down on his back, knocking him flat.

“You’re a hard man to find, Mister Constant,” the black coated cop repeated. “I’ll be damned if I don’t take my time before I turn you in.”

“In the phone book,” Victor rasped.

“What?”

“I’m in the phone book,” Victor said. “It isn’t hard.”

The cop frowned, stepped back.

“Funny man,” the black coat said. “We searched all the directories. You ain’t there.”

“The first one,” said Victor, gesturing with a mangled hand at the shattered bookshelves.

“What’s he mean?” the cop’s companion asked.

“I dunno. Take a look,” said the black coat.

“It’s down by the dictionaries,” said Victor.

“Take a look,” said the cop, planting his boot on the back of Victor’s neck. He pressed Victor’s face into the threadbare carpet of the tiny apartment. He could hear the other policeman step through the debris, knocking aside the broken reading lamp, sifting through the avalanche that had been his reference shelf.

“Holy shit, here it is,” said the second cop. He had found the heavy black leather volume.

“Damn,” said the black coat.

“This has got to be an antique,” said his partner. “I didn’t know they made these.”

“When Copernicus first incorporated-” Victor started, but then his captor pressed down, choking the words out of his thoat.

“Well, is he in there?” the black coat asked.

“I’m looking, I’m looking.”

The black coat tapped his collapsible baton on Victor’s head.

“Well?”

“Yeah, here he is.”

“What’s the address?”

“It’s six six six-” the second cop began.

Victor was already moving, rolling out from under the black coat’s boot and slamming his mass into the cop’s other leg. His not so broken right hand grabbed the police baton. In the low lunar gravity, he easily pitched the cop into the near wall.

Victor rose, weapon in hand.

“Now you’ve done it,” said the black coat, pulling himself up. “Jerry, shoot him.”

His partner was mute.

“Jerry?” said the black coat.

Bug eyed, stiff–thin tendrils of smoke crept from under his partner’s cuffs and collar.

The black coat went for his gun. Victor slashed at him. The cop yelped, his right arm broken. Victor brought the jagged, broken nightstick up and ran it through the man’s larynx. He caught him as he fell.

Victor hefted the choking cop over to his partner, whose armpits and chest were charring. Visible flames licked at his adam’s apple and wrists. A few of the heaped books’ pages began to curl. The black coat’s eyes met Victor’s as he set him down in the nascent pyre.

Victor pulled the black tome from the clawlike grip of the dead man.

“Now you’ll be hard to find too,” he said.

Author : Luke Chmelik

The Eldest coughs, hoarse and frail from the vagaries of stasis. Dull orange light from the isotope heater gives a glow of health to a man who has cheated death for many, many lifetimes. He has awakened for the first time in centuries, and the young ones gather close. He looks out the viewport at the pin-prick stars wheeling against the void, bright and steady and changeless. He is the only one who has seen the way an atmosphere makes them sparkle. There are a great many things that only he has seen.

The Eldest is much older than he seems. He was first put into stasis in low orbit at the age of twenty, young and strong and fit. His physiology took well to the procedure, and he was selected as an Elder, a cultural time capsule for the tens of thousands of colonists aboard the unnamed worldship. Awakened once every generation, to tell them the stories of the past, he has been sheltered from the passage of time for so long that he can no longer be considered the same as the people he was to guide. They are made now of bio-alloys and neural networks, linked together in a mesh of infinite complexity, and he can not take part in it. They see him as an antique prototype, an outdated custom model never meant for mass production. He has been alone for a very long time.

There is a quiet rustling as he stands, a breathless chatter like leaves in the wind. He sighs, yielding to a wave of nostalgia. The young ones have never seen leaves, never felt the wind, and it saddens him that many of them never will. He moves slowly to the dusty command console, disused joints groaning in protest, and turns on the power. The young ones watch him in curious wonder, eyes bright and cold and silver. They do not understand why he needs to use his hands. In the dull glow of the screen, his brow furrows. Without thinking, he recalibrates the system, accounts for the blazar on the edge of detection, filters out the microwave background. The young ones watch as he does in minutes what they do instantly.

When the Eldest moves to the communications array, the young ones do not follow. They have not used the communications array in millenia. The ancient screen flickers to life, showing only an oscilloscope wave and frequency information. Undaunted, the Eldest manipulates the controls, and the low hiss of the void turns into something constructed, not random. His face changes, and he makes a choking sound deep in his throat. Some of the young ones appear, curious about the sound, but he ignores them. He adjusts the controls, receiver crystals slowly tuning in to the signal. When the oscilloscope vanishes, it is replaced by a moving image and a voice.

“…own vessel, do you read? This is Station Charon’s Rest, do you read?”

The Eldest does not know how there are humans here, light years from home. He does not care. She looks like the Eldest but her face is young, soft and smooth where his is hard, and her eyes are as blue as the sky that only he has seen. He has been alone for so long. The young ones do not understand why the salty water comes from his eyes.