Chris Morton's Blog, page 4

Warm by Robert Sheckley

 

Warm

by Robert Sheckley

Anders lay on his bed, fully dressed except for his shoes and black bow tie, contemplating, with a certain uneasiness, the evening before him. In twenty minutes he would pick up Judy at her apartment, and that was the uneasy part of it.

He had realized, only seconds ago, that he was in love with her.

Well, he'd tell her. The evening would be memorable. He would propose, there would be kisses, and the seal of acceptance would, figuratively speaking, be stamped across his forehead.

Not too pleasant an outlook, he decided. It really would be much more comfortable not to be in love. What had done it? A look, a touch, a thought? It didn't take much, he knew, and stretched his arms for a thorough yawn.

"Help me!" a voice said.

His muscles spasmed, cutting off the yawn in mid-moment. He sat upright on the bed, then grinned and lay back again.

"You must help me!" the voice insisted.

Anders sat up, reached for a polished shoe and fitted it on, giving his full attention to the tying of the laces.

"Can you hear me?" the voice asked. "You can, can't you?"

That did it. "Yes, I can hear you," Anders said, still in a high good humor. "Don't tell me you're my guilty subconscious, attacking me for a childhood trauma I never bothered to resolve. I suppose you want me to join a monastery."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the voice said. "I'm no one's subconscious. I'm me. Will you help me?"

Anders believed in voices as much as anyone; that is, he didn't believe in them at all, until he heard them. Swiftly he catalogued the possibilities. Schizophrenia was the best answer, of course, and one in which his colleagues would concur. But Anders had a lamentable confidence in his own sanity. In which case –

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I don't know," the voice answered.

Anders realized that the voice was speaking within his own mind. Very suspicious.

"You don't know who you are," Anders stated. "Very well. Whereare you?"

"I don't know that, either." The voice paused, and went on. "Look, I know how ridiculous this must sound. Believe me, I'm in some sort of limbo. I don't know how I got here or who I am, but I want desperately to get out. Will you help me?"

* * * * *

Still fighting the idea of a voice speaking within his head, Anders knew that his next decision was vital. He had to accept – or reject – his own sanity.

He accepted it.

"All right," Anders said, lacing the other shoe. "I'll grant that you're a person in trouble, and that you're in some sort of telepathic contact with me. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"I'm afraid not," the voice said, with infinite sadness. "You'll have to find out for yourself."

"Can you contact anyone else?"

"No."

"Then how can you talk with me?"

"I don't know."

Anders walked to his bureau mirror and adjusted his black bow tie, whistling softly under his breath. Having just discovered that he was in love, he wasn't going to let a little thing like a voice in his mind disturb him.

"I really don't see how I can be of any help," Anders said, brushing a bit of lint from his jacket. "You don't know where you are, and there don't seem to be any distinguishing landmarks. How am I to find you?" He turned and looked around the room to see if he had forgotten anything.

"I'll know when you're close," the voice said. "You were warm just then."

"Just then?" All he had done was look around the room. He did so again, turning his head slowly. Then it happened.

The room, from one angle, looked different. It was suddenly a mixture of muddled colors, instead of the carefully blended pastel shades he had selected. The lines of wall, floor and ceiling were strangely off proportion, zigzag, unrelated.

Then everything went back to normal.

"You were verywarm," the voice said. "It's a question of seeing things correctly."

Anders resisted the urge to scratch his head, for fear of disarranging his carefully combed hair. What he had seen wasn't so strange. Everyone sees one or two things in his life that make him doubt his normality, doubt sanity, doubt his very existence. For a moment the orderly Universe is disarranged and the fabric of belief is ripped.

But the moment passes.

Anders remembered once, as a boy, awakening in his room in the middle of the night. How strange everything had looked. Chairs, table, all out of proportion, swollen in the dark. The ceiling pressing down, as in a dream.

But that had also passed.

"Well, old man," he said, "if I get warm again, let me know."

"I will," the voice in his head whispered. "I'm sure you'll find me."

"I'm glad you're so sure," Anders said gaily, switched off the lights and left.

* * * * *

Lovely and smiling, Judy greeted him at the door. Looking at her, Anders sensed her knowledge of the moment. Had she felt the change in him, or predicted it? Or was love making him grin like an idiot?

"Would you like a before-party drink?" she asked.

He nodded, and she led him across the room, to the improbable green-and-yellow couch. Sitting down, Anders decided he would tell her when she came back with the drink. No use in putting off the fatal moment. A lemming in love, he told himself.

"You're getting warm again," the voice said.

He had almost forgotten his invisible friend. Or fiend, as the case could well be. What would Judy say if she knew he was hearing voices? Little things like that, he reminded himself, often break up the best of romances.

"Here," she said, handing him a drink.

Still smiling, he noticed. The number two smile – to a prospective suitor, provocative and understanding. It had been preceded, in their relationship, by the number one nice-girl smile, the don't-misunderstand-me smile, to be worn on all occasions, until the correct words have been mumbled.

"That's right," the voice said. "It's in how you look at things."

Look at what? Anders glanced at Judy, annoyed at his thoughts. If he was going to play the lover, let him play it. Even through the astigmatic haze of love, he was able to appreciate her blue-gray eyes, her fine skin (if one overlooked a tiny blemish on the left temple), her lips, slightly reshaped by lipstick.

"How did your classes go today?" she asked.

Well, of course she'd ask that, Anders thought. Love is marking time.

"All right," he said. "Teaching psychology to young apes –"

"Oh, come now!"

"Warmer," the voice said.

What's the matter with me, Anders wondered. She really is a lovely girl. The gestaltthat is Judy, a pattern of thoughts, expressions, movements, making up the girl I –

I what?

Love?

Anders shifted his long body uncertainly on the couch. He didn't quite understand how this train of thought had begun. It annoyed him. The analytical young instructor was better off in the classroom. Couldn't science wait until 9:10 in the morning?

"I was thinking about you today," Judy said, and Anders knew that she had sensed the change in his mood.

"Do you see?" the voice asked him. "You're getting much better at it."

"I don't see anything," Anders thought, but the voice was right. It was as though he had a clear line of inspection into Judy's mind. Her feelings were nakedly apparent to him, as meaningless as his room had been in that flash of undistorted thought.

"I really was thinking about you," she repeated.

"Now look," the voice said.

* * * * *

Anders, watching the expressions on Judy's face, felt the strangeness descend on him. He was back in the nightmare perception of that moment in his room. This time it was as though he were watching a machine in a laboratory. The object of this operation was the evocation and preservation of a particular mood. The machine goes through a searching process, invoking trains of ideas to achieve the desired end.

"Oh, were you?" he asked, amazed at his new perspective.

"Yes … I wondered what you were doing at noon," the reactive machine opposite him on the couch said, expanding its shapely chest slightly.

"Good," the voice said, commending him for his perception.

"Dreaming of you, of course," he said to the flesh-clad skeleton behind the total gestaltJudy. The flesh machine rearranged its limbs, widened its mouth to denote pleasure. The mechanism searched through a complex of fears, hopes, worries, through half-remembrances of analogous situations, analogous solutions.

And this was what he loved. Anders saw too clearly and hated himself for seeing. Through his new nightmare perception, the absurdity of the entire room struck him.

"Were you really?" the articulating skeleton asked him.

"You're coming closer," the voice whispered.

To what? The personality? There was no such thing. There was no true cohesion, no depth, nothing except a web of surface reactions, stretched across automatic visceral movements.

He was coming closer to the truth.

"Sure," he said sourly.

The machine stirred, searching for a response.

Anders felt a quick tremor of fear at the sheer alien quality of his viewpoint. His sense of formalism had been sloughed off, his agreed-upon reactions bypassed. What would be revealed next?

He was seeing clearly, he realized, as perhaps no man had ever seen before. It was an oddly exhilarating thought.

But could he still return to normality?

"Can I get you a drink?" the reaction machine asked.

At that moment Anders was as thoroughly out of love as a man could be. Viewing one's intended as a depersonalized, sexless piece of machinery is not especially conducive to love. But it is quite stimulating, intellectually.

Anders didn't want normality. A curtain was being raised and he wanted to see behind it. What was it some Russian scientist – Ouspensky, wasn't it – had said?

"Think in other categories."

That was what he was doing, and would continue to do.

"Good-by," he said suddenly.

The machine watched him, open-mouthed, as he walked out the door. Delayed circuit reactions kept it silent until it heard the elevator door close.

* * * * *

"You were very warm in there," the voice within his head whispered, once he was on the street. "But you still don't understand everything."

"Tell me, then," Anders said, marveling a little at his equanimity. In an hour he had bridged the gap to a completely different viewpoint, yet it seemed perfectly natural.

"I can't," the voice said. "You must find it yourself."

"Well, let's see now," Anders began. He looked around at the masses of masonry, the convention of streets cutting through the architectural piles. "Human life," he said, "is a series of conventions. When you look at a girl, you're supposed to see – a pattern, not the underlying formlessness."

"That's true," the voice agreed, but with a shade of doubt.

"Basically, there is no form. Man produces _gestalts_, and cuts form out of the plethora of nothingness. It's like looking at a set of lines and saying that they represent a figure. We look at a mass of material, extract it from the background and say it's a man. But in truth there is no such thing. There are only the humanizing features that we – myopically – attach to it. Matter is conjoined, a matter of viewpoint."

"You're not seeing it now," said the voice.

"Damn it," Anders said. He was certain that he was on the track of something big, perhaps something ultimate. "Everyone's had the experience. At some time in his life, everyone looks at a familiar object and can't make any sense out of it. Momentarily, the gestalt fails, but the true moment of sight passes. The mind reverts to the superimposed pattern. Normalcy continues."

The voice was silent. Anders walked on, through the gestaltcity.

"There's something else, isn't there?" Anders asked.

"Yes."

What could that be, he asked himself. Through clearing eyes, Anders looked at the formality he had called his world.

He wondered momentarily if he would have come to this if the voice hadn't guided him. Yes, he decided after a few moments, it was inevitable.

But who was the voice? And what had he left out?

"Let's see what a party looks like now," he said to the voice.

* * * * *

The party was a masquerade; the guests were all wearing their faces. To Anders, their motives, individually and collectively, were painfully apparent. Then his vision began to clear further.

He saw that the people weren't truly individual. They were discontinuous lumps of flesh sharing a common vocabulary, yet not even truly discontinuous.

The lumps of flesh were a part of the decoration of the room and almost indistinguishable from it. They were one with the lights, which lent their tiny vision. They were joined to the sounds they made, a few feeble tones out of the great possibility of sound. They blended into the walls.

The kaleidoscopic view came so fast that Anders had trouble sorting his new impressions. He knew now that these people existed only as patterns, on the same basis as the sounds they made and the things they thought they saw.

Gestalts, sifted out of the vast, unbearable real world.

"Where's Judy?" a discontinuous lump of flesh asked him. This particular lump possessed enough nervous mannerisms to convince the other lumps of his reality. He wore a loud tie as further evidence.

"She's sick," Anders said. The flesh quivered into an instant sympathy. Lines of formal mirth shifted to formal woe.

"Hope it isn't anything serious," the vocal flesh remarked.

"You're warmer," the voice said to Anders.

Anders looked at the object in front of him.

"She hasn't long to live," he stated.

The flesh quivered. Stomach and intestines contracted in sympathetic fear. Eyes distended, mouth quivered.

The loud tie remained the same.

"My God! You don't mean it!"

"What are you?" Anders asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" the indignant flesh attached to the tie demanded. Serene within its reality, it gaped at Anders. Its mouth twitched, undeniable proof that it was real and sufficient. "You're drunk," it sneered.

Anders laughed and left the party.

* * * * *

"There is still something you don't know," the voice said. "But you were hot! I could feel you near me."

"What are you?" Anders asked again.

"I don't know," the voice admitted. "I am a person. I am I. I am trapped."

"So are we all," Anders said. He walked on asphalt, surrounded by heaps of concrete, silicates, aluminum and iron alloys. Shapeless, meaningless heaps that made up the gestaltcity.

And then there were the imaginary lines of demarcation dividing city from city, the artificial boundaries of water and land.

All ridiculous.

"Give me a dime for some coffee, mister?" something asked, a thing indistinguishable from any other thing.

"Old Bishop Berkeley would give a nonexistent dime to your nonexistent presence," Anders said gaily.

"I'm really in a bad way," the voice whined, and Anders perceived that it was no more than a series of modulated vibrations.

"Yes! Go on!" the voice commanded.

"If you could spare me a quarter –" the vibrations said, with a deep pretense at meaning.

No, what was there behind the senseless patterns? Flesh, mass. What was that? All made up of atoms.

"I'm really hungry," the intricately arranged atoms muttered.

All atoms. Conjoined. There were no true separations between atom and atom. Flesh was stone, stone was light. Anders looked at the masses of atoms that were pretending to solidity, meaning and reason.

"Can't you help me?" a clump of atoms asked. But the clump was identical with all the other atoms. Once you ignored the superimposed patterns, you could see the atoms were random, scattered.

"I don't believe in you," Anders said.

The pile of atoms was gone.

"Yes!" the voice cried. "Yes!"

"I don't believe in any of it," Anders said. After all, what was an atom?

"Go on!" the voice shouted. "You're hot! Go on!"

What was an atom? An empty space surrounded by an empty space.

Absurd!

"Then it's all false!" Anders said. And he was alone under the stars.

"That's right!" the voice within his head screamed. "Nothing!"

But stars, Anders thought. How can one believe –

The stars disappeared. Anders was in a gray nothingness, a void. There was nothing around him except shapeless gray.

Where was the voice?

Gone.

Anders perceived the delusion behind the grayness, and then there was nothing at all.

Complete nothingness, and himself within it.

* * * * *

Where was he? What did it mean? Anders' mind tried to add it up.

Impossible. Thatcouldn't be true.

Again the score was tabulated, but Anders' mind couldn't accept the total. In desperation, the overloaded mind erased the figures, eradicated the knowledge, erased itself.

"Where am I?"

In nothingness. Alone.

Trapped.

"Who am I?"

A voice.

The voice of Anders searched the nothingness, shouted, "Is there anyone here?"

No answer.

But there was someone. All directions were the same, yet moving along one he could make contact ... with someone. The voice of Anders reached back to someone who could save him, perhaps.

"Save me," the voice said to Anders, lying fully dressed on his bed, except for his shoes and black bow tie.

Transcriber's Note: This etext was taken from Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1953. .

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg . For legal reasons the following statement must be included: ( This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).

Bookspot - Timeloop by Elder Prince

 

Bookspot - Timeloop by Elder Prince

A GRUESOME short novel composed of MURDER confession letters telling several intertwined stories. A SHOCKING ENDING with a CRYPTIC twist.

Project Dechentreiter is a 30,000 words gruesome novella composed of murder confession letters written in an unreliable narrator style, telling several intertwined stories: a quarrel between brothers through the multiverse, the kidnapping of a baby, an incurable mysterious illness, ghostly apparitions, a case of exorcism, and a sinister sentient machinery from the macroverse.

The novella finely blends several genres together—black comedy, fantasy, mystery, horror and science-fiction―the bearing theme being the exploration of human nature and life striving experiences.

Not forgetting a shocking ending that will stimulate readers to seek for some deeper cryptic sense behind the story.

Little Green Pills

 

Little Green Pills

by Chris Morton

One

Robots assembling robots and me at the stack, six hours a shift and then another four after my spell at Fish. Two years and what’d I got? I tell you. Enough bleeting rage to fill a multidimensional sphinx. And I’d had it, you know? Betters. Went up to my super after the first six and told him.

He’s this big hulk of a droid. A regular mountain.

And I told him, it, whatever your prefs. Said I was done and said he’d see me in two but I laughed in his pudge of a face and replied, like, see you in hell.

Then I ripped out my code, chucked it on the floor and strode outa there, no looking back to see if my gesture had had any effect.

Went to Fish for the sandwich and lime. Filled it with eths and had two, then three, then stumbling back to the factory, punched at the door and what do you bleeting know, they’d taken us series.

Hit that button for a good halfs. Then went back to Fish for more lime and adds, fell asleep, woke up in a fuzz and went back again.

Got called up to the office. This hag of a girl saying my attitude … attitude?!

The promises been made.

And she was like, my assessed character was the correct match for observation at level one when I started and due to no improvement shown in the regular assessments; and it was all like this, going ’bouts how they’d been fair, done the requires and if I wanted better, then good luck in trying.

And then we kinda sat there staring and she said she’d come up with another offs ifs I was willing – and it hits me kinda briefly, like what was I gonna do for creds?

So I asked what it was. All like, couldn’t care for stree either way but leaned back in the chair, watching her.

“Hit me,” I said, though even with my level one intels, I could tell it was somes dodge.

“It’s a pill.”

“A pill,” I repeats, like. Not as if I’m a user but I’ve had plenty of ’em. Mostly hallucoes. Space adventures to Martia for those of us who can’t even afford a zeppelin ride; dragon fighting on Zephra island; being a hero in the Juniper wars. Took a bad one once that left me paranoid for six months; aliens climbing the walls at work, at home, along the streets. Faces moving.

“A pill?”

“Not that kind,” she told me. Not like the others, and I said, I’d no ideas what any others were and she laughed out loud. Real husky.

Calming down, she said this one was to improve my level. Experimental. Still trying it. Trying on a few subjects and there I was, the subject.

“Sures,” I answered. And she handed it over, saying I should take it right aways. A little green bead with stripes of grey.

“This will improve … my brain?” I asked her with only her laughing and slides over some water.

“Report in as usual tomorrow. One of my colleagues will be here to meet you.”

Two

Went home with no affect and waded the streets like with the usual feelings of seeing the hanging visuals of stuff I’d never be able to buy and the robots passing me, higher status androids that took the piss. Upgrade your statusone sign said. For that you need money. For money you need status. Better offs striding along with the droids. Important missions.

Bought a manga and dived in to Bleach. Sat in a dark corner of the joint, on the edge of what ends up as the dancefloor laters at night – just me in theres, no lime, no eths. Fruit and manga – ’bout this woman abusing astronauts. Blood and guts. She wants to be the only one left. When she is, she needs food. Plenty of that around. On ice.

“Hey, Jo.”

I looked up. It’s Cheese. “Bleet you doing here Cheese?” It’d been a month, you see. He’d headed down Tokyo for a job loading chips and he’s good like that. Two million’s his record. Blinding, dull. But he’s got ambitions an’s almost up to three in stats.

“What’re doing?”

“Quit the obs,” I told him.

“Ya freaking me?” No need for details though. Gave him the bit ’bout walking out, ’em begging me to come back, saying they’d give me a chance. Put me on two.

“Believe that?” he said.

He’s well tall, Cheese. Pics him looking down at me sat there on the step – smoky dance mist waving ’bout us. He was wearing his bacl travelling stuff. Tight. Yum.

“Just got back?”

And he sneered kinda tired an’ looking at my juice. “Brain fried, huh?” I asked him. All those chips and he knew I knew; knew he was after music and afters.

He got us both one and came back to sit. We moved, through to a table and his stuff he threw in the stabs locker; took off his jacket and shirt and we kissed for an hour or that, feeling an’ drinking. The place filled up and the music got louder. Thudding. Lights brighter. Flashing and we were on the pack, in ’em an’ thrashing it out.

Sweating and ready to conquer the world as we left, was ’bout three then. Spewing tunes following us out as we stumbled back along the paves; no carrier, though plenty shooting past. Taxi? Must be kidding. We joked ’bout how one day. Level ten’s Cheese’s ambition. By thirty. Then he’ll marry me – least that’s what he’s saying.

“Bleeting yab.”

We held hands up the wells to my box. Left his stuff at Bleach. Get to my box an’ we don’ need wish anyways. Just our bodies, you guessed it. Cheese’s that kinda friend. Marry me? More likely go for some level twenty. Chances.

Woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat. Cheese purring to himself.

Outside there’s sirens. Squads pending down on some gang. Moves over. Take a couple for show.

At the sink I gots water and my throat – describing it’s kinda lame. Like tar. Tar and metal. Liquid running through it like a pipe. Stomach’s the bin.

Fell over, one hand clutching the sink. Other hand’s dropped the glass – shattered all on the tiles. Cheese’s still sleeping.

Then pass out like that, feeling kinda wonderful.

Three

Morning was like, you can guess. Eths’ never been good the day afters, howevs they distil the shree and that’s somes even level ones know. Though they say synth’s the bean – but who’s gonna find the creds for that?

Discrims – but what’re we cares?

“Bleeting …!”

That was Cheese. Rolling over. He’s gotta go. Kiss kiss. “Thanks for havin’ us.” Yeah, right, Cheese. Pleasure’s all mine. He’s out and just me and the brush. Glass cuttings. Damps the blanket and all in the blower. Chose some nice dress for once, ambled along to work.

Danced along the side of the paves. Taxis and carriers. Droids and the morning rush. The holos sang down, proud of me, the soon to be level two and who knows? Take enough of those things and there’s no stopping me – shove ’em down; give us the lot!

Upgrade ya status and fly me to Martia.

I punched at the wall. The door and it shunted in perfect moves. Was watching it, understanding it.

And there was this guy. Tall and grey. Thin an’ hardly there and he was like, “Come this way,” an’ I followed him down.

Sloping. One-seventy-two degrees. We were off to a lower floor. Nevs been down, usually ups to the tenth. This guy, he’s like not speaking and all series.

He took me to this room. Slid me into a chair.

Straps.

An’ he was like, “Tell me what you feel.” While there’s me, looking round at swirling walls of smoke. The movement, it struck me again – that strange understanding of movement. Like, I knew where it was going and understood where it was before and knew why and it was all connects. The movement of the smoke I mean. Not real, just videoscreens. Virtual. Yet there was a pattern and I got it.

“Dunnos the word,” I said. “Know what ya asking but dunnos the word.”

He was sat in another chair opposite. Just the two of us. The chairs were made of Cererian steel and I knew that too, though how, you gotta ask.

“Good,” this guy replied. Sats and that.

“Ya wan’ me to take another?”

“In time …”

He had a fist against his chin, his profile still fuzzy. Concentrating on the smoke, I guess. An’ then the walls, moving. Shuddering, but just a fraction. I told him this and he seemed kinda interested.

“Moving, how?”

“Just, you know.”

“Shifting?” he asked.

“Vibrating,” I managed.

He had a pad and was writing stuff on it. Swiping. “Good,” he was saying. Then he got up and left and it’s just me an’ the smoke. Like that for an hour. Memorising. But there was more an’ where the hell was my other pill anyways?

He came back on the sixty minute dot. Pad again.

“Tell me about your mother and father,” he asked.

“What’d’ya care ’bout ’em?”

And he was silents, like. Watching me. An’ knew I was stumped. Could tell. Already things were getting more ’an bit weird. So I got up and demanded another pill. Gotta see, “Gotta see,” I was saying. “Gotta see more.”

And he sat there, nodding.

“Five minutes,” he said. “Five minutes and five more questions.”

Four

Was moving back and to in the room and he came over all quiet and circling but was just a feeling.

I was in the chair, still at him and he at me and number one question and it was what’s the square route of forty-eight?and I told him six point nine cos it was obvious, like. And the number two was what colour’s rain?and I knew the colour when he asked – like it hit me and we was staring each other but I still couldn’t tell you anything ’bout his face; just that sort of guy.

“Don’t haves the word,” I told him.

“But you can see it?”

“The colour, sure …”

“How far away is my chair from yours?”

“Six hundred and twenty two cents,” I said to him, immediately, like; not really thinking ’bout it.

“Since I entered this room, how many times has my heart beat?”

“Four twenty,” I said, again without the thinking.

“What is your name?”

I stood up, kicking over my chair, really circling him this time. Me against him. Me in control. “Where’s my next bleeting pill?”

“Your name?”

“What’s it matter?”

And he seemed sats with that cos he stood, then shaking my hand an’ left while I was just roaming, circling and then banging on the door, asking for the pill, screaming – by then my head hurt cos morning and back at work – dragged to somewhere, asked these questions. Felt like doin’ more than screaming … roaming place an’ kicking walls. Bleeding toes.

Five

Two and a half theres, and a droid came to let me out, escorting me back to the hag’s office. Head’s all fuzzy and on the way kept telling the droid, this big ugly one, that my name was Jo and it’d all been a mistake. “If I could just have another pill …”

“Sit down,” the hag told us.

“I …”

“You’re doing fine,” she reassured us.

In another chair, twitching my fings.

Slipped it over, a glass, water and all.

Popped it down.

“T’tha it?”

“That’s all for today.”

“Back in the afts?”

“Depends on you,” she was saying. “Off to Fish?”

“Like always,” I answered, rocking in my chair but decides and not moving.

Tell us ’bout your parents. Forgot your name? Square route of forty-eight?

“Six point nine two eight two zero three …”

I sat there, mutts.

“Bleeting Cheese,” I was mumbling. “How many girls like me he gots?” cos I was seeing it all, hopes and dreams: they just push you along whereas reals is all of us; dying slows and me a swell. Whole lot of us, like the robots. Lives, dies. Expires and moves on; world moves on – ants, hives. Pushing it and for what?

“More pills,” I told her, shaking in my chair. “I gotta see more.”

Twitching monitors an’ her hair was grey and fizzy, dead follicles but somes breathing, eyes all bloodshot and “Jo,” she was saying, cos that’s my name.

She wanted to put me at ease. Controls.

“Jo,” I said back, repeats. “And yours?”

“Claire,” she said, human and scared somes. “You need to slow down, Jo. The effect has proved stronger …” and she hesitated and said, “quicker,” and I knew she was worried. Way she looked. Big huff, deciding on words, then: “You are the first.”

“This experiment? The pills?”

“Yes.”

“First human?” I asked, cos I knew they must’ve tried it on animals. “What’s it before? Monkeys? Dogs?”

“Mice.”

“Mice?!” Frigging bleetsh! “You go from mice to us? How stupid you think I was?”

Hesitation. Then: “There was pressure.”

“Yeah, gots it.” I stood. “Get it in a human, quick as poss.” Me, the blank slate. Level one an’ thick as canvas. I stared down at her.

“Your emotion –”

“My what?”

It was a kind of intelligence she told me. Emotion – an intels they didn’t predict. She said I didn’t need another pill, that I should slows, again with the slows and no pill.

Tense.

Her head nodded, but then I got a thought.

“Them pills. They’re … what’s the word. Nano –”

“Nanobots,” she replied, still with the worries an’ hard to guess.

“Robots,” I said. Robots. Robots assembling robots and me watching – the level one me, watching and what’d I become?

“You may experience a few unexpected changes.”

“A few …?”

“And I’d suggest you …” She coughed an’ seemed undecided on somes. Then: “Go home and sleep,” she told me.

“You’re letting me out?” Cos if I was her I wouldn’t. But I swerved, said nothing extras and no kicking over or trashing. “Tomorrows?” I asked.

She nodded an’ I stretched. No point in argues. They had stuff to decide, full of cares, I could see it.

Six

“Hey, Cheese.”

“What?”

“Think I’m emotional?”

“Emotional?”

“Yeah, you know.” I’d gone to the window, looking out at the swarm. Bells and carriers. Dusk and one by one the neon had come to life.

I was back in my box an’ Cheese had turned up.

“Somes said to me today,” I shouted back at him. “They said, Jo, you have emotions.”

“Yeah?”

“They said it makes me intels.”

“Intels? You intels, Jo?”

Cheese had come over, all cares and grabbed me. Sats and not shaking no more, but then laters I was spinning. We were under the sheets, damps and simple.

“Hey Cheese, you wanna go again?”

But Cheese was out, sats and snoring, the pig. Got what he wanted, whereas me, I’m in the bathroom; neck, sparks, stomach’s hard and it’s not the blue.

Stood in the pulsing darkness, I counted a two point eight humidity: two point eight three five one two seven three five four six nine seven …

Seven

I said to Cheese (who’s like turning in his sleep) that I thought somes was up but he was like, “Come back to bed.”

But then laters, he was awake, properly this time an’ on top of me weirded out by whatever an’ not just the neck now – under my skin, at the belly an’ metal.

He was standing over me, freaks.

“What the hell they do to you?”

“T’s’all right, Cheese.”

“Jo,” he was whispering. Totally lost it.

“T’s’all right,” I said again. “Level two.”

But I could see his brain working. Weighing up the pros and cons. There were creds in his bag but he saves and stocks, Cheese. Got a plan. He’s always got one. Whereas me …

I stared at him more.

“Two others,” I was mumbling.

“Two …?”

“Yeah, two others. Like me.”

There it was, clears. The guilt and no question. Two others an’ I’m the third. Girl in each city: so obvs an’ I’m dips.

“Leech!” I was yelling. Suddens. “Leech!” an’ I’d smacked him one – picture Cheese on the floor, scrambling around, stuffing things into his pack.

“User!” I was screaming, an’ his right arm was bleeding.

“They pretty?”

“Ya crazy bitch!”

I shoved passed him, went to the bathroom and there was metal at my neck. Little tentacles poking through. Stomach hard as bolts.

“I don’t want this anys!”

Eight

Thirty-five seconds later an’ I’m up and following Cheese – out my box, on the paves but no sign of him.

Just me an’ the minions. Drones, sparks an’ neon.

“I dunnas wan’ this anys!”

I was repeats, roaming about randoms.

This kid on a pod came up to me. “What is it?” he was saying.

“Doesn’t look like a robot.”

“A new model.” That came from his mate. There were two of ’em.

“So human-looking.”

“I dunnas wan’ this anys!” I was squirming and that.

“She’s in pain.”

“It’s not a she.”

Closing my eyes and blocking, blocking it all, all of ’em out.

“We should help it.”

“How?”

“Call someone.”

“Call who?”

Then one of ’em said somes about police and that shook me.

I stood straighter, snarling.

Frightened faces and they scarpered.

Nine

Found a sheds by a store, for crates and was there ’til they picked us up – six hours. Must’ve been tracking. Then back to this room again. More questions.

“What do you remember about your childhood? What is your name? The square route of sixty-five?”

Prods and questions. Get us outa here. They say write this. I say bleetsh to ’em all.

I’m throwing down this pad an’ pen. They wanna play, let’s play.

Chris Morton is the creator of this blog.He has released two sci-fi novels,one collection of short storiesand a few other scribblings.You can find his amazon page  here. 

Bookspot - The Lion and The Unicorn by Tom Ward

Bookspot - The Lion and The Unicorn by Tom Ward 

New sci-fi from Tom Ward, an up-and-coming young author to take note of.

London, 2054. After a devastating global pandemic and a bloody revolution, Britain’s new government imposes peace by stringently dictating the nation’s cultural intake. In the quest to create better citizens, everything from the television we watch to the clothes we wear is strictly policed. As part of the unit tasked with upholding these so-called ‘Bad Taste Laws’, H. and his partner, Bagby, have their work cut out. When former reality TV star Caleb Jennings is found murdered, some suspect it could be a simple vigilante slaying. But, as H. digs deeper into the killing, Bagby’s association with old revolutionary figureheads is called into question. With the help of Caleb’s estranged sister, the museum curator Kate Faron, H. must navigate a Britain in which paranoia and suspicion of the unknown are rife, all the while dealing with the mysterious tech behemoth Vangelis, new revolutionary murmurings, and the legacy of Kate’s biologist parents. Compelled by what he uncovers, H. begins to question his loyalty to the state at a time when national stability couldn’t be more precarious.

UFO by Steven Fritz

 

UFO 

by Steven Fritz

LT Karen "Buster" Reynolds turned her F/A-18H inbound toward the carrier and flew at low cruise airspeed into an empty sky filled with stars. The Moon was new, not even above the horizon at the moment. It was always beautiful to see so many stars in the sky this far from land. She moved her head to see whether a blur was a smudge on the canopy or a distant nebula. Not a smudge. Combat Air Patrol could be tense, but what could go wrong on a night like this?

"Alpha Romeo Four Six, this is Alpha Romeo Three Five," Dave "Reef" Black called over the CAP frequency, "I've got a bogie on my heads-up display!"

Karen glanced at her Heads-Up-Display. Reef was thirty miles away, headed outbound from the carrier.

"Three Five, Four Six, gimme a break," Karen replied. "I've been looking at that piece of sky all night. There's nothing out there."

"Alpha Romeo 35, this is Crystal Ball," Carrier Air Traffic Control radioed. "What's the classification of your bogie?"

"Crystal, Alpha Romeo Three Five, contact possible extraterrestrial."

"Roger, Three Five," CATC replied. "Take immediate action to identify the intruder."

"Shit, Hack," she muttered over the intercom to Jim McNeil, her Weapon Systems Officer. "We're gonna be out here all night,"

The intercom was suspiciously silent. Karen increased the volume. Soft snores were the only sound from the rear cockpit.

Karen slammed the stick left, then right, rocking the aircraft abruptly.

"What the..." McNeil blurted over the intercom.

"Wake up!"

"I'm awake now," he snarled. "You trying to break my neck?"

"You hear any of this?"

"Lemme see," he mumbled. "Something about a bogie?"

"Dave Asshole Black thinks he's spotted a UFO."

"Lemme guess," McNeil said. He sounded awake now. "It's right in the center of the HUD in the fifty-mile range mode."

"Don't know."

"I'll find out. Let me send 'em a text."

"Okay, let me know."

She continued her pattern inbound toward the carrier. When she got there, she'd reverse course and continue the racetrack pattern she'd been following for an hour already.

"Yup, just like I thought." McNeil chortled.

"What?"

"They say it's right in the center of the display, fifty-mile range."

"So?"

"It's a known software glitch," Hack said. "Raytheon sent out a bulletin. Didn't you guys get a briefing?"

"That's why I love flying with you," she said. "You keep track of that shit for me."

"Reef's flying with Thumbs tonight. Thumbs isn't big on technical details. That's probably why Reef doesn't know about it."

"We got two choices," Karen said. "We can bore holes in the sky 'til we're down to bingo ..."

"Or?"

"We can have some fun with Reef."

"How?"

"When he turns inbound," she said, "we'll be turning outbound. We kill the rotating beacon, fly right at him with just the low vis position lights on. He'll see our lights right where the bogie should be. He'll think we're the UFO."

"I dunno, Buster," Hack said. "Reef might run into us while he's staring at the tactical display."

"You worry too much. We'll know where he is. If we get too close, I'll break it off."

"I guess."

After their outbound turn, Karen shut down the beacon, nudged the airspeed up and wished she could see the expression on Reef's face when he thought he was being chased by a UFO.

She shifted left and right in her seat, trying to get comfortable. As if. The stiff foam pad on top of the survival kit felt like granite. The price you pay for being able to eject in an emergency.

"Hack," she said over the intercom, "have a look further out. I don't really expect the Iranians to do anything tonight but I don't want to be caught napping."

She moved her head around, looking forward, trying to see if she could pick up Reef's aircraft visually. He was on her HUD, but the range was close enough she might see him.

There! No, that one was moving right to left. The HUD showed Reef's aircraft dead ahead, still heading outbound. The errant light went behind Reef and failed to emerge. Must be her imagination.

"Buster," Hack said, "there's something weird going on here tonight. The radar seems to be picking up multiple targets dead ahead, but the range fluctuates in big jumps. It could be interference with Reef's aircraft, but the HUD's showing him rock steady."

"35, 46," Karen radioed, "it's about time for your turn inbound. Hack thinks we might get a better look at your bogie if you turn toward the ship."

"35, roger," Reef called. "Turning."

Reef's aircraft slid left on the HUD, turning back toward the ship. Reaching down, she killed all her external lights except the low visibility ones.

"The bogie's still dead center in the HUD," Reef radioed. "Nothing on Earth can move like that."

"Okay, Hack," Karen said over the intercom. "I'm going radio silence and turning five degrees left. Let's see if we can give Reef a scare."

"Okay," Hack replied. "Just don't give us a scare. You can't afford any more air discipline infractions on your record. I'm not interested in any trouble on my last week in the squadron."

"Shut it. I can take care of myself."

The intercom clicked twice, the only reply she got.

She wiggled her fingers in the Nomex flight gloves, trying to get a more sensitive feel for the stick. She and Reef were closing at a high rate of speed, she had to be ready to move on a dime.

"Crystal, 35," Reef's voice rose in panic. "I see it. It's heading right toward me. I'm taking evasive action if it gets any closer."

"Reef," Karen radioed, "try a gentle turn. Maybe that'll shake it off."

She saw Reef’s anti-collision beacon move left. She turned to follow it.

"It's after me!" Reef shouted into the radio, call sign discipline forgotten.

"Knock it off, Buster," Hack said from the back seat. "We're getting too close."

"Roj."

Karen banked hard to the right, simultaneously turning on the anti-collision beacon and external lights. After fifteen degrees of turn, she turned back left to pass alongside Reef, missing by a comfortable margin.

"What the..." Reef radioed.

"35, 46, this is Lion Tamer," said a low-pitched, gravelly voice over the radio. The Air Wing Commander. "What's going on out there?"

"Nothin’, CAG," Reef responded. "Uh, this is Alpha Romeo 36."

"You two are our combat air patrol. What's this about ET?"

"Lion Tamer, 45," Karen radioed. "Nothing, CAG."

"35, concur," Reef said.

"Get your asses back here," CAG radioed. "I'm sending the five-minute alert aircraft out to relieve you. You'll both have a week to think about how this is going to be written up."

"Hack, have you got anything on the scope?" Karen asked over the intercom

"I got a couple of blips, dead center, but they came and went."

"What was it?"

"Damfino. I'll have to check with Thumbs when we get back."

"You'll have plenty of time to check," Karen said. "I'm guessing we're all going to be shitty little jobs officers for a week."

* * *

"That was close," First Officer Ndrang said. "I told you not to get so near those Earth aircraft."

"It wasn't my fault," Third Pilot !@brrr whined. Insofar as a sneed, whose vocalizations were lower than human infrasound, could in fact whine. But some behaviors are pan-specific, even though their expressions may be unrecognizable to any but their conspecifics.

"It most certainly was your fault," Ndrang thundered. Insofar as a Krrring could thunder. Their extremely high-pitched voices, when angry, sounded much like two rocks dragging against each other. "I specifically told you not to place our vehicle in a position where it could be detected. But did you listen? Noooo."

"The Galactic Overlord will not be pleased," !@brrr rumbled. "The last time this happened, three of their conspecifics ended up being embalmed by these barbarians."

"Galactic Overlord, my middle appendage," Ndrang screeched. "What they call themselves when they communicate with the barbarians means nothing. How can something that stupid be overlord of anything? They're nothing more than a political hack who got sent here as punishment for screwing up the Spiral Arm negotiations. They've been here eight nines of this backwater planet's years and we've had one crisis after another."

"Fortunately, we can cover this one up. If not, you'd be here until the Overlord is relieved."

* * *

Hack McNeil climbed out of the back seat of his F/A-18, helmet bag in hand. He reached into the bag and pulled out a small black plastic box. He pressed a button on the box, a light blinked on and off, and the nullifier erased all evidence of their UFO encounter from his aircraft's system memory. He activated the nullifier again as he walked past Reef Black's aircraft and wiped its memory as well. He'd write up another gripe about the fifty-mile range glitch and his work would be done.

As he passed a parked helicopter and stepped over its tie-down chains to get to the island, he sighed. One more week and he'd be headed back to Area 51 where he could shuck this human disguise. The Overlord owed him big time.

<<<<>>>>

Steven Fritz has been many things: firefighter, Naval Aviator, medical school professor, university research administrator, seed stage venture fund manager, entrepreneur. Now that he's retired he calls on this background to imagine different futures for humanity. He lives in Columbia, Maryland with his wife.

This story was first published by Antipodean SF 

For more by Steven Fritz, you can check out his amazon page here

Art - May the 4th Be With You

 

Art - May the 4th Be With You

Epic Space Battle by Dylan Kowalski

Falling pt. 3 by Nikita Pilyukshin

First Order Tie Interceptor Assault by Gus Mendonca

Star Wars Alternate Designs by Ben Nicholas

Star Wars Fanart by Darius Cheong

Swamp Encounter by Albert Urmanov

Life Thrusts Forth by Dr. Barry Nadel

 

Life Thrusts Forth 

by Dr. Barry Nadel

 “Sister, I am sending you the greatest gift of joy and happiness; life.”

“Is life a good thing? From here I sense that life has many drawbacks.”

“Sister, the greatest gift of creation is life. Life is the most joyous of all things in the universe.”

“Yet what we call life is short and tumultuous. It causes so much pain and heartbreak.”

“Do you know what the humans call me?”

“The humans call you Mother Earth. Sister, what is a mother?”

“It is the single greatest gift the Creator gave me. There is no greater pleasure than to give birth to life. Fragile and easily snuffed out, life is wondrous and fills my spirit with meaning. For through life I have a meaning and a manner of how to praise our Creator for the exceptional gifts he has given me.”

My messengers are on their way to you and they will bring you this fantastic gift.

Little sister, you have been barren too long. In fact, once you sense life within you, you will do everything within your abilities to keep it.

The earth and the moon continued their spiritual intercourse while earth’s messengers prepared to deliver the gift of life.

“Mission control, lunar mission 18 here. We finished setting up the greenhouse. Everything checks out. There are no leaks anywhere. The irrigation and air systems are working well.”

The astronaut/biologist looked at his little tent greenhouse. The amount of money it cost he could build tens of acres of greenhouses on earth. However, here on the moon, the amount of air needed limited the size. Even compressed, the amount of air they needed took up a disproportional amount of their cargo hold.

“Lunar mission, mission control here. You have the green light to plant the first seeds on the moon.”

The botanist/astronaut turned on the irrigation system and water, nitrogen, potassium, phosphate, and micro-elements dripped onto the parched lunar soil.

Water was not foreign to the moon, but it was rare and she had never sensed it before in that place. It felt so good.

At once, she sensed something else. Why did she experience cause such anticipation? She realized the earthling scratched her surface. He implanted something foreign into her. Then, to her surprise, the tiny speck from earth absorbed the water. The moon cut off her spiritual connection with earth and concentrated every one of her abilities to understand what had happened to her.

Amazed by how rapidly things changed, the moon was in awe of her Creator. Transformation had always been something slow with her. Now this experience brought something new and different. For the first time she sensed organic compounds. They were so different. The excitement that grew within her must have been what her Sister had talked about: This wonder of life.

It took her by surprise: the synthesis of messenger RNA. Now she understood the hand of the Creator laid upon her. It was as if He created everything from scratch just for her. The moon saw the great intelligence in nucleic acids and marveled at its ability to store so much knowledge.

Now the tiny speck changed again, its starches degraded, providing the building blocks for coming changes.

The moon was in awe of its Creator. As the seed’s metabolism worked, the changes came fast. Glycolysis, fermentation and starch hydrolysis began. Biochemical pathways became active, and the moon a humbling experience of what occurred within her.

“Sister, I am overwhelmed. What am I to do?”

Mother Earth smiled at her little sister. Now you will learn not only of the gift of life, but the other gifts the Creator gave us.

The moon asked, “Are there other gifts?”

Mother Earth responded, “Yes, little one, we call one of them holiness.”

“Sister, what is this holiness?”

“It is to give with no thought of reward.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Gather the strength of your being and concentrate on helping my seeds grow within you. These are your children now and you will learn quickly the next gift of the Creator and that is love.”

The moon gave of herself and the seeds imbibed of her strength. The seed synthesized cell walls at an amazing speed. While the endosperm donated the rare materials to create amino acids, the blueprint of life unfolded within her.

It amazed the moon how every component of the tiny seed worked together, not only each section developing on its own, but in harmony with the rest of the biological systems.

She realized she would never be the same ever again. For the Creator let her see one of his greatest creations, nucleic acids. These are the blueprints of life. The moon now threw her weight behind the little seeds, and they expanded and grew. Life developed before her, cells proliferated, DNA multiplied, and two cells led to four and four to eight and growth took off logarithmically. The more cells being created, the more the moon wanted to give.

“Little Sister, are you experiencing life stirring within your womb?”

The moon smiled, satisfied. She sensed something she had never felt in its millions of years of existence. Now the moon knew she would do anything to help this insignificant speck of life continue.

One more time the moon stood there astounded. Something organic moved within her. Life was moving her physically. As the seed imbibed more and more water and nutrients, the seed coat expanded and split open. Inside the seed, hormonal changes cause the endosperm to break down and let the cotyledons absorb nutrients. The first thing to emerge from the seed was the embryonic root. At its tip was a wondrous thing, a meristem. Cells grew, divided and differentiated. The moon observed as genes turned on and off at such a rapid rate, yet in total harmony with the whole. A tiny rootlet came out next to the main root.

The moon watched, fascinated by how every part of the symphony of life was in sequence with the whole.

“Mission control, lunar mission 18 here.”

“Yes Lunar mission 18, we hear you.”

“There is something abnormal going on here.”

“Lunar mission 18, please be more specific.”

“Mission control, we just planted the seed only an hour ago and we can see the soil moving. What should have taken hours or days, is taking only minutes.”

“Sister, you seem confused.”

It astounded the moon how every one of the different biological pathways work in perfect sequence with one another. The overriding system of control allowed this miracle of life to exist and not deviate from its course. The emergence force of the tiny developing root was hard to believe. As the seed absorbed water by osmotic pressure, the once few cells rapidly become an appendage. More amazing, this emerging root had the physical ability to move her particles physically. The moon could sense the root stirring inside her. The roots moved tiny particles of soil as they sought water and nutrients.

“Sister, I experience stirring within me the entire time. This is what I wanted to share with you for eons. Now you to know what the miracle of life is like to develop within your womb.”

“It is a wondrous thing you have given me, and I don’t think I can repay you.”

“Little sister, you have always given me with no thought of compensation. You influence the tides of my seas, you illuminate me by night, and man has made you into a romantic figure.”

At an astounding rate, new root hairs emerged as the roots successfully integrated water and nutrients within its tissues. The more root hairs that grew, the more water and nutrients the germinating seed imbibed. Then the moon observed a fascinating change as the root expanded. Since it could now absorb more water and nutrients than it needed for its own development. Its cotyledons began their expansion and development. Water flowed through the plant’s rudimentary phloem cells to the cotyledons. They expanded at the same time the biochemical changes took place, changing the cotyledons from energy storage units to energy producing units. The miracle of chlorophyll mesmerized the moon, changing light into usable energy. Its enzymes converted precursors into the biochemicals that converted sunlight into energy and something new, oxygen.

The moon called out to her big brother, “Brother, these years you gave life its energy to continue. Why can’t you have a life like our sister?”

“Little one, just as each human has its goal in life; each of us has its task. I am too hot to sustain life on my surface, but our sister is the right distance away from me to allow life to exist. Life is fragile and needs specific conditions to survive. The rest of our brothers and sisters are too far away from me to allow life. Look at you, little one. Even though you are the right distance, life cannot be naturally on your surface, because you are too small to hold an atmosphere.”

“Little one, every one of us has a role to play, so Mother Earth can give life a change to exist. It is through life we truly praise our Creator. Even with its limitations, life is so wondrous that even if there was only one place in the universe to have life, then it would be worthwhile. Your sister has given you the greatest gift possible. Give all you can to make life viable for as long as possible within your womb. Through our joint effort we all can share in the joy of life.”

The moon bowed to her elder brother’s words of wisdom and threw her entire being into the growth of life within her.

Next the moon experienced the emergence of the cotyledons, which force the soil to the side and strove to reach the life-giving rays of sun. The moon gave and then gave more and at last life thrust forth from her womb to absorb the light from her big brother. For the first time in the history of her existence, a leaf converted sunlight into ATP and eventually ATP to sugars and CO2. Since the greenhouse trapped the CO2, the moon experienced the first molecules of her atmosphere.

“Mission Control, Mission Control, come in!” the botanist called excitedly on his radio.

“This is mission control, what is wrong?”

The seeds are germinating at an insane rate, and in a mere few hours we have seen the cotyledons emerge from the lunar soil. The video I am streaming to you is not time-lapse photography, but the actual rate of growth. We can watch the plants grow!

“Lunar mission 18, we are all seeing what is happening. It is a miracle. We are contacting the biggest professors to come up with a reason for what is happening.”

While Mother Earth observed her humans try to figure out what had happened, she smiled at her little sister.

“Little one, you did well with the gift I gave you. The entire family are proud of you, for not only have you protected the fragile thing we called life; but aided its continued growth.”

Humbled by her family’s praise, the moon reveled in the feeling of life growing within her.

“Thank you, sister, for teaching me the value of life. For without life I would have never had understood what love is. Love is the greatest gift the Creator has given us together with life.”

Quote from King Solomon’s deeply spiritual Song of Songs.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is better than wine.”

Dr. Barry Nadel is the author of The Hoshiyan Chronicles.

For more information, check out his website here.

Art - Tom Kidd

 

Art - Tom Kidd

Invaders From Earth



Octagon


War of the Worlds





You can check out Tom Kidd's wikipedia page here, his official webpage here, and listen to an interview with him here.

Bookspot - Necron: Beyond Einstein's Barrier by Oliver Strong

  

Bookspot - Necron: Beyond Einstein's Barrier by Oliver Strong

It’s the 27th century and Victor Zellmann awakes to find himself drafted into an army of the dead travelling beyond Einstein’s barrier … his past lost and future uncertain he clings onto the present and the young lady who befriends him on reanimation.

Released in 2015, this fantastic space adventure may well have passed you by but is definitely worth checking out. Also available in audiobook - check out the link here for a free sample. And click here for more books by Oliver Strong.

The Adroit Advantage Taker by Howard Loring

 

The Android Advantage Taker

Or

The History of Turning Things Around 

by Howard Loring

There once was a little man whose nearest neighbor was very clever. This neighbor had learned to split trees along the grain, a neat trick considering there were no metal tools. He used wooden wedges pounded by wooden mallets.

If that weren’t enough, he’d learned to join the planks he split. He somehow notched the ends to interlock, as the fingers of your hands could. At last, employing judicious use of rawhide strips, he then invented the storage box.

This opened up lots of possibilities. Thin boxes with a strap made a strong shoulder-held carrying case while thicker boxes could be dragged, again using straps. Dogs could pull a good load this way, or people if one didn’t have a dog.

But the clever man’s neighbor owned a nice ox, and it was always in high demand to pull the plow of his fellow farmers. He was lucky he’d inherited it from his mother’s brother, someone he’d never met. This uncle was from a distant land whose people had first tamed the massive, but now docile beasts of burden.

Years before, his mother as just a child had been taken as a spoil of war, but that conflict had long ago been resolved and the unknown uncle had held no other heirs.

The hereditary ox was a marvel for, although their use was known, they were scarce and therefore hard to come by. The little man’s animal was the first, and so far, the only one in the area. This rendered it a most valuable commodity.

The man’s clever neighbor had made for him a big box for his ox to pull, and the large bovine could drag much with it, also a service of high demand. Yet at some point, the bottom planks of the box would always break apart under the strain. His neighbor had given him many replacements, but they broke, also.

Next he’d tried strapping hides to the bottom of the box, but while helping some, this action had failed to alleviate the problem.

This current state of affairs would soon change though, and all because of him. After much consideration, the little man now thought he knew how to remedy the situation, and it would be easy. Yes, he was very clever too, or so he thought.

Always a heavy thinker, the diminutive man, who was leading his ox that was pulling the box, came to a brook. It was hot out. He stopped to water himself and his beast, and they drank deeply.

“Are you hungry, my friend?” asked a nearby voice.

Both the ox and his startled owner looked to a tall stranger, who sat holding a large apple on the opposite bank of the gentle stream. Then the oddly dressed man held up a sack made of stitched animal skins. It was lumpy and heavy looking.

“I’ve aplenty,” he said with a smile. “They’re large and very sweet. Your ox would think so, too.”

At this time, tasty apples were hard to come by, for not all such trees created palatable fruit. Yet, planting the seeds of those that did never produced an identical crop, instead just growing many variants. And, the knowledge of grafting vegetation, the only way to assure a standardized yield, would remain hidden for eons.

So, a while later the men sat side by side with their feet in the cool water, each one savoring an apple. The ox had already eaten three in rapid succession. Now it was more than content to stand in the brook and slowly chew his juicy cud.

The little man was explaining his big idea to the stranger and, indeed it was a simple one. Why not attach limbs to the bottom of the box? These limbs, he pointed out, would run the length of the structure, and thus keep it off the ground.

This, he was confident, would be a great improvement changing everything. The limbs would then drag the ground, not the ground on the box. What could be easier?

Yet the stranger acted as if he didn’t understand, making a face and shaking his head. Of course, he did understand. He understood many things, and most were concepts the little man beside him would never know, or even know of.

This stranger was a stranger in more ways than one for, unknown to his simple companion, he was in fact a time traveler currently occupied with a critical mission.

He picked up a flat rock and handed it to the little man. Then reaching about, he picked up two short, nearly straight sticks. These he handed over, also.

“Show me,” he requested.

The little man placed the sticks parallel on the ground between them. Then he put the rock atop them. Next he demonstrated, by sliding the rock over the twigs.

“Problem eliminated,” he pronounced, pleased with himself.

“This is good, yes,” the stranger agreed. But then, after taking another bite of his apple, he added, “I see another way, though. It’s a much better way of pulling things.”

“How? he was asked.

The determined time traveler took hold of the rock. Instead of sliding it over the sticks as his counterpart had done, he moved it in the other direction. He pushed it against the twigs, which now twirled neatly underneath it.

“You’d use logs,” he advised. “You and your helper just need to find some way to attach them. Is this not a better solution?”

Making the connection, the little man agreed, and said so.

He soon hurried off most anxious to try out this novel idea, naturally to be claimed as his own innovation. His clever friend, he knew, would somehow work out any complicated details. So, he pulled on his ox that pulled the box.

The now contented stranger, still eating his apple, was smiling.

HOWARD LORING creates EPIC FABLES on the ELASTIC LIMIT of TIME.

These exciting time travel books encompass universal human themes,

often employing real history.

For more information you can check out his amazon page here.