The Last Man From Houston- New Free Short Story of the Month for August

The Last Man From Houston

An homage to the late Robert Sheckley, my friend

            The Carrier fell into orbit around the star and lost no time finding the asteroid that called it there. The Carrier needed mass. Presently, it was the size of an Old Earth American penny and experiencing a dangerous material fatigue from a crossing it was uncertain it could even make. Within a week it had converted the nickel and iron in the new host asteroid and ejected its pockmarked previous shell into the star, covering its tracks as programmed. It grew, manufacturing nanobots that manufactured bigger bots with more complex functions. In seventy hours the Carrier was the size of a fig. In ninety, an orange. Three hundred hours passed before it began to grow a human from a single strand of DNA. The helix was the only item it carried from the Sol system other than code and a shielded entangled electron.

            The last man from Houston was born seven weeks later. Billy Roy Greeley awakened in a new white room, his mind already formed and full of facts he would process in short order. He looked sixteen years old, barely a man at all, when he opened his eyes. The Carrier was relieved when he spoke.

            “Where am I?” Billy Roy asked in a slight Texas drawl.

            “You’re on a space station,” the Carrier replied in a soothing maternal voice. “Do you know who you are?”

            The young man concentrated. “Yes ma’am. Billy Roy.”

            “Good morning Billy.”

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