Short Stories by Stephen Baxter: Lieserl, Vacuum Diagrams, the Twelfth Album, Traces, Blue Shift, Moon Six, Riding the Rock, Pilot

by Books LLC

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Lieserl is the title of the fifth story in Stephen Baxter's science fiction anthology Vacuum Diagrams. It was originally published in Interzone in 1993 and represents a small, but integral part of the novel, Ring. Set primarily on Earth in the year A.D. 3951, Liserl documents the title character's life from birth until shortly after her physical death. The story explains how the development of nanobots has enabled virtual immortality for humans by virtue of the nanotechnological manipulation of the chemical processes that cause cells to die. Liserl's body is engineered by such nanobots but, instead of extending her life, the nanobots cause her to age rapidly. Memories and learning are also implanted into her cortex. The combination of these effects results in Lieserl living the equivalent of 90 year life in 90 days. Upon her physical death Lieserl's awareness is downloaded into a number of datastores, granting her a supreme consciousness. These datastores are placed within one mouth, or Interface, of a man-made wormhole which is then suspended within the Sun. The other Interface of the wormhole is left in orbit around the Sun and the pumping away of superheated gas from the Interface within the sun to the other Interface provides a refrigeration effect enabling the datastores holding Lieserl's consciousness to survive. Lieserl is told that her existence is just one of many projects initiated by mankind to ensure the survival of the species. Lieserl's task is to study the sun since it appears to be dying, aging more quickly than was to be expected without some exterior influence. The story ends just as Liserl begins in her work without revealing the nature of the threat to the Sun. Nevertheless, the final passages of the story contain a foresh... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=395349

30 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2010

About the author

Books LLC is a reprint publisher of nonfiction and fiction which is out of copyright. Books LLC is not a licensed reseller or editor of modern, in-copyright novels.

Books LLC also publishes compilations of Wikipedia articles (e.g., Wikipedia articles about books, rather than the books themselves).