The Wrong Stars

by Tim Pratt

“It’s a mystery. Mysteries are great. Let’s peel it open and see if it’s wrapped around an enigma.”

“I guess the idea of a planet full of monocultural humanoids with bumpy foreheads who all follow a thinly disguised version of the Bushido code is ridiculous,”

“Are you ready to see the future?” Callie said. “Ready or not, here I am,” Elena replied.

“Spiders or gold, spiders or gold,” Ashok said. “Oh, Ashok. It’s like you never even consider the possibility of golden spiders.”

“Sure,” Callie said. “Sweet dreams.” Elena gave her a blank look. “That seems very unlikely.”

“They had bars in Shakespeare’s day, and your day, and ours,” Shall agreed in her earpiece.

“Hurray,” Stephen said. “If we manage to cheat death, we’ll give death another sporting chance.”

“I am so sorry,” Elena said. “I got you all into this.” “There is no anguish beyond death,” Stephen rumbled over the PA. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck,” Janice said.

Your plan is certainly worth a try,” Stephen said. “Though when the alternative is certain death, any plan would be.

she’d learned over the years that her mind did most of the necessary analysis below the level of her consciousness, and presented her with a feeling of certainty when it was done.

think I figured out a thing.” “Is it a good thing, or a bad thing?” “Definitely one of the two,” he said.

“Drake always thinks the glass is half full. Me, I think the glass is half full of poison.

You could have just talked to us, told us there was a big existential threat, let us know that certain systems were off limits.” The Liar made a strange wheezing sound that Elena decided must be laughter. “Oh yes. That always works. Humans never go places they’re forbidden to go.

Her adrenal gland was releasing epinephrine to dilate her blood vessels and norepinephrine to increase her heart rate and dump energy into her system, and a flood of cortisol was hard at work providing her with more blood sugar. Her body was preparing itself to expend energy in fighting for her life or running for her life. Good old biology, doing just what it had evolved to do over millennia: enacting nature’s worst-case contingency plans.

“She’s terrible at giving inspirational speeches,” Ashok said. “One time, before we broke into this compound on an asteroid to capture an escaped murderer, Callie goes, ‘OK, nobody embarrass me by dying’. She’s just really bad at it.”

“You just electro-punched a mind-controlled wannabe god. You rescued yourself. That’s hot.”

That was the way you got through any huge project: take it one small, manageable step at a time. Don’t build a starship, just bolt on a plate. Don’t write a novel, just write a sentence. Don’t topple an ancient alien empire of unimaginable power, just infiltrate a base.

“I don’t push my romantic rivals into space, Ashok. I just out-amazing them. Anyway, I think Elena’s crush started to wane when Sebastien kidnapped her and tried to feed her to alien robot brain-spiders.”