Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
OCTOBER 2022 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories only)
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THE PATHThe space fleet sailed on through the Orion Nebula, ships the size of cities slipping silently through the brightly burning veils of stellar gas…
The alien plant spores rained from the nebular clouds, accumulating on the space city’s hull, draining its fusion engines. His oxygen running low, Lucas remained at his post, operating the laser batteries blasting away at the incoming alien swarm. He prayed silently… "Mother Mary full of grace..."
Abdullah’s modular section had been completely overrun. Lucas gasped as his shift partner Abdulla and his team jettisoned that section, rigging the reactor to overload and driving it into the heart of the swarm.
“Abdullah!” Lucas shouted, his heart racing.
“It’s all right, my friend,” Abdullah called to him over the radio link. “Rejoice for me! I go to Allah!”
Lucas roared, his cry of anguished rage echoing inside his space suit as the departing module exploded in a searing flash of brilliant yellow fire. He clenched his eyes, the light a red dawn through his eye lids.
The words of Christ echoed through his mind as the tears came.
“My God…Why have you forsaken me?”
#
Lucas clutched his rosary, the sight of the nebula in all its deceptively alluring beauty bright in the viewport of the Buddhist temple. He glanced from the soft lavender light washing over the statue of Buddha to the crucifix in his hand.
He glanced up as Chomden, his newly assigned partner entered the temple. The young woman lit her prayer candles, the blazing purple of the nebula washing across her flowing orange robes and shaved head, the sweet fragrance of incense on the air. “You look troubled, Lucas,” the young monastic said softly, her delicate features sympathetic.
“I lost a good friend out there today,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. Harder to keep it out of his heart. He’d come to love Abdullah like a brother. But, it was at times like these he resented the fleet council’s insistence that every cleric had to be partnered with one of a different faith.
“Dharma teaches us to accept the cycle of the sufferings of sickness, ageing, death and rebirth, in life after life, endlessly.”
“A time to every purpose under Heaven,” he muttered as he stood, facing her. “For you Buddhists, that doesn’t include laying down your lives for the rest of the fleet, does it?”
Her face remained calm. “Our faith prohibits killing any living thing,” she said softly.
“Even when it’s trying to kill us?” He thought of what would happen when the damnable plants drained all the fleet’s power. When propulsion and life support failed, leaving tens of thousands of human beings to turn to compost, feeding alien weeds in floating derelicts.
“It’s trying to live, as are we all.”
He stared out at the nebula. So beautiful. So cold. “Are the atheists right?” he wondered aloud. “Is life devouring life, fighting for survival all there is? Does death win in the end?”
She stood, stepping beside him. “Faith is the one thing we must never surrender. Earth is dead, as all things die. But, our journey is the next step in the cycle of life.”
“Journey to where?” he demanded, pacing, his fists clenched. “All estimates are the population will die before reaching a habitable planet. Man’s greed and wars destroyed Earth. Is this our punishment?” he asked, looking into the abyss. “Is this hell?”
She faced him, taking his hands in her smaller ones. “You fight to control. To take what has not been given. Stop fighting,” she whispered. “Come with me.”
#
A group gathered from every ship stood atop a space habitat that had left the fleet. Lucas crossed himself, his heart fluttering as the spores rained down, taking root upon the hull, growing as they fed from the engines.
Chomden took his hand. “Don’t fear,” she said. “Look.”
The plants were breathtakingly beautiful in the protostar light as they blossomed, a garden of brightly flowering vegetation opening around him, light like a blue terran sky at sunrise forming. Trees laden with fruit, and life raining from the sky like manna from Heaven. He heard a soft hiss as Chomden opened the air valves on her suit and removed her helmet. The others did likewise. A rabbi. An Imam. A Shaman. All uttering prayers. Lucas climbed out of his suit. He kissed his rosary and looked to the skies, tears of joy forming. “Forgive me for doubting, oh Lord.”
Leave a Light OnSomething tore through the ship. Probably a meteor. It struck somewhere aft of the cargo bay, blasted through plumbing, wiring, storage tanks and breached the cabin. If he hadn’t already been in the airlock preparing for an EVA, he’d be dead.
Still suited up, he pulled out a checklist and began marking off items.
An Auxiliary Power Unit started on the third try. As the ship’s only power plant, it would keep what was left of the ship alive. He still had the RCS, he’d able to stop the ship’s spinning. One of the three redundant control systems worked, moving the flaps and rudder. With some luck the landing gear should still work. As long as the APU kept running, he had a chance.
That was it. Oxygen, guidance, communication were gone. There was also a slow fuel leak. If he didn’t break orbit in the next few hours, it was certain death.
Attempting to land without navigation would be like dropping a quarter into a five-gallon bucket, from a hundred miles up. A bucket he couldn’t see. Almost certain death.
He remembered the First Rule of Survival: Always Improve the odds. Almost certain death beats certain death.
He got ready to jettison the communication satellite. Too bad it could only relay communication. Without his ship’s transmitter, the satellite was useless. The only messages it could send were diagnostics…
The airlock didn’t slow him down. Once the cabin depressurized, he kept both doors open. He broke out a rugged laptop and patched into the satellite before deploying it. Solar panels extended and the satellite reoriented itself.
He kicked a panel, cracking the surface and sending shards in all directions. “Failure detected. Panel A17 at 20% power level.” It repeated every few seconds. The channel was open. He knew who was on duty, who would see the alarm.
There was nothing she could do to help him; there wasn’t time to say goodbye. He just needed a promise.
Fighting with gloved fingers, he typed as fast as he could. “ACTIVATE PLANETARY DEFENSE KEEP LOCK ON ME IF I BECOME DANGER USE LASERS FULL POWER”
She responded, “I won’t shoot you down!”
“WONT SURVIVE CRASH NOT WANT TO KILL ANYONE PROMISE”
After several seconds, he got “I promise.”
The laptop battery gave out as he read the last sentence: “I’ll leave a light on.”
--
That expression came from an old family story about how their great-great-great…grandparents met. She was a shy nineteen-year-old living in a small coastal town. Her beauty drew suiters to her, her intelligence drove them away. She didn’t care, she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. He was a new captain, one who thought on a higher plane and sought adventure on the ocean. It took a dark and stormy night to bring them together, him lost at sea with only her voice to calm and guide him. In the span of an hour, she used ham radios to locate him and repaired a lighthouse to guide him to safety.
“I’ll leave a light on” meant so many things.
--
He shoved the satellite out of the bay, hoping the change in momentum would drop him into a better reentry corridor.
--
The ride down was spectacular. A storm was raging below with the lightning leaping from cloud to cloud. Flashes of light penetrated from below, like a muted fireworks show.
The brilliant white flashes were interspersed with flashes of color. Subtle blues and reds and occasional greens. It didn’t make sense. There was nothing to account for the colors.
Flashes lengthened to longer bursts and resolved into shapes. Circles, then ovals, some rapidly moving before disappearing. Their intent was unmistakable. Fly this way.
He steered until he was passing through the targets. They shifted; he changed course. They were coming faster now, winking into existence just in front of him. Only minor adjustments were needed to keep on the path.
He burst through the cloud cover and spotted the runway lights. He was still coming in like a homesick brick but would make it. Two tires blew on impact but the others held and he coasted to a stop.
--
She explained, “Once you mentioned the lasers, it was pretty simple to reconfigure them. Throw the beams out of focus and we could paint the clouds. You may not have known where you were, but we did. After that, it was easy.”
“I told you I’d leave a light on!”
A SMALL POTTED THINGJack McDaniel
“I really don’t understand your optimism.”
“That’s because you’re an accountant.”
“No, it’s because we’re surrounded by the Stasilyn who are a little bit pissed off right now.”
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out two silver spheres and held them up before me. “Optimism,” I smiled, “comes with chemical-laced, carbon-tipped flechettes designed for Stasilyn wet types. Oh, did I mention they’re smart?”
Weapons fire landed near us. They had switched to projectiles. I tossed the spheres over the wall in the direction of the Stasilyn. They powered up in semi-autonomous mode and I put on my glasses. One of the spheres climbed up high to recon. The Stasilyn were in two groups and there were five of them. One of them was preparing a grenade. I marked each as a target with an eye blink and the AI relayed the coordinates to the spheres. When the spheres deployed the grenade thrower was caught mid-motion and collapsed to the floor. One of the others fell on top of him just before the grenade exploded. The explosion was muted but still sprayed debris our way. The others were down within seconds. We walked around the wall to examine the scene.
“So, that’s it? It’s over?”
Accountants.
“Sure, that’s it. Because the interstellar criminals you pissed off aren’t mad now, are they?”
“Oh. Well, what now?”
“Now we get out of here before we’re discovered. Then we catch a ride off this rock.”
“I can’t go, not yet.”
I glared at the man.
“I can’t leave without my plant.”
“A plant! You’re the plant. I know you’re just a numbers guy, but you have to understand the situation.” I kicked the limp body at my feet. “These people aren’t some calculation you can make square up. These guys are pissed and want to kill you. Understand?”
“You don’t understand. None of this will matter if I don’t get that plant.”
“Why?”
The accountant looked aside, a slow grin stretched the corners of his mouth. “How much did they tell you about me, my mission?”
“Nothing, just that you had to be extracted immediately.”
“I have degrees in genetics and mathematics. They go together more than you might think. In fact, what I’m really good at is Information—theory and application. Accounting,” he shrugged, “kind of a boring cover, really.”
“Are we still talking about your plant?”
He nodded. “Everything we need—all of the data—is there. The information is stored in the plant’s DNA. We’re not going without the plant.”
What could I say to that? “Where is it?”
“My place—fifteen minutes from here.”
A few minutes later he said, “Second floor walk-up, the one facing the street.”
“How big is this plant?”
“It’s just a small potted thing.”
“Stay here. Let me check it out first.”
I entered the building into a small foyer. No one was around and I climbed the stairs all the way to the third floor. The hallways were empty so I returned and signaled for him to join me.
When we got to the second floor, he said, “I won’t be but a minute.”
“I’m coming with you. No lights.”
It was a nice apartment with a beautiful view of the little square down below. He picked up the plant from a table and walked to the kitchen where I heard him run some water in the sink. When he came back into the room he handed me the plant. I stood there and looked at it while he walked to a closet to grab a go-bag.
“Here is where you stored the data?”
“That’s it. Took forever to code--bioweapons people are security-minded--but I got everything in the DNA. Pretty ingenious, no?”
His bag was over his shoulder.
“I have to say—”
His eyes got big so I turned and looked out the window down to the street.
“Well, hell.”
Two cars of men unloaded across the street, illuminated by the golden glow of the streetlight. One gave instructions and then they headed toward the building.
The accountant stood next to me and looked down at the scene. Just as we both turned to run, he said, “Please tell me you have more optimism.”
“Sorry, all out of those guys. But I do have some Pessimism in my back pocket. Heavy. Duty. Explosives.”
“I’m not much of a pessimist.”
I had to laugh. “You weren’t a botanist or accountant, either. Let’s go!”
Standard OrbitBy G.C. Groover
Copyright © 2022
(750 words)
The four drinks at the spaceport cantina had made me uncharacteristically chatty. I suddenly wanted to prove to Becca that I was an excellent choice. A worthy choice; a man who is humble and quiet but who can face adversity, something we will certainly experience on sub-planet Gondola.
Gondola is a cosmic giggle, a tiny joke of a planet tucked between two gas giants in solar system QXR-651, out on an elliptical arm of Virgo A. The dim protostar at the center of 651 is ineffective, but (thanks to gravity) Gondola stays close to its two neighbors in a complex orbital dance. The Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism keeps Gondola warm, and large oceans make it very habitable despite the irregular and sometimes-drastic tides.
I stared into her beautiful dark blue eyes and said, “I’m excited!” She turned away, tapping impatiently at the screen floating near her jump ship seat. “When does this thing turn on?” she asked. “I want to watch the game.” Typical Becca.
“I’m excited!” I repeated as I signaled for a fifth cocktail. Becca turned and stared at me again. I wondered if she was having second thoughts; she wasn’t as optimistic about the trip as I was. Right on cue, she made a face. “What is there to be so excited about?”
I painted a picture for her using my newfound alcohol-fueled verbosity, rehashing things we had already discussed at length. Reasons that Earth was a dead-end, and how the colony on Gondola was the best opportunity for survival off-Earth. How they need people like us.
My wife and daughters had been killed during the riots of ’63 so I had no reason to stay. My skills and experience across several critical fields of technology had rocketed us to the top of the prospective colonist list despite my advanced age. Becca had nothing to hold her here either, technically leaving her fourth husband behind for the promise of what lay beyond the Milky Way. Despite her youth, her negotiation skills were first-rate, and that (plus her political survival instinct) made her a hot commodity on a planet where detailed planning turns certain starvation into modest survival. We made a perfect team on paper, and my hopes were high that other parts of our relationship would be perfect as well.
The transit contract was long and complicated, full of rules necessary for intergalactic safety. I took the time to read the whole thing, but Becca barely skimmed it and signed below me with her eyebrows arched, the small smile implying a private joke between us that I didn’t understand. It cost me everything I had to pay our fare, and the first year or two would be tough for us. But I had a surprise for her.
The jump ship rumbled and Becca tensed up as we launched up into orbit, the first step in our two-stop journey to Gondola. “Relax” I said. “It’s just the MagBoost into orbit.”
That got me a third stare. “I’m not stupid you know.” The anger in her face changed to mild panic as weightlessness set in, her blonde hair no longer perfectly arranged on her shoulders. I had forgotten; this was her first time above the stratosphere. “Keep breathing, slow and steady,” I said and held her hand. She breathed in and out, quick and shallow at first but then more deeply. The panic evaporated and her face changed to show gratitude and relief. We were friends again. Now was the time.
“Take this. It’s for our new home but I want you to hold it because I did this for you. For us.” I handed her the bio-sealed container I had smuggled onboard that contained the symbol of our love to come, a group of three flowers. Inside each flower were hundreds of seeds, contraband during transit but more valuable than gold on Gondola.
As she took the package from me, I teared up at the wonder in her eyes. My joy turned to horror as she tore open the package to sniff deeply of the fragrance. She should have read the contract.
A soft contralto voice announced “Seat 7A. Biological hazard detected. Violation.” Automatically isolated in her seat, I couldn’t hear her terrified scream as escaping air sucked her out of the ship. The flowers froze in her hand as she tumbled away into orbit.
My cocktail finally arrived. When I felt chatty again, I called reservations to get a refund for her tickets. Things are expensive on Gondola.
GrowthThe spoon was a sign. Haddie studied it by her campfire. Her grandmother had been to the 1939 World's Fair. How wondrous it must have been for a young peasant from Sicily to walk those glorious paths.
Haddie raised her metal cup. “To you, Lily. The Cerami born are mountain strong!” She drained the water and settled herself for sleep. The Pleiades glowed brightly. Her ancestors watched over her. How many women, she wondered, had survived the plague that had removed all men from the equation of Life?
A tumor had grown into her spine. The pain and sporadic numbness creeping down her body to her legs and feet had hindered her journey. The village doctor had given her no hope. Any possible cure for her problem was too far away and only for younger women, who had reproductive potential. Certain markers had damned her lineage for cloning. But Lily had always said that Life fights. Who knew Life would also emerge as virgin birth. The doctors were still scratching their collective heads over the yearly reports about a phenomenon some had claimed existed.
Haddie wondered whether she would spot the Partho first. Diana’s map had pointed her to the west. It was reported that this Partho could heal. What her name was and what she looked like, well, rumors were rampant.
“Some call her Angie; some call her Dia. Some say she is beautiful; some say she is hideous,” the apothecary had related. “All I can tell you is that some possibly lived, who would have otherwise died, so it’s up to you, Haddie, to find her or not.”
Maybe she would see her friend again and take her ease in her garden. Hope and optimism. It was all that had fueled a changed World for decades.
A twig cracked. Haddie froze. A voice whispered, “I expect you. Come to my cabin at dawn. Follow the stream.”
****
The Partho was tall and as black as her robe. Except when she was not. She ran her long fingers over Haddie’s spine. Those lightly glowing digits were the only consistent thing about Mary, who was suddenly a stocky blonde with skin the color of grey porcelain.
The exam finished, the Partho sat on a wide chair. “There is nothing I can do that will last.”
“How long do I have if you help me?”
“Perhaps, half a year? But you must return if you wish to extend the treatment. And each time the treatment will be less effective.”
“And if I do nothing?’
“One month.” Mary poured a red liquor into a shot glass and offered it to Haddie. “Something to warm you and ease your discomfort.”
Haddie downed the drink, washing away her pain. A gentle rain had begun to fall. The World was harsh, but it had an order to it that no one could refute. Diana always said that. How she loved and missed her. “I’d like to see my friend again. Can you help me live long enough to get back to her?”
The Partho, now disconcertingly green-skinned and bald, nodded. She rose, her robe swishing softly against the wooden floor. From a glass cabinet she removed two tiny plants, each nestled in a clay pot, a scroll, and a vial of purple liquid. She passed the items to Haddie.
“Drink this, and you will make it home without pain.” She indicated the plants. “Just because your body dies does not mean you have to leave. If you wish to help the World, you can stay. Have Diana make a tincture from one of these plants. The instructions are in the scroll. Keep drinking it until you die.”
“And then?”
“From your grave a different plant will emerge. And when a decade has passed, your consciousness will reawaken. You will be a tree connected with all around you. In this way, you can help heal the World by balancing the Earth’s energies. The decision is up to you.”
“Why are you giving this to me?”
Mary peeled off her robe. “I give you the gift of seeing me as I am.”
Haddie vomited. “I am so sorry!” she choked, ashamed at her disgust.
Dressing again, Mary said, “All Parthos are formed differently. What you saw earlier existed only in your mind by my will. In reading you, I have learned that you and your friend are worthy of my knowledge. I trust you will dig my grave tomorrow. And one day, we will talk again.”
Word Count by Wordperfect 750.
The Plant © 2022 Kalifer DeilIt was a Sunday morning, a lazy sunrise in the East, and the orange glow filled the bedroom. The war was over with the Betellians, a misunderstanding they said. A three million dead misunderstanding I must add. But, this was a new day, a new awakening on both sides. We weren’t all right and they weren’t all wrong. Their huge 30-KM diameter disk-shaped ships landed on cities, crushing houses and buildings to dust. Why? Because they were relatively flat spots. They had no notion that these “flat spots” housed millions of people. We naturally thought we were being attacked and started nuking the ships. Nothing else seemed to get their attention.
It turns out that the biggest problem was communication. They were telepathic and had no notion of, or need for, radio. They had no ears so sound communication was out. They did have eyes, three of them on stalks, so we tried communicating with posters. That worked, and they responded with signs as well. Their peace offering was a plant they provided to the Peace Commission. People were outraged at this feeble gesture but a plant biologist Dr. Kahtri on the Commission said maybe there is more to this.
We learned that they were from a Star system adversely affected by the explosion of the Star Betelgeuse. They escaped shortly before the explosion. Of course, Betellians is our name for them. They don’t have a name for themselves but rather a symbol of concentric diminishing triangles.
A week later, at their next meeting, he announced, “This plant contained all the nutrients necessary to keep a human alive except for one minor detail, it is poisonous to humans.” He added, “The poison can be easily removed with alcohol. The plant rapidly propagates by root budding to a dangerous degree. It should be grown under controlled conditions in greenhouses and not released into the environment. I have not tasted it but it should taste sweet since it contains sucrose.”
Needless to say, this had a mixed reaction in the public sphere. The food industry wanted to suppress it. Many people wanted copies. Many were saying the Betellians were trying to poison us. Still, others inferred that this plant would be an ecological disaster. It turned out that this is what the Betelians grew on their ship to feed their crew and passengers. Offering food is their offer of friendship.
As a reporter for the Boston Globe, I made contact with Dr. Khatri to get more details. He invited me over to his lab, an invitation I accepted immediately. Once there, he showed me his greenhouse. It was now almost overflowing with these plants.
I was overwhelmed, “Wow! These guys really like to propagate!”
He replied, “Indeed!, These are a hybrid of the original without the poison. Here’s a leaf, take a bite!”
I did, “Hmm, tastes like butter lettuce with a touch of maraschino cherry. Very nice!”
He then eyed me in a knowing manner, “I hear you are going to India on assignment.”
I nodded in agreement. “Flying directly to Lahore in a private jet of NewsNET. Terrible starvation there!”
“Mind taking a few plants with you?” Dr. Khatri blinked one eye.
“I would love to!” I smiled broadly.
The Herald Returns“This can’t be it,” K’eth doubted of Ayla, studying the tiny blue and green planet from the bridge of their starship. “They aren’t even spacefaring.”
“The Key is the way,” Ayla said, producing the small, glowing cube from her pocket. It shimmered, more brilliantly now than ever, its energy pulling to an edge closest the world below them.
“After a thousand lifetimes? I hope you’re right.”
“I’m sure of it,” she replied, just as a streak of fire tore through the upper atmosphere. “They’re here!”
**********
Running. Liam Hollander tore through the evening forest, fleeing a monster. He never really saw it, but a distant reverberating growl and the sense of life threatening dread compelled him. So, he ran. Through the forest between his school and his family’s old farmhouse, he knew every rock and fallen tree, even in the darkness, never slowing…never relenting to the beast. Limbs snapped and the ground crunched, a desperate fury closing in behind him.
Finally, Liam reached the clearing, his feet hitting the old boards of his front porch just before frigid darkness enveloped him, a shadow of teeth and claws. Terrified, Liam staggered backwards.
Then, the whole world exploded.
**********
Crickets hummed their soothing rhythm, dusk settling upon the farmstead, and Christopher Hollander worked at the old mule post which had loosened itself over the years.
“How’s it going, Dad?” Owen asked, charging down the stairs and using the post to pivot before heading into the dining room. It creaked and shifted again, his father dropping his head, defeated.
Kim Hollander smiled. “You’ll get it one of these days,” she said, helping her daughter, Emma, transfer an overgrown houseplant into a larger pot.
“Yeah, maybe when the kids move out,” he chuckled.
Suddenly, blinding light burst through all the windows at once, bathing the house in the brightness of daylight. “The heck is that?” Owen shielded his eyes.
“A car up the driveway, maybe?” Kim supposed.
The house shuddered.
“That’s no car,” Christopher doubted, approaching the front door with hammer in hand, his wife tepidly behind him. He’d no sooner reached the knob when the doorway exploded inward, tossing the two back. Both hit the far wall, slumping over unconscious.
The door landed hard, Liam dropping down upon it in a fetal position, covered in bits and goo. Then, through the haze, a slender human-like female stepped inside, holstering her pistol. With glistening cobalt skin and deep obsidian eyes, she said, “G’thek uk no,” extending her hand.
Without consideration, Emma raced to their parents, who were thankfully still alive.
Then, the being produced a small glowing box, light pulsing in three separate directions, one for each child, upon its surface. Puzzled, the visitor turned the object in hand, but no matter the position, the signal remained true.
Owen grabbed for a baseball bat kept in the corner, and instantly charged.
A beam from the stranger’s wrist caught him immediate and he froze. “G’thek uk no,” it repeated.
“We don’t know what you want?” Emma cried.
The visitor pressed behind her ear. “Sorry,” Ayla explained, “I’ve reset my translator. You need to come with me.”
“We’re not going anywhere!”
“The fate of the universe is at stake, little one,” Ayla pleaded. “Reject your destiny, and your planet, along with every other world, will be destroyed.”
Liam groaned, and Ayla helped him up. “I’m here as a friend.” She released Owen and he reluctantly lowered his bat. “Curious, there’s never been more than one,” she marveled. “I don’t fully understand, but you three are the Ketzolk N’or – the Herald returned. It’s said you will save the universe.”
“I saw something,” Liam said. “Something terrible. She’s right. I can feel it.”
“Me too,” Owen agreed with sudden realization.
“How can three kids from Nebraska possibly save the universe?” Emma wondered.
Ayla explained, “You’ve yet to unlock your power. This cube is the key. Hidden within each of you, is the power of creation. You were born to save this reality.”
An explosion from overhead and K’eth announce from the ship, “Ayla, more just arrived! Time’s up!”
“What about our parents?” Liam wondered, comforting Emma.
Ayla scanned each of them. “They’ll be fine, and the Grelx are only after you. If you truly love them, we have to go, now. We’ll contact them later.” She placed a small device upon the floor.
“You sure about this,” Owen asked Liam.
“Probably shouldn’t be, but I am,” he answered.
So, they followed Ayla out into the light.
Does a Tree Grow? (655 words)Fall was unseasonably warm that year. The nighttime heat drove Lybid and her husband, Dir, out of the tiny quarters that they shared with the rest of their family, behind their tavern. Dragging a woollen blanket behind them, they headed for the grassy mound that lay below the wooden palisade that encircled the town of Berestye.
Perhaps outdoors there would be a tenuous breeze...
"Look at the moon," Lybid said. It was almost full, and the light that it cast wasn’t helping either.
"Trying to sleep," Dir muttered.
"Only trying?"
Dir sighed. "What of it?" he asked. "It's just the moon."
"Do you think anyone lives there?" Lybid asked.
"No," Dir said.
"Why not?"
"I'm trying to sleep," Dir said, plaintively. “You should too.”
"It's not working," Lybid said. "Too hot."
Dir sighed again. "Just look at it," he said. "It looks like a sand-desert, like the bone-dry lands that lie before the land of the Qin. Nobody can live there, and nobody can live on the moon also. Not enough water." He paused. "Also, you'd see all of their cook fires if there was somebody there. Imagine hovering like a bird over Berestye in the night. There would be dots of flickering light. You’d smell all of their food from here."
"Did you ever see the desert?" Lybid asked, dismissing his second point.
"No," Dir said. "Not even my father has been that far. I've just heard travellers talk."
There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the hushed sounds of a town at night.
"People travel through the desert though," Lybid said, into the quiet.
"Yes," Dir said, tersely.
"So maybe people can travel to the moon as well, if they bring enough water with them."
Dir didn't respond, and Lybid elbowed him gently in the ribs, making him grunt. "Do you think people will ever travel to the moon?" she asked him.
Dir sat up slowly on the blanket, and put his head between his knees. "My father has a book like that," he said, eventually, his voice muffled. "He bought it in Byzantium when he was young. Some daredevil tied many captive birds to a cart, and ascended with them all the way to the moon. It's just a story though, it even says so at the beginning."
"Should we catch some geese and try?" Lybid said. There was gentle laughter in her voice. “You could write a book about our adventures.”
"I'd rather cook them and sell them to our customers," Dir said. "I have a better idea. What about a giant tree up to the sky, that people can just climb?"
Lybid laughed. "How can a tree be that tall?"
"With a trunk as wide as all of Berestye," Dir said. “Huge.”
"Impossible," said Lybid. "No tree could be that big."
"Perhaps not," said Dir, laughing as well now. "I wouldn't want to climb all that way in any case. It would take a year."
They sat in companionable silence on the blanket for a moment.
"So how do you think people will go there?"
"Ah," said Dir. "Do you remember the forest fire?" Two summers before, a great fire had threatened their town. Only a sudden, drenching rainfall had saved them from utter disaster.
"Yes," said Lybid, serious now.
"Remember the wind?" Dir said. "The fire was so fierce it made its own wind, and it howled across the forest in a furious gale, blowing flames and smoke and destroying all before it. Do you remember?"
"Yes," Lybid said. She shuddered. “I remember.”
"If people ever go to the moon," said Dir. "It will be just like that terrible wind. A furious fire, a column of flame rising up into the heavens.” He gestured with his hand, a rising movement towards the sky, and made a whistling noise between his teeth. “That is how they will ascend, up, up, with the cruel roar of the inferno."
###
"Read-In"by J.F. Williams
Herb Dashnaw stood at the doorway to his neatly kept study and stared at the typewriter that contained page forty-seven of his play, "A Season for Rhododendrons."
"Aren't you gonna finish that, honey?" said Agnes as she carried a laundry basket past him. "You were doing all-nighters on that."
"I haven't been in the mood," he said, his voice cracking. He swung around and grabbed Agnes' waist, and planted a noisy kiss on her cheek. "I'm just enjoying life more," he said with a big smile.
"That…," she replied. "That is okay with me. You're much more fun lately. Keep it up, partner."
Agnes suspected nothing, with only a few weeks to go. Herb thought about the day three months earlier when Carhart called him into the conference room and offered a job on a government project. They needed a candidate of the highest clearance and Herb had done well on both the Epsilon Project and Project Projecting Freedom.
"I'm gonna just set it right out there, Herb." Carhart said to him that day. "The world is going to end. On October Twenty-Fifth. They want to avoid chaos, trampling, mayhem… the sort of thing if this gets out."
Herb tried to avoid taking it all in; Carhart doesn't joke around. "What do you need me to do?" he said calmly, keeping it professional.
"There are two groups, big ones, all over the globe. One is working on sustained fusion; the other, seismographic analysis. You are the go-between. You are read-in; they are not. They have made-up backstories: fusion thinks they're racing against climate change; seismology, preventing the next Krakatoa."
"And the real story?" he swallowed hard.
"Here's the 4-1-1," Carhart continued. "1952. First H-bomb. A single blast of fusion. Everywhere else in the universe, fusion is sustained. If it's not – bang! – a gravitational anomaly. That's what happened in 1952. The call it 'the rumble', and it's been circumnavigating ever since, weakening the mantle. On October Twenty-Fifth, the weakness reaches a tipping point and the earth splits into two bodies, and everything we care about is space dust."
Herb took a deep breath, happy he could exhale without fainting, which he felt like doing. "So fusion? Seismographs?"
"Yeah. It’s pretty damn well compartmentalized. Genius plan. A third group will coordinate the other two. We are the third group, the read-in. So you gotta be agile, circumspect, and above all, optimistic, like with Epsilon. The computer models say we can do it and if we do, the world doesn't end, and… lots of clean energy too!"
The project followed its predicted path, which comforted Herb. He spent the day with approvals, requisitions, emails, conflict resolution, progress graphs, all the time infusing his interactions with bouyant optimism. "Good work, team!" he often messaged, or "keep your eyes on the prize," in video calls, or "Everyone makes mistakes, don't worry," to a timid physicist. But he never let on, a crushing burden at first, but a habit after a while, and always, always the optimist. "We'll get there, we'll get there."
Optimism was a currency he spent lavishly, all day at work, and half the evening at home. And, of course, he was being monitored. Men in dull suits and black limos watched him from a distance. They were not read-in, Carhart said. They had an altogether different phony premise, but they also had guns. They were there to watch for a break in him, and he was almost grateful for it.
"I’m leaving you, Karl. You and this damned house! You and all the switchers and cooers!"
He pictured an actress reading that line. Was act two of "Rhododendrons" too soon for such a tirade? Ah, this was a problem, a juicy one. He was finally spending some of the currency on himself. Two weeks to go, the project nearly done, and it was like enjoying a good return on an investment. He could afford to believe his play would be seen, and he finished act two and was halfway to three before a splash of scotch and some sleep. But the last, gnawing thought before he drifted off was about tomorrow's video call and whether he retained enough of the fiat currency for another day, whether he had squandered some on the play, and that when he least expected he would let something slip, followed by "chaos, trampling, mayhem," and the men in dull suits would knock on the door, and the world would end because he had spent unwisely.
(747 words)
The Grass is Always Greener“Damn it Merrick! You drank all the coffee again!”
Tobias slammed the empty coffee pot back into its cradle and surveyed his other options in the crawler’s cramped galley. An optimistic sticker plastered on the refrigerator door mocked him: Anything that can go right, will.
A faded and curling cat poster next to that read: Hang in there.
Ha!
“You hear me?”
Of course he did, but Merrick ignored him as usual. It was his standard routine now. Take the daily coffee ration, then ignore the grief and indignation he foisted on Tobias.
Tobias knew that Merrick was probably staring morosely out the scratched and heavily weathered glass of the crawler’s cab, but there wasn’t much to look at on this miserable rock. It felt like they had been over every inch of this forsaken hell hole looking for plant life - even caught themselves going around in circles after the navigational array was destroyed by falling rocks. They couldn’t even call for early extraction.
“Merrick!”
Tobias covered the few short steps from the galley to the cab and ascended the short ladder with vigor that belayed his grinding fatigue.
Merrick wasn’t in the cab.
Well, he was probably down in the lab running some more soil sample tests.
Tobias flicked the intercom.
“Merrick, I’m taking us to the next survey site. Buckle up back there!”
Engaging the power cells, Tobias threw the transmission into drive and the crawler’s ten massive wheels crunched forward on freshly fallen ash.
The cab lights flickered as the crawler lurched forward like some great terrestrial leviathan.
Hell, Tobias thought. If there were any plants here, they probably had ground them into fertilizer.
Tobias kept his eyes straight ahead, assiduously avoiding any reflective surfaces around him, lest he see one of…them. He briefly thought about the broken mirror in the lavatory, then pushed the thought from his mind. He hummed a happy tune to keep his mind from wandering, but it came out disconsolate and melancholy.
The windshield wipers worked overtime keeping ash from building up on the cab’s windows.
Swish-thump, swish-thump, swish-thump.
“Damn you Merrick! Answer me!”
Nothing came back on the intercom. Apparently Merrick was being more of a prick than usual today.
Fine, Tobias thought. If he wants to be an arrogant SOB, so be it.
Suddenly he reefed on the wheel, narrowly avoiding a large rock and causing the lights to flicker again.
So much deferred maintenance on this beast! It was a miracle it was still running after the beatings it had taken. Yet the powertrain ground on, kilometer after ash-laden kilometer.
After two extremely stressful hours, Tobias stomped on the brakes and deployed the crawler’s stabilizing legs.
“We’re here kids!” he said cheerfully, masking how he truly felt deep down.
“Merrick! Grab your gear and let’s go! They ain’t payin’ us by the hour. C’mon!”
Still silence.
“Damn you Merrick!”
Tobias left the cab and stomped down the narrow corridor to the cargo loading ramp, dropped it with an unceremonious thud, and started pushing out the soil sampling equipment.
“You think I like doing all your grunt work?!”
He accidently caught an image of something in one of the shiny equipment surfaces. It was a hideous face, wild-eyed and streaked with dirt and ash.
It caught Tobias off guard and threw him into a panic.
“Merrick!! They’re here!!”
Tobias beat on the laboratory door.
“Just stay put! You’re safer in there. I’ll take care of it!!”
In a feverish burst of energy, he pulled open an equipment rack and drew out his sidearm. He fumbled with the ammunition, dropping shells on the crawler’s metal floor.
“You go away!” Tobias yelled hoarsely, peeking outside. The soil sampling equipment still sat, unused and waiting in diagnostic mode.
“We haven’t done anything to you!”
Tobias fired off a few rounds, the sound echoing off the nearby rocks and reverberating in his ears.
Wait a minute…
Those rocks looked familiar.
Tobias stumbled down the cargo ramp, looking around in vain for his tormentor.
He wandered a few meters away towards the familiar rocks, then noticed another soil sampler semi-covered in ash.
Impossible!
Was there another expedition here without his knowledge?!
“Hello?!” Tobias yelled.
“Anyone there?”
He noticed a sequence of green lights flashing beneath their coating of dirt.
“Plants!” he yelled again to no one in particular.
Scrambling over the rocks he discovered a mound of recently excavated earth, covered in plants. At one end was a small, metallic headstone.
It read: Merrick.
(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2022
Reviews/critiques welcome
Mod
©2022 by Jot Russell
The hills stretched up from the dark waters; a green forested range of life. The child gazed from the bow and smiled.
"We made it, Dad!"
Zack, his father said, "Those used to be called, The Smoky Mountains."
"They were on fire?" he asked.
"Nah, the smoke was really just clouds that were held there by the mountains."
"Where did the clouds go?"
"Oh, they still come and go, especially in the stormy season."
"Will we see any?"
The father looked hesitantly around. "Let's hope not, Zackary."
"But I like when it rains."
"Me too, son, but a storm over the Sea of Mississippi is not like that over the canyon back home. These parts can still get winds up to 80 meters per second with a surge of waves that can crash over the top of our sails."
"Wow!"
"Here, take the wheel. We need to head past that ridge and up the Tennessee Sound toward Knoxville."
**
They made port to see a familiar face.
"Hey Zack, welcome back. Throw me over your bow line."
"Good to be back. Brought the usual supply of corn, wheat, rye and hops."
"Our brewmaster will be pleased. And who is this?"
"This is my son, Zackary."
"Made it all the way across the sea, did we? Impressive."
"It was awesome."
"A born sailer?" The man asked.
"You could say that," replied Zack.
He stepped off the boat extended his hand. "Hatred for one is hatred for all."
The man took his hand, but said. "Oh, we don't say that anymore."
Zack gave a troubled look, knowing the words were used keep balance the last hundred years after the war.
"Now we say, the future is bright."
So is a nuclear bomb, Zack thought. Instead, he asked, "What changed?"
In the last year, a lot. We completed a dam and set power lines throughout the city. Even started broadcasting radio signals again. The message came from one.
**
Zack brought his son throughout the city, collecting what supplies and cargo for the return trip. The city didn't seem too different, but he couldn't help but be troubled.
As the sun set, he looked up to Venus for some sign of hope or optimism. As he did, the lights of the city kicked on and shrouded the stars with the pollution of light.
Excited, his son said. "See dad, the future is bright!"
"It starts out that way, son. But I fear the light will divide the views that those chose to see, until their views become more important than each other, as in years past."
WHEN DEATH CAME TO TOWN When Death came to town, you could hear him coming miles away if the wind was right. The valley was always filled with some kind of sound. The hot buzz of mosquitoes seeking slower, more immobile prey in the heat of a summer morning. Since The End, it was always hot now, even in the mornings.
Dorthea rolled out of her bomb shelter, waking her MOTHER and getting her little brother dressed to get mountain runoff, one of the morning chores which could never be missed.
As they reached the spring, a breeze picked up, something cool in the relentless heat of summer. The ever present swarms of gnats fell from the skies, and the screams of the damned stopped; one after another. Death was here.
Dorthea and her brother, Ramir, grabbed their water and began a quick pace back home. They hoped to see Death as he passed their house. They knew he would. Their father was pollen-sick, face slick with sweat all the time. He stopped screaming days ago.
The children saw Death coming down the road. An automaton, casket-shaped on spindly but powerful legs. It carried a spade which it told the children never got dull, and how it could bury five people an hour.
They waved and ran toward him. His black owl swooped over their heads and its eyes flashed as it flew by and returned to Death. "Hello, little ones." Death reached into his casket and pulled forth two lozenges. "Sit with me." As he sat down, the air around them began to hum and in a few moments, they knew they could take off their masks to consume the sweet treats. The air was cool and dry inside of his death-field.
The owl stared with baleful eyes at the children, lights flashing in its wide eyes, speaking occasionally. "Inoculation complete." Said the owl in a bemused tone. "Far too little, too late."
"Hush, Palantir. We do what we can, where we can. You know I am here for your father, yes?" The children nodded sadly. "Has the MOTHER automaton been working out?" Death's voice evinced concerned.
"Yes. She prepares food and keeps our home clean and secure," Dorthea explained.
"But she is not as good as Mom was in the hugs department. Too many hard corners," Ramir added.
Death chuckled, "I would like you to join me. You are old enough to begin training to become Harbingers and you will not have to hide in a containment suit. You will be free to move around, inoculated against the floral contagion."
"What would we be doing?" Ramir asked.
"You would be helping people like I do," Death replied. "We have a means now to help children against the Blight, if we can get it to them in time. I need help. You'll have your own owls to support you."
Dorthea didn't seem as happy as Death thought she would. "We haven't been out of the valley since I was little."
"You can't stay here. The valley is overrun now and even though you will be able to survive infection, most of what you eat here will not. Listen. What do you hear?"
Dorthea closed her eyes. "Nothing. We thought that was because you were here."
"Not this time. Put your masks inside my bag. You won't need them, but maybe some children we meet along the way might. Let's go say goodbye to your father." Dorthea and Ramir dropped their masks into Death's bag as he pulled out small armbands for them. "This will let people know you work for me and they will welcome you."
Ramir puffed out his chest and grabbed his sister's hand for the long march home.
"Wait a moment." Death reached into the bag and pulled out a new pair of shoes for each. They were the most comfortable shoes the children had ever owned. The omnipresent whine of his portable factory spun down and became quiet again as the death field dropped away. The oppressive heat returned but without a mask, it was more bearable. The clockwork owl took wing, spiraling skyward over Death's head as he took the children to see their father, one last time. In the distance, a cloud of yellow pollen covered the far end of the valley, as the sunblossoms, claimed another former stronghold.
Saddened, Death stared out over the valley. For the first time, in a long time, there was something to look forward to. Their children would inherit the Earth.
Planet X:Walker looked at the old door. It looked ancient. She had landed on this planet a year ago.
“What is in here?” she pondered.
Cutter caught up to her out of breath. “How can you breathe so easily here?” He asked still amazed at her stamina in such a thin atmosphere. They were in the mountains surrounded by trees.
“It’s called ‘exercise’ maybe give it a try.” He made a smirk back at her.
“Get the torch. Looks like this door is pretty solid. Only reason for such a thick door is something valuable is behind it.” She kicked it and a loud gong echoed.
“Well, valuable to whoever these people were, maybe not to us.”
They called their company Planet X Archeology Inc. But truth be told they were really scavengers, salvagers, and treasure hunters. There were thousands of planets in the sector but only a handful had active civilizations while most were long since dead. Many had killed themselves off through their own stupidity. They inevitably reached a point where they were smart enough to harness the atom but not wise enough to wield it along with many other technologies. Nuclear, AI, quantum, biotech, others. Any one could get out of hand and get the best of them. But they were smart enough to make weapons. They were always doing that. Advanced alien weapons always were of interest to collectors. And some could get good premium.
Cutter came back with the blowtorch and set it up to automatically cut a hole through it big enough for Walker and Cutter to climb through to the other side.
Walker climbed through and found a dark corridor. Cutter quickly followed. Walker deployed a lantern drone so they could see down the corridor.
Their expedition had found some interesting artifacts thus far, but their investors were getting nervous that this planet would not pan out. They had only a few more months before the investors would pull the plug on this planet’s survey.
Walker scanned some signs. Walker had trained the neural AI on this planet’s dominant written languages and could translate signage above the doors adjoining the corridor.
“J5 Strategic Planning Directorate” she sounded out slowly.
“Appears to be where they planned strategy, might be promising” she added.
A survey probe intercepted one of the many satellites in orbit. It had led them here.
They entered the room and found rows of desks and screens covered in dust.
Cutter stated “I’ve been studying their computation machines and can scan one of these here” he took a scanning probe placed it onto a computer on one of the desks. “This civilization used relatively basic encryption, I only had to use the level 1 quantum solver to decrypt it.”
They looked at the output of the scanner.
Walker reflected “hmmm, something called ‘powapoynt’ is everywhere in this.”
“Maybe a powerful weapon?” Cutter replied optimistically.
“Yeah, maybe also what destroyed them, if I had to guess” Walker hypothesized.
“Let’s go see what we can find in the other rooms” She continued.
They followed the corridor and passed under a large support bulkhead.
“Let’s look in here” as Walker sounded the sign out “NORAD Headquarters”.
A Murder for OptimismCopyright 2022 by Paula Friedman
Old Derry lifted his foot from the brake, turned the electric-engine’s key to “off,” and let the ancient pick-up glide down the long rocky twists of Copperhead to the gully’s rough, safe bottom.
Not one tire popped. “Hooh-heh,” he whispered. And raised his eyes in the silence.
They were out there, high on the branches above the arroyo, weighting the Plant with their wheeling, squawking bodies, wings whirring as they cycled through the dry heat in the sere red light, cawing, cawing high in the blinding blue skies.
As always it had been, since—even before!—the Plants arrived. Sweeping with night from the deepness of space—Epsilon Auriga’s 13th planet, to be exact. The origin, while there still were departments and observatories to measure such things, had been traced.
The Plants (well spaced in their landing sites approximately 17 miles apart) carefully had been studied samples tested, heated, dissected. Learned by all Earth’s peoples. Derry could remember.
And remembered the thrill—handling this extraterrestrial entity, back in highschool science, later majoring in its study, later . . . but then the Plant, as this their newfound planet dried further, had “lifted”—taken off to Plant themselves in the heating Earth, soared away in flocks, carrying with them hundreds, soon thousands, even (Derry and his then-colleagues had believed) perhaps millions of humans.
“Hey, you know crows make a murder, folks.” Derry called the words, sibilant like the Plant’s long “schwisssch” by night. He stared across toward the Plant’s high branches. “They like you guys, but don’t let them weight you down.” Someday the Plant might hear him.
The Murder kept cawing, high over Copperhead Arroya, squawking about . . . well, whatever. He still didn’t know either Crow or Plant. Yet the day he’d seen the Murder swooping around its Messenger (or Leader?), clearly questioning, learning, until, firm with new agreement, it had swirled together across the blue--that day, he had realized. “And even,” he’d thought, “as I hadn’t realized they share speech, so I also hadn’t seen . . . ”
The light was turning sunset-gold. Derry pulled three water bottles from the camouflaged box beneath the dash. Hiding the sight from potential spying eyes,, he swigged his evening water, stashed the emptied bottle, then took a hard breath. All right—no matter the others called it “hopeless,” “quixotic.” No other choice. Lifting the other two water bottles, he stepped onto the sandy soil and started across the gully floor in clear view toward the towering Plant.
“My friend,” his voice schwisssched, “here is water, easier to ingest and retain than liquids from us prey. I give you this water to drink, dear friend.”
Over and over, like the circling murder querying, demanding, and learning truths from the single “Messenger” bird each time.
Stepping back, Derry waited. Above, across the gold-lit gulch, the white stalk, wide and tall as an old “city block,” bent, curving gracelessly, toward Derry’s tiny trembling form.
“Friennnd,” Derry greeted it, “my frrriend.” Watching its head-shaped leading end cycle, as if sniffing, hovering over him before dipping to spill and drink the water bottle’s contents through its narrow “hose” that, over arid centuries, had sucked away, with a Plant’s great thirst, thousands, millions of human lives.
“Insane of you, Derry, you crazy geezer. No chance you’ll get through.” For years folks had told him. For years he’d kept on anyhow—no other choice. Like a Murder of crows still circling.
“Sure, your Plant ‘friend’ may learn to suck a water bag instead of you,” Raff had laughed, and Jenny, “but the others? You think they talk, and learn from each other, like we do?” And “Man, they’re plants,” Jenny had added.
That first day that he’d seen the Plant stalk bend, sidewise as if “listening” to the wheeling Murder, was when he’d realized that it too was recognizing, just as he had, that the crows spoke and understood too. And that not only the crows but likewise the huge random-killing Plants, to which people were but quenchings for harsh thirst, were also sentients, and thus might understand a gift, might even realize he—every human--was, equally, a sentient, thus to be valued, too.
“You jest, Derry!” Raff had laughed as they’d huddled in the cave. And “Such optimism, Der,” Jen had added.
Now the Plant pointedly nudged the drying bottle. “Sure, of course,” Derry smiled, pushing the fresih second bottle toward the stalk's thirsty tip. “Enjoy!” And extended a hand to accept the packet of, he hoped, sugar that the Plant was nuzzling toward him.
[726 words]
Mod
First round votes:
Tom Olbert => Greg
Greg Krumrey => ***Paula
Jack McDaniel => #*Thaddeus, Paula, Jot
G.C. Groover => Lichtman, Thaddeus
Marianne Petrino => ***Paula, Thaddeus, Kalifer
Kalifer Deil => McClaim, Paula, Jot
Chris Nance => #*Thaddeus, Jack, GC
Jeremy Lichtman => #*Thaddeus, Paula, Jot
J.F. Williams => Kalifer, Lichtman, Marianne, Thaddeus, Justin
Justin Sewall => #*Thaddeus, Paula, Lichtman
Jot Russell => #*Thaddeus
Thaddeus Howze => ***Paula, Lichtman, Jack
Jeremy McLain => G.C., Thaddeus
Paula Friedman => #*Thaddeus|JF, Jack|Lichtman, Marianne|Jot
Finalists:
When Death Came to Town by Thaddeus Howze
A Murder for Optimism by Paula Friedman
Second round votes:
Tom Olbert => Greg
Greg Krumrey => ****Paula
Jack McDaniel => #****Thaddeus, Paula, Jot
G.C. Groover => Lichtman, #****Thaddeus
Marianne Petrino => ****Paula, Thaddeus, Kalifer
Kalifer Deil => McClaim, ****Paula, Jot
Chris Nance => #****Thaddeus, Jack, GC
Jeremy Lichtman => #****Thaddeus, Paula, Jot
J.F. Williams => Kalifer, Lichtman, Marianne, #****Thaddeus, Justin
Justin Sewall => #****Thaddeus, Paula, Lichtman
Jot Russell => #****Thaddeus
Thaddeus Howze => ****Paula, Lichtman, Jack
Jeremy McLain => G.C., #****Thaddeus
Paula Friedman => #****Thaddeus|JF, Jack|Lichtman, Marianne|Jot
Winner:
When Death Came to Town by Thaddeus Howze
And special mention to Paula would had a very solid second position.
Elements: A plant.