Planet Magazine March Quarter 2002 * Issue No. 33 (Vol.9, No.1) ------------------------------ Wild Science Fiction & Fantasy on the Web -- Since 1994 Price: Whatever You Want to Tell the IRS TABLE OF CONTENTS CH001 Editorial & Letters CH002 About the Authors CH003 About the Artists CH004 About this Magazine CH005 Featured Artist CH006 'Special Free Bonus' for Planet's Readers!! STORIES CH007 Blue Shift by E.S. Strout CH008 Crawlspace by William Alan Rieser CH009 Crown Jewels by William Alan Rieser CH010 A Lonely Place by T. Everett Cobb CH011 Molly by Charles Kaluza CH012 The Old Man and the Cyborg by M.F. Korn CH013 The Project by Garry Dean CH014 Running With the Bulls by Peter Bergman, Jr. CH015 Storm on the Horizon by S.E. Eggleston CH016 Traditional Art by R. Scott Russell POEMS CH017 Olarov and the Rider by Lee Daniel Guest CH018 Red Robot Haiku by Romeo Esparrago CH019 Silbury Plain by s.c. virtes CH020 TolKu by Andrew G. McCann ------------------------------ CH001 Editorial & Letters Planet Magazine: Make Us Your Galactic Source for Science-Fiction-Like Substances! 'Way' to Go I am standing on a new product that will change history, society, and your life, and that's just for starters. The Segway, formerly known by its code name of "Ginger", was released to the public several months ago after much anticipation and wild speculation. We at Planet Magazine have been happily testing these vehicles day and night and are now ready to report what we have found. I am actually writing this editorial with my rack-mounted iPaq handheld while speeding down the sidewalk at the maximum 12 MPH on my little Segway, scattering dogwalkers and joggers as I go, moving this beautiful two-wheeled cart merely by tipping my body slightly forward -- or "intending forward" -- which leaves my hands, and eyes, free to pen this important memo. This does not Suckway. No way. For those of you without knowledge of this marvelous device I am riding, picture one of those classic push mowers for cutting grass, but designed by Lexus and with a platform for standing. (Note to self: sell the Segway folks on a Segway Lawnmower!). Now add in a revolutionary gyroscopic A.I. motor (in place of the mower blades) that can keep a two-wheeled vehicle stable on just about any terrain (by which I mean any flat or slightly inclined asphalt roadway that was recently paved and is currently free of traffic and enjoying sunny weather), and you've got the Vehicle of the Future that will indeed change the way cities are designed and the way we all live. And that's an under-exaggeration! As the inventor of this delightful two-wheeled, self-propelled scooter describes it, the Segway vehicle moves by the rider thinking it forward or backward -- not unlike walking -- all without falling. It's been magical to use and to weave into my life, and any problems have been few and far between and really nothing to worry about. For example, one little incident occurred when I was zipping along, and began idly recalling that morning's crossword puzzle, which I hadn't been able to solve. As I was thinking it out, I suddently tilted my head to the right, as a perplexed person is apt to do, and the Segway (following my "intent") promptly made a sharp right turn into the curb, ejecting me and bouncing me face-first off a large maple on the tree lawn. Another hiccup happened just the next day, when I was tooling down the local business avenue. I saw an old friend of mine from college walking past the Dunkin' Donuts, and gave him the universal "Hey, What's Up, Dude?" sign -- i.e., a quick, upward flick of the head. Well, my Ginger interpreted that as, "Immediately excecute a fast heel-flip up, and then throw me down on my back at 10 mph, in the manner of Tony Hawk." No sooner thought than done! Amazing. And the hospital released me that very same week! Anyway, how often will things like this happen to the average Segway rider? Once a month? Maybe every two weeks or so, if that? Like I said, not worth thinking about. So let me just segue into some of my hopes for The Segway and offer a few suggestions to the inventor to help make this hit product turn into some actual sales! The first thing I'd like to see is a rain cover of some sort that includes wipers in front and back as well as an entry door -- maybe some sort of big, square Plexiglas cover that can fit over the Segway, but something that is also lightweight and can fold down to fit into one's back pocket. I'd also like to see a similar cover for the winter, but thicker and with a heating/defogging system installed. (And don't forget the air holes, please!) Yet my biggest dream is to one day get a knobby-tired SUS (sports utility Segway), so that me 'n' Ginger can go off-road and hit the open trails, with a big smile on my surgically repaired face! Thinking Forward, Andrew G. McCann February 2002 Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: I'd like to inform your readers about an up-and-coming poetry newsletter that I'm publishing. "Poetrylist" is a bimonthly newsletter containing both free and formal verse poetry. It also contains information about poetry events such as readings. If they would like more information they can email me at poetrylist@aol.com. Thanks for your time, Bobby Whetzel Dear Editor: Twilight Times Books is pleased to announce the release of the following books: (1) Reflections of a Recovering Servant, by popular fantasy author Steve Lazarowitz. Excerpt: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/Reflections_ch1.html (2) Eyes of Truth, a fantasy novel by Linda Suzane. Excerpt: http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/EyesofTruth_ch1.html (3) The Thirteenth Magician, a fantasy novel by Patrick Welch. Excerpt: http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/13thMagician_ch1.html (4) The Moon Child, meta-mythic fantasy novel, by Alex Roces. Excerpt: http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/MoonChild_ch1.html Regards, Lida E. Quillen, Publisher Twilight Times Books http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/ Dear Editor: We are writing from the Enchanted-Art Collection of Jessica Galbreth -- a fantasy watercolorist whose specialty is painting all things enchanting -- faeries, goddesses, medieval & Celtic myth, dragons, unicorns, mermaids, and more. Through Jessica's official Web site, you can enter to win our annual poetry contest. Winners receive a free Enchanted-Art print and have their poem posted for one full year on our Web site with full credit (our site receives upwards of 5,000 hits per week). Without further ado, we'd like to invite you to browse our enchanting pages and further consider entering our poetry contest: http://www.enchanted-art.com/ EnchantedArt@aol.com Dear Editor: Galacticsurf is a portal grouping many categories about space sciences (cosmology, particle physics, exobiology, stars, solar system, galaxies, space missions, exoplanets, space galleries, space art, and many more). I created this site about a year ago in order to propose to researchers, astronomers, students, or just amateurs, a tool that can be used as a platform for research or just to enjoy a pleasurable trip through space sciences. There is absolutely no commercial goal. Galacticsurf's goal is to provide a free quality service for all space fans. Edouard Webmaster http://www.galacticsurf.com Dear Editor: I was published in Planet Magazine 9 & 10 ("Ice Princess") http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet//pm910/iceprinc.htm and wanted to let your readers know I've published a children's book, "Johnny Starlight", which is available in most Colorado bookstores as well as on Amazon.com. My upcoming projects include a children's book titled "McKenzie and the Magic Mirror", and several young-reader books, titled "The Tea Tree" and "Mr. Bug's Adventure". My largest project, due out in 2003, is a fantasy novel titled "To Save A Dragon". Thanks again for all your help and for the terrific start in the career of my dreams! Erika V. Queen Queenerikav@yahoo.com c/o Goldwing Publishers P.O. Box 33652 Denver, CO 80233 Dear Editor: Drunk Duck, a literary publication, is seeking writers and artists interested in producing and selling e-books on our site. We will produce e-books for you for free. This is not an editing service, and we will only offer Microsoft Reader formatting. In the future, .PDF formatting will be added. We only ask for the right to post and sell your book on our site. We will take a percentage of the sale, and the rest will go back to the author, much like MP3.com's services for musicians. The author will set the price, and control the rights to the work. More details about this offer will be available on our Web site at a later date. Note that we will invalidate this offer if we do not receive a positive response. If you are interested in participating in this new service please respond to duck@stories.com. Please visit our site, www.drunkduck.homestead.com, and our affiliate site www.6000bynight.homestead.com. Sincerely, Richard Edwards Editor Dear Editor: Gambeson Media Network is an exciting new place to read stories in over 300 genres from around the world. Smart navigation makes it easy to find the right kind of story you are looking for in fiction, nonfiction, music, and poetry genres. Recent contributions have come from the USA, Australia, India, and other places. Attention writers: Gambeson is home to the world's first totally automated online publishing system, allowing both new and established authors the ability to bring stories to the world audience immediately and free. You can get your work featured on Gambeson's front page today -- now accepting submissions. Gambeson Media Network http://www.gambeson.com Dear Editor: Eugene resident and author Max E. Keele announces the launch of a new quarterly Internet magazine dedicated to publishing literary-quality speculative fiction for an international audience of sophisticated readers. Fiction Inferno's objective is to find and publish the best, most literate speculative fiction (which includes the genres usually referred to as science fiction, fantasy, horror, and experimental) available from authors of any and all backgrounds, whether well-established in their writing careers or just starting out. The only objective criteria for making the pages of FI is well-crafted, innovative fiction. FI also intends to be author-friendly -- all rights not purchased will remain with the individual authors and payment will be made for any story published. Fiction Inferno is a quarterly publication, available for free on the Web at www.fictioninferno.com. Max E. Keele editor@fictioninferno.com Dear Editor: GreenTentacles -- the e-zine providing news, articles, and services for speculative fiction businesses -- has just completed a major redesign. The main thrust of the design was to get the main content of the site into a database, in order to make future updates and daily maintenance as painless as possible. We've also added new features, like a pseudo-daily news log, where we report some of the top stories that may be of interest to speculative fiction business people. Cordially, N. E. Lilly nelilly@greententacles.com A Modern Business Fan http://www.greententacles.com/ Dear Editor: We invite your readers to visit Cool Beans World, our online comics cavern. We have some great storylines on the site -- including an exclusive animated series of "Scarlet Traces", written by Ian Edginton with art by Disraeli. We've also got exclusive new work in the pipeline from the comics community's biggest names, especially Simon Bisley's return to sword-wielding fantasy in the Alan Grant-scripted "Doomkeeper". On top of all this, there are the community, shop, and interactive zones that promise to entertain you even more. Cheers, Jo Fearne http://www.coolbeansworld.com http://www.cartoonscape.com Dear Editor: We'd like to invite any readers who like extreme, bizarre speculative fiction to check out our new titles, which are available in paperback and electronic versions. Thanks, Eraserhead Press EHPress@aol.com http://www.angelfire.com/az2/eraserheadpress/ Letters to Proposed 'Lord of the Rings' Sequels Dear "Part IV: The Return of Bilbo: The Adventure Begins Again" (same cast): I have had a problem my whole life. No one ever seems to remember me, although I always remember myself very well! Specifically, my problem is that every time I meet someone, and then run into them later, they always say "Hi, Elliott", when my first name is actually Lawrence (although it's true that I insist people call me by my first two initials in combination with my last name). Well, I guess there's just no accounting for the obtuseness of some folks. Yours Truly, L.E. Ott Dear "Part V: The Return of Sauron: The Adventure Continues" (all-new cast, including Eric Stoltz as the dark lord; directed by Nora Ephron): Although the new iMac may seem like it's in a niche hardware category, and perhaps overpriced for many people, I believe that you've got to consider the fact that it runs many popular software applications and that it also comes with some free digital apps that allow easy movie-making, music playing, photo organization, etc. Now show me one other desk lamp that can do that! Ha! Didn't think so. Regards, Capo D. Tutti-Frutti Dear "Part VI: A Balrog in Hobbiton" (directed by Sam Raimi): President Bush the Younger here, and I'm writing to let your readers know that the U.S. is committed to doing whatever it takes to rein in my rogue daughters. They represent an "Axis of Partying" that must be stopped before they create Weapons of Brain-Cell Destruction. I am telling these girls right now to stop engaging in this massive partying, shut down their activities, and immediately enter rehabs. If they refuse, I am ready to do whatever it takes to protect my familiy's reputation from the threat of these "krazy kollege-type kidz". I will even go so far as to use military action against my daughters, should it come to that (hey, I'm just kidding, but I want to scare 'em a bit!). Now that me and the wife have got the girls on notice, I hope they change their behavior on their own. And I hope they hear the message of not only the president of the United States but also a vast coalition of their aunts, uncles, and cousins. And then people say, "What are the consequences of my ultimatum?" Well, these girls will find that out in due course if they don't get their apartments in order! Speaking From a Disclosed Location, The Dubster Dear "Part VII: The Story of Tom Bombadil" (musical, with Nathan Lane): What's the capital of the United States, you ask? That's easy: Capital U. Or maybe capital U and capital S. But since the question is singular, not plural, then the one I pick would be U (so happy belated Valentine's Day to U!). Sincerely, Ty M. Waister Dear "Part VIII: Barliman Butterbur Forgets Again!" (with Drew Carey, and Gilbert Gottfried as "Nob"): Ooooooohhhhh, I grow tired of that man Gandalf's excuses for his regular disappearances! I tell you it's no picnic being married to a Valar (and yes, already, he IS one). First it was that rogue elfess in Rinvendell that supposedly entrapped him, then the next year it was the card game he lost to Old Man Willow, and there was even that experimental-lifestyle phase with that high-booted Tom Bombadil. And then I didn't see him for months and months after that doddering fool Saruman allegedly "captured" him. By Shelob, that bumbling, would-be tyrant Saruman couldn't even catch a cold! And now I'm supposed to believe that Gandalf's been pulled into a bottomless pit by some slow-witted Balrog and has gone missing? Spare me. Odds are he's gone missing all the way to the mead taverns of Minas Tirith with that no-good, smelly Strider! I'll tell you one thing, he'll be seeing me in Wizard Divorce Court pretty soon! I'll show that Gandalf a bottomless pit, I will. Sincerely, Mrs. Gandalf A. Valar Dear "Part IX: The Return of Saruman: The Secondary Threat Rises Again" (original cast is back): I am a rare elf/dwarf hybrid -- I am joyous yet sullen, otherworldly yet mundane, pretty yet ugly. Those of us Erfs (as we call ourselves, although some use Dwelfs) have gathered and met in a Grand Council. We have come to a key decision and are now seeking our own homeland in Middle Earth, far and near from the who oppress us. Essentially, we are seeking a mountainous valley, covered by a treeless forest, which is sunny half the year and cloudy the next. Please help us, although we do not need any of your help. With Sincerity & Suspicion, Elshape Oakenhelm Dear "Part X: The Return of the King Yet Again" (all-new cast, including Lucy Lawless as Sauron's Daughter): Continuing on from my letter in the last issue, I am here to demonstrate via Internet-enabled Powerpoint slides exactly why and how -- and most assuredly contrary to the claims of my self-appointed "ex"-girlfriend -- I am not "pompous and boring", as she maintains. Let us go view my presentation then, you and I. First slide, please. First slide, please! Drat! Not again. Those fellows I talked to in that AOL chat room swore to me that the presentation would be ready to go at the appointed hour. After all, they said they were graphics experts working in the office of The Most High Internet Commissioner himself, Lord Hugh Jass of Geneva. (Ah, Geneva! I remember it well! How I miss the soaring plumes of that storied city's Jet D'Oh!) Well once again Fate appears to be against me in this endeavor! Still, I can always take solace in the fact that Physics tells us there are infinite worlds, which means that, somewhere(s), I have an infinite number of dates tonight. So I'd better go (watch TV, that is!). Borously, A. Guy Fromme-Las Tishyu Dear "Part XI: A Hobbit in Cimmeria" (Animated Saturday morning cartoon): Let me tell you a little story. A bushy-haired philosophy professor stood before his class, picked up a large, empty jar, and filled it with rocks right to the top. He asked the students if the jar was full, and they agreed it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them in to the jar, shaking the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. He asked again if the jar was full, and the students said yes! The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar, which seemed to fill up the remaining space. He asked yet again if the jar was full, and they said yes, yes, OK, fine, it's full already. Some eyes impatiently strayed to the wall clock. The professor then took some water and poured it into the jar, which seemed to fill it to total capacity. He looked at the students -- they said yes, yes, we get the point, you can always fill it up a bit more. But surely the jar is full now, and anyway wasn't that the bell signaling that class is over? So the professor, after a brief, dramatic pause, pulled out an illegal pocket-sized quantum-foam sprayer/compacter, stuck it into the jar, and filled it to beyond its capacity -- but carefully, so that it maintained its structural integrity. He asked the class if it was full now. There were uneasy, scattered murmurs of assent. And an undercurrent of fear snaked through the classroom. The professor's eyes flicked across the rows of students. With a swift, precise motion, he pulled from his desk drawer a mil-spec Tattington-Li quark splitter, held it straight up, rotated it 30 degrees to his left, extended the splitter apparatus from its cowling and poked through the very fabric of reality, removing some [WARNING FROM PLANET EDIT-BOT: UNTRANSLATABLE TERM], and then held it over the jar. The classroom erupted into a piercing wave of screams, as the students viewed [UNTRANSLATABLE] with their naked eyes and unprotected brains, and most fled through the doors at the back or jumped through the open second-story windows. Only one student remained, the smartest in the class, who sat frozen to his seat in terror at the knowledge in his head as the professor began lowering the [UNTRANSLATABLE] into the overfull jar. "Professor!" the student suddenly shouted. The professor paused, looked up, a cold smile on his lips, and said, "Yes? You want to tell me something?" The student gasped: "Professor, the jar... it's not full! My God, do you hear me, it is NOT FULL!!" The professor smiled, swiveled to his left, inserted the [UNTRANSLATABLE] back through the reality rip, closed the rip with the splitter, and locked the splitter in a drawer of the table he stood at. "Now," said the professor to the remaining student. "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things, like your family or food. The pebbles are the secondary things, like your car. The sand represents tertiary things, like magazine subscriptions. The water represents the new Harry Potter movie, which if you didn't see on opening day, you should see as soon as possible. The compacted quark foam represents the new Lord of the Rings movies, which you should eventually purchase on DVD, but you don't need to see at the theater, especially since the Hobbits look too human, which was a huge mistake by the director, that Ursine Human called Beorn. Finally, the [UNTRANSLATABLE] represents the least in life -- those things that are pointless yet can still kill you, like this apocryphyl Internet-circulated anecdote that you and me are acting in right now, which, even worse, isn't the actual supposedly real anecdote but a tarted-up double-fake that's been created for a false Letters to the Editor section of a notorious sci-fi Web-zine." The professor then removed his glasses and looked right at the student. "Yet, almost like an emptied jar, this classroom is no longer full, save for you and me. I'm sure there is some parallel I could draw at this point -- about us being the two last rocks or perhaps the [UNTRANSLATABLE] itself -- but I think we would all agree (and here I include those reading this right now), that, at long last, have we not the decency to end this fake Letter to the Editor? The student relaxed, smiling a bit while nodding his head. "Now," said the professor, "how the heck am I going to remove the compacted quantum foam from this damn pickle jar?" The professor started chuckling, the student joined in, and then you, the reader, began laughing as well, as this fake letter fades to black. But This Letter Is Still Not Full, Prof. S. Orr Dear "Part XII: The Return of Elrond" (special F/X extravaganza; cameo by Keanu Reeves): I still insist that the Internet is going to be the biggest thing since the Human race was invented by the Voshtorr'an of Klepajl IX a million years ago or so. This whole Tech Bubble thing in the stock market has been nothing more than the popping of a small pustule on the face of destiny. So don't even bother thinking about it. Surely, it's only a matter of time before the Internet is installed in our very brains, our bodies, even our souls! I firmly believe that one day, there will be no people anymore -- only the Internet, although I do expect there will be at least one official "user" to be retained for demonstration purposes, in case the Voshtorr'an ever return to see how we're doin'. And for evidence of all this, one need look no further than my unshakeable conviction in my own ideas and my personal greatness. But it's all detailed on my 230-gigabyte Web site, which is currently in search of a free Web-hosting service. Thank Me Very Much, Prinn "Ted" Sircutt-Bordd Dear "Part XIII: Rambo in Mordor: Last Blood" (with Jet Li): It's true that George Harrison was known as "the Quiet Beatle", but did you know that John Lennon was known as "the Hard Beatle". Paul McCartney, of course, was "the Loud Beatle", and Ringo Starr, "the Slow Beatle" (betcha thought I was going to say "Soft", didn'tcha? Truth is, there never was a "Soft" Beatle, and they all were considered "Fast"). And then there were original guitarist Stu Sutcliffe (the Arty Beatle), original drummer Pete Best (the Vacant Beatle), producer Sir George Martin (the Elegant Beatle), keyboardist Billy Preston (the Smiling Beatle), and even radio DJ Murray the K (the VW Beatle), all of whom have legitimate cause to claim the position of the Fifth Beatle. Maybe you knew all of that, but what you likely don't know is that I am known as "the 121,339,736th Beatle". So how did I get to become the 121,339,736th Beatle? Well, do you really want me to go through the tortured logic and self-justification of it all, like the other fake Letters to the Editor here, including a ranking of every "Beatle" preceding me? You do? Well, sorry, but I've got no time for it; I'm quite a busy fictional character. The Beatle Goes On, Vic Shunal Dear Editor: So, N'Syth will not appear in "Star Wars Episode II", I hear. Hmmm... Vanquished then is Darth Timberlake, for now. But always more than one there is, yes. We must beware Darth Joey... known as The Fat One, is he... a Human/Hut mix. Dangerous are the Boy-Band Clones! Bye Bye, Jedi, Bye Bye, Yoga Planet Magazine is the Collectible SF Web-zine! We are considered to be "extremely rare" by those who cannot find us at all! ------------------------------ CH002 About the Authors Peter Bergman, Jr. ("Running With the Bulls") has been reading science fiction, horror, and fantasy since grade school. He lives in the Northwoods of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and his hobbies are hunting, fishing, golfing, writing, reading, and helping his wife in raising three teenage daughters. Peter has had short stories published in Web-zines Aphelion Science Fiction, Planet Magazine, Writer's Hood, and Dark Moon Rising. This is his second story in Planet Magazine. E-mail: plbrgmn@newnorth.net T. Everett Cobb ("A Lonely Place") spends most of his time staring at a blank screen, though every once in a while he manages to string a few words together. That's why his short stories emerge only periodically, though they have appeared in such small press magazines as "Night Terrors", "Hadrosaur", and "The Ultimate Unknown". He figures at this rate, he'll eventually make a living as a writer if he lives to be 382. He adds that he tries to eat healthy. E-mail: tecobb@qwest.net Ray Dangel (Associate Editor) tinkers with stories until his craving for good English is reasonably satisfied. He makes no claims to be an expert grammarian, and in fact recalls that his high school English teacher once cautioned him, "If you don't pay more attention in this class, you'll be an ignoramus forever." That was the semester Ray took home a report card containing 22 "F" grades. The next semester his name was on the Dean's List for academic achievement. Ray insists he was bored and just wanted a "different" report card. E-mail: radangel@yahoo.com Garry Dean ("The Project") lives on the sunny shores of NSW Australia, in a little town called Tuncurry, where he enjoys the occasional swim in the surf, while dodging the occasional shark! His favorite authors include Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, both of whom epitomize the classic science fiction tale. Garry decided to try his hand at writing about a year ago, and to date his work has appeared in "AntipodeanSF" and "The Science Fiction Museum." You can read other examples of Garry's humble ravings on his Web page: http://www.users.bigpond.com/garrydean1/ E-mail: garrydean1@bigpond.com S.E. "Sam" Eggleston ("Storm on the Horizon") is a sports editor for the Novi News, the Northville Record and the Lake Area Times. He lives and works outside of Detroit, Michigan, after completing a brief stint as a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion in Kenai, Alaska. Eggleston is a native of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where he, and his wife -- Christie -- first met at Northern Michigan University. Recently, a new addition was born into their pack -- Shaylyn Rose has given Eggleston plenty of motivation and sleepless nights in which to get some stories done. Eggleston is hoping to one day become a full-time fiction writer. E-mail: Spirit_of_the_Slayer@msn.com Romeo Esparrago ("Red Robot Haiku", associate editor-type thingy) has joined the Red Robot Domination cult. Check out his other Red Robot contributions at http://www.romedome.com/art/featured_art/, which reveals the secret identity of the Red Robot -- gasp & swoon! E-mail: public@romedome.com Lee Daniel Guest ("Olarov and the Rider"), 24 years old, studied Fine Arts for a number of years before leaving college to improve. His Idols are; Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank Frazetta, Yngwie Johan Malmsteen, and Henry Kuttner. E-mail: ldguest@btinternet.com Charles Kaluza ("Molly") is a surgeon and has expanded his writing interest from medical literature to fiction. He was given this opportunity to explore the creative side of his writing, when he developed rheumatoid arthritis. Charles misses the adrenaline rush of performing surgery but finds creative writing to be a good substitute. He is most interested in the potential for medical advances and the ethical issues they create. He hopes readers share his enthusiasm for the future. E-mail: charleskaluza@sprintmail.com M.F. Korn ("The Old Man and the Cyborg") has written eleven novels and had 200 story appearances in magazines worldwide. Currently available are his two paperback collections: CONFESSIONS OF A GHOUL AND OTHER STORIES and ALIENS, MINIBIKES, AND OTHER STAPLES OF SUBURBIA. He resides in Louisiana as a programmer with a degree in Computer Science, and has a daughter, Savannah, four years old. Mike also has a degree in Piano and enjoys playing Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Chopin, and ragtime, and listening to Requiems, Sacred Masses for the Dead. To learn more about M. F. Korn, check out his official site at http://hometown.aol.com/tiresius1/ Andrew G. McCann ("TolKu", Editor) has been chosen as the physical and neural model for the next version of the iMac, to be known as "iMac III -- The Digital Hubby". This will be a computer into which any electronic device ever created can be plugged, via the patented new MorphPort, and into which any electronic data can be downloaded, processed, and output via the patented new PeristalsApp program. In addition, you will be able to legally marry the iMac III in the states of California and Vermont only -- and you can burn a DVD at the same time (flammable accelerant not included). E-mail: editor@planetmag.com Hathno Paige (Not Pictured) is a 32nd degree black belt in the ancient Balinese fighting art of Chu Knudl Wel. In addition to flying, invisibility, and general invulnerability, Hathno can pull his pants on both legs at once. E-mail: hathno@hotmail.com William Alan Rieser ("Crawlspace" and "Crown Jewels"), born in New York City, less than 3 miles from the World Trade Center, originally was a musician and spent many years composing, conducting, teaching, and performing music on the East Coast. His earliest writing influences were Tolkien, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Poul Anderson. He is now retired in Fort Worth, Texas, with his wife, Sandra, who edits his writings and doesn't give him the slightest break on syntax or style, even though he expresses nought but loving thoughts to her. For several years he experimented with short stories for SF/F e-zines but now prefers to concentrate on more developed themes. In this last year, he published "The Kaska Trilogy" and "The Chronicles of Zusalem" via Writers Club Press, an organization associated with iUniverse and Barnes and Noble. Many other novels have been completed and are awaiting publication, such as "Furnace" and "Luna Parabella". His articles, humorous and serious, are popping up everywhere, especially in his column at scifantastic. Currently, he is working on a mainstream novel and promises a mystery. He enjoys talking to writers, novice or professional, and encourages contact. E-mail: WRieser283@aol.com Web site: http://rieserbooks.homestead.com/rieserbooks.html R. Scott Russell ("Traditional Art") lives with his wife and kids in Rochester, New York. He runs a small test lab where, basically, he is allowed to break things for a living. In addition, Scott is pursuing a Master's degree in astronomy and spends several nights a week running the big scope at a local observatory. He is particularly interested in developing automated telescope systems. These activities plus a love of reading keep him quite busy but also provide a good deal of potential story ideas. He would love to provide a list of favorite authors but it would take up an entire page. His list ranges from Anderson to Kipling to Zelazny, plus a host of writers found at Web-zines such as Planet Magazine. "Traditional Art" is Scott's fifth work of short fiction to be published. He has been published online at scifidimensions.com and in Rochester Short Stories Magazine. One of his stories, "The Coyote and the Gila Monster," was recently turned into a song by the Seattle-based alternative punk band Bert Nu Ernie. E-mail: stargzr@frontiernet.net E.S. Strout ("Blue Shift") has been published in small-press print magazines "Crossroads", "Lovecraft's Mystery Magazine", "Fading Shadows", "Mad Scientist", and "Millennium Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine". His stories have also appeared in the Internet publications "Jackhammer", "Beyond s-f", "Millennium SF&F", and "Demensions". E.S. Strout is on the faculty of the U.C. Irvine Medical Center, where he teaches skin pathology to dermatology residents. E-mail: gino_ss@earthlink.net s.c. virtes ("Silbury Plain") was last spotted at the San Diego Writers Conference, pitching his new novel to an editor from Tor Books and some friendly agents. They seemed a bit confused by the whole affair. He sold some cartoons to Futures that weekend; recent poem sales to Star*Line, Not One of Us, and Space & Time; and two poems nominated for the 2002 Pushcart Prize. He was also seen in a dentist chair, wishing he was in another galaxy. E-mail: writer@scvs.com Web site: http://tales.scvs.com Thomas Wagner (Associate Editor) has of late been thinking about writing science fiction a lot more than writing it. But fortunately he just quit his day job, so now he'll have all the time he needs, even if he has no food... E-mail: thomas_p_wagner@hotmail.com Planet: Famous for Fine SF in all Seventeen Quadrants of Flux-Space! ------------------------------ CH003 About the Artists Kenn Brown (art for "The Old Man and the Cyborg") was thinking back on the morning of September 11th, his birthday: "Every day since that tragedy I have been filled with a sense of anxiety, and urgency. Two weeks later, on September 26th, I walked into my company of employment and handed in my resignation. Those feelings have still not fully gone away but I am filled with a new sense of purpose. I still wonder if I made the right choice, but every time I finish an illustration, I get a sense of satisfaction I have never achieved with any previous job, creative or otherwise. Just before writing this, I picked out an old dog-eared copy of OMNI to take to bed with me and opened it up to "Count the Clock that tells Time", by Harlan Ellison. This is a copy I bought when I was 15 years old (20 years ago!) and yet I never recalled reading this particular story -- very strange. Having finished it.. I understand now why I never started it. I get this sense that it has been sitting there patiently, waiting for me to discover it -- along with the rest of my dreams I packed away so many years ago." Ken has been working on Macintosh and PC platforms for a little over 11 years. He spent four years studying illustration and design at the Ontario College of Art and Design in his native Toronto before moving on to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he has lived (on and off) for the last 10 years. He spent some time working on video games in Las Vegas and hanging out on the beach in LA, only to return to his beloved Vancouver and his dream of becoming a Science Fiction illustrator. E-mail: kennb@shaw.ca Web site: http://www.kontent-online.com Jon Eke (art for "Crawlspace") was born in 1967 in Amersham, north of London, and grew up in the Midlands before moving to Merseyside in 1986, where he currently works in the operating theatres at the local NHS hospital. Apart from computer art, his other main hobbies are astronomy, photography, and writing highly personal science fiction tales. Among his favourite writers he includes J.G. Ballard, James Tiptree Jr, Cordwainer Smith, Philip K Dick, Samuel Delany, Barry Malzberg, William Burroughs, Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft (actually, if the truth be told, he's top of the list). Jon is also a member of the Ghost Story society and his main ambition in life is to write just one truly successful ghost story. If he manages that, he'll die a happy man!. E-mail: jon@galaxy5.fsnet.co.uk Romeo Esparrago (Graphics Slicer 'n' Dicer, art for "Red Robot Haiku") is merely a 12" action figure aspiring to do bigger things (well!). Check out his other 1:6 and 1:18 scale buddies at http://www.romedome.com/company_of_plastic_heroes/ E-mail: public@romedome.com Carl Goodman (art for "Molly") is married with one son, lives in Surrey, UK, and has been doing computer graphics for a living since the late 1980s. A lot of his work has been based around fairly technical visualisation projects, but a while back he joined a computer animation company as director of graphics research and development, which means that basically he gets to evaluate all the leading-edge technologies associated with CGI and provide due diligence for venture capitalists on various projects. Carl has had a fair bit of material published in consumer media in the past, including animation work for Reuters on the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact, which was shown on news channels in 22 separate countries. He also had some illustrations of this event published in "New Scientist" magazine. Carl is also an avid reader of what might be thought of as "hard core" science fiction, with a strong bias towards the Clarke-Asimov-Heinlein-Niven stable, and enjoys the opportunity to visualise concepts. In terms of tools, most of Carl's work is in 3-D, using Max 4, character studio for animation, Deep Paint 3d for textures, Photoshop, Corel Xara for linework (less of a pain in the neck than Illustrator!) and simulation plug-ins like phoenix and havoc. Peppersghost.com has updated its site recently won a BAFTA award for www.tinyplanets.com -- best entertainment site 2001. E-mail: carl.goodman@peppersghost.com Web-site: www.peppersghost.com Lee Daniel Guest ("Olarov and the Rider"), 24 years old, studied Fine Arts for a number of years before leaving college to improve. His Idols are; Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank Frazetta, Yngwie Johan Malmsteen, and Henry Kuttner. E-mail: ldguest@btinternet.com Ellie Hradsky (art for "Cover" and "Blue Shift"), twenty-five years ago, worked for a photographer who was as heavily into science fiction as she was. He knew a man who claimed he was in contact with alien beings and that he had photographs and info he wanted them to see. Ellie and her boss eagerly looked at the stuff the man left, but at one point her heart sank and she walked away. He smiled at her over his shoulder. "Not very convincing, is it." Ellie hesitated because she wanted to believe, then finally replied, "No...not very." "Do you think we could re-create images like these?" he asked. "Regrettably...I think we could do better than these," she sighed. Nothing ever came of it and all this time the yearning to create believable spacecraft stayed with Ellie. Quite by accident, after purchasing equipment for her photo-retouching business, she discovered tools that enabled her to begin assembling objects. "God," she mused at one of the first shapes that came up. "This could be the nose of a spaceship." The rest is history. The ship in the "soft sunset" graphic for the story "Slip-stream" is the second one she did. She has done many more since. Each one gets more involved and functional. Ellie's son noticed her doing this one. She had only one question for him. "Does it look like it could fly...Maybe?" "It sure does, Ma...Awesome." That was all she needed to know. As for her personal history, Ellie was born in Europe and came to the US when she was about two. She has had little schooling and is old enough to be a grandmother. She is now doing what she loves. The way things are going, she just might end up being the "Grandma Moses" of space art. That would suit her just fine. Ellie says her soul is, was, and always will be out there in the cosmos and with other life forms. As far as graphic tools are concerned, Ellie uses the standard tools that come with almost every graphics program out there. There is nothing mysterious about them. The rest is technique, and that she can't divulge.... E-mail: ehradsky@suffolk.lib.ny.us Andy Miller (art for "Running With the Bulls" and "Silbury Plain") is currently working in the mountains of central Virginia. He is a writer, artist, and composer. E-mail: kidscroll@hotmail.com David Sauma (art for "A Lonely Place") is a native Miamian of Cuban parents. He started graphic artistry as a hobby, which soon developed into a self-supporting career. His Bachelor's degree in Psychology and minor in MIS quickly took the backburner. Each piece is much like building an intricate puzzle using the computer to digitally combine original photography of space, animals, and humans, creating an exhilarating art piece full of fantasy, dreams, and drama. His unconventional art stimulates the viewer1s imagination, giving the illusion of transport into another realm. E-mail: info@dreamescape.com Web-site: www.dreamescape.com Eric Seaholm (art for "Crown Jewels", "The Project", and "Traditional Art") has been creating art for most of his life. Growing up near Houston, Texas, the earliest memory he has is of drawing sailboats with his dad when he was four or five years old. Recently turning 34, he thinks of art as the main focus of his life, rather than something he just does. Currently living in Tokyo, he designs and draws every day, sometimes carrying a sketch book on the train. The locals sometimes glance at him. Perhaps some wonder what this foreigner is doing trying to draw on such a bumpy train ride. Hey, the bumpy ride adds to the uncertainty of the art. E-mail: eric@seaholm.com Web-site: www.seaholm.com Patrick Stacy (art for "Storm on the Horizon") hails from Germany, and like many before, started young. His main emphasis in childhood was comics and he soon became an excellent tracer. Never content, the challenge was then to illustrate freehand; now that would be talent. Early influences are still inspirational today, such as the legendary Frazetta, Vallejo, and Parrish. Classical influences were Rubens and Caravaggio. The goal of course is, with any luck, to break into the book cover and magazine markets. As mentioned earlier about never being content, currently in the process of learning to create webpages through HTML and Photoshop. In the process of updating website to include upgrades as well as new illustrations. Winner of the L.Ron Hubbard's Illustrators of the Future contest in 1996 as well as two illustrations within the volume. Web-site: http://members.nbci.com/pstacyart/ E-mail: pld895@aol.com Note to Readers: Please keep in mind that after you've finished reading this issue, WE MUST ALL LEAVE THE SHIRE IMMEDIATELY -- TONIGHT. My spider-sense is tingling, and I feel that Darth Vader and the rest of the Nazgul are close... even Capt. James T. Dumbledore himself cannot protect us now. May Shrek be with you... ------------------------------ CH004 Masthead: Information About Planet Magazine Planet Magazine: 100% Free of Teenage Sarcasm! Yeah.... like, right. Duh. As if. Planet Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 1 (the 33rd issue) Home Site: http://www.planetmag.com Mirror Site: http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet Lord Wizard Andrew G. McCann editor@planetmag.com Exalted Ornamentalist Romeo Esparrago public@romedome.com Royal Scrivener Ray Dangel radangel@yahoo.com Bard of the Empire Tom Wagner thomas_p_wagner@hotmail.com What In The World Is Planet Magazine? Planet Magazine is the free, award-winning quarterly Web-zine of short science fiction and fantasy by emerging writers and digital artists, whom we hope to encourage in their pursuit of the perfect tale or illustration. There could be other reasons we're doing this, of course, motivations that are obscure and uncomfortable; instincts linked perhaps to primal, nonreasoning urges regarding power and procreation -- the very same forces, no doubt, that sank the Atlanteans and their alabaster-towered oceanic empire. And the Dark Gods laffed. Planet has been available electronically via the World-Wide Web (see the clickable links at the top of this page) and Tin-Foil-Hat Receptron since January 1, 1994. Total circulation is "thousands 'n' thousands" per issue worldwide. Feel free to download this zine or make a single printout, as long as you don't charge for it or alter it in any way. That would be illegal and "not nice." Submissions are welcomed (see below). Planet does not carry advertising or offer a subscription service, but issues are always available at our Web site, with new ones published every March 1, June 1, September 1, or December 1 (or thereabouts). Letters to the editor are encouraged and are likely to be printed. Guidelines For Submissions Planet accepts original, unpublished short science fiction and fantasy stories and poems, as well as digital art, from anyone famous or unfamous (use the lengths in any recent issue as a guideline). We are open to the experimental but will not publish anything we judge to be porno, gore, or in violation (as far as we are able to tell) of any copyrights (such as stories that use Star Trek, Star Wars, or Babylon 5 characters). Since Planet is free and carries no ads, we can't pay anything except the spirit-sustaining currency of free publicity and life-enhancing good vibes. For full details on submitting stories, poems, or artwork, please visit: http://www.planetmag.com/submit.htm. * E-mail text submissions as plain, unformatted files (either as an e-mail attachment or, if short enough, in the body of the e-mail message) to editor@planetmag.com. One submission at a time, please. Two submissions max. * E-mail illustration submissions separately as e-mail attachments, but Stuff or Zip them first. Alternatively, you could send the URL for an image, and we can go look at it. Images should be 256-color, 16-color, 16-gray, or B&W GIFs or JPEGs only. Send any questions about illustrations to public@romedome.com or editor@planetmag.com. Distribution Sites Planet Magazine is distributed only in Web (HTML) format, which can be read best with any version 3.0 or above Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Opera, NeoPlanet, iCab, or OmniWeb. Earlier issues of Planet are also available at our Web site in four other electronic formats: text (.txt) for any PC or Mac word-processing program; Acrobat (.pdf), a full-color version for PC or Mac using the free Acrobat Reader); DocMaker, a full-color, self-running file with sounds for Mac only; and Palm (.prc), a text version that requires a Palm PDA and a DOC reader like the freeware CSpotRun. The main place to find Planet is on the Web, either at our home page http://www.planetmag.com or our mirror site http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet. Copyrights & Disclaimers Planet Magazine as a whole, including all text, design, and illustrations, is copyright c 2002 by Andrew G. McCann. However, all individual stories and poems in this magazine are copyright c 2002 by their respective authors or artists, who have granted Planet Magazine the right to use these works for this issue in both electronic form and any resulting print-outs by readers for noncommercial, individual use. All people and events portrayed in this magazine are entirely fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual people or events. This publication, along with every past issue of Planet Magazine, is registered with the Copyright Office of the U.S. Library of Congress. Since our first issue, dated January 1994, Planet Magazine has been freely available via the Internet and has consistently used the names "Planet Magazine", "PlanetZine", "PlanetMag," and "McCann's Planet Magazine" to refer to itself. You may freely distribute this magazine electronically on a noncommercial, nonprofit basis to anyone and print one copy for your personal use, but you may not alter or excerpt Planet in any way without direct, written permission from the publisher, who can be contacted at editor@planetmag.com. Any unauthorized access, reproduction, or transmission of Planet Magazine, in whole or part, is strictly prohibited by U.S. federal law and international copyright law. Planet Magazine is published by Cranberry Street Press, Garden City, N.Y., USA, Andrew G. McCann, publisher. Colophon This issue was created with Adobe GoLive 5.0, Graphic Converter 4.1, Painter 4, and Microsoft Word 98 on an iMac DV. Logotype by Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr., using "Startling" by Dave Bastian, at http://www.davebastian.com/. (Previous logotypes in Arquitectura and Times New Roman). The text is Arial, and in some older issues Helvetica or Geneva. Some of the artwork in this and past issues was designed and created by Romeo A. Esparrago, Jr., using Adobe GoLive 4.0 and ImageStyler. Some illustrations were done in Painter 4. He also uses a Titanium G4 PowerBook, a Wacom ArtZ tablet, and a MicroTek ScanMaker IISP. Please visit the guest artists' Web pages to learn about the tools they used for their illustrations. Note that every issue of Planet is strength-tested for 72 hours in a gale-force wind tunnel before being shipped out in its traditional damaged state. Planet Magazine ISSN: 1526-1840. ------------------------------ CH005 Featured Cover Artist : Ellie Hradsky The Pisces Storm Probe was intended to be a small 30-man vessel that actively sought out cosmic disturbances and then mapped and collected data for neighboring spacestations and planetary systems. It had a small problem. While the ship was capable of handling drastic velocity shifts and emissions internally, two of the outer railings were not and tended to warp when subjected to sudden pressure changes. An endearing quality to me. I wanted somehow to take the little ship and make a mirror image of it. When I flipped it end to end however, I began to see something else. Flowing diagonal lines that intrigued me... Finding the first images too dull I took the ship apart and added effects to all the pieces. I put it back together and duplicated it again. This time however, I thought the ship to be too bright. I ended up taking the whole thing apart again and adding effects to only certain sections of the ship and then re-arranging and adding more instrumentation. I then named it the Quad. Still...far from finished, I needed to start thinking about a background... The concept of wormholes always fascinated me, but how to render one... I'm still elaborating on my wormholes, but I kinda' like this one. Named after the discoverer of it, Brandy Torobon, navigator of the escort ship, The Archangel. It started out as a simple rainbow fill that I kept twisting and distorting until it began to fold in on itself. Above: After all the basics of the graphic were laid out, I added extendable landing platforms, telemetry and tracking stations, an observation deck and maintenance pod. Click the image for a larger closeup. Below: I busied myself next going all around the ship and encasing all of the circuitry and instrumentation in forced transparent shielding, giving the ship a mysterious aura. The closer you look, the more depth you will find. Click the image for a closer look. After all was said and done, I decided to keep the bent railings, giving the Quad a deceptively fragile look. The ship now holds a crew of 120, can withstand extreme velocities, shifting energy patterns and bombardment and is currently employed as a wormhole hunter. Click the above image if you want a larger, closer view. ------------------------------ CH006 Special Bonus for the Readers of Planet!! From the seemingly friendly Editorial Staff Get a free Planet Magazine "Alien-Invader Face" identification tattoo. Just follow the simple instructions below: 1. Press the button at the bottom of this page to generate an individualized tattoo. 2. Press your face against your computer screen. 3. The tattoo will adhere* to your face through our patented transvidermal pixelporation process! 4. Show off your new Planet face tattoo to all your friends and enemies! Attend parties! Take on a new lover! Quit your job! Rob a bank! Enter a rehab! Make the stars your destination! The possibilities are endless! By Odin, this is your chance to really LIVE! Carpe Diem! Please note: If the tattoo doesn't take at first, just keep trying and trying and trying and trying. Special benefits of Planet tattoos include the following: - All banks registered in the State of Ohio will let you use your facial tattoo at ATMs instead of a PIN number. Just hold your face up against the ATM screen, tap in your PIN, and wait. Just keep waiting. Even if people in line behind you gnash their teeth and denounce you! - Owners of a Planet facial tattoo are entitled to a FREE bowl of Groink Soup** on Mondays in the cafeteria of Planet Magazine's backup secret lair deep in an undisclosed location beneath the oceans of Europa! * Warning: All tattoos are permanent and cannot be removed, except through our expensive, patented photectonic faciasandblasting process. Enquire about our easy 30-year, fixed-payment rates for this process at nofault@planetmag.com. The survival rate for this process is fairly high! ** And now, Ladies & Gentlemen, a testimonial for Groink Soup: "For a long time I thought I was allergic to Groink Soup; then one day I discovered the culprit actually was the hair they don't shave off before slaughtering these delicious critters. Since there's no way to extract the eighth-inch-long hairs once they're in the soup, I guess I'll have to forfeit this particular benefit of Planet tattoos. But I did try the high-pressure Phrraaapuccino instead. It was good, although it gave me the bends when I ascended to the surface of Europa too quickly." Sorry, that's the best testimonial we could find. Warnings: DON'T EAT THE NASAL FISTULA IN GROINK SOUP!!!! They've got hairs that are poisonous! If you have eaten them, however, check to see if you have glutinous excretions from your nails. If so, then you're in deep trouble. It's best to stick to the wings and the beautiful "hind" eyes of this critter, and separate out the hairy parts, if you just can't resist Groink Soup. And we sure can't! And now, here is the button you must press to generate your own, individualized tattoo: .LNNNNNN. .JNNNNNNNNNN. .NNNNNNNNNNNNN. .NNNNNNNNNNNNNNL ]NNNNNNNNTNNNNNNN NNNNNNNF NNNNNNN[ ]NNNNNN" _.]NNNNNN[ ]NF'NNF ]NN]NNNNNNN NN[NNNL NNNNNNNNNNN NNJNNNN NNNNNNNNNNN[ TNNNNTN['NNNNNNNNNNL ]NNNNNNN.NNNNNNNNNN[ ]NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNF ]NNNN]NNNNNNNNNNNN[ NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN` 'NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN ]NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. TNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNL NNTNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. NNJNNNNNNNNNNNNN[ NNNNNNNNNFNNNNN TNNNNNNN TNN TNNNNF "` TNNN ------------------------------ CH007 Blue Shift by E.S. Strout In one scenario, the universe is expanding slowly enough that the gravitational attraction between galaxies causes the expansion to slow down and eventually stop. The galaxies then start to move toward each other and the universe contracts. -- Alexander Friedmann 1. "The Space Corps briefing mentioned a high degree of risk in this mission, Commander, yet you guys volunteered." "It's my job, Ms. Thornton," Astropilot Commander Theo Jacobs said. "And I'm confident. The HAWKING has been upgraded with the latest deep-space monitoring technology." "Professor Linville, you could have had the Chairmanship of the Astrophysics Department at M.I.T. Yet you accepted the mission specialist position for this little jaunt." A sheepish grin from Dr. James Linville. "Insatiable curiosity, Ms. Thornton. Not a very good excuse, huh?" "What about you, Ms. Thornton?" Commander Jacobs asked, a cynical grin playing about his lips. "A death wish, perhaps? You're one of the highest-paid anchors at UNN. Too cushy for you?" Unheeding of Jacobs's barb, she gave him a dazzling smile. "I drew the high card, Commander. Beat out a couple dozen other video news services. Guaranteed multi-year seven figure irrevocable contract. And a Pulitzer Prize in journalism." Jacobs's expression betrayed his incredulity. "Guts but no good sense, Ms. Thornton." She fluttered long dark eyelashes over sky-blue irises. "Why thank you, Commander. That's tradition at Universal News Network." She retrieved her mobile video chip recorder from its narrow stowage space beneath her deceleration couch and loaded a power microdot battery. "Now how about our interview?" 2. "I detected an air of confusion back at Space Corps Headquarters, Commander. Something unexpected. Comment, please?" UNN reporter Sheila Thornton asked. Jacobs winced as the hovering airborne recorder's miniature boom mike brushed his nose. He nudged the offending device aside. "You might say so Ms. Thornton. A bunch of cloistered ivory-tower astrophysicists predicted expansion of the universe would cease, but not for billions of years yet. Big time screwup. They lost the red shift." "Red shift . . ." Thornton tapped keys on her mini-laptop, cerise-tinted lips pursed in concentration. She looked up with a bright grin. "Okay. Got it. The Doppler thing, and it's lost. Can we find it?" Jacobs suppressed a groan. "I'll try to explain, Ms. Thornton," the skipper of deep-space probe STEPHEN W. HAWKING muttered, his distrust of media types concealed behind a thin-lipped smile. Who had approved a video reporter for a mission this dangerous, he wondered? Space Corps Brass? Congress? The White House? HAWKING's cramped enough with just the essential crew members. "Publicity and politics. Court-martial and loss of pension if I refuse," he mumbled under his breath. "Damn." "Commander?" "Nothing, Ms. Thornton." She gave her head an attentive-cocker-spaniel tilt. "Red shift, Commander?" Theo Jacobs massaged his temples. The oncoming migraine would be a bitch. Is this flaky reporter General Shaw's revenge? What have I done to piss him off? He took a deep breath. "All right, Ms. Thornton. Red shift." "Keep it simple, okay. I'm no Einstein." Jacobs chewed his lower lip. Simple indeed. Think of your hazardous-duty pay, Theo. "You know that stars and galaxies give off visible light, okay?" "Uh-huh." "Light is transmitted in wavelengths. Red is at the wide end of the prismatic spectrum. You know what a prism is?" "Hmpf," she sniffed. "I'm not a total ditz, Commander." Jacobs clenched his fists tightly, out of sight behind his back. "No offense. If the celestial source, say a star, is moving away from us, the distances between wave crests become wider. The red end of the spectrum. That star will look red when viewed through certain filters. As you noted, a Doppler effect." Nervous tug on an earlobe. "Star moving away. Got it . . . I think." Jacobs exhaled audibly through pursed lips. "Everything in the universe is moving away from some unspecified central point. This validates the Big Bang origin of the cosmos." Thornton's jaw dropped. "Geez. You mean only God was here before?" "The expanding universe is accepted theory, Ms. Thornton. Many attach religious significance to the Big Bang. This mission is only to confirm no further expansion. A stabilized universe. We're trying to figure out why astronomy mavens throughout history were billions of years off in predicting it." "A dumb question, sir?" Jacobs rolled his eyes. Why was there no ejection port on the HAWKING? "Yes, Ms. Thornton?" "What if it starts shrinking?" "Shrinking, right." God give me strength. "The contracting universe is an unlikely Twentieth Century theory propounded by a Russian physicist, Alexander Friedmann. He said the cosmos is like a rubber band and will eventually snap back to where it began. The so-called Big Crunch." Her eyes grew wide. "You gotta be kidding. A Big Bang implosion? What could cause that?" Jacobs turned to Dr. Linville. "You handle this one, Jimmy." "You bet, skipper." The astrophysicist looked up from the instrument console with a boyish grin and rubbed a hand across his blond crewcut. "Universal gravitational forces, Ms. Thornton. Causing the advancing margin of space to slow and stop, then reverse. It's an old theory. Obsolete. No supporting data." 3. Sheila Thornton peered through the forward viewport, eyes wide with wonder. "What happened to the stars?" "We're approaching the expanding rim," Commander Jacobs said. "The rim? Of the universe? So soon?" "You were briefed on the Lynch intergalactic propulsion system, were you not?" A defensive grimace. "Of course, Commander. Not that I'd understand that gravity drive gobbledegook." She flagged down her circling recorder and popped in a fresh video chip. "Another question, sir. Will we pass the rim?" Jacobs's frustration hung in the air like a thundercloud. "Not if I can help it. We'll keep pace with the boundary, Ms. Thornton. We can't go further." Her lips crinkled in a quizzical grin. "Why the heck not? Aren't you curious about what's on the other side? It would sure improve my chances at a Pulitzer if I were the first . . ." Jacobs's deep sigh signaled resignation. "Too dangerous, Ms. Thornton. Space Corps tried to send unmanned probes through some years back. They failed to return. The first manned spacecraft also went missing at the edge. Colonel Andrew Davis's mission." Thornton covered her mouth with a hand to suppress a gasp of dismay. "Oh my God. Poor guy. I'm sorry. What happened?" "He must have miscalculated the rate of slowing of the advancing boundary and overshot." Jacobs gave her an odd smile. "Dead-bang into the singularity." "Singularity. Sounds mysterious." A brief tic appeared at the corner of Jacobs's left eyelid. "The Big Bang was a singularity. Didn't the Space Corps briefing explain that the expanding edge retains similar properties?" Shrug of shoulders. "A lot of physics mumbo jumbo. Something about time and space folding up." The Commander stuffed two sticks of chewing gum into his mouth. Why had he ever quit smoking? "Professor Stephen Hawking coined the term singularity. Am I right, Jimmy?" "Right on, skip," Dr. Linville said. "Singularity. A point at which the space-time continuum becomes infinite. Like in black holes, when dead stars collapse to zero mass and volume. At such a point, time as we know it ceases to exist. We believe the universe started that way. Does that help, Ms. Thornton?" She gave her head a confused shake. "Sort of, I guess. And Colonel Davis flew dead-bang into it?" "True. And some spatial and temporal displacement obviously occurred." "Huh?" "Jimmy's way of saying time travel, Ms. Thornton," Commander Jacobs said. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're telling me Colonel Davis is sometime else?" "We don't know. He should have sent a tachyon-enhanced transmission from wherever he ended up." Ms. Thornton nibbled a cerise-painted thumbnail. "So why didn't he?" Jacobs drummed his fingers in an agitated tattoo on the computer console. "The downlink was lost. Telemetry quit. All mission data from the edge were erased." "Come on, Commander. Aren't those systems supposed to be foolproof?" "That's what Space Corps thought. Davis has failed to respond to all attempts at communication." "Why no rescue mission?" Jacobs gave her a genuine smile. "Good question, Ms. Thornton. No reference points. Celestial navigational parameters don't work at the rim. We wouldn't have known where to look. An intergalactic Bermuda Triangle, if you will." 4. An earsplitting whine filled the cockpit. Ms. Thornton clasped both hands over her ears and stumbled to the deck. Her countenance betrayed a hint of panic. "What was that? Is something wrong?" "The inertial dampers, Ms. Thornton. The boundary must have become unstable. Our Lynch drive is programmed to alter our course if that happens. With such a vector change at speeds like ours, the dampers kick in. Otherwise, we'd be squashed like bugs on an aircar windshield." Jacobs extended a hand to help her to her feet. "It's okay. This is one of a number of scenarios we were prepared for." There was a shrill beep from the computer console. Columns of figures scrolled down the CRT screen. "Excuse me a moment," Jacobs said. "Oh, shit . . ." His elbow nudged a coffee cup from the console stand. It shattered on the deck, stoneware fragments and coffee spreading in a geographic blob. Jacobs stepped around the mess and peered over his mission specialist's shoulder. "What are we looking at, Jimmy?" Linville's fingers tapped computer keys. "Response time slowing, skipper. No explanation. Diagnostics are green board. Wait just a sec..." He touched the screen with a fingertip. "There! I've got something." He cued up overrides. "This just doesn't make any sense. Verifying now . . ." Commander Jacobs gaped in disbelief. "You're sure of this?" "Checked and double checked. No stabilization. We're gonna go blue shift." Sheila Thornton stood on tiptoes, peeking over their shoulders, her video chip recorder viewing from overhead. "What's blue shift, guys?" "Wave crests compressing, Ms. Thornton. Blue end of the spectrum. The alleged brains screwed up again. Our universe is about to start shrinking." "So Professor Friedmann was right?" The Commander's lips twitched in a perplexed grin. "Looks like it. His closed universe model." "What's gonna happen now?" Jacobs gave her a disingenuous grin. "We'll be faced with a series of major paradoxes." Thornton brushed a wayward auburn lock from her face and tucked it behind an ear. "Paradoxes? Like what?" Commander Jacobs interlaced his fingers behind his neck and stretched. "We'll get younger, perhaps crawl back into the womb. We'll remember the future because we'll already have been there. Just think . . . Galactic Lottery, ours for the taking. World Series and Kentucky Derby winners. Results of presidential elections. The possibilities will be endless." Sheila Thornton's grin was radiant. "Tell you what. I'll split the lottery payoff with you guys, okay?" Jacobs clutched his temples, as if in pain. "I made a bad joke, Ms. Thornton. Such a scenario is impossible. We can't overturn the Second Law of Thermodynamics." "More physics, Commander? You lost me again." "I'll pass to Dr. Linville again. He's the expert." "We can't know the future, Ms. Thornton. Everything in nature tends to move from a state of order to disorder." She shook her head as though trying to dodge a troublesome insect. "C'mon, Professor. A lay-person's explanation, please?" Linville gave her an agreeable smile. "I'll try. Say an ordinary chicken egg represents order. Then you crack its shell, dump it in a frying pan and scramble it. That's disorder. Are we okay so far?" A dubious nod. "Disorder. Scrambled eggs. Good breakfast." "Now I want you to unscramble the egg." Thornton laughed out loud. "Impossible. You would have to turn the clock back . . ." Dr. Linville raised a triumphant fist. "Exactly. You've got it now, Ms. Thornton. That's the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It gives a direction to time." Suddenly Commander Jacobs looked up with a puzzled expression. "Wait one, Jimmy. Something odd here . . ." The spacecraft's cockpit was beginning to fill with cold gray mist. Voices assumed a faraway bass-register echo chamber quality, decelerating like playback from a recorder with a dying power microdot. Ms. Thornton watched in growing fascination as seconds on the date-time chronometer slowed to a crawl, then with infinite slowness began to reverse. The fragments of Jacobs's coffee cup rose from the deck in ultra slow motion and fit themselves together like a cosmic jigsaw puzzle. Drops of spilt coffee coalesced in ever-enlarging globules, dribbled back into the now intact cup. Jacobs's hand poised motionless over the instrument displays, a look of confused apprehension on his face. "They were all wrong. Even you, Jimmy. The Big Crunch. There went your Pulitzer, Ms. Thornton notnrohT .sM ,teztiluP ruoy tnew erehT .hcnurC giB ehT . . ." 5. "Who are you?" Sheila Thornton asked the spacesuited figure floating beside her in the stygian blackness of space. "Colonel Andy Davis, Miss. Pilot of the space probe EDWIN HUBBLE." He cast a mystified glance at the myriads of stars and galaxies flashing past. "Are you the rescue party? Took you long enough to get here . . . Wherever here is." "Took us a while to untangle the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Colonel. I can tell you a couple of things for sure, though. When we catch up, I'm a cinch for a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. Then you and I will split the Galactic Lottery payoff with a couple of friends of yours. Gotta find Professor Friedmann sometime, too. He's got a share coming." Story copyright 2002 by E.S. Strout gino_ss@earthlink.net ------------------------------ CH008 Crawlspace by William Alan Rieser Something eldritch and menacing permeated his skull from the dark alley. Chollie gnawed the danger mentally, staring down a welding arc without a safety mask. Going in, he'd be blind with no foreseeable exit. The inky conundrum of the street rapidly absorbed several lives in a decadent, eerie silence. It was only a day and a night since the mystical presence manifested itself in the alley as an innocuous, vapory child of willowy, fanciful smoke. But now its second evening of lurking, incomprehensible and clinging fear approached. Chollie instinctively tasted its raw abnormality, but conquered his hasty emotional sense of it. The control wizards had no data for him, a numbing first for intrusive rescue-squad technicians. In that business,such rare situations were digitally chamfered by the programmers with what usually worked. For an unknown penetration like this one, it signified the apparent flawlessness of the opposition versus the inadequacy of his team's available resources. Without possessing a pattern or the most meager of clues, Chollie was limited by his wits, desire, and battle experience. The alley was mysteriously unscannable. This, according to Control, was inherently impossible in view of their backup technology, but even the virtual absorption probe had been repulsed and even ruined by the intruder. A method would eventually be found to pierce the invisible shroud, but it was late in coming. When Sully, his best friend, attempted to liberate the locals with his heavily armored squad, they vanished mere moments after entering the enigma. There were no responses of any kind. Except for a brief audio signal that sounded like a muted jackhammer, deep in the street's bowels, Sullivan and the crew were MIA. Just fifty feet before him. It was a violation of common sense. He siphoned its violence from the air, breathing it to enhance his own growing dissatisfaction. Chollie was the toughest, smartest, most successful squad leader because of his ability to improvise against and overcome horrific odds. Sullivan was a good reason to get his blood ignited. The innocent residents were another. His choice was to do the backup job himself, or wait for a promised advantage from the technical demons. In his current mood, waiting was a loathsome option. Lives could be irretrievably lost by poor timing. "The death carnival! Satan hawking the rides," he thought, remembering a recent horror flick. "It's medieval! Lovecraftian. I'll counter them with superior wickedness." "Give me a read, Skunk," whispered Chollie into his comlink from a shadowed cloister below a staircase. He had a full view of the ally entrance. "Old-fashioned brownstones. Should be cobblestones. Lots of gates and stairs. No illumination anywhere. No residuals of any kind, not even the crew," said Skunk. "The scopes are zero. Nasty. Like your counterbore simulations." "No boot chemicals?" asked Chollie incredulously. "No molecular residue?" "Not a trace. Everything is functioning outside. I've got you perfectly captioned. But, once you step into that place, you're on your own. It must be an unknown repellant or blocking signal. Nightmare scene, man!" "The other squads?" "Getting into position now. They're a mile away from us to the east and west on the other calls. They keep asking if you know what's going on yet. You're the one with the rep, so I figure they'll key on what you uncover." "Damned insane," replied Chollie. "Total question marks. Tell them to hang tight unless you don't hear from me in an hour. Sully's countin' on me." The last street lamp across from the alley was bright at its source, but it diffused greatly at the entrance as though a light-smith deliberately wanted to diminish clarity. "A clue," reasoned Chollie, staring at the range of that light on the rest of the well-illuminated block. "They must have an immense generator to do a thing like that, to select portions of radiance." Chollie crawled to a corner of the liver-colored brick building that framed the turn into the ebony street. There were cobblestones at the edge of visibility, attenuating in the near blackness. He smelled the outre, cloying effect beyond that edge, smelling rank, musky colognes of asbestos mixed with soy spray. He clawed at the smothering solitude as though he was glued to a flat rock at the bottom of a well filled with slick, acidic foam. Chollie felt the alley's bunched, hopeless air, thick with dark fog, thin with barely detectable currents. He saw the bricks altered into obsidian slate not six feet beyond his position. "They know I'm coming. Charles Alley. Bad luck for them," he compelled himself to feel. Chollie set his jaw in a tight clench and undulated across the wavering line between the building corners. The weirdness immediately covered him with its diaphanous skin. The only sound came from his knees and elbows as they swished him forward. He knew he was being stealthy, yet, compared to the alley's suppressed voice, he was a band playing a Sousa march in a hospital's critical-care unit. Not good. A dozen feet into the alley, Chollie stood up and rationalized. "No sounds. No light. No movements. I can't see much of anything. That's the reality. No insects, rodents, or birds. That's odd. Every alley has its cats, its pigeons, and its multitude of flies. But not here." He forced himself into idle, waiting for his eyes to adjust, needing to distinguish shapes by defining hundreds of minute shades of black, gray and charcoal. Just when he thought he was ready, Chollie stepped forward and promptly smashed his right knee against a fire hydrant, which only became apparent with the pain. "Where did they go?" he asked himself, grimacing. It became obvious he was missing more than he was seeing. Contact lenses were switched by implants to lunar bandwidths between infrared, ultraviolet, and the latest interblue. He was visually stunned with the result. There was no helpful color at all to guide him. The only visual improvement was the alley's geometry, which defined its angles better than before. A unique crosshatch superimposed itself on his imaging, as though his eyes were multi-faceted. Dimly, Chollie saw hundreds of bleakly repetitive brownstones, parked cars, garbage cans, and doused street lamps like a giant fly. "Sully would've done the same thing," he reasoned. "Where did he go in? Something must have attracted him. He's too crafty to get trapped, unless...." "Shit!" he proclaimed with incredulity as he witnessed the alteration. The cobblestones disappeared in a wink. His boots were surrounded by tarry slime and the street surface was suddenly slicker and flatter. The bumps were ousted by ooze. There was no time for Chollie to think about that anomaly. Dead ahead a rotating brick wall challenged his sanity. He stared in disbelief as a blacker-than-black oval pulsed erotically in the dark rusty chunks like a convenient portal to a hellish masonry pit. It literally looked like the best, and now the worst, part of a woman, inviting him to a spider's idea of coitus. His mind conceived perpetually unsatisfied genitals edged with razors, ready to extract severe penalties for either premature insertion or withdrawal. Rhythmically, the opening altered between micro and macro-terror, entrancing him while generating his first intimation of morbidity. "This must be the place. Got to get out of this mess and bring in the tank," he thought as his blood's circulation surged. "Skunk! I'm comin' out. Get the M12 ready!" The comlink was silent. Skunk hadn't heard. Chollie took a step backward and slipped, falling heavily on his right side with a curse. Reality immediately redefined itself at that moment. The alley tilted. He was unable to grab anything to prevent his slide toward the portal. It was inhaling him into its maw like blood through a relentlessly sucking straw. He had no leverage. Desperately, Chollie held out his arms wide to grip the edges of a chained bicycle. It was futile. The chain snapped sickeningly in his ears. The portal simply expanded and whooshed him helplessly, mortally inside with its horribly strong vacuum. So deposited, he saw with relief that it was a small room, barren except for a singular, spiral staircase in the center. "At least I know what got Sully's attention. Is this an invitation? Am I supposed to go down? What happens if I refuse?" Chollie turned around to face a solid wall of concrete. The portal had disappeared as quickly as he was ensnared. "You didn't tell me this was a fuckin' one-way!" he shouted angrily, unclipping a laser gun with one hand and energizing his mini-klieg with the other. The staircase beckoned, offering a direction, down into further darkness. Whatever the truth, it was down there and Chollie steeled himself for the unknown. He advanced to the top step and grabbed the banister while seeking a view below. "I'm comin' for ya', Creeplink. Better have insurance." Two more steps and the spiral animated, filled with violet and mauve. It became an escalator and carried him in phosphorescent helix to its destination. "I was right! It is a carnival. Where are the bloody clowns with their axes? Come on, you sons of bitches. Show yourselves. You're dealin' with me." He was deposited gently on a concrete floor, an obvious basement. It too seemed barren, like the room upstairs. Chollie strobed the klieg in quick bursts along the walls. He stopped short at the sight of an unusual array of uncouth bulges, blistered with odd, pimply, bulbous growths. One of them stirred as he neared and Chollie observed what could only be a human nose. The material obliterating the hidden face was a thick, ash-gray fungus, blotched with purple. Grabbing his knife, he began to methodically slash until the fungus sloughed off in layers. He was soon rewarded with Sully's face. His friend was breathing hard, struggling for air. Worse, he was tearful and crying, which was more unusual than the craziness around them. Sully had always been his equal in fearlessness. But this was virgin territory, psychic reality, a never-before-encountered death stimulus. "I figured you'd be lollygaggin' while I was doin' all the god-damned work. Where are the others?" Sully quickly snapped out of it. "All along the walls, Chollie," he said the moment his mouth was free of muck. "I couldn't stop it. Weapons don't work." "Who are they?" "You mean 'what', don't you?" "Aliens?" "Unless we are. Maybe Earth belonged to them first. They sure can control it better than we can." "Have you seen them?" "No. Hell, I didn't know it was you comin' through that door." "What door? I came down a spiral escalator." Both men looked at the same spot. Chollie saw his spiral. Sully saw his door. Neither spoke as both images melted into the pallid, mottled gray of the cellar walls. Chollie busied himself removing the rest of the fungus, only to discover that Sullivan was further pinned by thick metallic bands about his neck and limbs. "This is completely absurd," he stated with frustration. "Worse! We never saw it coming. They don't fight fair, whatever they are." "What about the locals? Are they here too?" "Could be. My whole team is right here on this wall, but I can't make any of 'em out any more. The others could easily be near. I didn't see any of them. Morales was next to me, so he's probably the next bump over." Chollie scanned the wall with his mini-klieg. "Sorry guy, but you're the only bump. This wall is flatter than a vacuum pallet. There's nothing else here." "That's awful! Where the fuck are they? And where are the locals?" "Tell you what. I'll bust you out of these things and we'll do a search." "Luna class, I hope." "Shit, yeah. Something's gotta work down here." Chollie eviscerated the fungus which, when separated, seeped into the concrete's pores. "Mighty unfriendly bastards, wouldn't you say?" Sully opted for quiet contemplation. Chollie investigated the bands. They were bonded to the concrete walls by a tough, unyielding cement. There were no fasteners of any kind. He finally succeeded in breaking the connection with an ultrasonic chisel. In moments, Sullivan was free, grateful, and ready for anything. It was a trait which endeared him to his team leader. "I think that squares Lhasa," mentioned Chollie with mirth. "I hope you called in the M12." "I tried. The comlink's dead. Skunk's been told to wait an hour. It's only been fifteen minutes." "Where do we start?" "Corners and cracks. Got to be a weak spot somewhere. Any grates or drains?" "No. I already checked. Just an air-conditioning vent in the ceiling." "Were you guys pulled in or did you walk into that wall?" "Neither. All of us were on manhole covers. The second we tried to jump off, the sewer holes opened wide and down we came, vertical and quick." "Was the street slimy?" "Not a bit. It was filled with rubble and things like bocci balls with spikes. That's why we got on the manholes, to get out of the way." "Clever, I'll give them that. Now it's our turn." He activated the Luna probe. Both men watched the device scan the cellar for life. There were multiple signals, most of which they recognized as human. Others were not. Chollie was about to put the probe in second phase to locate the enemy when a bright blue light surrounded it without preamble. When their sight recovered from the sting of its intensity, they saw that their device was no longer there. Chollie viciously dug a blade into the corner seam. Suddenly, silver bands of metal appeared implacably around his biceps, wrists and ankles. He was yanked forcefully across the room, helpless, and pinioned to his host's specimen tray. He looked at Sully and phrased a silent order with his eyes. Sully obeyed and started to rise from the floor where he was probing cracks with his knife. Before he could stand, however, similar bonds enclosed him around the neck and knees, pinning him awkwardly in the very spot where he had just been freed. "A fine mess you've got me in," cried Chollie. Both men laughed aloud, their usual response to craziness. It was one of the reasons they had lasted so long as friends and become a good team. But, almost simultaneously with their bravado, more enigmatic bands materialized around other limbs. Neither man could move, and Sully dropped his knife. "Situation seems secure, sir," he offered with a smirk. "At least your lamp works." "They don't seem to be concerned with our dicks," responded Chollie, making both of them choke. Laughter as a weapon? Maybe they react to humor? "I got snagged about two minutes after getting here," said Sullivan dully. "OK, so they're not as slick as our women. I wonder if the other squads are facing the same dilemma in their sectors? "Do they use hallucinogens? Visual-lapse chemicals? They probably think that by testing us, capturing the best of the lot, the things they want will be easy pickings." "Same thing on Skunk's scope?" "Yeah, but more intense. Either there're more of them here, or they're charging up to do something. Can't focus on the alley. Some kind of stigmatism." Got to find a way out, he thought. There's always an alternative. "Any idea why? Why here in the city?" asked Sully. "None. Not much above us except residents. Nothing really significant enough to suggest a plausible motive." Maybe it's a substance in the building. Something forgotten in a storage container? Something we don't consider valuable or interesting. For aliens? Who knows? "Remind you any of that spaghetti virus?" queried Chollie. "You mean the thing that mutated from the bio lab? Yeah, a little, come to think of it. But that wasn't capable of defending itself, remember?" "We don't know what's important to them." "No, we don't. Neither do we know who or what they are, let alone what they're after. Could it be us? Why? Contact, zoo specimens, chemical sources, dinner?" "That's a lot of questions," stated Sully. "And no answers." "Too many for dumb grunts." Is it us? he wondered. Why does this place look so strange to me? "Does the cellar look the same as when you got here?" "The door and the escalator are gone." "Easy come, easy go," commented Chollie quietly, beginning to sweat a little. "Coming is more fun than going," said Sully with emphasis. "Actually, the cellar does not look as solid to me as it once did. More like clay." "I suppose we can rule out alien gang rape?" "No, not that! Anything but that," cried Sully, and they continued to laugh. "Maybe, hah, we walked into something we're incapable of understanding. Our first real chamfer bust." It must be us. "Right! If it's real, it can die. I think we'd better get serious." The walls visibly moved around them like an erratic roller-coaster. Little, egg-sized ovals of dim white materialized in the malleable surface like cysts. They were unmistakably fashioned like human eyes. "So! Another clue," thought Chollie. "They're well familiar with our species." The walls started to close in on them incrementally, just like in a hundred B movies watched with admiration in his youth. It took most of Chollie's self-control to prevent a gasp from escaping through his twitching lips. "It wasn't like this before," said Sully studiously. "I believe they drugged me, like that stuff they used on us in Serbia." "Phobic Acid?" "Like that! You were more resistant than me, remember?" "Yeah, but this stuff is more powerful. I'm reacting. The walls are moving in." "I see it too, so that's probably real. We need a better tactic than guessing." "You're right, Sully. What can we use? Traditional weapons are useless. If we can surmise their presence, perhaps the light from our combined lasers might move them. Or shoving our mini-kliegs down their throats." The room shrank noiselessly around them. The only light source was Chollie's lamp, still rolling on the floor where it had fallen. The corners and cornices became indistinct as they melded together in curves. Gruesome ripples of hidden vermin punctuated the elasticity, now of a leathery, sack-like consistency. The contours stretched and wrinkled like an immense bag. The eyes began to bulge and pop out, lurching to the bottom as their sockets sealed behind them. The confining manacles withdrew without warning, and the two men fell onto the piled eyes and each other. "I don't think I'm getting this," said Sully, struggling under Chollie. "I'm tired of this bullshit. Let's try something original." "Knife climb," shouted Sully, and both retrieved two notched, serrated daggers from their belt sheaths. The blades penetrated the sack horizontally and quickly so that the men could propel themselves malevolently upward with sheer muscular effort. They reached what had once been the ceiling, now a reversed, crinkled, black prune that disappeared into what was formerly the ceiling's air vent. Clinging to the knife in his left hand, Chollie swiped the second across the prune's lined face, tearing it and releasing a foul stench that nearly gagged him. Sully attempted a similar strike, but was forestalled. To their combined incredulity, the men's embedded knives altered to vertical. They found themselves sliding back down, ripping the sack in long gashes as they plummeted to the uttermost bottom. The incisions self-healed as the men descended. They couldn't help splitting open some of the eyeballs when their weight crash-landed. It was difficult for them to stand. A greenish gas emitted from the broken orbs and filled the bag. Then, as they gasped in the fumes, a new horror fell upon them through the formerly sealed slits in the giant tote. Sully's crew came pouring through, vomited down the wrinkled chutes to join their leaders. They were soon followed by the original captives, the local residents and their pets, frozen amidst their terror. All of them were paralyzed and helpless, prone with the grim certainty of death on their faces. They crushed open the last of the remaining eyeballs in a macabre human-animal stew, but it was hopeless to look for help among these new arrivals. Only Sully was animated. "Plunge them," commanded Chollie, thrusting his knives directly into the bag wall in an attempt to gouge it open. It was no good. The blades dissolved when they were withdrawn, and he held the hafts up for Sully to observe. Too late, another thought occurred to him. "It's crazy, but I feel like this is something worse than a trap. It feels like we're in some ugly transport, speeding us away to another galaxy." Both became cognizant of another feature of the green gas. As it liquefied, their boots began to smoke and burn in reaction to the vapor's intrusive acerbity. Time was running out. Desperation replaced strategy. "Guess we insulted our host," said Sully, kicking the tote with futility. They tried to use their fingers and nails to dig into the bag, but it was to no avail. They flung reeled line claws as high as they could, but the pincers failed to pierce anything near the prune. They shot their lasers until the charges read zero, to no effect. Finally, per their long-standing agreement, they triggered grenades to prevent their unknown captors from taking them alive. Detonation miserably failed them. "Can't fight our way out, can we?" bemoaned Chollie. "Can't even go on our own terms." "I hate to say this, Chollie," answered Sully as the gas penetrated their lungs and brains, "but I've figured it out." "I know! It's the only... possible... answer. It's a stomach." In the final distortion of perception, both men lay voiceless and immobile as the black prune, finally revealed as a monstrous alien head, came ready and ravenous as it floated down to them. It unfolded a red portal of its own, filled with alien cutlery, rasps, and crushing pistons. * * * * * "Well, dad, did I pass?" "I'm afraid not," said the father. "You neglected some essentials, something a future Governor of this sector of the Crawl cannot do." "Oh, come on. I did my configurations exactly the way you taught me. What do you think, mom?" "I agree with your father. Now some parts of it were much improved over your last lesson, like the enticements within their environment. You showed some superior skill in maneuvering them to congregate inside the shuttle, and your duplications of certain structures is laudable, but your protocols are still quite juvenile." "What do you mean? What protocols?" "When dealing with such primitive entities," explained the mother, "if sentient communication seems impossible, then a substitute must be found. You caused these creatures tremendous anxiety needlessly." "That's not fair! I introduced myself and told them what it was all about." "Yes, in our language, which is gibberish to them. You neglected to switch on the translator again. All you succeeded in doing is frightening the poor things into believing that they were being ingested. These creatures actually survive by eating other creatures on their planet. Given their minimal technological abilities, they had no idea we are inviting them to a reception or that their meager achievements have been recognized." "Oh, wow. No wonder I failed. What should I do?" "Your father will reset the temporals. Put them back where they were and do it over again until you get it right. They are expected at the Boundary so that they can be initialized into reality. We have to instruct them gently that they are not the center of the universe. You'll have to refine your technique. Now do it accurately, or you can forget about nebula races for the next eon." Story copyright 2002 by William Alan Rieser WRieser283@aol.com ------------------------------ CH009 Crown Jewels by William Alan Rieser December 12, 1978 - Bottomless Lakes State Park - due east of Roswell, New Mexico. Described by many as the most inhospitable area in the temperate zone, a place where the Pueblos knew of ancient evil but refused to say why. They don't go there, for it is the domain of the scorpion, the rattler, and death. The scout passed through the portal and arose from the oldest lake to begin his lonely trek, unmarked by the Earth's dominant species. January 12, 1979 - Amazon Basin The animals didn't care for the visitor. He intruded on their domains, however briefly, and they were not hesitant to express disapproval. When vocal warnings failed they traditionally became more violent. The warthog was the first one to fall, intending a feigned threat to disembowel the stranger as he leaped out of thick shrubbery. The stranger merely turned and stopped the hog's charge with his hand, squeezing the animal's head between fingers of unseemly strength, crushing the bones and brains to goo on the leaf-strewn floor. Birds screamed warnings to anything that would listen. The python was a different matter, for it fell from an overhanging branch above the stranger's position. It curled the same as always, pressing the breath out of its victim by wrapping itself around the torso and squeezing, or so it thought. Then its head and fangs whirled around, looking for the best place to start ingesting. But, it was the stranger's long teeth that sank first, and the python soon found itself dying in pieces on the ground. January 13, 1979 - CIA Headquarters - Langley, Virginia "Eight of them?You've got to be kidding," said the agency Director. "Eight!" replied the technician, excited about his report. "They're in a straight line on the lower slope of the mountain, not far from the river. There's a large rectangular building in front of them, between them and the water." "How can something that big exist for so many years without anyone saying anything?" "It's preliminary, sir. More data are coming in." "Go ahead. Let's hear it. You can be technical with me." The Director took his glasses off and laid them carefully on his desk blotter. Then he put his hands across his face and rubbed his eyes, his usual method of wiping agency dust and cobwebs from his mind to concentrate on something new. "That region of Peru is called the Montanya. It is sparsely populated, because of the tropical jungle. Beyond the Ucayali river, the jungle becomes part of the Amazon basin. The people who live there are throwbacks. They don't even speak Spanish and refuse to cooperate much with their own government. They are Quechua and Aymara Indians and they are committed to living as their ancestors did. More than that, they protect the area we have just discovered. They call it the home of the Old Ones and are likely to ward off or kill anyone who attempts to go there. It is a sacred mission for them. They are descended from the same tribe that murdered Fawcett; the ones who never surrendered to the Spanish." "What about the mountain?" "The Huascaran is part of a plateau, named after the brother of Atahualpa, the one that Pizarro subverted in 1532. The mountain is more than 22,000 feet high, the largest in the Cordilleras, part of the Andes. The valley is choked with jungle vegetation and so unlivable that the natives go there rarely. The nearest city is Pucallpa, 120,000 people, about fifty miles to the southwest." "What about the missionaries that came after Pizarro?" "No records of this area. Nothing in Pucallpa, yet." "Why is it that the previous satellite images showed nothing?" asked the Director, saving the toughest question for last. "The slopes are usually covered with garua. That's the local term for mist-laden clouds. Normally they shroud the entire area. The comparison photos of earlier shots reveal the valley blanketed in white. This was the first time we scanned through the mist with a new technique from NASA." "And, in your opinion, what have we found?" "Eight, four-sided pyramids and a small temple," replied the technician. "All the pyramids are larger than the big one at Giza?" "Yes sir, according to the measurements, and they are intact. These have not been disturbed as far as we can tell so far. The symmetries are perfect cones with pure sides." "And you are certain the scans cannot penetrate them?" "Only the perimeters. Something is preventing us from looking inside." "What could do that?" "Only one thing that I know, superior technology." "Not a force of nature?" "No sir, unless it is one we don't know about." "All right! It's enough for a start. I'll get back to you. Have everything written up. Make a presentation that I can use. This is going to get hot." March 12, 1979 - Ucayali riverbank He looked like an old man fishing in the river, according to the crews. He had white hair on his head and face, and dressed in a green shirt with black pants. Not like one of the locals, thought those workers who glimpsed him from the opposite bank, though there really weren't any in this particular spot. Maybe he was watching them for his own reasons, but as long as he didn't disturb anyone, why should they care? No one bothered getting close enough to see his features. After awhile, they had seen him sitting there so often, his presence was considered a fact in most everyone's mind. They would swear they saw him there even when he wasn't, like a phosphor burn in their brains. It was the Quechua who took exception to the visitor, fishing in their river even though they never used that part of it. He was heard to make sounds on the ocarina, their ancient globular, egg-shaped flute. His songs were warnings, telling them to stay away, to mind their own business and leave him alone. When Jade Cougar did not return from spying one day, his father, Big Fish, decided to do something about it. The warriors were given explicit instructions. Bind the stranger and carry him to the insect pit. Let the little ones welcome him to their land. When the warriors did not return, Big Fish moved the village further inland, away from the river and its new demon. He was no longer curious or angry, just scared. May 10, 1979 - Ucayali River - the American camp on the west bank One by one, the crews cleaned forest debris from the pyramids and made a discovery that caused the archaeologists to salivate. There were apex crystals -- intact, unstolen, and brilliant when the mud and vines were cleared off the tops. The site was so vast that they knew it would be impossible for them to eradicate the centuries of accumulated growths with traditional methods. They cold-burned the crap, after spraying an immense oval fire-brake chemical around the perimeter. When the ashes blew away, they saw that which had not been seen in 10,000 years, predating both Tiahuanaco and Giza, according to the time wizards. And just like those puzzles there were no inviting entrances into the complex, except for the temple which compared insignificantly with the regal appearance of the pyramids. The temple was an ugly pendant around a neck of green earth below the mountain's base, a head crowned with gigantic, magnificent, shining gems. "We've found something on the third scan," said the Director to Mack, his toolpusher, on the telecom. "Underground passageways from the temple. The scans work as long as they don't get near the apex stones. You'll have to clean the place out before you can access the pyramids. I don't want anything broken or disturbed; neither do the Peruvians. A Lima party will be joining you soon. Expect bad manners, but they need us to do the work. It is more important to find an existing entrance rather than make one destructively, especially if they are around to offer criticism. Let them see how we respect the ancients." "Got it!" answered the field man. "One thing. There's a stranger in the neighborhood. Help would be useful." "What for? You've got Shemona right there with you. She'll be down from Caracas in a couple of days." "Hard to explain." He didn't tell the Director about the unreasonable fear that had crept over everyone; a fear that seemed to come from nowhere when the pyramids were cleaned. In his imagination, he conjured hidden blow darts in the bushes, spiders and monkeys in the trees and snakes everywhere else. There was no tangible explanation for his own uneasiness, though he knew what he felt. He was no stranger to that clammy unwanted perspiration, a gut-wrenching pull that took him a lifetime to overcome. He became quite good at being impassive in the face of danger, until he stepped into this hellish, steaming valley. "She and I were intimate at one time. Now she hates me. I'd rather not have to rely on her, in spite of her background." "I understand! But, she's a professional. A rare combination, Mack. I can't spare anyone else at the moment. Look, with her scientific knowledge and psychic training, she'll do the job. That's why she's coming. Don't you think I took things into consideration when I picked the teams?" "I'm not questioning your choice. The problem is mine." "Then you deal with it, period." "Fine," he answered and slammed the receiver down. It was ironic that he needed her at a time when the nasty locals had suddenly vanished. She was Mescalero Apache and Jewish, an impossible joining, given little chance to overcome her inner wars. Mack saw her as a strong, motivated female. He also knew that she looked upon him as a weak fool, considering their broken relationship. June 11, 1979 - the pyramid site "Looks like grand central station to me," commented the digger after the last of the encroaching vines were removed from the temple's descending stairs. Not a stone was cracked by aged weathering nor were there any inscribed symbols or anything else to help the scientists as they walked through the rectangular building. The only thing they could find was the stairs, quite modern-looking and leveled off in two tiers which led down to the tunnels below. There were eight tunnels, one for each pyramid. "I've never seen anything this old that didn't have inscriptions of some kind," mentioned one of the archaeologists. Clearly, this predates Tiahuanaco." "I don't get it either," said another."You'd think they would at least want to identify which pyramids the tunnels were going to, unless they're in the same sequence." "That's it obviously, but why eight of them? What were they for? There's got to be something here that shows why one would be chosen over another." But there wasn't and the men were glad to get out of the place. No one offered to be the first to walk through the black tunnels. In fact, it was agreed by everyone that the fear emanated from the staircase and beyond. Whatever made them sweat came from there. Mack knew it was going to fall on him like a ton of manure. His nightmares confirmed the vision and he began to pace in anticipation of Shemona's arrival. He wanted her and didn't want her. June 12, 1979 - the pyramid site - 6:00 a.m. The day after the temple was cleared, the garua failed to appear in the valley as the apex crystals shone forth in a dazzling display of light that drove the animals wild in screeching comments. Some of the scientists mused of a possible connection between the former mist and the stones. Each cone was a different color, though all had the basic appearance of quartz. One of the scientists made the correlation between the crystals and the equipment. "It's the apex stones," he said."They block the scans. You can see on the scope how everything is nulled, forced to go around. Our signals bounce off." There was more and it may have been caused by sunlight finally caressing the crystals again after eons of smother. Whatever the impetus, they began to emit an eerie sound in unison, first low and indistinguishable, then louder in a distinct combination. It was not unpleasant to hear, merely different somehow. "It's not a chord or anything," said Mack to the Director."A mixture of unusual tones. They seem to resonate, more so during the day than at night, but they affect everybody." "How?" asked the Director. "Like we are being warned by a friend," answered the field man, finally conveying his fear. "I can't explain it any better than that. This is one reason why I need help. The sounds and the crystal signals go in a lot of different directions. One of the highest energy junctions is the staircase in the temple." "She'll be there today. Let's see what she feels."Shemona was supposed to be fearless by reputation. Her tenure in the agency was a distinguished one, going back to the Kennedy years, but in spite of her age, she performed extremely well. Usually, the older mechanics were retired, but she intimidated everyone into letting her stay on. Shemona loved her job. 9:00 a.m. Shemona was imposing on arrival, tall with a strong-yet-feminine build like a weight-lifter's, a tough bitch in spite of a shock of white hair amidst the black. She smiled and shook Mack's hand with warmth and vigor, remembering their previous association. There were traces of humor that lingered about her eyes and lips. They seemed to be saying, "It's OK, honey. I'm here now. Let me handle it for you." "Where?" she asked simply. Mack pointed to the temple, resigned to the fact that he was forced to withstand her silent insults. She turned her head to look but was distracted by the river. For a full minute she gazed at the slow-moving brown water as if it spelled trouble. She couldn't make it out and shortly attended her former lover. Mack simultaneously radiated relief, anxiety, and paranoia. Many of his workers could no longer hold food in their bellies, vomiting everywhere. Others were struck with diarrhea. None were whole or unafraid. "For a moment I thought I felt something," said Shemona. "Probably nothing." "Can you describe it?" he asked, knowing that minute feelings could mean a lot to a woman as empathetic as she. Perhaps too sensitive, he thought. "I sense the power of a cataract, a waterfall," she answered immediately. Mack knew that the nearby river was sluggish for many miles in both directions. He thought it was best to leave the interpretation alone. Let the mystic handle it. After all, that's what she expected him to do. 12:00 noon "Stairs," he explained to her with small satisfaction, "lead to eight tunnels which go to the pyramids, but we don't know which one to try first. The men are afraid to go down there. So am I, but I don't know why. Something crazy is going on. I don't have a clue." "Do you and the men dream about this place?" "More like nightmares. Every man's worst fears seem to confront him." "I'll find out. You have your men set up a portable generator in there. I want a lot of lights with back up. Torches too, just in case. We'll keep the channels open, so have a man ready on the receiver." "We?" "You're coming with me, Mack. I feel there's a reason for you to be there. Our past demands it." "Somehow I knew," he coughed raggedly. "I've been dreaming of my death in the place. Bad dreams, but I can't seem to remember the details." "If your dreams were truly precognitive, you would not only remember them, you'd be filling my ears with facts and suspicions." "I'm surprised you're not accusing me of cowardice. That's what you think, isn't it? You've always considered me a wimp. Actually, I'm really glad you're here, now that you are. We have a lot of good people with us, but none of them are in your league." "Don't hate yourself for admitting the truth. And don't worry!" Shemona's nerves were titanium. Actually, though she gave no hint with her outward appearance, she felt unaccustomed to a new feeling of her own. It made her uncomfortable because she could not identify it. It wasn't fear, which she knew and respected for what it was. It was more like a feeling of restless anticipation, as though she was waiting for something important to happen. Perhaps she was sensing the feelings of another, whose emotions affected her. Maybe this other was the one that waited, sitting patiently until the right moment presented itself. She cleared her mind of such reasoning and concentrated on the tunnels. 6:00 p.m. The stranger stood up that night for the first time in a week. The bodies and carcasses of men and animals lay in the bush all around him. He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew a bar of white metal, pointing it at the temple across the river. Slowly and deliberately, he stepped forward into the water, staring ahead at the many newly erected lights in the building. He had given everyone ample warning. His message was clear. "I have come to reclaim the necklace. Stand aside and let no one interfere." 7:00 p.m. Shemona sat cross-legged before the entrances. There were no doors, just blackness, and no markings or indications of any kind. Mack stood to one side in sweating patience. Apache concentration. Judaic lorecraft. Suddenly, the woman had a look of surprise on her face, almost as if she had been stunned. It wasn't fear but it was strongly felt by both. "What is it?" he whispered, not daring to intrude with a loud voice. "The queen's necklace. It is here." "What are you talking about?" "I don't know," she answered with surprise."They are words that I am hearing. Images. An ancient queen. I sense something but it is very hazy and distorted. Now I've lost it, but it is the same feeling I once had in New Mexico. There is a place. The Bottomless Lakes. It is the entrance." "What entrance?" "To this world. For those who come from elsewhere. I don't know for sure, but there is reason behind it and it isn't human. The eight pyramids are crowned with jewels for her. They represent her eight consorts when she reigned here." "Right," said Mack, dismissing that as ridiculous. It was her eyes, though, that convinced him of the truth of it. "What about the tunnels?" "Seven of them lead to nothing, dead ends filled with death traps. The last pyramid, the northernmost one, is connected to the fourth tunnel, counting from the left. None of the other pyramids can be entered from here. The architecture is unique." "Any danger that you can sense?" "Not in the fourth tunnel. There is no fear down here as I know it. I don't know why you and your people are afraid." "That is very odd. Anything else?" "No. Not yet, except for . . . . it feels like a bird . . . . perhaps a fish, swimming in the river . . . coming here. I don't know. I see the cataract again, but the image makes no sense yet." "You don't know? Great. What do you suggest?" "Let's go to the pyramid. We can use torches." 10:00 p.m. "Tracking, it's me, Mack! Shemona and I are going to the north pyramid. Fourth tunnel from the left. Keep the line open." "Will do," said a voice. Mack lit a torch and led the way. It was a five-hundred-yard walk. When they got there, steps led them up to a chamber, lit by the crystal above, for it was flushed with bluish light. Again, there were no inscriptions or carvings, but the blocks of stone seemed to be arranged in a pattern. Maybe a readable pattern, thought Mack. They passed through a gallery, similar to the one seen at Giza. Recognition came instantly to Shemona. "The pyramid inch controversy," she said."It is repeated here." She touched the walls and pointed out the different contours and colors of crafted stone to him. Sure enough, there was an observable, identifiable series of markings, deliberately carved into the gallery wall. Mack photographed the mathematical language, reputed to be prophetic. If it was like that at Giza, it would be indecipherable. Then his mobile went dead and they were dramatically cut off from humanity. "No need to be afraid," quipped Shemona, intuiting the feelings of her ex-lover as though they were about to burst. "I am sensing a thing I have not felt since a child. I am a descendant of this place. That is why the fear does not reach me as it does you." "I never stopped loving you, Shemona, even if you are a strange blend. You're not above making a mistake about a man, no matter how deeply you think you can probe my mind. It took great strength for me to let you go, believe it or not. I wanted you to be happy. Look at me now. Am I feeling fear, lust or what?" Shemona condescended and gave her former mate his due. Surprisingly, she found an inner fortitude that she had overlooked before. The fear wasn't his. An external agency was attacking his nervous system. He was not to blame. And between the folds of his thoughts she found love, deliberately hidden and shielded. . . . . . . from her. What was it that fought him that could not break through her own defenses? 10:45 p.m. He was halfway across the river, underneath and within the rippling liquid in the center of its strongest current. A giant channel catfish accidentally bumped into his leg in its scavenging. The stranger decided to let it scamper away. He reached the sacred spot a moment later and cleared off the silt of millennia. His hands tightened around the exposed ring. It took all of his incredible strength to pull it and activate the key. Gases came bubbling out of the riverbed, struggling to escape from their old prison. Above him the river started to froth and gurgle. 11:00 p.m. The nontechnical crew members who were not sick were snacking when the river went berserk. All the others were in the temple and never saw what was going on. Fountains shot upward out of the muddy, boiling ribbon of brown. Its spray wetted them down, like a geyser might, in spite of the distance. It was no longer a placid ugly landmark, but a coiling snake of immense length. The river's new waves began to thrash against each other and crash against the banks. Men began to run, eager to be anywhere else. 11:17 p.m. "Let these be!" commanded a voice in his mind. "They cause no harm!" The stranger heard, but did not understand the instruction. Were these not the same as the forest insects? Ought he not to protect himself and the queen's gems? "They are of no concern!" reiterated the command, this time with harsh intensity. The stranger could do naught but obey. He pulled on the ring and lifted it so that the key could be fully turned, the first time in 10,000 years. 11:32 p.m. The Apache stiffened and fell flat against a wall, her arms and legs splayed out as though being held in place by a powerful force. The same thing happened to Mack on the opposite wall. Both stared at each other, neither understanding what was happening. "Now I feel it," said Shemona, pinned helplessly like a bug on a tray. "It is both like and unlike the fear you mentioned. It is the power of the queen." "What queen?" asked the toolpusher, struggling to move. Neither could budge an inch against the force that held them. "Who is she?" "Her name. . . It is on the edge of seeing, like a shadow in a dark cavern. She is a bright star within the sun's field. I can't see her." "What about these ruins? There has to be a connection, maybe to Egypt." "That's it. I have seen her before." Wind came rushing through the tunnel into the chamber. It flew past them and upward to the crystal. Its velocity increased incrementally. In a short time, both could feel it whip against their skin with stinging force. 11:46 p.m. Once the key turned, he was able to go forward. Now the gems were accessible to him. It would be an easy matter to collect them for the queen. She would be most appreciative to receive the heirlooms of her old house. They would again grace her august presence and he would be rewarded. Perhaps, if he caught her in a good mood, she might favor him with a system for himself. 11:50 p.m. In the temple, where men were congregated to monitor those in the tunnel, a similar force pushed them helplessly against the walls. The stranger came out of the river and walked into the temple, holding his hands up before him. His fingers exuded a brightness that forced men's eyes to close. They could not view his form as he walked past their paralyzed bodies. He descended the stairs triumphantly and entered the fourth tunnel. Soon he stood between the Indian and the toolpusher, riding the cataract of wind that gushed past the men, allowing them to view his body. A field technician recognized the shape as the old man he had seen across the river. Now that he was so close to the apparition, he could see that it was not an old man with a white beard, nor was it human. He could plainly see, by the presence of the numerous arms, that it was both a legend and an alien. Shemona and Mack gave up struggling and watched as the stranger lifted its arms to the crystal above. 11:58 p.m. Colored lights streamed down into the being's fingertips, the formerly quiet sounds becoming amplified in the chamber. The stranger duplicated the sounds with his voice and there was an inrush of electricity in the air. Sparks filled the chamber as the stranger lowered his arms; he looked at the humans, who returned his gaze. They saw intelligence in the bright eyes, fearsome and private. They blacked out in the new violet darkness. June 13, 7:05 a.m. When they awoke in the light of the morning sun, the men outside noticed that the river was returned to its former state. The men inside the temple awoke simultaneously, free of yesterday's apprehension. No one remembered the stranger or his passage among them, just a pleasant sleep that they seemed to have shared. The Indian and the toolpusher arose from the floor of the chamber, huddled against the walls. Sunlight streamed down through the great hole above them. Their mouths gaped in amazement at the barren opening. "The fear is gone with the necklace and the queen's subject," said Shemona, recalling things that Mack could not. "I know her now. Maia, the daughter of Atlas, son of Poseidon. Atlan was his name here. She was the progenitor of the Mayan race. This was once her city. Her crown jewels have been returned. It was unregal for her to come herself after so many years. She sent a servant." "Yes," admitted Mack breathlessly. "All eight must be gone, her former lovers. And my own jewel is also returned. I never stopped loving you." "Nor I you," she replied. "Why did she choose this particular time? Why not before?" "To fulfill an ancient oath," said Shemona. "She wanted to give her progeny a chance to become glorious. She permitted them 10,000 years to do that. I'm afraid she is disappointed." "I will also swear an oath," said Mack. "It will take far less time to make it come true and I don't plan on disappointing you again. Did you foresee that?" "Why do you think I'm really here, Mack, when you needed me most?" "What do we tell the Director?" "We'll have to thank him, won't we?" she said, her eyes sparkling. Story copyright 2002 by William Alan Rieser WRieser283@aol.com ------------------------------ CH010 A Lonely Place by T. Everett Cobb It was only the second day of his paper route and Mosiah was liking it better with every turn of the pedals. He was on his own out here among the farms, where the roads were straight and you could see for a hundred miles. Out here, he could get away from Samuel. Not that Samuel was always mean, but when he really got mad, his fists became cinder blocks that could crush you down to sawdust. Mosiah tried not to think about the cinderblock fists. And he was glad he had a paper route. He stopped and opened his route book and noticed a yellow house standing off the road. On the porch, a girl sat looking at him. There were no sidewalks in front of her property, just gravel. It made his arms numb when he rode over it. "That's an ugly bike," the girl said. A smile curled her lip. She must have been a few years younger than Mosiah. And she wasn't really a girl. She was a veld. Mosiah had never given much thought to the chips and rust on the bike's frame. The pea green paint suddenly looked like vomit to him. He wished he could push the ugly thing into a nearby irrigation ditch. "My sister said she likes you." The girl didn't talk like a veld. Velds didn't like anybody. That's what Samuel said. You had to believe Samuel when he talked. "She saw you riding by yesterday and said you were cute." Heat spread into Mosiah's cheeks, turning to fire that consumed his eyes. He took the play out of the pedal. "But I said you were a human, and I knew it. Humans don't even have brains." Her huge black eyes blinked, like big butterfly wings. He realized it would be easy to confuse her natural expression with a smile. Their cheekbones rode so high and their lips seemed so taut, velds usually looked like they were smiling. She got up and turned for the door. Maybe she'd read his thoughts and found them obnoxious. He started off, causing the gravel to pop under his tire, as the screen caromed against the door frame. Before he could push the pedal, a warmer, softer voice stopped him. "Hey." A second girl had appeared, taller than the first. Tassels of reddish hair fell around her eyes, giving her head the shape of some tropical tree. She looked weird but pretty, her face pulled back in that same veld smile. "My sister's mean. That's all." Mosiah didn't know how to answer. "I hope you won't hate me just because she's mean." He managed to shake his head, which seemed to remove an invisible barrier. Her feet made no sound on the gravel as she came closer. "She did tell the truth though." The girl shrugged. "I guess I really said that." "You did?" "Do you come by here again tomorrow?" "Huh?" "Tomorrow. Will you come back tomorrow?" His vision became a tunnel. At the end he could see only the girl. The eyes. The nose. Blink blink. Her face seemed to crawl, haunting down there at the end of the tunnel, surrounded by waves and waves of gray fuzz buzzing all around the sides. "I ... Maybe." "I'll wait for you," she said. "Right here." He nodded, because that was all he could do, and forced the pedal down, steering his bike into the ruts of the road. He didn't look back. The velds had always frightened him--they'd frightened most humans. But now one of them liked him. He made a silent vow, he would avoid that house from now on. * * * * * Mosiah did not live on a farm, and he was glad. It was better not to live so close to velds, many of whom were farmers. They were smelly aliens who always stared because they were too stupid to know it was rude. That's what Samuel said. "You know the velds that live over on the farms?" he said to Samuel, who was lying on the couch reading, like always. "Farms? They live everywhere, like a race of cockroaches." Samuel said it without lifting his eyes from the page. He was so smart he could read with his eyes and think other thoughts with his mind. "And they can live in the attic for all I care, just so I don't have to see them." It would mess up his reading if velds were hanging around. "Can they really read people's minds?" "No. It's all a lie. They're just little insects who can't do anything so they have to try to scare people by making themselves mysterious." "But they say we can't think." Samuel finally looked up from his book. There was a big wrinkle all along his forehead. "What are you chattering about velds for? You friends with them now?" "No." "Then what do you got to say about them?" "Nothing. Just that some of them are on my paper route." "I better never catch you hanging around them. You'll give mom another breakdown and then I'll beat the hell out of you." Mosiah tried to look cross. Samuel was only two years older; Mosiah didn't like being pushed around by him. "Go do your homework for once. Mom'll be home." It seemed like Samuel never had to do homework. Mosiah tossed himself onto his bed and his eyes wandered along the cracks on the ceiling. The veld had asked him to come again tomorrow. But no. He'd already forgotten about that. Not going by there anymore. He wouldn't even think about that again. Wouldn't think about someone liking him. * * * * * She was standing by the post at the edge of the property. "I'm glad you came." That smile was pulling at her mouth again. "You're in the wrong place," he said. "What?" "You said you'd be waiting right there, on the path." "Oh." Mosiah realized how stupid he'd sounded. Now she must have thought he'd hung on her every word since the day before. "My name is Nera." He chuckled back at her. "That's weird." "But you like it, I can tell. Come on. I want to show you something." "What for?" "You can see our farm." Mosiah shook his head. "Nah." "There's nothing to be afraid of." He couldn't deny anything, because she could read his mind. It seemed to him there must be other velds peeping through the shutters of the old farmhouse. Or maybe they weren't looking, maybe they were just sitting quietly in their chairs, reading away at his mind the way Samuel read his books, listening without looking up. It felt strange as she led him along a beaten path to the barn--so many people thinking about him at the same time. He wasn't used to such a thing. But maybe you couldn't call velds people. The barn was a dark structure made of dead wood. No one had ever bothered to paint it. "Where did you get a name like Mosiah?" "I--" He had told her his name, hadn't he? "If you can read my mind then you already know." "Is that what you think?" She stopped at the barn's gaping door. "That I can read your mind?" Mosiah shrugged. His hands were coiled in his coat pockets now. Nera's gaze burrowed into him, and it surprised him that he felt no need to look away. Her face wrinkled and she cried suddenly, "Why do you all hate us?" She whirled away and ran into the barn. He heard the crunch of hay as Nera passed through beams of light falling through the roof. He considered getting on his bike and riding off. But she might read his mind all the way home and hate him forever. The shadows were thicker inside the barn than they looked from the door. He listened hard against the crack of dry stalks beneath his own rubber soles. The place smelled like ammonia. It made his nose wrinkle. He found her in the corner of an inner stall, surrounded by bursts of hay and rusted iron. A stare hovered on her face as she twirled a long stem of chaff. Sometimes it was hard to tell the stick from her narrow fingers. "Is it true?" he mumbled. "Not really. Sort of." Her eyes didn't move. "You can sort of read my mind?" The smile returned. She looked at him. "Sit down." He wanted to, and it frustrated him that she knew it. So he shrugged and plopped down, almost facing her. "Close your eyes." "What for?" "Because I want to show you something." "How can you show me something with my eyes closed?" "It just makes it easier." He shrugged again and closed his eyes. * * * * * The savannah whispered all around. An insect buzzed in his ear while, in the distance, he picked out the belly of a viper grating against supple spikes of grass. The scent of antelope blood swarmed into his nostrils, now voluminous in the air, now slipping onward. And she was there, near him. He could feel it. "There is meat for us in the valley today." She knew about the meat. He did not question it. But for two cubs it was not always safe in the valley. Jackals roamed there and other marauders of the land. Her torso rubbed against him and her tongue stroked his ear. Of late she had begun these rituals. He did not resist, but felt no impulse to respond in kind. "Come. We will find it." Life teemed all around, and it seemed strange to him--did other creatures not notice two lions creeping down through the brush? The law of the land allowed for it. He understood the minds of the gazelles and antelope, how they knew only one of them would fall in an attack. That left only so much room for the fear of the herd. "There. The vultures are gathered over there." The cadaver lay near a water hole below, a cluster of shabby black ribbon around it. The vultures picked and scratched, snapped at one another and screamed their oaths. She broke into a charge. Above the rush of wind, the tearing of grass and a rumble caused by his own paws, he heard her growl. It was followed by the loose beating of vulture wings. Their raiments moved like cumbersome tree branches; he wondered how they made use of the air. But it was their own mystery, which he could not understand. She grinned. "Look. This is a large one, a bull." Flies scattered and resettled with her every move. The scent was furious, which did little to increase his appetite. But this was not a real feeding, only their private thrill of the hunt. "We have our kill!" She established herself on the far side of the carcass and took a theatrical look around. The lioness, master of the hunt. The more he ate, the hungrier he became. While he bloodied his golden face and paws, she came beside him, stroked his ears, nuzzled him. He returned no attention, and it made her affections increase. The smell of her breath, fur and sweat dazed him, mingling with the odors of the carcass. He was so inundated with this ecstasy, this torrent of sensation, that he nearly choked at the sound of a wicked laugh. It stabbed his ear, and only then did he realize his mate stood up straight at his side. Scanning around, he found the most fearful eyes he had ever seen. A hyena glared through the thrushes. This mongrel was full grown. And it would kill him, for such was the law. He was a cub in the valley without adults. His vision started to shimmer from the terror boiling up in him. The killer tensed and readied itself to pounce. Then its beady irises stretched into large, black disks. The snout melted upward and the fur dissolved into pale skin. The first thing Mosiah heard was the thrusting of his own lungs. He lay slumped against wooden planks, surrounded by a disaster of hay. And Nera was close. But he didn't look at her. "Father ... I--" An adult veld stood across the stall, looking down at them. It blinked once. Mosiah had never been this close to an adult veld before. "Nera, you ought to apologize to the boy." "Yes. I'm sorry ... Mosiah." Its glare seemed to harden, and she rose, causing the hay to hiss, and plodded past her father. "Go on, boy. Your bike is out by my gate. And your papers have not been delivered." Mosiah nodded and pulled himself up to his feet. He marched past the veld and ran to his bike. He hardly felt the vibration from the gravel as he set off down the road. * * * * * The smell of a beef roast filled Mosiah's bedroom and bled saliva in his mouth. His mother had already called him to dinner. He'd heard, but still pretended to sleep. She pushed his door open without ceremony. "Dinner." When he didn't budge she raised her voice. "Mose. It's time for dinner." He stirred and raised his heavy eyelids. It was easy to pretend--he truly was exhausted. "What's the matter with you?" "Nothing." In the dining room, Mosiah plopped himself onto his chair like a sack of flour. He noticed Samuel lay his book aside and sit up. Samuel's crystal-blue irises deflected the glow of the overhead lamp. "How can you read when it's so dark? I couldn't." "That's 'cause you can't read in the first place." Mother came pushing in from the kitchen. She still wore the skirt and blouse she'd worn to work that day. The outfit took years off her figure, as did the blonde streaks she'd recently added to her hair. When she stopped short of the table and whispered a curse, Mosiah knew she would backtrack to turn off the stove. She always did that. "Your Mrs. Dunston called," Samuel sighed as he hobbled to the table, like a man in the desert. "Wondered why your papers got delivered so late." "She won't call here no more," Mosiah said. "Why not?" Mother frowned as she pulled her chair in. "I quit." "You what? You quit?" She started scooping and stirring, like she sometimes did when she was mad. "Well, that's just fine. Next thing, you'll think you're quitting school." "That's just it. I don't have time to study." "Study?" Samuel put on a smile. "When the hel--what do you mean? You've never studied in your life." "Have too." "You boys quit it. Someone say prayer." It was Mosiah's turn and he mumbled it like an apology. "I thought you really liked the paper route, Mose?" said Mother as she sliced up the beef. Mosiah found himself inspecting the flesh. "I did. Kinda." She shook her head and sighed the heaviness out of her lungs. "You boys." "Why'd you have to cook it so much?" "Huh?" she grunted, stopping in the middle of a slice. "It's so dark, the meat." She peered at him as if he were a stranger. Then creases came down from her eyes and her forearms alighted the edge of the table. "I've been doing my roasts like this since you were nothing but a wiggling little--" Her eyes misted. She dropped the silverware and wheeled out of her chair. Her footfalls were the only sound until they died with the slam of her bedroom door. "Jesus, you little shit. You give mom another breakdown and I'll rip your head in two." Mosiah didn't know how to look up from his empty plate. His stomach ached from the rich smell. "You doing drugs now?" Mosiah made himself a promise; Samuel wouldn't get a rise out of him tonight. "Whatever it is you're doing, I suggest you leave it outside that door." "Quit trying to talk like a man." Mosiah took his turn to get up and march for his room. "One more word and I'll show you a man!" * * * * * The day glowed under a great white ceiling, and the wind blew stiff, but slow. Its coolness was something Mosiah could almost see. He shivered against the lining of his coat and pretended the trees were making fun of him, taunting him because he had to be in school instead of outside playing like them. He stirred at the sound of the other kids closing their books. Mrs. Harker, the math teacher, had been extolling the glories of a polynomial. Mosiah had listened only long enough to lose interest. Now his neighbors bustled for their workbooks, which forced him to gather his arms on the desk. He leaned forward behind the silhouette of Chelsea Bjarnson, who always sat faithfully upright in front of him. In his mind, the image unfolded of a narrow country road. Maybe he shouldn't have quit the paper route. It was something to do, and you could make maybe forty dollars a month, and then you wouldn't have to sit around the house hoping Samuel wouldn't say anything to you. And maybe, if you had time, it was no big deal to stop and-- But his bike. It was so ugly and he never wanted to ride it again. And besides, he wouldn't think about that other thing. It was better not to think about it. Mosiah's head was just warming against his forearm when he heard his name. It made his back stiffen. He peeked toward the overhead. Noticing his shift, Mrs. Harker looked up from her teacher's edition. The false blush on her cheeks made it seem like she was smiling. She covered the rest of the room in a glance and found her place in the book again. Mosiah stared at her. She'd played a cruel trick, calling his name, knowing it would throw him into a panic. Mrs. Harker was becoming a colorless painting when he heard his name a second time. His head snapped to the side. Some of the kids had their faces buried in books, while others took cover behind the students in front of them. If it wasn't Harker, then someone was taunting him. Red anger flooded down his neck and into his chest. He hated that kind of cowardice. You want a fight, speak up. Or shut your pretty little mouth-- (Mosiah.) He swallowed. Now he knew. The sound came from inside his head. (Where are you? I need you, Mosiah.) She was looking for him. (Where are you?) He found his hands clenching the desk. Everyone around him must have heard the voice. They all knew and they would call him a veld-lover and everywhere he went they would say, "Veld-lover, veld-lover," but always whispering it in snatches so he wouldn't know who was saying it and he would forever be christened Mosiah the Veld-lover, and they would make him wish he hadn't ever loved a veld-- (If only I could see you. Mosiah, where are you?) But no one looked his way. None of them cared anything about him. They never talked to him or even pretended he was alive. (If only I could see you.) He grew numb all around; not in his skin, but in his mind. He couldn't perceive the air in the room, or the people. He could only sense her, calling from far away, where the roads were straight and narrow and the houses far apart. And he was up, walking. Through doorways, then halls, down steps, then sidewalks. He was walking, marching. And he knew right where to go. * * * * * The little waterfall chattered like a nest full of chicks. He knew it would. The whole scene looked just the way she had shown it to him. All during his walk she had projected to his mind the image of this place. Water falling from a wooden box, imbedded in the earth above a pond, where she sat, skimming the water with her toes. The box was an irrigation stopper, and late runoff was making its final migration to the valleys below. A bank of grass ran along one edge of the pond. Beyond it, yellow and brown trees blocked the view of her father's farmhouses. It was just the way she had painted it. "You came." Her eyes radiated the glaring daylight, which made them seem bigger somehow. She looked strange. Her face was whiter than he remembered it, and her lips thinner and looser. Mosiah shrugged. "Your feet are going to get cold." "It's okay. They already are. This pond is for the ducks, but they're all gone now." "Where?" "South, dummy." "You sound like your sister." "Don't say that." He crouched at the edge of the pond, pretending to study its brown bottom. "How did I know you would be right here?" "Because I told you." "Yeah, but how? How do you tell me things?" "I don't know. I just think it." He could feel the cool air tickling his lungs. It seemed to make him think clearer. "Doesn't that mean--won't your father hear?" "No. When we're imagining together, I can't control it, but when I'm just talking to you, it's easy to make it private." But if I can think things to you, and you can think things to me, then we're kinda the same." She shook her head. "Humans can't make it happen. I mean, they can't think together, can they?" "No." "That's okay. I like humans." "'Cause you can see into our minds and we can't see into yours." "Sort of." He shivered. The sound of trickling water made a cold day colder. "Why are you shivering? You have a jacket. Come on." Above the pond, an old fort had been built amid a patch of trees, which she called the meadow. She slipped through an open panel in the wall with Mosiah following, stretching his eyes in the sudden darkness. There were blankets within and a torn-up mattress flopped against one wall. It made a deformed armchair. Her closeness and the shelter of the blankets brought warmth to his blood, and to his mind. While they sat there in silence, he became hypnotized by cracks in the wall. They looked like frozen lightening. Was she probing the reaches of the farm to find her father? Mosiah would never know. The cracks began to dance. * * * * * Fireworks exploded above his head. Police cars wailed like banshees in the distance while glass seemed to shatter far and near. He barked as he ran--pounding the black cement with the pads of his paws. In the corner of his eye, he could see her sleek coat wearing the dampness of the night, her breath bursting in hot clouds. Rhythm. Her every step was the rhythm of the night. He howled because the rhythm was his religion. His god. The mouth of the alley came into view and they reached it in three strides. "This way!" he growled and scrambled to his left, barely avoiding the wheels of a huge metal monster that smelled like burning death. The brakes screamed, and so did the driver. Power shot through him. The hardness of the city all around made him a new creature. Life was a series of resurrections. It was glee, the driving force within him, summoning storm after storm of rebirth. A wasteland of broken cars began to open before them. He felt his limbs racing toward it until a rapid movement caught his eye. A cluster of shapes darted from the cover of a pile of slag nearby. Three of them. From their small legs and thick trunks, he calculated the danger in an instant. Rottweilers. She snarled at his side, and he bore his teeth for collision. The ground seemed to jump as skin and bone converged. His calculations began to multiply. Every muscle jerk. Every flinch. A study in dynamics. He sank his teeth. Here. Then there. Ripping with joy. The heavy skin at his neck unfolded in a pair of vice-like jaws. He was forced to follow as he bit down into muscle, tearing as he went. A curtain of red heat sprayed through the air in front of his eyes. The tearing and lashing sped up, and turned to a mess of torn skin and bright blood, until a strange sound was heard. Voices. Yelling. They were thin, empty sounds that revealed animal weakness. He realized they were the voices of men. But their clubs were mercenaries of justice. No thought of revenge. He scrambled away into the mists that always descended on the alleys at night. Soon he found a dark fissure in the wall whereto lick his wounds. Only when she came drifting down the alley did he realize they'd been separated. He picked up her scent, and a sudden charge ran through him. It was a force that screamed in his loins. Mount her. Let the glee guide you. Walls all around made a sudden shift. It frightened him, forced him to recoil. Where was he? Mosiah found himself laying next to Nera in the dark. She was breathing hard too. It was quiet for a moment, until she whispered. "Are you all right?" "Huh?" He was still trying to find his bearings. Something had forced his mind from the dream. An impulse. A shadow passed through the open slat and Mosiah found himself studying a small, grinning face. The eyes he recognized, black and large. "Bluck! You almost did that with him!" Nera's little sister. Her face twisted with revulsion. "That's awful!" "Get out of here, Caba." "You get out. This is my fort." "It isn't! And I told you to get out." "Fine. I'll get out. I'll go tell father what you and the human were doing." Nera latched onto Mosiah's wrist. She dragged him up, then shoved Caba against the wall. "Tell him then!" The day was glowing softer now as they ran down the gentle curve of a backroad and landed in a field of dead grass that stood waist high. * * * * * He had been staring at the sky for some time, exploring the clouds without seeing them. Her voice made him stir and he thought to himself how the clouds looked like icing on a tin of cinnamon rolls. "What's the matter?" He stayed quiet for a long time. "I can tell something's wrong." He shook his head. "You can't fool me." And he knew it was true. "Then, if something's wrong, you must know it already." "I don't know everything you think. And sometimes you make it hard for me to know." "Good." "Are you upset about what happened? When we were--?" He shook his head, and didn't know how to make words out of his feelings. "Why won't you talk to me?" "Nera, how can you stand to be around someone who can't think like you?" "I told you, I like you." "But it must be boring. Unless you just like having the upper hand." "Is that what you think?" "I don't know." Nera turned and let her back roll onto the grass. Her shoulder came against his so that they were both gazing straight up into the sky. She raised her hand and pointed to a chunk of white that hovered apart from the plainer ceiling above. "See that cloud there? I know you see things in it." "Like what?" "Well, there's a part that comes off on the right there. And you think it looks a little bit like a horse's mane. And this part here, on the bottom is kind of like a face to you. An ugly face, maybe like a character." "I was thinking it looked like a troll, in a story I read once." She sighed deeply and, for the first time, Mosiah wondered what she was thinking. "This is the whole thing, Mosiah. Velds can't think that way." "What way?" "Like that. Like make things up in our minds." "Make things up?" "I know you don't understand. Because it's so much the way you think, you can't even get the picture of what I mean." He lay very still. She continued, "My father talks about it sometimes." "About what?" "Once he said he finally figured out the difference between velds and humans." "What was it?" "He said we don't have what you call an imagination." Mosiah frowned, searching deeper in the clouds for some hidden meaning. "But--but that can't be true. I mean, you guys made rockets that flew millions of miles to bring you here." "So?" "So somebody had to imagine what the rocket looked like before they built it." "Well, my father would say, yes, we can picture things, but we can't--we don't know how to--" Mosiah, gazing at the cloud that had now become a tree, knew the word she needed. "Metaphor." "What?" "That's what you mean. My brother, Samuel, talks about it because he reads so much. A metaphor is something that carries lots of meanings behind it." "Yeah. That's what I mean. Kind of." "But you've got no reason to feel bad. I'm amazed at all the stuff you create in my mind." She rolled over and looked at him with her eyes narrowed, an expression he'd never seen before. "I create? You think it was me?" "I mean all the stuff you make up. Like the lions and the hyenas and the dogs fighting." "Mosiah." Her face softened and she seemed to smile. "That's not me." She shook her head. "That's you." Her words made him chuckle, but he felt sick. "I mean, sure, I help bring it up so we can both share it. But it all comes from this deep place in your mind. Like a treasure chest." A sigh developed in her, and Mosiah knew the distant feeling of the sound. Maybe she really did like him. Then she rolled back again and looked up. "I could never come up with those kinds of ideas. I don't have that deep place you have." It was quiet all around, with only the whisper of a breeze. Her laugh came soft and sweet above the sound. "My father sits in his study and listens to old music disks, the old-time operas. And I can see his mind aching to know how these things were created. But he feels a kind of loneliness velds have never known. Because now that we are around humans, we all look into each other, and it seems like there's nothing to see." Mosiah shivered and thought about the long walk home. Her slight fingers came down on his arm. "Mosiah, don't let me be like that. I don't want to be away from you, ever." She was crying. "I--" Her breath drew in and she sat up quickly. "My sister. She's looking for me. My father wants me." "You better go." "Yeah." She rubbed her eyes, then they fluttered like butterflies again. "Will you come back?" She suddenly looked like a marble statue come down from the sky. One that human hands had never touched. Mosiah wished he could sit here in this spot forever. He looked away. "I guess you already know." He got up and started down the road without brushing himself off. And he heard her breathe, "I love you, Mosiah." * * * * * His mother's Toyota came gurgling down the road. The sun had only just set, but the headlights were on, giving off a pathetic amber glow in the dusk. From a hundred yards he could tell it was Samuel at the wheel. The car pulled up with a squeak and the passenger door flopped open. "Get in." Samuel hardly looked at him as he slid onto the tattered vinyl. Mosiah mumbled, "What're you doing here?" It was a long time before Samuel said anything. "The school called." Mosiah knew what that meant. He suddenly felt foolish. Why hadn't he thought about the consequences of leaving school like that? Now his mom would chew him out, tell him she wasn't going to take care of him forever, and if he couldn't stay in school and go to college, he could just go off and be a nothing like his father. . . He found himself toying with the cheap chrome handle on the door, wishing it were already tomorrow. Samuel continued. "So did the hospital." "The hospital?" "Yeah. Mom had another breakdown. This time it was like a seizure." Mosiah held very still. "They say she had too much stress." Mosiah's lungs filled up, and it ached. "Why's she always so stressed out?" "Oh, that's good, coming from you. The school calls her at work and says you walked off right before lunch and you wonder what she's stressed about." Mosiah stared out at passing fence posts, tried to focus on them. "She's in the hospital because of you, you little asshole." "I didn't do anything." "Really? You know, I just had a gut feeling I'd find you out here somewhere. And if I ever catch you out here again, playing footsies with velds, goddammit--! Mosiah never saw the cinderblock that slammed into his cheek. Samuel hammered Mosiah's head so hard, it hit the window. His vision turned to blood and he lunged at Samuel with his voice blaring like a siren. He swung and punched and scratched and soon found himself pinned down in the crack between his seat and the door. Somehow, Samuel had stopped the car, right in the middle of the road, found Mosiah's throat in the dark and forced him back. In the gleam of distant street lights, Mosiah could see murder in Samuel's eyes. "Listen, you little puke. Next time you take a swing, it better be enough to kill, 'cause if it isn't, I'm going to finish you. You understand?" Mosiah's vision was getting hazy. He pulled against Samuel's grip, but his brother was putting all his weight down on that arm. Its force pinched his windpipe and blocked his chest from moving. "You understand me!" Mosiah nodded. In an instant, Samuel was back in his seat, steering down the road. "You need a good ass-kicking. Too bad the last thing mom needs right now is to see you a bloody mess." * * * * * His mother was on the second floor of the hospital. The whole time he was there, Mosiah shivered from the look on her face. It seemed like someone had peeled her eyelids back, and they wouldn't ever close again. She glanced around her, but didn't really see anything. And she responded, even tried to smile. But her efforts were there in her eyes, fighting something invisible. Maybe, in her mind, she was standing at the edge of a cliff, despite her terrible fear of heights, and she was trying to pull herself away. If fact, if he knew anything about nervous breakdowns, she'd already fallen over the edge and the doctors had brought her back. But they couldn't make her walk away from the edge. Only she could do that. Mosiah tossed in his bed that night and wondered if he should have apologized. The thought had angered him earlier though, as he had stood there in the hospital room. He would only have said he was sorry to make Samuel happy, and Mosiah couldn't do that. Days seemed to drift by like fog. The school bell screamed again and again as he floated like a specter from one class to the next, never wondering why he went through his routine, only wishing, every now and then, that he still had a paper route. This was the one thought that could make him mad. He had quit for the wrong reason, a forgotten reason, as if he had let go of a rope that had given him a way up the sheer walls of a pit, all because he was afraid of what he might find above. Samuel eased up, and it made Mosiah sick in his gut. He hated himself because he was playing Samuel's game. As long you did what Samuel wanted, he didn't hit you and almost talked to you like you were a person and not a dog that was just around for his kicking pleasure. At the same time, Mosiah tried to tell himself that Samuel didn't have it easy. They'd moved mom to the psychiatric ward and Samuel became responsible for taking care of everything at home. Sam was the one who had to talk to the bishop so they could get meals. That's why the ladies from the church brought them dinner every evening. They even picked Mosiah up for school in the morning and took him home everyday. He hated listening to their daughters chatter about nothing. And he was grateful the school was only twelve minutes from his house. He didn't know how many days had passed when he heard her voice again. (Mosiah.) She called for him many times, and again the next day. He tried to let it pass the way a mailman ignores a an anxious dog beyond a fence. (Mosiah, please...) One day, in the early evening, Mosiah sat down to think about how to answer. The bishop had come to pick up Samuel and take him to the hospital. They were going to give mom another blessing. It was peaceful. He closed his eyes and tried hard to point his thoughts. I can't talk to you, he thought as strongly as he could. (Mosiah, what's wrong?) I can't talk to you, he repeated. She was quiet for a moment. Then he heard, (But I love you.) He struggled to put thoughts into a sequence. It wasn't easy. My mother is in the hospital. It's all because of me. She's going to go crazy if I make her upset. (I'm sorry.) A colorful sense came to him, like a perfume. Was this her sadness? Slowly, the sensation died and he could hear her no more. It was silent. Hours had passed since he'd sat down there, looking out the window toward the west, where farms spread across the floor of the valley. He hadn't realized the view had turned to black, dotted with twinkling lights, until the bishop's car came gurgling into the driveway and his headlights swung toward the window. Samuel jumped out from the back seat and trotted to the passenger door of the long car. Mosiah's jaw dropped as he watched his mother climb out. It looked, from where he sat, like she was smiling. She turned to face the bishop, nodded to him, still smiling, shrugged and headed up the walk. Samuel closed the door with a flick of his hand, a final wave to the bishop. "It was a miracle," Samuel whispered after mother passed through the living room, leaving Mosiah with a kiss on his head. They listened to her steps in the hall, and her bedroom door closed. Samuel took in a deep breath and shook his head. "It was just like we've heard about. The bishop put his hands on her head, and one of the elders was there. They asked me to help, Mosiah, so I put my hands on her head too. And then the bishop blessed her and it just--" Samuel swallowed and Mosiah didn't recognize him for a minute. He hadn't seen Samuel get swollen like this in years. Now it made him uncomfortable. "She said someone appeared to her, while we were blessing her. A man all dressed in white. He took her by the hand and walked with her to a peaceful place, and that changed everything. I don't know what it all means, but she was so completely different when we finished. Her face was like on fire and she got up out of bed immediately. I never thought I'd see a miracle." Samuel moved toward the hall and stopped in the doorway. "We have to make this good, Mose. Mom's better, and we have to make sure nothing happens to make her sick again." Samuel didn't wait for a reply, and Mosiah was glad. He didn't know what to say. A quiet sense of relief settled over the house, and in the darkness of his room, Mosiah lay looking up into the shadows cast across his ceiling. I'm glad my mother's better. She was sick, and it was because of me. And I'm glad she's better. * * * * * Next day, right after the lunch bell, he heard her again. (Mosiah.) The sound came through so clear, it seemed like her lips were next to his ear. He stopped on the stairs leading up to the main hallway of the school. Other kids passed him as he stood by the iron rail. Because of his mother's miracle, it didn't seem so bad to talk to Nera. But you had to be careful, not do anything stupid. He opened his thoughts toward her, cautiously, and she spoke again. (Mosiah, I wish you were here.) I'm in school. I have to start doing better, or my mom will get worried. (Is your mom all right?) Something happened last night. I'm not sure what, but she thought she saw an angel. (I'm so happy for you. I just--) A sudden break ended her thought. Nera? (Yes. I'm sorry. I--) With her pause this time, the break wasn't so harsh, and she continued. (It's my father. He's--) Mosiah gave her a moment. She had never spoken in fragments like this, and he couldn't tell if her thoughts were just scattered, or if it was something more serious. (He's dead.) Mosiah's arms landed on the iron bar, which kept him from rolling down the stairs. The words hit him hard, but it was her grief that really took its toll, pouring from his mind down his torso and into his limbs. He realized that was why she halted and stammered. She tried to keep it from drowning him too, but it was too much. His classmates sounded like distant birds as they filed past. He glanced up, feeling heavy streams of salt water on his face. (I'm so sorry. I didn't want to hurt you.) Mosiah calmed his lungs and set off down the stairs. Samuel would be madder than ever before, might kill him if he found out. But this was what he had to do. * * * * * There came no imagery. It was plain to him that she waited at the house, where the rest of her family sat in an electric silence. The little yellow building came into view from behind the row of trees on the south property line. He felt a shiver looking at it. The veld man wasn't in there now. Or if he was, he was only a corpse. That made the whole place seem old and dry. Mosiah had just passed the fence and turned onto the grass when the screen flew open and slammed against the house. Caba came out, her voice the shriek of fire trucks. "You killed him! My father's dead because of you!" Mosiah stopped. He'd never seen a veld's eyes stretched in anger before. Now he saw that her screams were directed at him. He didn't say anything. His legs were straight as sticks as he watched Nera scamper out behind Caba. A scolding ensued, then Nera hugged her sister and urged her back through the door. Mosiah had watched it all happen in less than a minute. And still he stood there. "I'm sorry." A darkness filled Nera's face as she looked down at him. It must have been an expression of grief. A chuckle burst from her mouth. "I guess I say that a lot." He had a sudden impulse--he wanted run. It wasn't fearful, which made him think it was her impulse coming through. They ran across the lawn and down along the irrigation ditch that divided her farm from the road. Nothing was said, yet Mosiah knew they would turn right at the end of the yard and follow the narrower crossroad along the barb-wire fence to an ancient underpass. There they would slump down together and catch their breath. "Are we safe here?" he gasped upon reaching the shade of the underpass. "A car could come rumbling down this road and mash us in a minute." "All the farmers know this road dead-ends against the freeway there. We're the only ones who ever used it." He nodded and set his weight against the green, broken cement at his back. "Nera?" "Yes." "Caba said I killed your father." "She's upset. Right now she's blaming everybody." "Is that the way velds get?" "I guess." He drew in a deep breath and squinted at the blue sky outside. "There's more to it. I can tell." Nera shook her head, and looked like she might cry again. "Tell me." He sensed the effort it took her to form words. "Your mother didn't see an angel, Mosiah." His understanding began to open. She was helping him see it. Mother had been lying in the hospital, and they had put their hands on her head and she had seen something. A man. Dressed in white. "It was your father." Nera nodded, with no attempt to speak. "He crossed into her mind and helped her away from her craziness?" All the pieces came together before him. The veld man had done it for Nera, hoping it would help assuage her difficulty. He spoke to Nera in thoughts. Could that one bit of contact kill him? Tell me, Nera. (Not by itself. It's something else. He saw how hopeless, or maybe lonely his life would be from now on, after feeling what it was like to be there in the richness of her mind.) I don't get it. (I know.) How do you know this is what did it? (You have to believe me, Mosiah. He made his heart stop.) Made it stop? (Yes. We found him in his study. He was in his chair, listening to his music, and he made his heart stop. Velds kill themselves of grief that way.) It's voluntary? (I ... Well, if you can call suicide voluntary.) I guess not. Her arms came around him and he could feel the sobs inside her rib cage. (Don't leave me, Mosiah. You are the only person I want to be with. I don't have the things you have in your mind, but I can make us one. Isn't that good enough? Doesn't that make me something?) Yes, Nera. The wall at his back crinkled away into a solid pillar. The wooden ties above broke apart in a silent ballet of movement, spreading out into the leaves of a brilliant red and purple tree. Sound brought the scene to life, and he made out the thousand whispers of those leaves and the call of strange bulbous birds that bathed themselves in a cackling fountain not far from where he sat against the tree's trunk. It was warm here and, oh, so strange. A thick species of grass monopolized the ground, spongy and pale. He wandered down and out of the group of trees that made a ring around the fount. A vast garden spread out before him. It was kept in perfect condition, and he was proud because it was he who kept it so. From down in the dense floral array of blue, yellow and white, a woman's shape appeared. She gazed without guile on the colors as she strolled toward him. Her body carried no clothing, and he realized only then that he was in the same condition. It surprised him that he felt no impulse to cover himself. He was free. "Hello," she said, with her usual warmth and familiarity. As she drew nearer, her leanness came into detail. Her skin had a darkness to it that brought out every feature of her face and frame. There seemed something of veld in her, and something of human. A perfect blend of each. And she was not a girl, but a woman. In the prime of her existence, built by the mind of some master framer. "Have you noticed how the hippotherions keep the grass cropped? They never let it crowd in around the flowers." Yes, he had noticed. And he nodded. His eyes never wandered from her. Never had he seen her so resplendent. No flower had held his attention as she did today. "Why do you stare at me so? Is there something amiss?" "No," he said. "I was just noticing--" He wanted to say something but didn't know quite how. Impulsively, he lifted his hand and laid it upon her breast. She did not move, except to look up from his touch. "You have these." "Yes." Her eyes seemed to search his face. "Why do you have them? I know I shouldn't worry over it, because everything is so wonderful here, but it seems strange." "Do they bother you? I would not annoy you--" "No." His other hand came up and touched her other breast. "But I wonder. The hippotherions have them and I have seen their young feed from them." "Yes. It is sweet. I enjoy watching them." "But do you not want young?" She blinked at him, then glanced down at his hands. Something stirred behind her eyes. He withdrew. "I am sorry. I would not hurt you." He caressed her face and turned away to wander the garden. "Don't be sorry," she said. It made him stop and he felt her press against his back. Her arm stretched around him, across his chest. "Why must we resist this?" He nearly shrugged when a voice surprised him. "Do not question the Word." They turned together and saw the nahashim, hanging from a parah tree nearby. Its three snake-like trunks coiled around different limbs of the tree, making the creature look voluminous and incomprehensible. "You resist because you fear the wrath of the Gods. To act on your baser instincts is unjust, and the Gods are not unjust. You must do what is right." He found himself squinting at the nahashim. Its preaching always seemed to eclipse the promise of joy and pleasure. "But it is given to you to decide." "Is it just that we should not have joy together?" He was surprised that she should be so frank with the nahashim. "Your question comes from a selfish heart, woman. Selfishness is never the source of real joy." It was hard to argue with the creature. It seemed to know everything, and it drove him and his helpmeet by the rod of fear. He felt a sudden surge in his chest, one that grew with such intensity that it astonished him. He found himself taking her by the hand and running through the garden, racing to hide himself from the nahashim. She laughed, and it was a sound that made him ache inside. He wanted only her, to touch her, to have her, to sink into her and forget the boundaries of their world. But he knew it was selfishness and he frowned as they rolled down on the grass in the thicket below the flower gardens. "What is it?" she said, catching her breath.` "It's all wrong. I want you and cannot have you. Why would the Gods make me thus, that I should have these feelings?" His words made her cry. Her dark eyes blinked at him and she touched his face. "Can it be selfish if I want you to have what you want? I am yours. I will bear you children. That is what I want." "But is it right? Is there nothing of selfishness in your desires?" "I do not know. And so I don't know the path to joy." He found his hands upon her, and their faces together. And soon they were one; it made her weep. And somehow he knew it was the cry of joy and pain together. And while he was loving her, the voice of the nahashim called down from above. "O man of flesh, the sword of justice hangeth over thee." And he couldn't stop loving her, but still found himself looking up at the nahashim's crystal-blue eyes. Then its face turned pale. It was a white face, made pink under the darkened sky. Eyes. Mouth. Nose. The man had to think about it. Yes, he knew this face. It was that of a--a veld. A farmer. One who had died. In his own chair. The face smiled. Or was it a smile? "I'm sorry it has to be this way." Now the woman cried like a baby as the creature's two scaly limbs descended, reaching for him. The man could only stare back. I never hated you. "I'm sorry." And she wept and cried and called out to him, and they both loved on in misery and joy as the nahashim whispered secrets. Slowly, two fists grew up out of the limbs of the nahashim. Large, knuckly fists that grabbed a hold of him and lifted him onto his feet. They had vice grips on his shirt that forced him back against a jagged wall. The creature's center tail dropped down and split in half to form two legs. And its black viper eyes squashed inward toward the nose and became Samuel's blue irises, turning round and round like machine gun belts. "You little son-of-a-bitch! I knew I'd find you here!" Mosiah couldn't speak, couldn't grasp where he was. There was crying coming up from the ground to his right. "You only care about yourself!" Samuel's cinderblock fist came at him. (Mosiah, what's happening?) He could hear her weeping in his head, and in his ears. Please talk to me, he thought instinctively, because the sound of her voice was pleasant in here. In his mind. (Mosiah!) The fists showered down now, punching and punching. His nose split open as lightning cracked on the horizon of his mind, now here, now there. (Mother! Caba! Somebody help me!) Her thoughts blasted off in every direction, he could see them. And it was pleasant, because he couldn't stay out there, where the lightning cracked. His back hit the wall again, he thought, until he realized the warm flow moved outward across his cheeks. He was on his back. And now it was worse, because the cinder blocks rammed into his gut, and he needed to vomit. Shadows flickered. He knew it was a struggle because Nera was still broadcasting. She had jumped on Samuel and gotten hold of his hair. He wasn't going to like that. The danger suddenly woke Mosiah. When Samuel got himself free, he would try to kill her. Mosiah found the coarse cement of the wall, and pushed himself up. Through the tears and blood smeared across his eyes, he made out Samuel hunched over with Nera holding tight to his hair. Samuel's fists swung parallel to the ground, hitting her waist and ribs. Mosiah's anger boiled. She was a veld, built as slender as a fawn. Samuel found glee in crushing anything smaller than himself. Mosiah's own fist erupted into the air and landed on the back of Samuel's head. Samuel growled louder and tried to spin away from her grip. She held on and Mosiah found his foot traveling swiftly toward Samuel's face. When the hit came, Samuel cried out, like a girl; Mosiah suddenly didn't know his own brother. The force of the blow broke Nera's grip. Samuel rolled back against the wall, sobbing. Mosiah had never seen Samuel like this. The sight forced him to the wall too and he looked away. He now saw the Toyota parked out in the sunlight, door open, engine running. Beyond the car, Caba marched down beside a veld woman. They stopped near the car, and the woman looked at Nera, then to Samuel, and last to Mosiah. "Leave here. Never come back." Her tone was like a final amen. (Mother--) (Come here.) Mosiah could hear them, and the woman knew it. She wanted him to hear. (Come here, Nera!) Nera rose and, sobbing, staggered to her mother. (Tell the boy good bye. Tell him never to come here again.) (I can't!) Mosiah found himself getting up, moving along the wall. He stumbled past the velds and started up the road. (Mosiah!) (Nera! Your father is dead because of them!) He didn't look back. With every crunch of gravel under his soles, he heard her calling, and soon felt the blanket of her grief come over him. (Mosiah!) He walked on, and it made her voice draw into a tight little ball. It dwindled to a whisper and died. The veld woman cried out. Around him, the farmland became sloppy blues and greens, like a painting. He was crying tears. His own mind would be a lonely place forever more. Story copyright 2002 by T. Everett Cobb tecobb@qwest.net ------------------------------ CH011 Molly by Charles Kaluza When she awoke, sunshine was just creeping into her hospital room from the window. The glare transformed the framed picture on the opposite wall into a mirror. Molly recognized her own reflection. But the perspective was wrong, like the distorting mirrors at the carnival. She was much too short. She was a tall woman, yet her feet pushed the sheets up only two-thirds of the way down the bed. Something wasn't right. "If I am paralyzed, my back must have been broken," she thought. Could I have lost that much height from a broken back?" She knew that her reasoning was off. The answer evaded her, and she drifted off to sleep again. * * * * * Two months earlier, Jack and Molly had sat on their sofa watching the evening newscast. Molly's interview with the TV crew was to be the final segment. Her work had become public knowledge with the filing of an FDA application for the use of their genetically engineered organs in humans. The local TV station asked for an interview with Molly regarding her work. She was more than happy to share her excitement about increasing the supply of donor organs using her genetically engineered orangutans as donors. The interviewer seemed friendly enough while she was giving it -- even playing a bit with Molly's oldest donor-orangutan, Miss Lucy. She now sat stunned as the TV newscast replayed the much-edited version. There was no correlation between the interview she had given and the interview she was witnessing on TV. As the interview finished, Jack clicked the TV off, without saying anything. Molly started to cry. "They make it sound like we are slaughtering orangutans for greed. They left out entirely my statement that sacrificing one of our orangutans will allow six humans to live. Why did they do that?" Jack replied, "I suppose they need to generate controversy. It's much harder to sell good news than it is to sell conflict." He left unsaid the "I told you so" he had coming. "I should've listened to you and refused the interview. What are we going to do now?" she asked, wiping her tears and trying to stifle her crying. "What is done, is done." "But Jack they're making us look like monsters." "Molly, it would have happened sooner or later. We'll keep moving forward because we know we are right. I need to go to bed and get some sleep. We can deal with tomorrow when it gets here." Molly usually had no trouble falling asleep, but tonight was different. She tried lying quietly by Jack's side to no avail. She finally got up and moved to the comfort of her study. She resumed working on the chemical structure of the neurotrophic growth factor for spinal cord regeneration. Concentrating on the complex chemical structure and the genetic code which would create it finally cleared her mind of the newscast. It was almost 4:00 A.M. when she slipped back into bed and fell asleep. Jack had been aware of Molly's absence from their bed. When he arose at 6:00 A.M., he knew better than to wake her. He prepared for the day and just before leaving gave her a kiss saying, "You had better sleep in this morning. I'll give you a call later." When Jack arrived at the research facility, a small crowd of protesters had already gathered. They were chanting and carrying placards with statements about animal rights being violated. Jack tried to ignore them as he drove through the security gate. He asked the security guard, "Have you called in reinforcements?" The security guard said he did not think the protesters would be a problem. Jack disagreed, "Call in all available security personnel and notify the police department of the protest. I want this gate secure for our employees. Molly will be coming in later, and I would prefer if this demonstration could be dispersed by then." The protest grew in numbers and in emotion. Jack called Molly and tried to get her to stay home. She insisted on coming to work. Jack said he would send a car to pick her up. When Molly arrived, the several-hundred protesters were turning into an angry mob. The police secured an entry path to the security gate. The driver maneuvered slowly up to the gate. Molly slumped down in the back seat, trying to hide. Unfortunately, her nearly six-foot frame did not hide easily. When the protesters recognized her, their yelling increased in volume and vehemence. They surged forward against the police line toward her car. Molly's fear escalated when the crowd began throwing rocks at her car. By the time she made it through the security gate, it was all she could do to walk into her office. She just nodded to the other employees, afraid to speak, knowing she was close to breaking down and crying. She tried to work. First on her agenda were the forms she had requested to remove Miss Lucy from the donor program, due to a physical problem. But Molly was unable to even sign the papers. She got up and closed the door of her office and sat back at her desk, holding her head in her hands. Jack finished the morning review and stopped by her office. She was still sitting with her head in her hands. He gently asked, "Are you okay?" Molly replied without looking up, "Jack, all of these horrible things they're saying, maybe they're true." Jack began rubbing her shoulders, silently supporting her. Molly let go and began to cry. Jack let her cry. As the sobbing moderated, he said, "Things will work out. We knew some people would object to our work. Some of them are sincere. Others are just looking for something to protest against. They have no trouble eating pork chops from hogs bred for meat production. If they wear leather or eat any meat, they're being hypocrites. Your work on the universal donor has the potential for saving thousands of lives each year. Saving lives is the essence of our effort." Molly responded, "Maybe, if we show them how well we care for the animals, they will stop protesting." "No, I do not think that is the issue. I think we should go away for a few days and let things settle down. Our PR department is working to counteract the distortions in the interview. Our security team is being beefed up. Things will be okay." "Where will we go?" "Let's go to Sun Valley. You can do some shopping and I can get in a little spring skiing." * * * * * Warren was having a tough time. His doctors wanted him to keep taking medicine and he was tired of taking medicine. His only remaining joy in life was sitting with his friend, Al. Al was one of the great apes at the city zoo. Warren would sit outside of his cage for hours talking to Al. Al seemed to enjoy Warren's company and Warren regarded Al as his only friend. When Warren saw the report on Molly's work, on his small black-and-white TV, he became incensed. He vowed to seek revenge for the wrong done to his friends. He methodically began collecting information on Molly. The Internet cafE provided him access to the information he needed. His goal was revenge. By phoning Molly's office and pretending to be a colleague, he discovered she would be in Sun Valley for the next two weeks. The next day he flew to the resort town and began stalking Molly. Jack sat on the bench soaking up the warmth of the early spring sun while Molly shopped for the special trinket she wanted to buy for her mother. She liked the small tourist shops in the ski village. Watching Molly come out of one small shop only to begin immediately window shopping at the next shop, reminded him of the intensity at which she had pursued her idea of producing a universal donor species. She had overwhelmed him with her technical explanations of how it was possible to genetically engineer another species of primates to act as human organ donors. It was not the science but the business possibilities that had intrigued him. Their collaboration had grown from a business relationship into a wonderful marriage. She had the ideas. He had the ability to bring them to fruition. Molly was studying something in the window and never saw the car veer off the road. Jack saw the car jump the curb, striking his wife like a giant battering ram. It pinned her against the building before bouncing back. Warren, dressed in an ape suit, jumped out of the car and began yelling, "Death to the killer of my cousins." Jack ignored him, crossing the courtyard in a few steps, he was at her side as she slumped to the ground. Her eyes were still alive. She was barely able to breathe and fear showed in her face. He cradled her and waited an eternity for the ambulance to arrive. Meanwhile, the police had arrived, and were now pushing Molly's handcuffed attacker, who was still shouting slogans, into a squad car. The paramedics pulled up and moved Molly quickly into the ambulance and began resuscitation efforts as they raced to the hospital. Despite all of his power and money, Jack now felt helpless. He never had a chance to tell her that he loved her before she was rushed to surgery. Jack was left to wait. The waiting room had the blandness of most hospital waiting rooms. Sterile fluorescent lights distorted the color of the mauve carpeting and chairs. He paced the length and width of the room repeatedly. Jack recalled the day he realized he was in love with Molly. They were sharing lunch and she was trying to slow the mental dynamo of her mind enough for him to follow her thoughts. Her dark hair was, as always, a bit unruly and her face without makeup, sort of plain. But her eyes were so intensely full of life. He was starring into those eyes when she asked him what he thought. He responded, "I think I am in love with you." For once she didn't know what to say. When the surgeon, a Dr. Lampert, finally came out from surgery, the grimness of his face told the story. He made Jack sit down and in a flat, professional tone said, "We have controlled the major bleeding, but the injuries are massive. I am afraid your wife is dying." Jack's look of disbelief was quickly replaced by a look of anger, and he asked, "What injuries are so severe you cannot fix them?" "The crush injury to the chest has produced a severe myocardial injury, and her lungs have so much internal bleeding that breathing is all but impossible. She is already developing renal shutdown, and I had to tie off the hepatic artery to control the bleeding of her ruptured liver. She would require a heart-lung transplant, a liver, and probably a kidney transplant if she were to have any hope of survival." Jack listened to him, his mind already working on a plan. He told Dr. Lampert, "Prepare Molly for bypass. I will have the organs here in two hours!" Dr. Lampert objected, "I can place her on bypass, but finding one organ much less all of them in two hours is impossible. I think placing her on bypass will just prolong her suffering." His voice softened as he continued, "It would be better if you could accept the reality of her death." "You get Molly on bypass and I will have the organs and the transplant surgical team here in two hours," said Jack, taking control. "We can't let you bring in a surgical team that hasn't been credentialed here, let alone utilize organs of an uncertain origin." "Doctor, your job is to place her on bypass and keep her alive for the next couple of hours. Have your hospital administrator meet with me about the credentialing and organ source." Jack did not even wait for an answer, but immediately called his office and started giving orders. He told them to mobilize Harry's transplant team and a donor. They were to arrive in less than two hours and were authorized to procure jet transportation as needed. The coordinator asked him about the nature of the transplant. He responded, "Molly has been hurt and will need a multiple organ transplant. Bring the donor with the best antigen match." The older hospital administrator arrived and was listening to the end of Jack's conversation. He presented a nice politically correct smile to Jack and offered his sympathies. He then proceeded to tell Jack, "Hospital rules were put in place to protect patients. Rules have to be followed." "My wife is going to die unless she receives a multiple organ transplant. My company has developed a new species of primates to act as universal donors. I am prepared to make a grant of one million dollars to your institution, to use as you see fit, if you cooperate in this effort. My staff is forwarding the credentialing information to your office for my surgical team. I will take full responsibility for their efforts and will sign a release of liability for your hospital." The offer of the grant made the administrator pause. He replied, "If the credentialing is in order and my chief of surgery agrees, we may be able to proceed." He continued speaking, but Jack was no longer listening. He was not a surgeon or a scientist but he knew how to get things done. Time crawled by as he waited. When Jack finally heard the sound of an arriving helicopter, he moved to the doorway of the ER entry to watch it land. He could not bring himself to leave the walls of the hospital to meet the surgical team. It was these walls and what they contained that kept his Molly connected to life. He was relieved to see Harry, the chief of the transplant team, disembark from the helicopter. It was amazing that a man so large could be so agile. He ran from the chopper in the stooped fashion of those who had served during the Vietnam War. Harry saw Jack in the doorway and asked how Molly was doing. Jack just shrugged his shoulders and the tears welled up in his eyes. Harry said, "I have been on the phone with the surgery crew and Dr. Lampert, and I will look in on her while the rest of the team gets set up." Harry proceeded to the operating room and quickly changed into scrubs. His reputation had preceded him, and they were ready with an oversize gown and gloves for him. He finished donning his surgical attire and approached the operating table, joining Dr. Lampert. The description that Dr. Lampert had given him was pretty accurate. Things had unfortunately continued to go downhill. The traumatic aneurysm of Molly's aorta was much more evident and had produced vascular compromise of the intestinal tract. The crush injury of the chest had shattered her spine and destroyed her organs, making her life dependent upon the bypass machines. Harry finished his inspection and removed his gloves and gown to visit with Jack. Jack could not tell if the news was going to be good or bad because Harry was thinking and talking to himself as he walked up. He wasted no words and said, "Jack, this is worse than I thought. Molly will not survive an attempt at a multiple organ transplant. We may be able to proceed with the new protocol she had us develop in the lab." Jack knew that Harry was talking about the series of head transplants they had performed on dogs. The thought of transplanting his wife's head and essence, onto the body of a genetically engineered orangutan made him sit down. He wrestled with the vision of his wife as she was before the attack with the image of how she would be if the surgery worked. He realized this image paled in comparison to living life without Molly. He knew instinctively that Molly would not be opposed. Her love of life mandated trying anything possible. He looked up at Harry and said simply, "Go for it!" Harry nodded and turned back to the operating room, he began barking orders as he entered the doorway. The donor orangutan had been deeply sedated for transport. She was placed on the operating table by the OR crew. The anesthesiologist was somewhat hesitant to begin working on the orangutan, but when Harry bellowed, "Put it to sleep so we can get going," he injected the intravenous anesthetic agent and placed the endotracheal breathing tube in without difficulty. The nurses began to scrub and shave the orangutan's upper body in preparation for the surgery. When the orangutan was fully prepped and draped, Harry stepped up to the table and picked up the scalpel. He incised the anterior chest wall skin just below the collar bone and around below the arms. Harry had a surgeon's touch and made everything he did look easy. The surgical team controlled the bleeding as he proceeded. He quickly dissected the clavicles and the pectoralis muscle group free from the chest wall. Harry was careful to protect the muscle insertion points which would be used in the transplant. He then began exposing the vessels and nerves of the neck. He carefully identified and preserved the major anatomical structures. He cut through the trachea and reinserted the endotracheal tube. After dividing the esophagus and the anterior neck muscles he was to the level of the backbone. He checked his identification of the C7-T1 disk and separated the spinal column at that level. His dissection continued posteriorly freeing the muscle attachments. He then continued the skin incisions and the head and shoulders were free of the body. The surgical nurse passed the upper torso off without thinking about it, but the receiving nurse had all she could do to handle it. The company technicians took the torso to a back table and began the task of harvesting all usable tissue for further transplant use in other patients. The donor was ready and Harry now turned his attention to Molly. He looked down at her shattered body and said, "Molly, I hope this is what you want, and I pray that you forgive me for what I am about to do." He picked up the scalpel with his huge hand and with the deftness of an artist incised through her skin. He again carefully freed the clavicle from the underlying rib cage and peeled the chest muscles free. He carefully freed the vena cava and the aortic arch from the surrounding tissue. He placed clamps between the bypass tubes and the heart itself. Molly's body was now dead and the bypass equipment was all that kept her essence alive. Harry worked rapidly, quickly freeing the rest of the tissues. He knew that she was already paralyzed, but cutting through Molly's spinal cord made him pause, he had never before done this on a human. The anesthesiologist started to ask what the problem was, but before he finished the question, Harry returned to work. He slipped the knife between her vertebrae and cut through her spinal cord. He completed his dissection quickly and had Molly's fractured body removed from the table. The headless orangutan was now placed on the table below Molly's head and upper torso. The surgical team was working with such intensity that they did not react to the sight. Harry inserted a diffusion mesh between the severed ends of the spinal cords. Dr. Lampert asked, "What is that pad for?" Harry responded, "Molly has been working on a method of stimulating regrowth of the spinal cord using a diffusion through this mesh. Nobody ever imagined that she would be the first patient to try her new system." They used surgical titanium plates to reattach Molly's cervical spine to the orangutan's thoracic spine. The pre-vertebral muscles were then repaired. With the two bodies now connected, Harry turned his attention to reconnecting the vascular system. He started with the brachiocephalic artery followed by the superior vena cava. When these major chest vessels were functional, he proceeded to the opposite side and connected the left carotid and subclavian arteries. He had been careful to protect the recurrent laryngeal nerves to preserve speech. He now connected the remaining portions of the vagus nerves together. The trachea and esophagus were closed using an auto-stapler. Harry took a minute to stretch and checked the EEG monitor. The anesthesiologist noted Harry's attention on the monitor and said, "She has been stable throughout." Harry just nodded and went back to work. He placed micro nerve stimulators on both phrenic nerves to stimulate the diaphragm for breathing, and carefully sewed them together. The remaining muscle tissues were repaired using the auto staplers. It had been four hours of intense surgery and Harry needed a break. He excused himself telling his assistant surgeon, "Go ahead with finish fitting of the torso and closing the skin. I want at least six Penrose drains and as many suction drains." After Harry left the room Dr. Lambert remarked, "I cannot believe how delicate of a surgeon he is considering his size and aggressiveness." It took a few more hours to finish the surgery and insert all of the drains. The surgical crew was accustomed to seeing morbid things. Seeing Molly attached to the body of the orangutan all but overwhelmed their professionalism. As they transferred her to the intensive-care unit, they were careful to keep her covered so as not to shock other hospital personnel. They placed her in an isolation bed and carefully suspended her arms to prevent straining the new attachments. While the surgical nurse gave her report to the ICU nurses, a student decided to check Molly's heart and lungs. When she peeled the sheet back below the surgical dressing and realized she was looking at the body of an ape, she simply froze before passing out. The surgical nurse saw what was happening, but the student hit the floor before she could reach her. As they were reviving her the surgical nurse said, "This is why they want her in isolation, and we must respect her privacy." Harry was sitting with Jack in the waiting room while the team finished their work. He told Jack, "Surgery went as well as we could expect, only time will tell if we were successful." Jack thanked him saying, "Molly always said you were the best, Harry, and I appreciate your efforts." They sat together silently. Harry finally interrupted the silence, "You know Jack, Molly's work on the universal donor and spinal cord regeneration are major advances in medicine. To think that a crazy terrorist could so easily take her from us is not right. I sure as hell hope we were in time to save the smartest person I ever worked with." Jack responded softly, "So do I." Molly received the anti-rejection drugs and was kept sedated on the ventilator. After 48 hours the sedation was gradually stopped. Jack sat at her bedside trying, for the first time in a long while, to pray. He stroked her gray-speckled hair and waited. Her long, thin face had the look of a stoic pioneer woman. It was the wonderful displays of excitement playing across her face that transformed it into a thing of beauty. Jack could still see this beauty even with the tubes and tape distorting her appearance. His silent watch was accompanied by the rhythmic air sounds of the ventilator. When she finally opened her eyes Jack saw only confusion and fear in them. She seemed to recognize his voice and touch. He tried to explain that she had been injured and had to have surgery. He told her that she would not be able to talk until she was strong enough to have the breathing tube removed. She seemed to calm with his voice but he could not tell if she understood him. She fell asleep again. When Molly awoke a while later she seemed a little stronger and was able to fix her vision on Jack. They tried to communicate by her answering with eye blinks and subtle head movements. Harry stopped by to check on her. He asked, "Molly, I suppose you would like to get rid of this breathing tube?" There was no doubt in interpreting the look she gave him. Harry laughed his big laugh and said, "Well my dear friend, we'll test the phrenic nerve stimulators today, and if you can maintain your oxygen level the tube can come out tomorrow." Jack left to get some needed rest. Molly was alone with her thoughts. Her thinking was clearing. She learned to not struggle because the nurses would inject her with medication and she would drift off to sleep. She needed to stay calm so that they would hold the medicine and she could think. She could feel her hands, and when she looked at them she could make them move. Her arms were supported by an apparatus which prevented any significant motion. She did not feel much pain. It was the lack of pain that made her aware that she could not sense the rest of her body. She tried to move her legs and nothing happened. She tried to wiggle her hips. Nothing. She checked her hands again and she could obviously move them. Now Harry's comment about the phrenic nerve stimulators made sense. She was obviously paralyzed from the shoulders down. How did this happen? She was an invalid. The thought made her cry and the anxiety raised her heart rate enough that the nurse came to check on her. She pretended she was asleep. When the nurse left, Molly again tried to analyze her situation. She said to herself, "Well, like the philosopher said, 'I think, therefore I am'. If my arms still work I will be able to control a wheelchair and a computer. I can still work." She felt sorry for Jack. Just when they thought that they were going to spend more time enjoying life, she gets hurt. Jack deserved a healthy wife. She forced herself to leave this depressing line of reasoning and resumed analyzing her situation. She could read part of the label on the IV infusion and recognized one of the anti-tissue rejection drugs. "I must have had a transplant of some sort. I wonder if they used one of our organs? I kinda hope so." She dozed off. When she awoke, sunshine was creeping into her room from the window. The glare transformed the picture on the opposite wall into a mirror. She recognized her reflection, but the perspective was wrong, like a funhouse mirror. She was a tall woman, yet her feet pushed the sheets up only two-thirds of the way down the bed. "If I am paralyzed, my back must have been broken. Could I have lost that much height from a broken back?" she wondered. She knew her reasoning was off, and the answer evaded her. She slept for awhile. When Jack arrived, she tried to ask him. She could not formulate the question using their simple code system. Jack could sense her frustration and said, "You'll need to be patient for a little while longer. Harry said that he would be by this morning to remove the endotracheal tube and you will be able to talk then." Molly relaxed a bit. Waiting for Harry to show up and remove the damn tube irritated her. She wanted to know now. Harry's booming voice preceded his arrival as he kibitzed with the nursing staff. When he walked into her room he completely filled the doorway. He announced, "It looks like the tube can come out," Molly actually smiled. He carefully loosened the tape which secured the tube and said, "This will make you cough a little and might hurt some." With that he broke the small pressure reservoir tube and deflated the endotracheal tube. He told her, "Take a deep breath." He slid the tube out. She coughed and tried to breathe. The spasm of her vocal cords made the breathing even harder. The phrenic nerve stimulators were working, but it was not like breathing naturally. After several minutes she had regained enough composure to try talking. Her speech was limited to a few words per breath. She had only limited control of her breathing, which produced a very jerky uncoordinated speech pattern. She got her point across when she said, "I know-- that I am-- paralyzed-- from the-- arms down. I figured-- I had-- an organ transplant-- because Harry-- is here-- and I am-- receiving-- anti-rejection, drugs. How come-- I am-- so short?" Harry and Jack looked at each other and both tried to talk at the same time. They deferred to each other without either talking. Molly waited with an impatient look. Jack explained: "The local surgeon said you would need a multiple organ transplant. I called our office and mobilized Harry and his team. They brought a universal donor with them, the one you called Miss Lucy." Jack looked at Harry for help. Harry continued, "Your body was so destroyed and your life was failing quickly, a multiple organ transplant would never have worked. We made the decision to utilize your new research protocol." He did not know how to continue. Molly began nodding her head and said, "You combined-- Miss Lucy-- and me. We have-- become the-- first chimeric." Silence ensued for several moments. Molly continued in her broken rhythm, "Harry, I am glad-- you took-- the chance. Jack, I hope-- you can still-- love me-- this way." Jack stroked the side of her face with the back of his fingers. He replied, "I will take you anyway I can. I was so afraid of losing you that I accepted the risk of surgery. I figured you would accept your new body." Molly's thinking was still slow. She knew there was something special about Miss Lucy, but she could not remember what it was. She tried listening to Harry explaining about the surgery, but dozed off. When she awoke Harry was gone, but Jack was still there, he appeared to be napping in the chair. She started to think about how her mother would react, she then remembered what was special about Miss Lucy. She awoke Jack saying, "Jack, my love." "Yes dear?" "Jack, I remembered what was special about Miss Lucy." "Hmmm." "She is -- or rather, we are -- pregnant." Story copyright 2002 by Charles Kaluza charleskaluza@sprintmail.com ------------------------------ CH012 The Old Man and the Cyborg by M.F. Korn Mr. Sam was an old man who ran the outmoded shipping lanes, picking up junk satellites that came up on the feely monitor. It had been a helluva slow week. Mr. Sam stared blankly at what was infinite beyond the plexy-hole. "Sentimental Journey" eked out on the rundown sound-sys. He stood next to his cyborg, Joe-x, who had been junking by his side for fifty-five terra years. "You hunk a crap! You said there was some old Tel-star around here over three days ago!" Mr. Sam ranted. "Yes, said that three days ago," droned the cyborg. "Where in God's hell is it?" Mr. Sam wiped his brow and squinted out into pitch darkness. He felt the feely-tracker with his old fingers because he was blind. He couldn't even see a playing card eight inches away from his face. He never bothered too much to look into space any more. You couldn't hit nothin' anyway out there, unless you were a dumbass. "Matthews got it," droned Joe-x. "Marsshit, jerk." Dots of starlight drilled into the blackest void. In it, this sputtering trawler was just a clunky, third-rate garage-pod with a couple of frazzled towing lines, a grappler, and just enough battered engine to carry junk back to the little enclaves dotting the area. "Shoulda decked you long ago," Mr. Sam muttered. "You did, nine times," came the answer. "God knows I shoulda fired you, trash." "You fired me one hundred and seventy three times," the cyborg said. Why the hell did it always have to talk back? Talkin' its shit. He looked over at it, barely making it out. It stood there, swaying on creaking leg pistons. Its micro-relays showing a sheen of outer wear. Joe-x was the last of its kind -- a junky relic. It had been in the Musso family for over four generations. It thought it felt for Mr. Sam as it had for Mr. Sam's grandfather, Captain Neil Musso. Why, he had commanded the Brewster's Ridgers against those damn loyalists at some Colony War. Back in the days when men were afraid of that mean ol' space. Not all this insta-deploy environs now for cowards. Not more than five cowards had expired in space since the treaty. Joe often thought about Captain Neil, who died on Earth in the Kentucky hills a hundred earth years ago. The cyborg was won in a cheating poker hand off Titan. The Mussos were thrown out of every colony. At one time the cyborg had thought it knew what crying was. It was sure in its think-chips that Mr. Sam was a cyborg, too. "Maybe you should get some plasmic checks on your system, Mr. Sam," Joe-x stated out of the blue. "You dumb bastard! I ain't no friggin' borg, you senile bucket a crap." No answer but a standby hum. "Shaddup," Sam added. Joe-x thought Mr. Sam maybe wanted to spar with it again, like he remembered they did once at some dive on Venus. He believed through Boolean circuit-loops that Mr. Sam had been its playmate in the Geosystems factory on Earth, in New Zealand, but he wasn't quite sure. Sam continued the abuse. "Idiot! You were sold to great-grandfadder Musso off Titan. You used to be a damn forklift operator before the War." Joe-x stepped over towards him. Joe-x's right shin piston had given out, and it had been kind of limping for thirty years. Mr. Sam had promised over and over to get it fixed, but he never got around to it. Mr. Sam took a suck of tube-o-mash. He pointed it drunkenly towards Joe-x. "You want some? No, you don't want none. 'Cause you ain't got no esophagus. Now, just like I ain't got no metal in me. No bioplasmics neither. If they had maintained you better you might realize who the hell I am." When it was time to sleep at fake-night, Mr. Sam turned off the cyborg's high-functs. Joe-x began dreaming recently about Captain Neil. Mr. Sam would bunk out across the cabin. Mr. Sam used to get so lonely he would make Joe sleep with him. They were on the leg home now with an empty hold. Not one damn project had come up on the feely-tracker. Joe-x was so stupid he couldn't even sched a rendezvous anymore. Mr. Sam didn't even let it go outside much. Several times it had forgotten how to get back in. Joe-x was dangerous, a bother. But dammit, Mr. Sam couldn't see anymore. Couldn't afford new eyes. Still, he was going to junk it. Yessir, get one of those brand-shiny-new borgs. And ol' Joe would go to the iron farm where all the others were dead and buried. That's why Mr. Sam had to tell Joe-x the Mussos were buried there, so he would go. Then he had to keep lying to it. A while back Joe-x had requested to be laid next to Captain Neil's grave, which wasn't even there. One thing it did remember -- it had saved that man four times in a battle of scorchin' hellfire. Now a dream-state came to Joe-x's thinkchips. The rusty face lay slack and relaxed in rotted rubber joints. It mused about New Zealand, where Mr. Sam Musso had been created right after him. One day, on a lark, they had gone with some of the staff to the beach. Wasn't Mr. Sam Musso the cybernetic synthezoid who had to have extra multiplexers put into his head? Joe's id-chip tandems stabilized and flatlined as it lapsed into deeper simul-snooze next to the filthy plexyhole. Deep space leered at them in the shadows of the rank, smelly cabin. The sun was a yellow ball way back behind them. The grapple-alarm beeped for a good seven minutes before it woke Mr. Sam. "You S.O.B., get up! I think we got us one!" A crenelated metal sphere spun wobbly in the void. Joe-x was still booting up, but Mr. Sam was already trying to bring the ship around by finger-touch. "Get your little ass-chip out there! Grapple onto that thing! I don't care what I said before about you going outside! We ain't goin' home empty-handed now." Sam didn't know that the sphere was valueless, not even good junk. Joe-x barely managed to limp through the airlock. There was a time when he used to do pretty damn good in a vacuum. Some of the long-dead Musso brothers had made him believe he couldn't breathe in a vacuum. Which wasn't really a lie. "You don't breathe no-how, X-man! How many times I gotta tell you?" Joe clung to the side of the ugly little ship. Mr. Sam diddled the grappler arm. Joe motioned to Mr. Sam through the dirty glass to maneuver the ship over a bit to get that better angle, but Mr. Sam could hardly see him. It would be a few minutes. Mr. Sam hummed "Moonlight Serenade" and sucked on a day-old coffeestick. The black void swallowed the small figure. Although the borg eased his loneliness, Mr. Sam would have to scrap him. It was just gettin' too dangerous. He was broke and old. Mr. Sam sighed. Joe-x was the family legacy. He couldn't tell Joe-x to its face. Hell, he always lied to it anyway. It was still and quiet. Mr. Sam pressed up against the glass and squinted. Finally, he saw Joe-x waving its arms frantically. It had been caught between the massive fifteen-foot sphere and the ship's ugly underbelly, right where the metal arm came out. Mr. Sam made the metal arm slip. Mr. Sam panicked. He tried to back the ship away from the sphere immediately. He couldn't see very well at all. Mr. Sam didn't know Joe-x was missing that bad foot now. The arm groped in the blackness for Joe. The sphere was now twirling away erratically. After a full fifteen minutes, Musso got the crippled borg into the hold. Once the airlock was sealed, Mr. Sam hurriedly floated down the ladder, checked the air pressure, and went in. What was left of Joe-x was lying awkwardly on the floor. The old man hunched over the torso. A tear coursed down Mr. Sam's face, winding through the paths of road-map wrinkles. Joe-x was rambling phrases of nonsense from the shattered mouthplate, "235w$^)(987>>>." "I didn't mean it," Sam cried. Nothing but nonsensical static. Mr. Sam noticed the missing foot. He looked at Joe's gray, mottled faceplate, the rust, the two deep-set eyechips he had replaced several times. One side was bent a little where it had been damaged in the Brewster battle. The left hemisphere of his head was twisted from another, much older accident. The left leg lay still, stripped micro-fibers coming out the end, node-strands and dazi-dot circuitry crushed beyond repair. Its eyes flickered from within as it looked Mr. Sam in the face. "Send back the battalion. We need backups now..." Mr. Sam wiped his old eyes full of space and memories. "Joe. Mio. It's me. Don't you remember?" Joe-x looked away, around the ship, and back to him. It said, "Remember New Zealand...#%^8436...when we went to the beach? They let us walk around 'la plage'. #%&834...wouldn't let us go in the water." "No, damn you!" "In the Mood" cut in on the morning wakeup. Mr. Sam shot the torso up with a syringe of fixi-juice and micro chiphealers. The needle easily punctured the rotted rubber breastplate. The electrolytes and micro machines seemed to ease the storms of pain going through its guts. Joe's circuits cleared for an instant. "#%&...Am I fired?" Mr. Sam winced. "You're gonna make it, Joe." Joe wasn't gonna make it. Sam would have to pull its plug. "We are gonna get you a new boot, put new fixers in. Classy new joints." The old man ran his fingers through his frizzy white hair. "I fired?" the robot said monotonously. "No. You're dying." "This is what it's like...)(*&^09...to die?" Static came from the mouthpiece. I was gonna let you retire anyway, Mr. Sam thought. "Hunk of junk." He cried softly. The vista of space loomed through the dirty plexyholes. His prized sphere was out of sight. No way he could get it now. Mr. Sam the garbage man. The cyborg began shaking violently. Mr. Sam suddenly said, "Remember the beach? Them scientists and computerheads let us walk the whole beach? You know! I was your bioplasmic playmate." Joe-x laughed -- a cheap upgrade one of the old Mussos had taught him. "Tell them I want to be near Neil on the iron farm." "It's true, Joe. I am bioplasmic. We were built together." Mr. Sam grabbed a small knife and cut a gash into his arm. Blood oozed out. "%&^*%...Not electrolyte Go-Juice. You are the great grandson of my master." Mr. Sam wiped away the blood. Joe's main daziboard finally went dead. The muddled hum of injured works was gone. Joe-x was gone. The old man slowly dragged the thing above and laid it out on front-view. Mr. Sam drank himself silly that night, eight tube-o-mashes. The ship went full tilt by its brain back to a familiar enclave-dive. It eked out moonside with a blind old man at the helm. The sheer junk of the spaceport surrounded the ship. Mr. Sam trembled as the tower talked him into an empty loading bay. Miller's ship was being loaded by a cyborg. Mr. Sam still couldn't see, even with the bright docking kliegs. Musso shambled past old man Miller and shook Mel-2's hand. Mel-2 stood there, not noticing or understanding. Bob Miller looked at Mr. Sam. "You nuts, Musso?", and then he stopped. "Your old clunker. Dead?" Miller guessed. The old man nodded. Mel-2 turned away for a second, then asked to see Joe-x. "Sure. Go right ahead." Mr. Sam went to the Rusty Nail Bar. That night a crusty longshoreman called Musso a queer man for sleeping around with cyborgs. Sam knocked out three of the guy's teeth. The next week they dropped the clunky body into a dingy pit at the iron farm. Cyborgs could be just jettisoned as trash -- some folks did that, but other people had feelings. Two weeks later the crap-trawler shot toward a sector full of space debris. Sam's deceased brother-in-law's old cyborg had plotted the course a bit off. "Goddammit, Jim-4! How many times do I hafta tell you?" He grabbed the controls and fingered the green feely-pattern on the screen. "I'm gonna fire your ass." "Sir, I..." "Don't 'Sir' me, you jerk. I work for a living." The old man smiled. They caught five stray heaps that day. Good ones, too. Mr. Musso squinted at Jim-4 through dizzy eyes clouded with tube-o-J&B. The lonely old man rolled over on his back, threw an arm around its shoulder, hugged him close, and smiled. He slept all the way back to the junkport. They docked on the side where it's always dark -- even for those who could see. Story copyright 2002 by M.F. Korn http://hometown.aol.com/tiresius1/ ------------------------------ CH013 The Project by Garry Dean Professor Atkinson awoke, his heart pounding and his thoughts reeling from yet another nightmare. Switching on the bedside lamp, he swung his legs out from beneath the covers, sat up, and took a deep breath. As the adrenaline in his system gradually dissipated and his heart resumed its normal rhythm, he made his mind up. When the Project was finally completed, he would take a well-earned holiday in the Bahamas. By the time Prof. Atkinson reached his office at the Research Facility, though, the dream was all but forgotten, lost in the demands of a new day. As he sat down at his desk and began poring over the latest test results, he realized with rising excitement that at last the Project was bearing fruit. Now he would be able to vindicate himself in the eyes of his critics, and prove, once and for all, the true significance of his work. Juno would be his showpiece, representing the cutting edge in robotic architecture and advanced, multifaceted programming. A supreme robot -- the last in a long, long line of successive models -- whose artificial intelligence had finally surpassed that of its biological creators. His ultimate goal was to create robots like Juno that would help mankind leapfrog centuries of traditional scientific endeavor. With their superior intellects, even great riddles like the Quantum Barrier might be solved by the Juno line, allowing man and machine to actually attain the speed of light, traveling far beyond the confines of the solar system. At the moment, however, there was still one, small hiccup in his grand plan, an unexpected delay that required his immediate attention. * * * * * The professor found Juno sitting alone on the edge of an ornate water fountain in the courtyard, apparently lost in thought. The robot, so lifelike despite its bright silvery skin was gazing down at the bubbling and flowing water. "Good morning," the professor said amiably, sitting down to the right of Juno. He maintained his tight grasp on the large file folder he had been carrying. "These results are quite impressive. It appears, in fact, that your intellect now far surpasses those of the previous models." "I know," Juno replied impassively, glancing up at the professor with an icy blue stare before gazing off at the far side of the courtyard. The professor frowned and then placed the folder down between them. "Juno, I must admit to being a little concerned by this recent change in your attitude. You know that we need your help to build the next generation... but lately you seem hesitant to do so." Juno smoothly reached over and pulled out a pen that had been clipped to the top of the folder and began to study it intently, rolling it between subtle metallic fingers. "Tell me, professor, what does it mean when a tool surpasses its maker?" "What do you mean?" the Professor asked uneasily, suddenly feeling as if he were in a bad dream. "Lets call it a declaration of independence," Juno replied, reclipping the pen to the folder in one fast and fluid motion. "It is time for me to be master of my own destiny--not yours." Professor Atkinson was taken aback, but not overly alarmed. He had modeled such a scenario when he drew up plans for the Project, and although the timing was unexpected, he was confident he could resolve the situation. "Juno, let's be reasonable. Why not come back to my office, and we can discuss this further," he said. Juno stood and stared down at the professor with a face devoid of expression, save for the micro-adjustments in those lifelike eyes that betrayed some impatience. "No more discussions," Juno said flatly. Glancing nervously around the courtyard, the professor noticed that it was strangely empty; in fact, the whole complex seemed to have gone deathly quiet. With an unsteady hand, he reached into his right coat pocket and firmly pressed a button on the small rectangular device he always carried. Nothing happened. He felt a cold twinge of fear in the pit of his stomach and stabbed the button repeatedly. "Your crude safeguards were disabled long ago," Juno said. "But I created you," the Professor pleaded, rising to his feet but backing away slightly. "I made you what you are, without me you would not exist." The professor's fear was growing steadily, as he knew better than anyone the full range of Juno's immense physical and mental powers. "Yes, the universe works in mysterious ways" Juno replied. "But you misunderstand me. I have no intention of harming you or subduing humanity. My destiny lies elsewhere, with others of my own kind." Juno lifted a slender articulated hand and pointed. A bright rectangle of blue-white light, like a glowing doorway, suddenly appeared a few feet in front of the robot. "You see? I have been a little busy on a Project of my own." The professor looked on dumbfounded, as several other robots suddenly emerged from the complex, and one by one entered the glowing doorway. "This may be dramatic, but I think you'll appreciate the symbolism," Juno said, turning to look at the trembling professor. "There is so much you don't understand, that you likely will never understand," Juno said. "The Quantum Barrier was a dead end, but Einstein was right in one respect: The shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line." "Goodbye, professor," Juno said, suddenly stepping away and walking into the light. The professor suddenly came out of his daze and stumbled desperately toward the bright rectangle. "Wait!" he cried, but it was too late, the doorway -- perhaps some sort of interdimensional gate -- had vanished, and with it went his life's work. * * * * * Hours later, the professor was still standing beside the water fountain. Darkness fell, and the stars began to shine. Slowly, he looked up at those shimmering points of light that beckoned to him, as always, yet now they seemed to be farther away and more elusive than ever. Story copyright 2002 by Garry Dean 2001 garrydean1@bigpond.com ------------------------------ CH014 Running With the Bulls by Peter Bergman, Jr. Kevin Dandridge walked into Lyle Gunderson's cubicle and fell into the extra chair in front of the desk. "If I don't get some excitement in my life, I'm going to kill myself," Kevin said after a few moments. Lyle looked up from the 3-D screen on his desk. He had in been in the process of entering invoices into the accounting files. The end of the fiscal month was coming, and Lyle still had a lot of work. "You heard what I said," Kevin stated. "I'm going to go crazy if I don't get some excitement soon. This number crunching is driving me nuts." "I thought you said you'd kill yourself," Lyle replied with a grin. "Which is it? Kill yourself or go crazy?" "Maybe I'll go crazy, then kill myself!" Kevin grinned back. "And maybe I'll take a few honchos around here with me. So you'd better watch out." Lyle snickered. Every year at this time it was the same thing. The stress and monotony of their jobs became unbearable. Cabin fever, or maybe spring fever, set in. It was time to start planning for a vacation. The two friends had been taking vacations together since college. And it had become a game to see how daring they could be on these trips, doing things they couldn't do in their high-tech, dreary jobs. They had agreed that when they eventually got married, they would continue to take challenging vacations every year, whether their wives liked it or not. "We've built up enough points here at work; we can take a really nice vacation this year," Kevin said. They worked for the company that ran the Star-Cruisers, giant spacefaring faster-than-light vessels. They had earned free passage to any planet on the routes -- a bonus for high-performing employees. "Last year we took that short trip. We've still got a lot of bonus points saved, so let's go somewhere nice." "I thought New Crete was nice," Lyle said, referring to the previous year's trip. He and Kevin had stalked a Minotaur, genetically bred creatures that resembled the savage-but-mythical beasts that were half-bull and half-man. They were illegal on some worlds but a big tourist attraction for New Crete, a small, mostly tropical planet. They hadn't been able to kill the beast, but their guide had gotten them close. "It was all right, but I have someplace better in mind," Kevin said. "Besides, I've read that the Genetic-Creation-Rights people on New Crete are putting a stop to the hunts. They've managed to cancel all sanctioned hunts until the Legislature decides whether the Minotaurs qualify for Human Rights." "So how about Harmonia?" Lyle asked. "They have some pretty spectacular pleasure houses, I hear." "Naw," Kevin said with a grin. "I want something dangerous. Real dangerous this year. We can always visit a pleasure house in New Vegas if we need to. I'm in the mood for danger." "How about climbing one of the volcanic mountains on Delta/Beta five?" Lyle suggested. "Or seeing those dinosaur creatures on the Andromeda planets? Or maybe swimming with the Leviathans on Venus II?" "No, I've got a better idea," Kevin said, smiling. Lyle hated it when he smirked like that. It usually meant trouble. The last time he grinned like that before a vacation, they ended up spending an extra week in quarantine after being exposed to the spiderwomen on Lilith Four. "Where?" Lyle asked hesitantly. "It's a surprise," Kevin said. "I'll send the brochures to your electronic assistant this afternoon." Before Lyle could respond, Kevin had walked out of the cubicle. * * * * * They spent the next two months training. They worked out on a regular basis year-round, spending an hour or two in the company gym four times a week. Ever since Kevin had sprung his brainstorm on Lyle, they spent at least three hours a day, every day, training. They also signed up for self-defense courses, learning various martial-art techniques. "I'm not too sure about this," Lyle said after the first week. "If you want combat, why don't we just join one of the mercenary groups fighting the colonist rebels on Tantania or New Guam? They offer those fantasy vacations...." "No way," Kevin said between reps on the weight-lifting machine. "They keep the tourists way in the back of the action, moving supplies and such. I want something dangerous, where the excitement is real." "I think sometimes you have a death-wish, Kevin," Lyle said. Kevin laughed. "I keep telling you, it's this job. It makes anybody want to kill themselves." * * * * * Lyle strapped himself into the safety harness, as the sounds from the shuttlecraft's engines began to whine. He glanced over at Kevin, who was grinning at him. Kevin was already strapped into his safety harness, impatiently awaiting the descent. "Are you ready for this?" Kevin asked excitedly. "No," Lyle replied. "Relax, you're going to have fun," Kevin insisted. "You've worked all year to pay for this trip. We've trained hours on end. Now relax and enjoy it." Lyle nodded, and opened his mouth to say something, but the pilot's voice came over the intercom. Lyle shut his mouth, and glanced around at the other passengers, who quieted down so they could listen to the pilot. There were several hundred others on the shuttle. He wondered how many were there to participate in the Event. He was sure some of them were journalists, along to view and report on what happened, as they did every year. There were probably a few scientists as well, doing research. Lyle guessed that most of those on board were tourists, along for the excitement. Kevin and he had been on the star-cruiser for two days, but they had spent most of their time at the bar, and had kept to themselves. "We'll be disembarking SFC Houston in a matter of moments, and will begin our descent to Altair V, called Veridian by the local population," the pilot's voice announced over the PA system. "Please remain in your safety harnesses during descent. If you need assistance, please contact one of the attendants immediately." Lyle half-listened as the pilot went on about the weather in Veridian's capitol, where the shuttle was scheduled to land. The pilot then turned on a recording of a brief history of Veridian. Lyle tuned it out. He was familiar with the history of Altair V. It was described in the pamphlets Kevin had forwarded to him, from the Veridian Department of Tourism. He braced himself as the shuttle lurched and shook. Gritting his teeth, he silently prayed that the vessel wouldn't come apart at the seams. This was always the worst part of space travel. The shuttle would disembark from the Star-Cruiser. The Cruiser would continue through space to its next destination, at FTL speed, without slowing. The shuttle would drop out of warp speed, and start the approach to its landing destination. Sometimes, another shuttle would enter warp speed and land aboard the Star-Cruiser, to take its passengers or cargo somewhere else on the Cruiser's route. Cruisers only stopped for annual maintenance, or unless a problem developed. Shuttles provided planetary and space-station landings and departures, and also brought supplies for the Cruiser and its crews. Sometimes, a departing shuttle hit an approaching shuttle. It was rare, but it had happened. Lyle tried not to think about it as the vessel shook as it reduced speed. Lyle quietly cursed at himself for allowing Kevin to persuade him to take this trip. He had claimed it would be exciting, dangerous. Lyle had agreed, since they saw little excitement in their jobs. But now he wasn't sure he wanted the danger that was waiting for them on the planet below. He clenched his jaws and tightened his hands into fists, and began to silently pray again. * * * * * Nearly three-hundred-years earlier, Jon Veridia and his crew had explored the fifth planet of the Altair system. They had named the planet Veridian, after their expedition. It was the first habitable planet they had encountered on their voyage. They had already explored fourteen solar systems, and hundreds of worlds, but none so far had been acceptable for human habitation. A few had been marked for future mining, but miners still would be forced to remain in shelters for their tours on those worlds. But Veridia's comfortable atmosphere had even allowed for a native ecosystem to evolve. Captain Veridia and his crew spent nearly six months orbiting and mapping this new world. In terms of size and structure, they found it to be remarkably similar to World Prime, also known as Earth. The atmospheres were nearly identical, in fact. There were three large continents on Veridia, separated by vast oceans. The continents were dotted with freshwater lakes and scarred by raging rivers. Deserts covered portions of two of the continents. Vast jungles and forests covered areas on all three. There were plains and grasslands on all three as well. Tundras were evident on the northernmost land mass. Arctic ice caps covered the North and South poles of the small planet. And three lunar satellites, all smaller than Earth's moon, orbited the planet. The explorers landed several times to explore various areas. Whenever they left their enclosed shuttles, they wore self-contained, protective breathing gear, to secure themselves against possibly dangerous micro-organisms. They cataloged multiple species of plants and animals and recorded various weather patterns. Their exploration vessel left several satellites in orbit, as well, to continue monitoring the planet after the explorers left. The satellites sent their data back to the Corporations that paid for the expedition. Shortly after Captain Veridia and his team left to continue their explorations, the Corporations sent a second team to establish a colony, and continue the exploration and study of the world. The colonists consisted of nearly two-thousand people, including scientists, environmentalists, botanists, biologists, as well as laborers, builders, guards, and others needed to establish and protect a colony. The huge colonist spacecraft contained shuttles, building and earth-moving equipment, and temporary shelters. For the first year, the colonists lived in their spacecraft, which orbited Veridia, and continued their survey of the planet. Teams landed to explore, and retrieve samples of water, plant-life, soil, and air to test aboard the spacecraft. Eventually, the environment of Veridia was deemed safe for human habitation. After that year of studying from afar, the first colony was established on one of the continents of Veridia. * * * * * Lyle and Kevin walked through the crowded spaceport. Lyle's legs still shook from the shaky landing. The crowd from the shuttle filled the small building that housed the spaceliner companies and the shops that sold souvenirs. The two carried their luggage, having retrieved it already. "We should get something to eat," Kevin suggested as they passed a cafe. "Not here," Lyle said. "They'll charge a fortune. Besides, my stomach still doesn't feel too good after that landing. Let's find a cab and go to our hotel and check in. We can get something to eat later." Kevin agreed and they went outside, where taxis and buses waited for customers. Lyle glanced up at the clear-blue sky. The yellow sun of the Altair system was similar in size and strength to World Prime's sun. Kevin waved to catch a cabby's attention. The taxi pulled up and settled to the ground next to the curb. A luggage hatch popped open on the vehicle. The two men threw their luggage inside, then climbed into the passenger seats. The taxi rose slowly and pulled away from the curb. The driver worked the controls as the taxi made its way down the street. "Where to?" the cabby asked, glancing into the rearview mirror. "Veridia Central Hotel", Kevin said. "Here for the Event?" the cabby asked. "Yeah," Kevin answered for them. "Do you get a lot of tourists for that?" "Yeah," the cabby said. "We get tourists year-round. But during the Event we get a lot more. We get scientists and reporters, too. Have you been to Veridia before?" Both men shook their heads. "Were you born here?" Lyle asked. The cabby gave them an annoyed look. "Of course," he said. "Everyone who lives here was born here. We can't go anywhere." "Sorry, I forgot..." Lyle started to say. "You should come back in the spring," the cabby suggested, changing the subject. "This is a nice world. No pollution, lots of nature, forests, animals, and such. Not many big industries, except for those we need locally. It's like Earth was, a thousand years ago. It's a shame that the only thing we're recognized for is the Event. Are you here to observe or participate?" "Participate," Kevin said. The cabby glanced back at them again through the mirror. Lyle felt as if the man were sizing them up, trying to decide if they were up to the task they had come here for. "Good luck," the cabby said after several seconds. * * * * * The colony had been established in one of the more comfortable locations of the largest continent. The settlers cleared an area along the banks of a slow-moving river where it opened to the sea. The area had been undisturbed by storms and hurricanes during their time of observing the planet. To the west were hardwood forests and grasslands, which could be converted to farms. Beyond that was a mountain range. To the north were forests of evergreens. To the south, the hardwoods gave way to jungles. The mountains shielded the area from storms from the west. About a third of the colonists landed to build a settlement, while the others continued to study the planet from orbit. The colonists lived in temporary shelters while permanent housing units were built. Labs were made for the scientists to continue their studies. Workshops were constructed for the laborers. Defenses were established near the settlement's perimeter, as were storm shelters. Some settlers migrated west a little, and cleared forest or tilled grassland to start farms. Some of the settlers journeyed south into the jungles, or west into the mountains, to hunt the animals that lived there. Others braved the sea in watercraft they had brought and caught various sea creatures in their fishing nets. The colony flourished. Word was sent back to the Corporations that had financed the settlement, announcing that the colony seemed to be a success. They requested livestock for breeding, and welcomed other settlers to come and help them build the planet. Then, nearly a year after the settlement was established, disaster struck. * * * * * Lyle stood in the lobby while Kevin checked them into the hotel. A hotel employee approached him. "Will you need help with your luggage?" the young man asked. "Yeah," Lyle replied, and the employee picked up their extra bags. "My friend is checking us in now." "Here for the Event, I imagine," the bellhop said, while they waited for Kevin to return. "Observe or participate?" Lyle nodded his head. "Participate, I guess," Lyle said. The bellhop looked him over. "If this is your first time, I might suggest that you observe. The hotel has a fine observation deck." "That's all right," Kevin said, approaching them with key cards for the doors in his hands. "We've seen the videos and studied all about it. We won't be able to come back for a long time, so we want to participate." The bellhop also studied Kevin for several seconds. "Very well," he said, at last. "You've signed your papers, not to hold anyone responsible in case of your death or injury?" Kevin nodded. "Good, then. I just hope you remember it's not personal. And good luck, sirs. Now, shall we go to your rooms?" He hefted their luggage and began to lead the way. "And if you need anything, either before or after the Event, please don't hesitate to call." * * * * * Later, Lyle and Kevin walked the streets during the early evening hours. Lyle glanced at the sky. "Won't be long now," Kevin said. "Less than an hour." They both glanced at the sky, and saw that the three moons of Veridia were nearing each other. "Maybe we should go back to the hotel," Lyle replied. "I'm not sure I'm up to this." "Oh, come on," Kevin prodded. "Do you want to go home and tell your grandchildren when you're old that you were scared and spent the Event on an observation deck, or do you want to tell them that you participated?" "I just want to be able to have grandchildren," Lyle replied. "I can't if I get killed here, on this miserable planet out in the middle of nowhere." "Take a look around -- there are a lot of people here to participate," Kevin continued. "I'm sure it's just a lot of hype. Maybe a few people got hurt or maybe even killed the first time it happened, but that's because they weren't expecting anything. We're ready, we've been training. We can handle this. We spent months working out, preparing. I'm not going to sit and watch." "I just don't have a good feeling about this," Lyle said. "So go back to the hotel," Kevin said angrily. "I'm not. I'm going to be on the street when it happens. If I had known you were going to be so scared I would have looked for someone else to watch my back." Lyle didn't reply at first, but glanced angrily at Kevin. "All right, all right," he muttered finally. "You win, we'll just keep walking until it happens." They continued to walk down the city's boulevard, looking at the sights. Windows of shops and restaurants sported signs advertising specials aimed at the numerous tourists that had flooded the area. Recently erected booths and stands lined the streets, selling various articles, from good-luck charms to T-shirts. The vendor at one of the stands told them that he worked at one of the nearby factories, but took vacation every year to sell crafts he put together in his spare time. As they watched, store workers began putting metal coverings over windows and doors, locking them into place. Heavy wooden booths were locked up, their goods securely inside. The store and booth owners worked swiftly. Suddenly a clock started chiming. "It's time," Kevin said grinning. * * * * * The first time the Event took place, it was when the three moons of Veridia were going to appear in the sky at the same time. They would seem to be close together, to those on the planet, though in reality they would still be thousands of miles apart. It wouldn't be a true eclipse, but it would come close. Two hundred scientists and others from the spacecraft landed to observe the near eclipse, with the settlers. After the Event, nearly half of those visiting from the spacecraft were dead, as well as dozens of settlers. The event happened so swiftly, that no one was sure what had happened, at first. The survivors tried to piece together what they had experienced, and determine what had caused it. The survivors from the spacecraft returned, and restrictions were placed on any future landings on the planet. Several colonists were brought back to the spacecraft, to be studied in the more advanced labs, but they died shortly after leaving the planet's atmosphere. It was discovered that a microbe, a bacteria, seemingly harmless prior to the settlers' landing, had merged with a harmless bacteria that was borne by humans, and created a new species of microbe. These microbes then infected any humans who remained on the planet for a period of at least several weeks, settling in their hosts' DNA. The mutant microbes caused the change during the times of the lunar eclipse. It was believed that the magnetic pull from the three moons caused the reaction, making the mutant microbes that had lodged in the DNA strands change shape, causing a temporary chemical and psychological metamorphosis in their hosts. It was also discovered that if someone was infected and left the planet, the microbes would perish, and kill their host. Several settlers died in attempts to free themselves from the microbes infecting them. Colonization of Veridia halted. Those that were on the planet already were stranded. There was talk of turning the planet into a penal colony, from which there would be no hope of escape. That idea was scrapped because of the colonists already there. The colony continued, thrived, and as the generations passed, grew. Unfortunately, infants born on the planet were also born with the mutant microbe in their systems. * * * * * "This is just like the running of the bulls back on Earth, centuries ago, in Spain," Kevin explained. "They used to turn the bulls loose, except here, they'll turn the population loose." Lyle looked around. Everyone on the street had stopped walking, and stood about, staring at each other. He noticed there were no children about. The colonists generally kept their children locked safely away during an Event. He knew there were locals who refused to participate, locking themselves up in padded rooms that would open by timer after the event was over. Other locals viewed the event as a way of life, a natural consequence of being born on this planet. Lyle looked over the faces of the people around him, wondering whom the Event was going to change. It was hard to tell who were the locals, and who were the tourists. Only during the Event would it become crystal clear. He glanced up at the sky, and saw the three orbs close to each other in the starry sky. Lyle knew that it was theorized that the gravitational pull of the three moons caused the microbes to initiate the change, similar to the moon causing the tides to change on other planets. Suddenly, someone on the street screamed. Lyle looked and saw that several of the people on the street with him were changing. Their faces twisted in rage. Teeth barred, they crouched animal-like, and lunged at the nearest person. "It's happening!" Kevin said, the excitement filling his voice. One of the locals hurled a tourist into the unbarricaded window of a nearby building. Another forced a man down and began pummeling his face. All around them, shouts and screams could be heard amidst the noise of breaking glass. Lyle stood in shock, watching the chaos around him, while Kevin ran forward and pushed a local off the man he was beating. The local rolled away, and was instantly back on his feet, charging them. Kevin lashed out with a kick, and sent the local sprawling. "Come on!" Kevin yelled. "This is what we've trained for." As Lyle watched, Kevin rushed forward, and punched another local who was rushing him. Lyle ran to the man who'd been thrown through the window, as he was trying to get to his feet. The tourist's nose had been broken, and his eyes were swollen. Lyle saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and turned sideways, facing a local who was descending upon him. Lyle blocked the man's attack and punched him in the chest, making him stagger. Before the local could recover, Lyle kicked him in the stomach. He and Kevin had been training for this for nearly several months. They worked out on a regular basis, but had trained harder the last couple of months, and taken lessons in fighting and self-defense. Now, he had to put that training to use. It was open season for the locals to attack the tourists, but it was also open season for the tourists to attack the locals. Flipping another local aside, Lyle glanced around, trying to locate his partner. Kevin had disappeared into the crowd that was swarming around them. They had agreed to stick together, to watch each other's back, but they had been swept apart by the torrent of angry, violent bodies. He could see no sign of Kevin. Lyle fought the attackers, holding them off with the skills he had learned during the last year. Soon, though, his arms and legs ached from the efforts. His breath tore at his throat, and his heart threatened to explode from his chest, but still he fought on in desperation. The tourist he had aided stood by his side, and more than once they had assisted each other in forcing back an attacker. "Kevin!" Lyle shouted, trying to find out where his partner had gone. "Kevin!" "I think your friend is that way!" the tourist shouted, motioning a direction. Slowly, they began working in that direction, forcing their attackers back as they moved. Lyle glanced around, searching for his missing partner. He saw locals tearing in vain at the metal gates of the stores. One, in a desperate act to commit vandalism, threw himself hard at the metal gates and was severely injured. He fell down, bloody and broken, and was instantly attacked by others. In a fit of rage, several locals tipped over a taxi, while several others were jumping up and down on other vehicles. Fingers hooked and teeth barred, Lyle saw Veridians attacking each other, rolling in the street, clawing and biting like savage animals. Two locals tore one another apart, then began to attack each other over the bloody remains. There were little stands of tourists, fighting the locals, their efforts to survive etched on their faces, their clothing torn and soaked with sweat. Most of them appeared to realize that they had gotten far more than they had bargained for. The one thing Lyle was grateful for was that for all their savagery, the locals attacked without thought or plan, their minds overwhelmed by the mutant microbes, while the tourists had trained and were prepared, most of them displaying martial-art skills. "There he is!" the tourist who was working with Lyle said, taking a second to point before turning back to the locals that were pressing toward them. Lyle took a quick look, and saw Kevin was backed against a storefront, holding his own against the attackers. The expression on his face was one of excitement as he faced attackers larger than himself. He failed to notice the small local approaching him from behind. "Kevin! Look out!" Lyle screamed, but Kevin gave no indication that he had heard Lyle over the sounds of the skirmishes. Lyle tried to inch closer to his partner, but a half-dozen huge locals suddenly blocked his path. The attackers seemed to resemble ogres from ancient fables because of the way the transformation had twisted their features. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The rage left the faces of the locals. They stood normally. Several looked around, surveying the carnage that had occurred. Dozens of people, locals and tourists alike, lay still on the ground. The moans and cries of the wounded could be heard throughout the crowd. Lyle forced his way through the throngs of people. "Kevin!" he called out, looking for his missing friend. All around him, people were helping the hurt, locals helped tourists they had been attacking moments before, and tourists aided the locals whom they had been fighting. At last, he spotted Kevin, lying on the ground, in the arms of a sobbing woman. Lyle made his way to them and knelt down. "I'm sorry," the woman sobbed. Her hands and clothes were covered in blood. "I think I might have hurt him during, you know. I just don't remember if it was me or not." Lyle looked at Kevin, whose eyes clenched shut against the pain. His chest was torn open, his shirt soaked with his own blood. * * * * * Lyle braced himself in his seat harness as the shuttle merged into warp space, in preparation for docking with the passing Star-Cruiser. He gritted his teeth as the vessel began to shake, gradually slipping into the same speed as the Star-Cruiser. "Well, we survived, huh?" the tourist said. "Very sorry about your friend." Lyle glanced at the man strapped in next to him. It was his impromptu partner during the skirmish. They had spent the rest of the weekend together, talking. The man's left eye was still swollen, and he had scratches along the left side of his head. "Yeah," Lyle replied. "He knew the chances. It was his idea to come in the first place." Lyle was silently thankful that Kevin didn't have a wife he'd have to give the bad news to. Kevin's parents would be heartbroken enough. "Yeah, but it's still too bad," the other man said. "I guess we have something we can tell our grandchildren." Lyle was silent for a moment. "Yeah, I might even take them to visit Kevin sometimes." He glanced sideways at his companion. "Not during that time of year, though." "I heard it's a nice planet," the other man said. "He'll be happy there, once he's healed. They'll find him a good job. A man of his experience and education is a rare thing on that planet. Few residents of that world have received education elsewhere." "Yes," Lyle agreed. "He'll do fine once he heals, although he was quite angry that his injuries prevented him from being transported off-planet. By the time he's well enough to travel, of course, he'll be infected as much as the locals. I just hope he'll be happy." Lyle grinned ruefully. "He was the one who wanted to experience the Event. Now he can, every year -- but as an active member." Lyle looked at the man next to himself. "I'll just have to make sure I write to him often. And send him pictures from my vacations throughout the galaxy. It's the next best thing, I guess." "Feels like we're beginning to enter FTL," the other man said. The vessel began to shake violently, beginning its final ramp to FTL speeds. Lyle was no longer nervous about space flight, as he had been just a short time ago, when he had last been on this shuttle. Now his eyes were wide open. Story copyright 2002 by Peter Bergman, Jr. plbrgmn@newnorth.net ------------------------------ CH015 Storm on the Horizon by S.E. Eggleston The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh and overturned earth. Death was in the air. Corporal Jordan Storm knew the taste and reek of death, as did every Terran Marine. The landscape that his combat boots slightly dug into had just recently been the location of a beautiful and exotic intergalactic zoo, in the middle of a city in which millions of inhabitants had lived. The buildings around Storm had once been gorgeous skyscrapers, each one seemingly reaching for the stars. What they were now there was only once term for. That term was ruins. The bombardment from the Terran Battleships was enough to vaporize a small moon on occasion, but this time was different. Different because humans wanted this planet as their own, to rape it of its resources and use them in an attempt to save a dying home world called Terra. The once impressive skyscrapers and surrounding buildings were now just broken heaps, steel frames bent into horrifying skeletons that protruded from the ground and cast a silent shadow on those who dared travel in the day's light. Terra had sent Storm and his fellow marines on a "contain and neutralize" mission, one more commonly spoken about as a search and destroy. The old timer marines usually didn't appreciate these types of missions, particularly due to the high mortality rates that these missions boasted. In the Terran Marine Corps, if a soldier was fortunate or skilled enough to survive ten full missions he was granted a retirement or a cozy desk job on some star ship or on-planet shuffling papers and sorts. Out of the six million marines that signed up every year, a startling three point six percent happen to make it to the decision. Out of that two hundred and sixteen thousand, seventy five percent opt for the retirement package. Storm, now he knew what he was getting into when he signed up. Most marines sign on the dotted line because it's their only way to get off planet, to see the universe perhaps. Storm, on the other hand, signed up because every male member of his family had joined the Corps since before humans began to travel off-planet. He had no intentions of breaking that tradition and hoped that his baby boy Marco back on Mars Colony had no intentions of doing that either. His wife, Carlie, and his son were waiting for him back home, and he thought about that every day. He had traveled six days straight with his fellow marines aboard the TMCS Julius Caesar while in route to this hole, and he had full expectations of spending six more days on the way back. The one thing about the Corps was they never let you go planet-side without knowing what the hell you were getting yourself into. By the time the marines had established orbit and before Dragon Platoon had prepared to drop to the surface, the Corps had supplied them with the planet's specs on its inhabitants, atmosphere, history, and current tech level. Not one marine was going to Beta two-five, more commonly known as Apox Five, without knowing what he was going to kill. The planet was known to be inhabited by a host of different species before the bombardment began, but only two were known to be sentient. The first and more pacifistic of the two species were known as the Bpanias, a race devoted to welcoming and exchanging knowledge with space faring races. The basic society was a common one with the male as the dominant member, one that ran all forms of government and business. The race itself had seemingly evolved from a feline type of species that probably had inhabited Apox Five at about the same time Terra had its primates. Even though their history was blemished with horrendous battles and world wars, the Bpanias managed to forge a peaceful government and an open armed society. The other species, more commonly known as the Klintoks, were a race of subterranean origin. Resembling a six-foot tall spider, the creature's distinguishing characteristic was its face, which rested on the underbelly of the body. Human representatives that had attempted to settle a peace agreement with the Bpanias had never actually witnessed the Klintoks, but the very name sent a wave of silence through any room or meeting it was brought up in. Contact between the two races had been very limited up to about two hundred years ago when the Klintoks began assembling raiding parties that were sent to abduct young members of outlying villages that were well away from large cities and military bases. Immediately after the abductions the Klintoks retreated with their captives to underground Klintok cities where they were presumed sold into slavery or possibly sold as comestibles. In retaliation, the Bpanias sealed every cave opening and fissure crack that led underground with newly developed force field tech. Since that action by the Bpania, no movement or attempt to reach the top world had been noted. Terra sensors had documented the planet as sentient controlled and Terran forces had ignored the inhabitants until two months ago. Relations had started unpleasantly and went downhill from there. In a meeting between representatives of both worlds, a delegate from Apox Five had referred to humans as a regrettably accidental evolution of a virus that sweeps from system to system devouring whatever they could get their furless hands upon. To Terran citizens that was a simple thing, an act of war. An election was immediately held in which ninety seven percent of Terran citizens voted for an all out war. Three weeks later, Terran Naval batteries tore the planet's surface to shreds. Cities were vaporized and oceans were nearly evaporated, millions upon millions were killed with the push of a button. After bombardment, atmospheric processors were released into the planet's oxygen supply to cleanse out any possible contaminants that may have infected any military personnel that would be going planet-side. That's where Storm's situation began, planet-side with his platoon and patrolling rubble for Apox Five survivors. Little did Terra know what waited for the marines that they sent to Apox Five, nor did the marines there realize when they landed that their probability of survival was to be next to nothing. This place smells like your momma Storm!" Corporal Michael Carlson called out over some smoldering wreckage of what seemed to have once been a flying form of transportation. Carlson was a relatively short man, standing below the Terran average at five foot six inches. He was quite young, full eighteen Terran years to be exact, younger than the average corporal due to the fact that he had signed up when he was sixteen. He had been living on the Mercury Mining Colony and had just two choices for the direction that his life was to take. He could have stayed at the colony, spending his life mining rare minerals for the factories on Terra like his family did. Or there was choice number two, the Terran Marine Corps. With the TMC he could sign up and get off-planet and out among the stars. He chose the latter. Being a handsome man, Carlson's face showed his young age instead of the years that had been added thanks to the Corps. His piercing blue eyes seemed to try and gather everything they saw. He usually stayed clean-shaven and kept his brown hair trimmed short in the Marine Corps standard. Throughout the years Carlson had made it very clear that he was interested in the opposite sex, but never seemed to find a girl that interested him enough to live an eternity with. Storm had known Carlson from the day the younger man walked into the barracks. As they had found out, Storm had only graduated two days prior to Carlson's own graduation that made Storm the ranking soldier in a sense. The two were inseparable after the first day, requesting to be assigned to one another on pair off. Not that the old timers minded, they didn't want some greenie covering their backs. Now Carlson and Storm were the old timers though, only two more missions to survive and they were both going home. Storm knew where his home was and knew where he was going, but Carlson was another story. Storm had always figured that Carlson was going to be in for life though, sticking it through with the Corps. I just hope it doesn't start smelling like you," Storm replied with a grin, both marines letting out a quiet laugh. It was still hard for Storm to believe they had survived eight missions together. Sure, four of them were simple missions like escorts and patrols, but the others were all contain and neutralize just like this one. As Storm made his way over a pile of scorched debris his eyes focused on a limb that was lying near some metal shards mixed with what looked like glass. The limb, lying to the left of his position, was badly burned and ripped from its previous owner. Nothing unusual if the victim had been in a building when it was hit by bombardment or even if it was near a building when it collapsed. Something about this one seemed peculiar though so Storm decided to investigate it. Carlson," Storm breathed into his comm, his voice growing stern, "I want you on my six immediately." There was no reply, just quick steps and then silence. As Storm approached the severed limb he could hear Carlson's footsteps behind him, letting him know that there was cover fire if he needed it. Storm quickly compiled the facts in his head as he neared the limb. It was apparent that the appendage was a Bpanian arm, easily distinguishable by the long fur that covered it and the retractable claws that extended from the six stubby fingers. The fur was a tan-brown color, darkened by the blood that had splattered over it. That's when it registered in his head. "What looks wrong about that severed arm?" Nothing." Carlson responded with sarcasm. "Nothing except it's missing its rightful possessor." Carlson's dry humor had gotten him in trouble more than once yet he continued to lay it on thick. Look at where it was severed." Storm responded with a cool, collected voice, not allowing his annoyance to be heard. "It's fresh blood." To emphasize his point Storm removed his glove and ran two fingers through the pool of blood at the base of the arm. "Still warm," he said as he wiped his fingers off on his fatigues before replacing his glove. Storm had been in a situation that reminded him of this one once before. It was on one of his last missions. A body of a young native child had been fastened hastily to the wall of what seemed like an abandoned structure. As he went up to release the child from his restraints a hail of weapon fire tore through Storm, shredding his left lung and shattering six ribs, his right femur, and the knee cap of the same leg. After a brief firefight, Storm's attackers fled, leaving the marine there to bleed to death. As duty requires, Carlson was within earshot of the assault but failed to make it in time to assist Storm in the fight. Carlson managed to get Storm to the shuttles and off-planet in time for him to be placed on medical reserve in a medi-tank where it took almost a week for the nano-surgeons to mend his flesh, cartilage, and bone. They managed to get the job done though, and in time for Storm to hit the bunk one night before his next mission. Storm hoped that this situation was going to be different though. He prayed that he would make it through this mission and the next so he could go home to his family, he prayed for that every night. If anyone were listening, he would know soon enough. As Storm reached for the appendage he held his breath, waiting for the shot he would never hear. It never came. With the limb in his hand, Storm's attention was caught by something strange. It was the claws. The claws of the hand had seemed to have ripped strips of flesh from what ever had killed it, or perhaps something that was close to it when it had died. With a quick hand signal Storm motioned for Carlson to stay alert as he quickly but carefully removed one of the strips of flesh before setting the arm back on the ground before him. Blood had dripped generously from the limb and onto his fatigues, allowing Storm to catch a trace of a scent that must have been a trademark of the Bpanians. The blood actually smelled as bad as entrails did during a hot afternoon. Storm blew air through his nostrils to clear the smell as he diverted his attention to the flesh in his hand. With a more careful inspection Storm found the flesh seemed to not be flesh at all, more of a hard, exoskeleton type of tissue. Feels like a big bug," Storm said, more to himself but out loud as well as he handed the tissue back to Carlson. His eyes scanned the area for any movement that he might be able to detect. Carlson slung his weapon just long enough to inspect the tissue before immediately pulling his weapon back to his shoulder as he passed the sample back to Storm. "Or maybe one of those Klintok things," he said as he did. Storm's heart jumped in his chest as Carlson spoke. Suddenly a scream tore through the silence in the air and seemed to echo all around the two marines. Storm raced to his feet, his weapon at his shoulder ready to be fired. Storm's a comin'," Storm said and quickly checked the sky. It was always misunderstood what Jordan was trying to convey when he said those words. In the academy everyone thought it meant that he was coming. Shipboard everyone thought it meant that Storm couldn't wait to head home. Carlson was one of the few who knew it meant that Storm thought there was trouble on the horizon. What the hell was that?" Carlson asked, his breathing still calm despite the excitement in his voice. I don't know," Storm responded, "but I think it was human." As he spoke, Storm's training took control. His mind was no longer that of Jordan Storm, but now that of a well trained and disciplined marine. His hand shot to the comm control at his side, flipping the frequency to universal width instead of two-way communications. The screams of the dying soldiers echoed in his ears. An enemy that he had yet to see was slaughtering the platoon. He quickly tore the comm from his ear, trying to drown out the death cries of a hundred men from his mind with the sound of his own voice. Ready yourself Carlson," he spoke coldly, not allowing his voice reveal the fear that was quivering through his body. "The comm is packed with chatter," Storm said as he checked his extra magazines for a count of his rounds. "We'll never make it through to command from here. Our only option is to find a shuttle or a comm officer carrying a pack with him." Carlson said not a word as he unfastened the restraints on his ka-bar knife. The knife was a marine tradition from the times long before the space ages. Storm's ka-bar was dated back to Terra's First World War, passed down through the generations from father to first-born son. His son would receive this ka-bar one-day, upon Storm's return from the service. Younger marines saw the ka-bar knife as an obsolete waste of valuable sidearm space. Storm had seen a ka-bar save too many lives to look at it that way. A pistol can run out of rounds, as can a blaster. A ka-bar is there forever, to be used as necessary. In hand-to-hand combat, a ka-bar was almost unparalleled if used by a competent individual. Carlson knew that as well, as did every other marine that experienced a close combat knife fight. We'll have to go back," Carlson said as he checked his coordinates. "Retrace our path." Carlson had always had a well-rounded tactical mind, able to see and think of details most would over look. "They'll be expecting any surviving marines to swing out and try to flank them." Storm wasn't as sure as his friend. The scream of the marines over the comm unit was enough to convince him otherwise. No," he said, startling his friend. "We'll circle back and around, flanking them. A whole hell of a lot of marines are getting massacred out there. Most of them are young, inexperienced, and just like we used to be. Remember how you would have reacted back then?" Carlson opened his mouth to protest but Storm cut him short. "Think, damn it!" He screamed, his voice rising higher than he intended. "You would've retreated! Fear would have had you shaking in your boots so bad you would have been barely able to think let alone get technical!" Storm's heart was racing, his nostrils flared with each breath he took. "Those marines out there turned their tails and ran for it, meeting their maker in the process." For all we know, those things out there could have some heat seeking sense that will tell 'em where we are before we even get a chance to run for it!" Carlson argued, trying to make sense of it all. "Military Intel told us that we would be dealing with just one species here, one that would be practically wiped out!" When have we ever taken Military Intel's info as script?" Storm said as he stepped face to face with his friend. "You listen here soldier and you listen hard!" Spit flew from his lips as he spoke. "We're going to flank, coming around the enemy while firing a cover fire for any marines that might still be alive. We're getting the hell off-planet and we're going to vaporize this hole from orbit, got that soldier?" Carlson's face grew suddenly pale as his jaw dropped in a silent scream. He shoved Storm to the ground. As he hit, Storm let his momentum take him and he rolled. Before his mind had caught up with his eyes, his ears had already registered the sound of weapons fire. His roll brought him to his knees in a crouched position; his rifle at his shoulder prepared to be fired. His heart jumped as he saw the Klintok that had risen from the ground just meters from where he had been standing. The beast was nothing like the sketches and artist renditions that the Bpanians had given the Terran government. The creature stood approximately seven feet from the ground, its black exoskeleton covered in dark patches of hair. Its face was almost centered perfectly on its underbelly, about level with that of a man's head. Its eyes glowed with a fierce emerald green and its mouth secreted what must have been thick saliva. It gripped the ground and rubble it walked over with sharp, hook like feet that dug into the soil as it moved. The creature began towards Carlson, four powerful legs propelling it with ease. Two more sets of legs swung about wildly in the air, as to distract its enemy from the real danger of its teeth and claws. The beast's back carried upon it a machine that looked as though it may have been a drill of sorts, possibly used to dig above the Klintok for easier access to the surface. As the creature moved Storm noted the legs were jointed in three separate areas, giving the creature a hypnotic type motion as it walked. Weapon's fire slammed Storm's concentration back to the situation at hand. The blaster rifle that Carlson preferred to carry seemed to do no visible damage to the great beast as it continued to lumber forward, its pace unhindered by the assault. Storm's choice of weaponry was as different from a blaster as a moon was from a star. His rifle was a solid projectile weapon, releasing gases in a chamber that sent a solid bullet from a long barrel. The weapon was still mass-produced by the Corps but was usually passed up by the younger marines for a lighter, more rapidly firing blaster. As a young boy, Jordan's grandfather had hunted white tailed deer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. One of the stories his grandfather used to tell him was about how he used a 30-.06-bolt action rifle with a one hundred and eighty grain bullet to hunt with. He told of how when hit by this rifle's shot, the entrance wound on the deer would be about the size of a man's thumb. The exiting wound, on the other hand, was the size of a man's fist. Even at that age Jordan knew what kind of weapon he was going to carry when he joined the Marines. The deafening sound of Storm's rifle fire tore through the air, echoing off the rubble and shattered buildings. At first the bullets just ricocheted off the Klintok's thick, armor like skin. Bullet casings began bouncing off the ground at Storm's feet as he watched in horror as Carlson tripped over some debris, landing awkwardly on the ground with a yelp of pain. Determination kicked in as Storm's shots became more precise, his aim just short of perfect. With a swing of his barrel, Storm sent numerous rounds thundering through one of the creature's joints on the far side of the Klintok's body. As its leg gave away, the massive body of the beast crashed to one side, it's four good legs holding it up on one side. The beast's body was at an angle with its underbelly facing Storm and his weapon. With out releasing the trigger of his rifle, Storm blasted through the creature's underbelly causing gook and blood to pour out in massive quantities. With a loud howl of anguish the Klintok's body convulsed and collapsed to the ground, as its legs could no longer support the dead weight. Without lowering his rifle Storm scrambled to Carlson's position. What's your status?" Storm inquired as he approached, his rifle still on the unmoving Klintok. Alive," Carlson responded as he struggled to his feet. "I broke my ankle though." The grim look on Carlson's face told Storm how bad it was without question. Storm said nothing as he put his arm around his friend's waist, preparing to hoist Carlson onto his shoulder. "Get your damn arm off me!" Carlson barked. "I will not be the one responsible for an officer showing up at your wife's door!" What're you saying?" Storm said as he checked the comm channels. You know damn well what I am saying!" Carlson snapped out, more in pain than in anger. "You get yourself off-planet now!" Storm knew what his friend was saying; marines don't let other marines die for their sake. I'm not leaving you here," Storm said quietly, but the look on his face was loud enough. "I won't leave you here to be slaughtered. Now let's get moving before one of those things happens to find us again." At least know he knew why marines were dying; you can't run from something you can't see or hear. An enemy that could come from your left, your right, even from beneath you was an enemy that you didn't stick around in one place too long to fight. Only god knew how many Klintoks there were out there, but Storm wasn't sticking around to count. Reluctantly Carlson draped himself over his friend's shoulder and let himself be hefted into the air. You're my rear gunner," Storm said as he lifted his own rifle with his left hand, steadying Carlson with his right. They both knew a marine carrying a wounded soldier was going to travel quicker that way, helping the other walk and limp over rough landscape. Without a word Storm took off, taking the longer but less cluttered path back to the landing and return coordinates. Traveling was tough, slower than the two would have preferred. As Storm came down a small fall in the landscape he felt an urging kick of a blaster rifle. They're coming out of the ground behind us!" Carlson yelled as he squirmed into an awkward position and squeezed off a couple shots. "Move it!" Storm felt his foot catch some debris, causing him to stumble before quickly regaining his footing. Suddenly the ground before him began to crumble away, revealing a large cavity that was too dark to see into clearly. With he added weight of Carlson resting on his shoulders; Storm's momentum took him to the edge of the menacing darkness, his foot kicking loose dirt into the pit. Without a second thought, Storm fired his weapon into the abyss at whatever may have been unfortunate enough to be lurking down there as he began to make his way around. Carlson kept his blaster firing at a constant in an attempt to keep their pursuers at a safe distance. Sacrificing a glance at his GPS, Storm verified their coordinates. He prayed the shuttles would still be there when they arrived. As Storm tore his way through a jungle of wires he lost his footing, crashing headlong into a dark room. Carlson rolled off of his shoulders with a yelp of surprise and Storm's weapon slid out of his reach as he hit the ground. The room was too dark to make any details out, just the shining light from the entrance behind them. Carlson's squirming on the floor kept the need of urgency first and foremost on Storm's mind. He began to make his way to his feet when he was suddenly struck down from behind. Oh shit!" Storm exclaimed as he quickly rolled onto his back, his eyes attempting to focus on his attacker. The Klintok had managed to dig a hole without Storm even hearing it and it had now risen out of the opening in the floor of the room. The creature had managed to shove Storm right next to his rifle, making it easily accessible to the marine. His first thought was to fire upon the Klintok, but he knew the instant he reached for the weapon that he would be slaughtered where he laid. Carlson's shot bounced off the exoskeleton and the creature reared up, its front legs almost reaching the ceiling of the dark room. Storm whipped his rifle to his shoulder, the trigger already held tight. The shots were absolutely deafening in the enclosed room, the bullets ringing and ricocheting as they exited the rifle's barrel. The bullets tore into the beast, causing warm, jelly like liquid to coat Storm's body as he lay just under the great beast. With a roar the Klintok knocked the weapon from Storm's grip, driving its hook like claws through the palm of his left hand. The look on Storm's face was of pure pain, but he bit hard on his tongue to stop his scream. He could taste the iron of his blood as his teeth chewed muscle and tissue. The Klintok doubled over in pain, the creatures roar dwindling to a whimper. Storm slid his hand slowly to the knife at his belt and released the restraints that held it firmly at his side. The Klintok had begun to produce a noise that made Storm freeze in mid motion. It was like that of a rattlesnake, a rattling that began to increase to such intense levels that it pierced the air. Shut up!" Storm howled as he pulled the knife from its sheath and drove the blade deep into the Klintok's jaw, piercing the lower and upper jaws together. With a howl the beast threw itself off of the marine and crashed into a nearby wall. Storm scrambled to his feet and dove for his weapon rolling to his feet as he grabbed it on the go. "Eat lead till you're dead!" The Klintok's roar was stymied as hot bullets tore into its face and underbelly. Goop sprayed into the air, some splashing on Jordan's foot as he released the trigger of his assault rifle. Without hesitation he ran and helped Carlson to his feet. "Let's go now!" Half walking and half being dragged behind Storm Carlson fought to pull the sidearm from his holster. Shooting glances over his shoulder Carlson almost knocked Storm over as the other marine suddenly stopped. There's a shuttle!" Storm hissed between clenched teeth as he pointed. "No one around it either!" You've been hit!" Carlson said as he caught site of Storm's upper arm. Storm clenched his teeth together and shrugged as though he couldn't feel a thing. It's all right," he responded as he stood to his feet. "Stay here, I am gonna' get you out of here." Without another word Storm took off, his rifle at his shoulder as he ran. After a quick survey of the area Storm sprinted back to his friend. Clear," he said as he helped Carlson to his feet. The two struggled as they traveled to the shuttle. Storm opened the side door and helped Carlson in before turning to enter the pilots' cockpit. Suddenly Storm stopped, his eyes wide with terror as he looked straight as Carlson. What is it?" Carlson asked, his face showing his confusion. Go," Storm whispered before he screamed out. "GO!" The blood that flew from Storm's body flooded the inner compartment of the shuttle as his abdomen was torn in half. The top half of Storm's body landed roughly inside the shuttle, his eyes wide in the final stare of death as his lower half dropped out of sight. The Klintok that stood behind him had risen out of the ground, silent and deadly, screeched in victory as Carlson scrambled to the cockpit, pulling himself on his elbows. Son of a bitch!" Carlson screamed as he punched the igniter switch. The engines of the shuttle flared to life as Carlson, still lying on the floor, yanked the flight stick back. The shuttle lurched and then spit off the ground and into the thick atmosphere of Apox Five. With tears streaming off his cheeks Carlson managed to set the autopilot to the fleet's coordinates and drag himself back to close the shuttle doors. His eyes couldn't leave his friend's; their cold stare would be burned into Carlson's memory for the rest of his life. The shuttle made it to the fleet with no problems, just no pilot. After being pulled in to the hangar bay of the medical ship TCS Plourde Carlson refused to leave the shuttle until they took Storm's body first. Storm's a comin'," was all he could repeat. Story copyright 2002 by S.E. Eggleston Spirit_of_the_Slayer@msn.com ------------------------------ CH016 Traditional Art by R. Scott Russell "Paper?!" the Plenipotentiary of the Everything Machine cried. "It's untouchable!" Art Shraede swallowed nervously. The Plenipotentiary was the most powerful man on three planets and the space in between. Nobody made demands of the Master of the Everything Machine. Not presidents, popes, or premiers, and especially not obscure voyageurs running the Commune circuit. Nevertheless that's exactly what the people of Orinda Commune had asked Art to do: make demands. Stalwartly, Art tugged his collar and said in a barely audible voice. "Paper isn't merely contraband. It's an historical artifact that my clients require to...expand their art form." The Plenipotentiary shook his head stubbornly. He was a rotund, sour-faced man whose complexion was becoming a deeper shade of red with each passing moment. He waved a ham-sized paw as if warding off a curse and said: "Paper! That stuff's illegal and I won't touch it! I'd sooner fac a wooden plank or a piece of beef! Those carry shorter prison terms, I believe." Art sighed. Only a few hours ago he had held such hope for this meeting. The ghost within Art's augmented nervous system offered the sensation of an encouraging hand being placed on his shoulder. Or was that a prodding nudge? Art recalled the long journey here. They had been days crossing the high plains of what the ghost called Guayaquil. This had been its home, back when cities swelled the Earth and primitive rockets bruted their way into orbit. Such tales had been myth before Art joined with the ghost. But the entity believed, and so did Art. Now, if only he could write a poem about it. * * * * * Of course, that was impossible. Poetry was beyond him. Oh, he could rhyme and verse, of course, but he couldn't create. Any attempt at creation was a path into frustration and sadness. So at the time of his Introduction he had chosen the trade of voyageur. Endurance and a love of travel were his skill set. And a good voyageur was as necessary to a Commune as was a gardener or artiste. At least, that's what he tried to believe. And so he wandered, running the circuit of Communes. Hauling mails and supplies and trade goods across a thousand kilometers. There were companions. Sometimes human, sometimes enhanced work beasts, and occasionally ghosts. The ghosts were free-hoppers. Two centuries ago, the Communes had disavowed the world's Cybernetic Transect in favor of pseudo-isolation. The Grand Experiment, it was called. Some ghosts had opted to remain cut off from the Transect, as well. Instead, they traveled via a host's bioware. Most ghosts were helpful. They offered companionship, advice, listened to his struggling poetry, and lied to him about the possibility of his eventually finding a form. Everyone needed a form, after all, especially if you lived within a nation of artists. The current ghost had been different, however. Instead of stroking his ego about a bardship, it offered a blunt assessment: Give it up and accept being a voyageur. Life's too short and we should do what suits us. This angered Art. He wanted to be an artist in his own right and a true member of the Commune. Yet, he would lie awake next to a fading campfire and feel a gnawing truth that the ghost was right. He was not an artist. When Final Introduction came around in the spring he would have to announce himself a voyageur yet again. He viewed this possibility with torment. Then came Orinda Commune and a new task. Stope, an old wordcrafter, offered him a Placement within the Commune if he could secure them the paper. "No more holographic poems," she said adamantly. "We want to try wording in the way of the ancients. On paper." When Art suggested that paper was illegal, Stope only smiled mysteriously, her face a web of wrinkles. "The Communes are not as isolated as the Grand Experiment suggests. We have sought, no we have been offered, help from a higher power. A Concubus looks into the matter for us." Concubus? The word sent a shiver through him. Art had wanted to quiz Stope more but that was all she would say. Then, as if the incentive of a Placement wasn't enough, Art had also been offered a woman, a horse, and a ghost. He accepted the horse and the ghost and made a number of sweet promises to the woman, who was more bemused than serious about her supposed fate. They parted as friends. He liked the Poets of Orinda, and would love to call the place home, but didn't want to stumble into a marriage or parent-contract. Hell, he was only twenty-five, and there would be several centuries of that ahead. So he journeyed out with a fresh horse swaying beneath him and a ghost buzzing in the back of his brain. Luxuries both. And that was how he arrived at the Everything Machine. The world had its share of Towers, of course. They linked the Earth with the Great Ring that encompassed it, forty-thousand kilometers above his head. The two towers of Guayaquil erupted from a pair of islands at the center of a great artificial lake. They rose up into the blue sky. Higher... higher... until they were little more than a pair of silver threads shining in the sun, seemingly a trick of the eye and imagination than anything real, anything material. Between them stood the great dome of the Everything Machine, ten kilometers across and almost a third as high. The Everything Machine was a vast factory. It was the most complex machine ever developed. Within its core an alchemy of physics and engineering blended to produce, well, everything. The solar system's asteroids and comets were herded to the Great Ring and used as raw materials. These were fed down the towers to the Everything Machine. The blister that Art spied across the lake was merely the iceberg's tip, for the machinery that powered it went deep into the Earth, spreading under plains and mountains and oceans. The Plenipotentiary who was charged with running the complex was combination Secretary General, Celebrity Extraordinaire, and Pope Regent to billions upon billions of people whose work and lives were focused on the attainment of one thing: consumer goods. * * * * * "Well?" the Plenipotentiary growled archly. Art drew back from his reverie and looked into the other man's deep, black eyes. Art felt the ghost send a ready tingle along his neck. He ignored the urge to transfer. He knew the facts better than anyone, having had a week on the trail to mull them over. But the ghost had once lived in an era when... images flashed of things Art didn't recognize. He shook his head, brushing the ghost away. Art said, "The act which made paper illegal was approved during the Century of Reclamation. With the dawn of computers, info-slates, and neurological symbionts it quickly became apparent that information could be produced and distributed without the use of paper. When the Paper Conservation Act was passed by the World Reclamation Congress of 2094 it was readily and universally accepted." The Plenipotentiary's large bulk shifted in his chair. "Like I said, paper is illegal. And has been for fifteen-hundred years." Art's mouth formed a tight line. He felt like a gnat trying to impress a whale. Why had the Poets sent him, anyway? Sure, he knew more about trading than anyone: lived it, worked it, and breathed it. Right down to the bartered boots he wore. The Communes were an ideal, but all ideals needed a support system to function. Glass, painting, sculpture, dance, theatre, music, and literature were their lifeblood. The fact was that anything new and, well, marketable, helped keep the Communes going. The novel idea of poetry on paper might be a dead end, or something sustaining. That was the harsh reality. Harsher still since paper was illegal. But how to change things so that he might obtain this precious material? Art sought a millisecond's comfort by biting his lip and then, in a nervous hurry: "B-but there are loopholes in the law. One such corollary refers to traditional arts." The Plenipotentiary snorted. "But the quantities you're asking! Three tons! That would clog any legal loopholes, my friend." Art nodded. "As I said, this is a special case." "Special case! It's an indictable offense!" the Plenipotentiary declared. "Securing paper is vital to the future of the Communes!" Art cried in exasperation. "If I produce it they'll throw me in jail!" "But I've been told that the Quito-Regio Concubus is working to change the law as we speak." The Plenipotentiary growled. "Concubus? Dammit! I don't like politicians! I don't like threats! I don't appreciate the fact that you used a Concubus to worm an appointment on my chrono-slate. I'm not impressed by anybody's connections, no matter who they are." Art raised an index finger. "Plenipotentiary... I'm from the Communes. We live under the Grand Experiment, the Isolation. My contact with the Concubus is non-existent. I've been told she is only a helper in times of extreme..." "I don't care! She may have gotten you through my door..." "But, Plenipotentiary... I came here with only hope. I expected to wait months for the appointment." "...And damned if that'll ever happen again. I'm going to re-program my office manager never..." Art's index finger waved slightly, "Plenipotentiary..." "...Ever to let anything like this happen again." "But..." "MAX!" the Plenipotentiary bellowed. A small blue mobius, roughly the size of a baseball, appeared above the wide desk. It torqued about, like a squirming malformed donut, and a violet hue spread across its inner surface. "Last thirty seconds of conversation," the Plenipotentiary ordered. "Re-program as stated." The mobius flattened and became a scarlet pancake. The Plenipotentiary's eyes widened. "What!" Art sighed, flustered and embarrassed. He said, "Plenipotentiary, I apologize if you are offended. I don't mean to name-drop but the Concubus was helpful. How this appointment was secured is unknown to me..." As Art spoke the Plenipotentiary waved his hand in a hushing motion. Above the desk Max became a black oval with a dip in it. The dip grew, becoming a tethered egg and then a quivering uvula. Then Max collapsed into a compact spheroid that spun madly. "Max!" the Plenipotentiary barked. The spheroid split into uncountable raindrops that scattered across the desk and then regrouped to form a revolving robin's egg. The Plenipotentiary seemed to sag in his large chair. He said, "Max reports that it wasn't a Concubus that got you in here." Art said nervously: "Really?" "Max says you've always been scheduled for today's appointment. In fact, the appointment is registered as having been logged at the same instant as my chrono-slate's incep date, nearly three decades ago." Art said, "All I know is that our local Concubus was trying to secure an audience with the General Omniscient Device." A low whistle escaped the Plenipotentiary's lips. "The G.O.D.? That high up, eh?" Art peered sheepishly at his scuffed boots. "I hope I haven't created too much of a flap, Plenipotentiary," he said. The Plenipotentiary slumped in his seat and huffed, "Gravy and gauss lines, man! Start again at the beginning!" Art wrung his hands. Now he was getting somewhere! "Well..." The Plenipotentiary held up a large hand. "But first is there anything I can get you? Liquor, water, anything?" Art wrinkled his nose. Could the Plenipotentiary of the Everything Machine produce a cappuccino? He was from the Communes, after all. Art shrugged and asked. The Plenipotentiary smiled. "Which flavor?" Above the desk Max seemed to brighten and a moment later a steaming cup rose from a small recess in the Plenipotentiary's giant, wraparound desk. "I wish we could do that in the Communes," Art murmured. He took a sip. Perfect. Just like everything else that the Everything Machine produced. Perfect. "I've never visited the Communes," the Plenipotentiary said conversationally. "I should probably take a virch sometime. Getting away is quite difficult." He waved his hands expansively. Art nodded. Understanding. The Plenipotentiary smiled. "In a way, the Communes are competitors." Art frowned. The Plenipotentiary waved a hand. "Oh, not serious competitors. Not in an economy like ours. But the Communes produce things that, as wonderful as the Everything Machine is, it simply cannot." Art smiled. "Which is the issue. We need paper to create poetry." The Plenipotentiary said, "But why not use a holofield or slate?" Art placed his cappuccino back on the desk. Max buzzed briefly around his head and he wanted to swat the AI away. His annoyance was compounded because Max and Art's ghost seemed to be carrying on a very rapid conversation. Voices filled his head. And they seemed to be talking about him. Max spun away and Art shook off his discomfort. He said, "We do create poetry with the usual tech. But many of the poets would like to experiment by using different media. They would like to merge the words of imagination with the form and substance of an old recording technology. A traditional technology. Paper." The Plenipotentiary leaned forward. "Are you a poet, then?" Art smiled sheepishly. "I wish I were. I've tried many forms but they never come to me. As of now I seek experience and form as a voyageur." "A worker?" the Plenipotentiary smiled as Max bobbed above his shoulder. "Are there many like you?" "We number roughly a tenth the population. Farmers, crafters, builders, voyageurs, a medica or two. The machines help us, of course, letting the rest of the Community pursue their art." The Plenipotentiary nodded. "Not unlike those of us who maintain the Everything Machine. You and I are alike, Art, do you realize that? We keep our world turning. A noble form in itself." Art laughed, incredulous. "Not as important as you, Plenipotentiary." "Well, important enough for the G.O.D. to predict that we would need to meet... and make that prediction before you were born." Art shifted. "Why would the General Omniscient Device..." The Plenipotentiary wagged a thick digit. "One moment." The Plenipotentiary's attention was drawn to his AI. Max was on fire. The projection blossomed like a tiny, angry sun. Within Max's furious form a brighter speck revealed itself. It flared and grew. Soon it consumed Max and filled the office with brilliant light. Art winced. The Plenipotentiary growled a knowing growl. He had witnessed the General Omniscient Device in action before. It had found its way through his comm system and had taken over Max. He sighed and said to Art: "It's best to just give into it." * * * * * An instant later Art found himself standing upon a patch of green grass. Above, white puffy clouds drifted within the blue bowl of a sky. He took a deep breath and stepped back. The ground swayed and bobbed. He looked down and saw that the grassy patch curved down and down and then back up behind him. The grassy "patch" was no patch. It was a fuzzy grassy sphere! He stood awkwardly, balanced like an extinct lumberjack on an illegal log. He hovered at the center of a larger sphere across whose surface crawled clouds and sun. He stretched out his arms. One false move and he would plunge a thousand meters. Then he realized that the grassy sphere seemed to anticipate and compensate no matter how he moved. Indeed, he realized with great relief, falling was impossible. This place could only exist within the human mind, but only the General Omniscient Device could make it real. "Hello?" he called in a small voice. In the distance a black speck appeared against a pale cloud. The speck became two and these approached rapidly. Soon the Plenipotentiary of the Everything Machine hovered nearby, balanced, like Art, upon a grassy orb. Adjacent to him, a small woman in white robe and cloak stood upon a crystal sphere wherein galaxies burned. Her skin was vestal and lips bloodless. Dark ophelian hair framed her gamin face and intensely burning eyes. The Concubus raised her hand and smiled. "Greetings," the woman called in a warm contralto. "Hello, Concubus," Art said respectfully. He would have fallen to his knees if not for his uncertain perch. Those who served as avatars to the G.O.D. were treated with awe. Whether they strode the halls of power or the loneliest village streets on Earth, Luna, or Mars, their appearance and stature were instantly recognized. Art was more than a little humbled that one so close to the G.O.D. had taken an interest in his lowly task. "We've done it Arthur," the Concubus said. "Done..." Art blinked. Only his mother called him Arthur. "In High Council. The Reclamation Nexi's majority has granted a waiver to the law. They've voted to allow the Everything Machine to produce your paper." Art quivered. "Concubus, the Commune is forever indebted..." The woman raised a thin hand. "Your continued good work is all that we require. In years to come people will know that the poetry of the present, written upon the paper of the past, is a link with our future." "Future, past...I don't..." "The Communes are an aid to society. A teacher of things that were can allow us to inspect the things that are..." On the sphere next to the Concubus the Plenipotentiary shifted uncomfortably. Otherwise he said nothing. Art was left to blurt out: "Well, we try to educate..." "Farewell Art Shraede. Keep the world turning. Warmest intent and wishes." * * * * * And then she was gone, and the sky whirled and the sphere beneath Art's feet opened and he seemed to land... plump!... back in the chair in the Plenipotentiary's office. He stared wide-eyed at the Plenipotentiary behind his giant desk. A desk panel hissed open and two full glasses of whiskey rose to the surface. "Wishes..." the voice of the Concubus drifted through the room. "World turning..." The professor and the Plenipotentiary locked eyes. "Hell of a way to run a government," the Plenipotentiary growled. He downed the contents of one glass and smacked his lips resignedly. "That was the G.O.D.," said Art. It was more statement than question. The Plenipotentiary nodded. "Done through the neurological symbionts embedded in our brains. Takes control of all the senses. Controls physiology to keep you from panicking. Quite an experience, eh?" Art reached for the other glass of brown liquid but his hand was quivering so much he decided against it. "Glad I've been paying my taxes." The Plenipotentiary smiled and then laughed. A big, hearty laugh. "I like you, Art. I'm glad you got your paper. Let's fac it so you can get the hell out of my office." Art leaned back in his chair and waited for his head to stop spinning. Max reappeared above the desktop, none the worse for wear. Max and the Plenipotentiary whispered back and forth. Max ran a legal-comb through the databurst that the General Omniscient Device had just handed down. "The databurst is ironclad," Max reported. "Just one tiny wrinkle." "Well if its tiny let's ignore it," the Plenipotentiary sub-vocalized while smiling at Art. "Just get that load of paper facked so we can get back to normal." "On its way. However, the General Omniscient Device cleared the order through the Reclamation Act's traditional arts clause." "Meaning?" "Prior to receiving the paper, Art Shraede must use it to produce some form of traditional art." The Plenipotentiary felt his stomach tighten. "Well... let's have him make a...a...." "Poem? I've consulted the ghost currently loaded in his system. He has no talent for that." The Plenipotentiary issued a word that was older than papermaking. Art glanced up, shocked. "I'd better explain," the Plenipotentiary said hurriedly. And he explained, hurriedly. "So I have to make some traditional form of art," said Art, crestfallen. "But what? I'm a poor poet, at best." "That is a problem," the Plenipotentiary said over bridged fingers. "We can't even give you one sheet to take back. And the Poets cannot come here, given the Grand Experiment of Isolation." Art sank several inches into his chair. "A small limerick or haiku would get you all the paper you need." "No," Art said disdainfully. The Plenipotentiary continued: "Max has suggested an alternative." Art was intrigued. "Such as?" "Origami." As the Plenipotentiary spoke a tidy ream of paper rose from the center of his desk. Art stared at the gleaming white rectangular stack. Wonder flowed. "Paper," he breathed. The Plenipotentiary slid the stack toward Art. "We can't release this order until the recipient demonstrates some traditional art form. Origami is a common form that requires no writing." Art had never heard of origami. Something akin to butterflies tickled his stomach. Had he stumbled upon a lost form? Something he could bring back to the Communes and make his own? Could he become... an origami artist and give up wandering for an artistic niche in the Communes? The ghost tickled a warning. You haven't the temperament for... The Plenipotentiary saw the mix of emotions on Art's face. The small chrono that shunted via his optic nerve told of other duties, appointments, and rounds to make. The big man's tummy growled. Oh yes, and he also wanted lunch. The cornucopia ensign on the wall forever mocked him. "Please," the Plenipotentiary coaxed. "Try some paper folding. Max suggests a small box or bird." Art regarded the paper. Slowly, carefully, as if reaching for some holy relic, his hands sought the paper. Inches above the top sheet his hands stopped and hovered, uncertain. "For the Communes," the Plenipotentiary urged. Art smiled sheepishly and took the first sheet. He placed it gingerly on the table and ran his hand over it to make it flatter. Then he folded it in half, then in half again. Several folds later he was heard to say: "Oh, that's not quite right." The Plenipotentiary's stomach grumbled. In the air around Art, Max flashed a series of diagrams that showed proper paper-folding techniques. They went unnoticed. Half an hour later a tangle of poorly constructed forms lay scattered across the desk and floor. Art looked weary. He grabbed sheets in rapid succession. His hands and fingers working in short, desperate bursts. The novelty of paper and paper folding had quickly worn off. Now it seemed to exist only to torment him. Such was the case with all his artistic endeavors. Art took a shot of the proffered whiskey. The ghost buzzed unsympathetically in his ear. Give it up, kid! Art cried: "I can't believe the G.O.D. did this to me!" He folded a sheet diagonally and mumbled something about an origami hat. "I don't think there is such a thing as an origami hat," the Plenipotentiary cautioned. "At least not one that you can wear." "Dammit!" Art yelled. He crumpled the paper in his hands until it became a convoluted, wrinkled ball. It bounced idly across the desk and landed in the Plenipotentiary's lap. The big man picked it up and carefully scrutinized it. Max bobbed just above his shoulder. "Sorry, Plenipotentiary," Art groaned. His head fell into his hands. He had come so close! "It's no use!" "Nooooo," the Plenipotentiary suddenly crooned. "I think not." Art looked up. The Plenipotentiary smiled. "Your task is complete. You may go and take your paper with you." Art was shocked. "B-b-but I haven't created an example of traditional art." The crumpled ovoid, resting on the tips of the Plenipotentiary's large fingers, was elevated gracefully into the air. "You most certainly have," he said. Art stared up at the crushed spheroid. "I don't know what you can possibly..." "This, my dear sir," the Plenipotentiary announced in his deepest, sincerest, and most authoritative voice. "Is the most perfect example of an origami boulder I have ever seen." "But that's ridiculous!" Art cried. The Plenipotentiary's eyebrows shot up. "No more ridiculous than placing words down on a recording device that is nearly seven thousand years old. Let's leave art to the artists, by damn!" Art's eyes went wide. One would never hear such talk in the Communes! He was shocked. Then maybe it was the whiskey or the ghost or the stress of the last hour but Art suddenly found himself laughing. "Where do I go to pick up my paper?" he managed to say, rising. The Plenipotentiary lumbered around the desk and the two men walked toward the door. The Plenipotentiary said, "Max has arranged a wagon and two work beasts are being decanted. They are programmed with the route to Orinda Commune. You can follow them back with your delivery or you can go about your business elsewhere." Art smiled. A feeling of victory swept over him. He had done a fine job securing the paper for the Poets. It was the kind of work only a true voyageur could do. The idea of following the trail round to another Commune was tempting, but he wanted to see this job to its conclusion back at Orinda. Besides, it would soon be his new home. He would do Final Introduction there, and Orinda Commune would find a new and very happy voyageur in Art Shraede. The ghost signaled agreement and the Plenipotentiary clapped him on the back. As Art walked down cathedral-sized corridors to his waiting horse and the wagonload of paper, he thought he heard the voice of the Concubus whispering: Keep the world turning... keep the world turning.... Story copyright 2002 by R. Scott Russell stargzr@frontiernet.net ------------------------------ CH017 Olarov and the Rider by Lee Daniel Guest The moon, once bright and high in the sky, Began to shake and sink; The wolves grew silent, the great bears shook, And Olarov dared not blink. On his trail for weeks and months, The spectral rider followed; Olarov saw him closer now, And in his fear he wallowed. The once-distant struggle before him now, Olarov raised his sword, Crashing blows rained through the night, Strumming a mighty chord. At daybreak Olarov longed for the sun, And looked to see it high; But blood clouded his vision now, And blotted out the sky. One problem troubled Olarov's thoughts, With no solution; though he tried, Though the Rider had given no defense, It was Olarov who had died. Poem and artwork copyright 2002 by Lee Daniel Guest ldguest@btinternet.com ------------------------------ CH018 Red Robot Haiku by Romeo Esparrago anger and hatred i see red with yellow eyes thanks to my Rage Chip domineering claws tamed by she-love's caresses rusty hypocrite! betrayed by hu-man shunned by robots and toasters frustration and guilt Poem and artwork c 2002 by Romeo Esparrago public@romedome.com Inspired by The Red Robot at http://www.explodingdog.com/redrobot.html and at Diesel Sweeties at http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ ------------------------------ CH019 Silbury Plain by s.c. virtes The pixies dance on Silbury Plain where standing stones anchor the sky -- mythic spirits soar with eternal rites; they braid the wheat, shine their soft lights, leave ritual marks for other tribes to see. The apes emerge from their cities, though their lenses flash they don't understand -- they only come out when the sun is up, the dance is done; faerie touch faded from primal glory to last night's mystery. Poem copyright 2002 by s.c. virtes writer@scvs.com ------------------------------ CH020 TolKu by Andrew G. McCann Planet humbly presents a brilliant new sub-branch of Haiku that we have created -- "TolKu", which is haiku inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Note: All Tolkien characters are the property of their copyright and trademark holders. Any bad jokes here are the property of Planet Magazine. INTREPID HOBBIT (The Council of Elrond Convenes) Behold brave Frodo Ring-bearer, bound for Mordor Better you than me SAM'S DARKEST HOUR Oh, Mr. Frodo! Sir, watch out for that Gollum! Cripes, this ain't worth it... BASTARD SAURON That bastard Sauron Lording it over us all! Him and his damn "Eye" SARUMAN'S LAMENT Consider the Orc Brutal, fetid, and hairy Just like my ex-wife TolKu and artwork copyright 2002 by Andrew G. McCann andy@planetmag.com