Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

It has long been known that yawns are contagious, but human beings have long since evolved defense mechanisms to keep excessive yawning at bay.

However, animal yawns–while not normally transmissible to humans–have been known to cross over in a process known as zoonosis. This was most recently demonstrated in the so-called “BY20” yawning pandemic. After a birder observed a small passerine yawning, they caught that yawn and transmitted it to their friends and family. With no natural defenses, the affected people yawned until they passed out from an abundance of oxygen to their brains.

Despite quarantine attempts, the BY20 bird yawning spread worldwide, accelerated by international travel and a slow news cycle. Within 48 hours, cases were active on seven continents.

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Project Panspermia had a simple goal: ten ships, loaded with a generational crew and a large number of technical experts in stasis, each set on a trajectory toward a habitable world identified by radiotelescope. They would arrive, begin their colonization efforts, and ensure the survival of the human race in light of an increasingly uncertain outlook on Earth.

The seventh ship, the Hanalaanui, was just like the others, save for one thing. One of the original three hundred crew members that embarked was ill with a respiratory virus which mutated into an extraordinarily virulent strain not long after departure. In the ensuing outbreak, all but two members of the crew, including all of the senior command staff and engineers, perished.

And those survivors? They did not much care for one another.”

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The eastern whippoorwill (Antrostomus vociferus) was traditionally associated with death or disaster, but that was largely due to confusion. Modern ornithologists now know that the closely related calamitous whippoorwill (Antrostomus calamitous) is in fact responsible for this behavior.

While the calamitous whippoorwill will occasionally eat insects (typically while breeding), its main source of nourishment as an adult is calamity, which it seeks to cause. Males tend to cause calamity directly; they have been observed stealing medications, sabotaging brakes, and even planting physical evidence at the scenes of crimes.

Females prefer to subtly influence the tangled threads of fate from which existence is woven, tangling the skeins in ways that are almost impossible to grasp. One banded female in Arkansas, for example, was able to cause a bus crash by startling a group of European starlings, which set of a chain of events that led to a large log falling across one lane of a major highway.

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“Put the thing that you most want to carry forward into the future into the time capsule.”

That had been the directive, anyhow. And I had arranged for myself to be last in line. Last to put something in the capsule, and the one to seal it.

I carefully nestled the hand grenade between the other items and tied a string to its pin. Once the lid was all but closed, I pulled. There was a click as the grenade’s “spoon” tapped against the capsule lid, ready to pop loose and explode the moment the lid was opened.

“Put the thing that you most want to carry forward into the future into the time capsule,” I repeated with a small smile.

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Cleansed Worlds
In general, the Vyeah take a pragmatic approach to other species and their settlements, seeing something of possible value in each even if they do not know what it is. But even their patience has limits, and if necessary, they will respond with lethal force on a planetary scale.

The Krne have felt this in many places, where their continual rebellion has exhausted Vyeah forbearance, leading to the colonies being destroyed from orbit. Typically this is done with directed-radiation weapons to preserve infrastructure, but the Vyeah are not above glassing a planet with particle beams should the need arise.

Some Krne settlements, the R’de of K’ltlei, the pernicious Orrnhu, and the duplicitous Fiieyl all number among the Cleansed. Survivors, if any, are enslaved.

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“I seek to travel to dark Korton, the Black City,” the woman said.

“Which you will not reach, as it is an arduous journey,” Orthian Maillot said.

“And from there, I cross the plains of Laïs, beneath the deadly light of Køs the Cruel Star,” the woman continued, unafraid.

“Which is so difficult that even those who reach Korton settle there forever rather than risk the rays of the cruel star,” Orthian said.

“I will reach Insbara, and perhaps even enter its labyrinth to satisfy my own curiosity.”

Orthian stopped her. “Who are you, that so confidently states she will travel where the great explorers of our age have fallen short, laid low by the dreamlands?”

“I am Le Aaiun, and I will follow in their footsteps and succeed where they failed.”

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Conscripted Worlds
Worlds that are technologically advanced enough to resist the Vyeah on equal or near-equal terms are generally subject to much harsher treatment, especially if they resist occupation. These worlds are occupied with more troops, expected to furnish ships and troops to Vyeah commanders off-world, and generally exploited more heavily with the goal of reducing them to the level of a Client World or, if necessary, a Cleansed World.

Some species, like the Krne, colonized multiple worlds and in this case each is treated separately. Some Krne colonies have been model Client Worlds, while others have continually risen against the Vyeah, requiring harsher and harsher putative measures, until some were finally cleansed in frustration.

Earth was far too primitive a backwater to be even considered for this fate. It was far cheaper and more efficient to simply economically dominate it.

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Client Worlds
Vyeah control over client worlds tends to be primarily economic. A high commissioner is appointed, as well as the skeleton of a Vyeah bureaucracy. The world is upgraded to connect to the encrypted FTL network, and the Vyeah are granted a monopoly on all products, natural resource exploitation, and raising of armed troops.

In practice, once all the levers of power are in their hands and the world has been defanged as a potential adversary, the Vyaeh tend to leave it alone. They sell some technology and extract some resources, but most of this is spent to fund the costs of the High Commissioner. By dribbling down advanced technology and appointing puppets, the Vyeah are able to halt would-be foes before they can become threats. Only in cases of prolonged insurgency will they commit additional resources or off-world troops.

Earth is one such world.

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> pick up book

Taken.

>look at book

The book is entitled Media of Pure Fantasy.

>read book

You page through the book. It appears to be an avant-garde novel of some kind, in which the unnamed first-person protagonist finds a book, also called Media of Pure Fantasy, and find that large portions of their life are expounded upon as being part of fantasy texts. It drives him to madness.

>who wrote the book

You flip to the end leaves. The book is credited to one Edminster Stoudenmire, which is also your name. Curious, as the copyright date is at least ten years before you were born.

throw book against wall

The book thumps noisily against the wall. Sparrows sing sweetly outside, oblivious to the noise.

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I kept reading the essay, a little uneasily. It helped to speak it out loud, to hear my own voice going over the syllables.

“Now, the short film in question was Your Favorite Story which was up for an Oscar in 2010, I want to say. It’s a simple enough character piece at the start. Two girls in an apartment–Roommates? Lovers? We never do find out for sure–are discussing their favorite stories, mostly books but also TV shows and movies.”

Turning the page, I kept on:

“One of the girls have never heard of the other’s selections, and neither have we, the audience. It soon becomes clear that while one character is speaking of media that exists in our real world, the other is pure fantasy. But she insists, with specific details in her recollection, they they are real. And what’s more, she’s never heard of any of the others the ones familiar to us as the audience. The short ends just as they consult an encyclopedia to find out who is right.”

Glancing over at the computer on my desk–the modern encyclopedia–I felt a shudder work its way up my spine.

“Which is more disconcerting: the notion that the first character’s favorites do not exist–or that ours in the audience do not?”

At this, I slammed the book closed and threw it across the room, breathing heavily. There was no way. The author had been dead for years, nearly half a decade. There was no way he could have known.

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