March 26, 2012

From “The Tunnels of Ixium” by Dori Blechman

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Ixium, named for a minor Vle-Ya deity, was a deceptively ordinary medium-sized moon, its surface primarily formed from various unremarkable rocks and common metals. Early probes noted this and treated it as little more than a footnote; all efforts were focused on the inner moon of Clashun, which appeared at first to be a “garden world” suitable for colonization. It was only after the colony on Clashun failed (due to a hypesaline environment and spore-based local life that provoked fatal allergic reactions in humans after long-term exposure) that Ixium attracted any interest.

Squatters fleeing Clashun quickly found that the center of Ixium was honeycombed with tunnels that ranged from a few inches to hundreds of meters in diameter. The origin of the tunnels, their manner of creation, and whether there was an intelligence behind them (a subject on which the Vle-Ya were silent), remains an enduring mystery. Mathematical models have proved inconclusive, and mapping the tunnels was too gargantuan an undertaking for such a minor curiosity.

In the meantime, Ixium has become notorious as a haven for smugglers, pirates, and squatters of every stripe. Some colonists believe that the creator of the tunnels, be it a massive machine or a hive of alien creatures, resides at the moon’s core, though the heat and pressure in the deepest tunnels has made exploration beyond a certain point an impossibility.

 

December 21, 2011

From “The Mayflower Contract” by Christopher S. Lone

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The note was addressed to me in the most unambiguous way. Full first name, which no one save my grandmother used. My full middle name, which no one but my mother used, and then only when pissed off. It had the proper ZIP+4 code to ensure the letter reached its intended destination; honestly, who uses those unless they want to be sure that their letter gets exactly where they want it to go as fast as humanly possible?

In other words, there was no question that the letter was meant for me, expressly. Which made the contents of the letter all the more puzzling:

We have Alia Mayflower, and will kill her if you do not contact us. Meet us on the corner of Fifth and Main by ten o’clock tomorrow wearing a red shirt as a sign of your acceptance.

I didn’t know any Alia Mayflower. I’d never seen that name before in my life.

 

December 11, 2011

From “Jeanine’s Trinkets” by Killy D. Glasgow

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The room had all of Jeanine’s passions on display: flower press still stuffed with orchids and daisies, posters from classic films on the walls, and pots of artist’s sculpting clay and acrylic paints.

Jeanine had always taken a flower from everywhere she’d gone, and pressed it into a scrapbook. She didn’t keep a diary or a blog–her laptop was tucked in a corner too–but her flowers served that purpose and then some. Arthur was tempted to open the press and see if there were any labels, but the light layer of dust that had already accumulated–it was an old house–said that the press had been left unattended for some time.

The classic posters were all reproductions save the one in a place of honor: an original 1941 banner for “The Maltese Falcon”–she had always liked mysteries–yellowed with age, edges ragged and deep crevices crisscrossing Bogart’s face where it had been folded over the years. It wasn’t a particularly attractive poster to begin with, but it was nevertheless lovingly mounted in a brass, archival quality frame.

Jeanine had been trying to take up sculpting as well…most of the paint bottles and sculpting clay cans were unopened, and only a few half-finished turtles and squirrels littered the small work area on her desk. They needed work–a lot of work–but she had been ready to do what it took to master the art.

If she’d gotten the chance.

“I wonder what someone will think when they go through my room, afterwards,” Arthur sighed. “Dead or disappeared, it’s still a clean cut through everything her life used to be.”

 

November 28, 2011

From “Thermos Rafting” by Joanie O’Neal Emerson

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“Love to, but can’t,” Sheila said. She took another generous sip from her thermos. “Dead.”

“Dead?” Ruckell said. “I think I’d have heard about that.”

Sheila shrugged. “Obituary’ll be in Monday’s paper. We got the news too late to make Friday’s.”

“What happened?”

Another long, deliberate sip. “Not sure it’s any of your business.”

Ruckell sighed. “Do I really have to stick my badge in your face again, ma’am?”

“Do you?” Sheila raised the thermos again.

Ruckell swatted it away. It clattered to the ground–there was nothing in it. She’d been sucking on an empty thermos just to spite him. He held his badge inches from Sheila’s face. “How…did…he…die?”

“Whitewater rafting,” Sheila hissed. “Boat overturned. They found everyone downstream, drowned.”

 

November 13, 2011

From “Fragment 127: The Buried Secret” by Abd al-Nitypt

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The Caliph, further, cautioned me thus: “I have always known you to be a good man, Abu Abd, wise and reverent to Allāh. I will therefore interpret your words in that context, and send you from here to recover your wits. However, should you ever speak of this in my presence again, or should I learn that you have mentioned it to another living soul, I shall be forced to intervene.”

I was thus confronted with a dilemma: the information that I had uncovered through my research was such great importance that I could not consign it to the flames of memory and time. But to broach the topic again, even to reveal it to my heirs, was to invite the appearance of apostasy and a terrible retribution upon myself and my family. I had to record the information in such a way that it could not be traced to me, and yet would be of use to some future scholar.

My solution was to gather together a group of sages and learned men with whom I often discussed astronomy, and put to them the following question: “How can one write a hymn of praise to Allāh such that it will survive and be readable in ten thousand years’ time?”

One suggested I carve it in a stone. “But what if the carving is worn off by sand or water?” I replied. “And how do we know the men ten thousand years hence will be able to read our script?”

A second recommended that I write the message in pictograms and bury it in the furthest reaches of the dry and desolate Rub’ al Khali, with its location inscribed, also in pictograms, in secret places throughout the Caliphate. My response: “But an item buried may be exposed or moved by the shifting of wind and sand, and pictograms are simple enough to be misunderstood and the information thereby lost.

The third sage suggested that I encode the message in an oral legend, an adventure story, which in its structure would include both the message and the key to decoding it. “But,” said I, “the tongues of men are easily corrupted. How are we to know that the story will endure as written when spoken by one man, let alone generations?”

Finally, one of the sages spoke to me thus: “It seems that we can devise no solution that will satisfy you, Abu Abd. Will you tell us your own solution?” I had been listening carefully and within moments proposed my own plan, which all present applauded as remarkably prescient.

Only time will tell if they are correct.

 

November 8, 2011

From “Lykies Scribbles” by Anders C. Colemann

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“What are these?”

“Distinctive pattern in gravel, sand, or other particulate matter,” Davis said. “One of our key clues, professor. Official term for them is ‘Lyikes structure’ after Dan Lyikes at UCLA who was the first to describe them. The boys call them ‘lykies’ or ‘scribbles.'”

“I…see,” Thomas said, tracing the pattern in the air. “That’s very descriptive while simultaneously very vague. How are they made?”

“If we knew that, we’d be a lot closer than we are to figuring this whole mess out,” said Davis. “All we know is that they appear from one to forty-eight hours after a sighting. We’ve put cameras up, but no one has ever seen one being made.”

 

November 1, 2011

From “Bilbao Toms” by Enrique G. Ramirez

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Toms had been a trade-union organizer in Luton when the war broke out, and he chartered the first ship to Spain he could find once news reached him: a tramp steamer from Southampton to Bilbao. On arrival, he found that the advancing Nationalists had cut Bilbao and the Basque Country off from the rest of the Spanish Republic. Denied the ability to join up with the International Brigades, Toms fought and organized as best he could.

As a trained surveyor and architect, Toms was given a position building the Iron Ring–fortifications intended to protect Bilbao from Nationalist assault until Republican troops could break through and link up with the isolated Basque Country. He did this with gusto, developing the laborers under his leadership into an effective and politically active unit known as “los topos de Tomás”–Toms’ Moles.

The local Republican commanders eventually became unsure of Iron Ring architect Alejandro Goicoechea’s loyalty. They therefore contacted Toms and had his men construct a bunker separate from the rest of the fortifications, into which the precious metal holdings of the local Bank of Spain and other valuables were placed to protect them from bombardment.

When, as feared, Goicoechea defected to the Nationalists with the complete blueprints of the fortifications, Toms and his men sealed their vault with explosives. None of them survived the retreat from Bilbao or disastrous Battle of Santander.

The bunker? It remains sealed until today, its exact location a mystery taken to Toms’ grave.

Or is it?

 

October 9, 2011

From “The Riddle Made Real” by Vernon K. Steinkop

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In a land that appears on no map
Is a tower with no doors or windows
In the tower with no doors or windows
Is a room with no entrances or exits
In the room with no entrances or exits
Is a box with no keyhole or lid
In the box with no keyhole or lid
Is a treasure without value or worth
In the treasure without value or worth
Is the rule of the breadth of the land
In the hands of a worthy man

It was a silly saying, Masaka mused, one that had been passed down from tongue to tongue so that it no longer rhymed in any language. But even today, in a world of automobiles and cellular telephones, many of his countrymen believed the old riddle that predated even the arrival of Islam. Many a village sage had laid the failure of government after government and the succession of coup after coup on the lack of that paradoxically worthless treasure.

Masaka didn’t believe the legend, but he believed in propaganda. That is why he had brought in archaeologists and surveyors to scour the records, aerial photographs and–if need be–the dunes themselves to locate a structure that matched the description of the legend well enough to pass. He’d taken time out from the tiring routine of personally interrogating and executing political enemies to review potential sites before selecting a site in the al-Qabs dune sea.

The tower was a relic of an abandoned trade route, and any entrances or exits it once had were obscured by sand. Masaka had his men dig an entrance from beneath. There was indeed a room, partially formed by rubble, with no ingress or egress. Masaka had his men tunnel through decorative limestone–ignoring the protests of the Western archaeologists. And in that room there was a stone object choked with rubble that could be charitably described as a box. Masaka removed the rubble personally; a bit of period papyrus subtly altered by his hirelings was tucked in his sleeve just in case.

What he hadn’t considered–what even the riddle was silent about–was what would happen should an unworthy man open that container with neither hinges nor keyhole.

He found out soon enough.

 

October 8, 2011

From “That Yellowish Residue” by Carl B. Trotterson II

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“Well, putrefaction had pretty well set in by the time we were able to run our tests,” Schoenberg said, “but we were able to identify the substance found on the victim’s hands and under her fingernails.”

“Excellent,” said Maier, putting aside her paperwork. “Let’s hear it.”

“It’s chrysophanic acid, also known as rumicen and a host of other lay names,” Schoenberg said, laying a folder with the results on Maier’s desk. “It’s a yellow crystalline substance extracted from rhubarb, yellow dock, sienna, and other related plants.”

“So we cross-check our victim with known rhubarb farmers?” Maier said. “Somehow I doubt that’s going to get us anywhere.”

“It’s used in the treatment of skin diseases, mostly by herbal nuts. You tend to see it used to treat psoriasis, eczema, and the like by people who are allergic to the standard treatments or–more often–granola-shitting hippies.”

“That’s awfully square of you, Detective,” Maier laughed. “Weren’t you born during the Summer of Love?”

“Yeah, to a military family. My family never wondered why the national guard opened up on the flower power set; we wondered why they stopped.”

 

October 2, 2011

From “The Ragin’ Croatian of the Mathematics Department” by Thomas M. Brulic

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Stjepan Pečenić, originally from the city of Split in Dalmatia, came to Southern Michigan University in 1981 to teach mathematics. Dr. Pečenić claimed that the Yugoslav government had been persecuting him for his political beliefs; that argument got him asylum, but word had it that was just a glossy cover story. Dr. Cvijić in Engineering was particularly outspoken in her claim (inherited from her father) that Pečenić had been forced to flee after the death of his patron, Tito, and that he’s been a loyal party man until power struggles had forced him out.

In the mathematics department and among his students, Pečenić was known as the “Ragin’ Croatian” for his heavily accented outbursts in which he would rail semi-intelligibly against everything from the laziness of his students to the lack of creativity in his peers to the administration’s short-sighted reluctance to raise his salary. Most students hoped they didn’t get him, and Pečenić was happy to oblige, preferring research to teaching.

That said, nobody was quite expecting to find him face-down on his desk one Monday morning with a particularly difficult set of linear equations soaking up his lifeblood. He’d been shot in the temple at close range.

 

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