September 2, 2015

From “The Day I Ran Into a Black Hole on a Street Corner” by Heth “Pink” Agnew

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The singularity of a black hole is a point of infinite mass, inasmuch as a layman is capable of understanding it. But what many fail to recognize is that infinite mass is also, essentially, infinite information. For what is information but mass, the arrangement of elementary particles in a certain way?

In this way, as a black hole grows, as it devours and compresses, it also is accumulating more information. Distorted, perhaps, by its consumption and compression below the event horizon, but information nonetheless.

One imagines that from such a cauldron of raw and seething matter and information, some sort of gestalt may–perhaps must–arise. One imagines a cold and calculated intellect arising, one nevertheless driven and bound by a primal need to consume more matter, more information. Not for any imperitive, not for any reason, but for its own sake, because that is how it must be.

Thinkers had toyed with this notion for a generation before it was put to the test. The surprising thing was not that they were right. Rather, the surprise lay in just how approachable and yet unfathomable the intelligence turned out to be.

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August 9, 2015

From “The Sky Used to be Blue” by Bernard S. Roberts

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Like the Fancy Rat had been, the ISA Cornelius was a Diocletian-class modular starship, with a detachable spaceplane front end that could lot into an orbital quantum drive section.

The Vyeah had been attempting to turn it into an escape vehicle of their own, and its dock was littered with human and alien technology that was in the process of being yanked out, integrated, and otherwise made to work nicely together.

Jai was able to get the drop on the pair of Vyaeh techs working frantically on it. He had a notion of inviting them to pilot the ship in exchange for their lives, but they both grabbed for their weapons, which forced Jai to drop them both with his own.

The cockpit was a mess, but main power appeared to be operational, with the reentry shutters nominal, suborbital thrusters responding despite the control surface being written in Vyeah script, and the docking lugs stirred when Jai put a little power through them.

Outside the hangar, the sky was broiling an angry red–the last and most intense sunset the planet would ever see, and the temperature outside had already begun rising to an unfathomable degree. Jai whispered a few words of prayer, the first he had uttered in many years, before bringing the Cornelius to life. It responded, shuddering upward on its thrusters and sealing the hatch.

“Five minutes to orbit,” Jai murmured, pushing the craft as far as he could without ratting it apart. If his drive unit was still there, and the docking lugs still worked, there was a chance.

Not a big one, but a chance.

“The sky used to be blue,” Jai said, looking out the window as he closed the blast shield. “With a little luck, I’ll see a blue sky again.”

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July 19, 2015

From “The Little Cube” by Sharif al-Suliyya

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Near the end of the Golden Age of the Abbasid Caliphate, engineers digging an irrigation ditch uncovered a most curious item. Accounts differ as to whether it was found there or plunged to the site in a ball of fire from the heavens, but all agree on the nature of the object: a nearly perfect cube of a material that was smooth as obsidian, warm to the touch, and roughly the size of a man’s head. Astonishing its discoverers, the cube was surrendered to the Caliph reigning in Baghdad and his House of Wisdom, the greatest grouping of scientific minds of this or any age.

It was called sagheer kaaba or little cube by those who found it, in reference to its shape as a near-perfect cube. Many in the House of Wisdom found the sagheer kaaba to be pleasingly evocative of the holy Kaaba in the Great Mosque, the House of God. For this reason, it was felt by some in Baghdad that the sagheer kaaba must be divine in and of itself, a gift from Allah.

The Caliph warned sternly against this, promising to punish as idolaters any who bowed to the sagheer kaaba in prayer and ignored the directive in hadith and surah that only the holy Kaaba in Mecca was to be used for such. Nevertheless, the Caliph allowed the study and display of the sagheer kaaba within the House of Wisdom as a curiosity.

One of the greatest minds of his age, the polymath Ibn Al-Haytham was the first to discover a curious property of the sagheer kaaba during an experiment in physics. The object had the curious property of generating an electric current in any conductor it touched–or even was brought into close proximity with. Ibn Al-Haytham was able to use the sagheer kaaba to power a variety of small automatons he constructed for the Caliph’s amusement, and the fragmentary Baghdad Chronicle records the Caliph’s son being delighted by a “mechanism of skittering brass legs like unto a spider” with the cube perched on top of it.

Study continued after the deaths of Al-Haytham and the reigning Caliph, with increasingly elaborate devices being designed to draw on the sagheer kaaba‘s power, which was found to grow at a geometric rate in response to the demands made upon it. It powered baths, moving walkways in the palace, lights that burned without wicks or oil, and a series of catapults and crossbows arrayed in the city walls for the purpose of defense.

In time, too, the younger Caliph wavered in his father’s attitude toward the sagheer kaaba as an focal point of worship. Arguing that its wondrous properties could mean nothing but a divine origin, the Caliph and his household began directing their daily prayers to Allah to the small cube rather than the great one. The House of Wisdom’s best scholars noted with unease that the cube seemed to increase its power output as a response to these prayers, and several quietly quit their posts and left Baghdad.

When the great imams of Baghdad learned of the Caliph’s actions, they demanded that he cease his heresy at once. He agreed through a messanger and announced that the sagheer kaaba had been destroyed, but thereupon he and his household were largely confined to the palace and did not appear in public. Observers from the House of Wisdom noted that the Caliph’s palace was increasingly fortified, and that the sagheer kaaba-powered defenses had begin appearing inside the city walls, at the palace’s battlements.

Eventually, the Caliph’s eldest son returned from campaigning against the Mongols in Iran and attempted to meet with his father. Denied access–again through a messenger–he snuck in through a secret oubliette. The next day, shaken and trembling, the Caliph’s son summoned the imams, the House of Wisdom’s scholars, and the commander of the Baghdad garrison. Without giving an explanation other than heresy and continued idolatry, he insisted that an attack on the palace begin at once.

When an emissary sent to the Caliph returned full of crossbow bolts, the luminaries of Baghdad agreed to the assault. They soon found out how efficient the new defenses were, though, and if the records are to be believed close to 10,000 men were wounded or killed in the battle–cut down by all manner of infernal machines. The troops that did pierce the inner sanctum were sworn to secrecy, but several accounts of moldering bodies locked in the harem and the sagheer kaaba floating in glory on a throne of gold nevertheless survived.

The new Caliph declated the sagheer kaaba to be a thing of the devil, a demon set loose upon the earth, and attempted to destroy it. The Mongols preempted this, however, with their great assault on Baghdad’s weakened defenses. With the sagheer kaaba‘s miraculous machines no longer functioning, the enlightened city of Baghdad fell to the invaders in only 12 days.

Unreliable accounts indicate that the sagheer kaaba was delivered to the Khan as a curiosity along with the Caliph’s severed head. In any case, its last known whereabouts were in the titanic convoy of plunder that left Baghdad in 1259 bound for Karakorum.

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June 21, 2015

From “Flight of the Fancy Rat” by Bernard S. Roberts

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“You’re a terrible pilot. Maybe even the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“Your opinion has been noted, Myassa,” Jai said. “Would you like to add anything else to try and undermine my authority in spite of the fact that I’m signing off on your paychecks?”

“The only reason I’m here is money, and the only reason you’re here is money,” Myassa continued. “I don’t know how or where you got it, or how many bribes it took, but the idea that you and this ship are on the verge of qualifying for an ISG license is a cosmic joke.”

“Because you don’t have a ship? Because you don’t have an ISG license and no one will hire your sassy assy unless they’re a rich unlicensed boob like me?” cried Jai.

“Pretty much,” Myassa said. “If I weren’t blacklisted, I’d be running the show. A much better show with a much better stage and lighting and direction. So it really wouldn’t be functionally the same show at all.”

“Again, noted,” said Jai. “And what would you like me to do about it all the way out here, exactly? I can’t send you packing and I don’t think you can afford to buy me out.”

“I just want you to know, as you’re lording it over this hunk of junk and what passes for its crew, that sooner or later the money’s going to run out. And when that happens, you’ll be left where you deserve to be. Nowhere, as a nobody. Capice?”

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Jai icily. “Captain Nobody needs to finish landing this hunk of junk.”

“Just don’t sink it in the drink, if you don’t mind, while Taos is doing the heavy lifting,” Myassa replied. “The last Captain Nobody I read about had a bit of a problem with that about twenty thousand leagues deep.

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May 26, 2015

From “Avelline and the Archon” by Noelle Chavarin

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“You are apprehensive, I can see that,” said the Archon. “Please, before we continue, let me know how I may put you at ease.”

“It’s just…I’ve looked up at this place all my life, but I’ve never been allowed inside,” said Avelline. “The Founder Crags are museum and church, government and god, made all the more mysterious by the prohibition on entry.”

The Archon leaned over a railiing, which gave an excellent view of the great metropolis below. It had been installed by the Forebears in the Founder Crags between two sides of a great chasm, leaving raw and living rock as the walls on either side. “Some of the Archons, I think, take themselves a little too seriously,” she said. “When the Forebears settled here, they came to the Founder Crags for protection. The entire population lived here, within these walls, until we were secure enough to spill over them.”

“Then why allow no one but the Archons and Subarchons inside?” Avelline asked.

“Mostly for our own safety,” the Archon said. “Assassination and physical violence are, after all, the oldest tools of politics. I think that some of the others, and myself if I’m being honest, enjoy the exclusiveness of it all.”

“I see,” said Avelline. “So why hold the interviews here? I am neither Archon nor Subarchon.”

“Convinience, and to gauge your reaction,” said the Archon. “We cannot expect one such as you to sacrifice her life and her soul for the wellbeing of our way of life without seeing every facet of what you are being asked to preserve.”

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May 15, 2015

From “All That Jublub” by Bernard S. Roberts

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“I don’t want to bother with flight plans or cargo manifests or all that jublub,” said Jai.

“All that what?” said Myassa.

“All that jublub. You know. Stuff. Crap.”

“From the context it’s clear what you meant, Chandrakant,” Myassa said. “I’m just reacting to the word you used to convey the concept.”

“Is the language I use really of that much concern to a security officer?” Jai said, flustered. “You’re kind of undermining my authority as captain here.”

“Two things, Chandrakant” Myassa said, stabbing a pair of fingers into the air. “First, you’re not the captain. You’re the owner. There’s a difference. Get used to it. Second, you undermined your own authority the second you uttered the word ‘jublub.’ What language is that, even?”

It’s just something my father used to say,” replied Jai. “Don’t worry yourself about all that jublub. It’s probably Hindi or something.”

“Oh no, I’ve heard Hindi and that ain’t Hindi.” Myassa jutted her chin forward, pulling her hijab forward when it threatened to come loose. “Hey, doc! What language would you say ‘jublub’ is?”

Dr. Strasser looked up from his workstation. “It is not a word found in any dictionary or any of the tongues of man,” he said in his deadpan way, such that Jai couldn’t be sure is the old geezer was joking.

“Taos, do you concur?” Myassa said, clearly relishing the interplay.

“Collating.” There was a pause as the ship’s AI considered its response. “No matches found in database query, Ms. al-Thurayya. When I have recieved permission to access the planetery data networks I can conduct a more thorough search.”

“That won’t be neccessary, Taos, thank you,” Myassa said. “And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Ms. bint Leya bint Raaheel al-Thurayya?”

“I am sorry, Ms. bint Leya bint Raaheel al-Thurayya,” said Taos in his flat affect.

“So, in addition to mocking my speech and undermining my authority as captain you’re deliberately confusing my poor old AI, al-Thurayya?” said Jai.

“You knew there would be consequences when you used the word ‘jublub.'”

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May 6, 2015

From “A Raw and Raging Vacuum” by A.R. Wriggan

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Pauline found Maria where she often was: lounging in one of the cargo holds with the door open.

“You know I don’t like it when you do this,” said Pauline.

“And you know that I don’t like being interrupted when I’m doing this,” said Maria in turn. “Alas, we are at an impasse.”

Pauline planted herself in front of her shipmate, blocking the latter’s view. “It’s dangerous. What if you fall out?”

“Then I will lazily swim back,” replied Maria. “I know how to do it.” Dressed only in what was required to avoid slipping beneath the dress code, Maria held a smouldering cigarette in one hand. The intricate tattoos with which she had gradually been covering every inch of her body that didn’t ordinarily show in uniform were on full display, including the in-progress ink that had been interrupted at the outline stage by their sudden departure.

“Sunburn or worse, then,” Pauline said. “Your Scandinavian skin burns easily no matter how much you scratch it up. And solar radiation doesn’t screw around.”

“It is the closest thing to excitement that I get on this tub,” Maria said languidly. She walked the cigarette between her knuckles, unflinching at the pain when it left a trail of second-degree burns. “It makes me feel alive, knowing that all it will take is a slip of the ship to give me a fatal dose.”

“Is this about your contract? About Jessie?” Pauline took a kinder tone, or the best imitation of one she could manage with her naturally strident voice. “We can talk about that, we can get a psychologist on the line, a grief counselor, a lawyer-”

“No,” Maria said. “You don’t get the luxury of an answer that simple. People are complicated, they act in counterintuitive ways, and often the things they want, the things they need, the things that bring them the most pleasure…often, those are the things that hurt and kill them.”

“But I don’t want you hurt or killed, and neither does the skipper, and neither does the company.”

“Well, if I am I am, and if I’m not I’m not. At this point, hassling me about it is only going to lower my quality of work. And I think the skipper and the company and you want that even less. So buzz off. This is my off-duty time and I’ll spend it as I please.”

Pauline seemed about to pursue the matter, but instead sighed. “This isn’t over,” she said, moving away.

“It is from where I’m sitting.”

Walking through the cargo bay airlock, Pauline cycled it and removed her helmet. She looked back through the bay window at Maria: sitting on a deck chair wearing only her unmentionables and an emergency helmet, the kind that sealed around the neck and relied on the human body’s natural skin tension for the body integrity of anything below the neck.

It couldn’t have been a pleasant feeling, sitting out there in a raw and raging vacuum with just a helmet and 15 seconds of useful consciousness in the way of death by decompression. But maybe unpleasant was what Maria, for whatever reason, needed right now.

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March 6, 2015

From “The Galactic Failsafe” by Bernard S. Roberts

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Civilizations tend to destroy themselves. You’ve noticed this, haven’t you? For every empire of a thousand years a hundred fall, and length is no guarantee. Easter Island supported 10,000 people at its peak, the Roman Empire was 1500 years old when the gates of the Hagia Sophia were battered down, and the Empire of China was heir to 2000 years of intrigue when it was toppled by a few flags in the street.

It doesn’t take much, does it, to project those onto a global scale?

This is as unavoidable as it is inevitable, as the civilization of your choice is always prey to the capricious whims of a few, the lowest and base, who would see everything ground to dust for their own reasons. On a planetary scale, it means that civilizations are inevitably doomed regardless of their level of technology or expansion.

It seems like a closed system, a foolproof system. But what if it’s not? What if there’s a chance—however slight—that sapients might avoid the cycle that has seen galactic empires crumble and the mighty R’de laid low?

Someone, something, has seen to that, too.

There are three possible states of a universe: stasis, growth, and contraction. We know that the former to are untenable given our observations, and a cursory examination of the Vyaeh archives reveals the same. The universe is expanding, and that expansion is, against all that we know, accelerating.

The Vyaeh know this at the highest levels of their Orphaned Court, as do those of them with half a brain. But they, like us, are too busy fighting over the ashes to recognize the conflagration that surrounds and envelops them. Their manifest stupidity prevents any serious inquiry, though I’ve reason to suspect that perhaps there are forces acting upon them, and upon us, that cannot be fully understood.

But the R’de…the R’de are different. Why were they destroyed and enslaved by the Vyaeh? Why, when our scientists, and theirs, insist that there is nothing to learn from them? Their worlds are not strategic, they contain no natural resources of value.

Don’t you see? They were destroyed because they were too close to unlocking the secret. The ultimate failsafe that will prevent intelligent life from thriving and spreading: the heat-death of the universe.

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February 28, 2015

From “Betwixt Spheres of Sea and Sky” by Sheskey Spears

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Theirs was a world of tranquil waters and still air.

The waters ran to a glassy and infinite depth, and none who had swum deeper than a few breaths had ever returned. Therefore, they did not concern themselves with the depths save for what they could fish from it or the distances one could travel.

The still air was infinite, and rare was the day it was not lit by an even glow that flared and faded at regular intervals. The occasional crimson-tinged clouds appeared on the horizon around sunset, but those who set of in pursuit thereof never returned. Therefore, they did not concern themselves with the skies save what they could catch from it and how long it carried a shout.

Betwixt water and sky were their homes, great orbs of soft and malleable material that bobbed placidly in the waters. The orbs were easily worked, and if carefully laid out to dry pieces of them could be used to make doors or even boats. In time, they were hollowed out, with many generations of the same family sharing a sphere. Subtle tides amid the waters were always bringing together and breaking up groups of spheres, and it was in that way that they spread far and wide.

One of the oldest and hollowest spheres returned from a long sojourn across the drifts with a curious passenger atop its apex: a portal through which a bright golden light continually shone. It was quite unlike the portals they used to enter and exit the bobbing spheres, which were always circular or oblong, and it always remained at the top of the elder sphere even after curious gawkers worked together to turn it.

But, like the depths of the sea and the horizons, those brave few who ventured through it never returned.

However, unlike the depths or the horizons, one day something ventured into their world from the other side.

Inspired by this.

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February 14, 2015

From “Ghost of a Valentine” by Savin Foth Eagleton

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“Happy Valentine’s Day, Auntie Allie.”

Long-range deep-space pilots like Allison were among the most highly-sought-after, highly-paid, and lonely jockeys in the cosmos.

“Did you get my valentine? I made it special for you.”

The relativistic nature of their travel meant that they were permanently sundered from kith and kin. Paid in advance, they often gave the money to the families that they were leaving behind forever during their lonely decades-long voyages.

“I made it out of thing that I found lying around.”

Loneliness and a longing for family that was aging and dying beyond their ken led to a lot of coping mechanisms. Some families would record years’ worth of holiday messages to be played out as the travelers went about their celestial vigils.

“I hope you’re not mad, Auntie Allie.”

Others went the highly illegal route of uploading personality engrams from their families into their ships’ computers before their departure. Allison had made just such an engram of her niece, Callie, before leaving for the voyage that was supposed to provide for Callie and Callie’s invalid mother for the rest of their lives.

“Have you seen Mommy?” I want to show it to her.”

Huddled in the emergency pod, drawing on its oxygen and power reserves, Allison watched fearfully through the porthole as Callie’s engram cried out to her from every screen, every speaker, every port, every network on her ship.

“I want to give her a valentine too, Auntie Allie.”

Carson had suffocated when the atmosphere had been blown out of C Deck. Patel had been asleep when those systems have been overrun with junk data; she was just a brain stem connected to life support now.

“I made valentines for your friends too.”

Atmosphere reserves were dropping, power was almost out, and the only surviving crew member was crying silently next to Allison in the dark.

“I hope they liked them.”

Allison pressed her hand to the porthole.

“I love you, Auntie Allison.”

“I love you too, baby,” Allison whispered. “I love you too. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

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