Tag: science fiction

Sent for takeout

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Shubblurbpop’s slave-vessel landed, quickly blackholing its shattered jumpcore before disgorging its human cargo for processing.
“Ship’s a wreck, Your Slimeness” said the spaceport administrator. “Where’s the rest of your fleet?”
“Lost it,” said Shubblurbpop. “Bad maps.”
“Good luck explaining it,” said the administrator.
Heading back home, the oozeway was busier than usual, but Shubblurbpop arrived before Mudfall.
“Announcing Shubblurbpop!” shouted the palace pages.
“Um… I wrecked the fleet, Dad,” said Shubblurbpop.
His father writhed pseudopods in annoyance, but Queen Pipblipshububble soothed his rage and welcomed her son home.
“Did you bring Chinese?” asked the Queen.
Shubblurbpop nodded.
All was forgiven.

Something in the air

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That smell you’re smelling is the Sweet Smell of Success.
Today, a cold front is lowering the Success Dew Point, so it’s precipitating success out of the air. Normally, it’s less than two or three parts per billion, much less than what a human nose can sense.
Of course, at that concentration, it still drives the dogs wild, almost mad with ambition.
You can train a dug-sniffing dog or a bomb-sniffing dog. There’s even cancer-sniffing dogs in the works. But nobody trains success-sniffing dogs.
Yet.
So, please, sit still, Mr. Trump. Rover’s a friendly boy.
Just no sudden moves, okay?

The Phrasebook

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“Good news, everyone!” is not the kind of thing you’d expect in a traveler’s phrasebook, but it’s right there alongside “Can you please direct me to the nearest vapor reclamation chamber?” and “Please do not consume my moltings.”
If you think it’s tough working up a list of common social situations between two vastly different species, then I’m pretty sure your mind will rattle and explode at the thought of having to construct a phrasebook for pandimensional travelers.
The truth is, it’s not hard. “How do I get home” is pretty much all you need.
Otherwise, you’re pretty much fucked.

Batting zero in the year 3000

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So pretty, he had to try.
“Never in a thousand years” she answered when he asked for a date.
Travis didn’t hear rejection. Instead, he saw a challenge.
And success.
Thanks to his research in Cryostasic Neuromedicine, Travis defeated Death and opened a bridge to eternity for mankind.
He scanned the databases and looked her up.
“Have the centuries thawed your heart to me?” he asked when the last of the ice crystals melted away from her brainjar.
“Absolutely not,” her electrovoder answered. “Go away.”
Travis didn’t wait for the system to finish clonareplicating a cerebral implantation vessel for confirmation.

The Old Man and the Sea of Tranquility

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Everybody’s familiar with the movies showing astronauts moon-golfing, but you’ll never any of Luke “Studs” Morgan casting his fishing reel.
In the lesser lunar gravity. he could cast a mile.
Reeling it back in with those thick gloves was hard, Luke said, but the worst part was spearing a vacuum-exposed, subzero-frozen worm on the hook.
His crewmate “Tank” Washington hid behind a boulder and planned on sticking a frozen salmon on the hook, but there’s a scream and that’s where the tape ends.
He came back as cargo and got buried at Arlington.
Hence the tape label: “Fishing Tank Accident.”

DIY

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Home Of The Future! they called it.
Every Convenience Imaginable! they claimed.
We moved into our H.O.T.F. and instantly fell in love with it. Everything was voice-control, from breakfast to bed and back again.
I could even control the house by telephone. Just phone Home and tell it “make dinner” or “bubble bath” or “walk dog” and it’s taken care of.
One day, I was running late, so I called Home to delay-record the game.
But I keep getting a busy signal.
I thought it was my wife whispering “Do it yourself” last night, but now I’m not so sure.

Oh Lord!

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Pain… so much pain…
The priest pats my ankle and tells me everything is going to be fine.
No it won’t. I’ve been nailed up here all morning.
All I’ve known in this life has been pain.
And it fucking hurts like Hell.
I wish they’d never found my blood on the Spear of Destiny. With the DNA, it took the cloners four months, and now they’re geared for global mass-production.
Truly, it’s Communion gone mad.
If I were fed pieces of myself, would they turn to wine and crackers in my stomach?
I feel the knife.
Damn you all!

The Road To Hickburg

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Sue and Johnny eloped to Hickburg, thinking they’d have the local Justice of the Peace marry them.
It’s what every pair of young star-crossed lovers did in Fayette. It’s what each of their parents did in their time. Their grandparents, too, if you could believe anything those old farts ever said.
Driving down the road to Hickburg, the trees got thicker and thicker.
They never did get to the town, as if the forest had just swallowed it up.
So, they went to Vegas. Lived happily ever after, too.
Years later, the forest ate Fayette.
And it’s headed this way.

COPS: Third Dimension

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It’s not easy cornering a timefugitive, so when you shout “We have you surrounded” you’d better block them in all directions as well as in the past and the future.
Also, pandimensional hyperbeings may not understand “Come out with your hands up.” Not only are you assuming they have hands, but in higher dimensions “up” is not always “un-down” and “out” may involve going further in and then wormholing back around.
Finally, “This is your last warning” is actually the first warning for retrotemporal outlaws. Those are the worst, since from their perspective they’ve only just gotten out of prison.

The Season of Death

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Up here, they call we repair guys a “Scotty.”
I have no idea why.
Sometimes, the motors and gyros on a solar array get jammed, and I have to suit up and go out to smack it with a hammer for a while.
We’re supposed to use remote-robots to do this, but a good Scotty wants to smack the machinery with his own hand, not through some joystick or virtual glove.
Until the seals break, that is.
From a dry spring day in your suit to colder than the coldest winter in less than a second.
I call it Death.