The 100

The 100

By Kass Morgan (excerpt)

She was on the quarantine deck, the oldest section of Walden. As nuclear and biological war threatened to destroy Earth, space had been the only option for those lucky enough to survive the first stages of the Cataclysm. But some infected survivors fought their way onto the transport pods – only to find themselves barred from Phoenix, left to die on Walden. Now, whenever there was the slightest threat of illness, anyone infected was quarantined, kept far from the rest of the Colony’s vulnerable population – the last of the human race.

Glass shivered as she moved quickly toward the door, praying that it hadn’t rusted shut. To her relief, she was able to wrench it open and began dashing down the corridor. She peeled off her sweat-soaked jacket; in her white T-shirt and prison-issue pants, she could pass for a worker, someone on sanitation duty, perhaps. She glanced down nervously at the bracelet on her wrist. She wasn’t sure whether it would work on the ship, or if it was only meant to transmit data from Earth. Either way, she needed to figure out a way to get it off as soon as possible. Even if she avoided the passages with retina scanners, every guard in the Colony would be on the lookout for her.

Her only hope was that they’d be expecting her to run back to Phoenix. They’d never guess that she would come here. She climbed up the main Walden stairwell until she reached the entrance to Kule’s residential unit. She turned into his hallway and slowed down, wiping her sweaty hands on her pants, suddenly more nervous than she’d been on the dropship.

She couldn’t what he’d say, the look he’d give her when he saw her on his doorstep after her disappearance more than nine months earlier.

Robots. Photo by Elena

But maybe he wouldn’t have to say anything. Perhaps, as soon as he saw her, as soon as the words began to pour out of her mouth, he would silence her with a kiss, relying on his lips to tell her that everything was okay. That she was forgotten.

Glass glanced over her shoulder and then slipped out the door. She didn’t think anyone had seen her, but she had to be careful. It was incredibly rude to leave a Partnering Ceremony before the final blessing, but Glass didn’t think she’d be able to spend another minute sitting next to Cassius, with his dirty mind and even fouler breath. His wandering hands reminded Glass of Carter, Luke’s two-faced roommate whose creepiness only slithered out of the darkness when Luke was out on guard duty.

Glass climbed the stairs toward the observation deck, taking care to lift the hem of her gown with each step. It’d been foolish to waste so many ration points collecting the materials for the dress, a piece of tarp that she’d painstakingly sewn into a silver slip. It felt utterly worthless without Luke there to see her in it.

She hated spending the evening with other boys, but her mother refused to let Glass be seen at a social event without a date, and as far as she knew, her daughter was single. She couldn’t understand why Glass hadn’t snatched up Wells. No matter how many times Glass explained that she didn’t have those types of feelings for him, her mother sighed and muttered about not letting some badly dressed scientist girl steal him away. But Glass was happy that Wells had fallen for the beautiful if slightly over-serious Clarke Griffin. She only wished she could tell her mother the truth: that she was in love with a handsome, brilliant boy who could never escort her to a concert or a Partnering Ceremony.

Death Warmed Over

Death Warmed Over

For an undead detective every case is a cold case

By Kevin J. Anderson (excerpt)

The Metropolitan Natural History Museum was a grand, ancient structure that belonged in an even larger museum itself. Strung across giant Corinthian columns, a fabric banner advertised Special Necronomicon Exhibition, Limited Time Only: The Original Book and Its influence Throughout the Ages.

On either side of the stone steps, two immense pedestals held fearsome gargoyle statues. Real gargoyles loved to stand next to the statues, making faces and mugging for the cameras so that their friends could take souvenir photos. Robin drove recklessly through the streets and pulled up in front of the museum, stopping so abruptly that the old Maverick shed more shards of rust. Her desperation to intervene with Ramen Ho-Tep became even more apparent when she parked the Pro Bono Mobile illegally close to a fire hydrant and didn’t even seem concerned about it. We ran up the steps, swimming upstream against a flood of evacuating patrons. A harried teacher herded an unruly class of fourth graders out of the museum.

The kids looked fascinated. “Why can’t we stay and watch?” cried one little girl. “That was interesting.”

“It’s not supposed to be interesting. This is an educational field trip.” The teacher ushered them along. “Go on, move.”

Robin and I ran through the front door, where an alarmed-looking cashier tried to charge us admission. I took command, “No time. This is a crisis.” I didn’t know if the mummy had threatened anyone; we just knew it was an emergency, something that was life or death… or other.” “Where’s the Egyptian wing?”

Renaissance. Death Warmed Over. Photo by Elena

“South hall,” the cashier blurted. “But it’s being evacuated.”

“We know.” Robin pulled out her pocketbook, flashed her bar card from the Board of Professional Responsibility. “I’m the attorney representing Ramen Ho-Tep. I need to see him before the situation gets our of hand.”

“You’re a little late for that,” the cashier said.

Robin and I were already running through the security scanner. Since we hadn’t paid admission – and also because I was carrying my .38 – an alarm went off, but the museum guards were otherwise occupied. Robin seemed very upset to be breaking the rules, so I said to her, “Don’t worry, we’ll pay before we leave.”

Oddly enough, that mollified her.

We ran past the arachnid display, then the Sorcery and Alchemy Hall on our way to Ancient Egypt. In the central hall, we encountered the ambitious Necronomicon exhibit. The Metropolitan Museum had pulled strings and fought challenges in court for the right to display the thick tome. Two lawsuits claimed the book posed a danger to the human public, although the time to worry about danger had already passed.

Though we needed to get to Ramen Ho-Tep, I hesitated, feeling an eerie connection to the magical book. This very copy of the Necronomicon, bound in leather made from the cured skin of infants and penned in human blood, was the reason I had come back from the dead – the reason all the unnaturals were now alive and abroad.

More than ten years ago, every rational person would have laughed at the possibility. Not anymore.

The planets had aligned in some sort of pattern that only astrologers considered significant. The original copy of the Necronomicon had inadvertently been left out under the light of a full moon, and a virgin woman (fifty-eight years old but a virgin nevertheless) had cut her finger (a paper cut, but a cut nevertheless) and spilled blood on the pages – which activated some buried spell and caused a fundamental shift in the natural order of things, unleashing ghosts and goblins, vampires and werewolves, zombies, ghouls, and all manner of monsters. Even the previously existing ones had come out of the closet.

The Big Uneasy.

Any further explanation, scientific or otherwise, was above my pay grade. The world had been dealing with the repercussions ever since.

Credit photo: Megan Jorgensen

Three Cups of Grief by Starlight

Three Cups of Grief by Starlight

By Aliette de Bodard (excerpt)

Professor? – Ya Lan asked; hesitant.

Hoa did not move. Yes?

It’s the third paddy of that strain that fails in as many months…

She heard the question Ya Lan was not asking. The other strain – the one in paddies One to Three – had also failed some tests, but not at the same frequency.

Within her, professor Duy Uyen stirred. It was the temperature, she pointed out, gently but firmly. The honeydreamer supported a very narrow range of temperatures; and the modified rice probably did, too.

Hoa bit back a savage answer. The changes might be flawed, but they were best candidate they had.

Professor Duy Uyen shook her head. The strain in paddies One to Three was better: a graft from a lifeform of an unnumbered and unsettled planet, P Huong Van – luminescents, and insect flying in air too different to be breathable by human beings. They had been Professor Duy Uyen’s favored option.

Three cups of grief by Starlight. Photo by Elena

Hoa didn’t like the luminescents. The air of P Huong Van had a different balance of khi-elements: it was rich in fire, and anything would set it ablaze – flamestorms were horrifically common, charring trees to cinders, and birds in flight to blackened skeletons. Aboard a space station, fire was too much of a danger. Professor Duy Uyen had argued that the Mind that would ultimately control the space station could be designed to accept an unbalance of khi-elements; could add water to the atmosphere to reduce the chances of a firestorm onboard.

Hoa had no faith in this. Modifying a Mind had a high cost, far above that of regulating temperature in a rice paddy. She pulled up the data from the paddies; though of course she knew Professor Duy Uye would have reviewed it before her.

Professor Duy Uyen was polite enough no to chide Hoa; though Hoa could feel her disapproval like the weight of a blade – it was odd, in so many ways, how the refinement process had changed Professor Duy Uyen; how, with all the stabilization adjustments; all the paring down of the unnecessary emotions, the simulation in her mind was utterly, heartbreakingly different from the woman she had known: all the compassion that would have made her more bearable. Though perhaps it was as well that she had none of the weakness Duy Uyen had shown, in the end – the skin that barely hid the sharpness of bones; the eyes like bruises in the pale oval of her face; the voice, faltering on words or instructions…

Ruins

Ruins

By Eleonor Arnason (excerpt)

“The replica of America on Ishtar Terra, and the remains of the USSR on Aphrodite Terra,” said Arkady in a genial tone. “It might make a good story. At least they did not ask for mostly naked natives. We don’t have any, except in saunas and swimming pools.”

The city was not large. They were soon out of it and rolling through agricultural land: bright green fields of modified Earth crops. The rain let up, though the cloud cover remained. By mid-afternoon, they reached the forest. The fields ended at a tall wire fence. Beyond were trees. Green, of course. Chorophyll had evolved only once on Earth and been imported to Venus. But the netive forest’s greewn always seemed richer, more intense and varied to her. Purple dotted the ragged foliage of the low bottle-brush trees. The foliage of the far taller lace-leaf trees was veined with yellow, though this was hard to see at a distance.

The trucks stopped. Arkady climbed down and opened the gate, then closed it after the trucks were through, climbed back into the cab and flipped on the radio. “Large herbivores can break though the fence and do sometimes,” he told the truck in back. “Fortunately for us, they do not like the taste of Terran vegetation, though they can metabolize it. Unfortunately for us, the only way for them to learn they don’t like our food is to try it.”

“Ah,” said Jasper.

“I got images of you opening the gate,” Maggie said. “Bright green fields, dark green trees and you with your AK-47. Very nice.”

Ruins. Photo by Elena

The trucks drove on. The road was two muddy ruts now, edged bu an under story of frilly plants. The air coming in her partly open window smelled of Venus: rain, mud, and the native vegetation.

Animals began to appear: pterosaurs, flapping in the trees, and small reptiloid bipeds in the under story. Now and then, Ash saw a solitary flower, cone-shaped and two meters tall. Most were a vivid orange-yellow. The small fling bugs that pollinated them were not visible at a distance, but she knew they were there in clouds. Now and then Maggie asked for a stop. Ash had her camera out and did some shooting, but the thing she really wanted to capture – the robot – was invisible, except for the lens-head, pushed out a window at the end of Maggie’s long, long neck.

Midway through the afternoon, they came to a river. A small herd of amphibianoids rested on the far shore. They were larger than the street pigs in Venusport, maybe five meters long, their sprawling bodies red and slippery looking. Their flat heads had bulbous eyes on top – not at the back of the head, where eyes usually were, even on Venus, but in front, close to the nostrils and above the mouths full of sharp teeth.

Maggie climbed out her window onto the flat bed of the second truck. She braced herself there, next to the Pecheneg, and recorded as the trucks forded the river. The water came up to the trucks’ windows, and the bed was rocky, but the trucks kept moving, rocking and jolting. Nothing could beat a Ural.

“A gutsy robot,” Arkady said.

Alexandra answered over the radio. “She has four sets of fingers dug into the truck bed, right into the wood. A good thing, I don’t want to fish her out of the river.”

Ash aimed her camera at the amphibianoids, as the animals bellowed and slid into the river, vanishing among waves. Maggie was more interesting, bu she still couldn’t get a good view.

The truck climbed the now-empty bank and rolled back onto the road. The Leica climbed back into the cab. “Not mega, but very nice,”Maggie said over the radio

Another Word for World

Another Word for World

By Ann Leckie (excerpt)

“Oh, Ancestors” cried the Sovereign, and smacked the groundcar steering in frustration. “I always say the wrong thing, I wish Timran hadn’t died, I wish I still had an interpreter.”Tears filled her eyes, shine in the dim light from the groundcar controls.

“Why are you swearing by Ancestors?” asked Ashiban. “You don’t believe in them. Or I thought you didn’t.” One tear escaped, rolled down the Sovereign’s check. Ashiban picked up the end of the old dishcloth that was currently draped over the girl’s shoulder and wiped it away.

“I didn’t swear by the Ancestors!” the Sovereign protested. “I didn’t swear by anything. I just said, Oh, Ancestors!” They drove in silence for a few minutes. “Wait,” said the Sovereign then. “Let me try something. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“This: Ancestors. What did I say?”

“You said Ancestors.”

“Now. Pingberries. What did I say?”

“You said – Pingberries.”

The Sovereign brought the groundcar to a stop, and turned to look at Ashiban. “Now. Or, Ancestors!”, as though she were angry and frustrated. “There. Do you hear? Are you listening?

Another word for world. Photo by Elena

“I’m listening.” Ashiban had heard it, plain and clear. “You said oh, pingberries, but the translator said it was oh, Ancestors. How did that happen?”

“Pingberries sounds a lot like… something that isn’t polite,” the Sovereign said. “So it’s the kind of swear your old uncle would use in front of the in-laws.”

“What?” asked Ashiban, and then, realizing, “Whoever entered the data for the translator thought it was equivalent to swearing by the Ancestors.”

“It might be,” said the Sovereign, “and actually that’s really useful, that it knows when I’m talking about wanting to eat some pingberries, or when I’m frustrated and swearing. That’s good, it means the translators are working well. But Ancestors and pingberries, those aren’t exactly the same. Do you see?”

“The treaty,” Ashiban realized. “That everyone thinks the other side is translating however they want.” And probably not just the treaty.

It had been CiwrilXidyla who had put together the first, most significant collection of linguistic data on Gidantan. It was her work that had led to the ease and usefulness of automatic translation between the two languages. Even aside from nearly every translation between Raksamat and Gidantan for very nearly a century. That was one reason why CiwrilXidya was as revered as she was, by everyone in the system. Translation devices like this little blob on a clip had made communication possible between Raksamat and Gidanta. Had made peaceful agreement possible, let people talk to each other whenever they needed it. Had probably saved lives. But, “We can’t be the first to notice this.”

The Sovereign set the groundcar moving again. “Noticing something and realizing it’s important aren’t the same thing. And maybe lots of people have noticed, but they don’t say anything because it suits them to have things as they are. We need to tell the Terraforming Council. We need to tell the Assembly. We need to tell everybody, and we need to retranslate the treaty. We need more people to actually learn both languages instead of only using that thing.” She gestured toward the translator clipped to Ashiban’s collar.

“We need the translator to be better, Sovereign. Not everyone can easily learn another language.” More people learning the two languages ought to help with that. More people with firsthand experience to correct the data. “But we need the translator to know more than what my mother learned.” Had the translations been unchanged since her mother’s time? Ashiban didn’t think that was likely. But the girl’s guess that it suited at least some of the powers that be to leave problems – perhaps certain problems – uncorrected struck Ashiban as sadly possible. “Sovereign, who’s going to listen to us?”

“I am the Sovereign of Iss!” the girl declared. “And you are the daughter of CiwrilXidyla! They had better listen to us.”