Sapience and Maternal Instincts by Krystal Claxton She had my teeth. I hadn’t expected to recognize myself in her, but when she greeted me, her maroon lips parting into a crescent, there they were. My teeth. White, flat, …
The Scented Man by Eleanor R. Wood When he first returned, we flocked to him like gulls to a fishing trawler. Even after those of us nearest had grown used to his celebrity in our midst, people traveled …
Good Eatin’ by Gregg Chamberlain Hey there, folks! Mad Melford here with another steal of deal. I guarantee there’s lots of good eatin’ waiting here for you. Now Thanksgiving is just around the corner. And we all know …
Manifest Error by Gary Cuba Diogenes rediscovered the wayward bio-stasis chamber while struggling with the ship’s balky cargo transfer lorry. The chamber, tucked inside a machinery plenum behind the lorry’s docking nest, evoked a distant memory that now …
The Last Botnet by Vaughan Stanger Perhaps it was inevitable that our robotic proxies would start sending us spam. Even so, for the Interplanetary Internet to succumb to a virus just as civilization received a coup-de-grâce of the …
Midnight Midnight by Aliya Whiteley I kiss his photo, like a line in a song, and put it back under the cash register. The door is pushed open, and the small brass bell above it tinkles; “How quaint!” …
Price of Allegiance by Alex Shvartsman “Mr. Tobin, there is a Cicada here to see you.” Alastair Tobin, Earth’s ambassador to the Galactic Union, was more than a little surprised. In his eight years of service, he could …
Concerning your Recent Creation of Sentient Horse-things on the Next Planet Over by Stewart C. Baker Dear Dr. Higglebottem, The board has received troubling reports from a group of hyper-dolphins about your recent activities on Tau Ceti f. These …
Target Audience by H.L. Fullerton Yesterday, Madave Black had celebrated her forty-ninth birthday. Today, as she exited the subway, instead of being bombarded by Between Us Girls ads, she heard her first hype for AARP. She froze in …
You Can Not Have a Meaningful Campaign if Strict Time Records Are Not Kept by Desmond Warzel The Commonwealth of Worlds had seen better days. Its final conquest by the Galactic Hegemony was imminent, with only a handful of …
