Writers of the Future, Volume 30 Read online

  “The enemy did not wait for us,” said Guide. “We will not wait for him to recover from the disorders he has brought on himself. The faster we are finished here, the sooner we will again own Earth. We’ll deliver her and present her with a colony and a new commerce. We’ll wipe out the ice-brains, rebuild our cities and then, of course, develop all the stars. We’ve won already. The rest is mere technical detail.”

  During the next ten months of ceaseless effort the only complaint came from the women. They were not certain. The trip had once been made, true, but should they be left here with only a small fighting force to protect them, they would have little chance of building any kind of a strong colony. They wanted to know why the thoughts of vengeance which obsessed these men of theirs could not find outlet in the creation of a new world. Was not New Earth a promising land? With their technology and skill, could they not build here everything they had left behind on Mars? Why risk a trip?

  Guide heard them out complacently. In his buoyant good spirits he would not hear of any failures. But at length, seeing that this new colony would indeed be helpless without manpower and good technicians, he agreed that they could have one ship, the Asteroid V. With a skeleton crew, the Asteroid would stay behind, providing at once the necessary guard for the colony and the means of going off for aid if the main mission failed. It would not carry half the people who would be left behind, being the smallest vessel, but it could go for relief. That would give the colony a safety factor. And beyond that Guide would not go.

  At the end of ten months, with all the effort devoted to the barrier uncoupler, with the colony barely able to support itself, Guide announced the time of takeoff. There was a loud girding and harsh rattle as soldiers and spacemen and marines prepared for the coming action.

  In the midst of departure an atmosphere pilot who had been testing his ship returned to base with news. But little attention was paid to him.

  “Over that range of mountains,” he said, “there’s a lot of mounds. I landed for a look-see and, by golly, it’s a colony. Been gone for hundreds of years, I guess, but there’s a cemetery and the names cut in the stones are Earth names—Jones, Smike, Dodgers—”

  “Hmm,” said Guide, his mind on getting a transformer aboard the Bellerophon. “Must be an early expedition. Old-time ship. No women. Broke down here or ran out of fuel and there they are. Well, well. Steady on that tackle, there.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the atmosphere pilot. “I mean I said hundreds of years, but that place is really old. It’s a long time before space travel, looks to me. Stones all weathered away, graves sunken, big buildings all crumpled like the Parthenon. Really old. An expedition wouldn’t have gone to that trouble if they hadn’t had women.”

  “Been no tries for the stars before fifty years ago,” said Guide. “Guess you must be wrong. Easy, easy now. You want to knock the side of the ship out?” He smiled at the youngster. “Been no fuel before EV that would have made the grade. You hop over and give them a hand loading your plane. Won’t be more than an hour before we leave dirt.”

  Some of the women hovered on the outskirts of the commotion. One of them at last plucked up nerve to talk to Guide. “Sir, I’m worried.”

  “Nonsense,” said Guide. “We’ll be back in a matter of weeks.”

  “But without help we can’t construct our irrigation dam or do any of the hundred other things we’ll have to do to make this a good colony. You’re taking all the technicians.”

  “Need ’em,” said Guide. “Got to break that barrier. And don’t worry a minute. We’ll be right back. I like this place. Mars is too dry for good agriculture.”

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “I have a terrible feeling that you may never come back. We’d … we’d perish here.”

  “Think I’d let that happen?” said Guide heartily. “You’ve got the Asteroid. You can send her for help if we don’t make it. Even the ice-brains will respect you for being the first star colonists.”

  “Oh why, why don’t you give up this mad vengeance!” she wept. “It will do no one any good! Haven’t enough men been killed? Here we have the stars. Don’t throw them away! Send a secret ship to land on Mars and bring off new colonists. But forget this war!”

  Guide looked at her. She was very pretty, very frail. He had a weakness for pretty, frail women. But suddenly he straightened. “We’ll be back. Don’t you worry about that! We’ll be back!”

  The flotilla returned on separate courses and rendezvoused behind the Moon. They were watchful, stealthy, filled with a high spirit but well knowing that the forces they faced were more than a match for their puny strength.

  They were waiting for the Swift Voyage. It had had another destination and was to join them here.

  The easy passage home had raised their morale to the heights. Even a major accident to one of the ships would not prevent the return of the majority to New Earth, a victorious return to a planet infinitely better than Mars or worn-out Earth.

  And then the lookouts sung out the Swift Voyage and shortly Miller boarded the Bellerophon. His face was enraged.

  “The dirty little devils! The dirty, stinking devils! You know what they’ve done?” He threw down his gloves with a bang. “Mars is smashed. There isn’t a building left on it. Cap City, Rangerhaven—they’ve been disintegrated!”

  The other two captains stared at him.

  “We took a scout, got right down close. And there’s nothing! Nothing! They butchered every colonist on the planet. They knocked apart every station. There isn’t a thing left. Not a dam, a radio tower, nothing!”

  “You got right down close? Then they don’t even patrol it,” said Guide.

  “Why should they,” said Miller bitterly, “when there isn’t even a sheep or a pig left on it to be patrolled!”

  “That bad,” said Guide. And he squared up. “Standby to break the barrier!”

  They slashed at Earth in a vengeful V, the barrier trips running high, their guns ready, set all three to level entire cities with their blasts. Their immediate target was Nordheim, capital city of Polaria.

  From the Bellerophon came a signal: “Standby to fire.” And then, suddenly, inexplicably from that flagship came the countermand, “Wait.”

  They slowed. They turned.

  “Shift target!” barked Guide. “Our own fleet must have gotten here before it was destroyed. Shift target to New York.”

  And they curved off, these three improvised warships, and rode the curve over the rim to North America and New York.

  “Standby. Range coming up. Ready—” Thus cracked Guide’s voice. And then, “Wait!”

  They sheered off and the Bellerophon detached herself and swept lower. Then before Cadette’s and Gederle’s incredulous eyes, Guide swooped in for a landing and came to rest, a tiny spot of silver on the plain far below. They hovered.

  And then Guide’s voice asked them if they would land.

  Guide was standing in the center of a grassy place when Cadette and Gederle came up. Guide was looking with weary wonder in his eyes at a plaque which stood, aged and unthinkably weathered, where New York’s many levels had once towered.

  They could not read the plaque. The language on it was not Nordic nor any other American script. And it was not European or English.

  Above them blazed the Sun, unmistakable, setting in a blaze of red clouds. About them crouched the fallen towers of a city long dead.

  And then stars began to show in the gathered dusk and Guide looked up to find new wonder there.

  “Vega! That’s Vega, isn’t it?”

  And Guide fished hurriedly through his kit for an infantry compass. He looked at it and he looked at where the Sun had set and he looked at the great, bright star.

  “That’s Vega,” he said in a hushed voice. “And it is the North Star.”

  For a long time they stood there, trying to ass
imilate what had happened, trying to understand. In them died the last heat of the battle they had sought to engage. They knew little enough about higher orders of astronomy. But every spaceman knew that once in every twelve thousand five hundred years Vega became Earth’s North Star.

  That was their time factor, then. That was their time. And where was the enemy? Dead these mossy stones and ruins said, dead these thousands of years. And the atmosphere scouts they sent through the night at length came back to prove it.

  Man had perished from the Earth millennia ago.

  And Guide, sunk down on a fallen block of bleached granite, scratched in the sand with a stick. He nodded at last in slow and awful comprehension.

  Cadette knelt and looked at the symbols and figures and then Gederle knelt down. They looked at one another.

  “I was never much for school,” said Guide. “But they taught us once about this. Man must use it daily now and we all knew it well. It is the Einstein Relativity Equation. And few of us have ever considered that it had yet its second step. And yet that is common knowledge too.”

  In the stillness of a quiet night, under far and lonely stars, they still knelt.

  “As mass approaches the speed of light,” said Cadette, hushed, “it approaches infinity. And as mass approaches infinity, time approaches zero. It was only nine days back from Alpha. But in those nine days, six thousand years have passed by Earth.”

  “We never broke the wall of light,” said Guide, bitterly, clenching his hands. “We only approached within fractions of 186,000 miles per second.”

  “Time stood still for us,” said Gederle. “We’re probably the last men alive. It’s a good thing we planted—”

  Suddenly chilled and hushed, as one man they stared upward at the cold, far stars.

  Overhead, their colony and their women were already—six thousand years dead.

  Animal

  written by

  Terry Madden

  illustrated by

  Seonhee Lim

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Terry Madden has been writing since high school, when she first fell in love with the worlds created by Tolkien, Herbert, Le Guin and Heinlein. As a novelist and award-winning screenwriter, Terry has wandered the lands of historical and mainstream fiction, returning to her first love, speculative fiction, only recently.

  With a degree in biology, Terry has worked in molecular biology and genetic research labs and currently teaches high school chemistry and astronomy at a California boarding school. She enjoys sharing the night sky with young people, encouraging them to look up, out and in.

  Terry has an abiding interest in medieval and ancient culture and mythology, especially all things Celtic. Somehow, this interest coexists just fine with her passion for space and worlds spinning around other stars. She is currently at work on the second novel in her fantasy series, Three Wells of the Sea.

  For the latest on her series, please visit: threewellsofthesea.com.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Seonhee Lim was born in a small city called Gyeongju in South Korea. With much thanks to her older brother, she grew up with fantasy adventure books and games.

  Then she fell into the world of comic books, where all the fantasy characters she previously imagined in her head were moving and speaking on paper.

  After playing all those adventurous games and reading comic books, she finally realized she could combine her favorite activity and genre together: art and fantasy. With that realization, she had no choice but to choose the path of making fantasy art.

  As soon as the decision was made, time began to fly, and she received a bachelor’s degree in both cartooning and illustration from Sangmyung University in South Korea and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

  Currently she is working as a freelance illustrator in New York spending most of her time telling stories with drawings and paintings. Countless characters and creatures are strewn over her desk, waiting for new adventures. She is more excited than ever to bring more to the world.

  Visit Seonhee's web site at: limsh.com.

  Animal

  Ten strides away a silverback erupted from a stand of monkey plum and made a chest-beating lunge at the Plexiglas. It was all that separated the jungle habitat from the viewing platform.

  Mackenzie didn’t flinch, didn’t make eye contact. She heard Freddie slap both hands on the glass and knew the gorilla’s eyes were locked on her, waiting for her to challenge him.

  “The males need to display their authority periodically.” She’d already forgotten the resource agent’s name. While he watched the gorilla, she pulled his card from her jumpsuit pocket. Harper.

  “Mr. Harper.”

  “Doctor Harper.”

  So he wasn’t just another Fed in a suit. “My apologies,” Mackenzie said. “The females are already well in line, so the silvers display to their handlers out of boredom.”

  “Not so unlike us after all.” Harper scribbled on his tablet. “How would you translate that behavior, Dr. Guerrero?” He nodded toward the gorilla.

  Mackenzie looked up to see Freddie smearing his feces over the glass.

  She took a deep breath. Clearly these visits from the Federal Resources Board roused feelings in Freddie similar to her own.

  “Lunch, Dr. Harper?”

  When the Facility for the Reproduction of Endangered Species had relocated from San Diego eighty years earlier, miles of desert lay between the compound and Las Vegas. Now, two hotel casinos abutted the western perimeter of the thousand-acre facility, and recently, the Oasis Resort had suspended a transparent sky pool directly above the tiger habitat. That legal issue had yet to be settled.

  Mackenzie purposely led Harper the long way to the commissary, past herds of Arabian oryx, American bison and zebra. She paused before the cheetah enclosure where a pair of female cats lounged near the viewing platform, each with a litter of kittens.

  “You’re looking at all that remains of an animal that once ranged the entire continent of Africa, north and east into Turkey and India. At one time they ranged all the way to the Gobi Desert.”

  One of the cats turned and gazed at Mackenzie as if she understood.

  “The cat program at F.R.E.S. runs well over three billion a year in expenses.” Harper put his hands on his hips and examined the cats with indifference. “And here they are.”

  He scribbled another note and moved on.

  “We operate according to state health codes,” Mackenzie said. “These habitats are cleaned daily. New soil and vegetation is replaced as required. Each enclosure is completely contained, receiving natural sunlight, controlled humidity, and temperature consistent with the animals’ native environment.”

  “Commendable,” Harper said, “but I’m not here about the smell.”

  Mackenzie found the nearest bank of elevators and pushed the call button. “You’re the third agent here in a month. I mean no disrespect, but that usually means fines.”

  Harper’s laugh was wheezy. Clearly an asthmatic. Overweight as well.

  “If it’s not the smell,” Mackenzie said, “then how can I help you?” The elevator door slid open and they stepped in.

  “Your director is quite proud of your work,” Harper said. “She should be. I understand you brought bonobos back from less than twenty animals.”

  “Then you’ll want to stay for the afternoon ultrasound. I have a lowland gorilla carrying the offspring of the last mated pair of mountain gorillas. They died in China ten years ago, and I was lucky enough to obtain one of the frozen embryos—”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  The elevator door opened onto an underground maze of hallways leading to labs, kitchens and offices. Only animal habitats occupied the surface real estate.

&n
bsp; The queue for food was thankfully short. Less time for small talk.

  Mackenzie pushed her tray through the food line. “The rice soup is edible.”

  Harper took some, and a noodle bowl.

  A stainless-steel table waited, tucked behind the drink dispenser. Eating silenced them both for a few minutes.

  “We have over two million daily viewers subscribed to our streaming video,” Mackenzie said. “Direct feeds to classrooms all over the world.”

  “Two million?” Harper laughed and daubed at his mouth with a napkin.

  “It’s not an insignificant number—”

  “Where are the living, breathing visitors?” Harper said. “People who travel here to see living animals? Wasn’t that the plan for this place?”

  Mackenzie looked up from her soup.

  “The F.R.E.S. is not a zoo. It is and always has been dedicated to the preservation of remaining wild species which, I might point out, number 579, excluding insects and fish which are kept in the U.N. Aquarium.”

  “Quite right. My point exactly.”

  Harper rolled his noodles around his fork and slurped them into his ample mouth. Still chewing, he said, “Vegas has overtaken your facility, Dr. Guerrero. This land is worth more than all these animals combined. I’ve already met with your director, but she asked that I talk with you personally—”

  “The government dedicated this land to species preservation.”

  “The city has reached your western battlements, and to the east—nothing but solar farms all the way to New Mexico.”

  “Then we’ll move.”

  “Move where?” Harper was leaning over his noodle bowl. “This place is obscenely expensive, as I’m sure you know,” he said. “We have fifty years and millions of hours of virtuals cataloguing the life cycles of each remaining species. We have DNA redundancy, cross-species tissue samples, and countless cloned embryos frozen in five repositories around the world, each one reflecting sufficient species diversity—”

  “You’re shutting us down.” Mackenzie dropped her spoon and pushed the bowl away.