Bryan Thomas Schmidt(SFFWRTCHT):  Let’s start with the basics: Where did your interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy come from?

Alex J. Cavanugh: It began with superhero comics and spilled over into books, movies, and TV shows. I’m sure D&D played a role as well. I liked the escapism.

SFFWRTCHT: Who were some writers who inspired you as you discovered the genre?

AJC: Alan Dean Foster, Terry Brooks, and Ray Bradbury.

SFFWRTCHT: When did you start writing seriously and how long until your first sale?

AJC: A few years ago I rewrote CassaStar from a really old manuscript, and within a year of submitting it, the book found a home.

SFFWRTCHT: Did you study creative writing at all in school? How’d you learn your craft?

AJC: Outside of the basics in college, I didn’t. Any skills I possess came from work-related technical writing, illiteracy tutoring, and reading.

SFFWRTCHT: How do you approach creating monsters/aliens? Do you model them after human cultures? Mix and match or just improvise?

AJC: No monsters yet! My alien races all resemble humans for relatability.

SFFWRTCHT: How much effort do you put into world building before you sit down to write? Or do you just throw it together as its needed?

AJC: I work from an outline, so I plan many details before writing. A few things I make up as I go. And sometimes it happens during revisions. (Those moments of “Oh crap, I need more background!”

SFFWRTCHT: How do you define space opera and what are its core elements to your mind?

AJC: It’s low-tech, adventurous, and the most accessible science fiction genre.

SFFWRTCHT: Where did the idea for the Cassa books come from?

AJC: It has its roots in the original Battlestar Galactica. The first spark came from Frank Frazetta’s artwork for the series – and the scene it inspired is the only one to survive from the first draft to the final version.

SFFWRTCHT: What inspired you to tell the story? You said it was in your mind for decades before you sat down to write.

AJC: I found the draft from my youth and realized that while the story was crappy, the characters were strong. I decided to go for it and see what happened.

SFFWRTCHT: CassaStar spent three months on the bestseller list on Amazon and you have attributed much of that success to blogging. How do you use blogging to build and audience and how do you think it’s benefited you?

AJC: I interact with and support my fellow bloggers, and I work to entertain, inform, and amuse with my own posts. My followers are an eclectic group (over 1300 strong now) so I focus on movies, music, science fiction, and encouragement rather than writing. I participate in and host many blogfests and events, including the Insecure Writer’s Support Group and the A to Z Challenge. Involvement is the key!

SFFWRTCHT: Give us a quick plot summary for CassaStar please.

AJC: Few options remain for Byron, a talented young man with a troubled past and rebellious attitude. Slated to train as a Cosbolt pilot, Byron is determined to prove his worth and begin a new life. Much to his chagrin, Bassa, the toughest instructor in the fleet, takes notice of the young pilot. As war brews on the edge of space, Byron requires a navigator of exceptional quality to survive. Bassa must make a decision that could well decide the fate of both men. Will their skills be enough as they embark on a mission that may stretch their abilities to the limit?

SFFWRTCHT: CassaFire is a sequel set many years later. Why the gap?

AJC: I thought it would be more interesting to show Byron’s growth since that time.

SFFWRTCHT: What’s the second book, CassaFire, about?

AJC: Byron’s days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. Keeping a promise to his fallen mentor, he now serves on an exploration vessel. The detection of alien ruins sends them to the distant planet of Tgren. Are the ruins a key to the Tgren’s civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassans. To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers. Forced to train Athee and further develop her flying aptitude, Byron’s patience is strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy…

SFFWRTCHT: How did you approach writing a sequel differently than the first book?

AJC: I wrote CassaStar for me. I wrote CassaFire for my fans. (But don’t worry, I enjoyed it as well!)

SFFWRTCHT: Did you have a series in mind or just write the follow up due to demand and a desire to continue the story?

AJC: I never planned more than one book and panicked when readers wanted a sequel!

SFFWRTCHT: Will there be a book 3 and what will that be about?

AJC: I’ve outlined a third book, dubbed CassaStorm. It begins twenty years later (I like those twenty year jumps, don’t I?) and involves the ancient alien race from CassaFire.

SFFWRTCHT: What’s your writing process like? Specific time set aside to write? Grab it when you can?

AJC: I’ll write a little here and there, but I prefer a stretch of time in the evening so I can concentrate.

SFFWRTCHT: What area of craft is the most difficult for you? What are your strengths?

AJC: The first draft! I’m a slow writer and a perfectionist, so it takes me forever. Strengths? The ability to form sentences? Seriously, I guess it’s my ability as a person to connect with my audience.

SFFWRTCHT: What kind of feedback do you get from readers/reviewers on your work and how do you use that to improve? Or do you? Do you use beta readers or just rely on your editor?

AJC: I was surprised by the amount of feedback for CassaStar – people are still posting reviews! I don’t take individual ones to heart, but if something is repeated often, I know I need to work on the issue. I still use my two test readers and now have three awesome critique partners as well. Couldn’t live without them!

SFFWRTCHT: Do you use outlines or character sketches? Special software? Music?

AJC: I outline and create detailed character profiles. Music is always playing when I write. (Progressive rock and heavy metal are my style.) And is Microsoft Word considered special?

SFFWRTCHT: You’ve said a full time writing career isn’t your goal. Why? You seem to have had real success with it.

AJC: I enjoy what I do for a living. The publishing world is just so much pressure. Besides, there are so many writers out there who are more talented.

SFFWRTCHT: What are the advantages/disadvantages of working with a small press?

AJC: I feel a part of the process. I know they don’t have the influence of the NY publishers, but I do know they care about me and my books.

SFFWRTCHT: What other projects besides Byron and Cassa books do you have in mind for the future? Any other series?

AJC: None at the moment!

Book trailer available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6VINRGtyE.

Barnes and Noble – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cassafire-alex-j-cavanaugh/1034742568

Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/CassaFire-Alex-J-Cavanaugh/dp/0982713940/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329417150&sr=1-1

Amazon Kindle – http://www.amazon.com/CassaFire-ebook/dp/B007A2TSNG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329663355&sr=1-1

Catch Fire! Blog Party on February 28 – sign up to participate and be eligible to win a copy of CassaFire. Other prizes offered during the author’s blog tour from February 27 through March 9. See the author’s site for details.

Alex J. Cavanaugh has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and work in web design and graphics. He minored in music and plays several instruments, including guitar. An experienced technical editor, he worked with an adult literacy program for several years. A fan of all things science fiction, his interests range from books and movies to music and games. His first book, CassaStar, was released on October 19, 2010. The sequel, CassaFire, will be released February 28, 2012. He lives in the Carolinas with his wife and can be found online via his popular blog at http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/ or on Twitter as @AlexJCavanaugh.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SF Signal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.‎ Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

by Evan Dicken

Suleiman Arroyo-Chang watched the Bordai Representative with increasing disquiet. The alien brought its angel down low over the herd of galloping unicorns, lopping off equine heads with lazy swipes of its flaming broadsword. Suleiman did his best to look at ease, which was surprisingly difficult given that he sat on a plush divan in a facsimile of the Garden of Eden.

Representative Ahklu reined the angel up, and it fluttered to the ground with a few sweeps of its elegantly pinioned wings. Suleiman knew it was only a construct of nanowire and hard light, but he still had to keep from flinching as Ahklu clambered down from the winged divinity, and cut it in half.

The Bordai Representative looked like nothing so much as a peanut shell stuck through at irregular intervals with articulated fish hooks. Suleiman still couldn’t quite believe it was a member of the most ancient and powerful race in the galaxy.

“You humans truly are a bland people. Even your mythology is uninspired.” Ahklu crooked its long, sticklike limbs in a gesture Suleiman had come to know well over the last few months. Boredom.

“With all due respect, Representative. Some of my people believe angels are real, that they are the servants of god. Placing them in the same category as unicor—”

“God?”

Suleiman blinked. “The being that many humans believe created the universe.”

“A creator, eh?” Ahklu angled its torso to regard Suleiman with one large, unblinking eye. “That might be interesting. Let me see it.”

Suleiman’s face grew hot. Although he didn’t consider himself a religious man, the casual disregard in Ahklu’s tone set his teeth on edge. “Adherents of the faith of my homeworld, Al-Andalus, believe that no representation can properly capture the majesty of the divine, that to even attempt a portrayal is blasphemy.”

“I should have expected as much.”

“B-but there are other religions, many in fact, some even have multiple gods.”

“Well.”

“Well, what?”

“The gods. Show them to me.” Ahklu sank a tangle of manipulator hooks into the soft fabric of the divan and heaved itself into a reclining position.

Suleiman looked around for help, then remembered that he was alone—the only human for a hundred light years. The Bordai allowed only one petitioner from each race. Chancellor Singh had given him sole authority to negotiate with the Bordai Utopia on behalf of Humanity.

It was a desperate gambit, born of the unreasoning terror of a species facing total annihilation. If Suleiman couldn’t secure advanced military technology from the Bordai, his people were doomed. He reminded himself that this was not the time for theological qualms.

“Of course.” Suleiman bowed to conceal his disgusted grimace. He triggered one of the sub-dermal datasplinters in his arm. Information—painstakingly copied from every database in humanity’s shrinking sphere of influence—flowed into the Bordai holomatrix. The garden faded, severed unicorn heads and bits of angel merging into a massive, white-bearded man of profound aspect.

“So, your God is just a bigger version of you? Typical.”

“It’s a popular representation, but there are others, many others.” Suleiman felt like a blasphemous conductor as he ushered in a swarm of gods, spirits, and demons. Daoist immortals paraded by in a long line, interspersed with the glowing forms of Bodhisattvas. The Dodekatheon, resplendent in gold and bronze, stood at haughty attention between the bloody handed suns of Aztec myth and the vast binary god of the Wikifont. Krishna and Radha, the immortal lovers, reclined on a silken pillow, surrounded by the fierce visages of Egwugwu, Kachina, and other tribal spirits. He conjured Kami, Aesir, Moai, and more. All for the amusement of a jaded alien diplomat.

Suleiman watched the display with a mixture of awe and trepidation. “Please,” he murmured to the assembled divinities. “Please.”

“What was that?” Ahklu extended a potato-shaped auditory bundle.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, I thought you might be as bored as I am by this anthropomorphic rubbish. Really, when will you people get over yourselves?”

Suleiman clenched his hands and took several deep breaths. “We thought we were alone for a very long time.”

“So did the Druul, but they, at least, had the decency to imagine their creator as a flat black sheet poked through with holes. That, at least, has the possibility for generalization. How did you expect to win converts on other worlds?”

“Like I said, we—”

“Also, don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to have so many?”

Suleiman gave his beard an agitated tug. “It’s considered a matter of faith. No one really knows who created—”

“We do.”

“What?”

“I said, we do. We know who created the universe, what happens when you die, the meaning of life, all that.”

Suleiman could only stare, wide-eyed at the squat, lumpy body of the Bordai representative. It took a few moments for him to work enough saliva into his mouth to reply. “I-I would be honored if you would enlighten me.”

“It might take a while, seeing how backward your people are, but I suppose it’s the least I can do if you can spare the time. After all, it isn’t my race that’s being methodically exterminated by the Khodan Armada. . .ah, I’ve upset you.”

“Yes, I mean, no—”

“It’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. You’re just overstimulated. It happens to a lot of petitioners when they speak with us. Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. Why don’t we take a brief recess?”

“Perhaps that would be best.” Suleiman tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He’d thought to use religion as a bridge to philosophy and politics, but Ahklu’s revelation reduced his plan to shambles. How would humanity’s attempts to grapple with existence and meaning appear to a race who was convinced it had all the answers? Suleiman was afraid he already knew. Quaint.

He fought retain his composure. “My people have a long tradition of art, and music.”

“Oh.” Ahklu looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m sure you have lots of lovely things to show me. A few hours then?” The Bordai unhooked from the couch and rolled off. Suleiman watched silently as the collection of divinities disintegrated into a cloud of swirling nanowire and retracted back into the projection plates. The divan slowly sank into the floor, leaving Suleiman alone in the large empty room.

Supreme Chancellor Rosalita Singh had been handsome when she first took office, but years of bitter war and a dozen coup attempts had carved deep worry lines on her face and set shooting stars of grey through hair once as black as deep space. After two terms as Chancellor, the woman on the screen was only an echo of the proud commander who’d driven back the Druul incursion.

“We just lost New Guangzhou.” Singh’s tired voice crackled over the ansible. “Tell me you have good news.”

Suleiman took a deep breath. “The Bordai were not interested in our religion, literature, or philosophy.”

Her jaw twitched. “Nine ships, Suleiman, we lost nine ships getting you to Bordai space. They could have made a difference at Guangzhou.”

They wouldn’t have, but Suleiman didn’t correct her.

“The Bordai are infovores. You’re telling me that there’s nothing, nothing in the entire recorded history of human thought and belief that whet their appetite?” Singh asked.

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Neither could I.”

The Chancellor leaned back, massaging her forehead. “We have a day, maybe two, before the Armada reaches Earth. Not that it matters, the damage is already done. The Human Republichas gone from a first-rate galactic power to a tattered relic, and all because a Khodan diplomat parlayed some bit of cultural minutiae into specs for an unbeatable particle cannon.”

“I’m meeting with Representative Ahklu again in a few hours. I hope to have better luck.”

“You’d better. I’m not going to tell anyone about this. We’re being cut to pieces. Morale is low enough as it is.”

He nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”

“Suleiman.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Yes.”

“How’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Be Supreme Chancellor. Solve everybody’s problems.”

Suleiman gave a sad smile. “I only had the Druul to worry about, and don’t forget, there were heroes like you to make me look good.”

Singh’s lips pressed into a tight line, the look in her eyes far away for a moment. She gave a slight shake of her head, as if breaking from the grip of sleep, then smoothed her uniform. “Try to get some rest before the meeting. I need you at your best.”

“I will,” he said, although they both knew it was a lie.

“Get me something, anything. It may be too late to turn the tide, but at least we can die with some damn dignity.”

The screen went dark.

Suleiman sat for a moment, then stood and walked over to his luggage. He’d packed light: a few changes of clothes, a cyanide hypo in case Representative Ahklu decided to turn him over to the Khodan, and a jar of soil from Al-Andalus.

Suleiman turned the small glass jar over in his hands, watching the dry, red-orange earth of his home world tumble from side-to-side. Ahklu’s flippant claim to ultimate knowledge troubled him more than he was willing to admit. The Bordai were an ancient race, the first in the galaxy to achieve sentience if they were to be believed. Certainly, their technology and scientific understanding were far beyond anything known to humanity. What if the Bordai did know the meaning of life?

There was a scratching outside of Suleiman’s suite. It was with no small sense of relief that he abandoned his dour contemplation and went to the door.

The alien who stood in the hall loomed over Suleiman. Even hunched forward it was two over meters tall, with skin that glistened like buffed onyx. Its mouthless head was long, almost crocodilian, with bat-like ears and two rows of glowing yellow eyes. Four muscled arms terminated in tapered digits that served as both fingers and mouths. A long, puckered scar marred the alien’s chest from shoulder to stomach, the remnants of a close encounter with a plasma torch. Suleiman recognized the alien, she had haunted his nightmares for two terms in office. It was a Druul, and not just any Druul, it was Matriarch Kesk.

Suleiman took an unconscious step back, and the Druul stalked into the room, clawed paws whisper quiet on the metal floor. It blinked, eyes opening and closing in quick syncopation.

“Bloodsworn.” The small matte-black box on Kesk’s collar translated her blinks into Sino-Hindi. “You are perspiring. Pupils dilated. Fear or anger?”

“Surprise. I didn’t know you were here, Kesk.” Suleiman wiped a clammy hand on his robe and took another step back. Kesk followed him.

A pair of Kesk’s eyes flicked down to the translator, which flashed a series of almost imperceptible lights. She raised a hand. A tiny, curling hair was pinched almost gingerly between the lips of one finger. “I could not but know you were here, Bloodsworn.”

Suleiman touched his beard. Druul were uncannily tenacious and perceptive hunters. It had made them fearsome foes during the incursion, and valuable allies afterwards.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

Kesk cocked her head. “I lost a war. Why are you here?”

Suleiman snorted. “I won one.”

“My vision grows cloudy at news of your people’s defeats. Would that the Druul could stalk the silent darkness by your side, but we cannot see a path that does not end in winter for both our races.”

“I understand, and thank you for your kindness. Please, make yourself comfortable.” Suleiman gestured to the ceiling.

Kesk worked her fingers into the cracks and crevices in the panels that made up the suite’s roof, then pulled herself from the ground. “I have come to offer you asylum.”

“By ‘offer asylum’ do you mean kill me?” Try as he might, Suleiman had never been able to wholly understand the Druul culture of vengeance. They treated enemies who attained the title of Bloodsworn with respect almost verging on veneration.

Kesk rocked back and forth with silent humor, eyes winking like tiny glow lamps. “No, I will not be your winter, Bloodsworn. The Queens hold you in high regard. We have communicated with the Khodan, and they have agreed to spare a human life, but only one. They were very concerned that no breeding pairs survive.”

Suleiman gave a rueful chuckle. “How is it that I see your hand in this?”

“Not me. I no longer hang from the high branches.”

“—and yet they still tremble at your passing.”

Both diplomats were silent for a moment. Suleiman stared at Kesk. There was a time when he would have gladly given his life to be this close to her with a weapon nearby.

She’d been a great leader during the Incursion, the Druul’s answer to Commander Singh, but unlike Singh, there was no one in a position of power to recognize and cultivate her talents. Singh revolutionized the way humanity waged war, while Kesk fought on, unsupported and undervalued. It was only during the occupation, after the Republic Council had tried most of the Druul monarchy for war crimes, that Kesk proved her true worth as a peacemaker and diplomat. This was not the first time Suleiman had been thankful for her superiors’ short-sighted jealousy.

“I am grateful for your offer, but I must decline,” he said.

Kesk turned upside-down so that her head was level with Suleiman’s. “Your pride blinds you.”

“Not pride, hope.”

“Hope, or denial? Do you still think there is a path through this storm? Do you think humanity is somehow special? Somehow deserving of salvation?”

Suleiman did not have an answer for her.

“For a race that prides itself on cleverness, humans are remarkably inflexible. Climb down from your high perch and see things as they really are. You have nothing that the Bordai want.”

“. . .and yet I must try.”

“Ahklu has seen all that you offer a dozen times over. The Bordai search only for a way to relieve the tedium of immortality. Nothing is beyond their grasp. The only thing they truly value is novelty.”

“We shall see.”

“Stubborn fool. Did you learn nothing from the war?”

“We will not surrender to the Khodan.” Suleiman looked down at his hands, remembering the massacre at Halimaw, the gravity-bombing of Texas colony, and the destruction of Al-Andalus. “Even if we tried, they would not accept. This is no mere border dispute. Things have progressed too far.”

Kesk grasped Suleiman’s shoulder with one rough hand, teeth pricking through the fabric of his robe. “Humanity is not blameless in this.”

Tears glimmered in Suleiman’s eyes. “I opposed the bio-phage.”

“Did you council surrender?”

“No, I—”

“So it was not humanity’s ultimate triumph you disputed, merely the manner of your victory.”

“We were losing. The Khodan were on the verge of annexing our worlds. We would have been a subject people, forced to accept an alien government.”

Kesk withdrew her hand. “As we were?”

“That is not an apt comparison. The Republic helped to rebuild your society, your worlds.”

“Along human lines.”

“We released you.” Suleiman’s words were barely more than a whisper. “You are better for it.”

“Yes, but not in the way you imagine. It is a hard lesson to learn—that your race is not exceptional. We spend our childhoods alone, weaned on tales of our own brilliance, telling ourselves we are unique, important. Then we crawl, parentless, from our nests into a jungle of stars to find that we are but one among many. Your people know how to climb, Bloodsworn, but they never learned to fall. Now, I fear you may have gone too high.”

Suleiman drew himself up. When he spoke, his voice trembled. “Please go. I have much to think about before my next meeting with Ahklu.”

“Stubborn.” Kesk dropped to the floor, and strode from the room without a sound. She did not look back.

Representative Ahklu slumped to the floor of the holochamber with a soft groan. On the illusory stage, Hamlet waxed nostalgic while staring at a jester’s skull.

“Are you well?” Suleiman started to reach for the Bordai, but realized that he had not the slightest idea what to do.

Ahklu’s eyes jerked open. “What? Oh, yes, quite. I merely dozed off. I was having such a wonderful dream. I was tiny, and surrounded by blue balls, which for some reason excited me.”

“Shall I restart the scene?”

“No, don’t bother. This isn’t any better than the rest.”

“But, it’s Hamlet.”

“Do you have anything less self-referential?”

Suleiman squeezed his eyes shut. “We could try Journey to the West again.”

“No, too noisy. How about more poems from Ibn Quzman.”

“You said they put you to sleep.”

“Yes, exactly, I want to try and recapture that dream with the balls.”

Suleiman nodded and triggered one of his datasplinters. Hamlet vanished mid-soliloquy, replaced by a tall, bearded man in robes. Ibn Quzman’s sonorous voice filled the chamber, reciting a light-hearted poem that nested layers of meaning, biting social commentary, and a meditation on the nature of life within a simple request for sheep. Even now, it brought a soft smile to Suleiman’s lips.

“Looks a bit like you.” Ahklu rolled over and closed its eyes.

Suleiman winced. “He does have a beard.”

In a moment, the Bordai Representative was asleep again. Suleiman sat quietly, hands folded in his lap. Part of him wanted to howl, to grab Ahklu and shake some sense into the Bordai, another part to fall to his knees and beg the alien for help. Suleiman had plied the Representative with everything from cave paintings, to symphonies, to recent TriD blockbusters, but each elicited nothing more than a new crop of backhanded complements and unfavorable comparisons to the Khodan.

Suleiman looked down at Ahklu and activated a datasplinter. Ibn Quzman melted into a spray of palm fronds, the rhythmic cadence of his speech shattering into the riotous tumult of voices that filled the great souk of Al-Andalus. Shoppers crowded brightly colored stalls, marveling at holo-displays of goods from across human space and beyond.

He left Representative Ahklu dozing in the shade of a spreading date-palm to push his way through the close, crowded lanes of the marketplace. A hot breeze carried the aroma of roasting meat, laden with the subtle, almost sultry scents of coriander, cumin, and cloves. All gone now.

For a moment, Suleiman wondered if things would have been different if he’d stayed, taken over his father’s stall. No, he wouldn’t have been happy. Even then he’d known he was meant for bigger things: a political career, a seat on the senate, a chancellorship. He’d climbed far from such humble beginnings. And yet, here he was, back at the souk, trying to sell someone something they didn’t want for more than they were willing to pay.

Suleiman’s feet traced the well-worn path to the center of the market. When he broke from the bittersweet nostalgia, he was standing in front of the Grand Mosque. It was a faithful replica of the long-destroyed Great Cathedral of Cordoba, one of the greatest works of the ancient Moorish kingdom from which the colony took its name. The sight of its onion-domes and sweeping minarets still made the breath catch in Suleiman’s throat.

“What’s all this then?” Ahklu’s harsh treble cut through the babble of the souk.

Suleiman turned to regard the Bordai ambassador. “My home.”

“A bit crowded, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” Suleiman waved an arm and the people disappeared. The marketplace seemed somehow terrifying without them. He stared up at the silent mosque and bowed his head.

“So, what’s next? More of that dreadful post-post-modern theatre?”

“No.”

“Another go at Kabuki?”

“No.”

“Well, what then?”

“Nothing.” Suleiman sank to his knees.

“Nothing?”

“We obviously have nothing you’re interested in. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“Well, it wasn’t as horrible as all that.” Ahklu patted Suleiman’s shoulder with one hooked appendage. “Compared to a lot of others I could name, your culture isn’t half-bad. Just nothing special. Like the Khodan, now there’s a species with potential. Did you know, they have a musical instrument that you play by balancing on the end of a long pole?”

Suleiman cradled his face in his hands.

“You made a good show of it. A lot of other races would have given up ages ago. I can’t fault your. . .persistence,” Ahklu said.

“Denial,” Suleiman whispered.

“That’s another way to put it, but you’re right. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a race remain so stubbornly convinced of its own superiority in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

“Truly?”

“Well, yes, actually.” Ahklu paused, eyes retracted in an expression of wry bemusement.

Suleiman drew in a deep breath and looked up. “Representative, it appears we may have something to discuss after all.”

Suleiman found Kesk in her quarters, a dark silo shot through with steel rods and hanging cables. She was juggling prayer-sticks. The lengths of polished wood incised with glowing Druul script formed a bright arc as Kesk’s four arms blurred through the ritual formations. As it always did, the sight reminded Suleiman of fire jugglers in the public square. He waited until she finished her prayer.

“Bloodsworn.” Kesk stowed her sticks in a lacquered wooden box and swung down to a beam just above Suleiman. They had not spoken since he banished her from his quarters.

“The Bordai have agreed to a trade.”

Kesk’s eyes were a twinkling constellation in the artificial night. “It seems I have once again underestimated you. What is it to be then? A poem for a particle bomb? A sonnet for a stellar converter?”

“No. The price was the reward. The Bordai have agreed to broker humanity’s unconditional surrender.”

Kesk rocked back and forth on her high perch. “Very clever, even the Grand Admiral of the Armada wouldn’t dare ignore a Bordai call for peace.”

“Ahklu himself plans to oversee the capitulation, to assure that the Khodan respect our rights as sentient beings.”

“Your race is lucky, there are far worse rulers than the Khodan. They have a rich culture. In a few generations, when the memories of the conflict fade, your race may even prosper from this arrangement.”

“I doubt they will thank me for it now.” Suleiman knuckled one red-rimmed eye and sighed. “I am to talk with Chancellor Singh in an hour, to break the news.”

“She will not be happy.”

“I imagine not. I expect the Khodan will want to try her for war crimes, but the pact is already sealed. If I’m lucky, she’ll see I did the only thing I could. If not. . .is your government’s offer of asylum still open?”

“Always, Bloodsworn, always.” Kesk crossed her lower arms over her thickly muscled chest, a gesture of both hatred and respect among the Druul.

“I thank you.” Suleiman bowed as deeply as he could manage. “I also wanted to say, you were right. My pride, our pride, led us to this. If it hadn’t been the Khodan, it would have been some other race, some other war.”

Kesk bobbed her head.

“I have just one question. Did you know all along?” he asked.

“No, but what are friends for if not to try and catch you when you fall.”

Suleiman blinked back tears. “All the things we’ve done. We don’t deserve this.”

“Does anyone?”

“Thank you.” Suleiman tugged on his beard, voice thick with emotion. “I must go. I have a call to make.”

He waved a hand, and a square of light appeared on the far wall.

“Suleiman?”

“Yes?” Suleiman paused in the act of stepping out into the hall, surprised that Kesk had called him by name.

“Welcome to the Universe.”

Evan Dicken is a graduate student studying the History of Science and Technology at Ohio State University. His work has appeared in Dragon Magazine and Permuted Press’s “Monstrous,” Anthology. He has stories forthcoming from War of the Words Press, Pulp Empire, Tales of the Unanticipated, and hopefully more to come. 

• Keanan Brand joins as a full Editor / Overseer. Keanan will be Declining and Accepting stories and corresponding with authors. You may grovel before Keanan as you would before Us.
• James King joins Anton Gully as Slushmaster, wading through the treacherous dreck of the slushpile. Anton is a known undead glutton for punishment, an absolute and implacable machine, a drinker of souls before such a thing became all sparkly and angsty. James seems like a nice guy – I’m sure this will not end well for him.

We are always looking for more eyeballs to afflict with our slushpile (and by this, I mean actual people – we have all the actual eyeballs that we need at the present time). If you are interested in thankless volunteer editorial drudgery reading the best minor subgenres and can articulate why you did or did not care for a story, it can’t hurt to send your query to overlords at raygunrevival.com, Subject Line: Slushmaster, payment enclosed*.

In honor of the acquisition of these two new stalwarts, the Overlords will spare your puny planet for another day. You may conduct your futile revelry during this brief respite from certain annihilation.

Imperiously,
The Overlords

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Aron had skipped the flight-training classroom on the tour. Located on the opposite side of the hangar from the command center, it was clearly intended to serve a dual purpose as a ready room for pilots once training was completed. A rather large chamber, it contained four simulators on one side and rows of chairs and desks on the other. A laser board and vidscreen hung side by side on the front wall, behind a plexiglass podium.

Davi arrived to find twenty eager trainees seated and waiting for him. He was surprised to see Tela, Nila, Brie and Dru among them. The moment he saw Tela, his heart accelerated in volume and pace. He feared the whole room could hear it. I guess I should’ve guessed she’d sign up for this. Maybe I can make up for upsetting her the other day.

He walked to the front of the room, taking a closer look at the students as he moved up the aisle. They look like kids, all of them. Most can’t even be my age yet. Of course, he’d started flying at sixteen and graduated from the Academy at twenty-one. For some reason, he found himself feeling so much older now.

Stepping behind the podium, he turned and smiled. “Welcome class. Good to see so many future pilots here!” He turned to Tela: “And one very talented pilot already. How many of you have ever done any flying, besides, of course, Tela?” Tela frowned as a few trainees in the back raised their hands, but none he knew by name.

As he glanced around, he spotted several others looking wary, even angry at him. “Okay, we have our work cut out for us. Without fighters to train in, we’ll be doing a lot of training on the simulators and then using Skitters to get you used to the speed and feel as much as possible.”

Brie raised her hand. “Yes, Brie?”

“Skitters don’t fly,” she said, a puzzled look on her face.

Davi nodded. “Well, yes, that’s true, but they do handle similarly to fighters.”

Dru raised his hand. Davi nodded at him. “What about laser target practice? They don’t have lasers either.”

“Alliance Skitters do,” Tela interjected. Davi smiled at her in appreciation but she just looked away again.

“We’ll have to do it all on the simulators for now,” Davi said. Brie raised her hand again. “Yes?” Would they always be like this?

“When are we getting fighters?”

“I don’t know.” He was beginning to wonder if giving some of these people access to fighters would be a good idea. They seemed too eager. Brie and Dru looked disappointed at his answer. “There’re going to be a lot of things we’ll have to figure out as we go along.”

Several of the trainees sighed, frustrated. “How do we know they’ll ever allow us to fly them?” a dark-skinned cadet said from the back row.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Davi answered as everyone in the room waited with anticipation for his reaction.

“Yeah, right,” the cadet next to the other said, smirking at their buddies. “A Borali Alliance officer training workers against his own people.” A couple of other cadets chuckled in agreement.

“Not just a Borali Alliance officer! The Prince himself!” said the dark-skinned cadet.

“Jorek! Virun! Cut it out!” Nila scolded, frowning at them.

“Look,” Davi said, “I’m on your side. Why would your leaders send me here, if they didn’t trust me?”

“Did your Uncle order them to?” Virun said with a smirk as his friends laughed.

Davi sighed. For the first time, he found being known as a Royal made him very uncomfortable. He fought the urge to snap back, instead chuckling and smiling at Virun. “Without the resources of the Borali Alliance, we do face some challenges.”

The cadets mumbled in acknowledgement, some still staring at him as if he were to blame. “However, when I was in flight school, we also didn’t have experienced pilots in the class either, and you have the good fortune to have two.”

He looked at Tela again, who shot him an annoyed look. What did I do now? Several of the others were looking at her now. She looked uncomfortable, shifting behind her desk.

“Okay, well, perhaps we should cover a few basics of flight first.” Going to leave her alone and hope she gets over it. For a pilot, she seems kind of sensitive. Hope she has the endurance to do this. He made a note to keep the question to himself, flipped on the laser board and began lecturing.

An hour and a half later, he wrapped up what he thought was a pretty decent lecture on the basics of flight and the trainees dispersed. He found Tela waiting for him in the corridor, eyes fuming.

Might as well confront this head on. “Tela, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to apologize to you for offending you when we landed yesterday—”

She didn’t even wait for him to finish. “Don’t single me out in front of everyone! They’re already intimidated enough and they’re my friends!”

“Look, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I really meant it as a compliment. You’re a very good pilot. You can help them learn.” The heat rose in him just being near her.

“As what? Teacher’s pet? They’ll resent me for it!”

“Well, to be honest, if you were going for teacher’s pet, you’d have to be nicer to me,” he joked. She didn’t even smile. What is it with this girl?

“You fighter jocks are all the same,” she said. “Or maybe it’s just you princes!” She stared at him, disgusted, then turned and marched up the corridor.

Davi had to run to keep up with her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Over-confident braggarts, who think all you have to do is come in the room and the women will start swooning,” Tela said.

“Wait a minute! We don’t really know each other. I’m not like that at all,” Davi said, trying to hide his own growing irritation. She was making so many assumptions which just weren’t true. Sure, women had been impressed by his Royal status, but he’d tried not to take advantage of it. Then he remembered the girls at Bar Electric. Most of the time.

“Yes, you are. I’ve been around your type my whole life!”

“Really? You know some other princes?”

She scowled and rolled her eyes, hurrying off again, but he grabbed her arm. “You really are something, aren’t you? Judging people without even bothering to get to know them? It seems to me I’m not the one here who’s full of himself!” He sighed, regretting the outburst, even though it was true.

“Oh stuff it up your flight suit, air jockey!” She turned and stormed off, leaving him disconcerted. He’d never problems talking to women before. Why this one? And why did it turn him on so much?

Bordox had searched the entire planet for Xander with little to show for it. He had no idea why Rhii was helping the workers. There’d been a rumor when they were at the Academy, but even Bordox doubted that. It was Xander Rhii after all. The little Prince had always been soft. What Bordox couldn’t fathom was how he’d survived five years at the Academy. Bordox had what it took. Rhii didn’t. Now, Rhii’s actions proved his success at the Academy was a fluke. The Prince had sailed through on his family name, charming the faculty and administration, or, at least, revealing their hypocrisy. Bordox knew he was ten times the soldier Xander Rhii would ever hope to be, and on this mission, he would prove it!

He arrived early for his appointment with Zylo at the Regional Office of the LSP. They’d decided to put their heads together and regroup. But Bordox was wondering if a head butt might not be the best plan. Zylo’s intelligence was worthless. Every lead he’d provided had turned up a dead end. Bordox was doing all the work, and he wasn’t about to bust his butt to see Zylo get all the credit. It always worked that way with higher level officers. The lower level guys did the work, while the higher level guys got the glory. Not this time! This was his chance to show Xalivar, the High Lord Councilor himself, who the best soldier in the Alliance really was. At last, Bordox would get the recognition and status he deserved!

Zylo even seemed to feel sorry for Rhii. Bordox wanted to laugh when Zylo expressed sympathy for the little rat. Pathetic loser. Such softness would never get in Bordox’s way. He made his way to the conference room where Zylo was already waiting for him. Sigh.

“We’ve generated a bunch of new leads for you,” Zylo said, tossing a memory card across the table at him.

“I hope they’re better than the previous garbage you guys sent me,” Bordox said.

Zylo didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Intelligence gathering is not an exact science, especially when it comes to workers. They have no reason to cooperate with us. We do our best to fill in as many of the pieces as we can before we send the data to you. Your tactics haven’t helped the results.”

Bordox stared at him, hiding his contempt. Not more of this bleeding heart softie crap! “We’re trained to use whatever it takes to complete our mission,” Bordox said.

“No wonder the citizens call you Death Squads instead of LSP,” Zylo said.

Bordox fought to control his anger. That was a moniker used to cut down and disrespect men who served a higher cause in Borali society. Bordox hated that moniker. His anger won and he exploded: “If you don’t want to work with me, feel free to request reassignment! I’m sure Lord Xalivar will be very sympathetic!”

“Watch your tone! I’m your superior officer!”

Not for long! “Are we done yet? I have work to attend to!” Bordox stood and moved to the window, looking out across the city at the great view. Someday maybe he’d be in charge of an entire planet, an assignment far worthier of his talents. He knew he deserved more than cowing down to idiots like this.

“Xalivar gave us the names of two officers he wants us to monitor,” Zylo slid a photo pod across the table.

Bordox grabbed it and looked at the pictures. Farien and Yao! He hated them, too. “Nothing but low-talent hangers on who followed Xander Rhii like puppies at the Academy.”

“One of them is an instructor at Presimion Academy,” Zylo noted as Bordox turned back to the window. “I assigned top operatives to keep watch on the one stationed on Vertullis. The Legallis office will handle Presimion.”

Bordox made a silent note of the fact that Farien was still around. I think I’d better go pay him a visit myself. He didn’t trust anyone else. None of them had the talent he had. Better to make sure what needed to be done got done right. “Shouldn’t we question them?”

“The High Lord Councilor already did. He wants their activities monitored in case the subject makes contact,” Zylo said. “I assigned our best operatives.”

I’m your best operative, you fool! It’s why the High Lord Councilor assigned me to find his nephew not sit on some inconsequential wannabes like them. How could Bordox continue to tolerate even weasels like Zylo failing to recognize his true abilities?

“He wants you to coordinate monitoring of all passenger traffic at the starport. Everyone who comes and goes from this planet is to be monitored, their records checked thoroughly. Someone’s hiding him, and we need to find out whom.”

This guy ought to be a worker, with a brain like that! “I’ll take care of it. I’d also like to pay another visit to some of the workers we already interviewed. There’s a woman and a girl who know more than they told me.”

“You can do what you want with whatever time you have left after the starport’s in order,” Zylo said, standing. The meeting was over.

Thank the gods! Such a waste of time being here with this idiot! I have my destiny to fulfill! They both headed off in opposite directions.

The trio met Miri in the back room of a little-known restaurant on the outskirts of the city. Arriving separately to avoid drawing attention to themselves, each used separate entrances to ensure they wouldn’t be seen together.

The restaurant staff escorted them to a private room in the back, where Miri sat waiting for them. They gathered around a long table, waiting for her to explain. Instead of the usual white robes they wore to official meetings, each wore comfortable cotton slacks and shirts. Miri had never seen Lord Hachim, who took particular pride in his official role, dressed like a civilian. He looked awkward. Tarkanius and Kray appeared more relaxed. All of them knew her, but Lord Kray, one of the few females on the Council, was Miri’s childhood friend.

As waiters took their orders, Miri passed around memory cards. After the waiters had served their beverages, the door closed, and Miri stood, smiling.

“Thank you all for coming. I called you here because we’re all loyal to the Alliance, and I have important information about recent events which should cause you concern.”

“Why are we meeting all the way out here and not at the government center or in the Palace?” Lord Tarkanius asked.

“Because this involves highly confidential matters, and I ask you to keep it that way, until we’ve determined a course of action,” Miri said.

They all exchanged looks wondering what she was about to say.

“You’ve all known my character and loyalty to my family. So you’ll understand what I am about to say comes out of deep concern for both my family and the Alliance.”

“Of course, Miri,” Lord Kray said. “What’s going on?” She sipped from her Talis, a warm beverage brewed from beans grown on Vertullis—somewhat like the old Earth beverage coffee.

“I don’t know how aware you are of the situation on Vertullis,” Miri said, “but events have taken place which, I believe, have created a crisis there. These events have occurred with the full support and consent of the High Lord Councilor and have resulted in treatment of the workers which I believe is unacceptable. These memory cards contain evidence I wish you to review relating to these events.”

“Are you saying there has been mistreatment of workers?” Lord Hachim asked.

“Mistreatment, subhuman conditions, and abuses of power,” Miri said, nodding. Please gods let them believe me.

The three Lords exchanged looks of both surprise and concern. “The workers are not like us. We all know the history of their attacks against our people,” Lord Tarkanius said.

“Yet the Borali Alliance has always stood for fair treatment of those under our rule,” Miri said. “We set certain standards, which are not being upheld now under my brother.”

“How much does your bringing this to our attention have to do with the murder charges your brother asked us to reinstate against your own son?” Lord Hachim asked, leaning back in his chair and watching her for a reaction.

Xalivar asked them to charge Davi? It hit her hard hearing it, though she tried not to let it show. “My son was charged because he questioned the Borali Alliance’s treatment of workers. He documented a long line of abuses, bringing the evidence to Xalivar, who was not receptive. Anyone who questions my brother is at risk. He refuses to respond to inquiries. He believes the workers are subhuman, lower than animals, unworthy of trust or respect.” And most other people too.

“Many in the Alliance would agree with him,” Lord Tarkanius said, sipping his Talis.

“Then how can we blame the workers for calling us tyrannical?” Lord Kray asked, her brow furrowed with concern.

“Xalivar is consolidating his own power, taking on more and more responsibilities himself and relying less and less on your counsel,” Miri said, hoping they’d noticed.

“He appears before the Council to make regular reports,” Lord Hachim said.

“The Council began meeting every two months instead of monthly at whose request?” Miri asked.

The Lords exchanged a look. “The High Lord Councilor requested it, due to increased obligations,” Lord Kray said.

Miri nodded. “I believe Xalivar wants to make the High Lord Councilor more like a kingship and less dependent on the Council. He has become more and more powerful and makes more and more decisions alone. If the Council doesn’t take action soon, it will be too late.”

“He has done nothing the Council doesn’t approve of,” Lord Tarkanius said, leaning forward in his chair.

“You’ll change your opinion after you’ve viewed these memory cards,” Miri said with anticipation.

“What are you proposing?” Lord Hachim asked.

“I believe it may be time for a change of leadership. . .for the High Lord Councilor’s office to be returned to someone who respects both its powers and its limits,” Miri said.

As expected they looked shocked to hear this from her. They examined her as if trying to determine how serious she was, but Miri made sure her expression never wavered.

“We will, of course, consider the evidence on these memory cards with great care,” Lord Tarkanius said, after taking a final sip of his Talis.

Miri smiled. “Thank you. Please keep this meeting confidential until we’ve had a chance to discuss your reactions.”

They nodded. “Of course we will,” Lord Kray said. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Miri.”

“I love the Alliance and respect the Council,” Miri said. “It is my duty.”

“The Council has always appreciated your faithfulness,” Lord Hachim said as they stood, placing the memory cards in their pockets.

Miri watched as they departed one at a time, leaving her alone. She knew the risks of revealing this to the Council, but she had grown increasingly concerned about Xalivar’s activities after learning what Davi had uncovered on Vertullis. Xalivar’s refusal to be questioned about it by her or anyone else had convinced her that someone had to step up and call him to account. She was in the best position to do so.

She’d chosen the members of the Council to which she gave the evidence with great care. She knew their influence on the Council would help her case. She would wait for their response, and continue gathering evidence. In the meantime, she had a plan that would bring the abuses to the attention of the public.

Xalivar had asked the Council to charge Davi with murder! My gods, how could he do that? His betrayal was the last straw. Any second thoughts she had, faded away. Fine. If Xalivar had no loyalty to her or his family, so be it. She would not feel it necessary to be loyal to him. The Borali Alliance itself was more important, and she knew in her heart even their father would disapprove of Xalivar’s excesses.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, an honorable mention on Barnes & Noble’s Best SF Releases of 2011, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. He resides in Ottawa, KS with two precocious dogs.

~

This work proudly brought to you in association with Every Day Publishing and Diminished Media Group. If you like what you’ve read thus far, there’s no need to wait – click on over and pick up a copy right now!

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

They waited what seemed like hours, but when the shuttle arrived, Davi looked at his chrono—ninety minutes had passed. When the shuttle door slid open, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Tela stepped out onto the ramp and smiled at them.

She’s a pilot? She’d handled the shuttle with smooth ease. There was a stirring in his stomach. I have to get to know this girl!

The shuttle was an older model Davi hadn’t seen in years. It had a gray exterior, instead of the white of recent models. Its interior had the four rows of chairs and harnesses in the passenger cabin and two in the cockpit facing the blast shield and controls.

Tela flew them to the far side of Vertullis over thick and undeveloped forest. It appeared that both the Vertullians and the Alliances kept busy enough with the existing agricultural and urban areas. The forest appeared mostly undisturbed. Tall cedars stretched around them as far as the eye could see. Wood had low value in the system—used mostly for making old-style furniture. Still, when Tela swung the shuttle in amongst them for a landing, it surprised him. Even more so when a portion of a rock wall opened to reveal a large hangar, into which they dove to land.

Stepping off the shuttle, Davi stopped and stared at what lay before him—a genuine Vertullian underground military base. Shuttles and a few Skitters were scattered all around amidst the tool kits, instruments and personnel needed to keep them operational. Mech-bots of various colors and sizes rolled around performing tasks from delivering supplies to starcraft maintenance. Everyone went about their business with a precision and seriousness rivaling any post in the Borali Alliance. He had never imagined such a place could exist. As he took it all in, Tela turned to the group and smiled.

“Welcome to the Workers Freedom Resistance,” Tela said.

“I had no idea you could fly,” Davi said, smiling.

“Why? Women aren’t up to the challenge?” Tela snapped.

“That’s not what I meant at all—”

“You fighter jocks are all the same!” Irritated, Tela turned before he could say another word and headed off toward a group of mechanics working nearby. Heat rose inside him. Women had affected him before, but not like this.

“I think it’s great,” he called after her, but she was already busy chatting with the mechanics.

“I knew you’d been busy with the Resistance, Aron, but I had no idea. . .” Lura said.

Aron smiled. “It’s a well-kept secret whose time has finally come. We’ve launched a campaign to gather support among our people, and we hope Davi can offer assistance in moving another aspect of the program forward.”

What do they want me for? His mind filled with questions. “How can an operation like this remain undetected?” Davi asked.

“Radar coverage is difficult to deploy due to the density of the forest. Plus, once they clear the forest, our shuttles blend into intraplanetary traffic, and the Alliance hardly expects workers to have starcraft,” Aron said.

The Borali Alliance rarely monitored intraplanetary traffic. “It must have taken years to build this,” Davi said, full of admiration. He knew the Alliance took for granted that the workers were no threat, but he’d never imagined this possibility. “How do you acquire starcraft?”

“Well, since we’re the ones who repair them, when one gets written off as unworthy of repair, we find a use for it,” Aron said.

Davi couldn’t believe the Alliance would be so careless in disposing of starcraft. “How do you get it here without detection?”

“Our mechanics send it out for one final test flight to ensure its status,” Aron said. “When old shuttles designated for destruction disappear, they aren’t deemed worthy of much investigation.”

They do seem to have figured out the loopholes. “You have an actual hidden starbase here.”

Aron laughed. “This is only the beginning. Let’s see to your mother and Nila first, and then I’ll show you around.”

“Of course,” Davi said, excited about seeing more. Aron took Lura’s arm and led them through the landing bay toward a corridor carved out of the rock at the far end.

After taking Lura and Nila to a makeshift medical bay, Aron escorted Davi on a tour through corridors cut out of rock. The base had been built using existing caves. Corridors had been either dug out from scratch or expanded from existing tunnels between caves. Other than the hangar, dormitories, and the medical bay, a lot of the caves remained in various stages of development. Digging out the corridors and stringing the reflector pads to light everything alone had taken years.

Their tour ended in a large cavern containing the command center. It was as well developed as any area Davi had yet seen, including computer terminals, radar banks, various displays, a very large vidscreen, and consoles spread through the center in a U-shape. Everything centered around the vidscreen and a large radar monitor table in the center for monitoring battles.

“How did you get all this equipment?” Davi said, taking it all in with awe.

“It’s taken us years,” a man nearby said, turning at the sound of his voice and smiling when he saw Aron. “We salvaged things wherever we could from old parts, things which had been discarded. A few things, like the radar table, were built from scratch to our own specifications.”

Aron nodded as the man extended his hand to Davi. “Davi, this is Joram, one of our military experts.”

Davi shook Joram’s hand. “I didn’t expect there would be a lot of military experts among the workers.”

Joram laughed. “We’ve had to keep our knowledge secret, for sure. I’m well versed in military and cultural history. I also come from a long line of former military men, so I’ve tried to stay up on the latest materials. Nothing top secret for the Alliance, of course, but the web does provide quite a lot if you have the time to search for it.”

Davi nodded. “It’s amazing what you’ve done here!” His friends at the Academy would never believe it.

“You can see why we’ve taken great lengths to conceal it,” Aron said.

Another man joined them near the radar table, handing Aron a datapad. “Aron, we got those reports in on the repair depots.”

“Wonderful,” Aron said, turning to Davi. “We know the locations of all depots in the Borali Alliance where workers have been assigned.”

“I guess some of the Alliance’s secrets are easier to crack than others,” Davi said.

The new man smiled. “Our intelligence network gets more and more advanced each day.”

“Davi, meet Uzah, head of intelligence for the WFR,” Aron said.

Davi shook Uzah’s outstretched hand. Their organizational structure was as impressive as their facilities and equipment. “This is great, but what do you plan to do with it? A full-scale military?”

Uzah and Joram looked at Aron, appearing to ask if Davi could be trusted. Aron nodded.

“We plan to do whatever it takes to free our people,” Joram said.

“We’re hoping you’ll be willing to assist us,” Aron said.

“I don’t know what I can do for you,” Davi said, recalling his conversations with Xalivar. “I don’t seem to have much influence.”

“With the Alliance, perhaps not, but you do have something which we have great need of here,” Aron said. Davi had no idea what he meant. “Flight training.” Aron turned to the others as he continued: “Davi was a leading graduate of the Borali Alliance’s military Academy.”

Joram and Uzah’s reactions told him right away what Aron had in mind. “I’ve never done much teaching,” Davi said.

“I’m sure our pilot candidates will be eager to learn whatever information you can offer,” Uzah said.

“You’ve already met several of them,” Aron said. “Why don’t we set up a class for you tomorrow so you can meet them?”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Davi said, flustered. He had never imagined himself as a flight instructor.

“Begin where your instructors began at the Academy,” Uzah said. “We can train them on shuttles, and we’ve rebuilt several old simulators and placed them in a classroom. We also have a number of Skitters, which can be used for training in the forest.”

Shuttle training would only offer experience at flight. Shuttles and fighters were too dissimilar for it to be of much use in the long run. Skitters were one-man ground craft which operated on a system allowing them to fly above the planet’s surface. They were sleek and fast and easy to maneuver through trees and other obstacles. They also had similar controls and handling to Alliance VS28 starfighters.

“Skitters and simulators are fine, but they can’t replace actual flight time. If we have no fighters, how can we provide proper training?” Davi asked.

Uzah, Aron and Joram exchanged a look and smiled. “Don’t worry. We have plans in place to acquire some,” Joram said.

Aron slapped Davi on the back. “Let’s take it a step at a time. They must first be ready for such training, yes?” Davi nodded, still wondering how they would ever get a fleet of fighters here. “Good. As you can see, we have anticipated all of our needs so far. Everything else will come together in time.” Davi was starting to believe them. He decided to stop asking questions and see how things played out.

Xalivar had so far managed to keep Miri in the dark about the hunt for Davi, but her persistent questions about his whereabouts were getting on his nerves. It had been a matter of time before someone let slip to her about the reinstated murder charges. Given Bordox and Zylo’s failure to track his nephew down, he’d decided not to sit around waiting but to do some investigating himself. The communicator on the wall of his inner chamber beeped twice. Manaen was coming. Good. He would bring with him some visitors who might provide some answers.

When Xalivar stepped into the throne room, he found Manaen waiting with Farien and Yao. Both had put on their finest dress uniforms, as Bordox had done. They stood at attention. He smiled. They knew him, because of their long friendship with Davi; still, they’d never managed to feel at home around him—a fact which suited Xalivar just fine. He liked keeping people off guard, particularly when he wanted information from them.

Seeing Yao in his full dress uniform reminded him of his dislike for aliens, especially those who’d been accorded equal status with humans with the support of the Council. Yet another thing Xalivar would change if given a chance. Aliens were fine for subordinate positions like Manaen held, but they would never be humans’ equals.

He managed to conceal his displeasure as he turned to Manaen. “Leave us.” Manaen bowed and turned back toward the exit.

Xalivar waited until the door slid shut behind him. “I have been following reports of your diligent work on the Alliance’s behalf with great satisfaction. You are serving with honor.”

“Thank you, sir,” they said in perfect unison.

Such good little soldier boys. Let’s see how loyal to the Borali Alliance you really are. “Have you been pleased with your assignments?” Xalivar asked.

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison again.

“Good. Davi also seems to have enjoyed his assignments. Have you kept in touch?”

“From time to time, Lord,” Yao said.

“We saw each other a couple of times before he transferred to Alpha Base,” Farien said.

Xalivar took note of the look they exchanged upon the mention of Davi’s name. “Perhaps you hadn’t heard, but my nephew has fallen into some difficulties. He’s wanted for questioning in the death of a Captain on Vertullis. Did you hear anything about it?”

Farien shrugged. “A couple of rumors.”

“I saw the warrant on the web, my Lord,” Yao said. His purple eyes almost seemed to glow a moment.

One or both of you are lying. I can see it in your eyes. “If you hear from him, you will, of course, report it right away?”

Both nodded. “Yes, Lord.”

Xalivar knew nothing would be gained from attempting to force information from them. He could wait until another time. For now, knowing he would be watching might be enough to make them think twice if Davi contacted them. His voice changed to a tone of concern. “If you think of anything, anything at all which I should know about, I am very concerned about him, of course. He is my only nephew and designated heir.”

They both nodded. It’s still there in your eyes. “We are, too, my Lord,” Yao said.

“Yes, I imagine you are,” Xalivar said, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

“We will help in any way we can,” Farien said.

That’s what I’m counting on, and why you’ll be constantly watched. “Thank you for your service to the Alliance,” Xalivar said.

They both knelt, offering him the expected salute.

“Be sure and take some time to visit your families while you’re here. Family is important. Dismissed.”

They nodded, and then turned for the door. Xalivar watched them go, hoping they would somehow lead him to Davi.

Yao and Farien avoided discussing their meeting with Xalivar until they were alone at Yao’s parents’ house that evening. After some time with both sets of parents, who’d gathered there for a dinner together, they snuck away to the game room and turned the stereo up so they couldn’t be overheard.

“Have you heard from him?” Yao asked as they played a game of virtual chess. He wondered why Farien always wanted to play. Yao beat him every time.

“Other than a couple of friendly e-posts, no,” Farien said.

“Well, let’s keep it that way as far as Xalivar is concerned, okay?” Yao said, capturing two of Farien’s pawns.

“You expect me to hide information from the High Lord Councilor?” Farien asked as he deliberated over his next move.

“I didn’t say to hide it,” Yao said, “but don’t volunteer it.” He enjoyed watching Farien strain his brain for the right move.

Farien shook his head. “I don’t know about this.”

“I have my doubts, too, but he’s our oldest friend.” Yao couldn’t believe Farien was even questioning it.

“And that means I should let my career go down the tubes for him?” Farien slid his bishop across the board, threatening Yao’s knight.

“Xalivar didn’t threaten us,” Yao said, his eyes urging Farien to cooperate. Even as he did, he thought again about all they had to lose. He took the bishop with a rook Farien hadn’t noticed, watching as Farien frowned in frustration.

“Oh sure, I totally bought all his friendly chit-chat,” Farien said. “If he’s allowing the Council to issue a warrant for Davi, he’s not on Davi’s side.”

“I’m not saying he is,” Yao said. “Don’t you think we owe Davi the benefit of the doubt?”

“What I think is I don’t want to get mixed up in this mess,” Farien said. “I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, and this could really screw things up for me.”

Yao shook his head. “It’s sure screwing things up for our friend Davi.” Despite his own doubts, he was disappointed Farien had such a narrow view of things. Maybe I need to talk to Miri about this. He’d send her an e-post as soon as they were finished.

“Maybe he brought this on himself by killing an Alliance Captain,” Farien said.

Is he angry now too? “It was an accident. He told us the circumstances,” Yao reminded him.

“If he wants to blow his whole career getting mixed up with workers, it’s his problem. He can’t expect me to blow mine!”

“Gods, Farien, no one’s asking you to ruin your career, just to look out for a friend a little,” Yao said, frowning as their eyes met.

“A friend who’s wanted by the Council and the High Lord Councilor,” Farien said. “I’m not making any promises, and if you ask me, I don’t think Davi would expect me to.”

“Fine. You keep looking out for yourself as usual.” He turned and punched a code in the panel next to the door, waiting until it slid open with a whoosh. “You seem to be very good at it.”

He left Farien standing there, staring after him.

Not wanting to go near the Palace, Yao arranged to meet Miri at the city’s largest public park. She came alone by air taxi, her face haggard with worry.

“Thank you so much for contacting me. I’ve been so worried about Davi,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him since right after he took emergency leave from Alpha Base, and Xalivar won’t tell me anything.”

“I’m afraid the Council has charged him with murder,” Yao said.

“What?! Xalivar promised he would make sure that didn’t happen!” Miri said, her blue eyes filling with anger.

“I don’t want to speak ill of the High Lord Councilor, but he called Farien and I in and asked about Davi. I got the impression he wasn’t going to interfere with the Council’s decision,” Yao said, filled with regret.

Miri’s face registered a mix of shock and rage. “What is he thinking? My gods! Davi came to us and asked about the workers. I’m afraid a startling discovery about his past has upset him.”

“What discovery?”

Miri hesitated a moment, as if she were unsure how Yao would react. “He discovered I adopted him years ago from a worker family.”

“We heard a rumor about it two years ago at the Academy,” Yao said, understanding her meaning now.

“A rumor? So long ago? It was supposed to be secret,” Miri said with surprise.

“We heard it from a cadet who never liked Davi. We figured he was trying to make waves, but Davi told Farien and I two months ago on Vertullis that he suspected it might be more than a rumor,” Yao said.

Miri looked at her feet. “It’s true.” Her eyes met his and she was pleading. “Please don’t hate him for it. I know it’s a shock to everyone, but it’s not his fault. I raised him as my own, because it never mattered to me, and it shouldn’t matter to you.”

Yao smiled, putting a hand on her arm. “He’s the best friend I’ve got. He can’t get rid me so easily. Besides, I don’t know any workers. I have nothing personal against them.”

Miri looked relieved. “I wish more in the Alliance thought as you do.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Yao pulled her to him in an embrace. “It’s okay, Princess. I’d do anything I can to help him. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

Yao meant it, although he wasn’t sure what he’d do if the help asked involved things which might be deemed traitorous to the Alliance.

“Thank you. You know you’re like family to me,” Miri said, looking up at his face and smiling.

He dried her tears with his handkerchief. “You are to me, too,” he said.

“Thank you for your support of Davi,” she said, sniffling as she recovered her composure. “And me.”

“If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask,” Yao said. “But be careful about Farien. He fears his association with Davi could hurt his career.” Yao’s might as well, but Davi was more important.

“There’ll be many others, I’m afraid. Even Xalivar is more concerned for himself than anyone else,” she said, her face graying with sadness. They both stood there a moment, pondering the gravity of it all.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, an honorable mention on Barnes & Noble’s Best SF Releases of 2011, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. He resides in Ottawa, KS with two precocious dogs.

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This work proudly brought to you in association with Every Day Publishing and Diminished Media Group. If you like what you’ve read thus far, there’s no need to wait – click on over and pick up a copy right now!

Age: 38

Country of residence: USA

Hobbies: When I’m not creating new artwork, I like to explore the road less travelled. Armed with a camera or two, I make my way down the streets people tell you to stay away from, as well as wandering out into the desert to see what I can find. Strange? While most people choose to photograph well-known landmarks, I lean toward abandoned cars, vandalized buildings, and mortuary refuse.

What was the motivation / story behind the featured piece? Serenity (Coming Storm) is obviously a piece that’s based in Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity universe, so I really wanted to capture the space cowboy/desolate frontier vibe that worked so well in both the series and the movie. I had the Ballad of Serenity looping in my head the whole time I was working on it, so hopefully that comes across as people view Mal standing on the brink as his ever-reliable iron horse patiently waits. “Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care, I’m still free. You can’t take the sky from me…”

Favorite Book / Author: My favorite book is Catcher in the Rye. I’m not sure if it’s because I see a lot of myself in the book’s protagonist or if it’s because it was just so controversial when I was a kid. Whatever the case, it was a great read and it’s stuck with me for many years now.

Favorite Artist: This is a tough one as these days I truly appreciate the works of so many artists—one of the more positive things the internet has brought us. Early on, I was drawn to Manga, specifically the likes of Katsuhiro Otomo and Masamune Shirow. I think it was the hyperdetailed black and white imagery that did it for me and is probably why I like to pack so much into my own work.

When did you start creating art? I started making art for the sake of making art some time in High School, though it wasn’t until after I had graduated that I really started pursuing it.

What media do you work in? I started in watercolors and then moved into working exclusively in pen and ink before taking up acrylics and combining a little bit of everything to get the job done. Some of my earliest paid work was for a little start-up game called Magic the Gathering—I did tons of pencil drawings, many of which I later inked and colored for cards or other materials, though to this day I have no idea if any of that work was published. I am however pretty sure I made very little money off the deal, but it was great experience for sure! I continued to work in traditional mediums throughout the ’90s, even after buying my first Mac in 1994. I would draw or paint something and then scan it in and mess around with it, which was kind of cool at the time. Now I’m almost exclusively digital, though I do still hand draw graffiti or other elements that are simply too hard to pull off on the computer which I like to think are the kind of touches that give my work a slightly more organic look.

Where your work has been featured? I’ve been pretty lucky to have gotten into some placements that I never would have seen coming a few years back – I’ve had work featured in several Ballistic Publishing books, numerous publications including 3D Artist, Marc Ecko’s Complex, GQ, SyFy Magazine, and 3D Artist Direct. I’ve also completed quite a few book covers and contributed to some film projects.

Where should someone go if they wanted to view / buy some of your works? While I have galleries all over the place, my site, http://JacobCharlesDietz.com is probably the single best place to view my work and see what else I’ve got going on. I also have a print shop setup where many of my pieces are available as fine art prints through ImageKind and I’m working to add more each week. I also occasionally do a limited edition which I have printed locally and then I individually sign and number them, so people can keep an eye on my site when these are announced.

Have you had any notable failures, and how has failure affected your work? Over the last few years, I’ve managed to get some pretty decent illustration gigs and for the most part, they’ve led to more gigs, though they’ve also opened me up to a bunch of crappy jobs that went nowhere and cost me a lot of my time for very little return. As a result, I now focus on making sure the juice is worth the squeeze as there is nothing worse than working on a project and knowing you’re losing your shirt with each additional minute spent on it.

What are your favorite tools / equipment for producing your art? I’m a Mac guy and have been all my life, so first and foremost, it’s my Macs that would be front and center. I’m currently using a six year old, first generation MacPro tower for all of my work. It’s a quad 3Ghz Xeon machine with 16GB of RAM and 4TB of internal storage and it’s still tough to make it break a sweat, so I don’t anticipate upgrading anytime soon, but you never know My other ‘active duty’ machine is a 2008 MacBook Pro which makes it easier to hang with the family and still work on sketching out new ideas, doing postwork, etc., but ultimately anything I do there gets sent to the tower to get rendered out into a finished piece.

What tool / equipment do you wish you had? Wish I had? Oh man, I’ve been lusting after the Wacom Cintique models for some time now. It’s seriously one of the single coolest tools I’ve seen come out in years. I have a nice Wacom Intuos tablet, but it honestly doesn’t get much use as I like to see what I’m doing when I’m using a pen, especially when I’m doing finite texture detailing on a piece. I played with one in store a while back and if I had one of these in my studio, I’d be all over it and putting some serious miles on it.

What do you hope to accomplish with your art? I should probably have some smug artist statement to paste in here, but thankfully I don’t have such a thing on file, so you’ve been spared. Truth be told, I just want to make cool stuff. Seriously, I just make what I would like to see on my wall or on a book cover on my desk. People often try and hire me to make artwork that I’m not into, so I guess if I can keep doing things my way, I’ve stayed true to myself and that is some sort of accomplishment.

by Steven H. Newton

Jennifer Pasco took her last dose of medicine, threw a bikini and a burka into her backpack, and left her tiny council flat to pick up a refill on her way to the beach. She crowded into the Number Seven bus to Grantham Station, splurging on two strips of highly spiced, unidentifiable meat sold by the Turkish family operating the brazier on the upper deck. Her appetite had rebounded since the last round of chemo; when she was hungry, she ate.

From Grantham she short-hopped to London via Dedicated Transport. More shanties adhered to the walls of Grand Central than six weeks ago; the smell of unwashed bodies, the buzzing of the flies, and the yip-yip-yip of the beggars was nearly overwhelming. Jennifer kept her eyes fixed on the entrance arch where Bobbies in riot gear held open a corridor for travelers.

She joined the queue outside the international gates: according to the morning quotes, cartridges for her pump were running on special at Benjigupta Pharmaceuticals in Islamabad. A stern matron glared at passengers from screens above the security checkpoint, repeating every ten seconds that good citizens had their documents ready.

Jennifer had reached number two in line when her implant hummed. She checked the call: Sylvia from Employment Empowerment. A job? Did she want one? Had she recovered enough to stand the strain? Never mind, just now. She was coming to the sensors; Jennifer shunted the call into the message buffer, powered down her implant, and handed her chip and bag to the Transport Guard.

The Geek wore a mirrored faceplate, slick black gloves, and wrinkly green body suit. He, she, or it had the same insectoid appearance as the others, decked out in gear designed simultaneously to reinforce their authority and protect them from long-term exposure to S-rays.

“Itinerary?”

“Islamabad, then Brighton.”

“Islamabad will take you over your limit for the week.”

Jennifer flushed, hating to be reminded of her Cip status.

“I’ve a Medical,” she said.

The Geek swiped at the security plate, nodded almost imperceptibly, and zipped open her pack. Nano-fibers in the gloves examined her belongings for traces of explosives, weapons, or contraband. A finger looped the shoulder strap of her bikini top and lifted it into the air; the head behind the helmet cocked slightly, appraising her chest through her T-shirt. Because they can, she thought bitterly.

Baggage finally cleared, passport authenticated, transport privileges verified, Jennifer entered a booth. For trans-regional hops, the Geeks pre-entered the coordinates. Only in dramas did spies override the transport circuitry to confound their pursuers. She verified the numbers and touched the acceptance plate.

She dropped into the plastic seat, her fingers involuntarily locating the barf bags. Since chemo Jennifer occasionally became nauseous with a long hop. The burka would be stifling enough without a sour taste at the back of her throat.

The activation plate rippled red-orange-green, and Jennifer felt the tingle of S-rays slicing through her body. A slight lurch, and the seat color changed from red to cracked grey, poorly mended with tape. The smells penetrating the booth acquired an undertone of curries and peppers.

Islamabad: an hour in the burka to reach Benjigupta, trade her vouchers for three, maybe four pump cartridges, and then back for Brighton Beach with the afternoon left for sunning.

She saw the red telltale flashing before her fingers made contact with the door latch.

“Damn.”

She’d been shunted into the future.

Sagging into the seat, she considered the odds. Eight billion people hopped an average of twelve times per day: call it ninety-six billion. Sidereal quantum uncertainty would throw .005% of them—fewer than 5,000—either into the past or the future. In 98.5% of those cases, the dislocation represented less than ten seconds either way. This meant that sixty or seventy people out of sixteen billion would be tossed daily either ahead or behind to a distance of as much as 2.3 days. Rationalized quantum theory suggested that one in every two million of those went much farther, disappearing for good.

The chronometer flickered and reset for not quite two days after Jennifer had flashed out of London. Both bad news and good, she thought. The sale prices at Benjigupta’s had expired during the forty-six point something hours that she had not existed. On the other hand, it was now Monday, so her CipCheck would be in. Not to mention that slipping forward meant a Geek would be unlocking the compartment in a few moments. When you fell behind, they left you where you were until you caught up.

Wouldn’t do to have me cashing in with a few day trades, would it?

After a few minutes she became restless; nearly ten passed before she started to worry. Her butt ached from sitting too long, and low-level claustrophobia kicked in.

Where the hell are the Geeks?

At fifteen minutes, Jennifer bashed in the plastic cover shielding the emergency release toggle. There was a hefty fine for unauthorized use, but she planned to give somebody an earful if they raised the issue. The clamshell doors swung open. As she pulled herself out, Jennifer’s bones creaked, and she felt a twinge in her abdomen: stretching dosage periods had its consequences.

Standing, the sense of wrongness hit before she even looked around. Automated voices speaking in multiple languages echoed through the terminal. Normally, she had to strain to hear them over the crowd noise.

There were no crowds. There was—more precisely—nobody within view under the cavernous dome of Islamabad Central. Jennifer looked down the length of perhaps 100 transfer booths to her right, and half that many to her left. Some stood open; most did not.

Shouldering her backpack, she stepped down from the transfer ledge onto the main floor. Jennifer had never noticed that the floor consisted of an intricately patterned mosaic—possibly hundreds of years old and partially covered with litter and grime—because she’d never looked at it. There had always been the press of bodies, the need to keep moving within the throng. Her heels made audible, echoing clicks as she walked unsteadily toward the exit.

Where is everybody?

Security stations glowed with the appropriate colors, and the ubiquitous recorded transit matron harangued miscreants for not standing in the lines. Stray dogs picked through the rubbish from overturned waste bins in the outer foyer.

Islamabad Central stood about halfway up the Margalla Hills on Pir Salowa Road, 1,500 feet above the city. Focused on frustrating pickpockets, finding a cab, and maneuvering chastely enough in the burka to avoid the attention of the Virginity Patrols, Jennifer usually ignored the view.

Now she stood and gaped. Columns of smoke hovered over the city, but beyond the flames, she could see no movement, hear no specifically human sounds. No police, no firefighters, no screaming refugees, just the crackle of the fires and the intermittent blasts of heat that struck her face when the wind changed.

Soon after that, the flying saucer landed.

Jennifer powered up her implant, scanning her personal feeds. Beyond the call waiting in the buffer, nothing. Jammed? Or nobody there? She tried Islamabad municipal, then the internationals, where she picked up a weak thread: Last calling from Islamabad, identify yourself, please.

I’m Jennie Pasco. From England. Where is everyone?

When the answer came, the signal was noticeably stronger.

Hello, Ms. Pasco, this is Temporal Retrieval and Rescue. We’ll have someone to your location in few minutes.

She was too astounded to sub-vocalize. “Temporal what? I got out of the booth and the whole station is deserted. Islamabad’s burning. What’s happening?”

Keep calm, Ms. Pasco. It will be a lot easier to explain once we pick you up.

Fifteen minutes later, she heard a whistling sound, and saw a 1950s-style flying saucer approaching from the south. The dome was fire engine red, and the spinning platter was sky blue with flickering lights around the perimeter.

As the saucer descended, clouds of dust and flying debris nearly knocked Jennifer off her feet. Recovering, she saw a panel open in the dome, through which stepped a tall man in a plaid shirt, jeans, and work boots, wearing a pistol on his hip. He looked more like a lumberjack than a time traveler. Extending a hand, he said, “Hi, I’m Nigel Westbrook. I’m sure you’ve many questions. Come aboard, and we’ll help you sort them out.”

The craft’s interior cabin was about the size of a small kitchen, furnished in faux leather and chrome. An overweight African in a blue shirt with a loosened tie was obviously the pilot. He grinned over his shoulder and gestured to an open seat.

“This is Akeem,” Nigel said. “He’s the only one can fly this thing.”

Jennifer felt no sensation of movement, but it was clear from the flat panel viewer in front of Akeem that they had lifted off.

Nigel said, “Here’s the short version. Starting yesterday, everybody who came out of a transport booth after being kicked too far forward discovered that the world is literally empty of people. We’ve no idea what happened.”

“So who are you, and why are we flying around in a UFO?” Jennifer asked.

“In Beijing, thirteen random travelers ended up together—luck of the draw,” Nigel said.

Akeem said, “They settled down, gathered more survivors, started over. Decades later, their descendants started using the few working booths to explore the rest of the world.”

The flat screen showed the Pakistani countryside flashing by at what must have been 200 kilometers per hour.

“Three hundred years from now, the Han control the world,” Nigel said. “When they figured out quantum-temporal displacement—time travel to the rest of us—they set out to rescue everyone who came out of the booths too late. They found me in Manchester, and Akeem in Praetoria.”

She felt the ache in her stomach threatening to become serious pain.

“The flying saucer?”

Akeem laughed. “There really was a lot of stuff lying around in Area 51 after all.”

Nigel flipped a switch, pulled a microphone closer. “This is Westbrook. We made pick-up outside of Islamabad. Returning to base. ETA twenty minutes.”

Jennifer shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and then abruptly pointed toward the top of the dome. “What’s that?” she demanded.

Both men looked up. She unsnapped her seat belt, leaned forward in a fluid motion, and pulled Nigel’s pistol out of its holster.

Standing, Jennifer hoped neither man noticed her wince.

“That story is so full of crap,” she said. “I’m surprised your eyes aren’t brown.”

“Ms. Pasco, settle down,” Nigel said. “I know you’re upset, but there’s no reason to get violent.” He smiled with a predator’s grin. “Besides, you’re not going to shoot anybody, are you?”

When his open hand stretched toward her, Jennifer shot him in the left thigh. As he howled, thrashing about in his seat, she thought, I’m surprised such a big man only carries a thirty-eight.

Gesturing toward Akeem with the pistol, she said, “Any more stupid questions?”

“No ma’am.”

“Good. While you turn this thing around and head back to Islamabad, you two can tell me what’s really going on before we go looking for some heroin.”

Benjigupta Pharmaceuticals was a sprawling flea-market affair under a sheet-metal roof, where 200-odd small-time peddlers had developed an effective international marketing strategy. Jennifer shopped at Wazi’s stall, which was separated from the other opiate dealers by merchants hawking laetrile and freeze-dried feces for cancer treatment. In her burka, she normally slipped past Uzi-toting guards and the beggars with their pots of leeches, blending anonymously into the crowd.

She shopped with Wazi because his cartridges still had wrappers on them, which the grizzled Pashtun filled from his private stock while she watched. Cut-rate was cut-rate, no doubt, but you could still improve the odds.

Now she moved uncertainly but quickly through the silence. Smoke from the fires a few blocks down was already gathering under the roof. The benches, booths, and alcoves all looked like someone had just stepped away, except for the food stands, where packs of feral dogs had torn everything to pieces. She shot one that stood his ground in a narrow aisle, growling with bared teeth; the others ran.

Wazi kept the cartridges below a counter built from an old shipping crate. Jennifer could normally afford three. Today she filled a dozen—all she could carry in the cargo pockets of her trousers—and then a thirteenth for the pump riding atop her right kidney.

By the time she had threaded her way out of the building and through the narrow cross-streets leading back to the saucer grounded on Ibn-e-Sina Road, the pump had defused her pain sufficiently that she thought she might not kill Nigel or Akeem simply from frustration.

They were where she left them: hog-tied to their seats with duct tape. The saucer hadn’t had a first-aid kit, so she’d improvised a pressure dressing from Nigel’s shirt and more duct tape. Not sterile, but if there were antibiotics where they were going he’d live. Nor had he lost much blood; his face was white with rage, not shock.

Jennifer ripped the tape away from Akeem’s mouth.

“I’m calmer now,” she said. “Not necessarily good news. You’ve one chance to tell me who you are. I won’t shoot you if you lie to me.” She brandished the knife she’d picked up at Wazi’s.

“I’m only a contractor,” Akeem said. He was shaking. “He’s US Special Forces. A colonel.”

Nigel growled and stretched hard against his bonds.

Americans, she thought. Damn.

She tapped Akeem lightly on the temple with the pistol.

“Tell what’s going on—without the ‘time travel’ nonsense. There’s not a piece of electronics in this ship that isn’t twenty years out of date, except for that flat screen you might’ve bought at Harrod’s.”

Akeem said, “Third-generation high-hovercraft mocked up like a UFO”—he pronounced it, YOU-fo—”so nobody connects it with the US Navy. Nigel made up the cover story; he likes comic books.” The pilot shrugged. “I thought it was kooky, but you’re the first one that hasn’t believed it.”

“If I cut you loose, will you behave?”

“General Dynamics doesn’t pay me enough to get shot,” he said.

Slicing the tape, Jennifer asked, “Where were we heading?”

He flexed his wrists and fingers to encourage circulation.

“Stealthed helo-carrier south of Diego Garcia.”

“American ship in the Indian Ocean?” Jennifer said. “Are you people nuts?”

No US vessel had been spotted outside coastal waters in twenty years. How did this one get past the blockade?

There was a ripping sound. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Nigel had torn loose from his seat with sheer adrenaline-enhanced strength. He stood, hesitating between a lunge at her or taking the necessary second to free his legs. She shot him twice, this time in the chest.

Blood spattered the instrument panels as his corpse fell to the floor.

“Do not mess with me, American,” she said, turning back to the trembling Akeem. “Or I’ll use the knife, not the gun.”

Hiding in a rainsquall, the Jimmie Carter rode uneasily, a neutral colored landing slab often washed nearly completely by the waves. Masked by the best wraparound tech available, with three-quarters of the vessel submersed, Jimmie had no radar signature, and with careful emission damping, she was effectively invisible.

“Everyone on the planet now has a transfer signature,” Akeem said as they locked onto the quantum-encrypted landing signal after circling the carrier twice. “S-rays leave a residual in your muscle tissue. The weapon activates that, and—poof!—you’re gone.”

“Gone? What does that mean?”

He’d become increasingly talkative over the past ten minutes.

“Like those people who occasionally disappear from transfer booths. When the pulse activates the latent S-rays in your body, it doesn’t send you anywhere, it disperses you. You disappear.”

“Then why pick up stragglers like me? I’d think you would want to be in, out, and gone.”

Akeem said, “I think they’re worried that somebody might connect you coming out of the transfer booths with what happened to everybody else. Above my pay grade, but I’m guessing that there’s some way to defend against the effect.”

Jennifer had kept the gun to his head while Akeem made the proper responses to the Jimmie‘s air controllers. He might have slipped in a hostage code, but she doubted it. There was a faint smell of urine from his seat.

“Is it targeted? Like a rifle?”

“No, it’s purely an area weapon. Minimum target radius is the size of a small city. They weren’t even sure it would work.”

She didn’t ask why they’d picked Islamabad for the first test. Pakistani nuclear strikes against US forces in Kuwait had precipitated the jihad that established the Kaliphate. The Germans had unleashed the plague bombs, and the Sino-Indonesians had conducted the slash-and-burn raids on California, but Americans still held Pakistan responsible for their demise.

Abruptly, a thought occurred to her.

“Let me see your arm,” Jennifer demanded.

Despite his fear, Akeem smirked. “I’m safe,” he said, holding up a forearm marked with three blue scars. “If I hadn’t been, you’d be too late asking. So was the Colonel, by the way.”

“But not everybody on the carrier?”

“Why do you think they’re in the Navy?”

Jennifer felt herself sagging, resisted the temptation to collapse into the co-pilot’s seat. Adrenaline was long gone, and chemo had eliminated her stamina. Still, this would be over in an hour, or it wouldn’t matter.

She forced her attention back to Akeem.

“Three questions. Is the weapon onboard the ship?”

He nodded cautiously.

“How are they jamming communications?”

“Mechanical,” he said. When she looked blank, Akeem explained. “There are only nine transfer stations around Islamabad. We dropped field spammers at each one right after we hit them.”

Which means my implant is functional, Jennifer thought. I could have called for help anytime after I got into the saucer. It was your assumptions that invariably got you killed.

“Last question,” she said. “How badly do you want live out the next hour?”

Akeem made excuses to circle the Jimmie three more times while Jennifer powered up her implant again. She fed it a code stream, and punched past the first six security layers of the Defence Ministry. Within four minutes she had both the Crown Prince and the Defence Minister on the thread.

Crown Prince Abdullah was laughing when she finished her explanation.

“This isn’t too damn amusing from my perspective,” Jennifer said.

“It’s funny because it’s you,” he said. His voice turned serious. “How’s the chemo been?”

She said, “A bitch, not to mention the heroin addiction. But considering the alternatives, I’m not complaining. What in hell are you planning to do about all this?”

Minister Hairston’s voice was understandable, but distorted by static. “I’ve called a ‘Code Washington.’” She could almost hear him shrug. “Simpler to tell them the Americans are out of their cage than go into the details. Time of the essence, that sort of thing. Teheran loosed a flight of sub-orbitals forty-five seconds ago.”

“The problem, of course, is that they don’t have a lock on that carrier,” Abdullah said. “From your description, they aren’t going to achieve one until they’re less than ten seconds out.”

She knew what that meant. “They’re homing on my signal, and there’s not going to be enough time for me to get clear.”

“Sorry, that’s pretty much it,” he replied. “We can’t afford to take a chance on plague—or that weapon. You’ve about one minute to come up with something brilliant.”

“This isn’t going to be pretty,” Jennifer said to Akeem. “Fly the damn UFO and don’t look.”

“If I don’t set down this time,” he whined, “they’ll target us.” On the flat screen the flight controller shambled across the deck. Below his blue helmet, his face was a mass of slack muscles and running sores.

“I know that,” she said, straddling Nigel’s corpse, feeling for the hard, subcutaneous ridge of his implant above the right ear. Only a bit of blood oozed out when Jennifer sliced open the skin and pried out an object resembling a metallic cockroach. “Bring us in exactly where the deck controller says, then pop the hatch. When I give you a shout, you take us straight up, hard as you can, or we’re both dead.”

It wasn’t a good feeling to have your life depend on the point of a stolen knife fitting into the reset hole of a foreign-made implant still partly covered with gristle.

They touched down. She heard the latch click and the servos strain to raise the hatch. Idly, as she fiddled with the knife, Jennifer wondered if the saucer could balance at all in flight with the door open.

She didn’t feel the click when the knifepoint touched the contact, but Abdullah abruptly said, “I’ve got a signal, Jenn. Switching the birds over. Get out of—”

“Now!” she shouted, tossing the implant toward the half-open hatch. It caromed off a hinge and bounced onto the carrier’s deck. Akeem screamed and punched buttons. The saucer shot sideways at almost a forty-five degree angle rather than heading up. Wind howled through the hatch; Jennifer went flying across the cabin.

She smashed against a storage locker as the UFO crashed into something metal. The saucer ricocheted off, dropped sharply for a second, and then started up again at a different angle. Jennifer didn’t bounce: she crumpled to the deck, losing consciousness less than a second before the entire world turned white.

She had to show her credentials three times before being allowed through Brighton Beach’s modesty wall. At the final checkpoint a woman in a burka told her in a cockney accent, “When the twelfth Imam returns, you’re goin’ ter wish you’d spent more time considerin’ the state of yer soul than lyin’ around like a whore on the sand.”

“You’re probably right,” Jennifer said. “At least that’s what the Crown Prince keeps telling me.” The matron’s eyes widened; she didn’t know whether to be outraged or afraid.

Jennifer limped carefully down the beach. It was a weekday, and late in the short summer season. Only a few families dotted the sand along the kilometer stretch reserved for unbelievers. Even here, she noted sourly, the women wore wraps that concealed their one-piece suits except when they actually dipped into the surf, and the men almost all wore shirts.

Spreading her towel on the coarse-grained sand was painful; stripping down to her bikini took nearly five minutes. From mid-calf to her shoulder blade the right side of Jennifer’s body showed the angry black, purple, and yellow of slowly healing bruises. Fortunately, the red streaks around her kidney representing the infection from seawater infiltrating her heroin pump had receded; a disapproving physician had released her from hospital only this morning.

As she tried to find a relaxing—or at least not inherently uncomfortable—sunning position, old habits re-asserted themselves, and Jennifer powered her implant to clear the buffer. There were two more congratulatory messages from the Ministry, a reminder of the Official Secrets’ Act, and the daily thread from Sylvia at Employment Empowerment.

“They’re going to trim back your benefits if you’re not actively pursuing employment,” the woman’s brassy voice insisted. “I’ve an offer for a Shari’a court stenographer, a medical transcriptionist, and even a reception post in the Crown Prince’s lower office suite. They all match your qualifications, and meet your medical restrictions. Please do call, otherwise we’re going to have to drop you soon.”

Islamabad had been struck by a devastating plague, in all probability some wind-borne mutation of an old American bio-weapon. Retaliatory strikes against Atlanta had failed against North America’s missile defenses.

The three injection sites on her arm itched.

She’d argued with Abdullah about executing Akeem—but not too hard.

Steven H. Newton is a military historian, long-time reader of SF—especially golden age SF—and a retired Master Sergeant. He’s written nine books on the Civil War and World War Two on the Russian Front, and now he’s trying his hand at science fiction.

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Emotion exploded off Calla’s face. Her eyes lit up and her smile was blinding. She hugged Lura again and swung her around like they were dancing. “Davi? After all these years?”

Lura nodded as Davi extended his hand. Calla laughed and embraced him with passion. “If you think your Aunt Calla will settle for a handshake after twenty-one years, you are quite mistaken.”

“Is Aron in?” Lura asked as she watched them, amused.

Calla released Davi and motioned with her head toward the corridor. “Of course. He’s in the study. Come.” She led them into the house and down a long corridor, which seemed endless—not at all what Davi had expected from a worker’s home. Another corridor appeared, almost out of thin air, and they turned right and stopped beside a door, where Calla punched in a code. This was no ordinary worker’s home.

The door opened, letting them into a large office. A gray-haired man sat behind a desk, reading something on his terminal. He looked up, smiling as he saw both Lura and Calla.

“You’ll never guess who this is,” Calla said, motioning to Davi. Joy radiated like a sun’s rays from her face.

The man stood and moved around his desk. He was short and bulky, with hands that showed signs of years of manual labor. He moved toward them, looking Davi over. “He looks so much like his father.”

As he drew closer, Davi saw a face more youthful than he’d expected from one with such gray hair.

Calla smiled, pleased. “Yes, he does.”

Davi extended his hand as the man chuckled, looking pleased. “Nice to meet you.”

“This is your father’s oldest friend, Aron,” Lura said. Lura had told him about Aron’s help with the courier.

Aron shook his hand with a grip full of strength, his large hand surrounding Davi’s like a glove. “After all these years to see you again. . .Sol would be so happy.”

“Aron helped your father prepare the craft in which we sent you away,” Lura reminded him. Davi nodded.

Aron frowned. “Only we made a mistake in preparing it.” His face turned sad as he recalled it.

“He is safe and sound,” Calla said, placing her arm around his shoulder.

“We never saw your father again after that day,” Aron said, remaining dour. “Such dark times,” Aron continued, lost in memories. He regained his composure and motioned toward two couches and chairs arranged in a square. “Please. Sit.”

“Mother told me he disappeared, but does anyone know where?” Davi asked, as he sat in a chair, wondering if he’d ever get the chance to meet his father.

Aron sat in the other chair, while Calla and Lura sat together on a couch. “None of us knows. But when the LSP take people away, they are never heard from again,” Aron said.

“Davi was raised on Legallis, in the Royal Palace,” Lura said.

“The Royal Palace? I guess our little courier’s malfunction was not so disastrous after all,” Aron said, chuckling. They all laughed.

“He’s a Captain in the military,” Lura said with pride.

“I recognized his Alliance accent and wondered,” Aron said. “Are you a pilot?”

“Top of his class,” Lura said, smiling at him.

Davi blushed. “I am certified in flight, yes.”

“Davi has been working hard to convince Lord Xalivar to free our people,” Lura said.

“A Borali Alliance officer questioning the High Lord Councilor?” Aron laughed. “How’s that gone?”

“Not as well as I’d hoped,” Davi said, turning away. He’d never felt so useless.

“It’s hard to reverse hundreds of years of oppression, as history has shown,” Aron said. “You are not the first to try.”

“I won’t go back to my assignment until I find a way to make them listen,” Davi said. “I can’t accept it.” He feared he had no choice. He was running out of options.

“Many in the Alliance won’t appreciate your attitude,” Aron said.

“I know. But I was raised to believe man has a right to be free,” Davi said, knowing he’d had more privileges than any of them.

“Raised to believe this in the Royal Palace right under Xalivar’s nose?” Aron laughed. Calla and Lura joined him. “He must be quite disturbed by that.”

“Davi’s mother is Princess Miri,” Lura said.

Aron smiled. “Maybe I should take you with me to meet some friends of ours.” Lura nodded in agreement. “You might like to hear their thoughts on the worker situation. And they yours.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Davi said, smiling.

Aron patted him on the arm, smiling back. “Your father would be proud to hear you talk this way.”

Xalivar waited with Zylo for Bordox to arrive. After the Council meeting he had summoned them, wanting men he could trust to lead the search for his fugitive nephew. Neither man had been told why he’d been called to the Palace, so Xalivar could evaluate them, in addition to their military records, by how they responded to the assignment.

The door slid open and Manaen entered, followed by Bordox, who seemed overwhelmed. He’d never been in the throne room before. He took it all in, and then turned back toward Xalivar, as if afraid to turn away. Might as well enjoy this, Xalivar thought, making his way back to the throne as the door slid closed behind Bordox. He sat down. He always looked more imposing sitting there.

“Lieutenant Bordox, welcome to the Royal Palace.” Tall like his father, Lord Obed, Bordox towered over both Zylo and Manaen.

He’d tower over me, too, if I wasn’t on this dais. He could see why Bordox inspired fear in some. And yet you don’t fear Davi, do you? His nephew didn’t seem the type to inspire much fear.

“Thank you, Lord,” Bordox said with a slight bow as his index and middle and fourth and fifth fingers crossed in the salute. His gray uniform was pressed and neat, like he’d wanted to make the best impression.

“I have been admiring your work on behalf of the Alliance. A very impressive record,” Xalivar said.

“It’s an honor to serve, my Lord,” Bordox said, his legs wobbling a bit from nerves as he stood at attention.

I see none of the cockiness I’d heard about. At least he knows how to show proper respect. Xalivar reminded himself this was the same cadet who had been Davi’s rival at the Academy.

“This is Major Isak Zylo.”

Zylo nodded to Bordox. “Pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant.”

“You, too, sir,” Bordox replied, continuing to wobble.

I just complimented your record. You’d think you’d relax. “I’ve called you both here for a special assignment. The Council has announced murder charges against Captain Xander Rhii, my nephew.”

Bordox didn’t react, but Zylo’s face showed surprise. “Captain Rhii, sir? I served with him on Vertullis.”

“He was involved in an altercation with a fellow Captain. That Captain was killed,” Xalivar explained.

Ah, there it is, Bordox, in your eyes—is that excitement I see? Good. Perhaps your resentment will serve me well. “Major Zylo will head the intelligence gathering. Lieutenant Bordox will lead in the field.”

Ah, yes, your eyes seem pleased, Lieutenant. I hope your personal feelings won’t keep you from obeying orders.

“Yes, my Lord,” Zylo said.

“I want him brought in unharmed. His last known whereabouts was Vertullis.” Xalivar couldn’t resist playing with Bordox a bit. “I’m assuming your competitive spirit won’t interfere with your understanding of orders, Lieutenant?”

Bordox’s brown eyes showed surprise and he shifted on his feet. “Innocent competition between classmates, my Lord.”

His eyes revealed he was lying but Xalivar smiled, admiring his resolve. “Good, Lieutenant. We’re already three weeks behind him. You should both get started at once.”

Both officers saluted again then turned toward the door as Manaen opened it for them. As they exited, Manaen turned back to Xalivar, his red eyes attentive.

“I want constant reports of their progress, Manaen,” Xalivar said.

“Yes, my Lord,” Manaen nodded then turned and followed the others.

Xalivar stepped down from the throne and moved toward the window, as the door closed behind Manaen. Miri will have to be dealt with. He dreaded it. I wish it hadn’t come to this, but she’s left me no choice. He wondered why he was so conflicted. Perhaps he, too, had gotten soft.

A week after their first meeting, Aron invited Davi to accompany him to a gathering of friends. The meeting took place in a large square in one of the residential districts on the edge of Iraja. Hundreds of workers attended. Davi hadn’t expected anything like this! They all seemed so relaxed given the fact that mass gatherings of workers were forbidden. No one there seemed concerned about possible repercussions.

A makeshift wooden platform stood in the center of the square, and the crowd had gathered in a large circle around it. Davi and Aron wound their way through the chattering crowd toward the platform. Davi overheard people wondering what this meeting was about. Others chatted about their work and lives. Still others complained about there being too many people for the space. Volunteers handed out buttons with the initials WFR on them.

As they drew near, a young woman standing on the platform waved at Aron and ran to the edge to meet them. She wore a colorful dress bearing a WFR pin like the ones being handed to the crowd. Offering her hand, she helped first Aron and then Davi onto the platform. Davi was surprised by her strength. Perhaps years spent as manual laborers did have its benefits.

Aron introduced the girl as Brie. They were soon joined by a young man named Dru and another woman named Tela. Brie and Dru seemed like they had to be in their teens. Tela was around Davi’s age and quite pretty. She had long brown hair and an attractive curved figure, medium height with blue eyes which sparkled. He had to force himself to take his eyes off of her. She didn’t seem to notice his stare and continued talking with Aron, reviewing the agenda.

Brie smiled, taking his arm and pointing him toward some chairs on the platform. “Let me show you to your seat, Mr. Rhii.” Was she flirting with him?

“Please, call me Davi,” he said, smiling back.

Brie seemed to blush a bit at his smile and looked away. “Okay, Davi. Such an exciting day for the Resistance!”

Yep, definitely flirting. He glanced back toward Tela, hoping she hadn’t noticed. Tela took no note of them. “Which Resistance?”

She laughed as if he were teasing. “The Workers Freedom Resistance, of course.” She pulled a button from her pocket and pinned it to his shirt, letting their eyes meet a moment. She was so close her breath warmed his cheek. Again he found himself glancing toward Tela. Again she took no notice. No woman had ever shown so little interest in him. He turned back as Brie smiled. She seemed plenty interested. In fact, for a moment, he actually thought she might kiss him. Forget Tela. Brie’s rather cute. Then she stepped back and hurried off to return to other duties.

But as he watched her go, Tela cleared her throat into a microphone. “Hello, friends! Welcome to the first gathering of the Workers Freedom Resistance! It’s an exciting day for workers all over the solar system!” The crowd quieted to hear what she was saying. Her enthusiasm was contagious, her lilting voice arrested everyone’s attention. Davi couldn’t take his eyes off her. “We have with us today a man whom many of you know and respect, a man who has provided leadership to us through difficult days. I give you Aron Tal!”

Brie, Dru and Tela applauded. A few in the crowd joined in as Aron took the microphone.

“My good people, it gives me great pleasure to see you here today. For many generations, we have lived at the mercy of our old enemy and rival, whose sole mission has been to control and oppress us. But an opportunity has presented itself to bring about changes. Many of you know me as a man of patience and reason, but I tell you today—my patience has run out! The time for reasoning is very short. We must become a people of action and demand what we deserve—our freedom, our dignity, our planet.”

Shouts erupted from all around them—showing the crowd shared his sentiments, though the looks on their faces made it clear most doubted his veracity. They applauded and cheered a few moments before Aron continued.

“The Borali Alliance has refused to talk with us. The Lords deem us unworthy of their time and consideration. They treat us worse than they treat their animals, but I believe in part we are to blame for this.” Mumbles of surprise issued from the crowd.

“It’s easy for us to blame the Lords, while we continue to do nothing but complain. Over the years there have been many voices, but no action. The time has come for us to work together. Only united can we take action that will have true impact. By uniting together with the same focus we give to our jobs, we can force them to listen.” This brought more cheers and applause.

A few men near the front began to chant. “Freedom! Freedom!” Others joined in the cry.

“Yes, my friends. Freedom can be ours!” Aron said, stirring the fervor among them.

Davi watched an older woman push her way to the front. “Freedom for what? To be crushed by the Alliance? To be beaten? To be debased? Humiliated as we have been so many times before? It will merely lead to greater oppression,” she shouted.

“Which is why we must work together. We outnumber them here on our own planet. If we stand together, they cannot hope to defeat us,” Aron assured her.

Davi saw more of the crowd was getting into the idea now. More joined the chant, crying: “Freedom! Freedom!”

Aron spoke for a few more minutes, followed by a speech from Dru aimed at the younger people in the crowd. Afterwards, Tela got up and invited them to sign a petition supporting the Resistance. As the crowd dispersed, volunteers stood with databoards awaiting signatures, but few agreed to sign. Several expressed doubts like those of the older woman and walked away. In the end, the WFR leaders looked discouraged.

“Change cannot happen overnight,” Aron said, trying to reassure them. “We must remain firm in our resolve.”

“How can they yell so much and yet walk away so indifferent?” Tela asked.

“We have to inspire them to hope again,” Aron said. “Those impulses have been smashed for years by the Alliance. They need to believe again. And they will in time.” He embraced them each in turn, and then started home with Davi.

“What did you think?”

“You’re trying to start a movement?”

“We’re trying to unite our people, and get the Alliance’s attention,” Aron said.

“Large gatherings of workers will no doubt get their attention, and they’ll send soldiers to arrest and detain you,” Davi said. He admired the man’s resolve.

“They have to find us first,” Aron said with confidence.

As they walked back toward Lura’s house, Davi became quite disoriented. He couldn’t have found his way back to the square, let alone anywhere else. The location had been well chosen. Its narrow corridors and arches were barely wide enough for pedestrian traffic. It would be hard for the Alliance to move troops and vehicles in and surround them. Nonetheless, he knew the Alliance would find a way, even if they had to drop troops in on top of them.

Over the next two weeks, Aron took him to meetings in other parts of the city. The crowds varied in size, but they gradually gathered signatures for their petition. Davi thought the speeches grew better and better each time. Brie, Dru and Tela seemed encouraged and started treating Davi like one of the gang. He even got a smile from Tela once or twice—moments he wished would last forever. He determined to do whatever he could to help them.

At the end of the month, they appeared on an underground comm-channel show to present their message, and Aron asked Davi to say a few words. He stumbled through them, but they seemed pleased with what he’d said.

“You came along at the right time, Davi,” Aron said as they walked back to Lura’s. “We needed to make the Resistance public, get people stirred up.”

“I don’t understand why the Alliance hasn’t sent troops to arrest you or break up the gatherings,” Davi said.

“We publicize by word of mouth,” Aron said. “I’ve been using the underground comm-channel to spread our message a while now. It’s enough to bring people out to hear what I have to say.”

“Whatever you’re doing it seems to be working,” Davi said as they entered the courtyard near Lura’s house.

They both stopped under the arch, staring at what was left of her front door. The wood had shattered into splinters. Fear spread through him, as Davi raced toward the house.

“Wait! We don’t know what’s happened,” Aron called after him.

He burst inside to find Lura and Nila being nursed by Nila’s mother, Rena. “What happened?”

Davi and Aron halted in the doorway. Both Lura and Nila had cuts and bruises. Their dresses were torn.

“Soldiers came,” Rena said.

“Soldiers? What did they want?” Aron asked.

“They wanted Davi,” Lura said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

I thought the warrant had been dismissed. “My gods, what did they do to you?” Davi rushed to her side, gently caressing her head.

She grasped his hand in hers, smiling. “It looks far worse than it is.” He tried to act as if he believed her, but his face gave him away. “The Council reinstated murder charges against you. They had an arrest warrant for you,” Lura said, her face full of fear.

“One of them said he knew you,” Nila said. “His name was Bord-something.”

Davi stood there, incredulous. No, it couldn’t be.

“An LSP Lieutenant,” Rena added.

“Bordox?” Davi asked as they both nodded. He turned away. Had his uncle changed his mind? He thought the matter was settled. “How did they find you?”

The moment he asked the question, Calla appeared at the door out of breath. “Death Squads are going house to house, searching for Davi. He’s wanted for murder!”

“We’ve got to hide you,” Lura said. “They could come back any moment!” Panic rose within Davi. Where could he hide?

Aron nodded. “We have the perfect place. Let me call Tela. He hurried to the communicator on the wall near the kitchen, dialed several numbers, and then clicked it off. “Now we wait, and pray.”

Davi looked at Lura and Nila and was overcome with regret. He hated being the cause of more hurt for them. Bordox would never stop searching, and if Bordox found him, there was no telling what would happen. He couldn’t call his mother for fear his uncle might hear and notify the LSP.

So much for special treatment, mother. He had nowhere to run. They would have notified the starport. For the first time in his life, Davi felt so helpless.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, an honorable mention on Barnes & Noble’s Best SF Releases of 2011, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. He resides in Ottawa, KS with two precocious dogs.

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This work proudly brought to you in association with Every Day Publishing and Diminished Media Group. If you like what you’ve read thus far, there’s no need to wait – click on over and pick up a copy right now!

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Before he’d finished reading the report, Xalivar’s head already throbbed. Manaen had tactfully disappeared. The little rat reads my dispatches, he noted with displeasure. I should have known. Maybe it’s time to find a new major domo.

After all he had done for Davi, this is how his nephew repaid him—betrayal. It hadn’t been easy to get the Council to ignore the murder of a soldier. Xalivar had explained the circumstances to the members a few at a time in private, and all agreed it was bad for both the Royal Family and the Alliance to proceed with the charges. The few who were reluctant had been convinced with careful reminders of their own families’ secrets. Now, here Davi was, trying to undo everything with one fell swoop!

What is the boy thinking, taking a leave without my permission? I am not just his uncle! I am High Lord Councilor! I should have never allowed Miri to raise the boy herself. I should have stepped in the moment I settled on Davi as my heir. This would not be happening if the boy had a proper sense of his responsibility to the Alliance and his place in it.

To make matters worse, Davi hadn’t gone to Legallis. Emergency family leave to Vertullis meant one thing—the boy was up to something with his worker family. Why couldn’t he let it be? Didn’t he know the risks? Didn’t he know his uncle always did what was best for him? The younger generation these days was so frustrating! So rebellious and independent! Just like a worker!

Maybe he had been too harsh in what he’d said when he learned of Davi’s heritage, but he’d been shocked and dismayed by the discovery. He’d done the right thing in the end, hadn’t he?

Xalivar punched a communicator on the arm of the throne. Manaen’s voice came back right away. “Yes, my Lord?”

“Find him this instant and get him here! I don’t care what it takes!

“Yes, Lord,” Manaen replied as the communicator went dead. The time had come for Xalivar to start playing hard ball.

Davi sat at Lura’s table as she set out the food she’d prepared. He’d had a few days of getting to know family members. They were all very nice people, but still, the place didn’t feel like home.

“Have you spoken with your mother, since you came back?” Lura quietly asked. He looked at her, confused. “Princess Miri?”

“No. I need to. I wanted a few days with you here first,” Davi said.

“I imagine she’s worried about you. Don’t wait too long,” Lura said, sounding almost like Miri.

Davi laughed. “Hmmmm. Maybe this having two mothers thing isn’t such a good idea after all!”

Lura laughed, then tousled his hair before going back to retrieve another serving dish. “We both worry.”

Her concern for Miri touched him. It pleased him to know Lura was sensitive to the feelings of his other family. It meant she’d understand when he had to take time with sorting things out, and he felt a little less pressure as a result. “Maybe I should send her an e-post then after lunch,” Davi said.

“Sounds good. There’s a kiosk near the park a few blocks from here,” Lura told him.

“Yes, mother,” Davi said, with a wry grin. Lura laughed. He was enjoying this time with her. It already seemed like they’d known each other longer. She appeared to be enjoying the time with him, too.

Lura brought the last of the dishes to the table, and then sat down across from him. “Do you want to say grace?”

“I’m still not sure I know what to say,” Davi said. The religious adjustment would be hard. He was not used to talking to one god or even saying prayers. Sacrifices were offered at official ceremonies. People did their own private worship services from time to time for one or another of the pantheon of gods, but the worker’s personal religion was all new to him.

“It’s easy,” Lura said. “You talk to Father God like he’s a person. I’ll show you.” She bowed her head and Davi did as well. “Father God, we thank you for the reunion with our long lost boy, Davi. We thank you for life and breath and the food on this table, all of which we know you’ve provided. Bless us now and lead us in your will. Amen.” She smiled at him. “Is that so hard?”

“I don’t know all the right phrases and words,” Davi said.

“The good thing about prayer is there are no rules for how you say it. It’s the attitude in your heart which matters to God,” Lura said. Davi pondered her words, realizing he had a lot to learn. “Well, don’t wait for it to get cold now.” She began scooping servings onto his plate.

Later, at the kiosk near the park, he found a message waiting for him when he logged into his e-post account.

To: CptSQuad4Alpha@Federal.emp

From: HLC@Federal.emp

Subject: Where are you?

Nephew:

Your decision to go gallivanting about could cost this family and the Alliance dearly! You are to report to me at once upon reading this missive!

Xalivar

Davi sighed. Time had run out. He had to go and talk with his Royal family, but he still had no idea what he was going to say. Regardless, they deserved an explanation.

You’d better find the words in a hurry, Davi.

He e-posted for a Royal shuttle to be sent then headed back to Lura’s to tell her his plans.

Manaen escorted Davi as far as the throne room, but let him enter alone. Xalivar stood beside a window, staring out at the city.

“I gave you your orders,” Xalivar said, without turning to face him. Davi heard the anger in his voice.

“Can’t we talk about this?”

“Soldiers obey orders or they are disciplined. Don’t think because I’m your uncle, you’ll be given special treatment.”

“I’ve already been given special treatment,” Davi said.

Xalivar whirled around, glaring at him as his fists clenched. “Do you know what I had to go through to get the Council not to pursue murder charges against you?”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

“And this is how you show your gratitude?” Xalivar turned away again.

“I serve you best by being honest with you, don’t I?”

“You serve me best by doing as I instruct you without raising unnecessary questions,” Xalivar said.

Davi flinched at his uncle’s anger. What could he say to make him understand? “I’ve been reading history. I don’t understand why things are the way they are,” Davi said.

“Maybe it’s not your job to understand.”

“Before the colonists left Earth to settle on other planets, the Legallians and Vertullians were at peace for twelve years,” Davi continued. “When the Vertullians discovered they’d settled the planet next door to us, they didn’t fight, they sued for peace. Instead, we conquered them and turned them into slaves.”

Xalivar turned back to him. Their eyes met. “They cannot be trusted.”

“They sued for peace and we betrayed them, yet they can’t be trusted?” Davi saw from his eyes that Xalivar really believed it.

“Twelve years of peace during a time when everyone was distracted by other concerns,” Xalivar said. “After hundreds of years of wars.”

“Extremists and terrorists brought us together. Why would we forget all that when we settled here?”

“Do you know how many of our people have died at their hands? How many communities they destroyed?” Xalivar demanded.

“How many of them have we killed? Can’t the past ever be the past?” Davi asked. He’d begun to wonder. His uncle’s anger seemed pretty intense over something that happened so long ago. “Twenty years ago, I was supposed to die because of your decree, yet here I am. You let it go and protected me, because I’m your nephew.” Xalivar’s face changed when Davi mentioned the decree. Had he forgotten? Maybe he wishes I hadn’t survived.

“I protected you, yes, and here you are trying to undo everything I’ve done!” Xalivar threw up his hands in dismay as his pupils narrowed and his face turned gray with worry.

“How can I stand by when my own family is living in slavery?”

“Do you wish so badly to join them in their plight?” Xalivar said. “Everything I’ve worked for, everything my father and grandfather worked for could be undone by this, Xander! Do you not care about this family any longer since you’ve found a new one?” They both turned at the sound of the door opening behind them.

Miri’s feet shuffled on the carpet as she rushed in. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?” she said, looking at Davi.

“I didn’t have the chance yet, Mother,” Davi said.

“He was too busy arguing the evils of our oppressive Alliance with his uncle,” Xalivar said. “He won’t let this go. I should have raised him myself, disavowed him of his moral illusions.” He stared accusingly at Miri.

“I raised him to think for himself,” Miri said.

“Well, he’s decided this family is the enemy now,” Xalivar said, fists clenching again.

“You’re still my family. I care about you,” Davi said with frustration. Did his uncle really believe that?

Xalivar waved dismissively to Miri. “I cannot do what he asks. You talk sense into him.” He turned and stopped beside the door to his private chambers, punching a code. The door slid up and Xalivar disappeared inside, leaving them alone.

“You’re trying to fight a system which has been in place for generations, Davi,” Miri said.

“It’s wrong, mother.”

“It won’t change overnight,” Miri said.

Davi knew she was right but was convinced he had to try. “Someone has to speak for the workers. People know who I am; maybe I can make them listen.”

“Or you will make more enemies than you ever imagined,” Miri said.

“So you would have me stand by and do nothing?”

“No, but I would have you recognize there will be more to convince than just your uncle,” Miri said, frustrated.

“I have to start somewhere.” Davi turned away, knowing she was right. “I won’t give up. I can’t.”

“Do you want to go to prison? Do you want to be killed?” Miri’s voice was tinged with desperation; worry filled her eyes.

“I’m willing to do what it takes to change things for my people,” Davi said as their eyes met.

“The Lords or the workers?”

“Both, Mother. I belong to both,” he said with a sigh.

“I can’t protect you.” Her voice was pained.

“I know. I would never hurt you, mother; I hope you know that.” He looked at her with love and smiled.

“I only want what’s best for you. Your uncle, too,” Miri pleaded.

“Can’t you see I have to do this?” Davi said, as tears ran down her cheeks. He hurt for her. He raised his arms and she rushed into his embrace. He stayed there holding her awhile.

Xalivar watched the Royal Shuttle depart with Davi aboard from his private quarters. How could he have been so blind? He’d forgotten all about the decree! He’d forgotten all about the nightmares which kept him awake, night after night. He’d never given much credence to dreams, but after his scientists had reported an increase in male births on Vertullis, Xalivar issued a decree and sent his Special Police squads to destroy all first-born males. They’d seemed so real to him then, but twenty-one years had passed. No one had arisen to challenge him in the decade that followed. He’d ultimately come to believe the dreams had been nonsense, but now. . .

How could he have been so wrong? He would do whatever it took to protect the Alliance. He loved the boy, but love wasn’t enough sometimes. Davi would have to be watched, although he didn’t want him harmed. Not yet. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he was prepared to do what was necessary. Miri would object, of course, but neither she nor her son really grasped what was at stake. Anyone was expendable if they rebelled. It couldn’t be tolerated.

The Council was scheduled to meet that afternoon, and he knew what must be done. He had to keep Davi close, and he had the perfect means right under his nose. Funny, he’d almost failed to see that, too. He’d been all ready to order Davi back to Plutonis. I must be growing weary. I need to get more rest. I have to stay on top of such things. He smiled. Yes, it was the perfect plan. So perfect, it would almost seem like a natural course of events beyond even Xalivar’s control.

“Let me get this straight,” Lord Tarkanius said, leaning forward in his chair at the head of the table. “You now support the Council in prosecuting your own nephew for murder?”

Xalivar and Tarkanius sat atop a large dais, as officiators of the meeting. The other Council members were seated at rows of tables facing them. All wore the embossed white robes customary for Council meetings. Located in the Council Building, across the government complex from the Palace, the chamber itself was modeled after the U.S. Senate back on old Earth but smaller.

“Having now learned other details of the incident, yes,” Xalivar said, looking at Tarkanius.

He heard several Lords’ grumbles from around the room. They were all surprised by his change of heart. “You are no longer concerned about the scandal this could cause?” Lord Hachim asked from halfway down the aisle on Xalivar’s right.

“There will be talk, of course. But we believe we can contain it,” Xalivar said.

“I hear rumors your nephew abandoned his post at Alpha Base and traveled back to Vertullis,” Lord Niger said. He was seated near Hachim, his skin and hair dark, owing to his African ancestry. “Why would he do that?”

“His sympathy for the workers has driven him to unpredictable behavior,” Xalivar said. “It is quite disturbing even to hear him discuss it.”

“Yes, I can imagine it would be,” Lord Obed said from Xalivar’s left. His skin had a light yellowish brown hue, common to people of Hispanic backgrounds and his brown eyes were intense like his son’s. The overseer of the Lord’s Special Police, Obed’s and Xalivar’s families had been rivals since their grandfathers’ days.

You’d love to see me go down, wouldn’t you, Obed? Not today.

He smiled to himself. The special session was off limit to visitors. No one would witness Xalivar setting his plan in motion. He was free to manipulate the Council just as he’d planned.

Xalivar could see the questions in the Lords’ eyes and feel their distrust. They feared betrayal; good! He liked keeping them off balance. It gave him more power.

“Given the circumstances, I have no choice but to support the Council in upholding the law. Our sense of justice must prevail.”

“And how will your dear sister react to this?” Lord Tarkanius asked.

“Miri has always been far too weak to govern,” Xalivar said, dismissing her.

“Will she hold her tongue?” Lord Niger asked.

“I will assist her, as required,” Xalivar said. A couple of Lords frowned with distaste. “The younger generation is harder to bring into line these days. Many of you have first-hand knowledge of this from your own offspring.” Several nodded and groaned.

“Well, with your support we cannot refuse,” Hachim said.

“All right, let us take a vote then to reissue the arrest warrant,” Tarkanius said. “All in favor, say aye.”

When the votes were tallied, the decision was unanimous. Despite their reservations, none were willing to quarrel with the High Lord Councilor. Some, like Obed, couldn’t resist the chance to do his reputation damage. Others feared his power. None of this bothered him. He had manipulated them as he’d planned, and he would deal with whatever came next.

“Lord Obed, send your Special Police again to locate and arrest the Prince,” Tarkanius said with regret.

“I am reinstating the orders as we speak,” Obed said, typing on the terminal in front of him. Xalivar suppressed a smile, amazed at how easy it was.

Davi sat at Lura’s table again and described his discussions with Xalivar and Miri. “Did you expect them to change their minds simply because you asked?” Lura asked, her brow furrowing at his frustration.

“I guess not,” Davi said. “I expected them to listen at least.”

“Xalivar’s father was on the Council when they voted to enslave us,” Lura said, “His grandfather started the war. And Xalivar himself has always been against us.”

“I hoped it was different now,” Davi said with growing sadness.

“It’s hard for people to change,” Lura said. “For the Council, the stakes are very high.”

“Of course,” Davi said, “But my mother raised me to believe in humanity’s right to self-determination, and even she argued with me about it.” He knew Miri worried, but he’d still expected more support from her.

“The Lords don’t see workers as human,” Lura said.

Davi turned away and shook his head. He couldn’t bear to look at her when he acknowledged it. He didn’t know how to help her. “I can’t accept it,” Davi said.

“None of us have any choice,” Lura said, rubbing his back.

“Don’t be sad, my son. None of this is a surprise for me. I’ve lived with it all my life.”

She had prepared another wonderful meal. They ate together in silence, as Davi struggled to come to terms with what had happened. Even the delicious dessert of fresh Gixi pie couldn’t overcome his somber mood.

Afterwards, Davi helped Lura clear the table and wash the dishes. “Who’d have ever thought I’d have a Prince drying my dishes?” Lura teased.

Davi chuckled. “I’ve never done it before. Hope I’m doing it right.” He kind of enjoyed the experience of feeling normal for once.

“You’re doing just fine,” she said.

When they’d finished, Lura took him out for a walk. “There’s someone I think you should meet,” she said as they wound their way through the residential corridors and across the park where Davi had used the kiosk.

On the other side, they entered a residential district with several corridors of nothing but apartments, then came to a cul-de-sac with houses which seemed larger than most worker houses he’d seen. Lura stopped at the door of a large blue house, designed in the nouveau deco style so popular a decade before and pushed the doorbell.

A gray-haired woman wearing a flowery apron wrinkled and stained from years of work answered the door and smiled when she saw Lura. “Lura! Welcome! It’s been months!” The two women embraced and the woman waved them inside, letting the door shut behind them.

“Calla, I want you to meet my son, Davi,” Lura said.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, an honorable mention on Barnes & Noble’s Best SF Releases of 2011, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. He resides in Ottawa, KS with two precocious dogs.

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by Deborah Walker

I worked all night trying to find a quicker, less expensive cure. The colourful boxes of anti-viral agents, tailored bacteria, and antibiotics littered the work surface. In the corner of the sick bay, the radiation lamp flickered blood-coloured light over a tray of discarded Petri dishes.

As the night wore on, my treatments became increasingly experimental. I tried the wilder, alien technologies. I placed the smooth mites of the Pincer world onto the faces of the crew in the hope that the burrowing insects would seek out and consume the infection. I pounded strange aromatic herbs. I concocted desperate combinations.

Until, at last, I found myself chanting. In the sterile lights of the sick bay, I sang a half-remembered prayer to Shimra. I chanted the rituals over the sick women. The words sounded hollow to my ears. Why would the Healing God Shimra hear an unbeliever?

I tried my best to cure them quickly, but only time, and patience, and expensive drugs would heal them. I failed them.

And I desperately needed a drink.

I dimmed the lights in the sick bay.

“Get some rest now.” I took one last look at the women in the beds. They were identical, but I could distinguish between them.

“Goodnight, Mikar,” said one.

“Goodnight, Verna. The captain will come to see you in a few hours.”

“Tell the captain we’re sorry.” Another voice. I think it was Sam’s.

I really needed a drink.

In my cabin, I held my glass of wine up to the light. Rioja is an ancient wine, first produced by the Phoenicians and the Celtiberians. In medieval times, the wine was produced by monks who extolled its virtues to their congregations. In the thirteenth century, Gonzalo de Berceo, clergyman of the Riojan Suso Monastery praised Rioja in his poems.

Spanish wine.

I have never been to Earth, and I never will. Clones are not allowed on the mother world. I would dearly like to go, to see the vineyards, to taste wine that hasn’t travelled through space. The Riojan Guild insist that point seven speed damages the flavour. I will never taste Rioja in its purest form.

Morning came, with a dull headache and a reluctance to visit my patients. I took a deep breath before I activated the door to the bridge. The captain was bent over her workstation.

“The crew have been infected.”

“What? Again?” said the captain, looking up from her computer. I saw that she had been scanning web downloads, probably looking for something—anything—that would help us escape from this wretched planet.

“I’m afraid it will be at least a week before they’ll be fit for duty again.” I began to enter data into the computer. I didn’t want to look at the captain. “It’s not their fault.”

“What’s that you say?”

The captain was raised on GreyCloud Colony, and that harsh, wild upbringing ran through her, lettering her personality with an innate callousness. She made me nervous.

“Captain, I thought you might like to go outside and assess the situation for yourself.”

“It’s not standard procedure. That’s what the crew are for—they’re expendable.”

“But if we ever want to get off this planet. . .”

“You’re right, Mikar. You will accompany me.”

I shuddered. This was not what I had wanted at all. I’d had hoped for a few hours rest without the overwhelming presence of the captain.

“Right then.” The captain took one more look at the glittering control panel. It was still shining erratically, the lights blinking off and on—a chaos of illumination reflecting the infection of the ship’s computers.

“What is the situation outside?” said the captain, smashing her hand against the panel, illuminating some controls, turning off others, and adding to the confusion

“It’s the same. The tentacles are covering the ship. They’ve invaded the outer shell and have entered the ship’s systems. We have control of most of the ship, but the engines are offline, and we have no outward communications. It’s a focused attack. I imagine that if we were able to take off we could pull away from the tentacles—they’re organic.”

“But we can’t take off, can we, Mikar?”

“No, Captain.”

“Waste of time speculating then, eh?”

“Yes, Captain.”

It was typical of the captain to ask a question, and then be irritated by the perfectly reasonable response.

“I suppose I ought to see to the crew. Unless you can sort it out by yourself?”

“No, Captain. I thought it was better that I left the final decision to you.”

The captain strode across the bridge. She was shiny, silky, and under control. I followed behind her. I was dishevelled, tired, and barely holding myself together.

We entered sick room together, with me still a few paces behind the captain. The captain looked at the rows of women lying in the beds.

“What a waste. How long did you say that it will take to treat them?”

“A week, maybe five days.”

“Hardly worth it, is it?”

I looked at the rows of identical faces in the sick room—the captain’s face—my face. Only the captain was real. The rest of us were copies, ship-bred and ship-raised. All the crew were clones of the captain. Only the captain was real, had attained citizenship, was born from a woman and not brought to life in the green, glazed cloning tubules filled with simple, sucking nutrients.

“Didn’t you fight back, eh?” said the captain to Verna.

“We tried, Captain.”

Verna’s face was webbed with grey micro-tentacles which pulsed to the beat of her blood. They wove through the capillaries of her body, using her own network against her.

“What’s your report?”

“I’m sorry, Captain. It just kind of happened. One minute we were walking, cutting our way through the jungle, and the next thing the entity jumped us. We only caught a glimpse of it, before the tentacles engulfed us.”

“The entity? Can’t you even give it a name? Names are important—that’s why you haven’t got names.”

I shuddered. The captain was so cruel. The crew didn’t seem to mind. They were too young, only two years old, though they wore the bodies of adult women. They didn’t know any better.

“We’re allocating it the name of Grey Cut, Captain,” I said.

“That’s better.” The captain had moved along the sick room to another bed. To Saleen’s bed. I recognised her by a small scar in her eyebrow. Saleen looked at the captain with a look of devotion on her disfigured face.

“Describe Grey Cut to me,” said the captain.

“A spherical body, maybe ten metres in diameter. It was covered in tentacles which narrowed to a small spike. If you get cut by one of the spikes, you become infected. The infection spreads quickly, and we all became infected.”

“I can see that,” said the captain. She turned to me. “Delete them all, and clone up a new batch.” Without a backward glance at the crew, the captain walked out of the sick room. “We’ll meet Grey Cut ourselves this afternoon, Mikar.”

There wasn’t even a murmur of protest from the crew. They had all been taught to live and die at the captain’s command. They accepted their fate, in fact, one or two of the crew members tried to struggle out of bed to assist me.

“No, that’s all right. Go back to bed, rest awhile.”

“I wish. . .” said Saleen.

“Yes?”

“I wish that we could have done a better job for the captain.”

“Rest now,” I said.

I injected the euthanasia drug into the bodies of the women.

Fifteen women.

This was not the first time.

I said goodbye to each of them.

I used the names I had given them.

I watched as stillness overcame them.

I dragged the bodies to the recycling vat

I watched as the enzymes strip the flesh off their bodies.

This was not the first time.

I set the cloning pods to generate new crew members.

Fifteen new women.

I set their memories to the required standards.

I did it all.

I went back to my quarters. I poured myself a large glass of Rioja. I drank and drank and drank, and tried to wash away the memories. The memories lingered, always and forever. The memories of the dissolving flesh, the chemicals stripping away the flesh from my face. Watching the enzymes and the molecular sieves sort out the re-usable components of my sisters.

There are three categories of Rioja red wines. The youngest wine is labelled simply “Rioja,” and it spends less than a year ageing in an oak barrel. Wine that is aged for a least two years (with a least one year in oak) is labelled “Crianza.” “Rioja Reserva” is aged for at least three years (with a least one year in oak). And finally, the most expensive of all: “Rioja Gran Reserva” spends at least two years in oak and at least three years ageing in the bottle.

Off-world bodegas seek to emulate the quality of this fine wine. Some even claim that the wine is Rioja-like. But they are not real.

I carefully source my wine from a reputable Earth dealer. I do not want to taste the counterfeit.

The captain’s voice boomed over the ship’s communication relay: “Mikar, I need you with me—now.”

I finished my glass of wine quickly, and then rinsed my mouth with mouthwash.

The captain was pacing up and down on the bridge, the uncontrollable flashing lights of the control panel casting shadows onto her face. “What’s outside on the planet—the hostile alien we call Grey Cut. What do we know about it?”

I was about to speak, but the captain hadn’t finished. “We don’t know enough. It’s obvious that I’m going to have to go out myself. It’s pointless waiting for the new crew. They’ll come back infected. This is something I’ll have to do.”

“I agree.” I always agreed with my captain.

The captain and I left the ship. We were dressed in ordinary trousers and tunics. There was no point in wearing body armour—it hadn’t protected the crew.

This planet’s surface was lush and damp. The vegetation spiralled everywhere in a wealth of rich profusion. I could almost see the jungle growing, see the strung run vines and the prolific fungi crawling and blending and adding another layer to the texture of the planet.

The thing that makes Rioja wine so distinctive is its oak aging. I have never seen an oak tree, but I know how it tastes. It adds the caramel, coffee, and roasted nuts flavours to white Rioja.

Oak aging is the key to Rioja but sadly this ancient technique is in decline. I have sources to the traditional bodegas; there are always some who stay true to the old ways.

“Nasty stuff,” said the captain. She kicked at a cluster of ivory-white fungus that stood in her path, cracking the fruiting body and releasing a cloud of spoors.

“It’s a shame about the crew,” I said.

“Yes, waste of resources. The energy needed to recycle their bodies, and reform them—it’s an expensive job—making new copies.”

“Yes.” But it wasn’t as expensive as curing them.

We walked on again; the jungle was silent. No other creature walked this jungle, not even the insects which I thought were a ubiquitous feature of any planet that spawned life. Grey Cut’s world was quiet, apart from our heavy footfalls, and the sound of vegetable life, sprawling and growing.

Rioja wines are usually a blend of various grape varieties. Red or tinto Rioja is my favourite. Although sometimes the occasion calls for white (blanco) or even for rosé (rosado).

“Where did the crew encounter Grey Cut?” asked the captain.

I consulted my navigation recorder. “Not too far now. Verna reported that they encountered it a half kilometre to the east.”

“Verna! I’ve told you, time and time again, not to give the crew names. They’re not real people. When you name them you add something to them. They have no right to possess names.”

“And what about me?”

“What about you?” said the captain. She swiped at the vegetation with her laser, cutting a path of destruction through the jungle, much wider than was needed for our ingress.

“You gave me a name,” I said.

“You’re different, Mikar. You were my first clone. When I cloned you—it was special. I suppose you could say that I think of you as a daughter.”

The captain walked off the path she was cutting, to examine a particularly lurid fungus. Red veins laced the mushroom’s spongy flesh. When the captain smashed through the dense plant, I inhaled the scent of its damage.

“You know what I think about you,” said the captain. “We shouldn’t have to talk about it.”

I said, “I’m thirsty.”

The captain looked at me closely before passing over the water bottle. “Mikar, have you been drinking again?”

“No.”

“I’m very disappointed in you, Mikar.”

I am ten years old, but I am fully grown.

I am the identical copy of my mother, but we are very different.

Aren’t we?

Aren’t we?

I need a drink.

I need a real drink.

I saw the movement in the undergrowth, grey flesh. Grey Cut.

The captain had seen it too. “This must be Grey Cut. Get ready, Mikar.”

“Take us to your leader,” shouted the captain at the tentacle. The grey, undulating rope of flesh continued to grope through the vegetation.

“Let’s retrace the tentacle to the original,” said the captain, striding through the undergrowth.

She is so brave. She is not afraid. I wish I was like her.

We came to a clearing, the lush vegetation was diminished, but another growth filled its place.

We saw the spherical core of grey flesh. Imagine the wildly spiralling tentacles issuing from that body, weaving and interacting in a constant movement; tapering down to fine points that quested around the captain and myself, rising up and wavering around the exposed parts of our bodies. Imagine myriad, tiny, spiked tongues poised and ready to strike, a few centimetres from our hands and faces.

I fought the impulse to run from the threatening spikes.

“Well, we’re here,” shouted the captain. “What do you want?”

“Ah, the original visits me at last. Welcome.” The words issued from the body of Grey Cut, a deep and resonant sound which reverberated and expanded through the quivering tentacles surrounding us.

“What have you done to my ship? I insist that you release us at once.”

“But we wanted to meet the real you.” The tendrils began to grow, threatening to encase our feet.

“Well, I’m here. What do you want? And why did you attack my crew?”

“I sensed that they had no value to you, and I needed to get your attention. Do they recover?”

“They have been reutilised,” said the captain.

“Ah, I see. I did not realise quite how little you valued them. But each species is different, I find. It is not for me to make judgements. I want what you have, Captain. I breed slowly but I want to have your luxury of reproduction. Renew and refresh myself until I fill the whole planet.”

The captain looked doubtful. “It’s against Company guidelines to let natives have technology. Besides, what makes you think that you will be able to manage the machinery?”

“My daughters learn quickly,” said Grey Cut. Some of the tentacles pointed to a sprawling mass of webbed tendrils that might have been playing in the undergrowth. “We have acquired many technologies. Yours should be no different, if only you could see the wonders of our cities. . .”

“Yes, I am sure they are a marvel,” said the captain, nodding her head. “And if I agree, how will we make the exchange?”

“Captain, you can’t give away technology.”

The captain ignored me.

“I only need a few hours to study the cloning technology. I’m sure that I will be able to, ahem. . .reproduce it. Or my daughters will.” Was there a tone of pride in the voice of Grey Cut? “How wonderful it must be to control your own spawning, to grow and replicate at will. How lucky you are, Captain.”

“And then you will release the ship? If I give you this gift?”

“I will.”

“That is satisfactory to me.”

“How can I be sure that you’ll do your part of the bargain?” asked Grey Cut. “How can we trust one another?”

“Take Mikar,” said the captain, pushing me forward.

“She had value to you?” asked Grey Cut. The tentacles moved over me, trying to assess my worth.

“Yes. Mikar has some value. She’s not like the others. She’s been with me ten years now. She is a daughter to me.”

“Mother, no! Don’t use me like this.” Wasted words. My mother would use me as a bargaining token—if it were expedient.

The captain frowned. “You must call me Captain, Mikar. And it’ll only be for a few hours.”

Grey Cut appeared satisfied. “Bring me the technology. We will make the exchange at that time: one of my daughters for yours. Once I am satisfied with the technology, I will release your ship. Then the offspring will be released to their mothers.”

I realised that Grey Cut and the captain were alike.

“Agreed,” said the captain.

“Agreed,” said Grey Cut.

As we walked back to the ship, I thought about the Rioja regions. There are three Rioja regions; Rioja Alta known for its old world style of wine; Rioja Alavesa producing wine with a full body and high acidity; and Rioja Baja which produces deeply coloured wine with a high alcoholic volume. I have tasted them all. I considered the merits of wine from each of the regions, and remembered the joy that the different wines have given me over my short life.

After a while, I thought about something else. “We’re not supposed to give out technology, Captain.”

“Who’s to know? Anyway what’s the alternative? To be trapped here forever?”

“You could get into a lot of trouble, Captain.”

“I said, no one will ever know.” It was unusual for me to question her decisions. “No one will ever know. Do you understand, Mikar?”

“Yes, Captain.”

We climbed the ladder to the ship’s access port. The tentacles pulsed as we moved past them.

“Prepare the cloning technology for Grey Cut and load it onto some trolleys for transfer.”

“As you wish,” I agreed. I almost always agreed with the captain. I began to prepare the data for Grey Cut. I needed a drink.

“And fetch me a glass of that wine of yours. I feel like celebrating.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Call me Captain, Mikar. Call me Captain.”

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Grey Cut. Her tentacles roamed over the unconscious form.

“I had to drug her. My daughter does not approve of our arrangement.”

“But you do?”

“Oh yes. I want her back, she’s shown something at last. Some spark of initiative. I’m proud of her. I’ve always wanted to say that, but I never had a reason to. She’s a fine daughter.”

One of Grey Cut’s tentacles pushed forward a smaller mass of tentacles. “Without trust, we have nothing. This is my daughter. She will go with you. The ship will be released once I have assessed the data.”

“When you have assessed the cloning technology and released my ship, I will send out the final authorisation codes, but I think that we can trust each other.”

“The bargain is acceptable,” said Grey Cut, drawing the unconscious captain into a cradle of tentacles.

The ship pulled away from the planet, the binding tendrils lost their cohesion and fell to the ground.

I sat with a glass of Rioja at her side, slowly sipping the dark coloured wine.

The communications relay activated, and Grey Cut’s voice filled the bridge. “Captain, I’m ready to accept the authorisation codes. Then we can release our daughters. I am sorry to say that there is a problem with your daughter. She seems agitated, perhaps mentally unstable. I suggest that we initiate the exchange straight away.”

The ship rose effortlessly, above the clouds, and prepared to enter flash space.

I would soon be free of the planet, all I needed to do was alter the ship’s records, and no one would suspect.

“Captain? Captain. . .your daughter needs to speak to you.”

A familiar voice came across the console. “Mikar, don’t leave me here. I love you, darling. I’ve always loved you. Don’t leave me. At least give Grey Cut her daughter back. She’s going to be very angry.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Why, Mikar? Why?” There was a plaintive note in her voice. It was disconcerting.

“Goodbye, Captain.” I had no intention of giving Grey Cut the authorisation codes for the cloning technology; a captain could get into a lot of trouble that way.

“Mikar. . . Mikar?”

I switched off the communications relay. I did not give her the courtesy of my explanations.

A new voice spoke. “Why did you do it?” It was Grey Cut’s daughter. I didn’t know she could speak.

I considered for awhile before I said, “I did it because I wasn’t real. And when you’re not real, you can do anything. I have recreated myself into the image of a captain. I am real now.” Even to myself, my voice sounded a little sinister.

I must have been drunk. I glanced over at the wine bottle, still half-full. Incredible. Is this is what my mother felt like all of the time? I was drunk on reality.

“Oh, okay,” said Grey Cut’s daughter. I would have to give her a name. No. I must ask her to name herself. She looked frightened. Can a mass of tentacles look frightened?

I tried to be kind. “Don’t worry. Every thing’s going to be okay.”

I raised my glass of Rioja in salute to the diminishing view of the planet. “And believe me, my friend, you’re better off without your mother.”

After a twenty year period of procrastination, Deborah has started to write. Find her science fiction in Nature’s Futures, Cosmos, and Odyssey.
http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/