Creating Alien Aliens, Part 21: The REAL Possibility of Intelligent Alien Aliens

Update 11/5/2022: A BRAND NEW article on BBC News: Humans are still searching for signs of intelligent alien life on other planets – but how would we react towards it if we ever did make contact? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221101-should-extraterrestrial-life-be-granted-sentient-rights

I’ve been a fan of SF movies with aliens in them since I watched “Invasion of the Saucer Men” when I was 13 (1970). It was a movie that was, oddly, 13-years-old as well, made in 1957. I was watching a late-night TV show called “Horror, Incorporated” when the movie ran. Unlike my response to Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (where I threw the blankets over my head when the camera panned to the eyeless farmer); my reaction to the still-living, alien hand – torn off when the couple who’d been making out at Inspiration Point and heading home, ran over one of the invading aliens – was total absorption.

Since then, and fueled by a BS in biology, and an addition that allowed me to teach Earth Science in MN, I’ve been fascinated by alien biology.

Like anyone else who reads and writes science fiction, I believe with all my heart that there is intelligent life Out There and just because we haven’t definitively “met Them” yet, they HAVE to be out there somewhere.

But, what’s the REAL possibility of finding intelligent life off of Earth, if not in our Solar System or orbiting a nearby star, then SOMEWHERE in the universe? I refuse to accept Ellie Arroway’s lecture to a group of kids at the end of the movie, “I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?”

Carl Sagan’s book of the same name, that has been misattributed to his own invention, which was coined by John Burroughs (American naturalist and nature essayist) in ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE (“On Other Stars”) (1920). His exact words are, “If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be na inhabited, what a waste of space.” It has repeatedly been attributed to Carl Sagan because he quoted it at a November 20, 1972 symposium on “Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man”, held at Boston University. But the fact is that, it originated half a century before he quoted it.

Like the quote, and despite our firm belief that Modern Civilization “invented” the idea of aliens and alien worlds – because we’re just SO forward thinking – the concept of aliens and alien worlds has been around since Roman Empire actually ruled Western Europe: “The famous Roman poet Cicero was interested in the possibility of living beings on the Moon, and his Somnium Scipionis may have inspired Plutarch (46 A.D. - 120 A.D.) to write his account of a visit to the Moon. In Facies in Orbe Lunare…

Plutarch endorsed the Pythagoreans thus: ‘They affirm that the Moon is terrestrial and inhabited like the Earth, peopled with the greatest living creatures and the fairest plants...’”

Then the author makes an unsubstantiated claim that the Church was responsible for a thousand-year silence regarding the possibility of space travel and alien life writing, though they hedge their bets by what I call weasel words, “…This may probably be attributed to the pervasiveness of the Church philosophy and its rigid opposition to the idea of the plurality of worlds. The pronouncement of…the Bishop of Chiusi, in 1145 A.D. was perhaps typical: The belief in many worlds was to be condemned as heresy.” They provide no references…then runs with their conclusions, making Thomas Aquinas into some kind of simpering idiot: “If God really was all-powerful, why was he only able to create one world? Conversely, if only one world existed how could God possibly be truly infinite and omnipotent? The theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) came up with a ‘solution’ to the problem: God had the power to create infinite worlds, but all the matter in the universe had been used to construct Earth!” Continuing the narrative (and using exclamation points to highlight the author’s disbelief, “…“…the Church subsequently partially reversed its extreme position. In 1277…[the Church] decried as new heresy the belief that a plurality of worlds was impossible!...According to the physics of Aristotle (“from his teachings…the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.”)…still in vogue (sounds like the author is stating that Aristotle was some sort of fad that soon passed) until the 16th century, if any other worlds did exist they would have to gravitate to the center of the universe (where Earth was). But it became wrong to suggest that God could not create many worlds if He wished.”

“The debate was far from ended. In 1410 the Jewish philosopher Crescas wrote: ‘Everything said in negation of the possibility of many worlds is vanity and a striving after wind." Still, he was unwilling to stick out his neck very far: ‘...yet we are unable by means of mere speculation to ascertain the true nature of what is outside this world; our sages, peace be on them, have seen fit to warn against searching and inquiring into what is above and what is below, what is before and what is behind...’”

“…during the Inquisition in Europe in the mid-fifteenth century. Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa in 1440 in which he stated: Rather than think so many stars and parts of the heavens are uninhabited, and that this Earth or ours alone is peopled.. .we will suppose that in every region there are inhabitants, differing in nature by rank and all owing their origin to God.”

Considering how little we know about other animals here on Earth, he claims, "of the inhabitants....of worlds other than our own we can know still less, having no standards by which to appraise them.”

“As astronomical observations became more accurate, the geocentric Aristotelian/Ptolemaic world view began to generate problems that were difficult to resolve…[and] The roadblocks to the idea of intelligent alien life on other worlds were rapidly disintegrating.”

So, there’s an interesting view of the past. Now that we have the Science of the 21st Century, it should be obvious by now that all discussion of life on other worlds has more-or-less resolved itself into a fairly uniform belief: it’s ABSOLUTELY THERE!!!!

Hold on a moment!

Current speculation – and make no mistake, every thought we have or write (I include myself here and now) is PURE SPECULATION. There is NO EVIDENCE of life existing anywhere else but Earth. NO EVIDENCE (alien abduction victims to the contrary), we have no evidence (which is essential to good police work and science) of life existing anywhere but right here. That’s evident from the range of articles written and referenced below – that in the second and third decades of the 21st Century that there could  STILL logically be between “we’re all alone” to 42,777 intelligent civilizations to “numbers almost too large to imagine”.

It doesn't seem that we've progressed very far from Cisero, Plutarch, and the obstructionist Roman Catholic Church – we have no evidence PLUS theories and mathematical calculations whose solutions vary wildly from We Are Alone to a universe teeming with life eager to contact us if only…the most recent speculation I’ve heard is that communication between the members of the Inter Galactic Union of Intelligences and Humanity waits until a civilization can both detect and effectively control gravity waves the way they control the EM spectrum!

There was serious work done on generating gravity waves in 2012: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875389212025163; though it wasn’t until 2016 that we detected them: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/gravitational-waves-detected-scientists-announce#:~:text=Gravitational%20waves%20have%20been%20detected,detector%20in%20Italy%20have%20announced; and in April of 2022, astrophysicists discovered another way of detecting those waves: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/gravitational-waves-detected-scientists-announce#:~:text=Gravitational%20waves%20have%20been%20detected,detector%20in%20Italy%20have%20announced.

Speculation (there’s that word again!) is, now that we can generate and detect g-waves, maybe we can finally hear if there’s anyone chatting Out There! (https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/extra-terrestrial-alien-communicate-gravitational-lensing/)

There seems to be a monumental gap between amorous teenagers and astrophysicists, but it's where we are right now. Until we get firmer evidence of aliens OUT THERE, (*sigh*), we’ll just have to be satisfied with the probability of intelligent aliens hovering somewhere between “we’re alone” and “too many to imagine”…

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-many-aliens-are-in-the-milky-way-astronomers-turn-to-statistics-for-answers/, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-many-aliens-are-in-the-milky-way-astronomers-turn-to-statistics-for-answers/, https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/magazine/extraterrestrials-technosignatures.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/magazine/extraterrestrials-technosignatures.html (I did NOT watch it all as there were an inordinate number of “Ahsss…” in the first fifteen minutes…); https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1675/life-in-the-universe-what-are-the-odds/; (Generic article without the math: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a32603529/math-formula-aliens-exist/; SERIOUS article WITH the math: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1921655117
Resource: http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpLYmuZs-_DaqzJ21or1dcwZrcIJdLf8gbMx6vnep5a7Wr-ngLBkc-OzrnrRNP24j2NCGdJBPdwREA-Sd3OEfC8BMw92yrDqAbmZ3N07Z5dxYNKsdnIYmv8uZr82G3JtyHqrtadG2yzTSz/s1600/vlcsnap-2014-11-16-19h01m18s14.png

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“Warranty Claim” • by Gustavo Bondoni

 

A shiny metal disc streaked through the sky before descending in front of Sergeant Murphy, a twenty-year veteran who just happened to be crossing the parking lot. 

As soon as he saw it, he buried his face in his hands. “Not these guys again.” He’d been on duty when these particular aliens had first come to Earth, and had been part of the initial talks.

The major he’d been walking alongside ran off, presumably to inform the upper brass of the visit. That would be unnecessary: every inch of Area 59 was filmed and wired for sound. Washington already knew what was happening.

The ship disgorged several blue-skinned aliens in silver spacesuits. 

“You are the one they call Murphy, correct?  The one we met the last time we were here?” the leader asked.

“Yes.”

“This is broken.”

It held out a slim silver rectangle with the well-known company logo, a fruit, on it.

“It’s probably the battery,” Murphy said.

“Can it be changed?”

“No. They make them that way so you have to buy a new one.”

“No good. You need to fix this immediately. We’re in an argument about whether alien life forms can be Communist Nazis. We tried opening a new account, but the website refuses to acknowledge our ship’s operating system.”

“I can’t help.”

The leader sighed. “Do you want us to destroy your planet?”

“No.”

“These are our demands”

“But—”

“Silence! We demand you get the experts at this computer company to fix our laptop.”

“That could take a while.” After a moment’s thought, Murphy responded: “Will you at least let me work through the problem with IT support?”

“As long as you get it fixed.”

Murphy sighed in relief. That should  buy the Joint Chiefs of Staff time to get something done.

 

___________________________

 

Gustavo Bondoni is novelist and short story writer with over three hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages.  He is a member of Codex and an Active Member of SFWA. His latest novel is Test Site Horror (2020). He has also published two other monster books: Ice Station: Death (2019) and Jungle Lab Terror (2020), three science fiction novels: Incursion (2017), Outside (2017) and Siege (2016) and an ebook novella entitled Branch. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019) Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
 
In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.
 
His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com

 

 

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“Merry-Go-Round” • by Christopher Degni

 

The field, once Sara’s favorite haunt, stood graveled and muddy, lonely except for a “Coming Soon” billboard for a 55+ community.

She didn’t love the field so much as the annual traveling carnival that had descended upon it, until twenty years ago, when it had stopped. Sara closed her eyes and reflected on that year of lasts: the last carnival, the last year of high school… the last time she’d seen her brother.

The smell of fried dough filled her nostrils. When she opened her eyes, she was amidst the carnival again, by the fortuneteller’s booth. It had none of the usual pageantry, only a plain-looking woman wearing a plain tee, jeans, and a Mona Lisa smile.

The strange resonance of being in two times at once buzzed in Sara’s sternum.

“We’ll meet again,” said the fortuneteller.

“Sorry?” said Sara—both Saras.

“I said we’ll meet again.” The first time had been a restatement; now it was a confirmation. “It’ll be rough. For a while. But you’ll come around.”

The vibration in Sara’s chest stopped, and she stood in an empty field again. She glanced at the billboard and sighed.

“Not yet.” She kicked a rock. “Maybe in another twenty.”

_____________

Christopher Degni is a 2019 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He writes about the magic and the horror that lurk just under the surface of everyday life. He lives south of Boston with his wife (and his demons, though we don't talk about those). You can find more of his work in NewMyths.com, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, 99 Tiny Terrors, and the upcoming 99 Fleeting Fantasies.

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“Inheritance” • by Ephiny Gale

 

They tell me that taking the memory pill is when you really become an adult.

My friend Marie took it when she was 16, as soon as she legally could, and then she stopped liking any of the guys our age or laughing at our favourite shows. That scared me for a long time. She promised she was fine, but there was something different in her eyes afterwards, like she was haunted.

Mum’s had my pill ready for a while, ever since gran died. It contains most of my grandmother’s memories, and my great grandmother’s, and my great-great grandmother’s from when they first invented the technology. Mum says no pressure, but I know that it’s supposed to give me perspective; give me experience to help me navigate my adult life, make good choices.

Twenty-four is pretty old, but I think I’m finally ready. To be haunted.

The memories of my ancestors flood through me, overwhelming. Celebrations, funerals, childbirth, regrets, moments of joy and inertia. Life is long and life is short, and I will live my own with a legacy inside of me.

Mum hands me a lemonade to sip. “Do you regret it?” she asks.

Not at all.

_______________________

 

Ephiny Gale is the author of more than two dozen published short stories and novelettes that have appeared in publications including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Constellary Tales, and Daily Science Fiction. Her fiction has been awarded the Sundress Publications' Best of the Net award and the Syntax & Salt Editor's Award, and has been a finalist for multiple Aurealis Awards.

 

 

 

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“The View from the Old Ship” • by Carol Scheina

Sai groaned at the patrol assignments. “We get the haunted ship.”

Her co-pilot, Mack, frowned. “You mean it’s got ghosts?”

“Naw, it’s got sensor problems. Some old data, something it scanned ages ago, keeps popping up. Covers all the viewports. So if you look at our planet, the continents’ll be all wrong. Techs call it a ghost view. Get it? Haunted?”

Mack rolled his eyes. “So we’ll fly blind?”

“We’ll use auto-pilot if it happens. Tech’s gonna try again to fix it after our patrol. That or junk this ancient thing.”

They were orbiting the planet when the ghost view started, showing an ocean where no ocean resided.

Sai gasped. “The water’s blue.”

“So?”

But Sai remembered the stories her grandmother had told, who’d heard them from her grandmother, who’d actually lived on the Old Planet. Stories about blue oceans, not like their red ones. About seven continents. So much had been lost over the decades, but Sai’s grandmother had kept the stories alive.

“That’s Earth.”

Mack peered at the blue water as it shifted to green landmass. “That’s what it looked like? Dang!”

“We’ve gotta tell tech not to fix this.”

Mack nodded.

This was a view worth keeping.

__________________________

 

Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative fiction author from the Northern Virginia region. Many of her stories were thought up while sitting in local traffic, resulting in tales that have appeared in Cossmass Infinities, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, and other publications. You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.

 

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“Goons” • by Christopher Blake

 

I stroke the oars and shatter the lake’s reflected stars. In the distance, a loon wails.

The sack in the bow groans.

“Shut up,” I say. “You’re dead.”

“I’m breathing,” says the sack.

“Good as dead.”

The loon cries again, or anyways I think it’s a loon. Only time I leave the city is to deep-six bozos ain’t smart enough to mind their business. Like this bozo who stumbled stark-naked into the boss’s most remote grow-op.

“You know,” says the sack. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“What, you going to haunt me or something?”

The loon wails again, only closer this time.

“Oh no,” says the sack. “Not me.”

Behind me there’s a splash. I whip around, but catch only moonlit ripples.

“Thing is,” says the sack, “That grow-op was my forest. And this is my lake. Which means I won’t be haunting you.”

Something scratches the bottom of the boat, and suddenly I’m overboard, my limbs tangled in weeds like a thousand grasping hands.

“I’ve got goons for that.”

I thrash, but a weed wraps round my neck and pulls me into the inky dark.

And underwater I see I was wrong.

It wasn’t a loon, after all.

________________

 

Christopher Blake lives with his wife, cat-daughter, and human-son in Ontario, Canada.  He writes mostly fantasy and science fiction, some of which can be found in places like Galaxy's Edge and Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores.

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“Mother Noodges Best” • by Allan Dyen-Shapiro

 

Sure, the recruiter had told Junfeng about the brain surgery Tiger Software demanded of its employees, but still. “Boss, I can’t do this anymore. It’s dredging up too much trauma.”

Bob, Junfeng’s boss, flashed a sympathetic smile. “Who else would help maximize your productivity? You knew the procedure would draw someone from your memories who only you could see.”

HAUNTing—Human Ability Up-Regulatory Nudging of the Talented. Post-procedure, the only person tougher on Junfeng than he was on himself stood in front of him 24/7, an augmented reality version only he could see or hear.

“Fix your tie,” his mother said. “You look like a slob.”

Junfeng excused himself from the meeting and headed toward the restroom.

“Promise me you’re not going to touch yourself. That’s disgusting.”

“Mom, I’m exhausted. I need time off.”

“I didn’t raise a slacker.”

Junfeng pondered—what would distract his mom? Finally, he hit on it. “You’ll never have grandkids if you don’t let me socialize.”

Freedom?

Or not. A younger Chinese woman appeared beside Mom. Three children played underfoot.

“You’ll love marriage,” Mom said. “And AI kids behave better. Now, get back to work.”

“Listen to your mom,” Junfeng’s new wife said.

_______________

Allan Dyen-Shapiro is a Ph.D. biochemist currently working as an educator. He's sold stories to numerous markets including Flash Fiction Online and Grantville Gazette. He also co-edited an anthology of SFF set in the Middle East. He is a member of SFWA and Codex. You can find links to his published stories (and some freebies) as well as his blog, where he opines on matters of interest to those who might like his fiction (environmentalism, futurism, science, literature, and science fiction in all media), at allandyenshapiro.com. Follow him on Twitter (@Allan_author_SF); friend him on Facebook (allandyenshapiro.author). 

 

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“Every Day the Music Died” • by Jenna Hanchey

 

They took the music away, but left the feelings it evoked. Today’s wave of nostalgia washed over me like a child standing too deep in the water. I had always felt this when—it was on the tip of my tongue—when that musician played, the one my ex loved. I tried to grasp the tune, even though I knew it was impossible.

I assumed they left the feelings on purpose. In my more generous moods, I thought they must be running tests, trying to understand human emotional ties to sound. We probably inspired the methodology; god knows we’d run enough experiments on them. But as I grew more desperate, reaching for sounds that no longer registered, melodies truly unchained from human experience, my read shifted.

Torture, my mind shouted above the silence. Torture.

The emotions would recede, after awhile. And alone in the pressure-adjusted chamber, deep under the sea, I remembered. Octopuses did not understand sound. They communicated through color and motion. Our feelings for music were an oddity to be explored.

I’d felt haunted when I heard the song my ex loved everywhere after she left. I was wrong.

The true haunting was the weight of its absence.

___________________________

Jenna Hanchey is a communication professor by day and a speculative fiction writer by...um...earlier in the day. She lives in Reno and teaches courses at the University of Nevada on racism, colonialism, and communicating across difference. Her research examines neocolonialism in Western aid to Africa, and how Africans use Africanfuturism to imagine their own developmental futures. Somehow she manages to act, sing, and rock climb, too! Notable credits include Gwendolyn Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest and Elaine Wheeler in Night Watch. She's also a voice-actor, narrating the audiobooks in Emily S. Hurricane's Bloodlines series. Her fiction has also appeared in Daily Science Fiction and the Apex Microfiction Contest. Follow her adventures on Twitter (@jennahanchey) or at www.jennahanchey.com.

 

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“The First Stage” • by Matt Krizan

 

Mark is singing Happy Birthday to Layla—loudly and out of tune, as was their custom—when someone knocks on the front door. He ignores it, watching Layla blow out the candles, but the knocking continues.

“C’mon, Mark,” says his sister Sara, “I know you’re in there.”

Mark doesn’t respond. He’s giving Layla her present, waiting for her delighted smile when she opens it.

“I brought donuts,” Sara says. “Those cream-filled ones you like? Mark…?”

Grumbling, Mark pulls off his VR Hood, and Layla and her present vanish. He rises from the sofa, knocking over an empty vodka bottle. Crumbs fall from his pajamas as he shuffles to the door and opens it.

Sara’s eyes widen at the sight of him.

“Oh, sweetie,” she breathes. “You can’t keep torturing yourself like this. It was an accident. There’s nothing you could’ve—”

Mark takes the box of donuts and shuts the door.

He returns to the sofa, tuning Sara out as he shoves a donut in his mouth. He wipes his hand on his pants and pulls on his Hood.

“It’s beautiful.” Layla eyes the necklace, smiling.

“You’re beautiful,” Mark murmurs, echoing his recorded voice, tears welling in his eyes.

__________________________________

 

Matt Krizan is a former certified public accountant who writes from his home in Royal Oak, Michigan. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications, including Daily Science Fiction, Martian Magazine, and Dark Moments. Find him online at mattkrizan.com and on Twitter as @MattKrizan.

 

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“Inheritance” • by Carol Scheina

Grandma never hid her head, which instead of hair, had numerous strands of inch-long icicles jutting out like a frozen porcupine. They dripped in summertime’s heat and sharpened with winter’s bite.

“We have a frost elf ancestor in our line.” She held her head high. Proud.

The ice-hair skipped a generation. Only I inherited that cold halo. When I was younger, I’d eye people’s soft, warm hair.

“You’re beautiful,” Grandma said. “Be proud.”

But I’d blast the hairdryer to melt my ice, cold drops forming constellations of goosebumps on my shoulders. I’d wrap my head in thick, scratchy scarves. I’d keep a smile frozen on my face when people asked if my icicles were real.

Grandma had been gone a week when, in her honor, I decided to venture outside with my icicles in all their glory, tinted pale blue in the frosty morning. No more hiding our inheritance.

The coffee barista stared long, and I tilted my head for a better view, like Grandma would’ve done. “Runs in the family.” I kept my voice strong, proud.

“Beautiful,” he said. “They sparkle.”

I heard Grandma’s voice in his words, and they warmed a smile onto my face. “Thank you.”

___________________________

Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative fiction author from the Northern Virginia region. Many of her stories were thought up while sitting in local traffic, resulting in tales that have appeared in Cossmass Infinities, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, and other publications. You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.

 

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“The Message” • by Helen French

I hide messages in ice, where I hope my captors won’t think to look.

There’s an extraordinary amount of data in a single snowflake. Each one unique, each one able to tell a story.

I can’t make snow, but I can rewrite its form, so this is what I do from my cell. I stare out the window, I harness the power inside of me, and I magic my message into ice, adding a duplication code so that wherever this particular blizzard falls, the message falls with it.

My daughter is far cleverer than I and she will be waiting for a sign—so I’ve sent millions of them.

Nevertheless, I’ve been doing this for some time now and silence has been the only response. What if she’s been captured too?

I keep hoping because hope is all I have. It’s built-in to me, just as cold is built into ice. There’s always a way forward. I just have to find it.

Mid-thought, my door rattles open. Breakfast time.

“Good news,” my captor says, as he places my food on the floor. “Spring is on its way.”

And then even hope begins to melt.

______________________

Helen French is a writer, book hoarder, and TV-soaker-upper who grew up in Merseyside near the coast and now lives in Hertfordshire, UK, with her young family. Her short stories have appeared in venues such as Stupefying Stories #23, Shoreline of Infinity, and Flash Fiction Online, and she is currently buried in novel-writing. You can find her on Twitter at @helenfrench.

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“Restoration” • by Ephiny Gale

My wife and I go to get scanned every four months; every quark that we’re made up of is recorded as a back-up. Our physical and mental states in that moment put figuratively on ice.

After the third scan I feel unusually cold. My wife has appeared in front of me, her face swollen and pink like she’s been crying for days. “What’s wrong?” I ask. She was fine when we got here.

After the second scan I feel chillier than the first. My wife reaches out to me, her hair greyer and half the length it was thirty minutes ago. “What happened?” I ask, and pull her close.

My wife is waiting for me after my first scan. Somehow she looks years older than when we arrived, and the mixture of emotions on her face is too difficult for me to read. She kisses my hand and says my name like a prayer. Says, “This has to be early enough. Early enough to beat it, because there isn’t any earlier.”

Then she drives me to the hospital, my hand on her knee.

_______________________

 

Ephiny Gale is the author of more than two dozen published short stories and novelettes that have appeared in publications including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Constellary Tales, and Daily Science Fiction. Her fiction has been awarded the Sundress Publications' Best of the Net award and the Syntax & Salt Editor's Award, and has been a finalist for multiple Aurealis Awards.

 

 

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“Ice Hearts” • by Kai Delmas

I found the boy at the forest’s edge. Surely, his mother told him not to wander near Firelight Forest.

But boys will be boys.

Humans trust nothing more than a child, even when they are children themselves. They seek companionship.

So, I skipped through the woods and happened to cross paths with this boy. He asked where I came from. I told him the truth.

An important thing, the truth. You never want to steal a child away by lying to them.

I asked to play catch and offered to show him where I lived. It would be fun.

Once we ran through the veil I struck.

We used to steal children away for seasons, years. Sucking them dry took time. We had to extract everything they cared for. The fun, their laughter and kindness, too.

I found a different way.

Licking blood from my fingers, I relished his youth.

When done, I shoved a lump of ice in his hollow chest and sent him on his way.

The boy staggered through the forest, wisps of ice trailing him, his shoes leaving frosted footprints in his wake.

That would subside before he returned home.

But his cold heart would remain.

___________________

Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest and his fiction can be read in Martian Magazine, Tree And Stone, several Shacklebound anthologies, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @KaiDelmas.

 

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“Love’s Labors, Lost” • by Jenna Hanchey

 

I was lost after she broke down.

“Get another one,” friends said. “Same model, you won’t know the difference.”

They didn’t understand. I loved her. How she brought me coffee in bed every morning, anticipated my needs, smoothed my hair with her cold hand as I sighed over paperwork. Listened. She made everything easier.

“It’s programming,” they insisted. “You’ll see.”

The second overloaded in a matter of months. I’d opened up, risked vulnerability hoping she would listen to all the troubles with my job, girlfriend, family. Until one day her glassy eyes failed to light.

Realization hit four models and upgraded programming later.

“That everyone gives you so much is love. That you take it is not,” the last model explained, door closing behind her.

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Jenna Hanchey is a communication professor by day and a speculative fiction writer by...um...earlier in the day. She lives in Reno and teaches courses at the University of Nevada on racism, colonialism, and communicating across difference. Her research examines neocolonialism in Western aid to Africa, and how Africans use Africanfuturism to imagine their own developmental futures. Somehow she manages to act, sing, and rock climb, too! Notable credits include Gwendolyn Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest and Elaine Wheeler in Night Watch. She's also a voice-actor, narrating the audiobooks in Emily S. Hurricane's Bloodlines series. Her fiction has also appeared in Daily Science Fiction and the Apex Microfiction Contest. Follow her adventures on Twitter (@jennahanchey) or at www.jennahanchey.com. 

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“Kickstarting Fate” • by Patricia Miller

“Can you fix it?”

“Don’t know yet. Gimme a second to look it over.”

We crowded around to watch her work. She grumbled about the rush, the crowd—

“Seriously, I’m not lifting another finger unless you stop that damn racket?”

—and obviously, the music didn’t make her happy either. A gesture from the Boss, and the music stopped. She gave another glare. We stepped back.

“I don’t suppose anyone has a can of WD-40 handy.” We bowed our heads. We were so woefully ill-equipped for this kind of thing. “Didn’t think so. Brute force it is then.”

She stood up, reared back, and gave it a swift kick.

And slowly, the Wheel of Fate resumed its turning and the angels resumed their chorus.

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Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran who writes SF, fantasy, horror and romance. She is a member of SFWA and CODEX.

Publications include short fiction in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales, 206 Words, and the March 2022 Cinnabar Moth Literary Collection e-zine. Upcoming publications include short stories for Brigid’s Gate Press, Cinnabar Moth Press, Zooscape Magazine, Wyngraf, and Touchstone Press.

 

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