Stretch your brain
Even through the filters, the air reeked of sulfur. Yellow starlight punched swirling holes through the cloud cover and baked the gases out of the strange crystalized rocks that covered the region—a product of the crash, surely. Tavish watched the ship's entrance from his perch atop a stone column across the steam-filled gorge. Three days… Continue reading Best-laid Plans
It took them a long time to figure it out—long in human terms, anyway; generations—and longer still to put that revelation to use, but even so, the humans did it first. From orbital stations around the brown dwarfs of Epsilon Indi and the white dwarfs of Sirius and Procyon, from Rigel and Regulus and sentimental… Continue reading An Abundance of Audacity
Takada walked along the empty stretch of shoreline looking for sea glass, his coral-colored hoodie the sole point of color as far as he could see. The ocean tried to shrug off the washed out fog that kept its cheek pressed to the earth, but it was a battle it couldn’t win. He stopped at… Continue reading Line in the Sand
For all his political posturing and his penchant for charismatic public overtures, Leon Brault was having second thoughts. It wasn't an ideological shift he was experiencing, but an awareness of his survival instinct. He was close enough now to see the Artifact with his own eyes, separated only by a few kilometers and 4mm of… Continue reading Dust to Dust
For a while, all they could do was stare at it from the crest of the dune. Jutting up from the rust-colored sand was a fully jointed hand—like a human's—made of metallic plating and electrical cables. It was the size of a three-story house. It was Elliot who finally broke the silence with a long… Continue reading Under Red Sand
"Yes. It's true. It was me." "I don't believe you." Clint reached into his pack. "Then how do you explain this?" He pulled out a small silver cube. It distorted his reflection like a funhouse mirror. "Tell me that's not what I think it is." Clint didn't respond, turning the object over in his hands.… Continue reading Linear Function
The crumpled remains of their dropship, Six Degrees From Earth, stuck out of the swamp water like a series of lightning-split tree trunks. Beyond were the derelict structures of the New Wellspring colony on Kappa Lyrae D. There was no doubt this is where the mayday signal came from, but Cooper and Westhalter didn't see a… Continue reading New Wellspring
"We can sell this," said Maruk. "It looks like MC Escher had a bowel movement." Maruk laughed, but it was hollow, like he was a robot doing an impression of laughter. "You wouldn't live here?" he asked. Rola shot him an angry glance that he couldn't see through the faceplate. It wasn't explicit, but the… Continue reading As Above
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