Dead Matter

"There is only one true God," said the Exoform, addressing the prisoners. "You gonna tell us it's you?" shouted a man with more courage and less sense than I. "No," said the Exoform. "The only God is Entropy." And then it vaporized the man. Slowly. I dared not turn away, but I unfocused my eyes… Continue reading Dead Matter

Feeling the Weight of Weightlessness

Gina was used to running; she was no stranger to the half-marathon. But her body was already forgetting. The old familiar rhythm felt as unbalanced as an out-of-round wheel. At first she blamed the lack of gravity. That was still the issue, but now she blamed her body. She took it personally. It was funny… Continue reading Feeling the Weight of Weightlessness

Ritual

The sun would soon be up, and when it rose, it would rise over a new world, and a new Seraphine. She wore a wreath of black hollyhocks atop her dark curls. Beneath the light of this same not-yet-set moon it lay upon Tryphosa's head, and her blood, still warm, dribbled from the petals like… Continue reading Ritual

Hard Landings

Captain Filippa Bartlett of the asteroid mining vessel The Devil's Sooty Brother was bringing her ship down for a surface landing. Problem was, The Devil's Sooty Brother wasn't meant for suborbital flight. Teardrop shapes had the same air resistance as a cube in the emptiness of space, and the cube was a much more convenient shape to… Continue reading Hard Landings

Cosmic Justice

It came down like snow. Like a blizzard, in fact, smearing the space between the cloud tops and the ground into a disorienting blur of whirling, blinding, chaotic particles. For a moment, just before descent, Ken became absorbed in the abstract motion and found it profoundly beautiful. Perhaps it was this tendency—to become transfixed by… Continue reading Cosmic Justice