Escape Velocity: The Anthology Read online

  Published by Adventure Books of Seattle

  Edited by Geoff Nelder and Robert Blevins

  Escape Velocity: The Anthology

  © 2011 by Adventure Books of Seattle

  Stories are copyright by their respective authors

  and presented here under special license.

  Published by Adventure Books of Seattle

  ‘The Small Press from the Great Northwest’

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be used, stored by digital, print, or electronic means, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  www.adventurebooksofseattle.com

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9823271-9-7

  First edition in paperback

  April, 2011

  Images

  Front cover – Artist’s rendition of Mount Olympus on Mars

  Back cover – Earthrise from lunar orbit, Apollo 11 mission

  Courtesy of NASA

  Kindle Reader version available at Amazon.com

  Editorial by Geoff Nelder

  Chester, Great Britain

  A lump formed in my throat when we decided to put Escape Velocity, the innovative magazine of science fiction and fact, on ice after only a handful of print runs. However, many talented writers had sent us their gems to read for future issues and it was a privilege to read through them all. Some shone through, worthy enough for competition winners, all were excellent. I hated the notion of returning those stories without using them and so the idea of an Escape Velocity Anthology was born. Past contributors had suggested the best of their stories could also find their way into the collection. The anthology is a collector’s item, a fabulous gift for any lover of science fiction and a significant brick in the cathedral of speculative writing.

  Editorial by Robert Blevins

  Seattle, U.S.A.

  I sometimes say that Escape Velocity was an experiment that failed beautifully, like a shooting star streaking across the heavens. The magazine business is highly competitive, and it is much more difficult to do a magazine than to edit a book, for example. To produce a book you only need to prepare the manuscript, create a cover, and assign an ISBN and a barcode. To create a magazine, you have to work with multiple contributors, insert images, and many other things. It was rewarding, yet very difficult, especially with our small staff. However, these efforts resulted in several very good issues of the magazine.

  Presented here are forty-eight great science fiction tales, one poem, and a cute cartoon. We certainly hope you enjoy them.

  Table of Contents

  Finding Farber.......................................T.M. Crone

  Zuggyzu and the Humans.....................Sheila Crosby

  A Smaller Step...............................Michael Anderson

  The Zozoian..........................................Duane Byers

  Sixes, Sevens..........................................Simon Petrie

  Birthright...................................................Ian Smith

  Being of Sound Mind..................................Roy Gray

  Auditory Crescendo.................................Geoff Nelder

  Caveat Emptor!..........................................Bec Zugor

  First Class........................................Barbara Krasnoff

  Heaven As Iron, Earth as Brass....Richard J. Goldstein

  Galactic Collision................ Poem by Magdalena Ball

  Testing......................................................Kaolin Fire

  Freer Enterprise............................Lawrence Buentello

  The Rising Cost of Insurance.............Branden Johnson

  Caitlin Invisible......................................Ben Bamber

  Scream Quietly......................................Sheila Crosby

  An Empty Kind of Love........................Adam Colston

  Hole Card...........................................Robert Blevins

  Chester...................................................Karl Bunker

  Perfection of the Mind............David Wallace Fleming

  Borrowed Time...............................Gustavo Bondoni

  The Inn Between............................Michael Anderson

  The Prettiest Star.......................................Jaine Fenn

  One Way Trip...........................................Rick Novy

  Table of Contents Continued

  The Cat Comes Back......Cartoon by Roberta Gregory

  The Shower..............................Mark and Tony Ricca

  Outside the Grid........................................D.J. Emry

  Silver.............................................Derek Rutherford

  Free Market..........................................Gavin J. Carr

  Jutzi Coblentz – Amish Time Traveler....Joshua Blanc

  Relativity..........................................Gareth D. Jones

  Oveio..................................................Kevin Gordon

  Target Audience.......................................Mark Lewis

  The Insult.............................................Paul Freeman

  Goodbye Maggie..........................Catherine Edmunds

  Of Honeysuckle and Sunsets......Koscienski and Pisano

  Doc.....................................................Barry Pomeroy

  Symbiosis .......................................Jonathan Pinnock

  It’s Easier to Pretend in the Dark.......David Tallerman

  Wet Life............................................Gayle Applegate

  One Long Holiday...............................Ben Cheetham

  Home in Time for Breakfast.................Clyde Andrews

  A Handful of Stars.......................................Mark Iles

  The Oceans of Mars......................William C. McCall

  Jack in the Box...................................Robert Harkess

  Whisper in the Void.............................Robert Blevins

  Thank You for the Music.........................Rosie Oliver

  Royal Flush...............................................Ian Whates

  Red Monkeys.................................Rebecca Latyntseva

  About the Editors.. .Robert Blevins and Geoff Nelder

  Finding Farber

  T. M. Crone

  The early morning tram from East Park entered Station 12 ten minutes behind schedule. A lucky break for Banger Dunn. He hurried to catch the rail-runner, grabbed onto what was left of Farber’s arm and shoved him through the tram door. Covered with blood, Farber’s coat sleeve hung like a limp fire hose.

  Banger thrust a token into the pockmarked metal depository and pulled Farber up from the floor, where he had fallen. Blood trailed behind them as they walked down the aisle. The tram moved onward, toward 39th Street.

  Banger shoved a newspaper off the back seat and guided Farber into it, next to him. Farber’s thin body trembled beneath the big overcoat. Banger moved him closer. Then he noticed the kid, the only passenger on the tram, sitting six rows ahead staring at them. Too early for the commuter crowd. This kid didn’t look like the working type; he had that street-gang, hood look about him: hollow face with glossy eyes, strip of orange hair perched on top of his scalp. The kid would probably forget he ever saw Farber and him. Nothing to worry about.

  Farber leaned over, his sullen face nearly resting on Banger’s lap. Patches of hair had already begun to fall off Farber’s head.

  “We’re almost there,” Banger said. He rested his badly cut left hand on Far
ber’s shoulder, being careful not to touch the sleeve of Farber’s coat that concealed the stubble of muscle and bone. Banger looked at the kid, who now watched with a more alert gaze. No wonder. The way he and Farber dressed, both wearing brown pants tucked into heavy black boots and enormous matching gray overcoats stained with mud, blood, grease, and God knows what else, would invite attention anywhere.

  Farber, with his white skin and black eyes that looked like they had just exuded his life right out of him, and a missing arm ... and now his hair.

  Farber sat up and seemed to stare right at the kid, but Banger knew better. There was nothing left behind those eyes.

  Banger felt Farber’s body heave once, twice, and he inched away. “Farber, no! Not here.” Farber opened his mouth, releasing the contents of his stomach onto Banger’s lap, down his legs, into his boots.

  “Aaahh, geeze, buddy.” For the first time since he had met Farber,

  Banger wanted to cry.

  Too shaken to worry about the caustic puke seeping into his boots, Banger stared out the window, counting tile blocks on the tunnel wall as the tram slowed down through Station 25. Banger didn’t see where Farber had gotten the syringe, but when he pulled his gaze away from the window Farber had already jabbed a needle into his own thigh.

  A shiver cascaded down Banger’s spine. “Farber, what are you doing? Oh, God.” Banger jerked backwards, watching Farber’s body coil and plunge to the floor. Farber trembled for a moment, and then went limp. A thick yellow liquid oozed from the pores in Farber’s face and remaining hand, devouring his skin.

  Banger’s gaze locked onto the yellow goop that had once been Farber’s body, the enormous overcoat he had worn sinking into its mists, melding with the tram’s rusty metallic floor; Farber’s existence erased from the world — just like what should have happened to that cliff-diver, Jekkie Lane, if only —

  The kid must have activated the emergency signal, because the tram came to a sudden stop just outside Station 25. When Banger looked up, he saw the black “E” on back of the kid’s tan jacket as the kid left the tram.

  A wave of dread moved through Banger. He leaped over what was left of Farber and ran.

  What had incited Molly Holden to stay in the soul-wrenching town after she passed the Bar exam eluded her. A bad decision. Corrupt political fruitcakes, street-gang hoods, serial-killer wannabes, and now she could add sick bastards to her list of clients. The closest thing she had to a friend was a floppy-lipped, over-fed precinct detective with a shocking disregard for fashion.

  Fighting her desire to slump on the floor and curl up, Molly pressed her hand against the observation window. It had been another late night. She tried her best to stand straight.

  “Doctor Nicholas Lorenzo Dunn III,” said Detective Allen Parker, glaring at the detainee who sat behind the glass. “Brought him in early this morning. Found him wandering outside Station 25.” He sipped his coffee and tucked his sweater into his trousers. His baggy retro pants rolled halfway down his butt and ejected the shirt right back out.

  He leaned into her, his breath reminding Molly of the garbage truck she had passed on her way to the precinct. “Goes by the name of Banger,” he said. “An astrophysicist, believe it or not, and two-time, silver-medal runner. Should’ve seen him when we brought him in. Wore a big bloody overcoat. A real sick-o. You wouldn’t believe the crime scene.”

  Molly inspected the man who sat on the wooden chair behind the glass. He wore the red jumpsuit given to all suspects. Thin. Needed a shave. Hair like a half-breed Pekingese on a bad day. “Why would an astrophysicist want to kill Jekkie Lane?” she asked.

  “Beats me,” replied Allen. “Look at the guy. How could someone that skinny overpower a guy like Lane, twice his size? He keeps mumbling something about galeapers and finding an orange-haired mohawk kid. Frankly, I think he’s nuts. But that’s for you to prove, counselor. He’s your client.”

  “Thanks, Allen.”

  Allen wrinkled his nose and turned to go, but hesitated. “Let me give you some advice, Molly. This creep killed a super star. Don’t try too hard.”

  Wanting nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed, Molly squared her shoulders and entered the observation room. Doctor Dunn stood when she entered, his wrists in shackles. She hadn’t noticed the chains, or the bandage on his left hand. She kept her distance.

  “Dr Dunn, I’m your attorney, Molly Holden. I’ve been asked to—”

  “I didn’t ask for an attorney.”

  “Doctor, you’re being held for murder. You do need an attorney.”

  He sat back down on the chair and remained quiet, rotating his shackled wrists.

  She walked closer, examining Dunn’s physique. It was hard to determine what musculature hid beneath the jumpsuit, but his posture indicated a lean build. No match for Jekkie Lane. She watched his eyes and asked, “What does the orange-haired kid have to do with this crime?”

  “Orange mohawk,” he replied. “Like I tried to tell that other guy, I need to find him. I didn’t kill Jekkie Lane.”

  “Doctor, yours was the only foreign blood found on the victim, and his blood was all over you.”

  “I was with a galeaper. Ever hear of them?”

  “No, but there’s a man dead with your DNA—”

  “Galeapers’ blood is different. They don’t leave their blueprints on the body. They ordinarily don’t leave a body.”

  She circled him, studying his saggy-faced expression. He didn’t look like a killer, but sick bastards usually didn’t.

  He gazed at her with bloodshot eyes. “Farber said it had to be done.”

  “Who’s Farber?”

  “The galeaper. He’s dead. He melded himself with the tram because he was dying and couldn’t take the pain. His hair was falling out. That’s how galeapers die. They fall apart and then turn to dust.”

  “What?”

  “Farber injected himself with melding-blast in front of the mohawk kid. Then the kid stopped the tram and ran off. Then I ran off, and that’s when they picked me up.”

  Banger blinked wet eyes. Then he continued. “It shouldn’t have happened that way. Farber was supposed to shoot Jekkie Lane with melding-blast and Jekkie Lane should’ve blended right into wherever he fell. We dressed like Lane’s agents, in overcoats and boots, so he’d think we were there to talk business — Farber’s idea. It didn’t work. Lane fought back, hard. Pulled off Farber’s arm. It turned to dust. Farber got a little crazy then. He killed Lane then we fled. I know this sounds outrageous. That’s why I have to find the kid.”

  Molly began to think that Dunn was nuts. She played along. “So, Farber was a galeaper. And where did he come from?”

  Banger hesitated before he answered. “I found Farber in a black hole.”

  “You’re an astrophysicist?”

  “Right.”

  “This black hole. It’s out in space?”

  “Yes, that’s the kind I’m talking about. Farber’s matter was emitted from the hole along with Hawking radiation. His atoms cohered within the particle reaper I used to find the hole and somehow he transported himself through the beam and into my laboratory. It was either Lane or me. You see, I invented the technology to find black holes, but Lane’s descendent will take that knowledge to a formidable level.”

  Dunn’s story garbled Molly’s balance, or was it latent effects of the previous night? “Doctor, I don’t understand all of this. What is Hawking radiation?”

  “Black holes emit radiation and information about what had been sucked into them.”

  After drinking a life-sized virgin Bloody Mary, Molly took the tram to a section of town called the “drudge,” where she hoped to find Sonlin, a former client. Sonlin knew all of the hoods in Graveton, and for a price would do anything to help her.

  The rain came down in icy sheets. She pressed her arms against her body, keeping her raincoat shut. Her head still spun from listening to Banger’s crazy story.

  “The idea of an alien race
transforming planets into what they perceive as paradise is absurd, Doctor,” she had said at the precinct.

  “That’s why they’re called galeapers,” Banger had replied. “They leap through time and galaxies, eliminating bloodlines that interfere with their plans. Jekkie Lane’s descendant would do just that.”

  Genetic cleansing, or extreme justice; A spooky, preposterous story that Molly suspected was just another dark tale told by another sick bastard. Banger was either completely out of his mind or she was being set up.

  Molly soon found herself staring at the third floor of the ‘leaning house,’ a name given to the building because of the illusion provided by missing red bricks along one of its sides. Plywood covered most of the windows, and wooden cartons served as front steps. The usual hawk-eyed lookout lingered by the doorway. He gave Molly a nod of recognition as she walked past him.

  A spindly-looking doorman she didn’t recognize let her inside Sonlin’s third-floor dwelling. Sonlin sat cross-legged on the floor beside a plywood-covered window. A light-blue silk poncho draped his large body. A pile of clothing, an old mattress, and many small wooden crates packed with food remnants cluttered the room. The smell of cannabis drifted from behind her and mingled with a greasy odor of stale sweat.

  Sonlin remained seated, delivering his blanket of warmth to her in a wide, compassionate grin. A contrast to his dark Asian skin, his synthetic teeth sparkled like sun off a pond.

  “Ms. Molly,” Sonlin said in a deep voice. He extended his arm.

  Molly returned his smile and squeezed his hand. She pulled cash out of her raincoat’s pocket and handed him a bill. “I need information, Sonlin.”

  He snatched the bill. “Anything for you.”

  “I’m looking for someone. He wears a tan jacket with a large black E on the back. Has an orange mohawk.”

  Sonlin’s grin faded. “What he do?”

  “Nothing. I just need to talk to him, for a client of mine.” She handed him another bill.

  Sonlin hesitated before taking the money, a wrinkle forming above his brow. “Does this have anything to do with a tram?”