Escape Velocity: The Anthology Read online

  “Please ...pond,” said the rough voice near her ear.

  “My,” Naomi said woozily. For a moment, she was quite content to remain as she was, not terribly curious about her circumstances. Then she took a breath, and her mind cleared.

  She had been on her way where? The memories flooded back in a rush. She had been on a cruise ship, accompanying an infirm and very elderly woman on a tour of various interstellar sights, and there had been an alarm. Naomi had exited the room to find out what the problem was, and a crew member had grabbed her arm, ignored her when she tried to tell him about her client, pushed her roughly through an open door marked ‘Emergency craft’. He had told her not to move, and he would return in a moment.

  Then there was a rumble, and a voice had ordered her to get into her seat.

  Naomi was distressed to find that she couldn't remember anything else.

  “Are ... injured?” asked the calm voice.

  Naomi looked around. She was sitting in a lounge chair inside a small circular cabin.

  The cabin contained nine other chairs, and was lined with a bank of controls with blinking lights. The voice was, no doubt, the ship's system talking to her. “Idiot,” she reproved herself, and swung her legs over the side of the chair. “Hello?” she called, trying to keep her voice steady. “Where are we? Where is the ship?”

  There was a crackle of noise, a pause, and then the computer voice resumed, still rough, but more recognizable. “This craft has landed on the fourth planet of Star Y342.5 in the Ridgeline system. The planet is inhabited by one known sentient species rated 4DB on the contact scale. The … rated acceptable for human use, with … careful about engaging in extreme aerobic activity. The plant life is partially edible, with warnings that visitors should consult this unit before eating any unfamiliar...”

  “What is 4DB?” Naomi asked.

  “That is the contact scale designation. Non-threatening, although due precaution should be taken not to offend any sentient ...” The computer relapsed into electronic noise.

  “Hello?” Silence. Naomi walked over to a view screen on the cabin wall. It was blank, reflecting back only a petite woman with short, silver hair, a discrete butterfly tattoo on her left cheek, and the slow dryness of advancing age on her face. “What happens now?” she whispered to the image in the view screen.

  There was no answer.

  She sat down at the seat in front of the console. Controls glowed faintly on the panel, some were labeled. One of them had the word Help on it. She pressed her finger lightly against the label.

  A simple menu floated in front of her, glowing in large red letters: Emergency Instructions. Audio only. Text only. Audio and Text. “Well, this is an emergency, I guess, if anything is,” she said, and pointed at the last bar. As soon as her finger ‘touched’ the projection, it changed.

  A sentence appeared. Are you injured? Yes. No. There was no audio.

  She took a breath. She felt okay. She touched ‘No.’

  Is anyone else in your party injured? Yes. No.

  She touched ‘no.’

  Do you feel that you are in any immediate danger?

  Naomi thought about that. She was breathing all right, although she had no idea how much oxygen was provided on board the lifeship. According to the view screen, there didn’t seem to be any obvious external hazards. She touched ‘no’.

  Are you or anyone in your party familiar with ship operation?

  No.

  The color of the projection changed to a muted blue. Thank you. Please wait for ship diagnostics. This will take approximately six minutes.

  After what Naomi supposed were six minutes (but seemed like hours), a new message began scrolling into view.

  Records report that an emergency beacon has been launched. Ship propulsion is beyond repair. Environmental services have been partially restored and will be available for another five point three hours. External communications are beyond repair. Internal communications, including research and controls, are being repaired and will be available in approximately thirty minutes. External sensors are being repaired and will be available in approximately 212 minutes.

  The scroll stopped.

  As she waited for the computer to complete the repairs, Naomi spent the time checking compartments labeled Food, Water, Lifesuits, Tools, Sanitary Facilities, and Oxygen.

  The first two opened easily, and offered large numbers of small gray packages with white and pink labels. The third compartment held several lifesuits, while the one marked Oxygen had the expected tanks and nozzles. She decided she could figure out how to use the facilities behind the fifth door with little trouble.

  The fourth door revealed a neatly packed set of various tools and instruments. She could only guess at their use. “Well, if this gets too boring, I could always take up a hobby,” she said aloud. She giggled a little and wondered whether she was becoming hysterical.

  “Please restate the question,” the computer said calmly.

  Naomi jumped. “Okay,” she said cautiously. “What do I do now?”

  “Please be more specific,” the computer said.

  “Is it safe outside?” she asked. “Can I go out?”

  “According to available records, the atmosphere on this planet is rated acceptable for humans.”

  “Records? Um ... do you have anything about this planet I could read?”

  The sign flickered for a moment, and then showed a series of symbols, each with its own label: Environment, Atmosphere, Flora, and Fauna. She pushed each in turn. She discovered that the small continent she had landed on had a reasonably good atmosphere, a little higher in oxygen than she was used to; a warm but acceptable climate, reasonable gravity, and arid landscapes dotted by small areas of wild growth.

  On further investigation using the menus provided, she was able to pinpoint her exact location. She was about a half-mile from the nearest water source – inconvenient but manageable. The water was drinkable with some processing by the ship’s food units, which she discovered to her relief were still operable.

  She remembered the computer had told her a rescue beacon had already been launched, probably just before the lifeship began entering the atmosphere of the planet.

  “What if I'm not near the ship when somebody comes to get me?” she asked the computer. “How will I know?”

  “This ship will activate an audible alarm if a signal is sent to the emergency beacon.”

  “Well,” she said. “In that case, I suppose I could stretch my legs a bit.”

  “You wish to exit the craft?”

  “Yes. Yes. I wish to exit.”

  A small green light blinked above the entryway. There was a quiet grinding noise as the door opened. The craft was suddenly flooded by a purplish pink light. It was like looking through a pair of strange sunglasses. She shaded her eyes and looked outside. The landscape rose gently to a small hillock a few yards away. It was covered by a spongy sort of lavender moss, and dotted with small groves of bushes that shone dark pink in the weird light. Naomi stared at it for a few minutes, then took a breath and stepped out the door.

  She stood awkwardly. It felt as if she were trespassing. What I wouldn’t give for someone to run up and tell me to keep off the grass, she thought. She bent down and touched the moss, which turned out to be a lot tougher than it looked; it was rough and dry, and took considerable effort to push down. She took a few short steps and stopped. Suddenly, she ran back into the ship, buried her head in the seat, and began to cry.

  During the first week – made up of days measured by the rising and setting of a strange red sun, Naomi hardly left the ship at all, terrified of what might lay beyond the door. She spent her time researching the system’s copious library of data on various survival methods and other subjects. Sometimes she stared for hours at the small red indicator on the control panels that would change to green if a computer on another ship had responded to the distress beacon. Maybe if I will it hard enough, she thought. It remained red.
/>   Occasionally, she would risk opening the door for some fresh air and stare at the strangely hued landscape around the lifeship.

  Finally, driven by boredom and curiosity - and a panicky feeling that her supplies of water would eventually disappear - she steeled herself to do some exploring.

  She left the ship and walked to the top of the nearby rise, the small locator unit that kept her from becoming lost clutched tightly in her hand. All the same, the moment she started down the other side and could no longer see the ship, she turned and scrambled back up the hillock. “Yes, you idiot,” she told herself aloud. “It's still there. Where did you think it would go?”

  The hillock was a beautiful site, covered in bright purple-blue moss and tall, shimmering trees, but Naomi didn’t stop to admire it. She quickly filled two bags she had brought with her with the strange moss and hurried back to the ship. She shut the door of the capsule and stood there breathing heavily, finally setting the bags to the deck. She had heard nothing more than a slight breeze through the foliage, and her own footsteps. Nothing had attacked her. “Fool,” she told herself.

  At the end of the second week, she became confident enough to take daily walks exploring other parts of the immediate area. There wasn’t much to see, but it was good exercise. She took more samples of the moss and various other floras.

  The computer told her that the flowers from a small local bush, which she had noticed near the water source, might be converted into edible carbohydrates. She went through the supplies and made sure she knew how to use the medical instruments – just in case. She studiously avoided watching the small light that would indicate the presence of another ship. An alarm would sound if one came - and she was afraid she would become transfixed, just starting at that little bulb, waiting for it to turn green.

  In the fourth week, she was returning from one of her walks when she saw something moving next to the ship. Her first impression was of color: a rich, golden yellow, astounding in this pale pink atmosphere. There was no sense of a real shape; just a fuzzy, vaguely round something rubbing up against the hull of the craft.

  She approached it cautiously. The creature had a thin limb that reached up and touched the craft's door. Naomi stared, a bit alarmed. What if it could get inside? Was it poisonous?

  No, she told herself sternly, of course not. The computer would have told me if anything on this planet was dangerous. Probably.

  The extension swiveled around so it was facing – if facing was the right word – in her direction. She saw that the color of the creature was not uniform, but was made up of subtle shades of yellow blending imperceptibly into each other. There didn't seem to be any discernible pattern to it; it almost flickered in its variety. It was beautiful.

  The creature seemed equally curious about her. It slithered forward until it was only a few inches away. Naomi stepped back and it stopped. The extension flowed upward until it was level with her head. Silently, they examined each other.

  “Hello?” she said. Instead of responding, it continued to wave its extension back and forth in a small arc. Naomi tried shaking her head in the same manner, matching the creature's movements.

  The creature stopped as soon as she had successfully mirrored its movements and lowered its extension slightly, while its shimmering skin dulled to a pale lemon. It once again reached toward her, this time at chest level, and Naomi again stepped back.

  Okay, she thought. Now what?

  The creature stopped moving, but continued to watch her - if that was what it was doing. After a few minutes, she moved carefully around the creature and toward the ship. It stayed there while she opened the door, went inside, and closed the door behind her securely.

  She spent the next few minutes in the sanitary unit, throwing up.

  During the next two days, Naomi stayed near the ship, eating judiciously from her stores, checking (not very optimistically) to see if the emergency beacon had received any response, and occasionally asking the ship questions just to hear another voice.

  The computer didn't seem to know much about the creature, other than that it had been given an incomprehensive Latin name and was rather shy of visitors.

  Shy? Naomi thought. Not likely. Her visitor actually seemed to have taken up residence. It wandered around the area near the ship, but never tried to enter. It seemed to watch her when she came outside, occasionally extruding small tentacles.

  On the third day, Naomi decided on a stronger approach. She offered the creature food, ranging from the plants she had harvested around the ship to a variety of samples from her stores. However, if the creature intended to eat, it wasn't attracted by anything she offered.

  She talked to it, sang to it, and made absurd hand motions at it - with no reaction.

  About a week after its first appearance, she finally made some progress. She had been taking soil samples near the ship, wondering whether she could actually grow any type of crop, and she had worked up a considerable sweat. In spite of her caution about the alien sun, Naomi pulled off her light jacket and draped it over a nearby rock.

  The creature immediately dropped its ‘head’ into its body and rolled to where the jacket lay. Naomi took a few hurried steps back, and watched.

  It quivered next to the jacket for a few seconds, then extruded a few short tentacles and touched the jacket. As soon as contact was made, the tips of the tentacles turned first a faint pink and then darkened to match the jacket's brick red hue. Slowly, the color ran up the tentacle and around the creature's skin, until the creature perfectly matched the jacket.

  Naomi stared. Had she just somehow infected the creature? Or was it sending her some sort of message?

  Whatever it was doing, it seemed to want to keep on doing it. After another minute or so, it withdrew the tentacles and settled itself comfortably against the jacket.

  Two hours later, it was still there. Naomi edged forward and touched the creature tentatively. The skin was cool and a bit stiff; it refused to yield under her fingers. It quivered slightly but otherwise didn’t react. She watched it into the evening, and then finally went to bed.

  The next morning, it was still there. And the next. Finally, in the afternoon of the third day, the creature raised itself up slightly, shook itself, scrabbled a few feet away, blazed yellow again, and departed.

  “Well,” Naomi said, relieved, “it doesn’t seem the worse for wear.” She walked over and stared in the direction the creature had gone. “I'll miss you,” she told the now absent creature. “You were company, even if you didn’t say much.”

  She decided not to remove her jacket. Maybe the creature would return, and this was the way to lure it. She was lonely enough that even the presence of a small, uncommunicative blob with less personality than a sea horse was preferable to the computer.

  “And even if it doesn’t say much,” she told herself defensively, “neither do pet fish.”

  It returned a few hours later with a second creature, whose coat was a dull, pale green, and who moved, with its companion, immediately to the coat. The two nestled together, almost immediately turning the same brick red.

  Every morning after that, Naomi would come outside and talk to them, telling them about her friends, her family, her childhood, and the various hotels that she had visited. Their lack of reaction didn't bother her – they seemed happy, and she enjoyed the company. And she wasn’t surprised when, at the end of three days, they pulled away, blazed bright gold and green, and scurried away.

  “I wonder,” Naomi said idly, watching them leave, “if red is the only color you like.”

  She scrounged through the ship’s stores until she found a bright blue towel and draped it across another rock. When three creatures showed up a few hours later shimmering in yellow, green, and violet, they paused between the two pieces of cloth as if they were undecided.

  One opted for the red jacket, while the two others nestled against the towel, where they turned a bright, shining blue.

  Naomi looked at the thre
e creatures throbbing slightly against the pink grass, and laughed.

  About six months later, Naomi was rinsing the last of a load of laundry when she heard a strange, high-pitched warble coming from the ship. She looked inside and saw the little alarm light flashing. Above it, a display appeared - Response to beacon detected, it said.

  “Thank you,” she called. “Please shut off the alarm. It’s very unpleasant.”

  Once the warbling stopped, she stepped outside. Today, she had a dozen guests. Two had begun to move, having obviously finished their three-day siesta. Naomi gave them a friendly wave (which was immediately imitated by at least half of her guests), and began to hang up the clothing. After I finish this, she thought, I can pull out a table and put out a bit of food, just in case the new guests are hungry.

  Two hours later, four armed men appeared above the far rise, walking cautiously toward her ship. Naomi smiled and waved at them from the door. She frowned as two of the men suddenly pulled out their weapons, aiming them at the creatures in her front yard.

  “Ma’am?” One of the men shouted. “Are you under attack?”

  “Under attack?” Naomi laughed. “Nonsense!”

  She looked around with enormous satisfaction at her front yard, which was strewn with a neat rainbow of cloth scraps, each occupied by one or more similarly colored, pulsing blobs. “Welcome to my establishment,” she said calmly. “Would you like a room? Or a rock?”

  Heaven As Iron, Earth As Brass

  Richard Jay Goldstein

  ....I will make your heaven as iron,

  your earth as brass.

  — Torah, Vayikra

  Neither slay anyone whom Allah

  has forbidden you to slay....

  — Qur’an, Sura 17

  Jacob’s ship coasts into the system of Sol, an interstellar kayak borne by gravity currents. He crosses the orbital ruts of the outer gas giants, still lumbering in their primal ways, but the rock and ice planets are gone, mined into rubble eons ago. The ghosts of their ellipses haunt his cybermap.