Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
The cat led him into the feeding area. Bending down to pick up the kibble bag, the man farted.
The snapped around and intensely stared. Total demeanor asked, “What was that?”
The man snorted. “Oh, what an exaggeration. Like you never heard me fart before.”
The cat pranced to his food bowl. Sitting, he emitted a happy chirp and smiled up at the man.
The SLEDE train slit the air.
Corwin pulled out of his office to consider life outside the work center’s broad windows. SLEDEs were almost everywhere but beyond some were serious gray clouds over dark chocolate mountains. Lightning tongues flicked Earth to sky, holding his gaze and propelling him down a might-of-been road. Unbelievable from some perspectives, they were going eighty miles per, forty feet off the ground. Dad and Mom would’ve been impressed. Or depressed. Maybe angry or resentful.
Tall, skinny, energetic with hypnotizing exuberance, Cake bounced into the room. “Alongsides coming up. Me and Elf are hailing eats. I’ll fly and buy. You in?”
“Hell yeah. Just in time. You’re a hero.” Corwin grinned, standing, stretching. “Shift is about over. I’ll take a cheeseburger with it all, and fries.”
“Plant okay? Can’t afford true bee. Or chick. Or anything but plant.”
“Course. And a beer shake?” At Cake’s smiling nod, Corwin specified, “Stout. Alongsides got a good one.”
“Or had.”
“Yeah. Well, you know me. Anything dark, ‘kay?”
“Sure.”
As Cake descended, Corwin called, “And thanks.”
Cake’s generosity made him happy. Corwin returned to his seat, manifested the office anew, finished admin matters, and logged out. Minutes later, Alongsides docked beside them. Leaning, he looked down and watched Cake leave their SLEDE and hit the stofe. Elf followed three seconds later.
A ping lit Corwin’s Backhand. He shifted attention to the cute guy on the fone. Only after joking with Karlyl, hanging up as his stomach rumbled, did he realize, food hadn’t arrived.
Alongsides was gone. Forty minutes, too.
He flipped the fone to Cake.
No, screw that. Corwing galloped down the spiral. “Cake?” He’d eat down there anyway. Get out of the work area where he’d been for nine hours.
A glance left. No one in the cockpit.
He swung right. No one in group. Kitchen. Dining room.
Nor the patio.
“Cake? Elf?” He tapped their doors.
Tried to enter.
Locked.
Using the fone, he called, wondering, did he misunderstand? Did they stay on the stofe to eat?
Cake’s number said it was unassigned. Try again.
“Call Elf,” Corwin told his fone.
The fone couldn’t comply, explaining, he needed to be more explicit about who or what he was attempting to reach.
Corwin didn’t bother providing more. This was too much like what had happened with Mom and Dad.
He wasn’t ready to go through that again.
He read in a paper, “…they were laying down on their stomach.” He frequently reads sentences like that and wonders, is down necessary? Could they be laying up or in another way? It seems redundant.
Like that phrase so constantly heard, “I was thinking in my head.” Like, where else do you think? Explain.
Snow men, women, and children guard the college dorms, apartment buildings, and many residences. The sun retreats behind clouds in the face of such numbers.
It was a lot of waste.
Morgan was uncomfortable. It felt unnatural. All these years of recycling and trying to reduce waste. Now he was piling it outside.
“There.” Grinning in delight, ogling their pile of junk, Joyce backed away from it. “That’s a pretty good pile of junk and garbage.”
His wife peered up into the sky. “When are they supposed to come?”
“Any time.” Exasperation frosted Morgan’s tone. This had been explained numerous times. “They know it’s here. They’ll come and get it.”
Joyce answered, “Why can’t they tell us when?”
That, too, had been gutted as a topic. “I don’t know.”
He and Joyce studied their pile. Old printers and laptops. Unused televisions. Rugs. Boxes of junk. Old paint. Bags of shredded personal papers. Joyce insisted they be shredded. She didn’t trust the aliens. Like, what did she think was going to happen? These extra terrestrials from another solar system had come to Earth to steal their personal information?
It was good that they’d come. First, they cleaned all the oceans, and then junkyards. They paid well for everything.
“This is a great place,” a leader, Galic, said in a televised press conference.
Galic was a gorgeous black woman. Every female alien he’d seen was eye-watering stunning. He’d not seen any males among the ET, formally known as Porqzens. R-Q-Z was pronounced as a hacking sound.
Galic said, “We love your junk. We’ll take all of it that you can give us.” They were also eager to tear down houses, buildings, and bridges not in use. They wanted it all. “We’ll you if you want. Gold, dollars, diamonds, crypto. Just name it.”
Not everyone liked it. “Why are they doing this? What do they want it?” Mostly conservatives were asking these questions because Galic told them, “We’ll reprocess it to create materials and energy. We’re already so efficient that we have no waste.”
Humans weren’t appeased. They had reasons behind their doubts. “How do we know they’re real?” GOP Presidential candidate asked. “What if they’re taking all these resources to build machines to take us over? What about the recycling and garbage disposal companies? They’ll all go out of business. That’ll put unemployment up.”
Others speculated, “This is a liberal trick. There are no aliens. They’re using these materials to secretly build death rays and disintegration guns. They’re gonna use the disintegration guns to take away all our guns.”
Yes, it was a pickle.
Flat-earthers were freaked. “The Porqzens are Underworlders. They’ve lived on the other side of the planet, the bottom. They’re coming to take us over.”
Morgan didn’t care. All he had to do was put his junk at his curb for pickup? Lot easier than loading it up, hauling it to the various places, and unloading it. And they were paying him, instead of him paying them? Groovy.
A Porqzen popped into the space in front of Morgan and Joyce. Gorgeous, of course. Tight dark red outfit. Looked like leather. Blonde. Smile like a billion watts.
“Hi, Morgan and Joyce. I’m Zugar. We’re taking your waste now.” She handed them dark goggles. “Most people want to see it happen, so we provide these goggles. Please cover your eyes so the light doesn’t hurt them.”
Morgan and Joyce did. Through the lens, Morgan witnessed a dull light cover his pile. Looked purplish under the lens. Stayed there for about five seconds.
“That’s it,” Zugar said. “All gone. You can take your goggles off. Those are yours to keep for future pickups.” She whipped out a slim wallet and counted paper money out. “One thousand dollars, as agreed. It’s the minimum, I’m afraid.” She sounded like she meant it.
Joyce took the money. She and Morgan stared at it.
Zugar said, “It is real U.S. currency.” She laughed. “We sold a bucket of leftover lithium to the U.S. government.” She handed Morgan a card. “Just call us when you’re ready for your next pickup. Any questions?”
The humans shook their heads.
“Then I’ll take my leave. You all have a great day.” With a small bow and a bright smile, Zugar disappeared.
“Well, that was easy,” Joyce said. “She looked like Farrah Fawcett, don’t you think?”
Morgan nodded. “Do you think we’ll ever go to their planet?”
Heavy snow fell. Watching it, he said, “Alexa, will it snow in Ashland today?”
“Snow is not expected in Ashland.”
His wife joined him. “Alexa, is it snowing now?”
“It is not snowing in Ashland now.”
“Alexa, then what is that white stuff failing from the sky?”
“There are reports of a dusty white wet material falling in Oregon.”
They laughed. Alexa was trying to gaslight them again.
The floof spoke.
The man regarded the animal. “You want to go back out? You sure?”
The floof replied.
The man stood and followed the animal. “Alright, if that’s what you want.”
The animal veered to the kitchen and headed for the sink.
“Oh, you want water.” He filled the animal’s glass.
Water. Outside. The two words sound so similar in flooflish. It’s easy to mix them up.
It was on.
Emitting a small chirp, the little orange beast used maximum thrust, hitting top speed as he raced up the Dining Room Straight.
Reaching the Sofa Right, he demonstrated masterful control, twisting and accelerating with some spin, tailfishing as he scabbled for traction on the short hardwood floor Table Straight, then punched left at the Plant Stand. Into the Living Room Complex he flashed, moving left-right-left-right. A short burst carried him on the brief but celebrated Coffee Table Straight to the Back Door Hairpin.
Precisely he executed a narrow spinback by the magazine basket. Then it was back through the gears along the TV Straight, handling the transition from carpet to hardwood floor without a pause. Hard braking and sliding, he made the ninety-degree corner onto the Master Bedroom Straight. Up through the Door Kink he sped, diving under the bed.
Back out the other side of the bed he roared, out the door and down the Linen Closet Straight. The Dining Room Entrance’s hard right was managed with little loss of control. A final sprint for the Foyer start/finish line followed.
He pitted on the Entrance Rug. It’d been a good run, maybe one of the best ever.
He sat and washed in victory.
Day 2. He rode in silence. Forty miles an hour. The open car drove itself, allowing him to gape at the scenery.
So gorgeous. He knew now what breathtaking meant.
Although he’d eaten breakfast after an overnight stop, he snacked as he went. Nervousness.
Other people weren’t encountered. Only bots. They didn’t interact. Once this had been cities. New York. Pittsburgh. Philadelphia. As climate changed and space travel advanced, people departed the planet. Pockets of humanity remained. Some worked for the place he visited, the Great Earth Library. Built in the twenty-third century, trillions of books lined the high, massive shelves. Paperbacks and hardcover books were still being published on less advanced planets.
That’s where he came in.
The car slowed. He could have teleported to the location. Where’s the fun in that?
Turning right, the small vehicle approached a librarian station. The car hummed to a halt. A bot came out.
Stiffly he climbed from the car. Stretched. Picked up the packet from the other seat.
The bot said, “Merr Liu-Gardner?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve been expecting you. Would you like to sign our guest book? It can be done digitally with your bios or cursive on paper. Many guests prefer the latter.”
“I’ll do cursive.” He picked up the pen. Bic. Blue ink.
A fresh page awaited. He flipped to the previous page. One entry, six years before. Ngato from Mars Station Five.
Smiling, he signed his name, dated it, and added his home, Cixin Outpost, Trisolaria. Despite that name, only one sun warmed his world. Three moons, though. One red. Two white. All beautiful.
His great-grandfather named the planet and led the colonizing expedition. He’d taught his grandson cursive writing, feeling it important to know. “Let’s not let the old knowledge die.”
Poul Liu-Gardner II handed the box to the robot. “My great-grandfather wrote and published these books. The Library was established after he died but Dad always thought the books deserved to be here. Two are non-fiction, a history of our world and another about our city. The other six are fiction.” He smiled. “Three murder mysteries and three thrillers.”
“I understand. Thank you for the gift. These are the first from your world. We will shelve and honor them.”
“I know. There are more books from my world in the car. I just wanted to personally deliver these.”
“Of course. We’ll unload them.”
“Thanks.”
“Feel free to walk the shelves and enjoy the books. You can remove them from the shelves and read them here, but they can’t be removed.”
“Thank you.”
Poul II watched the bot take the books away. Lost and empty-handed, he gazed up at books.
Deep breath. Sigh.
He’d smelled books before. Grandpa Poul had established a library. Of course. Today’s smell dizzied him. Maybe it was the sheer number of books. Perhaps it was the thoughts behind them, or the readers’ thoughts.
Probably all those things. Strolling among the shelves, he thought that he might write a book. He’d always thought about writing one. The desire now was an urgent weight.
Sitting on a bench, he drew out his pad. Opened it.
A blank screen waited.
He could type. Or use voice. Grandpa Poul always printed his first rough draft.
He didn’t have paper.
His fingers tapped.
Once in a Lifetime
Chapter One
The stranger from Trisolaria was a formidable presence.
C is for Coffee.
O is for I’ll tell you the rest after I drink my coffee.
Michael Seidel, writer 