Lunch Failure
Doctor Jessica Scanlon was half expecting the text message. “Lunch?” it read. Short and sweet, unlike her brother. On the way down to ground level, she resisted the urge to backtrack, to recheck the setup for the next experimental run. To wait, expectant, for the results. They were sure to disappoint, like all the other […]
Farmers
Bhola, Bangladesh, 2033 Nayeem Abedin dumped out food for the geese and chickens. They dove for the food hungrily, oblivious to the rain. Nayeem, dressed in a short-sleeved khaki shirt and a tube-like lungi around his waist and legs, was not quite so immune to the downpour, but he had work to do, so he […]
Replanting the Garden
The airborne drop ship Yggdrasil, TREE class vessel, soared through the clouds of gathering CO2, claxons blaring a warning that go time had arrived. Each Planter’s indicator light flashed green in a blinking series of eagerness. Every bioengineered drop pod’s fully formed payload was ready to be fired directly into the soil of the Houston […]
Stones of Särdal
If you don’t mind, I’m going to do this in English. Even though I emigrated here 40 years ago, I’ve never quite mastered the Swedish accent. What can I say? I grew up in America. Are you sure there’s no script? I thought this needs to be educational, like a museum. Yes, I know there […]
Three Little Arcologies
Once Upon A Time, there were three little buildings that dreamed of being self-sustaining. One was covered in stone, one in vinyl siding, but the third little building was covered in discarded things, in tar paper and tin foil and whatever happened to be on hand, and it was the strongest of them all. • […]
The Enders
I was twelve when they descended into the alleys where I played with my brother. They called themselves the Enders; back then, we didn’t know what it implied. Tall gleaming creatures with perfect teeth, they seemed made of sun and sky, destined to shed light on our brown-skinned existence, lowly as the earth at night. […]
The Prince of Svalbard: A Saga of the Thaw
So. The Svalmen have always been renowned as the wisest and most warlike among men, and the most blessed. Did not the gods, in the frozen age before they made the world, visit Svalbard and there construct the great fortress Frøkvelv, and fill its catacombs and passageways with those seeds of wholesome grains that now […]
Old Growth
I was still procrastinating on my planned months-long process of cleaning out the office ahead of my retirement when old pal Roy Harvard interrupted with a call. I didn’t mind his intrusion. Most people clean out their office in a day, or in a few minutes if HR thugs are hovering over their shoulders. I’ll […]
Grass Still Grows
Marianne pulled the cover over the printing press, and packed the last of the slim volumes in the bags on the floor. The nagging ache in her gut gave a sharp twinge as she bent down. Indigestion, she told herself, but she knew it wasn’t. Knowing did no good, anyway. No more chemo, no more […]
