Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird

by Remy Nakamura

  I wanted to ask if they had any idea where we were, but it wasn’t the Milky Way, so it was a win.

  I went out back to see Davidson.

  “Find a solar system and let’s get rid of this damn thing. I’m ready for this to be over, Lt.,” Davidson said.

  I wanted to bring up using a rocket to inject the fucking thing into a sun again, but I remember what Charlie said about the influence of energy and skipped it.

  Found a place. It didn’t have a name, of course, and we were not going to give it one. “Secrets shouldn’t have names and we are on a secret mission,” Andromeda said. “Right, Lt.?” Mid-size planet, no satellites, in a small, quiet solar system of twelve planets behind a nebula in a celestial swamp Maneri named the Magus. Ninety-five percent covered with water. Trans-imaging revealed a dense world below the waves: coral reefs that were miles deep; several vast volcanic zones; deep-water current storms; billions of marine life forms, some the size of dolphins and sharks; continent-size forests of aquatic plants. Less than thousand miles apart, located at the equator, two small, uninhabited continents above sea level, no islands. Both were nothing but mountainous rock, not a single life form or plant.

  Nav computer showed the distance from this planet to the next closest star was more than double Earth’s sun to Proxima Centauri.

  “It’s certainly isolated,” Taborn said.

  “Secret mission be damned. I don’t get to set foot on undiscovered planets every day; I’ve got a name for it.” Maneri said. “Kylo.” He looked unhappy when we didn’t offer applause. “That’s my mom’s favorite seafood restaurant; mine, too. We used to go there all the time. Grab the corner booth, best view of the beach for fifty miles.” He looked up at the ceiling. Wasn’t a minute later he closed his eyes; a smile came to his face. “Fresh Dungeness crab stuffed halibut, breaded and grilled . . . topped with garlic cream and served with whipped potatoes and a hazelnut blue cheese salad. Parmesan crusted cod with red bell pepper sauce. Bottle of Black Stallion . . . their menu should have had a disclaimer: you’ll need a nap after.”

  Estrada’s face said it all; living off the space grub we were, reeling off menu items to restaurants you loved might get your ass slapped around.

  Named or unnamed, everyone agreed this was as good a place as any to hide the Gate.

  We put down on a stony beach. Davidson would take the Gate out to sea and drop it into the blue deeps; plan was he’d travel out for at least twelve hours (maintaining fifty knots) before dropping it in an unknown location. The part of the plan the other crew members hadn’t been informed of, after he dropped it, he’d unleash the tactical nuke in our go-fast wave runner. No Davidson, no Wave Runner, and no hint of where the Gate was.

  Davidson didn’t know it but I was his transfer agent, and I was the only one who knew he was not coming back.

  I was up at 3 a.m. GMT Earthtime. Assisted Davidson with unloading the wave runner from Bay 3 and getting it in the water. He didn’t need my help, but I wanted to be there.

  We did not talk much.

  I stood and watched Davidson put the Gate in the 54-Q Crate and load it, using four grav-mags. Damn Gate was the size of a pack of smokes and barely weighed two pounds, but Charlie Butler had assured us the two ton container would keep the Gate where we put it. “Bury it, sink it, it should stay where you deposit it; ain’t much going to budge a 54-Q,” Charlie said.

  Davidson put to sea at 7 a.m. Packed a porto-food locker with lunch, dinner, breakfast, snack-sticks, and bottles of stim-water. Also took one beer, “I’m going to celebrate after I cast it into the deeps.” On that ocean, he only had the sky for company.

  I held my requiem silently.

  Dawn Fulton, our computer and systems wonk, said, “Fully weaponized. Complement like that, I feel bad for anything that crosses his path.” Look on her face said her heart-rate was pinned in the swoon zone. Had anyone asked, I would have told them she was planning on Celebration Day bedding when he returned.

  Standing there watching his departure, I admired his show for Dawn. I might have grinned, slightly.

  We didn’t exchange sentimental declarations. Didn’t shake hands, or wave.

  I set the alarm on my body-clock for twelve hours.

  Water was dark, didn’t look warm, but it was. The slow tidal waves rolling ashore were small, slow, comforting. The beach was solid stone, but flat, almost too flat. Sky was soft purple-blue. Not a beach for playing volleyball or a pig-roast, perhaps, but swimming and lounging in the sun, sure. Natural downtime pleasures are hard to come by in deep space.

  After our AI Harley had completed scans of the water and approved it for swimming, Dawn and Simon were the first ones outside.

  Dawn had grown up on a beach in southern California. Her father had been a semi-pro surfer and she got the water bug from him. “The beauty of the ocean when you’re sitting there waiting for the next wave; that’s soul food.” She could immerse you in the zen of surf for two days without drawing a breath.

  Estrada and Betty followed Dawn and Simon outside.

  If Puff’s would-you-look-at-that grin had been any wider, it might have required a theme song. “The place is really starting to look like a beach. Put a keg and some bikini babes out there you’d be halfway home. Add your basic hepcats in Hawaiian shirts doin’ the hula-hula hula-hula, maybe a tiki bar set-up . . . man, that would be gnarly. Silver moonswing, right tunes, I’d be up for a slow dance with a fast mermaid.”

  “You don’t want hot dogs, too?” I asked.

  “Chow? You bet. You know me, Lt. I’m always up for chow.”

  Under a necklace of clouds, we heard round tones, deliberate tones, brought distance from another time.

  Betty was the one who saw them first. The water filled with surfacing shapes from the sea—flying, a commonwealth of glint. They were traveling in a large pod, leaping from the water; they appeared to be playing with each other.

  They came ashore like sea turtles.

  Excited, thankful, Betty had her arms across her chest, her fingers knitted together. She leaned toward the creatures. “A voluptuous beginning. They might be coming home to roost.”

  And they did resemble turtles, a bit; some swimming and diving, the slow walk as they crawled from the sea foam, harmless creatures at play. Way they looked, round sofa-pillow shaped, set of flippers behind each of their four stubby legs, and their size, about that of a bulldog. Could have been amphibious or reptilian, but it struck me, they were tired puppies—maybe their eyes bent my thoughts in that direction. They had thick, short necks and small round heads, and big round eyes, hypnotic eyes—there were nebulas and stars in their eyes.

  Watching them was soothing, and a bit spellbinding, the gentle pulsing and the kaleidoscopic chameleon colors changing on their skin. There was idleness to this world, the creatures, the water, the illuminations. Made you feel like you were being called. You wanted to be open and fit, wanted to be carried to the shore of healing.

  They ran to us. Like little fishes drawn to our big boat.

  Betty was an animal lover. Back on Earth, she owned two dogs, Giant and Frankie, and did charity work for animal rescue and local shelters; she decided the aquatic creatures would be called sea puppies. “They’re so cute and playful, makes you want to snuggle. I’m going to call them sea puppies.”

  She picked one up and hugged it. “Estrada, look. I’m going to call her Spell. Look at her colors changing. She’s pure magic.”

  Estrada yelled to Betty, “I want one, too!”

  Dawn was swimming and watching Estrada, another wacko dog lover, play with the sea puppies. He was petting them, and they were rolling over and slapping the surface of the water with their front flippers. You could tell Dawn wanted to play with them, too, but was wary.

  Estrada screamed. He’d gone into the water up to his knees and the sea puppies had come. He petted. They played. He laughed and talked to them, “What a good boy.” “Yes, you’re a beauty, too.” They vocalized clicks and
whistles, seemingly in reply. And their pulsing became a frenzy of sharp, flashing patterns and feeding.

  Dawn headed for shore, the vigor of every stroke bleeding utterly into the next. She never made it.

  Simon was enjoying his, as he termed it “shore leave”. Had a bunk-roll out and was laying there, earbuds filled with who knows what transgressive noise. Had I been in a gambling establishment, I’d have put down big money that he was deep into fuck fantasies with our A I Harley. I still remember falling on my ass laughing, when Betty walked into the galley for coffee one morning and found Simon trying to convince Harley, who was down on her knees, his semen wouldn’t contaminate any internal elements. “Hell, Harley, its just 10cc of love lava. You can spit it out if you have to.” Betty lit into him, up one side and down the other. Half the crew heard the landslide hit him, came running, and stood there grinning.

  His head was bobbing, his eyes were closed. Simon never opened them—the puppies started with his face.

  Andromeda Vanbeck. Brains and wit. Tall. Brunet. High cheek bones. Carried herself like royalty. Curves I’ve eyed and almost begged to embrace. If we were back home in a bar, or better yet, a club with a dance floor—there’s a great place on Goric, on Albertina Beach—I’d walk across the room and ask, again. She was quite a ways out, floating. The water around her appeared to boil. I thought it odd there was no tint of red. Andromeda didn’t scream. I got a dry knot in my throat, but I didn’t scream either.

  Gary, our engineer, was running; zigged, they zigged, zagged, they zagged. Panic, headed the wrong way. Fell. Got up. Ran. Fell again. Got grabbed. Things had him, shook him. He looked confused.

  Puff Monder was jumping, marionette on strings, hopping. Seen comedy routines, clown and fool, looked like he did . . . if you take away the blood. I didn’t laugh.

  Betty started to run. Opposite direction of the beach. No food. No water. No weapon. No shoes. She was a good kid; sweet, reliable as clockwork, and witty. Twenty-eight years old, she had two doctorates, and was only here as window-dressing, to make the mission look believable. I saw her stumble and fall, hard; she was sitting there holding her arm. Shame she was going to die here, die the hard way.

  Captain Andrew Mack had run inside and grabbed a pulse rifle. Three empty clips were at his feet . . . and the tide of puppies was still coming.

  I blinked. He was down, viscera.

  Our A I Harley was standing near the shore a good twenty meters apart from the other crew members. She was staring far out to sea when I shut her down remotely. I looked out at where she’d been looking. The heart remembers, I thought before I remembered Harley didn’t have a heart. “All that intellect.” Shame really.

  I was the only one left inside. I locked the hatch, closed the viewport.

  Maneri and Taborn and Pete Rechy avoided the puppies for nearly twenty minutes. They finally made their way to our craft and were banging on the hatch. Didn’t check the time; they didn’t bang all that long.

  I sat alone, cup of black coffee. Eight hours to wait. Opened my music playlist on the ship’s computer and selected an old jazz recording from the 1990’s. Joe Henderson started playing the sambas of Antonio Carlos Jobim. His alto sax was sleek, sexy, airy . . . like a velvet moon it lingered. The quintet caught the wave Henderson was riding; their easy tempo moved my mind to paraiso. “Boto” ended “Dreamer (Vivo Sonhando)” came up; I would have like to have been on a Caribbean beach, warm waves coming ashore in the moonlight, waltzing with a tall brunet. Harmony in her arms and I’m drifting, blissful, dreaming what she dreams. Andromeda’s eyes would be for me, on me, and I would not look up at the cold stars.

  No fun being a cold bastard, to have people (enjoying the fruits of the truth, justice, and freedom you help provide) look at you like you’re some machine built for atrocity. But I had been trained and trained, and the oath was more than just words to me. Gave up a lot of my soul, so others didn’t have to. Didn’t cry over it, much; you execute the mission to the best of your training, and if you make it out alive, you move on to the next. The blood and scars and loss never go away, but you keep going forward, even if some days you’re not up for running at top speed.

  Tried to push the knot in my throat aside with the thought that this was my last mission.

  “Hide it well enough and there may be no Reawakening. If you take the artifact far enough out into the galaxy, or into another one, and lose it, bury it, maybe the fucking-thing stays lost. That’s the best we can hope for. We could lock it up here—put it behind hundreds of layers of security, but war comes, and power changes hands, or corrupts, and people get fucking stupid ideas—might help if they let some of us shoot politicians; just a well-researched and thought-out culling. This artifact needs to be lost. If the Gate Seekers get their hands on it, the Book says, they will possess the key to unlock all the gates. We can’t allow that to happen.” Seven days later, Charlie Butler drowned in his pool. He was drunk, and it appeared he’d fallen, struck his head and slipped below the water; autopsy didn’t mention he’d had help—from me.

  Charlie spent a year putting this mission together: he hand-selected every member of the expeditionary force, he acquired our spacecraft, he kept everything off the books and away from prying eyes. He lived to preserve, protect, and defend the Union. With the Gate now somewhere below the waves, it’s my turn to preserve, protect, and defend the Union. Push this button and me and the ship and all knowledge of what we did out here is gone—two hundred kilotons gone; no slip of the tongue to a lover, no not-so-veiled inference while inebriated.

  “Every ship I’ve ever served on has had rats,” Captain Mack said. “I don’t like rats, so, I brought, Rattler.” Fifteen-pound Maine Coon. Silver tabby. He’s sitting here with me. Typical mysterious cat, he’s statue still, watching me, and I haven’t a clue to what he might be thinking. Chow, maybe? Davidson’s POW Medal is attached to his collar; the medal wasn’t there yesterday. Rattler’s been here for over twenty minutes and hasn’t uttered a sound; that’s odd. I wonder if he knows what I’m about to do?

  I stare at the detonation button. It’s blood red.

  “Are we sure this thing is what they think it is?” I asked Charlie the night he handed me my Transfer Agent assignment.

  “Sure enough that we have to try. You’ve been in enough firefights; you know they’re all risky, and long-term odds are against you coming out of the ass-end. That’s where we are; betting on a very big long shot. But if we can pull it off, maybe it stays lost, Hank. Maybe?”

  I hope Charlie was right.

  (Brian Eno Ambient 4: On Land; The Ventures “Perfidia”; The Rivieras “California Sun”; Vanduras In The Dark; The Surfaris “Surfer Joe”; The Hondells “Little Honda”; The Beach Boys “Heroes and Villains”; The Halibuts “A Taste Of Honey”; Junior Brown “Surf Medley”; The Shadows “Atlantis”)

  Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. is a Shirley Jackson Award-winning editor, (The Grimscribe’s Puppets 2013). His editorial work includes A Season in Carcosa, Cassilda’s Song, and The Madness of Dr. Caligari. He has released four mixed-genre collections, a collection of King in Yellow tales, and novels. His fiction has appeared in many anthologies, including Autumn Cthulhu, The Children of Old Leech, Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Horror, and Best Weird Fiction of the Year. His work has been praised by Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, Michael Cisco, Jeffery Thomas, Anna Tambour, and many other writers and editors.

  When Yiggrath Comes

  Tim Curran

  Illustrated by Sishir Bommakanti

  The jumpship Bartholomew touched down on Gamma Eridani 4, about two klicks from the Terran outpost on Centipede Ridge. It was dark out there. Darker than dark—the sort of unrelieved stygian blackness you could only seem to find on alien worlds countless parsecs from Earth and the Colonies.

  The sun had set some six hours previously. With GE 4’s eccentric orbit, it would not rise for another five days.

  Riger, the first officer, led the others out into the poisonou
s, methane-heavy atmosphere—Doc Kang and two techs, Sealander and Wise. The landscape was a crazy quilt of rises and hollows: sharp-crested waves of rock that looked like dunes and tall, narrow pipes of stone. The rises weren’t so bad, just a little trippy in the low gravity. The hollows, on the other hand, were filled with congested, thorny vegetation that pulled and snagged at their suits. Overhead, triple-winged cartilaginous birds called trinary qualaks shrieked in the murky sky. They were also known as “piss-mongers,” owing to their unpleasant habit of directing streams of corrosive urine at anything which startled them . . . which was pretty much everything.

  Riger led the others over a razor-backed hillock, and there was the outpost atop the ridge in the distance. It looked like an interconnected series of multi-storied black boxes.

  There had been no contact with the survey team in six weeks.

  Riger got on the comm with the Cosmo, orbiting some four hundred kilometers above. “It’s dark, real dark,” he said. “Not picking up any life signs. It doesn’t look good.”

  “All right,” Captain Cawber sighed. “Go in, but go in careful.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Keep your eyes open, mister. God knows what kind of mess you’re going into.”

  Riger studied the outpost, eyes fixed and worried behind the bubble of his helmet. He wore a shiny green enviro-suit known as a lizard skin. Like the others, he carried a pulse weapon. In the black sky, there were occasional phosphorescent blue-white streaks caused by bursts of ionized xenon gas in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere. They looked like a sort of tubular lightning.

  He led them up the ridge to the compound. The outer fence wasn’t energized. Everything was down.

  Just for the hell of it, he tried to raise the survey team again. The outpost was called Starlight Station, but why anyone had called it that with the constant, heavy cloud cover and hydrocarbon smog of GE 4 was beyond him.

  “Well?” Sealander said over the com. “We going in or what, sir?”