Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Shizmet!” Matty leapt from his chair and out of the rain of boiling hot plastic.

  His com unit bleeped again. “Matty,” said Janine, her voice urgent, “there's a wild energy emission from your location—crew's quarters.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

  “Any idea where it's coming from?”

  Matty stepped back from his desk, his eyes going wildly to the array of model spacecraft that adorned his ceiling. The blue-white beam flashed forth again and he could now see its source. The little model spaceship Siraj had brought him from the recovered habitat was firing—firing—on his Klingon Bird of Prey.

  “Matty?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. I see it. Oh, jeez, Janine, you're not going to believe this but it's-”

  She cut him off. “Matty, whatever the hell it is, it's generating some sort of intense energy buildup. I think it might be going to explode.”

  “Shizmet,” Matty said again. He swiped the thermo-fleece blanket off his bed and threw it over the little ship. The nano-line parted and he balled the model up and sprinted for the recovery bays.

  At Bay Seven/Eight he cycled the airlock and dashed in. The abandoned hab unit sat in the double bay looking forlorn. He had no time to indulge in his usual sense of romance over such things. He moved to the hab's nearest hatch, opened it, and shoved the ship in, blanket and all. Then he shot out of the airlock into the corridor and hailed the bridge.

  “Jettison the hab unit!”

  “What?” Siraj's voice was eloquent of his disbelief.

  “I put the thing in the hab unit, in case it blows sooner than later. Eject!”

  “I see what he's done,” said Janine. “Do it!”

  The bay doors whined like a pair of old dogs asked to get down off the sofa. Matty watched on the bay monitor as a slit of space appeared above the habitat. With maddening slowness, the doors swung fully open, the magnetic clamps released and repelled, and the old piece of junk returned to the vacuum of space, floating away with its dangerous cargo.

  “We're clear,” Matty told the bridge. “A little speed, if you please.”

  He felt the ship surge as the thrusters fired, hopefully taking it away from danger.

  “Breathe easy,” Janine told him. “The buildup stopped almost as soon as the unit left the bay. I'm still getting that weird little radiation reading, though. And you know what's even weirder? It's moving.”

  * * * *

  The bridge crew of the DS Pride of Barfaris was silent as the enormity of what had nearly happened to them dawned. To come seeking inhabited worlds, other races of men, and to find this ... it was almost more than Fez could bear.

  “Self-destruct aborted,” she told Tefkleh, her voice muted. “Securing from battle stations.”

  “It was not to be,” said Tefkleh philosophically. “We have long felt that our inability to find other sentient life was owing to our lack of readiness. Perhaps it also is owing to the same lack in others.”

  “But to fail to even communicate with them. To be forced to-to destroy another ship...”

  “A drone, only. There were no life-signs, although—” Raus slanted a glance at his console. “—the readings from that chamber we were in...”

  Fez looked back to the data that streamed before her eyes. “Yes, they are most anomalous.”

  Tefkleh rose from his jump seat and moved to put a hand on Fez's shoulder. “Be patient, Fez. It is only a matter of time. This system is immense and seems to be teeming with artificial energy readings. We will make First Contact soon. I am certain of it.”

  * * * *

  “So what do you think it was?” Janine asked him when it was all over. “Your little malignant space toy, I mean?”

  Matty shrugged. “Terrorists? Maybe that's why the hab unit was abandoned. Maybe someone planted a bomb on it and forced them to jettison it. Then the bomb deactivated when it hit space for some reason. When we brought it aboard, we somehow reactivated it.”

  “Huh.” Janine looked impressed. “Not a half-bad theory. What might have reactivated it, d'you think?”

  He shrugged. “Gravity. Light. Heat. Who knows?”

  “Well, all I know is, that was real quick thinking on your part.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then glided away to her station.

  Matty returned his half-hearted attention to the recovery crew, which had just reacquired the spacehab module. The anomalous energy reading was gone, having moved out of their sensor's range, and it seemed safe to retrieve their prize.

  They'd checked all of their other “booty” carefully for even the tiniest energy signatures, then returned them to the recovery bay just in case.

  Janine wasn't the only one who'd congratulated Matty for his instinct to use the old habitat and the heavily clad bulkheads of the recovery bay as a detonation shield.

  Siraj had even contacted NASA to sing his praises. “Any of the rest of us,” he'd said, “would've just chucked it out an emergency hatch, exposing our hull.”

  So Matty's mood was generally good, but all the excitement merely underscored the day-to-day boredom of life on a garbage scow. He certainly hoped the crew's commendation would look good enough on his record to give him a leg up when it came to seeking a more interesting job.

  One that would put him in a better place to make First Contact.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: IMPRINT

  by Kyle Kirkland

  Some jobs require very specific qualifications—and offer very special opportunities.

  Giles Bailey knew the headline was phony the moment he read it. The question was, who wrote it?

  Sandra. Giles activated his legs and whirred across the small office. At his comm terminal he locked the limbs and sat down in front of the vid. “Dr. Sandra Plindolie,” he said. In a moment the green eyes and brown hair of the twenty-seven-year-old postdoc appeared on his monitor.

  “Giles,” said Sandra. “Just the person I want to see. My magnetic scanners need adjusting.”

  “First, let me ask you about an interesting story on my news feed.”

  He observed a brief smile on Sandra's face. But she didn't confess at once. “I hardly look at the news—all those rumors,” she said. “What story are you talking about?”

  “The one you wrote and inserted into the university's news circuit. The one that begins, ‘Prosthetic Legs Stolen—Police Baffled, Victim Stumped.'”

  Sandra laughed. “Did it make you chuckle?”

  “No.”

  Sandra stared at him. “Did it make you mad?”

  “No.”

  “Then why'd you call me?”

  “To confirm my theory. I'll drop by this morning about the scanners.”

  Before Giles closed the comm, Sandra said, “Wait a minute.” She bit her lip. “Why don't you lighten up sometime?”

  “That's easy.” Giles touched a button on his belt, disengaging his legs. He spun around in his chair, leaving the perfectly balanced carbon-composite limbs motionless on the floor. “I can lighten up by eight pounds whenever I want.”

  “That's not quite what I meant,” said Sandra.

  Giles couldn't tell if she was amused or angry. “I'll whir over to your lab in about an hour,” he told her. He cut the comm and the screen blanked. After smiling grimly, Giles reconnected his legs.

  * * * *

  Because the director of the Center for Neurobiology was having trouble with his computer, Giles couldn't get to Sandra's lab as soon as he'd promised. Professor Handen was not only a director but also one of the best-funded scientists at the University for Scientific Studies, and he had top priority as far as the Technical Help and Resources Department was concerned. Giles went straight to Handen's office.

  “It was working fine last night,” said Handen, flashing his Wall Street investment banker smile. His white lab coat failed to conceal most of the Armani suit underneath. Giles w
as convinced that the reason Handen always wore a lab coat was to avoid being mistaken for a trust fund portfolio analyst or a young scion of a university benefactor.

  “Just about everything around here is out of kilter,” said Giles. “Only take a moment.” He looked around, embarrassed that his self-propelled tool cart had bogged down in the plush carpet. He whirred to the cart and extracted an electro-probe.

  Handen stared as Giles opened the computer panel. “This should be an easy job. Even one of the less gifted techs could do it. Why are you here?”

  Giles looked up sharply. “Everyone is busy this morning, sir.”

  “Busy? Or afraid?” Handen leaned back in his enormous chair. Circling his head was a halo of wall-mounted awards, signed certificates, Lasker Prize mementoes, and other documentation of a meteoric and immensely successful career in science.

  Giles took a reading with the probe. “I wouldn't know, sir.”

  A lie—Handen cowed the other techs so badly that they forgot which probe to use. Giles also felt self-conscious when Handen stared at him, but for a different reason.

  Handen kept staring, as if the director was sizing Giles up. With a rail-thin torso, two slender but muscular arms, two wiry artificial legs, and a pear-shaped head, Giles often noticed people looking at him while pretending not to.

  At least Professor Handen didn't try to conceal his stare. But Giles knew Handen wasn't the pitying type. The university had hired Giles on Handen's insistence, but not out of pity. And Giles knew what Handen was getting ready to say.

  “I'm going to make a scientist out of you, Mr. Bailey. Science is where you belong, not swinging around a monkey wrench.”

  “My work is interesting,” said Giles. He reached for the input circuit that he'd put in his pocket, having guessed before he'd arrived what the problem would be. After he replaced the old circuit, Professor Handen's computer booted quickly.

  “No problems?” asked Giles.

  Handen didn't even glance at the screen. “You know why the U.S.S. has overtaken the Ivy League and the Caltechs in science funding? It's because guys like me know how to spot talent. I find the people who make me look awfully good as I sit here in this office.” The professor chuckled. “Awfully good.”

  Giles thought about Sandra. Maybe the professor meant it as a joke, but Giles thought the statement held more truth than Handen would have liked to admit. Rumors said that Sandra was up for an assistant professorship if she secured another grant.

  “I've reserved a place for you again this semester,” said Handen. “Full scholarship. What do you say?”

  A tremor shook Giles's emaciated ribcage. “The same thing I said last year, professor. Thanks but no thanks.”

  Handen scowled. But the scowl vanished quickly, replaced by a smile. “Couldn't hide in the tech room if you were a student, could you? Well, I'll wear you down yet, young man.” He rose and dislodged the cart, pushing it to the door. “Wait and see.”

  * * * *

  “Finally,” said Sandra, as Giles entered her lab. “The god of electricity has arrived.”

  “I got here as soon as I could. The whole—” Giles paused as he saw Sandra unstrapping a female student from the magnetic stimulator. “Sorry, I didn't know you were working.”

  “We're done,” said Sandra. She pressed a button, and the hemispheric apparatus rose toward the ceiling and latched into place, six feet above their heads. The small room rumbled as the motor abruptly shut off.

  “Well?” said the young woman. “Is my brain the same as everyone else's?”

  Sandra shook her head. “Of course not. That's what makes my research so interesting. Each person's brain is unique. The same general principles apply, but there's huge variability.”

  The student sat up from the chair and suddenly spotted Giles. She stared at the slender body, at the beanpole legs that were covered by a thin protective fabric, and at the misshapen head that no amount of cosmetic surgery could ever fix. She looked away, embarrassed, but then seemed to will herself to look back. “Hello,” she said to Giles in a child-like voice. “What's your name?”

  Giles told her.

  Sandra looked at the student. “Thank you for coming,” she said, vaguely gesturing to the door.

  The young woman didn't move. “How old are you, Giles?” she asked, in the same squeaky voice.

  “Six. I look older ‘cause they do experiments on me. But I'm slow so people still treat me like a child. You noticed the shape of my head, didn't you? It used to be normal but one day they put me in a vise and then they—”

  “He works here,” said Sandra to the bewildered student. “Now run along and I'll see you later.”

  After the student left, Sandra turned to Giles. “Sorry about that. They don't mean any harm, you know.”

  “If I keep frightening away your volunteers,” said Giles, “you won't have enough experimental data to put in your grant proposal.” He nodded toward a reinforced circular door, behind which was a magnetically shielded chamber. “Can I get started on the scanners?”

  “Giles, I—”

  “I'll get going then,” said Giles. The tool kit motored forward, following a signal emitted by Giles's prosthetics. “Glad you don't have carpets in here.”

  “Wait. Sit down.” Sandra gestured to the chair. “Since you keep frightening away my subjects, the least you could do is give me some data.”

  “But your scanner—”

  “Forget the scanner. The transcranial magnetic stimulator is working fine, and I need to do some more TMS experiments anyway. Sit down. How about if I inhibit your frontal lobes? You're not afraid of what you might say, are you?”

  Since joining the Neurobiology Center three years ago, Giles had become familiar with neuroscience, and electricity and magnetism were the same in the brain as for any electrical circuit. Electrically active brain cells generated a magnetic field and were affected by one, which allowed sensitive magnetic scanners to record activity, and TMS to stimulate it.

  “Maybe later,” said Giles. He whirred into the scanner room.

  Sandra followed him. “Your mother called me again.”

  “You two are getting to be quite friendly.” Giles gazed about the room. He briefly flipped through some data charts that showed wavy oscillations, which Giles recognized were brain rhythms recorded from the student volunteers. Moving on, he stopped to examine a pen-graph attached to a magnetic field meter. The machine slowly spit out heavy-stock paper, with an inked, wiggly line indicating the magnitude of stray fields in the room. “Did you mean to leave this on?”

  Sandra glanced at the meter. “No. Damn it. I must have forgotten to turn it off last night. This grant has got me frazzled.”

  “It's a lucky accident.” Giles switched off the machine and began scrolling through the record. “Something happened last night and this might tell us what it was.”

  “Giles, the source of whatever it was didn't come from this room, and since we're inside a magnetically shielded—never mind, you're the god of electricity and I'm just a neuroscientist. What I was about to say is that your parents keep asking how you're doing. And your mother is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Why don't you call her sometime? She tells me it's been three years—” Suddenly Giles thrust forward a scrawny arm. “Take a gander,” he said, pointing to the chart.

  Sandra frowned. “Don't change the subject. Why haven't you ever forgiven your parents? Being different isn't so bad—look at your parents, for instance. They were certainly different, at least emotionally, intellectually. They had you and loved you despite what the gene tests predicted. Who else would have done that?”

  “No one,” said Giles. “That's why I'm a unique freak. I could work the circus sideshows if those places hadn't shut down years ago from a lack of material. Look at the chart.”

  Finally Sandra dropped her gaze. She saw a huge spike in the chart. The time stamp read 0242 hours. “Wow!”

  Giles nodded. “It's a Godzilla of an electrom
agnetic pulse, all right.”

  “How could that be recorded ... in here?”

  “Magnetic shields aren't perfect. If an external field is strong enough it'll saturate the shield.” Giles stroked his chin with a slender finger. “This is serious.”

  “Probably somebody in the physics department. They've got some powerful MRI equipment there. Plenty of grant money in that sort of thing.”

  “No, I already checked. It's not them. And this isn't the first time something like this has happened.”

  Sandra looked at him. “How do you know?”

  “Two times this month my SQUIBs freaked out all of a sudden in the middle of the night. Undoubtedly the same thing would have happened again last night if I had been working with them.”

  “What are you doing with SQUIBs in the middle of the night?”

  Giles paused. “If you must know, last month I started taking precise measurements of Earth's magnetic field. Did you know the magnetic poles move around? It's kind of cool to track them.”

  Sandra rolled her eyes. “Only you would—but Giles, don't worry about these blips. I'm sure it's the physics department.”

  “They're not willing to admit it.”

  “According to rumor, they're working on something big.” Sandra shrugged. “Just as long as they don't ruin my equipment, I don't care.”

  “Rumors aren't facts. And you should care. We all should care. It might affect your experiments. My legs, too.”

  “Your legs?”

  “The connections between my hip nerves and the controller circuits are electromagnetic. If I get caught in a field as strong as the one last night, I could end up running into a wall at full speed.”

  “But ... but I'm sure they only do their work in the wee hours of the morning. It'll be okay. I heard they'll be wrapping up this project pretty soon anyway. Let's just let it go.”

  “I don't...” Giles paused. “Anyway, I'll finish calibrating the scanners shortly.”

  “Thanks.” As Sandra left she spoke over her shoulder. “Call your mother, Giles.”

  Strangely unscientific, thought Giles. He understood that Sandra was preoccupied with an upcoming grant proposal, but she usually had more than her share of curiosity.