Strange New Worlds IX

by Dean Wesley Smith

“Archer.”

  “Sir, we’re tracking a funnel cloud on sensors. It’s three times larger than an F-five class with winds in excess of five hundred kilometers. You should seek shelter.”

  It sounded like something was being ripped right outside the cave, followed by a bullet-like whining. Archer instinctively pushed farther back into the cave and against Trip.

  “I can’t talk right now. Stand by.” Archer snapped the communicator shut.

  Trip glanced at his hand when he felt someone pick it up. T’Pol held his hand tightly in hers, and despite her calm expression, her light trembling hand gave away that she was scared. Trip closed his eyes again, continuing to count Mississippi. Archer muttered something unintelligible.

  A tree hit the ground outside, bounced up, struck the inside of the cave only centimeters from Doctor Phlox, and was ripped away. Phlox moved back, pushing Hoshi farther into the cave and into Archer and T’Pol. The roar of the tornado grew to a deafening volume. Archer closed his eyes and repeatedly recited his hope that his crew and he would make it through this alive.

  “It’ll be okay,” Archer heard a voice say.

  Archer looked back at Trip. Trip had suddenly collected himself and looked calm, despite the destruction going on outside the cave. Trip put his arm around T’Pol’s shoulders, but looked into Archer’s eyes. He didn’t look scared anymore, as if the roaring funnel of death outside had already slipped by and life was going on.

  “It’ll pass soon.” Trip looked away.

  The roar of the tornado began to fade away and the wind subsided. Darkness gave way to brilliant sunshine and a light drizzle. The soft sound of rain hitting the ground sounded odd compared to what had just passed them. No one moved.

  “Twister’s past. Let’s go straighten things out,” Trip told them.

  Archer looked back at him. His behavior through the entire event had been confusing.

  T’Pol was the first to move. She pulled away from Trip and crawled over Phlox and Hoshi. They followed her. Archer crawled to the entrance, but stopped, looking back at Trip.

  “Are you okay?” Archer asked.

  Trip held his gaze for a long time, and then crawled past him. Archer followed and the two climbed out of the gully, standing next to the other three.

  There was a trough one and a half meters deep and twenty-three kilometers wide and less than six meters from them. Archer turned, staring at the tornado. It had traveled far and while still black, it didn’t look nearly as threatening. The clouds behind it were innocent gray clouds, swollen with rain.

  “Sir,” Hoshi said. “I found one of our scanners.”

  Archer turned to her. She held up a branch with a scanner fully embedded in it.

  “That was an experience I don’t care to repeat,” Doctor Phlox commented.

  Trip walked to the edge of the trough. He stared at the bare ground, his mind drifting into the past again.

  “Archer to Enterprise,” he heard Archer say.

  Trip looked up at the overcast sky.

  “Go ahead, sir,” a crewman answered.

  “Send the other shuttlepod. The tornado destroyed ours.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Trip closed his eyes. Poor Rufus. Poor Grandpa Charles.

  Archer walked into the mess hall and found Trip sitting at a table in the center of the room with his back toward the entrance.

  “I’ve been all over this ship looking for you, Trip,” Archer told him as he walked up to him. “Why didn’t you answer when I called for you?”

  Trip didn’t reply. Archer stopped beside him, looking at the photographs strewn across the table. They showed the aftermath of the tornado they had just experienced. It had leveled a forest and the ruins they had been exploring. Archer looked at the picture Trip was holding. It wasn’t from the tornado. This picture had three children, one of them eight-year-old Trip, and two elderly adults. Everyone except Trip was facing the camera. Young Trip was crouched next to the porch, looking over his shoulder at the photographer. Archer looked at Trip’s face.

  “Trip.”

  Trip didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Charles.”

  Trip looked up at him. “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

  “Yeah, ’cept you only use ‘Charles’ when I’m in trouble or you’re introducing me to someone.” Trip smiled.

  “No. Over the comm. I’ve been calling for you for ten minutes.”

  Trip shook his head, looking back at the photograph. “I didn’t hear you. Sorry, sir.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Archer motioned to the empty chair next to him.

  Trip shook his head.

  Archer sat down and leaned on the table, watching Trip’s face. Trip was looking sadly at the photograph in his hand.

  “You haven’t been yourself the last few days.”

  Trip didn’t answer right away. Archer looked down at the table, waiting.

  “This is a picture of my cousins, Bethany and Scott, me, and these are my grandparents, Grandma Ilene and Grandpa Charles.”

  “Your namesake?”

  Trip smiled, nodding. “Yep. Me and my dad’s namesake.”

  “Where was it taken?”

  “On their farm in the Texas Panhandle.”

  “What did they farm?”

  “Corn and sunflowers. After their kids grew up, they left Florida and moved to Texas. Me and Liz spent a lot of summers there, but that summer it was just me and my cousins.”

  “Are your grandparents still alive?”

  “Naw. My grandma died three years ago. Grandpa Charles was killed the day after this photo was taken.”

  Archer looked up at Trip, surprised by the information. “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  With a deep breath, Trip began. “The day started off just like on that planet—still, quiet, and hot. Us kids were playing outside when it started clouding up and Grandma called us into the house. She was baking a rhubarb-strawberry pie and the kitchen smelled wonderful. I remember she’d make these little pastry things with the extra crust. She’d spread butter, sugar, and cinnamon on them and bake them with the pie. We loved those things! We would always try to sneak in and steal ’em.” Trip closed his eyes, recalling the memory. “So, we were all in the kitchen when the door busted open and Grandpa grabbed Bethany and yelled at us to get to the storm cellar, pronto. We ran outside and it was blowing like the dickens. We got into the cellar and all of a sudden I remembered Rufus.”

  Trip opened his eyes, watching the stars outside one of the mess hall ports. “He was the pup that Grandpa Charles had given me for my birthday a few summers earlier. We were always getting ourselves in trouble and when it got hot like it was that day, he’d sleep under the porch. I tried to leave to get him and threw such a fit about the dog that Grandpa Charles went to get him. And then the tornado hit.” Trip frowned, looking down at the table. He added quietly, “We never saw them again. The twister just sucked ’em up.” Trip sighed before continuing. “When it was over, we came out and everything was gone. The garage, strangely, was untouched. Grandma Ilene packed us into the car and we drove to town. She cried the whole way there. When we got to town…It was gone. The tornado had just left a bunch of rubble, wiped it clean off the map.”

  Trip looked at Archer. “Twisters are one of those things that you’re a damn fool not to be scared of, and yet…they have a certain allure to them, you know? They’re awesome because of the power they have and how fast they can destroy things.” Trip turned his sad eyes back to the photograph. “Or how they can take the things you love away in half a heartbeat.”

  Archer looked at his hands. “I wish you’d never had to go through that, Trip, but, if you hadn’t, we would have been killed. None of us knew what was going on. You saved our lives.”

  Trip looked slyly at Archer. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Jealous?” Archer smiled.

  “Yeah. You didn’t get to ride in and sa
ve the day.” Trip laughed.

  Archer smiled, nodding. “All right. You got me. I’m completely jealous that you stole my thunder.”

  The two laughed for a moment, but it died. Archer picked up another picture. It showed a spoon embedded into a crate.

  “I’ll never forget that experience,” Archer told Trip.

  “No. You won’t.” Trip stood, starting to gather up the pictures.

  “I’ll get them.”

  “You sure?”

  Archer nodded.

  “Good night, Cap’n.”

  “Good night.”

  Trip walked away. Archer looked down, looking at the photograph of Trip’s youth. Archer picked it up, staring at the smiling faces. He suddenly pulled the picture closer, noticing what young Trip was doing. He held the collar of a dog that had been caught crawling out from under the porch in the picture. It was a small black, brown, and white beagle that Archer assumed was Trip’s Rufus.

  “I’ll be,” Archer whispered.

  (Third Prize)

  Mestral

  Ben Guilfoy

  Boston was on fire.

  A lone figure crouched on the ledge of a roof and watched the venerable city burn. Below, people were fleeing, trying to get their cars running, or just plain running themselves. Most carried only what they could, though some, the figure noted with a frown, tried to carry far more.

  As though such worldly possessions were worth saving, he thought, pulling his hood up over his head, preparing to enter the frantic scene below. He looked out across Mass Ave. at the orange glow rising from the center of the city. Between him, and that, was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.

  He had come to Boston years before, as he’d explored the United States. He stayed low, “under the radar,” as the phrase applied. He thought it an odd one, but the quickly evolving slang terms of the American public had always intrigued him. But this time he’d returned to the city that birthed the American Revolution with a mission.

  It is now time to complete that mission, he thought. He walked to the edge of the roof over the alley between that building and the next, and jumped down to street level. He pushed his way through throngs of people that were all trying to move in a thousand different directions. No one paid any attention to him, they just kept trying to push past.

  He moved onto the abandoned MIT campus. A few people here or there cut through the area to save time, but the buildings were deserted.

  Good.

  He came to a physics lab, and walked up to the door; it was locked. He grasped the handle, turned, and pushed hard. With a crack, the door opened, and the figure stepped into the dark hallway. He closed the door behind him, and pulled a flashlight out of his pocket.

  He moved through the hallways, reading signs on doors, trying to find one that might have what he sought: the parts needed to construct a rudimentary subspace radio.

  He froze, his enhanced hearing picking up noise from behind. He turned, playing the light across the floor, then off into the distance. There was no one, but he knew that the sound had not come from the chaos outside. Someone was in the building with him, and nearby.

  Had someone followed him in, with malicious intent? His brain catalogued questions and hypotheses as he retraced his steps toward the door.

  The sound came again as he neared one of the lab rooms. He stopped outside the door, completely motionless, and listened more. There was definitely someone else inside the lab. The figure reached down for the doorknob, and opened the door slowly. He stepped into the room, and very clearly heard breathing from behind the door.

  He stepped farther into the room, and twisted around to his left as a man lunged at him, swinging a stool high over his head. He put up his left arm to deflect the blow from the stool, and continued to twist around. He grabbed the man with his right arm as he came around, and threw him into the air. The man landed hard on one of the lab tables, and rolled off onto the floor on the other side.

  “Who are you?” the tall man demanded, standing quickly.

  “I am sorry,” the figure said.

  “That ain’t an answer, pal,” the man growled.

  “I know.”

  The two stared at each other in the darkness. The only light came from the dull glow through the window, and the cloaked figure’s flashlight. He shined it directly into the tall man’s face. The man squinted, and held up his hand in front of his face.

  “Get that damn light outta my eyes,” the man demanded. When the light was lowered, he blinked, trying to recover his night vision. “You didn’t answer me. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the very same questions,” the dark figure said.

  The tall man grunted. “At least I’m supposed to be here. You look like a damn refugee.”

  “I am.”

  “What’s your name?”

  After a moment’s consideration, the figure said, “Michael.” It was a lie.

  His real name was Mestral. And he was Vulcan. He had been on Earth for a century, his ship having crash-landed in the woods near Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s. Originally, he’d had two companions with him. But they left aboard a Vulcan transport that arrived to rescue them. He’d opted to stay behind, too intrigued by human culture to give up the opportunity to study them firsthand, to move among them, to learn.

  But his time on Earth was at an end. Humanity was destroying itself, purging the Earth in the sickening glow of nuclear fire. Millions were dying, and the culture Mestral had come to love (in his own Vulcan way) over the last century was turning to bitter ash.

  “What are you doing here?” the tall man asked.

  The truth was something the man wouldn’t be able to conceive, Mestral knew. For centuries, Vulcans had prided themselves on their truthfulness. Mestral knew that one had to adapt to the environment, or die; his ability to lie about his own identity and intentions had kept him alive and free on an alien world for half his lifetime.

  “I’m looking for shelter,” Mestral answered. “I have nowhere to go.”

  The tall man scoffed. “You came here? For shelter?” He shook his head and turned away from Mestral to pick up the mess he’d made when he hit the table. “You must be some kind of stupid refugee.”

  Mestral set his flashlight on the table, facing upward to give the room as much illumination as possible. “What are you doing here?”

  The tall man sat down on a stool, and adjusted his hat. “Y’know, my friends told me I’d be in this lab till the world ended.” He chuckled. “Guess they were right.”

  “You think the world has ended?”

  The man sighed. “What would you call it?”

  “A change. The world is still here. We are still here.”

  “It’s not the same. The world I knew is gone.”

  Mestral was quiet for a moment. The end of the world. Interesting. “What’s your name?”

  “My friends call me Zee.”

  “Am I your friend?”

  “You haven’t tried to stab me for my food yet.”

  “And now that the world has…ended, you expect everyone you meet to do so?”

  Zee lit a cigarette. “Not everyone.”

  Mestral watched Zee smoke. Of all the things he’d learned on Earth, the compulsion to fill one’s lungs with a deadly cloud of carcinogens (and to pay large sums of their currency to do so) was one of the things he’d never understood. It was also one of the few customs he hadn’t picked up. He’d long ago decided that he’d try almost anything once, including eating meat, something heavily frowned upon in Vulcan society; but nicotine was one of the few substances he hadn’t tried.

  Zee stared at him for a long while. “I was a student here, a long time ago.”

  Mestral said nothing, waiting.

  “They said I was ‘going places,’ y’know? That I’d make it big.” Zee took a long drag and tried to make rings in the air with the smoke. He failed, and frowned. “Guess that’s never gonna happe
n, now.”

  “Why not?”

  Zee tilted his head toward the fiery orange glowing faintly through the shades. “You looked outside recently?”

  Mestral stood, and began to empty bits of food from his pockets. It was time to eat. “I came from out there.” He paused. “So, these people, the ones that held you in such high regard…were they right? Did you ever do anything of note?” Mestral offered Zee a granola bar.

  Zee stubbed out the cigarette, and took the bar. As he ripped open the wrapping, he shook his head. “Not really. I published a few papers, but…no. My baby never got off the ground.”

  “Your…‘baby’?”

  With a smile, Zee took a bite of the snack. “Mm,” he said, chewing, “chocolate-covered. My favorite.” He reached down and put a canvas backpack on the table. He reached into the pack, and pulled out a thin laptop computer. The silver casing glinted off the light from Mestral’s flashlight. Zee turned the computer on, and started tapping at the screen with his fingers.

  “You wanna see my baby?” he asked. Mestral stood and walked over to him. “You gotta promise not to tell anyone.”

  Mestral nodded. “I promise.”

  Zee swung the laptop toward him, and Mestral stared incredulously at the designs for a warp engine. Zee took the computer back, but Mestral’s photographic memory went to work analyzing the image he’d seen for only a few seconds.

  It was crude, merely the beginnings of one of the most complicated devices ever constructed, but it was there. Here, on this world on the brink of destruction, a ragged man huddling alone in the dark had unlocked one of the greatest secrets in human history—how to travel faster than light. But Mestral looked at the windows, and wondered if humanity was ready for such a discovery.

  Human beings, he knew, were singularly concerned with themselves, and their own gain. Not unlike my own people were, long ago, Mestral reminded himself. It had taken the Vulcan race’s near extinction in the nuclear fires of civil war to make his race realize what was at stake, and what had to be done. It had been one man, a single Vulcan who preached peace and logic, who had turned everything around in the final moments. Without Surak’s messages of peace, Vulcan would surely be a dead husk of a planet by now.