Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  Goro laughed.

  The dragons in Goro’s skin laughed with him.

  Dragons laughed all over the galaxy.

  The Last of Its Kind

  Kawika Guillermo

  I see our great empire has retracted to squabbled chaos, retreated behind fortified walls, and abandoned me to my great chase. Yet I still pursue the dragon with a passion that amazes me. As a magician, I was branded to hunt her through ancient, worn-down cities, without ever sleeping.

  All the hospitality has gone out of Perd; the ancient magician’s city has faded to a resting place for weary warriors and monks. I pass an ancient portrait of the restricted God Ka, with smears of dried grease atop the canvas; I see the remains of a torched inn, its burnt wood smeared with the blood of the empire’s enemies once locked inside, their charred remains tracing the ancient archaic symbols they died to protect. Even the magician’s schools near the mountains have been converted to forts, towering over the snowed city, poised ready to turn against their own people. The children point to me, spot my dirtied cloak and empty eyes; they know I am among the last generation of magicians, who the empire once branded as heretics. They take no time for me, for they must also know who I am hunting: a dragon, that last visible nemesis to an empire already corrupt and crumbling.

  My spell of direction has picked up the beast’s scent, and the children follow my furred boot-heels to the city gate, but they cannot go any farther, for they, like myself, are prisoners of their own imperium. I am not yet asleep, and I have nowhere else, so I follow the dragon’s diminishing cry.

  The petrifying wind of the north stanches my thirst, numbs my skin, and freezes the grip upon my staff. The spell of direction leads me outside the imperium, toward untouched primitive land hemmed in by frozen cliffs scrawled with dragon’s claws. The dragon knows I am behind her; her trail takes me on a mystic eddying ride down steep cliffs and frozen ice. I will follow her anywhere, even after my spells have drained. To death, to the greatest reach unmapped.

  I pass the imperium’s last gate with too little food; I expect now all magicians will finally fade into memories of pleasing songs, ritual dances, and parades, where the last magician will be held aloft, weak and sputtering, for the crowd’s gaze. The empire had dwindled our numbers, but not by attacking us directly. No greater hatred could they exploit than that between magicians and dragons, for that ancient war brought purpose to the schools, gave us an identity beyond that of heretics. We felt useful, locked in a war with a radical, beastly enemy. The war between us, a war the empire had begun, would be our end.

  Bereft of the spell of warmth, I continue into the gray, cloud-speckled sunlight onto the flatness of frozen ice, a still lake with hardened fish and seaweed. Standing under that heavy sky upon the remains of a vast, dim moor, I see the shadowy figure of that wild dragon Evald, the last wild dragon, her rugged skin so unlike her domestic brethren who play fire tricks behind iron bars. Her wings shine in the gray sunlight like dark fog; her nose expels a deep bright orange flame. Cornered in the harsh tundra, she seeks to frighten me away, the last primitive impulses of her life now caught in a rabid dance of flame, smoke and ice. I cast a multiplicity illusion so that I appear as a hundred rather than as one, and she takes aim at my copies, crushing them in the fierce fireballs that split open the frozen ice. Then she aims at nothing, her crazed dance now a spinning, fire-spitting pirouette, and below that chaos I hear the wise beast laughing, and following her, the fuzzed traces of my own incantations, ice spells, and weather alterations that bring lightning to strike her wings. She is battered across the frozen lake, her escape put to rest by the bright fogged cold, her tattered body too numbed for chasing.

  With Evald’s passing, I am left alone, waning across the crunched cracks of snow, stepping languorously across a spacious sky, the cold sometimes slowing my breath, sometimes shocking me into a fearful, flailing sorrow. With too little strength to return to the imperium, I march northward, through the foggy ruins and silver-imprinted runes of the Tydes, the legendary high-elves who we magic-users once expelled from our own dominion. The Song of Wharre tells of the Tyde necromancers from the north with strange powers over the minds of men, powers of possession and resurrection, powers we could not understand nor hope to master. In one generation of war, we magicians wiped them out. We never heard of them again, not even a single surviving elven child that we could ask repentance from. I join them now in their frozen heaths and haunted tombs, with my boots on death’s step, far from the imperium’s reach.

  The ruins are frozen over, inhabited only by smog and mist, a circus’ silhouette, where no voice can remind us how it once was and who it was for. In a frozen caved-in Tyde house I sit and let my breath sink beneath the snow. With my magic drained, my staff can no longer emit light, yet the glow of that stark diamond sky brings me familiar, mindful offerings.

  Bludgeon

  Thaddeus Howze

  As luck would have it, mankind’s first official interaction with an alien species (that was not covered up successfully by the government) was with the warlords of Hurumpharump. If you sound like you are clearing your throat when you are saying it, you are saying it right; when in doubt, cough and add more phlegm.

  When their mighty spaceships, fifty miles wide, appeared above every major city on Earth, humanity wet its collective pants and waited for the end. For ten days, they hovered there. I hate to admit it, but we did not behave very well. There was the requisite gnashing of teeth, weeping, some self-flagellation amongst the Catholics who were forced to admit that perhaps we had not been made in His image after all. Seeing how these aliens had been able to do something we could not, perhaps He was made in their image.

  Wholesale looting, riots, destruction of government property were everywhere until martial law had been declared nearly all over the world. Most governments cracked down on their populations until quiet streets were the order of the day. People went out to shop for food and supplies and quickly returned home. Stock markets all over the planet went offline, for fear of catastrophic collapse during this time of crisis. But nothing happened.

  After two weeks of seeing the alien ships hovering there, people went back to work and tried to ignore them. Once people had resumed their normal lives, as normal as one’s life could be with a fifty mile wide alien spaceship hovering above one’s city, the alien ships simply disappeared. All but one. The ship over New York did not leave.

  News reports of the disappearance of the other alien craft caused jubilation in some, trepidation in others. Most assumed the end of the world was nigh and we had been found wanting. Scientists madly searched the sky for any trace of the aliens and nothing could be discovered.

  The next morning after the other ships left, a bright beam, brighter than any light on Earth except for the sun itself, speared down to Earth, illuminating a five mile circle of all-encompassing radiance. Humans within the beam stopped moving, and only those at the fringe of the beam could see what was happening within.

  The aliens floated slowly and majestically to the surface of the planet and began to create a space filled with decidedly non-terrestrial plants. Many of them moved, swaying to an unheard music, tentacles whipping about, and occasionally squirting a strange and noxious fluid that dissolved anything it came in contact with. Several humans who were frozen nearby disintegrated in a pink mist as they exploded from contact with the plant’s venom.

  The military watched from the fringe of the light barrier after several of their missiles failed to penetrate it and fell to Earth, unmoving but still quite active. After destroying several blocks of Manhattan with cruise missiles that fell far short of the target, the Navy resorted to 20 mm guns. They, too, flew unerringly to the target until they reached the barrier; then they promptly exploded, scattering shrapnel on everyone outside of the light shield. Dozens of people were unfortunately killed.

  The president decided that he would tell the military to stand down before they killed any more New Yorkers by tryin
g a nuclear strike next. Since the military could not destroy the aliens, they were forced to watch and record. Cameras were pointed into the field only to find out, once they were turned on, they did not record anything inside it.

  Then artists were given binoculars and told to paint, draw, create images of the aliens as detailed as possible. Each artist did his best to create an image as true to the aliens as he could. When the military later compared all of their drawings, each one was as different as could be. Not a single image resembled any of the creatures, and none of the images resembled each other. None of the artists thought this was strange or out of place.

  What most people saw were suits of armor that seemed to be made of a metal that absorbed light. They were matte black in appearance, and only small lights could be made out on the fronts and backs of the suits. Each suit carried a staff-like object that seemed to function as a multi-tool. They could destroy matter or recreate matter with the same tool.

  Unable to record effectively, the military was forced to use trained observers to try and remember every possible detail. They would find out a few days later that most of those observers would remember a picnic or birthday party or some other event they enjoyed, and would not be able to be convinced otherwise. They were not reporting anything useful to their commanding officers. It took two days for the alien table, chairs, exotic plants, and force field generators to be ready.

  The President of the United States sat in his office and talked to me, an anthropologist by trade, about what I thought the aliens wanted. I was about to answer that question when there was a flash of light, and we were both transported, along with two Secret Service agents, to the center of the alien conference area. Seconds later, every leader of every major population group on the planet began to appear, rapidly filling the entire space the aliens had created.

  Food appeared as mysteriously as we did, and I decided to sit down and eat one of the apples, golden in color, from the table. It was the most amazing thing I had ever eaten. The Secret Service agents shook their heads while I tasted the apple. I assume they thought I was taking a considerable risk, but I did not think so. If they wanted to kill us, they did not have to teleport us here to do it. They could have just as easily destroyed us in transit, or teleported a bomb to our office. Besides, the president was a cheapskate; he did not even spring for a lunch before our meeting. I was starving.

  I offered the president a bite, but he look incredulously at me, so I kept eating. Once everyone had settled down, the alien plants moved up behind us and stood quietly.

  “People and leaders of Earth: We are the Warlords of Hurumpharump, and we are here to conquer your planet. In an effort to be civilized, we have sent away our fleet and left a single vessel over your major metropolis, New York. This was done to let you know that we do not consider you a threat in any way, and it would be best for all of us if your people surrender peacefully and become servants to our House.”

  The alien voice did not appear to emanate from any particular alien. They had all stopped moving once the speaking took place and stood quietly in their black battle suits. Did I mention they were nearly fifteen feet tall? From a distance, without something to scale them against, it was quite a shock to be seeing the terrifying image of an extraterrestrial you had to actually look up to, one with ideas of conquest. The alien voice continued.

  “As our servants, you will enjoy lives of productive work rather than going to offices and shuffling piles of paper from copier to closet. Why bother pretending to be working on financial derivatives when you know you would rather be working in the fields, producing Triliaifid for our armies. Once you learn how to train them and control them, you will be excellent Triliaifid harvesters. We do not expect to lose more than fifty percent of your entire species in the first year. As you grow more experienced, that number will diminish significantly, and by year five, your population will begin to stabilize and return to positive numbers.”

  All of the faces around the table looked shocked and unbelieving at what they were hearing. Fifty percent of the population in a single year? The cheap president, President Walter Fox, stood up and adjusted his tie before speaking. “Walter Fox, Republican, President of the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth. I greet you in the name of our gathered coalition of friends from all over the globe.”

  His voice seemed to carry to everyone sitting around the courtyard, and several weak smiles returned to faces, as his familiar voice and oratory speech patterns returned order to the world. For a moment, even my head had stopped spinning, and I was beginning to feel hopeful. Some kind of resolution would be reached.

  “We are aware of who you are, President Fox. Please sit down. Your species lacks the proper ability to resist us, and by the standards of the Galactic Treaties of Confederation, your world now belongs to us by right of Conquest.”

  By right of Conquest. Hmmm. I had an idea. But I remember my mother saying better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I stood up, adjusted my tie and horn-rimmed glasses, and proceeded to make a statement that would affect the lives of billions. No pressure. “Excuse me, great Warlords of Hurumpharump.” I have an ear for language, so I added the proper juicy inflection; this, unfortunately left the president seated next to me in need of a handkerchief. “Masters of the Triliaifid and possible rulers of Earth, I would ask if there are any rules of conflict or engagement that might stipulate how combat between our species should be fought?”

  The Hurumpharump turned toward each other and then walked away from their positions behind the table to huddle together. The president looked up at me after wiping his jacket, but before he could speak, the Hurumpharump answered.

  “The Codex of War says we have the option of engaging in any contest we deem an effective display of strength. We have studied your planet for weeks and determined your military effectiveness cannot prevent us from dominating your world.”

  “Surely, such an advanced species would not consider it civilized to simply destroy a species without offering them a sporting chance to engage in a form of combat where true prowess could be determined.”

  They huddled again.

  “Continue your proposal.”

  “I propose we engage in a physical contest where technology is not a factor, allowing us both to see the other and relate as equals. If you are going to dominate us, it would be better if we knew that no matter the circumstances, you would be superior to us. Otherwise, as a species, we will simply rebel and rebel again.”

  “This is reasonable. Name your contest.”

  Looking out over the area, I realized we were in a park with a recreation center nearby. Then the idea struck me, and I knew in my gut it was the right choice.

  “Baseball. The contest is nine innings of baseball.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Doctor? Did you agree to risk the entire human race on a game of baseball?”

  “I don’t see the problem, Mr. President. The Hurumpharump agreed to play and would not wear their battle-armors. They only required a month to learn to play the game. They were certain their physical superiority would be enough to learn to play well enough to beat us. Frankly, it seemed better than depending on the military to win a contest with them. We can’t even take a picture of them unless they want us to. Were you really depending on the military to win? Mr. President, I understand the risks, but at least this way we get one shot at not becoming a harvesting world of Triliaifid spores where half the human race dies on the job.”

  “How do you know they will keep their word?”

  “President Fox, your politician is showing again. These are not politicians; they are warriors. They do not lie to an enemy if they do not have to. These creatures are beings of honor. I may not know much about them, but I do know this: they will keep their word. They never had to give it in the first place, so it must have value to their culture.”

  As I left the office, I turned to the president to say, “I trust you will keep your political intere
sts out of your negotiations, sir. If they discover you might tell a lie, they may be inclined to kill you when they discover it. I would go with open honest discourse whenever you deal with them. I know you are a politician, so it might be a stretch for you. Do your best.”

  “Where will you be, Doctor, in case I need you?”

  “With them, of course.”

  The Hurumpharump had a few conditions. They would be given access to a trainer or coach well versed in the game. As a matter of fact, they wanted the best the Earth had to offer. In addition, they wanted us to put up a stake to ensure we would give them the best training possible. They decided we would surrender every major league baseball player over the age of eighteen as collateral.

  The only team that would be exempt would be the team they would play against. If that team won, they would be allowed to retain their lives. If they lost, their lives were forfeit, and the Hurumpharump would rule the Earth for one thousand Earth years or five hundred birth cycles of the Triliaifid, whichever came first. Occasionally, a particularly fecund planet might alter their cycle, allowing them to reproduce even faster than normal. This has a slight effect on the handler’s population, but the benefits outweighed the risk.

  Coach David Reynolds, who at the time was the coach of the World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants, was chosen to represent the Hurumpharump team. Earth’s all-star team would be helmed by the coach of the New York Mets, Nevil Maynard. The all-stars were chosen from teams all over the Earth, and for the next thirty days, they would be training harder than ever. The game would be held in Yankee Stadium in New York and simulcast all over the world, in real time.

  The Hurumpharump desired to train in Florida, because without their suits, they preferred the heat and humidity. Fortunately for them (and I guess for us), it was summer in New York, so it was likely to be hot and humid during the game, which was to be held August 30.