In John Scalzi’s Hugo-nominated novel Old Man’s War, men and women of every nationality, sexual orientation, and skin shade work together to protect human colonized worlds from alien species who want to claim those precious worlds for themselves. On the other hand, The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey delivers a future where our entire solar system has been colonized, but humanity fails to unite against an alien threat, instead using this ancient alien artifact as a weapon to destabilize the delicate balance of power, pitting faction against faction in a deadly, politically charged environment where many humans are used as pawns and ultimately lose their lives. Similarly, Dan Simmons’s Hugo Award winner Hyperion tells the tale of a future where Earth is already dead and a group of men and women are sent as pilgrims to placate a mysterious creature called the Shrike in order to preserve the hegemony of mankind spread across the galaxy.
Exploring possible futures like these through story, illuminating our humanity in the face of new extraordinary challenges, is the space opera writer’s job. Through an author’s mind we experience humanity pushed to its limits firsthand, expanding our potential, revealing what is possible. These may be stories of personal triumph, cautionary tales, descriptions of futility in the face of an uncaring universe, and so much more. In them we learn what potential futures may await us.
It is often said that readers lead a thousand lives. By reading science fiction we can lead those lives with challenges we could never face during our brief existence on Earth. In the following pages you will find your chance to live a dozen more lives within tiny little universes that will exist only for you for a very short time. May they open your eyes, your heart, your mind.
About Jen
As a child growing up in rural Illinois, Jennifer Foehner Wells had the wild outdoors, a budding imagination, and books for company. Her interest in science fiction was piqued early on when a family friend loaned her a Ray Bradbury compilation, among loads of other wonderful sci-fi books. Jen currently lives an alternately chaotic and fairly bucolic existence in Indiana with two boisterous little boys, two semi-crazed cats, and a neurotic chihuahua mix. You can find her on Twitter, extolling science and sci-fi fandoms, as @Jenthulhu. To find out more about Jen, visit: www.jenthulhu.com.
The Good Food
by Michael Ezell
THE DROP-SHIP’S RETROS kicked in hard, blowing away rich black soil that had crept onto the landing pad over the decades since someone had last been there.
Self-adjusting struts scraped against the ferrocrete surface as the ship’s weight settled onto the planet. The specially treated ferrocrete didn’t allow plants to grow on the half-mile square, otherwise it would have been taken over long ago. Aggressive green life rose up all around the landing pad. A jungle world, ruled by trees and vines, populated solely by insects. Until today.
Inside the drop-ship, Jensen unbuckled himself from the pilot’s couch. He giggled out loud in the empty cabin. Pilot. More like a glorified gardener sent to spread some new shit around the back forty. The computer did all the—
“Touchdown, Jensen. You may move about the cabin now.”
“Yeah, thanks, Moira,” Jensen said.
The words came out a little garbled. His throat felt like he tried to swallow a jellyfish. Hypersleep phlegm. All this tech and they still couldn’t solve that one. The eggheads who sent him assured him it would clear up within thirty-six hours of waking. Going on three days now and he still sounded like a four-pack-a-day smoker.
“What’s the distance to the anomaly line?” Jensen said.
“Three-point-seven miles from the center of the pad. It has gotten closer, Jensen.”
“Yeah, I know. I read the brief.”
“Just making conversation. You don’t have to be crabby.”
Supposedly, they modeled the ship’s AI on Moira Tiernan, the designer of these long-range ships. Jensen always envisioned her as a woman who’d insist on paying her half of the dinner tab and give you a hearty handshake at the end of the date.
“Shall I begin the wake up procedure for Roy?” Moira said.
“Sure. Bet he’s gonna pee all over every tree in sight,” Jensen said.
“Doubtful. There is no significant buildup of waste during stasis.”
“Yeah, yeah! Geez, Moira, it’s a figure of speech. Let in some light, will ya?”
Jensen stood and stretched his back as Moira opened the reentry shields over the thick windows. The odd bluish tinge to the sunlight streaming in made the bridge feel like the inside of a fish tank. He’d been told, even shown photos, but still...
Not even Moira interrupted this first silent stare at Seed World Four-Seven-Alpha. A lush primordial jungle, with small insects buzzing, flitting, jumping, carrying on a furious pace of life. Two centuries of terraforming had paid off.
But just a bit over three miles from here, the greenery ended on a neat line that ran arrow-straight for a quarter mile. A mass extinction that photos from Four-Seven-Alpha’s lone monitoring satellite couldn’t explain.
The clickety-click of toenails on the deck announced Roy’s arrival. The dog looked like Jensen felt. Groggy, a little off center, and in need of a good stretch.
“Hey, boy!” Jensen put out a hand and Roy trotted over. Big for a Belgian Malinois, Roy’s shoulders came up to Jensen’s waist. Jensen scrubbed the reddish-blond fur behind the dog’s ears and Roy responded with a deep play bow that stretched his back. Vertebrae crackled and Roy shook himself like he’d just come in from a rainstorm.
He nuzzled Jensen’s hand, flipped it up with his nose. Jensen laughed and scrubbed between Roy’s ears again. “You’re gettin’ soft, trooper.”
Roy trotted over and put his front paws on the window ledge to look out into the jungle. A flexible speaker implanted in the dog’s neck turned throaty growls into an approximation of human speech using a few basic words and phrases.
“Go pee.”
Jensen cocked an eyebrow at the camera in the cabin ceiling. “Moira? Anything to say about that?”
“The lower hatch is open. Tell that mutt not to urinate on my flanks.”
Cold, crisp, the air tasted oddly like a fruit flavored gum from back home. He’d been more than a little leery of stepping outside without a helmet, but Moira called him a pussy. A pussy! A damn computer shouldn’t be able to talk to a decorated veteran like that. Sure, there was enough oxygen to keep him alive here, but what if the plant extinction had something to do with an airborne pathogen?
Moira reminded him that whatever killed off the plants hadn’t harmed anything else. The insects were still alive.
So off he went with Roy, but he still wore his combat suit and carried a maglev rifle. Damned if he would let a smartass computer shame him into getting killed. He tried to keep his combat edge, but the three-mile walk through gorgeous flora eventually had him admiring his surroundings. Sweet smelling tube flowers at least two feet across, their petals every color combination Jensen’s brain could process, and some it couldn’t, with yellow stamen thicker than his arm. More plants no higher than his ankle with flowers the size of his pinkie nail. He let Roy range ahead and mark his new territory. And the dog had a lot to mark. Trees and vines arched up into a canopy that displayed its own rainbow of fruits above Jensen’s head. Which the millions of bugs here put to good use. Making more bugs.