Launch Pad (36 page)

“Can I have a volunteer?” Christie asked. Dozens of hands shot up. She stood up and walked off the dais. One of the stage hands hurried to hand her a wireless mike. Christie picked a man from the second row, who rushed forward, cheeks red. Christie picked up a scanner and passed it down the length of his body. Immediately, the graphic on the retina screen was replaced by a rainbow row of colored bars, some more intense than others. She turned to study it. “That’s very interesting. You have some hidden talents that you ought to investigate. Here’s the analysis of your reading.” The retina screen split, showing a page of text. Doug suspected the fortune was very quickly adapted from “Your luck today, Aries, will be …”

It didn’t matter what it said. Everyone loved the idea of a personalized reading. The audience erupted in cheers, followed by a sea of hands and lights all waving for attention. They wanted their turn.

“This isn’t serious science,” Director McDonald said.

“No, ma’am,” Christie said, confidently. “It’s all in good fun. And everyone attending the conference will get a free reading. But it’s time for me to hand the microphone to Professor Farah Mendlesohn.” Christie handed the mike back to the staff member and mounted the stage steps. She sat down between Amir and Farah.

“What about the exoplanets?” Conrad’s shill in the audience bellowed.

“Exactly as all our colleagues have determined,” Farah said. “ATSA would never risk the lives of human beings on something that has not been rigorously investigated. The images from each of the probes, plus all the other data, are there for you to download from the ATSA website. You can get a good look at humankind’s new homes. Someday many of you will be out there.”

Conrad rose and scurried down the other side of the stage. He vanished into the crowd. Doug was happy to see him go. It was too much to hope that he would resign from the Verley project. He would probably go on glowering at everyone, but Doug doubted he would ever harass anyone. He did hope that Conrad would get funding for the remote telescope beyond Mars. Then they’d never have to deal with him again.

When the astronomers’ time was up, they ceded the panel to the three colony ship captains and their support personnel. Rob met Doug at the bottom of the stairs.

“She handled it well,” Rob said. “The project’s back on track, and Christie’s going to make a billion dollars. She earned it.”

“I almost had tears in my eyes,” Doug said.

Rob grinned. “Me, too. One day, I’m going to make a movie about all this.”

“Wait for it,” Doug advised him. He held out his tablet computer. “I just got word from the grad students still on the Verley. Another Landis probe just came back through the wormhole. We got another positive.”

“Another one of hers?” Rob asked, his blue eyes wide.

“Yes,” Doug said. “I hate to say it, but maybe there’s something to be said for crystal balls. She really does see things we don’t.”

***

About the Authors

Jody Lynn Nye

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories.

Before breaking away from gainful employment to write full time, Jody worked as a file clerk, bookkeeper at a small publishing house, freelance journalist, and photographer, accounting assistant and costume maker. For four years, she was on the technical operations staff of a local Chicago television station, ending as Technical Operations Manager.

Since 1987 she has published 45 books and more than 110 short stories. Although she is best known as a collaborator with other notable authors such as Anne McCaffrey (the Ship Who series, the Dinosaur Planet series), Robert Asprin (Dragons and the Myth-Adventures), John Ringo (Clan of the Claw) and Piers Anthony, Jody has numerous solo books to her credit, mostly fantasy and science fiction with a humorous bent. Her newest book is Fortunes of the Imperium (Baen Books), the second of the Lord Thomas Kinago books, which she describes as “Jeeves and Wooster in space.” Over the last twenty-five years or so, Jody has taught in numerous writing workshops and speaks at schools and libraries, and teaches the two-day writers’ workshop at DragonCon in Atlanta. When not writing, she enjoys baking, calligraphy, travel, photography and, of course, reading.

Jody lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with her husband, Bill Fawcett, and Jeremy, their cat.

jodylynnnye.com

Kevin R. Grazier, PhD

Kevin R. Grazier, PhD.
is currently the science advisor on TNT’s
Falling Skies, Syfy’s Defiance,
and the blockbuster film
Gravity.
He previously served as science advisor on
Eureka,
the Peabody-award-winning
Battlestar Galactica,
and several other series. He was the co-author of
The Science of Battlestar Galactica,
and editor/contributing author of
Hollywood Chemistry: When Science Met Entertainment.

Grazier is a recovering rocket scientist, and spent 15 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan. Still an active researcher, his research areas are numerical method development and long-term large-scale computer simulations of Solar System dynamics, evolution, and chaos.

Dr. Grazier also teaches classes in basic astronomy, planetary science, cosmology, the search for extraterrestrial life, and the science of science fiction, at UCLA, and Santa Monica College. He also serves on multiple NASA educational product review panels.

In 2001 Dr. Grazier was named the first-ever honorary chairperson for Oakland University’s “Week of Champions” (homecoming) celebration, eight years later he won OU’s Odyssey Award given to the alumni whose life most typifies the university’s motto: To Seek Virtue and Knowledge, and in 2013 he was named an “Outstanding Alumnus” by the Purdue University Department of Computer Sciences.

Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey A. Landis
is a physicist and a SF writer. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards for his fiction, and in his day job, works at the NASA John Glenn Research Center on developing advanced technologies for space missions. He was a guest lecturer at Launch Pad in 2012
.

Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel’s fiction has appeared in
Lightspeed
,
Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Electric Velocipede, Apex Magazine
, the anthologies
After, Naked City, The People of the Book, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk
, and other markets. He was a World Fantasy Award finalist in the category of Special Award, Non-Professional for his magazine
Sybil’s Garage
and his publishing venture, Senses Five Press. With Senses Five Press he published
Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy
, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2008. For nearly a decade he has been a member of the Altered Fluid writing group. When he’s not learning Yiddish or playing the trumpet, he co-curates the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series beside Ellen Datlow in Manhattan. His blog and website are at:

matthewkressel.net

Mike Brotherton, PhD

Mike Brotherton, PhD,
is the author of the science fiction novels
Star Dragon
(2003) and
Spider Star
(2008), both from TOR Books, as well as a number of short stories. He’s a professor of astronomy at the University of Wyoming and investigates active galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope and nearly every observatory that will give him time on their facilities. He is the founder of the NASA and National Science Foundation funded Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers, which brings a dozen award-winning professional writers to Wyoming every summer. He blogs about science and science fiction at:

www.mikebrotherton.com.

Mary A. Turzillo

Mary A. Turzillo’s
novelette
“Mars Is no Place for Children” won a 1999 Nebula, and, along with her novel
An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl,
is recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been nominated for the British Science Fiction Association Award
(
“Eat or Be Eaten, a Love Story”
)
and the Pushcart
(Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, vanZeno),
the Stoker, the Elgin, and Dwarf Stars. She won a third place for long poem in the 2011 Rhysling awards and has recent and forthcoming work in
Asimov’s, Analog,
and
Stamps, Vamps and Tramps.
Her latest book is
Lovers & Killers, Dark Regions 2012.

Jay Lake

Jay Lake was a popular, critically acclaimed Pacific Northwest author known for his novels and short fiction. He won or was nominated for the Writers of the Future Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the World Fantasy Award. His books include
Kalimpura
,
Last Plane To Heaven, Love in the Tme of Metal and Fles
h, and his last novel,
METAtropolis: The Wings We Dare Aspire
, a collaboration with Ken Scholes, which was released in 2014 by WordFire Press, shortly before his death after a long battle with colon cancer.

Tiffany Trent

Tiffany Trent
is the award-winning author of the young adult novels
The Unnaturalists
and
The Tinker King,
as well as the
Hallowmere series.
Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including
Corsets & Clockwork, Magic in the Mirrorstone,
and
Willful Impropriety.
When not writing, she is out playing with bees. Visit her at:

www.tiffanytrent.com.

Jake Kerr

Jake Kerr
is a science fiction author of short fiction whose works have appeared in
Lightspeed, Fireside, Escape Pod, Zui Found,
and other publications and anthologies. His first published story, “The Old Equations,”
was nominated for the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and StorySouth Million Writers awards. He lives in Texas with his wife and three daughters.

Michael Kurland

Michael Kurland
writes fantasy, SF and mysteries with equal hubris. He is the recipient of two Edgar scrolls and was nominated for an American Book Award for his first Moriarty novel,
The Infernal Device.
Among his other works are
The Last President
(With S.W. Barton),
Death by Gaslight, Ten Little Wizards, A Study in Sorcery, The Unicorn Girl,
and
Star Griffin.
His most recent work of nonfiction, an idiosyncratic history of Forensic Science called
Irrefutable Evidence,
has enjoyed a European vogue. The latest Moriarty novel,
Who Thinks Evil,
will be released February 2014 to great acclaim. He is the author of
It’s a Mystery to Me,
an entertaining and informative work on how to write mystery and suspense fiction. His works have been translated into Chinese, Czech, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and some alphabet full of little pothooks and curlicues. Mr. Kurland presently lives in a Secular Humanist Hermitage in a secluded bay north of San Francisco, California, where he kills and skins his own vegetables. He may be communicated with through his website:

michaelkurland.com.

Sandra McDonald

Sandra McDonald’s first collection of fiction
Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories
was a Booklist Editor’s Choice, an American Library Association Over the Rainbow Book and winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Her story “Sexy Robot Mom” recently won an Asimov’s Readers’ Poll award. Four of her stories have been noted on the James A. Tiptree Award Honor List for exploring gender stereotypes. She is the published author of several novels and more than sixty short stories for adults and teens, including the award-winning Fisher Key Adventures and the gay asexual thriller
City of Soldiers
. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine and teaches college in Florida.

Doug Farren

Doug Farren
is an indie author publishing his books through Amazon, Smashwords, and Createspace. His other works include: The Galactic Alliance series (
Translight, Chroniech, Honor Thy Enemy
, and soon-to-be released
Peacekeeper
); the Dragonverse series (
Dragonverse—The Adventure Begins
and
Ishnef’s Revenge
);
Off Course
; and
When Ships Mutiny
. Doug is a U.S. Navy veteran having served as a nuclear propulsion plant operator (nuclear ET) aboard surface vessels for 11 years. He currently resides in Northeast Ohio and works as an instrument technician at a nuclear power plant. His wife, Cheryl, has been proofing his books since shortly after they were married in 2003. He dreams of retiring from a “working” life so he can spend more time writing
.

Matthew S. Rotundo

Matthew S. Rotundo’s
stories have appeared in
Intergalactic Medicine Show, Jim Baen’s Universe,
and
Writers of the Future Volume XXV
. Matt also plays guitar and has been known to sing karaoke. Although he lives in Nebraska, he has husked corn only once in his life, and has never been detasseling, so he insists he is not a hick. Learn more about Matt at:

www.matthewsrotundo.com.

***