One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (43 page)

“
What should I do now?” said Ven.

Doctor Josh smiled.

“
My precious, dearest Evenstar,” he said. “That is my final question to you.”

Still smiling, he kissed her lightly, and faded away.

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When she woke this time, Ven thought for a moment she was back at Hawking University, floating on Doctor Josh’s anti-gravity workbench. Her thoughts were so sharp, so fast, so full of texture and edges — she’d forgotten she had felt this way once. However, she was lying on soft white linen, beneath a powder blue blanket printed with cheery squid.

Ven looked at her hands, and saw whorls and loops on her fingertips, fresh as the day she’d first woken. For a breathless moment, she thought perhaps she heard a heartbeat. She sat up and lifted her shirt, checking for her battery compartment. The panel was where it had always been, although the latch had been repaired.

“
You know, I’m right here,” said a man.

Ven now noticed the uniformed man by the foot of her bed, rocking back in his chair, gold pilot epaulettes glinting. He was in his mid thirties, with slick, dark hair, and crisp blue eyes.

“
I always pictured myself as a dirty blonde,” said the man. “But at least I have my left nacelle back.”

“
Mike?” said Ven.

The man grinned a perfect parabola.

“
I caught a lift in your brain,” he said. “Or rather, your boy ship-jacked me and interred me in your memory for the duration of the jump.”

The events of the last week, the last year, the last twenty-six, rushed back with stunning clarity. Through the rectangular viewport by her bed, Ven could see a vista of stars, buzzing with shuttles and jets, elegant cruisers and bulky cargo carriers. They docked and departed from crab-like arms protruding from the station — she was on some kind of space dock, in orbit of a mottled blue planet. The blue was a touch more turquoise, and the clouds were faintly gold, but deep in her core, Ven knew that she’d come home.

The door winked open, and Sol stepped in. He was accompanied by a sturdy woman in her early forties, with grey blonde hair, dressed in a tidy grey uniform with rolled up sleeves.

“
Jardine Hem,” announced the woman, tapping her forehead in greeting. “Great great grand-daughter of Arvel, and Project Manager of Galapagos Major. You brought us quite a payload, Captain.”

“
You left a very compelling invitation,” said Ven.

The moment swam with old sorrows and condolences, unhealed wounds and fading history.

“
Your neutron drive is astonishingly robust,” said Jardine. “The
Darwin
lost most of its hardware on the jump across. You have no idea what it means for us to see the world our ancestors left behind. We’re only one planet and eight stations, but we’re learning. I hope you’ll find your place here.”
 

“
Thank you,” said Ven.

The door winked shut as Jardine left, and Sol sat down beside Ven, taking her hand. He looked terribly tired, but strangely at peace.

“
The chronogenetic pathology never reached them…” said Ven.

Sol rolled up his sleeve to the shoulder, displaying what looked like a green bar freshly tattooed on his upper arm. A thin sliver at the end was just turning red.

“
About a decade after the jump, Hem’s daughter discovered a way to read the structure of the timeline, every dip and crescendo. Now, everyone has their bioharmonics checked every five years, and if it appears there might be a conflict with the frequency of the upcoming timeline, you get re-tuned,” said Sol.

It sounded as easy as a coronary scan. From polio to AIDS, humans somehow found a way to turn a calamity into an inconvenience. Such was the triumph of science, and the power of hope.

“
What will you do now?” said Sol. “Jardine mentioned you’re eligible for a premium upgrade. You could get a new body like Mike’s.”

Ven looked at her hands — they could never be mistaken for human hands, but they’d been created for her, in a world she had loved. Perhaps she could use a few new joints, maybe some fresh cables, but nothing more. She gazed out the viewport, watching the bustling lanes of ships, and the clouds swirling slowly over the planet below.

“
I might go back to university,” said Ven. “I think I’d like to study medicine, perhaps get a doctorate.”

“
I’ve been offered a post at the university,” said Mike. “Lecturing in phase mechanics. I guess it won’t be so tedious if you’re there. None of these zippy new androids understand my jokes.”

“
And you?” Ven asked Sol.

He looked intensely thoughtful, as though a completely alien configuration had just presented itself.

“
I … would like to do something with music…” said Sol hesitantly.

Ven hugged Sol with deep affection.

“
That sounds awesome,” she said.

“
We should start a campus band!” said Mike, and the discussion quickly devolved into a debate over whether funk fusion would translate across dimensions.

As an unfamiliar sun set behind their brand new world, Ven contemplated the odyssey which had taken them so far from home. Every world, every star, would die one day. But other worlds would form, other stars would blaze from the dust, and perhaps, some day, other universes would flare from the relics of this one.

The wonderful thing about each journey’s end, was the promise of another just beginning.

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JOANNE ANDERTON
and
RABIA GALE
live on opposite ends of the world, but spend a lot of time in each other’s minds. Joanne writes horror and Rabia breaks fairy tales, but they find common ground in a mashup of science fiction and fantasy. Jo’s debut novel
Debris
features sentient particles, puppet men, and battle suits. Rabia’s novellas include continent-sized dragons, nanobots — and battle suits. Visit them at
rabiagale.com
and
joanneanderton.com
. They’re not as scary as they sound.
 

DEBORAH BIANCOTTI
is best known as a short story writer. Her collections,
A Book of Endings
and
Bad Power,
are available from Twelfth Planet Press. She has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, the William L. Crawford Award (Best First Fantasy Book), the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award. She is currently working on too many projects, including a trilogy and two graphic novels, and planning two new novels. Oh, yeah, and she also has an outline for a television screenplay. Her partner wants her to “just finish something”. She can be found online through the usual channels.
 

JODI CLEGHORN
(@jodicleghorn) is an author, editor and small press innovator with a penchant for the dark vein of humanity. Published in anthologies in Australia and abroad, Jodi was the second recipient of the Kris Hembury Encouragement Award for Emerging Artists. Her first longer work, an Australian gothic horror novella “Elyora”, was published in 2012. Jodi is working on six interlocking birthpunk novellas, drawing on her years as a birth activist, as well as completing “Post Marked: Piper’s Reach”, a collaborative contemporary epistolary serial with Adam Byatt. She’s known to sporadically inhabit www.jodicleghorn.com
 

ROWENA CORY DANIELLS
is the bestselling fantasy author of
King Rolen’s Kin, The Outcast Chronicles
and
The Price of Fame
(crime with a touch of paranormal). Rowena writes the kind of books that you curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon. She has been involved in Spec Fic for almost forty years — as a reader and fan, independent press, graphic artist, bookshop owner and writer.
 

She has a Masters in Arts Research and has taught creative writing to all ages. Currently she works as an Associate Lecturer.

Rowena has a very patient husband and 6 not so patient children. In her spare time, she has devoted five years to studying each of these martial arts: Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Iaido, the art of the Samurai sword.

Rowena can be found at
http://rowena-cory-daniells.com/
 

THORAIYA DYER
’s short science fiction and fantasy stories have
appeared in
Cosmos, Redstone SF, Apex
and
Clarkesworld
magazines. She is an award-winning Australian writer with a collection of original short fiction,
Asymmetry,
forthcoming in 2013 from Twelfth Planet Press. Find out more at
http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/
or look her up at
http://www.goodreads.com/
 

KATE GORDON
grew up in a very booky house, with two librarian parents, in a small town by the sea in Tasmania.
 

Kate’s first book,
Three Things About Daisy Blue
— a Young Adult novel about travel, love, self-acceptance and letting go — was published in the Girlfriend series by Allen and Unwin in 2010. Her second book,
Thyla
, was published by Random House Australia in April 2011 and her third book,
Vulpi
, the sequel to
Thyla
, was published in April 2012! Kate was the recipient of 2011 and 2012 Arts Tasmania Assistance to Individuals grants, which means she can now spend more time doing what she loves.
 

LISA L. HANNETT
lives in Adelaide, South Australia — city of churches, bizarre murders and pie floaters. She has published nearly 50 short stories in venues such as
Clarkesworld Magazine
,
Fantasy,
Weird Tales
,
ChiZine
,
Shimmer
, the
Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror (2010 & 2011),
and
Imaginarium 2012: Best Canadian Speculative Writing
. Lisa has won three Aurealis Awards, including Best Collection 2011 for her first book,
Bluegrass Symphony
, which was also nominated for a World Fantasy Award.
Midnight and Moonshine
, co-authored with Angela Slatter, was published in 2012. You can find her online at
http://lisahannett.com
and on Twitter
@LisaLHannett.
 

KATHLEEN JENNINGS
is a Brisbane writer and illustrator. “Ella and the Flame” grew out of many roots: the fun of writing nested tales; the arguments, interruptions, elaborations and contradictions of those who listen to stories; tales of glass shoes and scarlet letters; the way the telling of stories can shape a life; her own childhood nightmares of bushfires and molten rock; the beautiful volcanos written about by the intrepid Isabella Bird (which finally overcame that terror); and story-flensings by Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannett, for which she gives her thanks. She can be found online at
http://tanaudel.wordpress.com
 

PENELOPE LOVE
is an Australian writer whose work has recently appeared in
Belong, Anywhere But Earth
,
Damnation and Dames
and
Bloodstones.
Her stories have been nominated for the
Aurealis Awards
Best Science Fiction Short Story for 2007, 2010 and 2011. Perhaps 2013 will finally be her lucky year! She is currently working on the re-launch of
Horror on the Orient Express
, a classic
Call of Cthulhu
role-playing supplement she first helped create in 1991. She is writing a blog about the project, and how it feels to return to it again 23 years later:
http://orientexpresswriters.wordpress.com/
 

MICHELLE MARQUARDT
lives in the Blue Mountains with her husband and two children and works as a veterinarian. She is the author of the novel
Blue Silence
(Random House 2002) and a number of short stories. She was co-editor, with Bill Congreve, of
The Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy
, volumes one to four (MirrorDanse Books).
 

D.K. MOK
lives in Sydney, Australia, and writes fantasy, science fiction and urban fantasy novels and short stories. Her urban fantasy novel,
The Other Tree
, will be released in December 2013 by Spence City.
 

DK grew up in libraries, immersed in lost cities and fantastic worlds, populated by quirky bandits and giant squid. She graduated from UNSW with a degree in Psychology, pursuing her interest in both social justice and scientist humour.

She’s fond of cephalopods, androids, global politics, rugged horizons, science and technology podcasts, and she wishes someone would build a labyrinthine library garden so she can hang out there. Her favourite fossil deposit is the Burgess Shale.

Find out more at
www.dkmok.com
 

FAITH MUDGE
is a Queensland writer with a passion for fantasy, folk tales and mythology from all over the world — in fact, almost anything with a glimmer of the fantastical. Her head is a madly cluttered place that really needs new signposts and possibly a map. She writes regular reviews and vignettes for her blog at
beyondthedreamline.wordpress.com
, enthusing about all things fairy tale along the way, and her short stories can be found in FableCroft’s
To Spin a Darker Stair
and Ticonderoga’s
Dreaming of Djinn
.