Vandana Singh | Ruminations in an Alien Tongue
Sitting on the sun-warmed step at the end of her workday, Birha laid her hand on the dog’s neck and let her mind drift. Like a gyre-moth finding the center of its desire, her mind inevitably spiraled ...
3 Apr 201252min
Steven Utley | Test
Something is eating the starship Stephen W. Hawking, chewing it slowly and efficiently to pieces. Hurtling through hyperspace, or merely hanging suspended therein (who can really tell about hyperspace...
27 Mar 201228min
David Barr Kirtley | Beauty
Nicole Sanders was beautiful. One night after work, she stopped off at a bar downtown, which is where she met the beast. “Hi,” the beast said, in a gentle voice. “Can I buy you a drink?” Narrated by J...
20 Mar 201218min
Kathleen Ann Goonan | Electric Rains
Ella sat by Nana’s body for two days before she pushed it out the window. She had spent the first half-day realizing what death was, the next half-day grieving, the following morning waking and feelin...
20 Mar 201245min
Mary Rosenblum | My She
I wait outside the speaking chamber, where the young Speakers learn to Hear and Speak. The walls and carpeted floor are purest white, the color of this God place and the Speakers who live here walk by...
13 Mar 201246min
S. L. Gilbow | Alarms
My curse is that I set off alarms. Smoke alarms. Car alarms. House alarms. It doesn’t matter what kind; I set them all off as soon as I get close to them. Close is usually about thirty feet. I don’t k...
6 Mar 201246min
Carrie Vaughn | Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil
Carefully, with gloved hands, she removed the object from its stone niche, where it had rested for centuries deep underground, inside the dormant volcano where the mysterious Icelandic cult that guard...
28 Feb 201250min
Gregory Benford | Dark Sanctuary
In the asteroid belt you either have fast reflexes or you’re a statistic. I slammed into the airlock bulkhead and stopped dead, waiting to see where the laser beam would hit next. Narrated by John Rub...
13 Feb 201234min
