“Malorchia (part of The Langford Joh Saga)” by William Alan Rieser

My code name is Iron Feather, and I am writing this to honor an old request from my father, the former Earth Ambassador to the Confederation, the recently departed and much-admired Langford Joh. I refer to a conversation we had once in which he chided me on my poor ability to select a proper mate. Naturally, he brought up my mother and his own superlative traits as an example for me to emulate. Of course, he was thinking pure Earth at the time. Neither of us were contemplating an interspecies romance, certainly not an intergalactic one. I’ll let the reader decide if I was hasty or foolish.

“A Threadbare Tailor” by Sean Hower

“And that’s when Asyan understood that he not only lost his wealth. He lost his family, his reputation, and his dignity. Left with nothing, he spent the rest of his years seeking, obsessed with the treasure he had lost, and died a lonely man.”

The two-dozen people who had gathered around Thomas Grayweed at the Drunken Wolf, a pub in the Lower House District of the City of the Windy Mountain, applauded. As usual, Thomas’ story did not disappoint and his audience rewarded him with admiration and a few coins. It was no average accomplishment for a four-foot-tall rat living in a land of humans. His fatherly manner, his value as an oddity, and his knack as an entertainer had done much to promote his acceptance.

“Another, Master Storyteller!” a few begged.

“The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Star Pilot” by Lee Moan

JOURNAL ENTRY #3138 Date: 11/04/2199 Time: 1046

This is Cory Dealth, captain and pilot of the cargo freighter, Alexa. I’ve just chartered the final leg of our course for Delta Centauri, but I’m certain that I won’t reach journey’s end alive. I am in the grip of “the Sorrow”, “the Loneliness”, “the Pilot’s Despair”; it doesn’t matter what you call it, I know it has only one cure — death.

“Light Source” (a Prof. Paula J. Lynch story) by E.S. Strout

“No longer are laser guns the stuff of Hollywood and Strategic Defense Initiative fantasy. The Pentagon inside of a decade could be armed with such a beam weapon….”
— Oakland Tribune, October 19, 2003

“You are the one, Neo.”
— The Matrix

1.

Professor Paula J. Lynch plopped her duffel bag on the steel deck and waited. The space station’s airlock wheezed open in slow motion.

“Expetais” by Jeff Hemsley

I sensed no movement in the air and heard no sounds except my bare feet slowly padding along. I felt exposed walking down the deserted long hallway, so I kept as much to the side of the corridor as I could, though diffuse white light from the ceiling lit the ash-white walls and made hiding impossible. I didn’t know it then, but stealth wouldn’t have mattered. Doors on each side had small windows laced with wire set at about eye level. The rooms were empty except for a single chair facing away from the door and towards a blank wall. I had a vague memory of sitting in one of those chairs while a disembodied voice echoed off the room’s bare walls. The memory was like a dream, without coherence or concreteness.

“Failure to Communicate” by Ed McKeown

“What is it?” Over-General Ulat demanded, in tones of nitrogen with an overlay of imperious oxygen. “You’re ruining my contemplation of our glorious victory. ” He angled a stalked eye at the glowing remains of the humans’ small advance base on the horizon. The strange creatures with their superior technology had fallen to a surprise assault.

“Autumn Haiku in the Year 2278″ by Anjali Chandi

under three moons
a rush of nanofireflies
– October wind

“Memoirs of a Bounty Hunter” by Frederick G. Soper

I am a bounty hunter. I had never been and never wanted to be anything different, until now.

I have chased Sally “Twinkle Toes” Barnett for over six months. She took me to Ganymede, Titan, and finally Moon Shadow, where I caught up with and arrested her.

“Heads” by Brian Wright

If she’d sprouted a third head at that moment it would have been less of a shock. The two sets of yellow eyes were staring into mine. “I’m having a baby,” her voices said in unison.

10 Years Ago in Planet… “Konen in Recovery” by Andrew G. McCann

The plump, balding psychoanalyst shifted in his chocolate-brown Naugahyde Execu-Chair. He looked down briefly, then up, his expression a mask. The air-conditioner hummed softly as he spoke to the large, battle-scarred warrior sitting on the client side of the white Formica desk.