The Haunting of Heatherbrae Station
A free short story
by Siri Paulson
14 May 18—, Earth reckoning
Dear Millie,
What a forlorn place this is! How far we have come from Mrs. Tattersall's London Academy for Female Tutors. I hope you are finding Luna Station, and your young charges, more amiable than mine. How often I imagined the two motherless children here, starved for a woman's gentle hand and eager to learn, as befits even the farthest-flung of Queen Victoria's young citizens. Even the thought of being trapped on the station for three months until the orbits lined up again did not deter me. But I fear I have made a dreadful mistake.
My first sight of Heatherbrae Station from the ethership's shuttle, as we made our approach yesterday, was daunting enough. The edifice loomed above us, ill-lit by the distant Sun, with the fantastic whorls of Saturn's surface behind. The station has ornate crenellations like a castle, and pointed arches along its axis—for it is shaped like a dumbbell, the Alpha end for the workers and the shuttlecraft they use to gather raw material from the rings, the middle for processing, and the Beta end for Stationmaster Edmund Croyden and his children and staff...and me. The whole rotates to provide gravity at each end. Quite ingenious; but from the shuttle it was dark and grim, and about it hovered a queer white light that gave me the chills.
I must have made some sound, for the pilot turned to me and grinned. "Cheerful, ain't it?" he said. "Welcome to your new home, Miss Okembe. Word is it's haunted."
"I do not hold with superstition," I told him.
Do you know what he said, Millie? "You should."
Well! I have not come so far from Nigeria only to withstand further mutterings and foolishness...or so I believed.
Band of Turquoise
Band of Turquoise
a free short story by Kit Campbell
Alice pulled her sweater closer as she moved into the graveyard. Stray, dead leaves swirled at her feet, and a band of turquoise lay heavily on her wrist. She resisted the urge to play with it, in case that broke the limited protection it gave her. She did not know how much time she had before Amy would realize she had gone, before the turquoise would no longer hide Alice’s whereabouts.
Fear caused her to move faster than she would otherwise. Her goal was the center of the graveyard, a statue of Death standing over his prey. Rumor said the statue had been there since the very beginning of the cemetery, if not before.
In the twilight, the graveyard was empty of other people--living ones, at least. Gravestones rose out of the darkness only to be wrapped back in once Alice had passed. The statue was unmistakable when she found it. She only hoped the rumors were true. She would not get a chance to try again.
Man's Best Friend
A free flash fiction piece by Siri Paulson
There's a new fad in town. It took me ages to win over the 'rents. Too much upkeep, they said, even though I promised to take care of it. Too big, too expensive, too dangerous, the aquarium wouldn't match the rec room decor. But I knew they'd give in. Can't be those parents.
My dad still doesn't like the new pet. Too creepy, as if it's watching him as it swims. But I like that. I watch it and it watches me back as it circles the tank, lifting to breathe, the water closing again over its domed head and webbed feet. It's as long as I am, and the aquarium takes up half of the rec room, where the VR used to be, but this is better than VR. Not human but not just fish anymore, smart but not really intelligent – the ads promised you could teach them tricks, showed them moving in tandem in different labs. But I don't want mine to be tamed.
Introducing Even the Score
One, two, three,
How many will my victims be?
One, two, three, four,
How many more to even the score?
When Taro Hibiki leads a survival class into the backwoods, he has two goals: to prove himself as an instructor, and to propose to his beloved Rafe before he loses his nerve completely. In the wilds might seem a strange place for that, but it's where Taro feels most at home—and the only place the couple can escape all their other responsibilities.
BFR’s colonists claim the name stands for “Big Effing Rock,” and boast of their planet's dangers. Yet more treacherous than sight-scamps or bomb bugs is a human seeking vengeance. Soon Taro's students are dropping one by one, and no matter what Taro does, the killer stays a step ahead. Worst of all, Taro suspects the students are targets of opportunity—that the ultimate goal is Rafe. Taro would die for Rafe in a heartbeat, but who's going to take care of Rafe if he does?
As it happens, the killer has a plan for that, too.
Even the Score will be available December 1st from Turtleduck Press. It takes place two years after the events of His Faithful Squire. Find a chronology of the Dream'verse here.
§
Trust Rafe to set the scene perfectly. We huddled in the deepest, narrowest part of a canyon called Fools Rush In. Sharp grey cliffs rose all around. Rafe the Victim lay in a tangle of rocks at the base of a blank face of stone, blood smeared in a few choice locations. I’d had to limit his artistic vision on that effect. Let him have his way and the trainees would declare him DOA due to blood loss, neatly avoiding their second test. I sat beside him, flicking through the files of my first class on a borrowed handcomp. There wasn’t much. Profile pictures carefully taken to erase all hint of personality, supposedly relevant facts that meant nothing...a criminal conviction ten years ago, high scores on an IQ test, parent of a toddler. Well, that one meant something, maybe—might mean that McCarney was used to life-and-death decisions while dead of sleep deprivation, unless he let his wife handle all that.
A stingfly fluttered by; I swatted it away from Rafe. “You’re sure you’re all right?” I’d moved a lot of the rocks from his chosen spot, but he hadn’t let me move all of them, for “verisimilitude” he said.
“I’m fine, my love.” Rafe smiled under the hat shielding his eyes and scratched at a patch of red on his arm. “Have you ever known me to suffer in silence?”
“Have I ever known you to do anything in silence?”
