Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 31, March 2018: Galaxy's Edge, #31
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 31, March 2018: Galaxy's Edge, #31
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 31, March 2018: Galaxy's Edge, #31
    Ebook291 pages5 hours

    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 31, March 2018: Galaxy's Edge, #31

    By Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Nancy Kress and Robert J. Sawyer

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy

    ISSUE 31: March 2018

    Mike Resnick, Editor
    Taylor Morris, Copyeditor
    Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

    Stories: Michael Haynes, Robert Jeschonek, Nancy Kress, Matt Dovey, Brennan Harvey, Regina Kanyu Wang, Robert Silverberg, Larry Hodges, George Nikolopoulos, Robert J. Sawyer, Jon Lasser, Steven H Silver, Orson Scott Card

    Serialization: Daughter of Elysium by Joan Slonczewski

    Columns by: Robert J. Sawyer, Gregory Benford

    Recommended Books: Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye

    Interview: Joy Ward interviews Greg Bear

    Galaxy's Edge is a Hugo-nominated bi-monthly magazine published by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor, an award winning independent press based in Maryland. Each issue of the magazine has a mix of new and old stories, a serialization of a novel, columns by Robert J. Sawyer and Gregory Benford, book recommendations by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye and an interview conducted by Joy Ward.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhoenix Pick
    Release dateFeb 26, 2018
    ISBN9781612424057
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 31, March 2018: Galaxy's Edge, #31
    Author

    Orson Scott Card

    Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and its many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into the Ender Saga, which chronicles the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, which follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and is set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, which tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers." Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog. The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. He is the author many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), and stand-alone novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's work also includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card. He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.

    Read more from Orson Scott Card

    Related to Galaxy’s Edge Magazine

    Titles in the series (43)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Secrets Of The Ice Giants

      Nov 3, 2022

      Secrets Of The Ice Giants
      9 min read

    • Article

      Take A Chance With SF Noir

      Jul 1, 2021

      Tyche Books is a Canadian small-press specialising in science-fiction and fantasy anthologies, novels, and non-fiction, all available as ebooks and trade paperbacks. The editorial team ‘crave innovative stories that push the boundaries of imagination

      1 min read

    • Article

      Master at Work

      Jun 25, 2023

      Master at Work
      13 min read

    • Article

      Behind The Scenes

      Oct 18, 2021

      Behind The Scenes
      8 min read

    • Article

      Feedback

      May 11, 2023

      Feedback
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Won’t Let The Bastards Grind Me Down’: John Lydon On Grief, Feuds And Being An Unlikely Optimist

      Jul 29, 2023

      There’s a term for people that live in Malibu – they’re called Malubians,” claims a cackling John Lydon. “It sounds like something that has to be cut off at an early age.” The artist formerly known, in his Sex Pistols days, as Johnny Rotten is speaki

      7 min read

    • Article

      Get To Know Fleabag's 'Hot Priest' Andrew Scott

      May 13, 2021

      If you want to make Andrew Scott visibly squirm in his seat, ask him how he feels about single-handedly causing a 162 per cent increase in searches for religious porn. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ A nervous laugh. ‘There you go. Right.’ A pause before a valiant s

      6 min read

    • Article

      Bob Odenkirk Has A New Memoir And A Starry Career That Began Here — Look At The Ways Naperville Creeps Into His Writing. What Does He Think Of Where He Is Now?

      Mar 2, 2022

      Bob Odenkirk Has A New Memoir And A Starry Career That Began Here — Look At The Ways Naperville Creeps Into His Writing. What Does He Think Of Where He Is Now?
      10 min read

    • Article

      Monster

      Dec 1, 2022

      Monster
      7 min read

    • Article

      Alexander The great

      Apr 13, 2023

      Alexander The great
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Book

      Oct 30, 2019

      The Book
      20 min read

    • Article

      Spray Tan, Short Shorts And Not A Care In The World: My Quest To Have A Big, Dim Himbo Summer

      Aug 6, 2022

      It was in May this year that we perhaps reached peak himbo. Standing around a map of the UK, England midfielder Jordan Henderson beckoned over his teammate Jack Grealish to reveal the answer to a challenge he’d taken part in. “I had to guess where yo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Watch Your Step

      Nov 19, 2020

      Watch Your Step
      5 min read

    • Article

      Box 8 Waipu LETTERS

      Oct 24, 2021

      HI PAUL, Nostalgia is great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Wild Honey article; I saw it at Autorama in ‘67 and in subsequent years. I have the ‘69 and ‘70 Autorama programmes, and I also have the Australian Hot Rod magazine depicted in the article pho

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Many Careers of Joe Ide

      Oct 20, 2017

      The Many Careers of Joe Ide
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Turn

      Aug 14, 2019

      HERE’S a story. In college I entered the spring semester of my freshman year on academic probation. There wasn’t one reason this happened. There were many. I had signed up for a computer science class called Digital Security with no programming knowl

      5 min read

    • Article

      Cosmic Mindlessness

      Jul 27, 2017

      Cosmic Mindlessness
      2 min read

    • Article

      Posthole

      Nov 16, 2016

      I found “No Dogs Allowed” (45.1) by Heather Hansman interesting. No doubt ski edges and connective tissue injuries are a concern. However, Hansman left out one important benefit to skiing with dogs: A plastic bag full of warm, steaming poo serves as

      4 min read

    • Article

      Dennis Cooper: ‘I’m Saddled With This Cult Writer Thing’

      Nov 4, 2023

      Dennis Cooper, 70, was born in Los Angeles and lives in Paris. His novels include The Sluts (2004) and the five-book George Miles cycle, an experimental tableau of disturbingly violent gay desire that began with 1989’s Closer, now reissued as a Serpe

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Galaxy’s Edge Magazine

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Galaxy’s Edge Magazine - Orson Scott Card

      ISSUE 31: MARCH 2018

      Mike Resnick, Editor

      Taylor Morris, Copyeditor

      Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

      Published by Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

      P.O. Box 10339

      Rockville, MD 20849-0339

      Galaxy’s Edge is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November.

      Galaxy’s Edge is an invitation-only magazine. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Unsolicited manuscripts will be disposed of or mailed back to the sender (unopened) at our discretion.

      All material is either copyright © 2018 by Arc Manor LLC, Rockville, MD, or copyright © by the respective authors as indicated within the magazine. All rights reserved.

      This magazine (or any portion of it) may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      ISBN: 978-1-61242-405-7

      SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION:

      Paper and digital subscriptions are available. Please visit our home page: www.GalaxysEdge.com

      ADVERTISING:

      Advertising is available in all editions of the magazine. Please contact advert@GalaxysEdge.com.

      FOREIGN LANGUAGE RIGHTS:

      Please refer all inquiries pertaining to foreign language rights to Shahid Mahmud, Arc Manor, P.O. Box 10339, Rockville, MD 20849-0339. Tel: 1-240-645-2214. Fax 1-310-388-8440. Email admin@ArcManor.com.

      www.GalaxysEdge.com

      Table of Contents

      The Editor’s Word, by Mike Resnick

      Death Rides Shotgun, by Michael Haynes

      The Stars So Black, The Space So White, by Robert Jeschonek

      Frog Watch, by Nancy Kress

      Things Said to Me in the Anxari Station Bar..., by Matt Dovey

      You Get Hit and Your Moose Goes Ping, by Brennan Harvey

      The Gift, by Regina Kanyu Wang

      The Dead Man’s Eyes, by Robert Silverberg

      The Electrifying Aftermath of a Demon Thrice Summoned, by Larry Hodges

      The Sin of Envy, by George Nikolopoulos

      Above It All, by Robert J. Sawyer

      Perfect Little Boy, by Jon Lasser

      Doing Business at Hodputt’s Emporium, by Steven H Silver

      Damn Fine Novel, by Orson Scott Card

      Recommended Books, by Bill Fawcett & Jody Lynn Nye

      A Brush With Madness, by Gregory Benford

      Kosher SF, by Robert J. Sawyer

      Joy Ward Interviews Greg Bear

      Serialization: Daughter of Elysium by Joan Slonczewski (Part 5)

      The Editor’s Word

      by Mike Resnick

      Welcome to the thirty-first issue of Galaxy’s Edge, as we begin our sixth year of publication. This issue features new stories by new and newer writers Michael Haynes, Steven H Silver, Jon Lasser, Larry Hodges, Regina Kanyu Wang, George Nikolopoulos, Robert Jeschonek, Matt Dovey, and Brennan Harvey.

      We’ve got reprints from old friends Robert Silverberg, Nancy Kress, Robert J. Sawyer, and Orson Scott Card. And there are our regular columns: Recommended Books by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye, The Scientist’s Notebook by Gregory Benford, and literary matters by Robert J. Sawyer. This month’s Joy Ward interview is with bestseller, award-winner, and former Worldcon Guest of Honor Greg Bear.

      All in all, a typical issue—and we say that with great pride.

      * * *

      The other day some real estate broker from a couple of thousand miles away, in a very warm and sunny state, called out of the blue and tried to interest me in a retirement community. I explained to him that despite my age, I had no intention of retiring or even slowing down. He pushed for a couple of minutes, then gave up.

      But it got me to thinking: I’m not unique. I literally do not know of any full-time science fiction writer who retired for any reason other than health. Not one.

      And there are a lot of us who, in any other field, would probably be living on pensions, watching television endlessly, and taking naps in the sun. But if you’ve spent your working life writing science fiction, which includes—to at least some degree—extrapolating the future, you just naturally want to stick around and see that future take shape, and codify it for yourself and your readers. You slow down begrudgingly, and die with the greatest reluctance.

      You think I’m a rare example? Then consider this cross-section of two dozen science fiction writers, and their ages on the day this magazine comes out: Joe Haldeman (74). Robert Silverberg (83). Greg Benford (77), Barry N. Malzberg (78). Larry Niven (80). Myself (76). David Gerrold (74). Connie Willis (72). George R. R. Martin (69). C. J. Cherryh (75). Eric Flint (71). David Drake (72). Jack McDevitt (82). Nancy Kress (70). Tom Easton (73). Jack Dann (73). Gardner Dozois (70). Norman Spinrad (77). Piers Anthony (83). Jane Yolen (79). Raymond E. Feist (72). Dan Simmons (70). And the baby of the bunch, Lois McMaster Bujold (68).

      We are all still active, all still writing or editing, and most of us are still active in various aspects of fandom.

      I think it won’t be too long before someone takes the factual data and creates a story about how writing science fiction adds years and almost endless energy to one’s life.

      The real question is whether that story will be classified as science fiction or mainstream.

      Michael Haynes has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, and a number of anthologies. This is his first appearance in Galaxy’s Edge.

      Death Rides Shotgun

      by Michael Haynes

      Joseph took it as a bad sign when he exited the office of the motel he'd stayed in just outside Scipio, Utah, and found Death sitting in the passenger seat of his midnight black convertible Corvette.

      He didn't want to get in the car but there wasn't anything for it. He was halfway from Butte to Barstow, and he'd be damned if he'd miss seeing his new granddaughter. Though, on reflection, he suspected that wasn't quite the turn of phrase he ought to be contemplating just then.

      Joseph sighed, hitched his pants up, and walked over to his 'Vette.

      I think you got the wrong car, he told Death as he settled behind the wheel. Death turned and looked in Joseph's direction. Not at him exactly, more like through him.

      Shit, Joseph breathed with a shudder. He fired the car up, turned on some AC/DC (again wondering about the wisdom of that choice), and soon they were doing ninety-five down the freeway under the blazing July sun.

      They were nearly an hour down the road, just past the western end of I-70, when Death first spoke.

      That 'looking through you' thing usually rattles folks more, he said.

      Well...guess I've been expecting you a while.

      Death gave a little hmm but didn't say anything more.

      Joseph stopped to fuel up the car before they left Utah. Pumping the gas, a wave of coughing overtook him, so fierce that his head ached and his vision dimmed. Carefully, braced against the car and resolutely not looking Death in the eye, he caught his breath.

      On Joseph's way into the store to get water, Death hollered, Get some snacks!

      It turns out Death is fond of Cheetos. Joseph noticed the orange stuff didn't stick to Death's fingers and supposed that was a benefit of the whole immortal thing.

      Crossing into California, Joseph shut off the stereo.

      You do this often? he asked.

      Not really.

      So what's happening with other folks? No one dying today?

      It doesn't work like that. I am many places.

      And one of them is the front seat of my Corvette?

      Rather obviously, yes?

      Joseph thought about other questions he wanted to ask, decided he wasn't sure he'd like hearing the answers, and turned the music back on.

      The sun was getting low as they drove through the outskirts of Barstow and pulled onto Marla's road. He hadn't seen her in a decade—not since she'd left Montana—and they hadn't been on good terms for years before that. But she'd had a daughter in May and even though Joseph's doctor said he shouldn't be taxing himself, he'd decided he was going to meet Caroline while he still could.

      Dogs barked as the Corvette turned into the driveway.

      I'll wait out here, Death said.

      Good call.

      Joseph went to the door and knocked, hoping Marla was home. He hadn't called ahead.

      She came to the door, Caroline in her arms. Her eyes grew wide.

      Jesus, Dad... she said. He knew he looked rough.

      Hey, baby. Can I come in?

      She hesitated, surely just a second but it felt longer, then pulled the door open wide.

      What about your friend? Don't he want out of the heat?

      Yeah, I don't think it bothers him much.

      He from up in the Valley?

      Joseph coughed out a laugh as he stepped inside. Death Valley? Something like that.

      Marla took a long look outside before closing the door behind Joseph.

      He held Caroline as Marla fixed a frozen pizza for them to share and kept holding her as he ate a couple slices of the pepperoni pie.

      They talked more than in the last ten years put together, but soon it was getting dark and Joseph felt a weariness creeping into his bones.

      I gotta go, Marla, he said, handing Caroline carefully to his daughter.

      You sure? You could stay on the couch...

      Joseph looked out at Death waiting patiently in his car and knew he couldn't stay. Yeah, I'm sure. I gotta roll. But thanks, babe. They stood there a long moment then stepped together for a tentative hug.

      Back in the car, he started it up and headed back toward the highway.

      Good visit? Death asked after a few minutes.

      Yeah. Not long enough, though. He heard the bitterness that had crept into his voice, but figured it didn't much matter now anyway.

      You could have stayed longer.

      Kinda hard to feel good about sitting in your daughter and granddaughter's home with Death out in the driveway.

      Death gave another little hmm and then silence filled the car.

      They hadn't gotten too far north on the highway when Joseph needed a pit stop so he pulled off at a rest area.

      When he came back from using the facilities, Death was behind the wheel.

      You're not looking so good, Death said. Let me drive a bit.

      Doesn't sound like the best idea to me.

      Death just looked at him. Not through him, at him.

      If it's all the same to you, Joseph said, I'll keep driving.

      Slowly, Death nodded. Alright then, but if you're going to be the one driving, make sure you're taking the road you want to travel, he said, getting out from behind the wheel. See you in a couple weeks. And he was gone.

      Joseph sat behind the wheel and rubbed the stubble on his chin, thinking for a long minute. Then he got the 'Vette going, turned the music up loud and hit the road, looking for the first exit where he could turn around and head back south to Barstow.

      Copyright © 2018 by Michael Haynes

      Robert Jeschonek is a prolific author of short stories and articles, and has 13 novels to his credit, including the Battlenaut series. He won an International Book Award for his cross-genre SF thriller Day 9.

      The Stars So Black, The Space So White

      by Robert Jeschonek

      Imagine standing in the prow of a great sailing vessel, gazing out at the starry darkness as it folds around the nose of the ship. Now imagine the ship is in space.

      And you are standing on an onyx gangplank, a sheer, black surface reflecting the starlight all around—creating the illusion that you are suspended without support in the void. Exposed to the nip and tug of so many rays and waves and streams and particles, yet somehow protected.

      Watch as crackling suns and jewel-like worlds spin past. Wonder at the feathery, pastel tendrils of glowing nebulae. Grin with delight, because no matter how many times you see this, you can't help but marvel.

      I can't help but marvel.

      Welcome to my life. From Earthbound bartender savant to crewman on an alien spacecraft. From man of twentieth century Earth to man of the cosmos.

      You wish you were me. You totally wish you were me.

      I should have known. The voice behind me is high-pitched and piping with a fluttery vibrato. I would find you here. Rudeee Tabernacle.

      Turning, I smile at the dozens of multifaceted silver eyes staring my way, twisting on the ends of pale yellow tendrils. The tendrils are rooted in a glittering, creamy cloud, a misty blur of ever-shifting size and shape that hovers a meter above the onyx gangplank. Who knew I could come to love and respect someone so alien?

      Who knew I could come to see my abductor as my friend?

      You are not feeling. Worried, are you? The voice emanates from somewhere in the cloud. It's the same voice I first heard fifty years ago, asking a question that changed my life forever and led me to this moment.

      Only hopeful. I bow, as is the custom in the fleet of the civilization whose name translates as The Rising. After fifty years among The Rising (though I look half as old as that, thanks to alien rejuvenation techniques), I know all the right things to do and say...though I don't always do and say them. But that, too, is customary; it's part of my job, after all.

      They call me a Chancer. An X-factor in a social hierarchy with too much order...and a need for controlled chaos in the face of a highly improvisational universe.

      As for the alien, if you called him/her/it/them a captain/teacher/lama/inexplicable presence, you wouldn't be wrong. We approach. The source of. The signal.

      His/her/its/their actual name is unpronounceable for a human like me, so I go with a boiled-down nickname. Most Eager, has the content of the signal changed?

      Most Eager hiss-cough-squeals in a way that equates to a human head-shake. The signal continues. To repeat.

      I know the message by heart by now. "Black stars. White space. Forever screaming."

      We will be there. Soon, Rudeee. The... He calls our giant vessel by the name its builders gave it, which translates like this (more or less): Peacefaring Manyfold Transitory Translightenment Construct, Constant. ...will arrive within. The hour.

      I shorten the ship's name like always. "The Transit's ready, Most Eager. We'll do what we do best."

      Answer questions. Most Eager stiffens all his/her/its/their tendrils at once like stalks in a cornfield. It's a salute. Save lives.

      I answer with a salute of my own, holding both fists at shoulder height, opening them into flattened palms. And set the stage for tomorrow.

      Setting the stage is The Rising's truest mission, our reason for being among the stars in the first place. The galaxy is full of lifeforms in varying degrees of evolution; we create mysteries that will draw them out here when the time is right to join the community of starfaring beings.

      Speaking of mysteries, a ship like our own comes into view up ahead—a cluster of giant black shapeshifting objects, spherical at the moment like a bunch of grapes or a clutch of atoms in a molecule. The spheres, which normally blink with multicolored lights, are dark—and cut in half down the middle, wedged in a swirling halo of bright blue light.

      Do you think. They are still. Alive? asks Most Eager.

      I know he/she/it/they can tell if I'm lying, but I do it anyway. Of course. After all, he/she/it/they has/have kin on that vessel.

      More than kin. More like a protégé beloved above all others. And a human, like me.

      Her name is Julie. And it is her voice—the voice of the trapped ship's first officer—repeating that message, over and over:

      "Black stars. White space. Forever screaming."

      * * *

      Imagine a ship the size of a small moon, consisting of huge, interlinked objects—sometimes spherical, sometimes cubical, other times elliptical or dodecagonal or jagged as a giant virus with a billion points and peaks. A ship that shifts and changes depending on its task or environment.

      Now imagine the inside of such a ship, which is equally as miraculous as the outside. Imagine diving through a sea of lights and colors, a jumble of bubbles and pockets and pods alive with sound and motion...some right-side-up, some upside-down, some sideways or inside-out or outways-upside-in...all rising and falling and bumping and merging and mingling...a harmonious bedlam fit to drive a sane man mad or a madman sane.

      And all through it, imagine the life of a hundred-thousand worlds, from the brobdingnagian to the microscopic...all thronging in this vast and tumbling tumult. Imagine feathers, wings, scales, claws, beaks, fur, bone...skin, fluid, ooze, fumes, leaves, stems, crystals...chirps, howls, growls, chatters, barks, clicks, burbles...all of these and more.

      Imagine all that, and you'll have some idea what the inside of the Peacefaring Manyfold Transitory Translightenment Construct, Constant is like. The Transit. My home.

      And you'll know, at least a little, why I love it so. You'll know why the day they brought me here from Georgia was the best day of my life.

      Diving down through the zero gravity Flow that exists between pockets and bubbles, I swoop past busy shipmates on their way to other destinations. A voice chimes in my head via Mentacom, the telepathic intercom that speaks in whatever language you understand best.

      All crew to mystery stations. Approaching distressed vessel Impetuous Fractal Tracery Epicenter, Rarefied.

      I see my own station below, a figure eight archipelago of chrome, glass, and superneuroconductive organo-ceramics sparking with current. As I drop toward it, localized gravity rises, reeling me in until I land lightly on the polished floor.

      Rudy! One of my colleagues, a being I call Paraffino, waves his sixteen waxy arms. "Take a look at the data from our scans of the Fractal Tracery."

      I hurry over and lean in beside him, taking in the flurry of multicolored holographic text dancing in midair around us.

      No life signs. I can't keep the disappointment out of my voice. And no power.

      Except the battery backup that is powering the distress beacon. says Paraffino.

      Here's a question, says a tiny voice in my left ear, the whine of an insect. "Why does the FracTrace appear to be cut in half, yet it bends space-time as if it were one thousand times its recorded size?"

      I scowl. Some kind of sensor mirage?

      Considered and discounted. The tiny voice's owner flits in front of my face—a silver mosquito-like creature half the length of my little finger. I call him KeeZee McGee. Diagnostics reveal zero chance of impaired functionality in our sensor arrays.

      "What about psychic mirages? I raise an eyebrow. Maybe the sensor data only looks hinky because our minds are being warped."

      Unlikely. Another voice speaks up across the archipelago—make that five hundred voices, a chorus of every pitch and timbre singing as one. The Mindset system confirms no perceptual defects in any member of our crew. The chorus belongs to a toothy shark-bunny thing I call Adorakilla.

      We need to send in a probe, says another colleague—a kind of half-rock/half-bush I call Stick-n-Stone. Her voice sounds like crackling gravel mixed with rustling leaves. "If anyone from the FracTrace is still alive, they must be on the other side of that phenomenon."

      Whatever it is, says Paraffino.

      Some of us are about to find out. Just then, the Mentacom announces a mission to the derelict vessel, leaving in five minutes. Guess who's part of the Go Team?

      Stick-n-Stone, for one. Better go grab my gear. She rolls over the edge of the archipelago, where the Flow spins her off into the heights.

      Wish me luck. I smile and salute the others with flattened palms. If I don't make it back, give my Zeppelin collection to Gassy Rictus.

      I laugh as I leap up into the Flow. I've come up with so many nicknames, they can't always tell the real ones from the fake anymore.

      * * *

      Our little silver scout disk spins on its vertical axis like a coin, flashing from the Transit at a rate of speed that would blow your mind.

      Inside, the six members of the Go Team stay glued to our psych-feeds, images of our destination beamed continuously into our brains. Even Most Eager—commander of this mission—closes the eyes on his/her/its/their yellow tendrils and looks inward at the mind-cast images.

      "Five hundred units from Fractal Tracery and closing." Walking Reef, a creature who looks exactly as his nickname suggests, is piloting our disk.

      Just then, something pings, and one of the holographic displays around Reef's head (a cluster of multicolored non-aquatic coral) flashes red-gold-red. "This is interesting. The sensor mirage seems to be intensifying. The part of the Fractal Trace on the other side of the phenomenon now appears to be one hundred thousand times the size of the original vessel."

      Makes no sense, rumbles our

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1