“And I’m tellin’ you, leave him alone.” The gun pointed at the gang was from a different world: an antique, short-barrelled shotgun, the stock worked in bronze. The bearer of the gun didn’t match the delicate filigree either—a short, stocky woman, hair tied back under a wide-brimmed fishing hat of dubious age, and a filthy […]
“They’re calling it Valles Fever.” The words came from the nursing station, on the other side of Abe’s curtained-off area. “Five more admitted today.” Kala shifted in the hard chair, rotating the discomfort to a new part of her body. Abe’s breathing hitched. Kala’s feet hit the floor, and she scooted towards him. Her fingers […]
1. The child’s ayah said it was high spirits, a paroxysm of affection, but the truth was simple: the envoy’s daughter killed my dog. She wanted Ìsho the moment she saw him, his flat nose and panting pink tongue and goggle eyes poking out of my sleeve. I was deliberately too dense to take the […]
by Vanessa Fogg It was an old network of intelligences, one of the first, and the bulk of its physical embodiment was housed on a ship orbiting a planet of perpetual windstorms and violet lightning. Some of the network’s intelligences busied themselves on this world, drifting through sulfur-tinged clouds and sampling a rich stew […]
There are only two ways to leave the mistress’s menagerie. One is through death, the other is love. Both are tricks. All of us prisoners buried within the menagerie’s pristine fractals are here by virtue of our skills. Fire keeps me alive, and the guests entertained. If the mistress knew my real skill, well. How […]
One I can still taste electric anise when I open my eyes. It’s been a week since that kid got himself killed and I came too late to do anything about it. An open-and-shut case. I light a cigarette trying hard to ignore the boy in my bed tonight. He snores and I kick him […]
1. They came near the end of the day. We thought it was thunder at first, though there weren’t any clouds. Eight of them on horseback with Bill Boyland at their head. “Eight men for a woman and her kid,” Mam muttered as she loaded the revolver. Once they came through our gate they stayed […]
Everything about Councillor Rand is moisturized to the point of buttery softness. He even smells rich. The thick scent of coconut oil, an imported luxury I have only smelled on kept women with downtown addresses, drifts across the counter and crawls up my nose. “It’s a simple inter-department water transfer. Why are there so many […]
Part One: To The End of the Earth “Which way did my mother go?” Rhy-lee asked her father one day. “North,” he said, and pointed without looking. Young as she was, she could see the small collapse that happened inside him when he heard the question, knowing that one day she, too, would leave him. […]
The stereopsis module clicked open in Wren’s fingers. “For the next five minutes,” she said, “try not to play any ping-pong.” She sliced deftly into my abdomen, and though my somatic subsystem signaled pain, I didn’t wince – wouldn’t want her to think I was nervous. Usually Wren’s workbench loops were stuffed with starship components […]