Life and Death have different meanings to all of us. Here is a rather unique legacy left between relatives...

Last Testament

by C.G. Ward

Mitchell studied his face in the mirror, skin drawn tight over sharp angles and the yellowish hue of too little sleep. His dark eyes bore like inverse candlelight from beneath crag-like brows -- a mesa overlooking the harsh reality of a pale nighttime desert.

Brushing fingers through unruly black hair, Mitchell shook his head and turned away with a fragmented frown.

Extinguishing the rheumy fluorescent light with a casual flick, he walked into the bedroom. Booted feet braided a line between obstacle and dirt-ridden carpet without conscious directive. Kneeling at the corner of his unmade bed, Mitchell bent with a creak to grab the faded blue sports jacket from the floor. He creaked again, the bones of his knees popping like vagrant shots through a ghetto as he stood to survey the embodiment of desperation he called home.

Frustration beggared for attention as he flipped his wavering gaze over filth, depression, and the occasional beer bottle -- half empty, cigarette butts floating a miasma of mold into the air. The dresser leaned into the wall, one of the legs having broken many years ago. It still didn't sit straight, but he could open the drawers with little hassle… not that it mattered much; all his clothes were piled in the corner like forgotten remnants of a war no one had attended.

Grunting dismissively, Mitchell walked through and closed the door on his studio apartment, didn’t even bother to turn the rusty lock.

He didn't care, and it showed. Life was nothing but a means to an end; death came to release even the poor at one time or another.

Today just might change that, he considered.

Then again, Mitchell was never one to place faith in a fate or future that was at best uncertain, at worst, inevitable.

Standing in the hall, the old-looking young man stared into a distance farther than the three foot hallway or the dirty, graffiti-ridden walls. His mind went elsewhere, lost in the comfort of make-believe. He shook himself then, continued walking as if he’d never stopped.

He considered hailing a cab, but felt at the hole in his denim pockets. He waited at the corner of Fifth and Solsbury.

That too might change today.

In the first ten minutes of the wait, he turned down two drunk hookers, a crackhead looking for a fix, and a man offering eternal salvation with a billboard sign hanging over his shoulders. Of the bunch, only the old man was of interest -- and that because he was either brave or crazy enough to walk around at six-thirty in the evening's chill with nothing but two pieces of plywood and a greasy rope covering his otherwise naked body.

Tugging up the jacket's collar in an attempt to warm his ears, Mitchell stepped aboard the bus, gaze wandering over a couple in the front. Locked in an arduous embrace, their actions bordered on obscene. He selected a seat toward the rear not because he was embarrassed, but because he wanted to be as far from people as possible.

He had no interest in his surroundings, so sank back in the seat and looked off once more into a world no one else could see.

It wasn't a particularly nice world, nor was it what most would call beautiful -- Mitchell's imagination just wasn't that good. Yet it was his world, a world where no one else could interfere, judge, or take away; many things had been taken away in his life.

If balanced by the standards of a society that devoted billions to the creation of fictional worlds, it wasn't much to speak of. It was a drab world, a plain world with wooden walls and solid cement foundations, common grass and normal trees. It was a world where solitude was valuable and prosperity a myth. It was the World of Mitch, a place of comfort for a lonely man who had somehow lived his life without once having truly lived.

The trip ended without event and when Mitchell passed by the couple in the front, even his jaded eyes raised as in if tribute to their ability to ignore the world around them and so guilelessly satisfy their primal instincts.

At the central bus station, Mitchell had second thoughts about his unlikely journey. It was against all odds that he would benefit from it, while it was very likely he would face ridicule and scorn. It mattered little; he had reason for this trip, had begun it, and would finish it. With that decided, he marked his bearing, then tramped through the false jocularity of the evening toward his destination.

Nearby were those who never had to deal with hookers and crackheads and wish-they-were-messiahs. These were the people who had paid the city fathers to make their downtown inaccessible. All for the sake of progress, of course.

Mitchell was a spot on the cleanliness of their tablecloth, a stain to look at in disgust, then overlook for propriety's sake; if you ignored an annoyance, then it must not exist. Right? He disregarded their repeated hate and fear-filled stares. Mitchell belonged here tonight, and cared far less what they thought about him than they did about what might happen if people likehim began to overrun their pretensions.

1225 Roxton Avenue.

The doorman looked at him much the same as those walking the neatly manicured streets, though Mitchell knew the man lived nowhere nearby. In all likelihood, the black zip-suit was the nicest thing his arrogance ever wore. He shook his head as Mitchell passed, a presumptuous judgement that didn't cease until the young man was out of sight, out of mind.

There was a wait at the elevator, though Mitchell never once considered attacking the stairs. He was almost too tired to face the upcoming event and was sure a jog up to the Penthouse would sap what little reserves he'd mustered with two hours of afternoon sleep.

A bing announcing its arrival brought Mitchell once more from the comfort of his sterile fantasy world. Bracing himself with a deep inhalation, he strode into the elevator and nodded at the familiar operator. Pushing for the top floor, the man did his best to look everywhere save Mitchell. He didn't succeed, evident in the slight flaring of the nostrils on his too-thin nose. Mitchell bore it in silence, as he did everything else.

The back door of the elevator opened into an empty hallway. The hall terminated at a wide set of double doors decorated in gothic lithographs. Mitchell shrugged up his courage and walked forward, the worn rubber of his shoe soles rasping against the marble tiling, echoing off the walls to announce his arrival to the specters of a future he didn't share.

He waited at the door a moment, then a moment more. Scratching his head in the silence of patience, he wondered ifthey would ignore him as well, hoping he would disappear like a bad magic trick.

He had come this far, and would wait as long as necessary.

Even as the thought passed his mind, the door opened onto a scene of chaos. Sound followed sight, noise roiling over the sterile hallway in a rush of freedom. It’s freedom was short lived, however, because the servant closed the door the moment Mitchell passed the threshold.

Pausing in shock, Mitchell wondered how one person could know so many others. Crowding the large room like a herd of cattle, the people invited into the Penthouse of 1225 Roxton Ave. acted like nobles in the presence of a king -- an analogy not too inapt. They were all suited and bedressed, of course, attire fitting the environment. Laughter could be heard in intermittent phases, though it always faded into a somber chuckle after a short time. This was a time for solemnity, not jocularity. That would follow later.

A man in the rear sighted Mitchell when he leaned against a wall near the door. The man blended well with the opulent crowd, dressed in a dark grey business suit with a strong face obscured only by a pair of overly large glasses. After a moment spent examining the young intruder, he filed through the ranks of chairs to confront Mitchell.

"I told you it was unnecessary to come here," the man hissed below his breath. "I assured you that I would make you aware of anything concerning you."

Mitchell didn't move, though his eyes shifted to the other. Licking his lips, Mitchell shook his head after a moment, dark hair bouncing in response. "And I told you, Mr. Ablecott" his cracked voice responded. "That I would be here. I have a right to be here and you can't make me leave."

The older man's eyes widened and his cheeks blushed slightly. With deliberate slowness, Mitchell looked at the man's wine glass, noted how it shook. Following his gaze, the other man grunted, turned, and stalked away.

Mitchell shook his head, then forgot about Ablecott and retreated into the comfort of his own world while the rich and powerful paraded around his disinterest.

He was roused by the sound of someone banging a silver fork against a crystal goblet. Pushing away from the wall with his slender shoulders, Mitchell followed the crowd surging forward. Where they took seats -- each jostling for a better, closer position to the pedestal placed near the right edge of the room -- he chose to stand at the rear in accustomed solitude.

While those huddled at the front talked quietly, Mitchell looked at those around him with a critical eye. He attempted to find an association; they were of the same genetic stock, regardless of what some in the room might believe.

These people were here for many reasons and he doubted if a single one matched his. Their focus was on money, power, position -- all the tenuous goals any man aspired to, if worthy of the name. Shaking his head, Mitchell decided he must not be man enough. Nor, he also decided, would he want to be. He was content with his own world, something that stood as small next to the privileges of those sitting down. But it was his.

Then it was time, and Stanton Devrue's last will and testament was being read aloud.

Most of the provisions were expected, though several caught the crowd off guard. It was evident which people were which by the manner of their response to each divestment, while those who found themselves surprised in a negative manner were also obvious in their displeasure.

Mitchell watched the proceeding with an even expression. He expected nothing, so had no reaction to the proclamations. As the man at the front wound down, the crowd began to grow restless. The company had been divided into a group of stockholders, charities were fed, individuals received stipends, and the final group of residential belongings were passed out to the staff.

Of Mitchell, there was no word.

When Ablecott finished reading, and the people began to either crowd around the newly wealthy or avoid the disappointed losers, Mitchell issued a small smile. That he was left with nothing placed him in the same place he’d been this morning.

Turning toward the door, he walked through the crowd as if it weren't there. They made way for him, unwilling to be any closer to him than necessary as if he carried a virulent, transmutable disease. If poverty were a disease, he supposed, then perhaps such was the case.

Ablecott let the young man reach the door before calling out to him. As executor of the will, it fell into the old man's hands to see it to completion. That he found himself disgusted -- and annoyed -- by Mitchell's presence did nothing to lighten his duty.

Mitchell turned at the nasally call and paused, a spark of minor interest breaching his eyes.

"See Mitchell," the man all but gloated. "There was little reason for you to have come here today."

Mitchell shifted his shoulders inside his jacket. "He was my uncle," the young man replied in a quiet, even voice. Receiving a blank stare in response, he shook his head -- the man would never understand.

"Yes, well," Ablecott said. "Since you are here, you can take this. This is all the old man left you. So sorry you didn't get a big cash bonus." The man tossed a small, wrapped box to Mitchell from a three-foot distance.

Shaking his head once more, Mitchell placed the box inside a pocket and left the building. He felt as if he had missed something important, but was unable to see it. Perhaps Ablecott’s attitude bothered him, deep inside, but it was a thing that had no place in the younger man's life, was an alien emotion in a world where apathy equaled survival. It was a momentary disturbance, something that faded as his return bus ride caused the outside scenery to melt from prosperity into the rolling hills of his mind.

It was late when the bus made its final stop a block away from his dilapidated apartment. The local streets weren't safe after dark; a different type of animal roamed the blacktop once the guarding light disappeared.

Still, Mitchell cared little. The surrounding, 'real' world was just a place of transition. It was a place that had held no interest for him since he could remember. When he'd been younger, his parents had tried many treatments, looking for a way to fix their son. No one understood, no except for his uncle.

He missed his uncle, missed talking with him, telling him about the improvements he'd made to his world, or the things he'd done while visiting it. Stanton Devrue would always take time, listen with a smile on his face and a complete lack of judgement in his bright grey eyes.

Ah well, Mitchell thought, time and tide, passing and grief, all things ceased to exist when he faded from reality and into the imaginations of his mind.

His was a world away from this one, a world where criminals existed no more than the rich. It was to there he retreated after sitting on a vacant street side bench. He wandered through the mild comfort of a warm day surrounded by calm waters and soft dirt. There was no one to bother him, no one to ask of him the things that he felt constrained by an inbuilt morality to refuse. There was no one to assault him, to take away the peace he found in the very fact of solitude. It was peace, his own quiet nirvana.

Time passed and he came back to the real world with a slim bulge of regret settling in the base of his guts. Turning his head beneath the vapid glow of a streetlamp, he fumbled at his jacket pocket for the package. Curiosity, for the moment, overrode his usual lack of attention to anything he didn't need to see.

It was a small box-shaped package that fit easily into the palm of his hand. The plain brown wrapping was unpretentious and appealed to his simple manner of living. It was obvious his uncle had prepared this for him prior to his passing. He felt at the package, listening to the comfortable rustling and pressing the pads of his thumbs against the slight ridges framing its exterior.

He peeled back the wrapping slowly when he saw white paper beneath. He allowed the wrapping to fall to the ground and opened the single, lined page with his uncle's crisp writing. Placing the box in his lap, he used both hands to smooth the letter out and read it, eyes squinting at the unfamiliar task. Thankfully, his uncle had also been a man of few words.

Mitchell,

We spoke often of the world inside your mind, your own place of solitude and peace. It was a place I thought of often, something I envied you. I have now found my way to that world and leave you with this box. Follow your heart, Mitchell, and perhaps you can soon join me in this world. You, of all the people I have known in my life, deserve to live in it.

In love and anticipation,

Stanton

Mitchell folded the paper and returned it to his jacket pocket. His hands were shaking, and not because of the cold. Looking around, he realized the night had grown unusually silent and calm, as if in preparation for a great change.

Slowly, he lifted the small box with both hands and held it up to his face. He ran his eyes across its smooth, black, almost empty surface. It was unbroken save at the edges, where a rounded ridge followed the outline, and at the center of one side where a circle was inscribed into the strange, slick material.

After a time, the young man smiled. He may not have riches or material wealth, but sometimes there were things far greater. Without hesitation, he pressed on the center of the circle and heard it click as it depressed beneath the pressure of his firm touch.

The world around him sprang first into instant silence, then almost deafening life. Light glared from all around, bathing him in sudden, comfortable warmth. The feel of the bench faded from beneath him, melting into a softness he didn't understand until he looked down to find himself sitting in lush grass.

Looking up in expectant wonder, he saw his uncle smiling at him from a few feet away.

"What is this?" he asked the older man, his face stretched taut in a surprise as unfamiliar to his features as this world was familiar to his mind.

Stanton smiled in return, holding a hand out to his nephew, the only person that had loved the old man for who he was, not what he had. "This is your world, Mitch," the man replied as he helped the young man rise. "Though I've made a few improvements while I've been waiting…"

Mitchell laughed with his uncle as they walked through the quiet forest toward a place of comfort and peace.

C.G. Ward is a part-time novelist (occasionally producing short stories) living in Northern California with his family. He hopes one day to either write full-time, or take over the world... whichever comes first.

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Emotions are powerful, especially anger and rage. What if they could be harnessed?

Zephyrs

By Christie Isler

“Goddamn it. That enough!” James squeezed the hand breaks that jerked the bicycle to a smearing halt. He hurled himself over the male bar and lifted the front wheel to head height, shaking it with fury.

The wind made a fist around him and forced the sweat diagonally across his forehead. He opened his mouth to bark at it. Swallow it. Tear at the fabric with his teeth. Deep in some tiny rational corner of his brain he recognized it was only moving air just driven by an irrational spirit, and that pulled the pins on any logical thought process he might muster.He set both wheels back on the public trail and tried to remember that, behind their mirrored sunglasses all the other citizens were desperately trying to avoid him with their eyes. Not only was he swearing at the air with every muscle fiber, he was also alone in this miniature tornado, this wind that blew around him like a spider web. It was personal.

Breathing the way he’d learned in Emotional Management, James raised one leg back over the bar and settled his backside onto the seat.He pulled in air and imagined he was filling his stomach. He breathed in the responsibility. On exhale he tried to expel the physical mass of fury and frustration. He forced out apologies to Gayle and Simone, his Aunt Rita and his eleventh grade English teacher - the one who’d burst a blood vessel in her eye the sixth time he had stirred the class to riot during an oral book report. But Wuthering Heights was much enlivened done in strip tease.

He hadn’t meant to be a bastard. For him, women had always been so easy to rile and, to his credit, he almost always felt remorse afterward. In any other era in history, he would have apologized or singed the separation agreement and gone forward with his life. But not now, thanks to Morton Rathburgh.

How could anyone have anticipated the after effects of the SEEAG? The Strong Emotion Energy Adaptation Grid had been Rathburgh’s shining brainchild, originally designed as a prep school Invention Convention project as a way to channel his massive (and unfulfilled) sexual desires into a more useful output. Very quickly, Morton discovered that he could channel his mother’s mortification and his principal’s purpling anger into the machine and create an even greater electrical output. In an era when power sources were dwindling inversely in proportion to the volume of the discussions about them, Morton had stuck proverbial pay dirt.

Suddenly, the spitting arguments surrounding clean, sustainable energy became the energy source itself and Morton Rathburgh vaulted from pimply masturbator to star pupil at M.I.T, sadly without much change to his sexual pastimes.

Within weeks, the power grids surged with the rants of executives who’d been denied their bonuses, the raging of right wing political pundits and divorced women’s’ fury and pain, which interestingly made for the most efficient conversion to alternating current. The engineers in charge rapidly discovered that negative emotions - especially anger, guilt and terror - resulted in the highest output. The Emo-Electric Conversion Centers realized there was no need to pay their furious power source. Furious people crowded the waiting rooms, desperate to swap their distress for electrical power vouchers. The largest cost of power collection turned out to be the security guards employed to pry apart the fistfights that regularly broke out in the waiting room. That, and replacement chairs.

The system appeared to be flawless, providing both an outlet for the energetically enraged populace and a solution to the power problem. Many of the research scientists believed this perfection implied we simply hadn’t noticed the down side yet. It’s unfair how often they’re right.

In the third year of production, two years after James had graduated high school and just a month before Gayle would catch him blithely watching the topless sorority girls from his balcony, the first ghosts were suspected. Weather patterns had been shifting anyway so, initially the increased wind was attributed to our own carbon output. But the localized nature of the winds quickly became suspicious. Shapely women reported being harassed by the wind, their skirts and shirts upended, while less appealing women walking next to them went unmolested. Ex-husbands were blown off ferry decks and bridges in astounding proportions and high atmospheric tornados began to appear, often localized over schools and other non-profit social services. They never touched down, but generated painfully loud and irritating noises, rather like a cross between an air raid siren and a blender.

An energetic argument ensued regarding the source of these disturbances. Some claimed karma, an over expression of negative emotions in our society. Others cried it was a result of our energetic greed. Even others screamed it was a government plot to increase energy production. Everyone agreed that it was a boon to SEEAG, as those tortured by the winds lined up to disgorge their irritation into the power grid.

The discussions continued for another five years. Time enough for James to blunder through one near marriage and then an actual one, followed by its self-destruction. Time enough for all the women he’d pissed off to feed their feelings for him into the SEEAG, which he’d applauded at the time as it prevented them from throwing sharp objects at him.

It wasn’t until after his divorce that conclusive reports hit the papers. Scientifically described as Emo-Electrical Resonances, the ghosts were able to hone in on specific subjects and create intense, localized air disturbances. They were unpredictable and non-retractable. Almost immediately, SEEAG centers began to close. Some out of concern for the state of society, others because they couldn’t keep up with the cost of repairing localized wind damage.

James leaned his weight into one pedal, just enough to lift the other foot and - at that perfect place where only the balance of conditioned muscles held him up, that moment of faith when he was vulnerable before his forward velocity could offer protection - the wind pushed back. Exactly the way he used to.

Just like this damned wind, James could read their chinks in balance. He always knew just where to poke and prod. Simone, in particular had been easy, so easy that even as they spoke their vows he’d known he shouldn’t marry her. With her sweet blue Midwestern eyes and utter lack of sarcasm, she was irresistible in all ways. It was like a nervous tick, a need. He would see the words and the moment with hawkish clarity and the rest of the world drained away. Saying the words was scratching a blinding itch. She’d just enough intelligence and spunk that he’d thought - no, he’d hoped - she’d learn to needle back, or at least cry uncle but he had misjudged her breaking point.

His balance shattered, James and the bike arced in slow motion toward the cut leaf blackberry mounds hunched on the side of the trail. Even the leaves were sharp.

He howled and, with the enthusiasm of a cartoon coyote, extricated himself from bike and brambles. And all the while the wind blew into him, raising his shirt off his skin and crusting the blood oozing from the scrapes and punctures along his right side. He gripped the body of the bike and gave into the black frustration the wind had built in him this past week. At every turn, this invisible wall had knocked papers from his hands, transformed grocery bags into sails and twisted his daily bike into a resistance marathon. Last Tuesday, when it had rained on his way to a crucial interview, the wind had snatched another woman’s umbrella and fashioned it into a battering ram against his face.He’d entered his one chance to be the advertising face of a new corporation looking as though he’d come straight from loosing a prizefight.

If the SEEAG centers hadn’t closed, James would be savoring his frustration, trying to preserve the burn until he could trade it for power credits. As it was, most of the centers were replaced by non-profit counseling centers, the same people who insisted breathe through it as if he were giving birth to something rather than just royally pissed off.

The wind toyed with the hair around his ears, the way Gayle used to in the morning. It was a sort of laughing half apology. “Everything comes back around,” she used to tell him. She was one of those who believed in a reason for everything, a karmic sort. But then she also believed in Area 51 and reflexology, so James hadn’t paid her much heed.

He gripped his teeth together while a small tornado raised dust devils into his face, making any attempt at calming breathing like sucking in the dust bowl. He coughed. “I get it, girls. I made you miserable, I’m sorry. Lesson learned, so let’s drop it now.”

An insect ricocheted off his forearm, something small and sharp.Then another. James looked down and watched as a vertical rain of bees slammed into his body. Ripped from their happy pollen gathering, they were as pissed as he was and many of them managed to land backside first and the welts began to burn. This was Simone, or the ghost of Simone, who’d once watched a single hornet chase him around a picnic table.

“Stop it, damn you!” The words exploded with a pitch and fervor that made them sound more like a tantrum than a request, possibly because it was a tantrum. James lifted the bike frame and hurled it at the wind, roaring and grunting with abandon. The frame arced gracefully up then dropped directly into the bramble hedges. When it landed, the wind dropped, as if the women had simply flipped a switch.

Somewhere behind him, another woman laughed.

James spun around on the bracket of his bike shoe. The words, “What the hell are you laughing at,” poised to spit. He was bleeding, furious, bike less, and humiliated that he’d allowed a soulless ghost wind to get under his skin.

“Ex-wife? Or girlfriend,” she asked, before he get his attack out.

“Both.”

She laughed again and sucked water from a squeeze bottle.Then, she tapped her fingernail on a browning front tooth, “See this? Ex-husband’s girlfriend slammed a door in my face. At least, that’s whose ghost I’m assuming it was. These damn winds all look the same.” She laughed again and showed no sign of leaving him to sulk on his own. It was as if she enjoyed poking at him while he was miserable.

        “Well, I’m sorry for your … loss. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a damn long walk home.” His right leg was simmering with bee venom in four places and a large black berry tear in his right armpit stung from his own sweat. He tried to be polite, but knew his words were more of a snarl.James began to walk, grimacing at the clack of the clips on his bike shoes grinding into the pavement.

        “You’re just going to waste all that anger, aren’t you.”

      Without turning around, James yelled, “You bet, just squander it away, unless I can find somebody to spend it on. You volunteering?”

        “Sort of.”

    James stopped. Several images surged through his head, all of them violent, several deviant and none of them things he would actually do.This woman was bat shit crazy. “What is wrong with you?” he asked. He turned to look at her. “You’re goading a deeply pissed off man. I’m bigger than you. What makes you think I won’t take you up on your offer?”

     “It’s not what you think. What if I told you I could help you convert your anger? You wouldn’t get a voucher or anything, because we have to sneak the power into the grid unnoticed, but it’ll give you relief. You can do something constructive with that rage. I mean, it’s better than calming breathing, anyway.”

      “That’s illegal. And dangerous.”

      “How much do you care?”

      “I’m dangerous,” he told her.

      “And I’m the fastest draw on pepper spray in three counties.”

      If he weren’t so damn angry, James would have cracked a smile.

Christie Isler is a poet, writer, musician, and teacher in the Pacific Northwest.  She writes prose and poetry and has seen work published in several online collections, including Shoots & Vines, The New Flesh and Identity Theory.  She also has work forthcoming in the Fall 2009 issue of tinfoildresses.  Christie makes her home outside of Seattle, Washington.

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Times change and so do cultures. What if the very definition of what it means to wage war changes?

The New Spartans

by Joseph DeRepentigny

A loud buzzer sounded announcing the end of the game. The two teams stopped in their tracks and looked up at a digital scoreboard, the players on both sides waited for the score with deep anticipation. A series of numbers churned on the board above them and stopped. When the numbers for the home team were highest, there were cheers from the audience and the players.

“That was the best game we've ever had!” One of the players shouted between gasps for air. To give more meaning to his announcement he raised his hand for a high five. A teammate nearby rewarded the pronouncement with a high five and a roaring "Yeah!" Soon more shouts and the slaps of high fives filled the auditorium. As the players filed out of the auditorium into their respective locker rooms, they exchanged personal recaps of the highlights of the game.

Above them in a Plexiglas enclosed observation room, sat five adults at a long table. These were the teachers and they too were proud of the performance of the students. Years of hard work and training were finally showing fruition. Most wore an expression of satisfaction and pride on their faces, all but one of them.

She was a Government Inspector here on a tour. Working her way in from the capital on the coast she’d seen displays of academic prowess by students and even was once greeted a chorus singing the national anthem. This was a first on her a display of some sort of athletics.

“I do not understand what happened,” The confused young woman asked. “I saw a display of a game that seemed to have no purpose other than make the children sweat.”

The question stunned the room. Everyone looked at her as if she were insane. This was look she was not used to. Most of these provincial schools approached her with a bit of fear. She held the purse strings of their various programs and therefore was a woman of some power.

Shaking his head the man sitting next to her smiled and said in a patronizing tone. “They won the game.”

“What game?” she asked.

“THE GAME!” he said in a louder voice.

“WHAT GAME?” She asked in an equally loud tone.

The man made a sound of exasperation. He did not know how else to explain the game to her. To him the game was the game. He turned toward his compatriots for help. They too had looks of confusion on their faces.

“Everyone leave!” A new voice said from the back.

Turning around they saw the Headmaster standing at the doorway. He was a big man with heavyset jowls and no neck. With his heavy baritone, voice and deep-set eyes he was an impressive figure who generated feared from the rest of the faculty. Even for the inspector he was a man who her superiors warned not to annoy. Though technically she out ranked him he had many years in the system and therefore a number of powerful friends.

“Stay here young lady.” He said looking directly in her eyes. “The rest of you give us this room.”

The faculty left the room each of them giving her a look of concern as they passed her.

“I am sorry sir.” She said feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “I did not mean any harm.”

Smiling disarmingly, he said to her. “Relax, you are not in trouble.” He waited for the last of the faculty to leave. Once they were gone, he spoke in a fatherly tone to her. “Walk with me and we will talk.”

He led her down a corridor away from the rest of the faculty and students. “You are not from the Interiors?” he asked.

“No sir,” she replied with a tremble in her voice. “I’m from the coast.”

He smiled and said. “Relax; I’m not going to hurt you. I know the stories the others tell about me and I promise you, I am not the ogre they make me out to be.” He saw she was still unsure so he added in a quick joke. “Unless you count the fact that I eat children for Sunday dinner.”

The statement was so absurd that she let out a quick giggle.

“So you were asking about the game.” He said.

“Yes,” she replied cautiously, “it is like no other sport I’ve ever seen.”

“Quite right.” he said proudly. “It is a local invention. Let me explain the game to you from the beginning. Do you remember the ancient Greeks? Why did they invent the Olympics?”

“A religious celebration of the human body,” she replied automatically.

Shaking his head, he said. “No, they did it to make war a game. The plan was to make the average Greek soldier superior against all enemies. To do this the Greeks made the basics of combat into the various track and field events. These became what we now know as the Olympics. This prompted every young man to practice the arts of war from a very young age until adolescence. Thus giving their soldiers years of training verses the week's worth of training their opponents got.” Pausing he saw the look of doubt on her face. “Let me give you an example. The Persian Army was the biggest force in their day. Several hundred thousand I believe. Yet, three hundred Greeks held them off for several days.”

“You’re talking about the Spartans at Thermopylae!”

“Correct!” he said smiling at her, “later in history we find all the powerful nations of the world using sports to make their soldiers superior to their enemy’s soldiers. They used jousting in Europe, Polo in Middle Asia, and Football in America. Their children played at war and they were good!”

“But this game has no physical contact like those sports do.” She stated. Looking around she discovered they were now standing in front of the school. The children were loading onto buses to go home.

“Of course not.” the Coach replied. “We are in a world where force of arms is no longer a factor in who dominates the world. If we invade our neighbors, we risk bringing down the combine powers of the other nations of the world on us. Instead, today we fight an economic war. The nations that export the most finished products are the new super powers. Do you remember the game room? It is a mock up of an assembly line where the children put a rudimentary product together. The faster they go and the more product they assembly the better. We have made working in a factory into a sport!”

“And the government is aware of this?” she asked. “They know you are grooming these children to become factory drones!”

“Know it? They are extremely interested at the highest levels.” He said matter of factly “This district is the testing field for this program. If we are successful the game will be taught nation wide.”

“You are robbing them of the chance to be artists and teachers.”

“Those who lack the skill to play the game go on to become doctors and teachers or whatever filed they show for which they show an aptitude.” He said. “This is the plan to let us take our place as a world leader.”

“So I can tell my superiors everything I have seen here?

He nodded watching the children leaving for their homes. “Tell them, after all that is your function. If I were to impede you in your duties I would be a criminal to the cause.”

“Can I tell the press?” she asked.

“Such a thing might cost you your job.” He said in a tone that made her nervous.

They both got quiet watching the children milling around toward their school buses. He looked at her with a sad smile. He’d miss this one. Then breaking the silence he said in a grandiose manner. “Behold the new Spartans!”

Sean Monaghan returns with another tale of exploring new worlds and the consequences of mankind's reach for the stars.

To a Pile of Ashes

By Sean Monaghan

The ski-plane had been trashed by something big. There were tears in the fuselage skin and the cabin door had been torn off and lay in the snow amongst debris of upholstery and electronics. Todd remembered the herd of musk-oxen they’d seen on the mainland when they flew out here – some of the bulls must have stood two metres at the shoulder and he could imagine their long horns easily puncturing the plane’s thin plastic shell.

‘Bear,’ Andrew said. His face was grim.

Not an ox, of course, Todd thought. He wondered about the sounds he’d heard on the walk back from the ruin – he had thought it was a wolf or a lynx growling but kept his mouth shut. He was sick of getting caught up in the constant squabbles between Morena and Andrew. His foot was aching, his nose was running and he just wanted to get back to Ossa and take a hot bath. He looked along the shore for any signs of an animal: snow drifts were piled in hillocks and icy waves of slush flopped onto the shore, there was nothing to break up the white expanse. Maram was a cold planet, the warmest parts, here near the equator, had flora and fauna akin to Scandinavia and animals were simply named for their Earth analogue; caribou, bear, musk ox, peregrine. The outpost at Ossa was twenty years old, but there had been little research into the ecology. Morena had told him the animals simply hadn’t been studied: the little lynx they’d seen prowling the ruin wasn’t a Felix lynx canadensis, or whatever she’d said, not even a feline at all, just filling a similar niche. As far as Todd was concerned, though, a cat was a cat and a bear was a bear.

‘It doesn’t look so bad,’ Morena said.

‘Maybe. Let’s just hope it’s still flyable.’ Andrew shucked his pack up and headed down towards the plane.

‘What do you mean, flyable?’ Morena called after him. Andrew didn’t reply. Todd sighed and trudged after the pilot. He had watched Morena grow more and more frustrated over the last seventy hours as she found nothing on or around the blank-faced ruin walls. Morena was Maram’s only xenoarchaeologist and she wanted tools and pots and ornaments, carvings and paintings, and all they’d found was a single arrowhead, which had led to a brief excited celebration only to be followed by more snappish frustration as nothing else was found. No one had ever found anything beyond a blade or pot shard at any off-world ruin anyway so why was she so determined? The arrowhead would have been enough for anyone else and as her technician, Todd had borne the brunt of her impatience.

Andrew was running now, nearly at the plane.

‘Andrew?’ Morena called. She caught up with Todd. ‘Is he serious?’

‘He’s the pilot,’ Todd said.

Morena muttered something and moved ahead. If looks could kill, Todd thought, Andrew would be dead many times over.

‘That’ll make you happy, I guess,’ Todd called after her. ‘If we can’t fly out you’ll get more time at your ruin. More time photographing bricks!’ He trailed off, realising he sounded ridiculous. It would be dark soon, and cold, and they wouldn’t be doing any research. He shifted the weight of his pack and trudged down after them. He couldn’t tell if the plane was flyable or not. It didn’t look in too bad a shape, the hold hatch was trashed, but that seemed to be the worst of it.

Todd was sick of this island and the stupid ruins, sick of Andrew and Morena. Sick of the photographs and soundings. He had a hole in his boot and his foot was getting numb. They’d been out here for four shifts – light the whole time in Maram’s seventy hour day, with Andrew and Morena bickering, Morena getting more uptight and more obsessed as she was unable to find anything worthwhile. It was late and Todd just wanted to get home and soak. Night-time out here was long and cold.

‘Okay,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s like this. The bear has torn out most of the internal fittings. All our avionics have gone, radio, cabin controls ... guidance. There’s also a torn fuel line. Normally most of that’s self-repairing, but she’s lost an awful lot of componentry, so it’s taking her a while to jury-rig herself back to an airworthy level. The catch, though, is that fuel line.’

Todd looked down at the discoloured patch around a melt hole in the snow. ‘Fuel.’

‘Right, fuel. The tanks are down to about ten percent. Nothing like enough to get the three of us back to Ossa, not even enough for one of us.’

‘What do you mean?’ Morena said.

‘We’re stuck here,’ Todd said. ‘We can’t fly back. We have to wait for rescue.’ He’d been right. More time at the ruins for Morena. He imagined her wandering around in the dark, making him hold a flashlight on the walls while she kept examining. ‘How long?’ he asked Andrew.

‘Okay, here’s the kick. She prioritises her –’

‘She?’ Morena said. ‘Me? My priorities?’

‘The plane,’ Todd said. ‘The plane’s AI.’

‘So,’ Andrew went on, ‘the radio’s down her list of priorities. Don't ask me why – and I can’t get into the system to make her reprioritise. And the main antenna’s gone, so she’s out of range anyway. She’ll get to the radio in maybe an hour or so, but we can’t manufacture fuel, so we’re stuck no matter what.’

It will be dark in an hour, Todd thought. They’d need to be in shelter before then. Into their Mylar emergency tent: their day tents would be like cotton sheets in Maram’s frigid night.

‘So here’s what we’re going to do: we’ll head on back inland, find somewhere to hole up for the night. I’ll get the plane to fly towards Ossa as soon as she’s able. She’ll get to the radio on the flight and I’ll be able to patch through. They'll be here in the morning.’

Ossa was Maram’s main community. Three hundred people in a dry valley, mining mostly, some cold climate experimental GE agriculture, a bunch of scientists and lots of bars. It was twelve hundred kilometres away: a four hour flight for their little plane.

Seventy hours till sunrise, Todd thought, it’s already below freezing. How cold will it get? ‘What about the flares?’ he said. ‘The GPS or the beacon. Or the EPIRB? Yeah, where’s the EPIRB? And the satellite phone? Don’t we ... I mean Morena is uploading all her data to the satellite. Can’t we –’

‘We’ve run through it,’ Andrew said. ‘All the contingencies. Even with the EPIRB, which I have sounded, by the way, they won’t come out. All of Morena’s data went to the satellite via the antenna. We have a local radio, which I can use to talk to the plane. The wire antenna will pick it up. If I can put her up in the air she’ll be like a relay. I’ll be able talk to them back in Ossa, probably.’

‘Probably!’ Morena said.

‘No guarantees. At least it gives us a backup if they haven’t heard the EPIRB. And there’s no way the plane can take us anywhere.’

‘Have we got any emergency supplies?’ Morena said. ‘In the plane?’

‘Food, thermal tent, medical. The bear didn’t get everything.’

And we need to get set up fast, Todd thought. He stepped around Morena and pulled the emergency pod from its storage rack. The pod was a yellow plastic pill a metre long, half a metre in diameter. It had slender sled runners and cords so that it could be hauled across snow. ‘Where are we headed?’

‘Back to the ruin.’ Andrew climbed into the plane. ‘We can use the walls for some shelter. We never saw the bear around there.’

We never saw it at all, Todd thought, not at the ruin and certainly not at the plane. Andrew was back in the cockpit fooling with the remains of the plane’s AI console.

‘What do we do?’ Morena said.

Todd pulled a cord from the emergency pod and held it out to her.

‘What?’

‘Help pull.’

‘Yeah.’ She snatched the end from his hand and turned, pulling the pod away from the plane.

‘Come on Andrew,’ Todd said. He took a sidestep to avoid the sliding pod.

‘Five minutes.’

‘Okay. We’re heading up onto the first hill. We’ll wait where we can see you.’

‘Good, I’ll be quick.’

Todd’s foot was tingling, as if asleep and he limped as he caught up with Morena. He zipped out another cord and pulled with her, favouring his numb foot. We’re just sled dogs, he thought.

‘Back to the ruin?’ Morena said.

‘We’ll wait for Andrew on the dune.’

‘Hmph.’

It was as if she had no time for anything else. Here they were stuck on this island, temperature minus twenty Celsius and falling, biting wind, giant bears and a wrecked plane. It was about to be night for seventy hours and she only thought about the ruin. He knew she was brilliant in her field. He knew that she had fallen in love with Maram and her depth of knowledge about the xenos, the xenoform archaeology, as she would correct him, was incredible. It impressed him, how much she could figure out about the ancients who’d built the ruins on the basis of the smallest scrap of evidence. That chipped stone arrowhead indicated that they were hunters, that they hunted small game, that they traded, that they travelled and that they understood biology. To Todd it was just a thin triangular rock. She was stubborn and selfish, rude and impatient, he thought, with the social skills of an iceberg. He wondered how he could get himself assigned to someone less ... fixated for his next excursion. If, of course, he survived this excursion.

‘Is that the bear?’ she said.

He looked and she was pointing back along the beach. He saw something moving at the edge of the water.

‘It’s big,’ she said.

They were near the top of the hill now. Todd tipped the pod into a hollow so it wouldn’t slide back, and pushed the anchor bolt down into the snow. The light was becoming dim, the sun beginning to create a band of orange along the hazy horizon. He looked down at the plane. Andrew climbed back out of the cabin and the propeller began turning.

Looking along the shore Todd focused on the moving shape again. It rested low at the edge of the sea, breathing slowly. It was like a snow mound, really, a little darker than the snow on the beach and the floes in the bay. It’s long shadow reached up the shore towards the hills.

‘How close is it?’ Morena said.

He couldn’t tell. ‘Five hundred metres maybe?’ he guessed. He always found distances difficult in the endless ice. Andrew was walking up the slope towards them.

‘Here,’ Morena said, passing Todd her binoculars.

The sound from the plane’s engine was growing and it was shuddering a little. Todd put the binoculars to his eyes and looked at the shape, seeing it rise to its feet. It was a bear, its long head dipping slightly as it stared into the bay. Todd had never seen an Arctic polar bear, but he’d grown up with enough picture books and documentaries to immediately see the differences: this animal’s neck was angled, holding the head up, like a dog’s; it had a snub, apelike snout. Aside from those differences, its bulky white shape could easily have been mistaken for a polar bear. As he watched it took a couple of steps backwards then charged into the bay. Ice and water sprayed up around the animal as it launched itself forwards. It became submerged and the ice shivered for a moment in its wake.

‘What happened?’ Morena said.

Suddenly a fish perhaps a metre long leapt from the water, with the bear just a whisker behind. The fish twisted in the air and smacked back down into the icy water. The bear landed, clawing its arm around after the fish. Ripples spread in the icy water where the pair had disappeared.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked again.

‘It’s after a fish.’

‘Let me see.’

He hung onto the binocs and saw the fish come up again, not as high, but the bear was a little further behind: it was losing the chase. He handed the binoculars back and Morena stared through them.

The plane was on a high idle and Andrew had almost reached them. ‘She’s about ready,’ he called.

‘The bear’s pretty distracted,’ Todd said. He pointed into the bay.

‘Where?’ Andrew looked around as it came up after the fish again. This time it didn’t fully come out of the water. ‘Not good. We need to get going.’

‘It missed the fish,’ Morena said. ‘It’s just bear-paddling on the surface.’

The plane’s engine sound changed and it began moving along the shore picking up speed.

‘The bear’s heard the plane.’ Morena quickly wiped the lenses, then stared along the shore again.

‘Let’s get going,’ Andrew said.

Todd reached down and pulled the anchor bolt up. ‘This is stupid, it’s dangerous. We need the plane. The bear will see us, follow us...’

‘It won’t see us,’ Andrew said. He looked at a monitor pad in his hand. ‘She’ll have the radio repaired in about an hour. We should be able to talk with Ossa.’

‘It’s watching the plane,’ Morena said. ‘And it’s swimming back towards the beach.’

Todd turned and watched as the plane became airborne at the place the bear had gone into the water. The plane banked, turning towards the setting sun to head for Ossa. Todd looked back down and saw the bear padding onto the snow. It stopped, its head turning to follow the plane’s flight.

‘It’s dripping,’ Morena said. She laughed a little. ‘It’s like a wet poodle.’

‘Poodle! Get a grip.’ Todd grabbed one of the cords from the pod and began hauling it towards the ruin.

‘Oh my!’ Morena shouted. She dropped the binoculars in the snow.

‘Come on,’ Todd said.

Andrew bent and picked up the binoculars. ‘What?’

‘It looked right at me! As if it could see me, as if it was ... as if I was prey.’

Andrew looked through the binoculars.

‘Is it coming?’ Todd called.

‘Yes. Move! Let’s go!’ Andrew flicked the binocular strap around his neck and pulled on a sled line.

They began running back along the icy track leading to the ruin. Todd glanced over his shoulder and saw Morena rigid for a moment, before turning to follow them.

They sprinted for a minute or so then settled into a canter. The snow along the path was packed down, a little slippery. There was no wind now, but it was growing darker. Andrew flicked on a light and the beam bobbed through the sparse vegetation ahead of them. Todd’s foot was entirely asleep; he was surprised he could stay upright. He’d have to take the boot off and massage it once they were camped.

‘Morena’s losing ground,’ Andrew said.

‘She’s not even pulling anything! She’s just got her day pack.’

‘Just slow up a bit.’

Todd was feeling the exertion now, his calves heavy and his heart pounding in his ears. They’d never be able to outrun the bear anyway – the way it had sped through the water was terrifying. It must have weighed over a thousand kilograms and it had leapt entirely clear of the surface in pursuit of the fish. The film he remembered of the analogue polar bears in Earth’s Arctic had shown they could move faster on land than in water. This animal could probably run at sixty or seventy kilometres an hour if it put its mind to it. And, he thought, it’s just missed a meal.

‘Come on!’ he yelled over his shoulder at Morena.

‘We’re nearly there,’ Andrew said. ‘Just another –’ He stopped suddenly. The pod slid into him, knocking him over. Something big flew past Todd and in a blur enveloped Andrew.

‘Look out!’ Morena yelled. Todd stepped back, feeling as if he was in a dream and he watched as the bear slapped Andrew across the chest. Then Morena was beside it, beating the bear around the head with some kind of a club. The bear lifted its front legs and roared, twisting and shaking. Morena slipped over, landing heavily on the snow. The bear dropped to all fours again and clamped its jaw onto Andrew’s head.

‘Do something!’ Morena yelled. She threw her club at the bear’s rear end. It bumped into the mass of fur and fell in the snow. It was a flashlight, Todd realised.

‘Todd!’ Morena bawled. She was up on her feet and running at the bear again.

The bear had its mouth over Andrew’s head so that his body dangled, his feet dragging in the snow. Blood was running down across his snowsuit.

‘TODD!’ Morena was screaming now. She scooped up the flashlight and beat at the bear’s hind leg.

Todd came to, taking in the whole scene at once. It was as if he’d been wearing blinders – his senses blocked by the suddenness of the brutal attack. Now he bent to the pod and flicked it open. The bear shook Andrew like a cloth doll. Todd pulled out the flare gun and aimed at the bear. ‘Get down,’ he said to Morena and pulled the trigger.

The flare hurtled past the bear’s head and sped into the brush. The bear dropped Andrew and bellowed, rearing up. It turned and fled towards the beach, disappearing over a rise as Andrew slid down in the snow at the side of the path. One of the nearby bushes had caught fire, sparkling, the flare still glowing, caught in the branches.

Morena jumped to Andrew’s side, turning his head in her hands. Todd dropped the flare gun into the pod, staring after the bear, amazed at how fast it had fled, then he crouched down to them. Andrew’s head was crushed, fragmented bone showing through the skin. Todd looked at Morena: her eyes were narrowed, unreadable. She was still holding Andrew’s head, her gloves bloodied, and she was staring off at the still-burning flare. ‘So,’ she said after a moment. ‘What do we do now?’

Todd sank back into the snow. As much as he hated it, Andrew had become the de facto leader as soon as they’d lost the ability to fly off the island. He had more cold climate experience and in the moment of crisis he had just taken charge. Even though Todd had disagreed with him, it had been good to have someone making the decisions: somehow in all the urgency it had felt more secure. Now it was down to the two of them.

‘We have to get to the ruin,’ Todd said in a whisper.‘Quickly.’

‘But Andrew – oh, look at your foot!’

Todd looked down and saw that the hole in his boot had become bigger and inside his foot was bleeding. Worse than that, he saw as he moved it: the foot was bruised and pulpy.

‘Frostbite,’ Morena said. ‘Why didn’t you say something before?’

‘I didn’t ... it was just...’ It had never felt as bad as it now looked. It had been numb, tingly. He should have known the signs – he’d just been so anxious to get off the island.

‘Let’s take a look at it. Get your boot off.’

‘Here?’ he said. ‘You have got to be kidding.’ He looked around for the bear. Andrew’s body was still lying in the snow, his blood had made a pink patch around him.

‘You can’t walk on it. What were you thinking?’

‘I’ll be alright. How far to the ruin?’

Nearby something gave a low growl: deep and guttural.

Morena looked around. ‘Not far. You still got the flare gun?’

‘In the pod.’ He got to his feet and staggered, wincing. The foot was no longer numb when he put weight on it.

‘You can’t walk,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She slipped his arm across her shoulder. They were moving then, Morena supporting him, sliding through the snow. He moved in a haze, pain from the foot jabbing like sharp bolts up his leg. How could it have changed so dramatically, so suddenly, from numb to excruciating? They travelled slowly, the wind cutting through them and he could hear occasional growls from the bear.

‘Still scared from the flare,’ he said.

‘Yes, but for how long?’

Then Morena was setting him down on one of the alcoves in the lee of the ruin. There was little snow on the ground beside the stonework and she began putting the emergency tent up over him.

‘I can help.’ He tried to stand, but his head began swimming. He turned and vomited on the ground.

‘Just stay put,’ she said. She almost had the tent up anyway. When she was done she turned on the little thermal radiator and Todd could immediately feel the warmth on his face. The tent formed a shimmering steely dome over him, colours fuzzy and dancing across its surface.

‘I’m beginning to hallucinate,’ he said, thinking that it was a very lucid way to say it.

‘Gimmee a minute,’ Morena said. She was rummaging around in one of the bags. She must have dragged the damaged pod along while she’d supported him. ‘I’m going to give you something from here. It’s only the beginning’s of frostbite.’ She pulled out an ampoule and quickly stripped off his mitten, jabbing him in the back of his hand.

‘Ow!’ he yelped. But then the colours began leaching away. He felt awake and the nausea was disappearing. ‘Mmm, good.’ His foot seemed numb again.

He heard another low growl outside the tent, and something pawed in the ground nearby.

‘Quiet,’ Morena whispered.

Part of the tent buckled and a sharp black claw popped through the fabric, slicing down a little. The buckling stopped and the claw disappeared. For a moment all he could hear was the hum of the thermal radiator, then the bear bellowed and the tent collapsed around him. The bear was groping, gouging, trying to locate them through the foil tent fabric. Suddenly there was a blinding flash and the bear howled. The tension in the tent disappeared and Todd could hear the bear galloping off. The tent popped up a little, hanging ragged around the tears.

‘That was the last flare,’ Morena said.

Todd sat up through a hole in the tent, the cold wind biting into his face. The tent was shredded, destroyed. His injured foot was sticking through another hole. Part of the fabric was singed from the phosphorus flare. ‘Well the bear’s gone for good, now,’ he said, unconvinced, sure that it was waiting nearby. ‘So what do we do for shelter?’ He looked around for Morena. She was standing with a light, looking into the alcove. ‘What?’ he said. Snow was beginning to fall.

Morena didn’t reply. She put the light between her teeth and reached up, pulling out one of the stone bricks. Todd’s head felt much clearer and he rocked himself around onto his knees. His foot was still numb. ‘What is it?’ he said. Morena was pulling out another stone. ‘Aren’t you supposed to number those? Catalogue it all?’ What was wrong with her? Here they were about to be frozen to death, or eaten, and she was doing archaeology?

‘Gring na canra,’ she said.

‘What?’

She took the light out of her mouth. ‘The bear’s knocked some of the stones loose. Bring the camera.’ She put the light back and reached for another stone.

‘Great, yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Camera.’ But he saw one lying near his knees, probably knocked from her pack in the mêlée. The thermal radiator was cracked and it sparked at him when he bumped it. He stood on his good foot and hopped across to her.

‘Good,’ she said, light still in her mouth. ‘Take son kictures.’

Todd shook his head, but pointed the camera up at the hole she was making and snapped away. The rescue team would at least get something for science.

‘Up here,’ she said. ‘The glyphs.’

Then he saw them, the shapes chiselled into the stone in the alcove arch. They were like ancient Native American rock art. Some were worn smooth, almost invisible but others, those that had been protected by the stones Morena had removed, were clear and sharp. They were simple shapes, humanoid figures, fish, animals. One of them was clearly a bear.

‘There’s a cavity in here,’ Morena said. ‘A room.’

‘How’s that?’ Todd remembered working with her on sounding the ruin. ‘It was solid, there were no cavities.’

‘I don’t know. When I fired, the bear crashed into the wall and dislodged the first stones. We’d never have found it without the bear.’

So now she’s congratulating it, Todd thought.

‘I’ll get another couple of bricks cleared and we can climb in, out of the weather. It looks like there’s enough space for both of us.’ She pulled out another brick and dropped it.‘Keep photographing. It might be life or death, but at least let’s record it.’

Todd took another picture. His good leg was starting to feel prickly, bearing all his weight without moving. ‘No writing?’ he said. ‘Didn’t you say something about that? No symbols, no writing?’

‘That’s right, no one’s ever found writing. Anywhere. Just walls and holes and domes and trenches. No one’s ever found a single pictogram or hieroglyph. Here we’ve got twenty.’

Todd heard the bear growl again, way behind him. He turned, but couldn’t see anything. ‘It’s coming back.’

‘Mmm. Twenty-eight sites, you know that? Twenty eight different alien ruins on fifteen planets.’

‘I know.’

‘And these are the smallest, most insignificant.’

‘I know.’

‘Here, the hole’s big enough. Let me give you a leg up.’

‘Right.’ He clipped the camera to his suit and put his hands up into the hole. Morena grabbed his good leg and hoisted as he pulled up with his arms. He fell through the hole onto the ground. It was dry. He hopped back up to help her through.

‘I heard the bear,’ he said.

‘Yes. Take this.’ She passed the first-aid kit through.‘Twenty-eight sites and this was the smallest, most insignificant,’ she went on. ‘The others have tunnels and chambers, but no markings.’ She passed in one of the food canisters and the damaged thermal radiator. ‘This is the find of the century. Did you take photos?’

‘Yes!’ Did she ever let up? ‘Get in here, will you? That animal won’t stay away. You’ve scared it, but it will come back. It’s hungry.’

‘Yeah, just a sec.’ She passed him the mini science lab and some loose equipment.

‘Hurry up!’

She started passing the remains of the tent through to him.‘Get a grip!’ he yelled. ‘We don’t need all this crap! What am I going to do if you get eaten too?’

‘It’s not here. Will you relax? We need everything, I mean who know knows what might be useful? We’ve got to hole up in here.’ Then she passed one of the stones through.‘We’ll brick it back up as best we can. It’s going to get so cold.’

The bear growled, loud and close by. Morena looked up, at the top edge of the wall, outside the alcove. ‘Now!’ she shouted and jumped up into the hole. Todd grabbed her and pulled. She came through the gap and landed heavily, crushing his bad foot. He heard bones cracking, but couldn’t feel it, other than a dim sensation of crunching and grating. Dizziness returned.

Morena was up and off him quickly. ‘Jeez, you alright?’

Todd gasped, sucking in the cool air. ‘I ... don’t think so.’ He was still prone and Morena looked down at the foot.

‘Worse?’ he asked.

Morena’s mouth formed a thin line. ‘Yep.’ She looked up and shone the light around. ‘There’s a whole big room here. How did they make it invisible to the soundings?’

There was another growl and the bears’ paw and arm reached through the hole, swiping around blindly. As it withdrew it took one of the bricks with it.

‘Uh-oh,’ Todd said. ‘It’s pretty determined, huh?’ He felt groggy again.

‘Pretty hungry, yep.’ Morena stepped over him and, grabbing the shoulders of his snowsuit, dragged him into the recess. Her light flickered around and he could see more of the pictograms, their carvings making a progression, like a story, around the curving walls.

‘Oh my,’ Morena said. She had the light behind him, facing away. Todd flipped over and got himself into a crawling position. He was starting to feel the pain from his foot again, it must have been in really bad shape if he could feel it over the morphine. Morena’s light was shining on a block of stone in the middle of a wide round room. The block must have been two and a half metres long, the room perhaps six metres in diameter, nearly as wide as the wall itself.

Morena walked over to the block, shining the light along the edges and top. ‘Oh my, oh my,’ she kept saying. The block was a metre high and Todd had to stand to be able to see what it was she was looking at. He hobbled over and leaned on the block. There was a skeleton on top. Some desiccated skin still clinging to the bones, and what looked like straw formed a bed. There were decorations, bracelets, a necklace, a big headdress, even the remains of shoes. The skeleton was humanoid and almost as long as the block, the creature had stood well over two metres tall. The bones were heavy, dark with age and strangely shaped. The ribs were more vertical than a human and all the bones seem to have ridges and nodules on, as if they were the myriad attachment points for muscles and tendons.

‘A whole skeleton,’ Todd said. Standing was making him light headed.

‘Oh yes. Forget the pictograms, this is ... what a find ... to think we almost left.’

It was as if she had completely forgotten Andrew. ‘That’s it,’ Todd said. ‘That’s all that matters to you. Bloody archaeology!’

‘Don’t you see,’ she said. ‘This is the find that will turn xenoarcheology on it’s head. Xeno-everything! This is like nothing ever found before!’

Todd felt his nausea rising again and he wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to his foot or his disgust at Morena. He lifted the camera and took a photo of her standing by the skeleton. ‘There, now you’re a hero. You’ll be in every xeno journal from here to Earth.’ He could feel his peripheral vision going, and in the distance the bear growling again. Morena turned suddenly and Todd turned to follow her gaze. The bear was pushing into the chamber, growling and slobbering, an angry gaze in its eyes.

‘I didn’t hear it,’ Todd said. Blackness swam up around him and he felt himself falling, passing into unconsciousness.

The dream, then, was peaceful, a golden roaring waterfall and tropical palms waving in the breeze. Parrots drifted by and someone was playing a flute. Slowly, he began coming around, he could hear sounds, a quiet metallic jarring, like old brass doorbells. He opened his eyes and there was light around him. He was still in the chamber, still lying by the stone block – the burial altar. He could smell smoke and he sat up.

‘Morena?’ He realised the light was daylight, shining through the chamber entry. He’d been unconscious for at least seventy hours.

‘You’re awake,’ she said. ‘I’ve made soup.’ She was standing by him holding a small pot. That was the bell sound he’d heard, the spoon tapping the pot as she stirred.‘Vegetable soup from the kit. How’s your foot?’

Todd looked down and saw that his boot was gone, his foot was bandaged carefully with a frostbite warmer wrap. ‘I can feel a little. it’s sore.’

‘That’s a good sign.’ She poured a cup of the soup and handed it to him. ‘I’ve had a response. They’re coming to get us.’

He took the cup. ‘Good, that’s good.’ He was starving and sipped hungrily.

‘Andrew’s gone,’ she said. She held out a vial of milk, splashing some into his soup. ‘His body, I mean. I couldn’t find it.’

‘What about the bear?’

‘Oh, it’s ... dead ... I–’

‘You killed it?’

‘Yes. Burned it. Well, I kept brandishing the fire at it to keep it back, then it’s fur caught and it just went up. It must have been fifty or sixty percent fat. The smoke was so disgusting I nearly choked.’

‘Brandishing?’ Todd sipped from the soup. ‘What did you burn?’ All of their equipment was fire retardant.

Morena gave him a tight grim smile. ‘The bones. They were all we had. Old and dry. They burned well. All of them.’ She gestured to a pile of ashes at the chamber entry and poured herself a cup of soup.

Sean Monaghan is a fan of cold environments.  His snow and ice themed ambient album (as Venus Vulture) “Stick With me Giselle, Things Can Only Get Better” was released for free download on the Test Tube Netlabel in April 2009.

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The First Baby Born in the New Century

By Chris Castle

They say the first baby born in the new century has a gift and it’s true. She was born and from her first breath she made people smile. Her parents when they held her, the nurses as they tended her; other patients from wards changed their path just to look in from the glass. She was taken home in the back of a black cab and the taxi driver swore he would tell his friends, his family, and his customers about her smile.

As she grew the gift changed; she stopped bullies form bullying, stutters' to stop stuttering. She didn’t ask for thanks or look for attention she simply stepped forward sometimes, stepped back other times and seemed to make things settle, or in some cases, break free. She stirred a freedom in people, restless and true, to make them smile, or stop or act or to speak out. By the time she became a woman she had done a lot and asked for very little.

As a woman she worked, she travelled and tried to understand things that were a mystery. Her gift changed again and became silent; she simply observed and understood and became thankful to the world she lived in. She met people who were to become lovers and though she could never truly fall in love she learned so much her heart was almost fit to burst.

The gift changed as the years grew; though they world grew older she did not seem to age. While suitors spent time with her, she simply stayed a young woman, in appearance at least; the lines never seeming to settle on her forehead, the creases around her eyes never becoming hardened and deep. She moved through her life, her work and always remained the same, old enough to meet the elderly without ever seeming a threat, holding onto enough youth to learn and understand what the young people were trying to express; their love, their anger, their frustration, their hopes. And in the midst of all this she stood, her body standing still as the hours spun around her and fell away.

She volunteered when wars broke out and saw death with her own eyes. She felt a man’s last breath on her cheek, bore witness to the last words spoken by a woman in the gravel. An old lady and a baby died in her arms and she cried for so long she shivered in her bones for months after. She knew no gift then, or if it held it was a heavy lumpen thing that was of no use and a curse. She spent years hearing that last voice, scratched her skin feeling the last breath.

But then…she found a flower in a drainpipe, scooped up oranges from a split shopping basket; found change for a homeless man, and more for a young couple short of cash on the bus; a hundred thousand small moments of kindness that make people who they are. She remembered to smile, and by doing so found others smiling.

The years passed and slowly she restored her gift, by being given moments by others. She fell pregnant and carried a child. The feeling was both remarkable and terrifying and all she ever wanted. She took each day slowly and braced herself for what came next. Her body was old but she fought against all of it because this was her chance.

The baby was born on the stroke of the first day of the new century -Christmas-. After a time she left the baby in her cot and walked away for air. The baby smiled and drew people from each part of the ward. She stepped outside and walked around the building. As she did she looked to the glass and watched herself grow older, older until she was her true age; where once was beauty was now experience; where once was youth was now knowledge. Only her eyes remained the same, burning bright and beautiful and that was enough. Then she returned to the ward, to her child, as an old woman and no longer new but a mother. A mother to the first new born baby of the new century.

We are All Eaters of Souls

by Daniel Davis 

We are all eaters of souls

Here in this dismal well

Where dampness rots our flesh

And pestilence feasts on our tongues.

The way out—

We cannot reach it.

The light—

Only blinds us.

We have naught to do but feast

Upon the remnants

Of dreams cut short

By the cruel sisters of fate.

A voice—

Distant and echoing.

But it is only the voice

Which enslaves us.

We are numerous down here,

Caught in a web woven before time,

Trapped in a dungeon that once held gods

But now imprisons those who could not fly.

To live here is to die

A death a thousand times.

To remain here is to suffer

The defeat within the victory.

We are all eaters of souls

When left unto ourselves,

Untended by our fragile humanities

And encouraged by our wrathful hunger.

CODIFIED INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DYING WOMAN

by John  Grey

On this shimmering metal day

keep your skin scented, buffed;

comb your hair neat

as your surviving memories;

from your dark hole,

deep beneath the turbo-powered city,

draw on the rhythm of your heart;

there’s mechanics in the nerves,

in the blood;

there’s product at the tip of your wavering lip,

in the tepid signals of your eyes,

the almost ossified creaking

of your fmgers

on their way to make a fist;

It’s a vast universe

and you are not the last of your kind;

there’s pockets of resistance,

fragments of dreams,

whisperings that knot up in the breath,

but, in these cross-harmonies of anger, flesh and sorrow,

chant their way into voice;

a woman can never be the hollows of herself;

just by being, you revolt;

So in these robotic dioramas,

touch your skin with something of yourself;

forsake android-speak

for the defiance of your hoarse and cancered throat;

don’t press the button

but hold your hand against your breast,

the place you’re pleased it hurts;

where batteries recharge,

breathe;

where everything runs on time,

stall out into a thought,

a wince of ancient love;

in your last hours,

sabotage the future

by replacing your replacement;

in cold Big Brother times,

stare into the foggy mirror,

warm to the results.

John Grey is an Australian born poet. He has been a US resident since late seventies. He works as financial systems analyst. He has recently been published in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review, The Pedestal. and Albatross with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock and REAL.

Gingerbread Lady

By Michael Lee Johnson

Gingerbread lady,

no sugar or cinnamon spice;

years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.

Crippled mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure

blurred in an imagination of fingertip thoughts.

Who remembers the characters?

There was George, her lover, near the bridge at the Chicago River:

she missed his funeral; her friends were there.

She always made feather-light of people dwelling on death,

but black and white she remembers well.

The past is the present; the present is forgotten.

Who remembers Gingerbread Lady?

Sometimes lazy-time tea with a twist of lime,

sometimes drunken-time screwdriver twist with clarity.

She walks in scandals; sometimes she walks in soft night shoes.

Her live-in maid smirked as Gingerbread Lady gummed her food,

false teeth forgotten in a custom-imprinted cup

with water, vinegar, and ginger.

The maid died. Gingerbread Lady looks for a new maid.

Years ago, arthritis and senility took their toll.

Yesterday, a new maid walked into the nursing home.

Ginger forgot to rise out of bed;

no sugar, or cinnamon toast.