GreatHites 55

Great Hites # 55 is Guest hosted by Justin Lowmaster. Thank you so much Justin.
This week we have stories by:

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Ashley Redden
Norval Joe
Mick Bordet <---- this weeks winner
and Justin Lowmaster



Arms Race
By: Ashley Redden


Dr. Saunders looked again at his pressure suit and considered going out without it. This was not the first time that the good doctor had entertained these thoughts. One day, perhaps soon perhaps not, he may do more than entertain them, but not today.
He curtly began his predressing inspection being every bit as thorough and analytical as always, yet those nagging thoughts remained. Three weeks ago Dr. Martin had done just that. He walked up to the pressure door, went through the proper procedure setting off no alarms and exited from the hospital’s staff living area to the active working center. This was a procedure that Dr. Martin had performed many times in the past, the difference here being that Dr. Martin had left his pressure hanging, still seated and ready to use. The suit had been fully sanitized and properly prepped for use. Dr. Martin had just simply bypassed wearing it.
The night before, there was a heated discussion in Block C; Dr. Saunders resides in Block A, between Dr. Martin and other members of the staff. Dr. Martin was purported to say to them all, “You’re all just robots going through the motions watching the end come like some macabre scorekeepers.” After which he stormed out. No one spoke with him again until after the next morning when he walked out, smile on his rueful face, suit still in the rack.
He had lasted some 10 days, each day seeming a bit frailer than the last, when he bottomed out. After that it was a scant 12 hours before he expired. Some of the staff had accused Dr. Martin of taking the easy way out, suicide they spat. Dr. Saunders wasn’t so sure. After all, was there any hope anymore? He had hardly known Dr. Martin, wasn’t even sure of the man’s first name. But Dr. Saunders could sympathize. He grudgingly felt the same way at times, but couldn’t allow himself to proceed with the act.
Dr. Saunders stepped into the red circle placing both feet as centered as possible onto the smaller oblong foot-shaped areas within the larger circle. He said, “This is Dr. Carl Saunders. Please suit for exit.”
A pleasant nongendered voice answered, “Good morning Dr. Saunders. Please remain calm and with both feet placed within the designations for suiting.”
As he stood waiting for the automated suiting process to proceed, Dr. Saunders remembered the second savior of mankind. He was still a child when the procedure was ratified by the world government and announced that everyone, the inhabitation of the world, would undergo the procedure. The slogan was ‘metapleural glands for an infection free life’. Utilizing gene therapy, all citizens, whether they wanted it or not, received an injection of MGI, metapleural gland initiator. After this single injection, a metapleural gland system would develop internally within each injectee. Everyone would benefit from the procedure, no fuss no muss.
This prospect had so invested itself into Dr. Saunders’ psyche, then just Carl Saunders, that he had begun a pursuit in medicine upon induction to university.
This was the second time in modern history that a medical miracle would draw praise as the savior of humanity. The first happened in the early nineteen hundreds with the invention of antibiotics. The fanfare was lauded long before terms were commonly used like misuse of broad spectrum antibiotics that led to other more insidious terms such as drug tolerance and drug resistance and of course the worst of all multidrug resistance. Humanity had made a choice. We stepped out of natural selection and Mother Nature summarily unleashed the biological dogs of war.
A pleasant voice briefly pulled Dr. Saunders from his reverie saying, “Initial stage suiting complete. Beginning secondary stage suiting, please remain calm and with both feet properly placed within the designations for suiting.”
“The deadly bull ant will save us all,” Dr. Saunders remembered one pompous scientist espousing all the while primping for the cameras like so much the rock star. The procedure had begun with study of certain metapleural gland secretions from Myrmecia gulosa, the Australian bull ant. These secretions exhibited startling antimicrobial properties that left bull ants virtually germ free.
So the world’s population had taken the treatment and subsequently enjoyed some forty years of nearly infection free living, truly, a golden age for humanity. That golden age had, however, come to a bitter end with the first documented case of GICS, global immuno collapse syndrome.
Some mixture of normal bacterial flora, or indigenous micro biota as preferred by the professionals, inhabiting the cutaneous tissue of all humans had somehow changed or altered in such as way to shred the immune system of otherwise healthy individuals. The disease seemed then to race through the world’s population like a wildfire. The world government that just months before was struggling with a burgeoning populace’ increasing demand for an already overburdened supply system, suddenly found whole populations, continents worth, dropping dead over a period of days or weeks.
The scientific community had pulled back and begun experimentation immediately. Hundreds of facilities had been erected within each country; the United States had several hundred alone. Of those hundreds and hundreds of facilities, only thirty nine remained in contact. Things had begun to look dire.
The only inhibition to the disease found so far was to sterilize the skin of each of the individuals, then reinoculate each person’s skin with a single culture of bacteria, Staphylococcus epidermidis, a commonly occurring human cutaneous flora . That particular flora was the only one currently present on Dr. Saunders skin and monitored with great impunity by the automated system that oversaw operations in the hospital.
‘The deadly bull ant may in the end kill us all,’ thought Dr. Saunders. Humanity in its arrogance forgot that we live on a biosphere and are active participants in that system’s never ending biological arms race. We gambled and lost big, real big.
The pleasant voice said, “Secondary stage complete. Please step into the suit. Remain calm and motionless within the suit for final sealing.”
The rack lowered spreading the suit wide like some waiting false skin. Dr. Saunders stepped into the suit, pushing his arms into the open suit and waited for the sealing process to proceed. The suit sealed with a hiss as positive pressure was applied to the interior. A green light blossomed where red had previously illuminated and the large iris before Dr. Saunders rotated open.
“Please exit,” said the voice.
“Thank you,” answered Dr. Saunders.
“You are welcome sir.”
Once outside the sealed living area, Dr. Saunders began making his was to the laboratory facilities in section 12, his designated laboratory.
Another scientist passed him at the first corner. They made eye contact and Dr. Saunders could see the endemic weariness present in her fatigue lined eyes.
“Good luck today,” she said with a slight wave of arm.
Dr. Saunders waved back and remembering the comment on robots, thought that she did indeed resemble a robot. He turned and continued on his way, mind still wandering. Dr. Saunders’ thoughts began to drift then onto other topics working details out, building speed as if they were some wild life form all there own. He stopped as ideas began to occur to him, one after the other, as if a tap had been unstoppered allowing the water contained therein to gush out completely unfettered.
As his mind raced, he began again to walk towards the waiting laboratory quickening his pace, as well as, his breath. By the time he arrived, he had a working theory and experimentation projects stratifying within his head, clicking mentally into place. He looked around at the dark laboratory and passed a hand over the light panel. The lighting in the laboratory began to wink on gradually becoming brighter and brighter. Dr. Saunders let out a loud whoop that went unanswered in the isolated laboratory. He felt just like the lab, everything was dark moments ago, now bright. He had read somewhere that euphoric events sometimes occur like that, out of the blue like a mental tidal wave. Ideas were like lightning. One could never predict where or when they would strike.
Dr. Saunders fought down the urge to tell someone, but he had much work to perform before that step. He would begin a new log and place his thought within that should anything happen to him, it would suffice. He would talk later; right now he required uninterrupted focus.
So a lowly ant had ordained the doom of mankind only to be saved by an off-the-wall comment of a disenfranchised doctor. They say that necessity is the mother of invention.
‘Well, ‘thought Dr. Saunders, ‘irony must have a place in that statement as well.’ Things were suddenly looking up.
Dr. Saunders rubbed suited hands together impatient to get started, he had mountains to move.


Out in right field
By: Norval Joe
　
"I was reading Omni magazine," Gary announced suddenly, as Kyle chewed on his sandwich and Eric picked at the strings of his guitar. The pick hopped about in complicated patterns across the strings, while the fingers of his left hand walked up and down the frets. He had spent years learning the classical style of guitar, using all the fingers of his right hand to pluck the various strings, but it was clear from the expressions that his face made as he played, that he enjoyed the raw sound of the nylon pick against the strings. With his eyes closed, he kept playing, but he finally asked, "Ok, what did you read in Omni?"
"I read that they are making computers that are so smart that they will start improving themselves without telling us that they are doing it, until they get so smart that they won’t need us anymore, and then they’ll just get rid of us."
Kyle stopped chewing, and spoke around the food still in his mouth, "You read that in Omni?"
"Well, maybe it wasn’t Omi, but I did read it somewhere, and when that happens, it will really suck!"
"Wait a minute," Eric stopped him, "You think that the computers will get so smart that they will kill us?"
"Uh, huh." Gary grunted, starting to look defensive.
"So, how is a computer supposed to kill us," Eric challenged him.
The enthusiasm returned to Gary’s face, "You know, they’ll make robots with weapons in the arms and stuff, and they’ll hunt us down until every human is eliminated.
Eric was advancing up the neck of his guitar, playing a twelve note riff, over and over, in different keys. He didn’t pause or even slow down, but asked, "So you’re saying that super advanced, artificial intelligence, computer robots will someday wipe out mankind?" Gary was bobbing his head in agreement, so Eric went on, "It will never happen. First of all, the more intelligent a species becomes, the more pacifistic its society becomes. It’s the ignorant and superstitious that try to destroy life." He paused speaking, to begin a new riff and work back down the neck of the guitar. "Secondly, you assume that your AI will develop a WC."
"WC?" Both Gary and Kyle asked at the same time.
"Yeah, WC; who cares? You assume that this perpetually improving AI is going to become self aware, develop desires and aspirations. That it is going to want to be more than just a box of electronic connections that reads and writes ones and zero’s on a magnetic surface.
"No matter how advanced you make its routines, even to the point that it will analyze and improve them on its own, it will never advance to the point, where it will decide for itself that it wants to do anything different than what it was programmed to do.
"If you want robots, just look around you. This quad is full of them. All these unintelligent jerks walking around the school are doing just what they were programmed to do; eat, sleep, and procreate. They don’t create anything new, or try to become something different than what they are. Their genetic make-up, their hormones, are determining their every move, every decision that they make.
Katy Sims walked bast the three freshmen at that moment, on the arm of Jason Smith. They all stopped talking and gaped, stupidly, as their own hormones took control for a time. She floated past them in her tightly fitting blue jean shorts and lace edged, white, t-shirt, her strawberry blonde hair glowing in the mid-day sunshine like the halo around an angel.
Eric didn’t miss a note, but switched to a low, slow, blues progression.
Neither Katy, nor Jason, appeared to notice the three boys sitting on the steps in front of the schools theater. They walked past and around the corner to the stairs that would lead to the theater’s back stage entrance; where it was secluded and private.
"That guy is huge," Kyle said when he came to himself again, "It’s too bad he got kicked off the football team, he was half the front line; and aggressive, too."
"You mean, too aggressive, Kyle." Gary put in. "You can’t be on a team if you’re fighting with the other players all the time, and the coaches too. He’s just too hot headed."
Eric went back to flat picking, but in a minor key, as Kyle launched back in, expounding on his previous comment. "Talk about killer robots. When that guy gets mad, it’s like he’s been programmed to kill; there’s no stopping him. I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side."
They could hear noises from the two around the corner; though their conversation wasn’t loud enough to hear, clearly, the tone of their voices said that they were arguing.
"I don’t know why she stays with him," Gary said, looking in the direction of the increasingly louder interchange, "she could have any guy in the school. Shoot, she could have me!" He finished with an exclamation, as if suddenly solving a great mystery. He looked around at his friends for support, but Eric was laughing and Kyle was staring at his sandwich again.
Kyle spoke without moving his eyes from the sandwich, "Katy was my best friend in 2nd grade, you know. We spent every recess together on the jungle gym. It was our space ship and we were going to the moon. She wanted to be an astronaut, back then. She’s smart enough; she could be one if she still wants to."
"No! I don’t want to right now!" They heard Katy shout, clearly not remembering that the three boys were sitting with in hearing distance, or not caring. They couldn’t understand Jason’s response; hearing only a grumbling murmur.
Eric shifted back to the blues progression, but interspersing it with riffs in a minor key. Gary looked at Kyle with an embarrassed smile, apparently thrilled by the overheard drama, but Kyle just shot back with a withering glare. Gary’s smile disappeared completely, just moments later, when the volume and intensity of the argument increased.
"No!" Katy was screaming now, and crying too. "Don’t touch me. I hate you." Eric stopped playing and all three boys looked in the direction of Katy’s louder and louder protestations. "I don’t ever want to see you again!" Katy shouted. She was crying loudly, when there was a sudden, sharp, pop; like the sound you hear when you're standing out in right field and the baseball hits the bat.
All three boys were on their feet and Eric and Kyle were headed for the back stairs. Gary stayed where he was and shouted at the other two boys," Hey! You can’t go back there; he’ll kill you too." But then he followed his friends around the corner, when they paid him no heed.
Kyle was the first around the corner to find Jason bending over the unmoving Katy laying supine at the top of the stairs. He could see her face, eyes closed, her mouth open, just slightly, like she was waiting for a kiss; her face seemed small and round framed by her short straight, strawberry blonde hair. She looked so much like the little girl he had known in second grade, when she had once fallen from the jungle gym and lay unmoving in the sand below; without thinking he shouted, "Katy, are you ok?"
Surprised to find that he and Katy were no longer alone, Jason turned and half stood, "Get out of here! Can’t you see we’re making out?" There was hate, anger and something else in his dangerous look; was it guilt? When the three just stood there dumbfounded, Jason got fully to his feet. "Didn’t you hear me? I said get out of here or I’ll beat the crap out of each one of you!"
"OK, Jason. Take it easy, we’re leaving. We didn’t see nothing." Eric said, backing away, trying to pacify this angry bull of a giant youth. Jason stopped advancing toward them as the three boys backed out of the passage that lead to the stairs.
Instead of returning to their previous spot on the steps in front of the theater, they continued walking across the quad toward the administration building.
"We need to tell someone. Katy could really be hurt," Kyle said, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning to look back toward the side of the theater where he could still picture Katy laying unconscious at the top of the stairs.
"Yeah, and then he’ll come and kill us, too. This isn’t a huge high school. It won’t be hard for him to figure out who ratted on him, and then find us. I mean, he only lives a few streets away from me, and he used to deliver our newspaper." Gary was starting to sound panicked, fear pulling down the corners of his mouth and making his eyes water.
They were still looking in the direction of the theater when the bell rang. Lunch was over. "We need to decide quickly what we’re going to do," Eric was saying when they saw the couple emerge into the quad. Jason towered above her as she leaned into his body, under his right arm, her left arm around his waist. The left side of her face was against his chest, and she stared blankly at the ground as they moved across the quad. His right arm supported her under her right shoulder, at times it appeared as if he was carrying her, or dragging her along, instead of her bearing her own weight.
Jason glared at the three friends as the couple climbed the steps out of the sunken quad; not headed to the classrooms, but out to the student parking lot.
"We’re robots," Eric said as they turned to head toward their next classes, "we’re all just robots."


The Robot Band
By Mick Bordet


My best friend, Sam, is rich. Filthy, stinking, obscenely rich. Not just merely lottery or pop star rich, but owns-a-Carribbean-island rich. He's also thick as several extremely short planks, but that has never held him back. You see, Sam is a natural risk-taker, a guy who knows when to get in to something new and, more importantly, when to get out. He left school at sixteen, worked in a shop for about six months until it went belly-up and he was paid off. That minor windfall he invested in shares, whilst he looked for something else to do, and was the point at which his winning streak began. The shares were for a small company called Microsoft and within a few short years, Sam had taken those profits and re-invested them again and again, always picking winners. From early mobile phone companies to Google and MySpace, he always invested so early in their lives that the rewards from share growth were substantial.

You might ask me, "how has the money changed him?" and I would have to say that it hasn't. Much smaller amounts have changed many a life over the years, sometimes for the better, often for the worst, but not Sam. He still meets us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night down at our local pub, the Pumpkin and Poodle, where the four of us old school friends have congregated since our youth. In fact, he's the only one who has never missed a single night; the rest of us have had various interruptions along the way -- we didn't see Joe for months at a time whilst he was away at university some years back, Fred often heads away on the United supporters bus on various trips into Europe to follow his team and I've missed the occasional night for the odd family crisis. I think the four of us and his mother are the only people who know just how wealthy Sam really is, so down-to-earth is his manner. Our evenings range from straightforward pub talk with dwindling coherence over the course of the evening, to quiz nights where Sam is more of a liability than anything else.

If it's a night when one or more of us are away, we'll often decant early to one of our homes and sit up into the wee small hours listening to music or playing cards or board games. Game choices can be tricky; Sam is lucky to reach a double-figure score in Scrabble, but wipes the floor with the rest of us when playing Monopoly. Buying and selling just comes naturally to him, though little else does. As for music, Joe has been trying to educate Sam in the delights of opera, which he enjoys when he hears it, but would never buy for himself. I'm more into rock, myself, but Sam can't get his head around my musical taste at all, preferring the most insipid, watered-down, mass-market music that advertising can buy.

"Why don't you like this group?" he often asks me.

"Because what you call 'the music' is repetitive, the lyrics don't tell any sort of story apart from 'I wanna jump your bones' and it sounds like everything else in the charts," is my usual answer.

"They're really hot girls, though, and the video is clever, too."

"Sam, they're 'hot' because they are covered in layers of make-up, are filmed from just the right angle and are gyrating in such a manner that your brain isn't exactly focused on what they actually look like. I'm sure they're all pimples and stretch marks under all that; you'd probably look that good with the right stylist."
"Okay then," he would add, "but they're good dancers and they've got good singing voices."

That would normally be enough to tip me over the edge.

"First of all, I can't see them dancing on the CD, so they could be prima ballerinas for all that matters. As for their singing, their voices have been processed by so many fancy studio effects that they all sound just the same as every other girl band out there. I bet they can't even sing in tune; that's easily fixed with fancy gadgets nowadays. I'd rather go and see a band of robots perform than waste good money on these girl and boy bands. There would certainly be more emotion in their voices. Sam, you really need to stop listening to what they tell you on the radio or, better still, find a channel with some decent music."

For somebody with such a head for business decisions, he has almost no imagination, knowledge or common sense and yet it's hard to stay annoyed with him for long; he's such a naturally fun person to be around. The one concession to a billionaire lifestyle is that paradise island in the Carribbean; it is truly stunning, with an unassuming wooden home built on top of the rocky hill in the middle of the island, providing spectacular views over the deep green forests, golden beaches and sparkling blue ocean beyond. It has a private airstrip where he lands his jet, but he only goes there for weekends; he's always back in time for our Monday night pub session.

Birthdays are different. His in-built intuition has come up with a winning formula for letting him spoil his friends without letting us turn into jerks. He will happily buy us the most extravagant of gifts, year after year, but always with one proviso. When we have finished with whatever the gift may be, we have to sell it for charity; we are not allowed to make any profit from it. Last year he bought me a stunning black Lambourghini sports car. Totally impractical for a family man with no garage who lives in a normal suburban town, but that's the sort of thing he comes up with. He wants us to have fun, to benefit from his wealth, but couldn't bear us changing. So, after a couple of weeks driving the thing out in the countryside and along the motorway in the middle of the night, before the local vandals had a chance to wreck their own brand of havock on the car, I put it up for auction and gave the money to a local charity as an anonymous donation.

Last week was my fiftieth birthday and Sam's present seemed particularly thoughtful. He had booked the local theatre, a small venue at the end of the high street, and invited the three of us and our families. We sat expectantly for twenty minutes, chatting away and enjoying the champagne he had laid on for everyone, until the lights dimmed and the curtain rose. A solitary figure sat on a stool in the middle of the stage, holding a guitar and surrounded by a bewildering array of gadgets. He started to play, occasionally tapping foot pedals to change effect or start an echoing loop of sound.

"It's Fripp!" I whispered to Sam, "How the hell did you get him to come here?"

I have no idea what it must have cost him to hire the King Crimson guitar legend for a private show, though I knew that money was no object as far as his friends were concerned. Sam just smiled back and said "Enjoy the show."

The show continued for about fifteen minutes like this, Fripp building up a dense wall of intense music that raced around the auditorium, before letting it fade slowly away. Even the people around me who I knew didn't listen to progressive rock were clearly impressed, applauding the small figure on stage. He didn't stop. Over the fading echoes he started to play a clear melody, a riff, a tune that triggered memory: "All along the watchtower". Before the first instrumental verse had ended, another figure shambled onto the stage to join Fripp.

"No way! You got Dylan, too! This is awesome!" I said, almost dancing in my seat.

Perhaps the mix of these two very different musicians, the intense, technical guitar player and the croaky, folky troubadour, should not have worked, but on this night it was perfect. It only got better. As the song ended and they started the next piece, lights to the left of the stage gradually illuminated to reveal a bank of keyboards, played by former Zappa band member Bobby Martin. Another song passed and a curtain to the back of the stage lifted, revealing a small set of percussion that was being played gently by a heavily-beared man sitting in a wheelchair who also started to sing delicately wistful backing melodies to accompany Dylan's nasal lead vocal.
I didn't need to say anything to Sam; the grin spread across my face as I pointed to the stage and mouthed the words "Robert Wyatt!"

The band was complete with the final addition of another vocalist, replacing Dylan who moved over to play acoustic guitar. The tight jeans and wild hair were an instant giveaway, although no surprise given the calibre of talent already on stage: Robert Plant.

Only then did the penny drop. My wonderful friend who had arranged this show, this once-in-a-lifetime event that would stay with me for ever, had not picked and paid for this collection of musicians for their talent or the fact that I had a great deal of respect for all of them. He had simply misinterpreted my desire. I turned and looked him in the eye, laughed and said, "Roberts, they are all Roberts!

Great Hites 54

This week we have stories by:
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By: chance I won this week. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. And Thank to Mur who gave me the inspiration.

Ashley Redden
Norval Joe
Mick Bordet
And Jeff Hite inspried by Mur Lafferty's News from Poughkeepsie series


Fido
By: Mick Bordet

I don't know what I was thinking at the time. It was an instinctive reaction; get everybody I could find into the lifeboat and get off the ship before it went down. I couldn't think of letting an animal suffer, so I grabbed the tiny dog and took it along with us. A chihuahua wasn't going to get in anyone's way or weigh down the boat to excess, in fact it was built for ten and there were only six of us on board, so I didn't see any harm.

No, I didn't consider that it would be lonely, pining for the mistress who had abandoned it to fend for itself, that it would be neurotic and run incessantly from one end of the raft to the other, hour after hour, day after day, and it never occurred to me that it would yap at every single wave that hit the side of the lifeboat.

It never crossed my mind that, after weeks floating at sea, becoming weaker and more despondent every day, the single pound of flesh attached to its fragile skeleton would be enough to keep us alive for the extra three days it would take for a rescue boat to find us.

I can honestly say I didn't give it a single thought.

Not at first, anyway.



Troll
Ashley Redden


2. Ground Zero


Approximately five days prior to the arrival of the two FBI agents at the Harrison County Sheriff’s department, Dr.’s Kevin Star and Bernard Gillery were engaged in a very common activity for the two honorary members of the Potters Bluff archaeological collaboration. Day and night, the two scientists argued endlessly. Though an outsider couldn’t possibly guess, the two had become and remained fast friends.
“You’ve got to be kidding, Berney. How could you possibly believe those tunnels are full of artifacts from any of the currently known Paleo-Indian tribes?” asked Dr. Star.
“Well,” answered Dr. Gillery. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Berney, you’re not an archaeologist now are you?”
“Well, neither are you and stop calling me Berney. You know how I hate that. My name is pronounced Bernard not Berney, okay?”
“Whatever, I just don’t see how you can think that. I mean, really, what about all the unusual artifacts we’re finding? If one was to seriously think on the matter and review all of the evidence so far uncovered, then one would surely conclude that we are dealing with a previously unknown tribe here,” Dr. Star concluded with a broad sweep of his hand.
The two scientists, both geologists by education and trade, continued their argument unabated. Though neither had any formal training in archaeology whatsoever, both had definite opinions. Star and Gillery stood in the middle of the central tunnel, some ten to fifteen feet wide and half again as tall. The walls were polished to the point of nearly being slick, though the actual methodology used to achieve this polish was as yet undiscovered. Some of the artifacts unearthed so far within the warren of caves were highly anomalous as well.
Approximately three months prior to the two scientists current argument, the Harvest Corporation, which owned several thousand square acres including the area of the discovered cave complex, had initiated preliminary lignite mining. During the first week of active exploration, the cave complex was discovered unexpectedly when the excavation equipment punched a hole in the ceiling of a feeder tunnel.
Excavation was paused, and the state was called in before continuation of the preliminary mining project. Almost immediately the government representatives established that this cave was in fact a previous habitation for semi-nomadic Paleo-Indians. The government representative’s first act was to place an open ended cease and desist order on the activities of the miners virtually shutting down the mining operation. Initially, the findings delighted and excited the archeologists that were part of the government team. All the usual suspects were present from carved bone fish hooks, needles and other tools to evidence of brown coal fires paralleling closely the artifacts found within the Stanfield-Worley bluff shelter located just some scant 50 miles away.
As the preliminary excavation proceeded, more of the cave system continued to be discovered, all previously inhabited. In these new areas, some of the artifacts discovered began to raise the educated eyebrows of the members of the Archaeological Research Association who were present and conducting the investigation. Many of the artifacts seemed to be ritualistic in use, but violent in nature. One of the strangest uncovered so far was a type of war club that had not been previously unearthed anywhere but here. Not war clubs exactly, those were well known from the other sites in the area, but more like different types of spike covered heavy balls each attached to a string. Also uncovered was a great many figurines all exclusively depicting a large worm-like being or a hunched over creature with what appeared to be four legs and three arms.
Several smallish caverns were found to be full of herbs and totems, thought to be used by prophets and doctors dealing with the supernatural. The working archaeologists were unsure what to make of these finds. They were sure, though, that this site was very important and required extensive further study and excavation.
The founding of the Potters Bluff archaeological collaboration was a direct result of the preliminary findings. The Harvest Corporation assigned both Dr.’s Star and Gillery to the collaboration as dual facilitators between the project archaeologists and themselves.
Dr. Gillery looked at his watch, frowned then looked back up the tunnel from the direction the two scientists had just come. The tunnels surface shown like glass giving the freestanding lights something of an ethereal effect. The light seemed to imbibe into the stone then diffuse out as a strange otherworldish glow.
“Didn’t Jake say he was supposed to be meeting us here at 0700?” asked Dr. Gillery.
“Yes,” responded Dr. Star frowning also. Both scientists had one thing scrupulously in common; neither would ever be even the slightest bit late if at all possible. “That was my understanding,” he finished looking at his watch also.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not wait here all day until Jake decides to drag himself to work.”
“So why are we waiting,” asked Dr. Star. “The lighting has already been laid so we can just go ahead and have a look. The rest will be along about nineish as usual.” He looked at Dr. Gillery and smiled, “Jake can just catch up if he likes. Do we really need him anyway?”
“Not really,” answered Dr. Gillery.
The two scientists smiled amicably at each other for the first time that morning, then turned towards the waiting end of the cave complex, near the newly discovered areas. As the pair began walking, they picked up their earlier argument as if there hadn’t been any interruption at all.
Jake Martin cursed roundly as he looked around. He saw plenty of cavern, desolate and as spooky as advertised, but no scientists. He stood in the main tunnel that led to the newly discovered areas where the archaeologists were currently concentrating. The two Harvest Corporation guys were supposed to meet him here for an escort into the new dig area this morning at 0800. Or was it 0700. Jake shook his head, the mental cobwebs stubbornly remained. He just couldn’t remember.
He figured that if he split the difference, everything would be fine. This was typical Jake Martin philosophy at work, just don’t worry about it too much and everything will eventually work out.
The extra thirty minutes of sleep had not, however, helped with his hangover. It was that cursed Tequila that the hired hands loved to swig. That stuff sure caught up with a person before they knew it. Maybe they should rename it to- kill-ya.
Damn them, those two science guys must have gone on ahead. They knew full well that they were not supposed to be going down into any of those dig tunnels without an escort, it was policy.
Jake repeated his daily curse at pulling the assignment of those two. Really though, the two science guys were likeable enough, but when it came to this here dig, they were nothing but a couple of kids. Jake glanced back the way he had come and added mentally, a couple of damn disobedient kids.
He looked around for a final time, hopeful, but there was nowhere to hide. All around him, the tunnel seemed almost to glow with the halo of the lights reflecting from the polished walls. If anything happened to those guys his boss was sure to remove a very large pound of flesh from his backside. He’d had some major butt chewing’s before, but that would not be one to look forward to.
With a deflated sigh, he cinched up his ruck sack and headed down the tunnel in the direction he was pretty sure the two delinquent scientists had gone. “Well,” said Jake out loud. “At least I got to eat the worm last night.” He headed down the tunnel wearing a smile that carried no mirth.
The two scientists argued merrily as they walked down the main dig tunnel into the bowels of the cave complex. As the walls began to close in, their chatter began to peter off. The tunnel finally narrowed to around two to three feet wide, but remained approximately six feet tall giving the view before them a bizarrely foreboding appearance.
The lights were present here as well and lit, though the spacing was more like twenty or thirty feet than ten. Up ahead, both Dr.’s could clearly see the wall were the feeder tunnel in which they traveled ended. Except for the breathing of the two scientists, the silence within the tunnel was absolute
Dr. Gillery stopped short and turning asked Dr. Star, “What do you think Star? Should we go back and get Jake or someone else before proceeding?”
“Not on your life, Berney. It just looks spooky. Let’s go to the end up there and then we can decide what to do, okay?”
“Well, okay. And Star,” said Dr. Gillery.
“Yes?”
“Don’t call me Berney, you know I hate that.”
Both scientists moved, single file now, without speaking to the end of the tunnel. Here the tunnel seemed to make a tee, one left the other right. Once there, Dr. Star noticed that there were no footprints to the left, but the sand had been disturbed. The stung lighting continued into the fork on the right, the left fork was dark as pitch.
Dr. Star pointed to the floor and said, “Berney, what’s that?”
“Looks like something was drub across the floor this way.” Both men shined their flash lights down the dark tunnel. Something farther back in the tunnel glinted gold.
“Look at that, Berney. Let’s go see what it is; it doesn’t seem to be far.”
“Wait,” said Dr. Gillery, “I think we should stay here and wait.”
“Tell you what,” said Dr. Star. “We’ll just go have a look and come right back. We won’t touch a thing, what harm can that be?”
Looking more and more unsure, Dr. Gillery said quietly, “Okay, but stop calling me Berney.”
The two scientists eased down the tunnel attempting to shine their flashlights in every direction at once. The tunnel opened up into a smallish cavern wide enough for Dr. Gillery to move up beside his companion. Sitting before them was a staff driven upright into the ground, A small coin, inlaid into the top of the staff, glinted brilliant gold with each pass of the flashlight beam.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Dr. Star. “Come on Berney.” Dr. Star grabbed Dr. Gillery by the arm and strode over to the staff.
“Stop calling me Berney,” Dr. Gillery got out just before the floor collapsed beneath them.
Jake was still cursing his bad luck with every step when he heard the roar from somewhere ahead. He stopped and, eyes wide, looked back. Seeing no one, he cursed louder and sprinted toward the noise.
When Jake arrived at the fork, he almost went right without slacking his pace, but noticed a haze in the air that brought him up short. He looked to the left fork, the light from his hard hat illuminating the tunnel. The haze seemed to be worse that way. “What the hell did they go in there for,” he cursed. Jake spoke aloud, but not with a yell, “Hey, are you guys alright?”
As he advanced, he heard some groans and saw a flashlight beam suddenly walk across the ceiling. He noticed that the ceiling in this room was not polished and shook his head for caring. Jake carefully walked to the edge that loomed before him and peered down into the hazy gloom, his flashlight illuminating the slowly settling dust. The floor here had collapsed into a twenty foot drop. As Jake looked down, both faces of the scientists gazed back up.
“You guys okay?” asked Jake.
“I think I’m fine,” answered Dr. Gillery coughing. “How about you Star?”
Dr. Star looked up through gritted teeth and said, “I can’t move my leg.”
Dr. Star heard Jake say from up above, “you guys just stay put, I’ll go get some help. Everything’s going to be just fine.” Dr. Star closed his eyes and grimaced against the pain. His leg felt like it was on fire. He could hear Berney scrambling around to his right and was beginning to get irritated with Jake for not going to get help now, not tomorrow, when he heard a great whooshing sound somewhere in front of him, at the opposite end of the pit. Dr. Star’s eyes snapped open.
He heard Berney say, “What was that?” Dr. Star watched as Berney’s light shone on a strange brown rock. Despite the pain, he was thinking, “What kind of freaky rock is that,” when the rock moved. Berney flung his flashlight and began screaming for Jake to get him out as he tried to scramble up the wall of the pit. Jake’s light was bathing the ledge just in front of where the rock was, when it stepped into the light.
The body of the thing reminded Dr. Star of a collection of puffed out membranes perched on two pairs of stick-like legs. One appendage, an arm maybe, came out from under the ledge and gripped the rock with a set of horny claws. Two other arms became visible beneath a great tube that opened like an iris on the end to reveal two huge moist eyes. Beneath the monster another long tube seemed to throb and pulse.
Dr. Star watched, shocked into silence, as the thing flung something on a string upwards at Jake and yanked several times. Jake’s hard hat fell into the pit and illuminated the monster completely. That’s when the thing hissed. It was just too much.
Dr. Star began screaming then. He screamed as he watched the thing grab a still scrambling Berney from the side of the pit and throw him down onto the floor. He screamed as he watched Berney land and lay still. Dr. Star screamed as the thing turned on him and grasped his throat with two of its bony hands, the claws digging into his flesh. He gasped when something was rammed into his stomach. He tried again to scream as the two great wet eyes settled within inches of his, but nothing came out. Dr. Star was aware of the coppery taste of blood, his abdomen afire with scalding pain. His vision began to darken, as if falling into a great yawning pit of darkness. Far away, the great unblinking eyes filled Dr. Star’s world. Then even the monstrous eyes became blurry, falling victim to the onslaught of shade. Finally all became black. After that Dr. Star knew no more.




The Price of Friendship
By: Norval Joe
　
"Mr. Baker. you appear to be semi-conscious. Can you repeat what I have just said." Chad looked up from his book to see the teacher looking directly at him. She added in a mutter, but loud enough for the entire class to hear," Heaven forbid that any of you could make the leap to logical correlation that it would take to explain this on your own.'
The sinking feeling in his stomach reminded him that he understood the correlation all to well.
"Mrs. Walker?" He stammered, and could see her inflating for an explosive tirade. You couldn't show weakness in her classroom without feeling the sarcastic bite of her condescending wit. The students knew that hesitation and indecision were weakness in her mind, so Chad launched into a reply before she could get started. "You said that the term, 'A pound of flesh', used in Shakespeare's play, 'The Merchant of Venice' has become synonymous with an onerous, undesirable debt that must be repaid." He repeated as best he could remember.
The surprise was as evident on her face as the dread was on his own. He understood completely well what it meant to have an onerous debt. In fact the payment of his own pound of flesh would be made in just a few hours.
"Since you are so very clever," she said, laying sarcastic emphasis on the word, 'clever', " maybe you could give us an example of this kind of debt in a way that your fellow, less astute classmates could understand." She grinned what he felt was her most evil and conniving grin, so far this year.
She obviously hated children. Chad figured that she was still a teacher, as old as she was, so that she could exact revenge for some actual or maybe only perceived childish insult, that she had received earlier in her career. Some say that she killed her husband with an especially lethal cynical jab, shortly after they were married. He was a well liked, unassuming and kindly florist, but within months of their sudden and unexpected marriage, he died mysteriously in his sleep. No cause of death was ever determined; no charges were filed. Forty years later, she remained a teacher, and alone.
He stared at the teacher as the blood drained from his face and his mouth opened and closed several times, giving him the appearance of a fish, glassy eyed and pale. He was hesitating again, but the only thing that would come to his mind as an example would be to reveal his own complex and embarrassing situation. She saw his hesitation, and added with an evil smirk, "And why don't you come stand in front, so that the class can hear you clearly?"
As Chad walked to the front of the classroom his mind raced for an example from a movie or a TV show that the students could relate to. Then it came to him. These were 8th graders. They could all understand peer pressure to perform a dare or an act of vandalism.
"An onerous debt is like," he began, but everyone in the class was staring at him. Some were making faces, or mouthing threats. 'They're laughing at me,' he thought, 'And why not? What makes me so qualified to tell the class anything, there are tons of kids smarter than me.' "Umm," he paused as his mind went blank. He began to panic, he was sweating and his vision going red around the edges. He just wanted to sit back down and disappear; go back to being nobody; then the words just poured out of his mouth, "It's like you borrow something from someone that you know you shouldn't borrow anything from, because if it gets lost or broken, they'll kill you and then when you realize that its broken and they're going to beat you up, you..." He was rambling and saying everything that he had wanted to keep to himself. He stopped, looked around at his fellow students, who stared back, blankly, as stunned by his rapid delivery as he was. He glanced at the teacher who was nodding her head in agreement. He took that as affirmation and made his way back to his seat.
A series of large oak trees formed a line from one wing of the Junior High School, past the baseball field and to the basket ball court, delineating the far end of the outdoor grassy area where the students ate their lunch. Under the protection of the spreading branches were benches forming octagons around the base of each tree.
Chad sat n his usual spot, under the tree farthest from the basketball courts. His normal group of friends arrived, one by one to eat their lunches. Amy came last and was heading to the empty place next to him. He was so absorbed by dread that he didn't even notice her sit down. He didn't eat, just looked despondently at his sandwich. Amy looked at Chad several times, but turned and started a conversation with one of her girlfriends, when he failed to acknowledge her sitting there.
A tal,l dark haired, boy walked up, "I hear Walker was picking on you today, Chad." His heart froze. The boy kicked Chads foot when he didn't respond, "What did you do to make her so mad at you," he asked good naturedly. Chad looked up at the boy who was smiling down at him. "I don't know, she asked me about the story we were reading. She's just mean, and she needed someone to pick on. Besides, it just happened last period; How'd you hear about it?" The taller boy didn't reply, he just barked a short, forced, laugh.
Amy turned to the two, and said, "I don't think she intends to be mean. I know, she comes across that way, but I think she's really just sad. Carol Ann was saying that she sees Mrs. Walker go past their house every Saturday morning, early, like before seven. Carol Ann said that she goes to the grave yard and visits her husbands grave."
"Probably checking to make sure he's still dead," another boy, Tony, said too loudly, and laughed even louder. It wasn't funny, but all the boys laughed along out of loyalty to their gender. Amy was about to continue her defense of Mrs. Walker, when the bell rang, ending their lunch, and said instead, "Well, I'll see you after Choir, Chad?"
"Sure," he said and watched her turn and walk off. He thought about how pretty she was; her wavy brown hair falling just past her shoulders. She wasn't skinny, or sexy, the way the popular girls tried to be. She was a bit shorter than most the girls, but not fat, and she always dressed nicely. He admired her choice of sweater and blue jeans and thought about the last school dance. The night ended with a slow song, and he got to stand close to her, feeling her body against him, and breathing in the scent of her hair as it tickled his nose.
Derrick started him from his revelry, "You have my game, right?" He asked Chad, stepping in close to him. Chad tried to step back, uncomfortable at the taller boys closeness, as well as the menacing tone in his voice, but the bench was behind him and it buckled his knees, dropping him suddenly to sit on the hard wooden bench. The rest of the kids were halfway back to the school building and clearly out of hearing distance. "Yeah, Derrick, I have the game. It's in my locker, but," Derrick interrupted him, his already threatening eyes turning even colder, "But, what!" He said, bending over to grab Chad by the shirt.
"I don't know," Chad started lamely. "I never played it. When I got home, I took it out of my backpack and it wouldn't start. It wouldn't come on."
"You broke my game." Derrick said, letting go of Chads shirt and pushing him back at the same time. "My Dad's going to kill me." He started turning from side to side, opening and closing his hands like he was trying to squeeze something out of the air. When the color of his face had past through all the shades of red, and was approaching purple, he stopped and pointed his finger at Chad. "You're going to pay! You're going to pay for that game. I'm telling you." He was shouting now, and shaking his finger.
"I can't pay for it. I don't have any money, and my Mom is still out of work. I don't even have a bike! What can I give you?" He was getting frantic; it sounded clearly in his voice.
Derrick stopped, dead still, with his head tilted to the side and up, as if listening to a far off voice, its message coming to him in pieces on the wind. A smile spread slowly across his face, until he had the look of a cat that had just trapped a mouse. "I know what you can give me. Your girl friend. Bring her to the first base dugout after school." Without waiting for a reply, Derrick turned and strode toward the school.


Mr. Johnson the Very Minor God
By: Jeff Hite


When Johnson, or Mister Johnson, as his one and only subject called him was called into being he knew two things: first that he had only one subject, Alexandra, an otherwise normal little girl, and second that he was a very minor god. Alexandra made up for being his one and only subject very well. She was always faithful, completed penance
with never a complaint, she even did extra from time to time. All in all what more could a god ask for.
From time to time he would check with the other gods and none of them had as successful a track record as he did, one hundred percent faithfulness from their subjects. He was the envy of all the other very minor gods. Not one of them even came close.
This made him proud, and in return he took good care of his faithful subject. He made sure that she never got sick, she never so much as stubbed a toe. He even gave her special powers from time to time. When that brat Thomas Middleberg pulled her hair and teased her in second grade, Mister Johnson made sure the she could catch him on
the playground that afternoon, despite the fact that he was much faster than her normally. That was why on the day that it happened it was so very devastating.
The second of July had started like any normal day for Mister Johnson. Alexandra had woken him with her morning prayer. She sang softly in the way that he had taught her, and he was very happy that her voice was starting to take on the qualities that maturity would bring. It was a soft and soothing way to wake up. Today she was going to ask
Tom Middleberg to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. She had fallen for him all those many years ago when she had chased him down on the playground. He had kissed her on the cheek that day so that she would not hit him, saying he was sorry for being rude to her. From that day forth, she had a crush on him, but he had paid her little attention. When she had found out that the school was going to hold the traditional girl asks the boy dance, she had begun to pray. Mister Johnson was all but too happy to comply, his one and only subject had always been faithful after all. He had endowed her with the gifts she had requested and prepared her the best way he could.
Today was important for another reason. Today was the day that he was going to fix the one thing about his existence that had always bothered him. He was going before the god council to present his record and get his status elevated from very minor god to minor god. But, in truth he had much higher aspirations.
"Mister Johnson," the head of the council said. "We have seen your record, and it is positively glowing." A round of here heres would follow. "It is in the judgment
of this council that instead of the normal adjustment from very minor god to minor god, that you be elevated to the level of major god. And because of your incredible achievements you will be given control of the entire southern hemisphere." Clapping and cheers breaking out as he finished the proclamation.
"Johnson, Johnson," the man with the annoying little voice broke into his thoughts. He stood up and made his way to the little barred window.
"I'm Johnson," he said.
"I will need proof of that." Johnson pulled out his very minor god ID and showed it to the annoying little man.
"Oh, you are a very minor god," he said never making eye contact and shaking his head. "You will have to come back on Wednesday, the council only takes up
very minor god issues on the third Wednesday of February on leap years."
"But I have this appointment, and a spotless record." He said holding out his appointment slip and record.
"Let me see that." the little man said snatching it from Johnson. As he did his dirty fingers left smudges on the nearly glowing record. Johnson felt is blood begin boiling at this. But he controlled himself. "Oh I see, you are that Johnson. Yes, yes have a seat the council will see you in a little while."

*****

Alexandra, like her god, was not having the best of days. She had asked for and gotten the things that she had wanted from Mister Johnson, but the extra height and the extra pound or so of flesh she had been given were making her a little awkward. She did her best to compensate, but she was still having a little trouble. Oddly enough when she had prayed to him for a bit of grace he had not answered her. No matter she thought, she could go it on her own, but she had decided to put the encounter off until the end of the day when there had been more time to work on her balance.

*****


"Johnson!" The annoying voice said.
"Yes?"
"The council will see you now. If I were you I would turn off your prayer catcher, in the off chance that it goes off in there it will reflect badly."
"But what if my subject needs me?"
"As always if your prayer catcher is off your subjects' prayers will go to prayer mail that you can pick up later. But emergencies will be routed through the switch board here, and we can interrupt you if it is really important. But you better hope that doesn't happen."
Johnson reluctantly turned off his prayer catcher, but as he did he noticed that the signal was non-existent. He wondered how many of Alexandra's prayers he had missed. He truly felt empty without them.
He made his way to the council chambers. The two huge chamber doors were made for the much older and larger gods, and he had to struggle to get one of them open enough to get in. When he finally got in, his toga was wrinkled and his record had picked up a new crease as well. He thought about trying to straighten them but he could feel the stares of the
council upon him. He walked quickly forward and handed his paperwork to the clerk, who looked at it in dismay. She checked her paperwork against his twice before taking them to the huge bench where the nine super elevated gods sat. They looked casually at his record, passing it quickly from one to the other.
"It says here that your record is clean Johnson." the least of the super elevated god said blandly "That is rather impressive. How have you managed to keep your subjects happy?"
"Alexandra has few demands, and I have carefully taught the proper prayers and they are coming along nicely as she grows."
"Ahh but how do you teach that to all of your subjects with no discontent? Surely there must be some that don't like you." The second most elevated god said. This was not going as Johnson had imagined.
"Well that is the thing, I only have one subject."
"One!" Bellowed a particularly large god. They all passed his record around again examining it much more carefully this time. "How did this happen?" He asked the head god. There was silence among them and some very knowing glances were exchanged. Finally the head super elevated god spoke.
"Johnson, it appears that there has been a mistake. A god, even a very minor god is normally not given the care of just one subject, that is normally the dominion of the guardian angels," He paused looking at the record again and frowning. "Hmmm... it says here that you have even given powers to the girl from time to time. That is not normally allowed, but otherwise you seem to have done a remarkable job with her. We are going to review your case and..."
There was a knock at the chamber doors, and the Clerk obviously annoyed at the interruption hurried to answer it. There was a brief exchange that Johnson could not hear then the clerk came forward and handed a prayer mail recorder to Johnson.
"Well, you have interrupted us... Let's hear it, if it is that important." The head god said. Johnson, mortified of what it might be, tried to figure out how the device worked. Alexandra had never had an emergency before. The worst thing that happened to her were nightmares and he could usually take care of them before they got bad. Then he remembered Thomas and the time he had pulled her hair. Just then he found the play button and pushed it.
"Mister Johnson," her young voice sung with obvious strain. "Why have you forsaken me? He hates me! I hate you! " The final words came with such force that it shook the recorder in his hand.
When the echo died down the head god shook his head sadly and said, "This changes things a bit you understand." He handed Johnson's now considerably less that perfect record back to the clerk. Johnson looked down at it. It now had an ugly red scrawl across it, 'Guardian Angel training needed.' He took it and walked slowly out of the chambers. She would pay for this.

Great Hites # 41

This week we have four Stories, One from
Ashley Redden
Peter S.
Norval Joe
And Jeff Hite

Last week we had a three way Tie, between Justin Lowmaster Lawrence Simon and Norval Joe

Great Hites 41
	Theres no Place like Home By: Ashley Redden
	Don't Take my Sun for Granted By: Peter S.
	The Daily Eclipse By: Norval Joe
	Night Fall By: Jeff Hite
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There’s no Place like Home
Ashley Redden



The metallic blobs flew through the upper atmosphere of the world as if shot from a weapon. They bumped and jostled, rolled over and changed position constantly appearing so much like an ancient shiny circular school of fish. The group settled suddenly, though they did not slow, as they were bathed with a signal. All of the blobs returned the signal immediately and shot even faster toward a single habitat below.

A larger blob was nestled into a small niche at the edge of the dwelling. The group arrived suddenly, and still bobbing and weaving, sent a formal greeting of the beings known as the custodians that was returned warmly.

“Now settle down little ones,” sent the large blob. “No pushing and shoving. I wouldn’t want anyone to be injured.”

Though the group found great humor in this, they all settled down in a small semi-circle surrounding the larger custodian. Harming a custodian through physical means alone was a tall order indeed.

“Honored Gran,” began one of the smaller ones, “tell us a story please.”

“What would you like to hear? You have heard them all so many times. What would you like to hear my precious little ones?”

“Please, honored Gran, tell us of the old ones, the ones that named Sol. Tell us of the first ones. Tell us, honored Gran, of the humans.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” came a chorus from the smaller custodians.

“What specifically would you like to hear?”

“Tell us why,” said a small one. “Yes, honored Gran, tell us of the ones who stayed and why they stayed. Why they did not flee with the rest.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” again came the chorus. “Please, please tell us honored Gran,” sent a small bobbing custodian as others joined in.

“Okay,” answered Gran. “Calm yourselves and I will tell what is known.” The large metallic blob that carried the moniker Gran settled herself and accessed the habitat’s not insignificant data net. The younger caretakers observed in awe. One day, they knew, they would be allowed access to the net. But for the present, they could only obtain the knowledge second hand in tellings.

Gran sent, “about 6 billion years ago, there was a planet that was about the size that Sol is now.” All of the custodians observed the white dwarf Sol in momentary silent contemplation. “On this planet,” began Gran.

“Earth,” blurted out a young custodian. “The planet was called Earth, right Gran.”
At this, the other young custodians shushed the one that spoke.

Gran said, “That’s right my little one, the planet was know as Earth. At first, all humans were the same. They called themselves Homo sapiens at this time.”

“When were they not the same honored Gran?”

“Sometime in the first 2 billion years humanity began to change. Some of it was for the better, but some was for the worse also. That is how change works my little ones; you have to learn to take the good with the bad. It is at this time that humanity began to leave.”

“Where did they go, honored Gran?”

“Everywhere,” answered Gran. Humanity changed and changed through the eons hence. Many continued to leave, very few came back, but always some stayed on the home planet Earth watching our star, Sol, slowly grow old.”

“What happened to Earth honored Gran?”

“About 5 billion years ago, Sol began to expand and became a red giant. Had the remaining humans not intervened, Earth would have been destroyed. But they moved it and changed it as well, for change my little ones is the way of things. When Sol grew, almost all of the humans had departed. Many had changed so much that they no longer thought of themselves nor called themselves human anymore. But always, Sol system was home. None of Earth’s far flung children wished to come home anymore, for as the universe expands the price to be paid for travel home grows and grows. But always, they remember and wish to speak with those that remained, to check in from time to time. So that is why a small group stayed. Some stayed because of duty, but most stayed because they were homebodies and liked it right where they were. All stayed because they loved their home. But they knew that things could not remain the same. So they changed themselves again as Sol grew and the sky turned bright. Do any of you know what they became,” asked Gran?

“Did they become starseeds?”

“Yes, my precious little one,” answered Gran. They changed themselves so much that they no longer considered themselves human. They no longer lived out beyond the reach of fiery Sol, but within its outer atmosphere as it swelled to its red giant phase. The starseeds learned to live in the terribly hot. This is also when the mostly organic humans became the totally metallic starseeds.”

“How long did it last honored Gran?”

“Oh, not so very long, just a couple of hundred million years is all,” said Gran

“What happened then?”

“Then,” continued Gran, “the starseeds changed again. They became custodians. As the humans then starseeds had watched the sky grow bright and red as Sol swelled outward, so it was that the starseeds then custodians watched as the sky grew dark as Sol shrank to the white dwarf that it is today. But change on a scale such as this is very dangerous and not all of the humans or the starseeds that attempted the great change survived.”

“But honored Gran, why did they risk so much to change? They could have left and then come back after Sol grew dim. They simply would have had to live further out in the solar system.”

Gran sent a signal of love to all the young custodians eliciting coos from the gathered throng. “They stayed and changed and then changed again so that we may live as we do so close to our life giver Sol. They risked so much because they knew; back when their hearts were organic and even when they were changed to molten metal that no matter where you go, there is no place like home.”

The young custodians sat in awed silence as they honored the memory of those that had come before.

“When will we need to make a decision to change again, honored Gran? Sol will not remain a white dwarf forever.”

“No, young one, nothing stays the same forever. But Sol will stay as it is for a very long time. And if Sol does change, we will simply make a decision at that time,” answered Gran.

“But that is then and this is now. How about some nice soup to put a bit of lost metal back into your young bones and a glossy luster into your coatings,” suggested Gran?

Cheers erupted from the throng of young custodians jostling, bobbing and weaving as they floated into the habitat after Gran.


Don't take My Sun For Granted
By: Peter S.

"Members of the board, Global warming will be the least of our worries!" Dr. Schileren blurted out, before any one else had a chance to finish.

Dr. Schadenfreude responded, "Again, Schileren, we all agree something is going on, just not to the degree that you do".

When Dr. Shadenfreude spoke, it was with a powerfully quiet reservation that could calm all but the most fevered scientist or world leaders. "It is my, and the boards continued belief,that these Solar anomalies are nothing more than an unprecedented..."

"Yes...but..."

"...But not a totally unprecedented swing back to Solar Minimum years, not some Extinction Level Event."

Almost turning blue, Dr. Schileren exhaled powerfully "Minimum? Minimum?! You call a 120 month running count of Solar Flares of 70 Minimum year? That is a yearly average of one half of one flare per year! And I sincerely hope we all have not forgotten that in the last 36 months we have seen NONE. Naught point Naught".

Dr. Schileren finished and gasped for more air to continue but Dr. Schadenfreude beat him to the punch, "It is the finding of this board and is only logical that our local star is so massive that it can do only one thing and that is to continue to burn Hydrogen, convert that into Helium, which in turn will turn to Lithium and then to Beryllium and so on and so forth and to keep doing this for the next 4 or 5 Billion years; as it has been doing for the past 4 and a half billion years."

Mustering as much reserve as he could, Dr. Schileren responded "As I have already said to nearly each and every one of you separately," He said pointing to each of them, "and now all of you in this meeting, the solar energy output is down now, by most calculations by 10%, when the Sun's output should be incrementally increasing every year. While this is something to be slightly celebrated as it will help with our rising surface temperature, when this information is more closely examined; the Coronal Mass Ejection dissipation, Solar Flare elimination and Energy output reductions, this cannot be good for the planet, and we must get to the bottom of this quickly! We are in the dark here and no one is shining a light on this issue!"

"My Dear friend, "Dr. Shadenfreude started, "I will grant you that this might need some more concentration on the overall issue, but can we pick this up again later? It looks like a beautiful day outside. I would be remiss if I did not attempt to repair any animosity this discussion has caused before the day was over..."

The Sun, that massive and magnificent star, the one that provides for the growth of all life on earth, flickered, and in less than 15 seconds from the first noticeable dimming, was no longer visible in the sky.

As he finished speaking, the whole of the earth that was normally bathed in daylight, that part of the Earth that also included the members of this Scientific review board, watched as day turned to night.


The Daily Eclipse
By: Norval Joe

They sat in angry silence, under the protection of the glass filter dome, and watched as day turned to night. At least, as much of a night as you get on the planet side of the moon. It was the mid day solar eclipse which would last several hours before the sum re-emerged on the opposite side of the big planet. "I don't even like this side; it never gets dark. We have the sun shining on us all day, and at night, the planet glows so much it might as well be day."

The last edge of the sun was slipping behind the giant orange planet. The moon where they lived was tidally locked with its planet and therefore, the same side always faced toward the planet, the side where Julie and her family now lived. "I want to go back to our old home, on the back side. At least there we had complete darkness at night. I wouldn't mind if I never saw that big red eye staring at me ever again." She stood to stomp around the room to emphasize her anger, but the atrium was so filled with plants that she would soon be lost to her parents vision, and the effect would be wasted. She was a year old now, and had a typical pre-adolescent flair for the melodramatic.

She sat back down, her mother was lecturing her, "I expect you to show a little more gratitude to your father. You have quickly forgotten how long and cold the nights were, and how long and hot the days were, on the backside. And your father has worked, and sacrificed, to get us this place up on top, where we can have a dome, and plants, and see the planet. It wouldn't take much to lose everything and be down at the dirt level with the indigents and general laborers." She sighed inwardly and rolled her eyes, 'What did her mother know? There was nobody down that low.'

She thought she knew what would be coming next, and she wasn't off by much. "Your father has sacrificed so much to make all this possible for you!" Her mother was even working up some tears. 'Hypocrite,' Julie thought to herself, 'Where will you be as soon as Dad is gone'? What did she call it, 'Social networking'? She wondered if her mother had ever really loved her father, or had she just loved his potential. He was nearly twice her age; she had just turned 2 and he was nearly four when they were married.
It was true that in the last solar circuit her father had been gone much of the time traveling between their moon, the planet and the two major moons in between. He had made most of his fortune on shiploads of fresh water from the watery moon that orbited the planet twice for every time theirs did just once. She wondered what days and nights were like on those other moons; they were both tidally locked, as was this one, but to have a day and night pass so quickly was incomprehensible to her. The closest of the larger moons, to the planet, would have four days and nights for each of hers. 'Wouldn't that just make you dizzy?'
Her mother was still harping about her lack of consideration, but she had heard it all before. Each time her father was preparing to leave, her mother would start to get edgy and irritable, then like clockwork, she would break into a tirade, unleashing her frustration on her daughter.
Space travel had only been developed in the last 10 years. Her father had taken the existing knowledge about space travel and applied what he knew of material science and designed space barges that could harness the magnetic charges that were generated between the various moons and the planet and slingshot the barges back and forth, making the the transportation of heavy items profitable; minerals harvested from moons, heavy gases gathered from the atmosphere of the planet, and in his case, water from the next moon in toward the planet. Her father had built his empire on the transportation of fresh water. There was salt water deep in the crust of this moon and it could be pumped and desalinated, as it had been for millennia, but with the advent of space travel, fresh water was an available luxury.
But was it for Julie, that her father worked so hard and was away so often? She didn't think so. With his rise in wealth there also came a rise in prestige and political power.
Outside the dome, with the sun fully hidden behind the planet, it was as dark as it was going to get, only the planets own light showed right now. Their day was divided into 100 hours, and each hour, 100 minutes. The eclipse lasted between thirteen and fourteen hours. Julie liked it dark.
As soon as her father was away and her mother found her 'other occupations', Julie would work her way down the elevators, stairwells, and passages to get to the ground level. Over the millennia new dwellings were built atop the old, reusing the existing radiation filters and magnetic shields. With the current imports, new structures, with more efficient shields were being built at the highest levels. It would take a long time to get to the ground, she would have to pack several meals. She had only been there a few times since their move to the planet side and only stayed a few minutes, but she had stood in the open air, on natural soil, unaffected by the waves of radiation that the domes, and shields at the top of the city were designed to reflect.
"Julie", her father was saying, "my travels have produced another benefit, that I would like to share with you." He caught her attention, instantly. Though she did her best to act indifferent to his work, and the 'benefits' that the family enjoyed, the allure of this relatively new space exploration intrigued her. "What the scientist had theorized; that our people had come from a different planet hundreds of millions of years ago, may actually be correct. We have found, 'people', for lack of a better word, similar to us on another moon. Some are theorizing that we, and they, came from a common ancestor. These creatures are not as intelligent as us, and are probably more suited to manual labor, but they show a willingness to work, and, in fact, appear to thrive under our direction." He looked closely at her face to gage her reaction. "I have acquired on of these beings to be your companion. She appears to be about your same age, and has already begun to
understand our language. Would you please make it your project, over the next few weeks, to teach her more of our language, and help her to understand some of the basic menial tasks around the home?"
She began to reply but looking at her fathers face she could see that he had already assumed that she would be compliant with his wishes and had begun to gather his things to leave.
Her own thoughts were racing. She had heard talk among her acquaintances at school that slaves were being brought in from one of the other moons, and now she would be the first in her class to get one. The day was looking up.


Night Fall
By: Jeffrey Hite

This planet had provided them with a great number of surprises. The short day night period, only eight hours, was only the first of them. Despite its relatively small size the gravitational pull created by the planet was incredibly strong. That was why the survey ship had come down so hard that it had damaged its systems enough that it needed the rescue team in the first place. The rescue team despite the warnings had almost made the same mistake. They had come down so hard it was only luck that saved them same fate of the survey ship.
Not for the first time they watch as day turned into night. But, for the first time they would be without lights during this night. The planets rotation was such that their small solar panels had not been enough to collect the power necessary to run the big flood lights, or really any of the exterior lights on the ship. All they would have were the small hand held flashlights and the low level lighting of the ships interior. This was more than a little disturbing to Alice, and she was not sure why.
As she stood outside the main hatch of the ship, watching the sun go down so fast that you could track the suns moment across the sky over only a few minutes. It was almost like being in orbit, but it seemed like more than this that was disturbing her. As the sun set below the horizon the blackness that surrounded them was nearly complete. The planet had no moon, not completely unusual, but the large amount of dust and debris in this system made all but the brightest stars invisible. All of this meant that once the sun set there was no natural light, and the side of the planet facing away from the sun was in total darkness.
The small hand held lights seemed woefully inadequate. That was why when Raymond, the search team lead, walked out of the foliage no one noticed him until he was nearly on top of them.
"Alright folks." His voice boomed from the darkness.
"Raymond," Alice shrieked. "It is eerie enough out here without you sneaking up on us like that."
"I'm sorry Alice, but I really didn't sneak up on you. I was right over there before the sun went down," he said gesturing with his flashlight. "I know you saw me."
"Yes, I did I am just a little jumpy. This dark is just very eerie."
"Agree, so lets find the survey team and get back to the ship so we can all get off this rock." There were grunts of approval and the all started for the rovers.
There were going to be three teams each would head in the general direction of the crash site and then fan out to find the survey ship. The Normally the plan would have been to land within a mile of the crash site, but their rapid decent and near crash had caused them to be several miles from the crash site, and to not be able to pin point it's location. This meant that they would actually have to search for the other ship in total darkness.
The rovers had lights and that did cut down on the nervousness that she was feeling but, there was something more than the darkness that was bothering her, but she could not put her finger on it. Maybe it was that they had not been able to raise the other ship, when they knew there had been survivors. The Captain of the Arkon, though a little banged up, seemed to be in good spirits when he had called for the rescue ship less than a week ago. He had reported that the entire crew had survived the crash with only minor injuries. But since they had landed they had heard nothing from them. Even as they approached the planet they were not able to make contact. But even this could not explain her uneasiness. There was something more.
When the Radio squawked she nearly veered the rover into the outcropping that she had been following.
"Alice, from the sensors you are the closest one to the crash site."
"Roger."
"You should come on the ship in two or three hundred yards. You might want to slow down a bit in case someone is wondering around over there."
"Acknowledged," She said as she slowed the rover. Within a few seconds the lights of the rover reflected off the shiney hull of the Arkon. Alice stopped the rover and dismounted with the rest of her team. As they spread out around the ship the feeling of dread grew.
"Alice, over here." Redmond yelled from the other side of the ship. "I found the crew hatch, but it looks like the controls have been damaged. I can't get the hatch open."
"That is odd." She shone her light at the control panel as Redmond fiddled with it trying to get it to work again.
"Commander," She turned to find Louis standing near the emergency access. He was the only one in the crew that was still new enough to call everyone by their rank. "I think you should see this."
"What is it Louis?" She asked as she directed Marget to continue assisting Redmond, and headed to where Louis was standing.
"Commander, this hatch looks like some one of something tried to force it open from the outside."
"That is odd."
"You can say that again. The only way to get these open is from the inside. Whoever tried to get it open was pretty desperate, look at these marks along the seal. Ever seen anything like that?"
"Do you suppose it could have been pushed out like that during the crash?"
"No way, it is too far up the side of the ship. See there is no crush damage to the hull at all, just to the landing struts and launch engines." He indicated the crushed parts of the ship.
"Right. Well keep looking around, and see if you can figure out what might have caused this."
Just then, the other two rovers came out of the surrounding foliage. As they did this side of the ship was bathed in light for the first time, and Alice noticed the strange markings around each of the hatches.
"Alice, what is going on here? Have you guys found the crew? I want to get back to the Weston, this place is creeping me out." Raymond said as he dismounted.
"So I am not the only one."
"Twice on the way over here I could have sworn we were being followed, but the other team was in the lead and when we looked back we couldn't see anything. So what is the deal here?"
"Well the main hatch controls seem to have been damaged, Redmond is working getting them working again. Louis is looking at some weird markings around the escape hatch aft, and as you came up I noticed that there are some weird markings around all the hatches."
"Weird marks?"
"Yeah look at these," She said shining her light at the area around the main hatch.
"What the..."
"Alice, I think I got the controls working." They all made their way to main hatch.
"About time, get it open so we can get the heck outta here."
"The weird part," Redmond said as he worked the controls, "is that this thing was all but ripped from the hull, it was like someone didn't want it to work." The door hissed open then and there was a scream from the interior of the ship that piercied the air. When it finally died all that was left was a quiet sobbing. They slowly entered the ship, which was completely dark.
"Hello, Captain Martin? This is commander Raymond Mathews of the Weston. We are here..." He was cut just off as the last of them stepped through the door. A crazed looking woman bolted from shadows toward the door screaming. "Grab her!" Raymond said as he was nearly knocked from his feet.
"Got her sir."
"Let me go. Shut the door, shut the door. Please shut the door."
"It's alright we are from the rescue corp." Raymond tried to sooth her.
"The Door. Get it shut. You have got to get it shut you don't understand."
"What, is it? Why do we need to shut the door?" Alice asked.
The Woman tried desperately to pull free from Louis, all the while insisting that they close the door. Raymond walked back down the corridor and pushed the button to close the door. Only when the door had closed completely did she stop trying to pull away from Louis and just collapse to the floor.
"What is going on here?" Alice asked the sobbing woman. "Where is the rest of the crew?" Alice pulled her to her feet so she could check her for injuries and looked at her name tag. "Alright Ensign Wilson, you need to calm down and let us know what happened her." Wilson only shook her head insistently
"No you won't tell us?" Raymond asked "Or no you don't know?" It was obvious that his patients was wearing thin.
"I don't know," she managed between sobs.
"Alright, Alice, you get her something to eat and get her calmed down. The rest of us will explore the ship. Don't open the exterior doors, but look for anything that would give us some kind of a clue about what is going on here." Raymond broke the rest of the team into groups and they spread across the ship.
"It came once the sun went down," Wilson said. "The first night we still had battery power, They second night the lights went out about half way though the night. soon after that we heard them. We never saw them, but we could hear them on the hull."
"What came out, We didn't detect any life other than the plants."
"The Captain sent several people out to go see what was going on. They never came back. One by one people outside after night fall disappeared. They all left me." She said breaking down into sobs again.
"Are you saying that there is something out there that took the rest of the crew?"
"We never saw them. We never saw anything. People just went out and didn't come back." When she stopped talking they could hear the quiet scraping against the hull.
"What is that?"
"They are back." She sobbed uncontrollably again.
Alice stood and walked toward the hatch. She was about to open it when Wilson tackled her slamming her painfully against the bulkhead.
"You can't open the door. They will come in. They will take us away too."
"What is out there?"
Raymond came back at that point. "What is going on here?"
"Wilson says that something outside carried the rest of the crew off." Alice said getting to her feet and rubbing her head where it had been knocked into the bulkhead.
"It was the dark, you can hear it now, it is trying to get in."
"What are you talking about?" In the silence that followed the scraping that they had heard before was back and this time there was more of it. The longer they listened the louder it got.
"What is that?"
"The dark." Wilson whispered.
The rest of the search crew came back then. "Sir we didn't find any signs of the crew, but as we were looking around, we could hear something scratching at the hull. Jonston and I were going to go out and figure out what it was."
"No!" Wilson screamed "It will take you too. The Dark will take you too."
"She says the rest of the crew was carried off by whatever is making that noise." Alice said.
"Alright, then we sit here until sun up, and then we get what we can, and get back to the Weston. Is it safe to go out during the day light?" Wilson nodded, "Alight then we go out as soon as the sun comes up and we can search for the rest of the crew from orbit if we have to."
They stayed in the main hatch as a group for the next two hours as they waited for the sun to raise. All the while the scraping got louder and more insistent. Then just before dawn it stopped.
"Are they gone?" Alice asked
"Not until the sun is up. But it has retreated to the bush."
"Good we can get out of here." Raymond.
"No, don't it is still out there."
"I want to get a look at this thing." Raymond headed toward the hatch and before Wilson could move had it open. He stood in the opening for a moment then he was gone into the darkness. He hadn't stepped out of the ship, he was just gone.
"Close the door or it will get us all."
"But Raymond, we."
"He is gone. There is nothing we can do. The captain thought we could go looking for people too and everyone disappeared." She slammed her hand against the emergency close and the hatch slammed shut.
The sun came up five minutes later, moving quickly up the sky. They went outside and looked for signs of Raymond, but found nothing.
"Alright," Alice said "I am taking charge, any one have a problem with that?" No one answered. "Contact the Weston and let them know we have one survivor and that we are coming back." She said to Louis, "Redmond you go with the other rover and get it back to the Weston, take Wilson with you. The rest of us will get the black boxes and the camera feeds from the Arokn and meet you back Weston. If we do not come back before night fall, do not come looking for us. Is that clear."

******

"This Planet is quarantined, Be afraid of the dark."