Jupiter 38: Pasithee

By Ian Redman

Issue 38 of Jupiter Science Fiction magazine featuring brilliant new stories from Alex Weinle, Lou van Zyl, Jon Wallace, Colum Paget, Rosie Oliver and Allen Ashley. Rainbow Mars poem by Ian Sales and a wonderful cover by David Conyers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Redman
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301365708

Ian Redman

I edit Jupiter, a Science Fiction short story magazine published every quarter in the UK

Book preview

Table of Contents

Jupiter XXXVIII : Pasithee

Editorial

Quicker

Alex Weinle

Star Fall

Lou van Zyl

Gone Antiquing

Jon Wallace

Rainbow Mars

Ian Sales

The Secret Weapon

C.J. Paget

Ripple Effect

Rosie Oliver

Dead Simon and his Secret Astronautics

Allen Ashley

Contributors

Don’t Miss An Issue!

Jupiter XXXVIII : Pasithee

October 2012

Jupiter is edited by: Ian Redman

Write to Jupiter at: Jupiter, 4 Stoneleigh Mews, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 3UT, UK. or e-mail to: [e-mail] Further information from www.jupitersf.co.uk

All comments or enquires about advertising should be sent to the above address.

Submissions: Stories to 10,000 words. Poetry to 25 lines. Artwork - cover and for use with stories, please send examples first (copies).

Full guidelines at www.jupitersf.co.uk/wguide.htm.

Copyright (2012) for this collection, Ian Redman. Published at Smashwords. Rights to individual contributions remain the property of the relevant writer/artist. The views expressed in Jupiter are not necessarily those of the editor or of the magazine or publisher. Any resemblance between any of the characters depicted and anyone alive or dead is purely coincidental.

Editorial

So another Dragon has made its way to the International Space Station and Reaction Engines seem to be making good progress with their SABRE engines, ready to power the Skylon single stage Earth to Orbit vehicle. It’s almost starting to feel like space is becoming exciting again - to the general populace at least, to me it’s always been exciting.

If like me you’ve always been interested in near future SF then I suggest you get a copy of ‘Rocket Science’ from Mutation Press. This is a great collection of short fiction edited by Ian Sales - a name we’re all familiar with here at Jupiter. Pathfinders by Martin McGrath (another familiar name) was particularly good, full of emotion. To be honest, if any one of these stories had landed on my in tray, I would have snapped them up. Proper near future believable SF.

Having said all that, ‘Rocket Science’ was published much earlier this year, and I half suspect most of you are way ahead of my reading...

Ian

editor - Jupiter

Quicker

Alex Weinle

It’s a fine day so I’m only wearing a paper mask and I’ve got the weightcoat open a little to keep me cool. I walk past Pewfellows the corner shop where old Pewfellow himself is stacking shelves, baked beans by the look of it. He gives me a wave and I wave back. Nice old guy.

The next two houses past Pewfellows are abandoned as the wind has got hold of them. The brick work has been eaten in a big standing ‘S’ shaped whole. It won’t be long before they fall down or maybe Pewfellow will get someone to take them down to avoid any danger to his shop. I give the walls as wide a berth as I can without leaving the pavement because I don’t want to get my shoes dirty. The wind has been getting into the sewers round here and it’s forced up some foul smelling liquid into the gutters. I’ve got to look my best for Jimmy.

Mrs Osbourne’s house is at the far end of this row. Jimmy had the bricks green-enamelled to stop them being eaten away, no one else on the row can afford to have it done. She calls it her Fabergé castle. I don’t really understand but Jimmy’s Mums always has chuckle.

A plastic bag goes whipping along the street, pulsing in the gusts. It’s OK on a fine day like this – you can see them and avoid it but when it’s dusty or overcast you just have to let it hit you.

At the house before Mrs Osbourne’s, Simon Chaka Mtlbebe is re-pointing the brickwork. It’s much cheaper than enamelling but it only lasts a year or so. Simon Chaka Mtlbebe has his mask hanging round his neck and is sitting on a low bench he’s made from trellises. They call him the ‘Lazy Builder’ round here but whenever you walk up and down the streets or alleys he’s always there – stopping something from falling down. With his pallet knife in one hand and a platter of mortar in the other he looks like a giant blue-overalled Michelangelo. When I get out of school I want to design buildings for Simon Chaka Mtlbebe to make. I told him once – make ‘em round he said. When Simon Chaka Mtlbebe says round he shows the too many teeth in his big mahogany face. Sometimes I wish Simon Chaka Mtlbebe would get romantic with Mrs Osbourne so me and Jimmy and Simon Chaka Mtlbebe would all be family.

I pull down my mask and give him a kiss on the cheek. Simon Chaka Mtlbebe pretends to swoon and a pile of mortar slips off his platter onto the pavement and he laughs like a booming chimney when it’s lost its cover and the wind gets in. He pulls up the zip on my weightcoat and tells me the wind is getting quicker. He’s like a dad to me and he knows that I was brought in as an evacuee so I think he looks out for me. He once told Jimmy to mind how he took care of me. It was very brave as no one tells Jimmy what to do when he is off-base. Jimmy has got a terrible temper. It wasn’t always that way.

Before he was drafted we had already been boyfriend and girlfriend for years and when the papers came through the door we all sat about and cried. Mrs Osbourne hugged Jimmy and sobbed while he looked at me kept saying he was sorry. I went to the kitchen and made them both a cup of tea. That’s when I started being good at being grown up. I said six years is only six years. I said this was all the family I had. I said Jimmy would always be the only boy for me, always be my hero. Always. I meant every word and I still do.

Simon Chaka Mtlbebe points at the meter he’s got clipped to the end of his bench – it’s three little cups spinning round and round in the breeze. I squint at the tiny display for a bit and see that he’s right. The pressure is dropping and the speed is very slowly ticking up.

38.2

38.3

38.5

I give him a kiss goodbye on the other cheek and walk on to Mrs Osbourne’s house. The slight gusts in the wind shadows pull the weightcoat about but it’s still bright sunshine. The door to Jimmy’s mum’s house is the same old wooden one that was there before the place was enamelled. It must have looked very smart when it was first painted dark navy but the wind has shaved off layers of the paint making an odd ripple pattern of alternating wood and deep blue paint. There’s a lion’s head knocker on the door. She told me that her husband brought it back from Venice for her years ago when everyone thought the world was getting a little hotter maybe or perhaps there weren’t enough trees. We spend a lot of time at school learning about history – all those years the wind was getting that little bit quicker. I found a picture of the Venice bubble that was planned and showed her but Mrs Osbourne said it was better off under water. There’s no wind underwater she said. The knocker has been soldered down so it won’t bang in a storm so I knock on the door with my knuckles.

Dat-da-da-dat-dat, dat-dat. The same friendly old knock everyone uses to let people know you’re not a looter or something. I think it’s a bit silly – but I can’t not do it.

I hear the catches being unlocked and the strong-arm lever being pushed down, the door opens up about halfway and I can see little Mrs Osbourne in her apron holding the lever down with all her round little frame. I pop inside so she can let it back up. When the door shuts it’s dark and gloomy in the hallway so we go straight in