Jupiter 43: Arche

By Ian Redman

Issue 43 of Jupiter features 5 fantastic new SF stories from John Davies, Craig Pay, Adam C. Richardson, Carmelo Rafala, Neil Clift and a wonderful cover by David Conyers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Redman
• Release date: Feb 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311398895

Ian Redman

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

Book preview

Table of Contents

Jupiter XLIII : Arche

The Burning Man

John Davies

Spindle Pickers

Craig Pay

Merciful Plague

Adam C. Richardson

A Woman of Light and Steel

Carmelo Rafala

My Parole

Neil Clift

Contributors

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Jupiter XLIII : Arche

January 2014

Jupiter is edited by: Ian Redman

Copyright 2014 by Ian Redman.

Smashwords Edition.

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.

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.

The Burning Man

John Davies

The burning man did not scream. Calm in the centre of his personal inferno, as if someone else’s flesh this was affecting. His steady pace did not alter. He sought no remedy to his condition, as Clough imagined someone in his position would be most inclined to do.

Others streaming along the side of Lewis’s, the blackened department store, knew enough to avoid the man, but still no panic hit them. They calmly stepped over any of their number that had finally collapsed in the street, continuing on their definite course.

Dr. Kindred Clough watched the man sadly, puddles of rain raging brightly as the man passed over them. Clough had grown accustomed to spotting the same figure from the balcony, the sight of his familiar, bearded face distracting him from the slow death of his morning routine. Now the flames fed as the man walked, reaching higher and higher for his throat. Beginning to lick at his white hair, then catch there, tendrils of smoke curling upwards from his neck.

Clough watched until the man rounded the corner and walked out of view. Still capable then of making the mundane decision to turn left, as he did every ashen morning; as if commanded by some buried memory.

Habit makes husk of you, said Clough, drinking soulless coffee, cup after cup, and feeling no urge to smile. Staring down at the street where the man had been, his trail still bright and searing, staining the eye.

Clough walked back into the room to check on Christina. She was becoming sluggish, he could deny it no longer. Couldn’t put it down to stress or anxiety, or her body taking time to adapt to the increased medication. Her episodes were becoming more frequent, were lasting longer.

Most afternoons he would find her back in bed, hours after he had attempted to rouse her. In vain he walked her around the suite, her head lolling on his shoulder. Back in bed, not even sleeping, as harsh light fell through the balcony doors. Caressing her moth-wing cheek and provoking nothing.

You saved me, love, she had said yesterday, after Clough had been watching her for a while. Suddenly sitting upright on the edge of their bed, her lips barely moving as if the words of his mind’s own making. He urged her to speak again. The cup of tea he had made for her lay on its side, fallen from her hands that still mimed its shape. The strong, dark brew slowly describing the patch of hotel carpet in its colour.

Christina shuddering as if her fresh nightmare had followed her back to wake, squatting at her side on the bed. Hungering.

Clough left the room, walking along the hotel corridor to check the fire escape. Outside of the Panic Cells, their same strobing effect had infiltrated his day-to-day vision. Giving pattern to the blank corridors he trudged along, as if the walls had become elongated screens, continuously projecting a static-channelled television. The blank walls of the suite also seemed to ripple like shaken sheets.

He passed the dead elevator, imagining walking in and pressing the ‘Ground’ button. As if this was still a city, and he was merely a tourist.

Clough was forced to squint against the fierce daylight attacking the backs of his eyes as he pushed the bar and opened the emergency exit. He held his breath against the sudden smoke, its taste bringing back to him the ghosts of childhood firework displays, of sulphur and gunpowder invading the lungs. He moved out onto the metal platform, trying not to look through the perforated floor to the alleyway below. He checked that the knots keeping the escape secure were still okay, that there was no weakening in them. They were fine, just as they had been the previous night.

Clough flinched as a tattered crow landed on the edge where he was kneeling; its good, dark eye mainly on him, skittering. The other was milky and looked nowhere. As its final act it took a step backwards into the thick air, finding nothing left in its wings. The bird fell to the lane of deep, uncollected refuse below. At least Christina did not have to see what else protruded from the mess, scattered here and there.

Clough checked the snaked ropes again, until he was certain, and moved back inside.

Christina was still sitting in the same position on the bed, looking at something pertinent only to her. She wore the red silk dress she had found in the basement, its ribbons falling over her shoulders, giving her the look of a music box ballerina, neglected between windings.

That day in the basement. All adventure then, seeing what they could salvage to make the suite that was to be their home more bearable. Her excitement at finding the dress in an abandoned trunk, that some evacuated guest had no doubt left with mind to recover one day. The story surrounding the dress Christina had concocted: how the material had been spun only in the dead of night, a secret for some Russian princess held prisoner in her own palace. Christina’s eyes glowing in conspiracy as she held it up against herself for size, the dress taking on her shape.

And back in the suite, Clough remembered the last days of music before all power had failed. As outside the Recovered raged, and inside they pretended not to hear.

Feel like I’ve slept for a hundred years, Kin. What a sleepyhead I’ve been lately, Christina said, and she was there again, really looking at him. Not just Clough wandering into the space where her gaze had been fixed.

She yawned, her back curving in a feline motion, and looked around the bedroom as if suddenly finding herself there, seeing her surroundings for the first time. She looked out from between drapes of blonde hair, tangled by sleep. Are we going to open these doors? All of this dust is getting at my throat.

Christina stumbled slightly as she rose on startling legs, but did not act as if she had noticed.

What are we going to do today? she asked, flinging open the balcony doors, immersing herself in light. Letting it wash over her after too long in the shadows.

Her voice resonated around the suite’s high ceiling, sounding more than seemed possible from her slight, drained body. As if thrown from somewhere else.

In these times, on these bright and coherent days, Clough allowed himself to forget and took his wife in his arms, dancing with her in the muted hotel room.

In these times, she had pulled clear. She was alive again, and Clough had made the right decision to take her from the Cells.

Let’s get out of the city, Chris. What do you say? We’ll go stir crazy if we stay here for much longer.

I’ll make a picnic, she breathed into his throat, lavish of course.

That you will. Oh, and you’ll wear your new dress.

And you’ll wear a suit for a change. And you can get a bloody shave while you’re at it! she laughed. Can’t have you looking like a sack of rags, showing me up in public.

For you, Christina, I’ll wear a suit. Even on my weekend off. He kissed her, raking