Collected Science Fiction Short Stories: Volume Four: Collected Science Fiction Short Stories, #4

By Raymond S Flex

Short stories to beguile, confound and exhilarate:

A regenerated human. A celebrity cult. A maniac on the Moon.

And many more, including:

Intercepted

Smith

Population One

Rules Of The Tribe

Blood Storm

The Memory Farm

NukeTheWorld.com

The Meat Wagon

Music For Robot Lovers

The Church Of Ollie Field's Double Chin

Symptoms Of A Disoccupied Mind

Last Page

The Transcendentalist

Encounter

Earthly Comforts

• Language: English
• Publisher: DIB Books
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533704634

Raymond S Flex

From fleeting frontiers to your kitchen sink, with Raymond S Flex you never know quite what to expect. His most popular series include: the Crystal Kingdom, Guynur Schwyn and Arkle Wright. On the lighter side of things he also writes Gnome Quest: a high fantasy with . . . yup, you guessed it, gnomes! And not to forget his standalone titles: Necropolis, Ethereal and more short stories than you can shake a space blaster at. Get in touch, keep up, at www.raymondsflex.com

Book preview

Collected Science Fiction Short Stories: Volume Four

Collected Science Fiction Short Stories: Volume Four

A Short Story Collection

Raymond S Flex

DIB Books

Contents

INTERCEPTED

SMITH

POPULATION ONE

RULES OF THE TRIBE

BLOOD STORM

THE MEMORY FARM

NUKETHEWORLD.COM

THE MEAT WAGON

MUSIC FOR ROBOT LOVERS

THE CHURCH OF OLLIE FIELD’S DOUBLE CHIN

SYMPTOMS OF A DISOCCUPIED MIND

LAST PAGE

THE TRANSCENDENTALIST

ENCOUNTER

EARTHLY COMFORTS

Author’s Note

INTERCEPTED

THEY’D BROUGHT HIM in around seventh hour. The guy’d been flying a shuttle around in circles, over and over, apparently without any end in sight. When they’d managed to hook him with a recovery ship, he’d been babbling away like a madman possessed.

People like this man—this ‘pilot’—really got up Guilie’s arse.

She’d seen from his licence that he’d been born earth side.

There was nothing worse, for her, than those who chewed up the privileges fed to them with a silver spoon and spat them out all over their chin.

One thing was for certain, this guy would’ve been better off doing what he’d been doing just about any place other than Colony B. He’d picked the wrong sector of space to catch cabin fever.

When she stepped in through the door to the interrogation room, she was immediately hit with the stench of moiser—moisturised alcohol—and it was really all she could do to keep her microwaved lasagne from coming up to say hello. She gripped tighter to her still-vaguely-warm cup of coffee but realised that she really didn’t want to sup at the dregs. So she tossed it into the bin in the corner of the interrogation room.

The guy sat slumped back on his chair, his pupils all diluted and his hands clinging to the edge of the metal table as if he was floating off in the middle of the ocean and this table represented some kind of a life raft.

She wondered, if he were to let go, if he might simply tumble back in his chair.

Crack his head against the wall behind him.

He’d deserve it.

Though there was another chair opposite the guy, Guilie preferred to stand. That way, she felt like she held the power in the exchange. Like she was on top of things—physically and figuratively.

So, she said, "What’s your story?"

The man seemed to focus his dilated pupils on her for no more than a second or two before he slipped back into his daze. Huh?

Guilie suppressed a sigh. She flipped a glance off to the corner of the room, to the camera watching. She knew that she had to be on her best behaviour while she was being monitored . . . things might be different, though, when she got him back to the lockup. The cell that she’d picked out for their ‘special’ guest here was located in one of the few camera blind spots. If anybody—and she had to admit that she did—felt like putting the boot in, then there wasn’t going to be anything by way of evidence to be gone over later in disciplinary meetings.

Why were you flying about here like a madman?

The guy just sat there, staring into space, and looking, for all that Guilie could tell, like he hadn’t heard a word that she’d just said.

These ones—these flushed-out space maniacs—got picked up about twice a month.

But they were all from the colony.

It was unknown for them to get an Earthborn.

Why would they be all the way out here?

Why would they ever want to leave Earth in the first place?

How had they got here from Earth?

Guilie bent over the guy and clicked her fingers at him a couple of times. Through her earpiece she got some information to help her out. The guy’s name.

Phillip? she said, and then, deciding that maybe she should play the good cop for a few beats, Phil?

This elicited a response from the guy—from Phillip. He blinked a couple of times and then met her eye. Where’s my ship? he asked.

Guilie glanced to the camera pitched up in the corner of the interrogation room.

What she wouldn’t give for a nice electric-shock kit right now.

To give him a piece of her mind.

Your ship, Guilie said, turning away from the camera, Is our own business now.

Phillip glanced about himself, looked from side to side, and then, slowly, his gaze drifted back to Guilie. Hey, where am I?

Colony B.

‘Colony B’ ?

There an echo in here?

Huh?

She threw up her hand, in a just-forget it gesture. Where you are doesn’t really matter, she said. "What does matter is you telling us just how you got here, how you ended up doing those loop-the-loops in that ship of yours way off course."

Phillip closed one eye as if he was some hot-shit detective on the brink of cracking what had once seemed an insolvable case. Who says I was off course?

You were drunk, she said, and then gave a dramatic sniff of the air which sent a shimmer through her guts. "I can smell it on you even now."

Phillip mumbled something to himself.

What’s that? she said.

He mumbled something else.

Didn’t hear.

He glanced up. Guess doing loop-the-loops was one way to get your attention, huh?

What’re you talking about?

Well, he said, drawing in a breath so deep that it caused his shoulders to rise up as he did so, Guess we’ll need to start from the beginning, won’t we?

Guilie guessed the moiser had gone to Phillip’s brain more than she’d anticipated. She thought—with a grim, internal smile—that if she sparked a match it’d send the whole colony up in flames. The taste of coffee had now turned impossibly bitter at the back of her mouth, and she could feel that her skin had stiffened into pimples all over. Whenever Phillip breathed, he kind of gulped. He wasn’t used to the low-level oxygen on the colony.

He would get used to it soon enough, though.

A couple of days and he’d be breathing it like straight old regular Earth air.

Or whatever it was that Guilie had always supposed Earth air to feel like.

Why’d you get loaded? Guilie said, breaking the silence.

He gave a slight shake of his head. Frustration.

" ‘Frustration’ ? About what?"

About looking for Colony B.

Guilie screwed up her eyes. "Why were you looking for Colony B?"

Because it seemed important.

I don’t understand.

Phillip gave a wry smile—one of those smiles which reminded Guilie of her uncle who’d passed away last year. The way the smile brought on a whole host of wrinkles into the face. It added a leathery quality—a kind of hardened quality. It was one of those little things that, on its own, could make a person seem about a decade older than they truly were.

With this thought on her mind, Guilie looked over the man and tried to decipher just how old he was. He still wore his flight suit—a single, grey-blue overall, zippered all the way up to his neck. The way that Phillip held himself, a little slumped over, gave his posture something which resembled a petulant teenager. But his face—his voice—seemed to suggest he was much older.

You ever think about what you’re doing here? Phillip asked.

The way he spoke, the even-handed manner of his, Guilie almost found herself answering honestly, as if she had been speaking to an uncle. But she managed to catch herself just in time.

That’s irrelevant.

He leaned forward, over the table. He laid his palms flat against the metal surface. It made it so she smelled his moiser-soaked breath all the more. Oh but it’s not, he said. "It has to do with everything."

She shook her head. You’re drunk—think I should go stick you back in your cell, let you get another shade of sober?

This vague threat didn’t seem to have any effect. In fact, his eyes blazed, as if what she’d said had only served to encourage him. You grew up here on Colony B, correct?

Guilie didn’t answer.

She wasn’t permitted to answer.

Protocol.

Yeah, Phillip said, now conversing with himself. "And they told you that sage old story, huh? The one we all read about back on Earth, about how your ancestors had to get here by a real long space journey, huh?"

Guilie folded her arms over her chest.

She pressed her lips tight together, not wanting to give anything away . . . though, to be honest, there really didn’t seem to be much else to give away.

How they had to take young kids with them, and how the older generations would never even get to see their destination? He wet his lips with his tongue. "And how this whole thing would be one great experiment—a test—a way for seeing just what happens when humans grow up away from their own—how they can function totally alone."

Guilie kept herself still. She really wanted, more than anything, to shift out of the interrogation and go take a ten-minute walk so as to clear the moiser fumes from her head.

But she couldn’t move a muscle.

Not while Phillip was spilling all this confidential information.

Yeah, he said, that was what it was all about. He paused for a beat, and it was only then that Guilie realised just how intently she’d been paying attention.

Now she understood what people meant when they talked about a ‘deafening’ silence.

Thing is, Phillip continued, they all lied to you.

Guilie felt like her head was spiralling around—like she’d suddenly been struck by a dizzy spell. On impulse, nothing more than a habit, she glanced up at the camera which hung from the corner of the room, as if asking some silent question of those who observed. Now that she looked back at Phillip, she couldn’t help thinking that he had sobered up a little.

Instead of the smile he had worn before, now he looked a little withdrawn—a little shattered. He seemed almost as if he was another decade old. But she knew that was impossible.

He continued, his voice lacking strength, "Yeah, they lied to you all right, told you that the only possible way to reach the colony was for you to take a generations-long trek across space. He shook his head. Didn’t say anything about transmillenial travel, huh?"

This time, without meaning to, she replied, No.

Didn’t say that—he clicked his fingers—just like that you could be back on Big Blue, back on the home world.

Guilie shook her head.

She wondered if some senior official would appear in the doorway—ready to relieve her of all she had witnessed.

Well, he said, "I’ve got news for you. You could."

What? she said, the words feeling dry in her throat.

He just nodded.

Was she seeing things or was his skin looser about his neck now—were his eyes even more sunken in their sockets? Were the wrinkles on his forehead all stacking up?

That’s what I did. Just got into my shuttle yesterday—powered it up. Wanna know a secret?

What? Guilie said, now feeling that she was so far past her official role, and that she had—somehow—just become nothing more than a willing audience to this man from Earth.

Yesterday, when I stepped into the shuttle, I was seventeen years old.

She blinked several times. I . . . I don’t understand.

He gave her a slight smile. Kind of like jetlag—if that’s the way you’d like to think about it. The way that transmillenial travel works, you ship on out and then pound through space. Great way to travel big distances. He paused a moment, and seemed, to Guilie, to be fighting for air. Thing is, though, you need a decompressor. He smiled again, but very briefly because it was snatched away from him by a sudden coughing fit. And the one I have . . . on . . . on—he was fighting for air and he seemed to have grown impossibly thinner, like his bones themselves were dissolving beneath his skin—"the de . . . decompressor I have . . . on my ship . . . it got busted."

I . . . she began, but he held up his hand, cutting her off.

He regained something of his former strength. I knew it, as soon as I shot out of the loop, that I was done for. That’s why I took a whole load of moiser and dosed myself up. He gave her a thin-lipped smile. "Guess that’s the thing about having been a kid—about having to live the whole of your adult life at light-speed. Just seems to catch up with you. I wanted to celebrate."

Celebrate what?

My death, he said, his voice so cracked, so uneven now, that he could barely be heard. He fought on, somehow finding a little more strength to finish what he had to say. You can take my shuttle, he said, a vague smile now on his lips. You can head back to Earth. His smile widened, seemed to stretch all the way up to his arched cheekbones—and they were pretty much bones and nothing else. Just remember to get yourself to a decompressor when you arrive, he added in a swift dying flurry before he slumped forward on the metal table, his forehead landing with a thud.

While Guilie stood there, in shock, she picked through everything Phillip had told her.

Tried to get it all straight in her mind.

They were here, on Colony B, in the middle of nowhere.

Right on the fringe of the known universe.

There was no way back . . . or, at least, that was what her parents had told her.

What her parents’ parents had told them.

Could it be true?

Why would they lie to them?

For what possible purpose?

Then she seemed to click everything, and all at once.

She thought about how they were here, as part of an experiment, but it wasn’t the experiment that she, or her family—or, surely, anybody she’d known had truly anticipated.

Why, what it seemed to her now, what seemed to be the only explanation, was that they’d all had their brains washed, their minds wiped clean, and ideas thrust inside.

For what purpose . . . did she really have any chance of knowing?

One thing—the only thing—which played on her mind, was that she knew she had to get back to Earth; she had to see all of those things that she’d only seen on vidscreens: those animals, the flowing waters, endless forests. Everything she had only ever been able to dream about.

When she reached out and pressed her palm to the sensor on the door to the interrogation room, the system was jammed.

In the near distance, she could hear boot steps—a percussive thud—of leathered soles.

And she knew they were coming.

That they were coming for Phillip’s body.

And they were coming for her.

SMITH

1

MURBAK SORTED through the rubbish heap, tossing various pieces aside. Behind him the waste compressor hissed away in the red-green twilight. He uncovered a strange object. He held it up to the light, to inspect it closer, and shut all but one of his six eyes. It was quite unlike anything else he’d ever seen. A smooth side gave way to a smattering of holes and jagged edges.

After several minutes’ consideration, he laid it to one side. He had a long shift ahead of him and couldn’t afford to waste time looking at rubbish, his boss might drop by. Still, as he went about his work, it remained on the rim of his mind.

At the end of his shift, he chucked his pincers into the cart and walked to the central transport channel. He let go of the cart and it ran by itself into the transport lane, to be disposed of by a small army of robots. Tapping his foot, he waited for his own public transport. Then he remembered the object, which he’d left back at the heap.

Up ahead, he observed his transport hovering into view. His mind split. Most likely the object was worthless, but it had caught his eye. That meant it might catch someone else’s on the flea markets.

He let his transport roar by and returned to the heap. He sorted through the piles of rubbish and located the object. Once more he inspected it. It was smooth, white and roughly the same size and shape of his head. He dropped it into his bag and trotted off to wait for the next transport.

The bitter-sweet smell of Ornush swamped the corridor leading to Murbak’s apartment. He breathed in deep, treading round the puddles of water and pieces of rubbish. The door read his vibration and opened for him. Once inside, Murbak set his bag down at the door and wandered into the kitchen.

His life mate, Hurg, stood supervising the kitchen machinery. Hurg smiled, adjusted a dial, and then strolled across to embrace Murbak.

Murbak absorbed Hurg’s body heat. He made a clicking sound and enjoyed the calming sensation passing through his skin. Relaxed, Murbak sat at the table and waited for Hurg to serve dinner.

Hurg divided the Ornush into bowls. How was your day? His mouth remained still while he spoke, transmitting his speech telepathically.

Good. Oh, hey! That reminds me. Murbak got up and dashed into the hall where he snatched up