Colliding Worlds Vol. 6: A Science Fiction Short Story Series: Colliding Worlds, #6

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith

The Final Volume in the Acclaimed Series!

For more than four decades, New York Times and USA Today bestselling writers Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith wrote professional science fiction short stories that won awards and sold millions of copies.

Now, for the first time, they collect together 120 of their science fiction short stories into a six-volume set called Colliding Worlds. Sixty stories total from each author, with ten stories from Rusch and ten from Smith in every volume.

Volume 6 closes the series with a space opera theme, a genre both Rusch and Smith excel in. Smith starts the volume with "The Tragic Tale of a Man in a Duster" about a cowboy floating alone in the vast reaches of space, who finds solace in cooking trout over an open fire. Rusch closes the volume with "The Spires of Denon," a novella from her award-winning Diving Universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Apr 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201695057

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

Colliding Worlds Vol. 6

Colliding Worlds Vol. 6

A Science Fiction Short Story Series

Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Introduction

Dean Wesley Smith

Ten Stories by Dean Wesley Smith

The Tragic Tale of a Man in a Duster

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Dreaming Large

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess

Dean Wesley Smith

If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess

Music in Time

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Don’t Rust On Me Now

Dean Wesley Smith

Don’t Rust On Me Now

Squatter’s Rights on the Street of Broken Men

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

As The Robot Rubs

Dean Wesley Smith

As The Robot Rubs

The Gift of a Dream

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Cold Comfort

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Dreams of a Moon

Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Ten Stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Impossibles

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Impossibles

Transport

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Matilda

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Echea

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Echea

Boz

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Boz

SeniorSource

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

SeniorSource

Homecoming

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Homecoming

Skylight

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Skylight

Defect

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Defect

The Spires of Denon

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

About the Author

About the Author

Introduction

Maybe Just a Little Bit Space Opera

Dean Wesley Smith

Of the six topics that Kristine Kathryn Rusch picked as themes for the six volumes, Space Opera fit both of us the best.

Kris has two major space opera series going with the Retrieval Artist series and the Diving series. Both have over a dozen books and Kris even anchored her selection here with a Diving series novella.

I also have two series that are space opera, but I also write a great number of just stand-alone space opera short stories.

So of all the subject topics for these six volumes, this one hit us both the best.

A bit of history. Kris and I wrote a lot of books together in our unique way of collaborating, with me writing the first rough plot draft and her doing the second coloring draft. About twenty of those books were Star Trek, the best and longest-running space opera series in history.

And I edited for Star Trek for a decade or so as well.

Often, readers when they see the words science fiction, they only think of space opera. But as I hope we have shown in this six-volume set, science fiction is so much more than ray guns and spaceships. Sure it can be that, but it is more.

So here, at the end of these six volumes, Kris and I would like to thank you for reading our crazy stories. We don’t expect you to like all one-hundred-and-twenty of them, but we hope that you like enough of them to be entertained.

We both had a lot of fun doing this project, far more than we expected, and we hope that shows through as well.

And do remember, we are both still writing lots of new science fiction novels and short stories.

Thank you, one and all, for spending time with our stories. It means a great deal to both of us.

One

Reeves knew he shouldn’t be frying fish over an open campfire in the ship’s botanical garden, but the smell alone was going to make up for all the problems he might face if anyone ever found him. The fire crackled in a rock ring in front of him, the flames casting strange shadows on the trees and brush ringing his little meadow. He didn’t care about the extra oxygen consumption and the fire repellant system being shut off. All he cared about was the two fish in the skillet, and how wonderful they were going to taste.

Reeves still had on his deep-sleep jumpsuit. It didn’t feel right wearing it out here, while cooking trout, but it hadn’t occurred to him to change clothes since he woke up. That would be next, right after dinner. Besides, there wasn’t much reason to stay in uniform when there was no one to dress up for.

He kneeled and picked up the skillet, studying the fish for any sign of them being overcooked, then quickly replaced the skillet on the fire before the hot handle burned his hand. His dad back on Earth had showed him how to do this when he was a kid, and he had watched it done a dozen times since. His dad always used to say that fish were never meant to be baked or broiled or steamed. Only fried.

Reeves had to agree. Cooking fresh trout in the ovens they had on this piece of floating space junk would be a crime. No sir, fish were born to be covered in corn meal crumbs and fried quick and hot in a half inch of margarine in a heavy metal skillet while the flames licked the sides of the blackened pan.

And right now the two Rainbow Trout he’d caught out of Danny’s stream over in the hatcheries section of the ship were being cooked in exactly that way.

The rich, wonderful smell was almost more than he could take. It covered the faint odor of the pines around him, filling the small meadow with a mouth-watering aroma. He just wished that when the builders had designed the botanical garden they would have made it possible to open some sort of portal so he could sit beside a fire under the stars. He glanced up hoping to see stars, but the roof was black, the light low, simulating night. Maybe at some point in the future he’d go up there and paint some fake stars on that ceiling just to make the feeling right.

He glanced around at the darkened meadow and the trees and brush beyond. He had to do this cooking at night. No other time would be right for cooking fresh-caught trout over an open fire.

The smoke from the fire was swirling upward around the skillet and then on toward the ceiling, lost in the darkness. He had no doubt the garden was going to smell of smoke for months to come, but he didn’t care. Hell, if this worked, and these two fish tasted anywhere near as good as they smelled, he might even fry a couple more fish tomorrow night.

And a couple more the night after that.

Maybe he might even fix up a tent and bedding to sleep nearby. What could it hurt? There was no one to stop him out here in the deep space between stars and jump stations. There was no fixing the ship. He had determined that an hour ago. And if he did happen to get lucky and live long enough to finally reach Jump Base Perry, he’d deal with the consequences then. But in the meantime, he was going to eat freshly-cooked trout.

Two

Blame it all to damn! Canny said, her fingers running over the smooth surface of the tracking board, bringing up images on her screen faster than Fergason could follow.

Canny was in charge of tracking what they called the pink sector, officially call the P sector, following ships and anything else that might be jumping through hyper space in that area. Fergason had never heard her swear in the three years he had worked with the tiny and very competent woman.

Canny was from a colony world around Devan Six, and claimed she was five foot tall. She had typical Devan red hair and light, fair skin. She also had a laugh that sounded like a chime and made him smile.

Today Canny wore a white blouse, dark black pants made out of some new material, and flat-heeled shoes meant for comfort.

Fergason was Canny’s immediate supervisor and her exact opposite in just about every way. Where she was short, he was tall, slouching at six-five. Where her skin seemed to glow white in the lights from the screens, his skin was dark, his hair pitch black and short. And he came from Stevens, a planet that had been waging an economic war with Canny’s home planet for decades. Yet somehow, over the years, even with the differences, they had become close friends.

And were getting closer every day.

Around them the large General Hyper Drive control room felt hushed as a few of the other controllers glanced at Canny’s direction with a look of surprise.

Fergason stood from his supervisor console and moved over beside Canny, glancing at her screen. Transfer to the wall screen, he said.

She nodded as her fingers moved over her board almost faster than Fergason could follow. He knew she was one of his best, but he had never seen her work at full speed before.

Suddenly she stopped, sat back, and just shook her head.

Dropped out, she said. Twenty-six hours ago real time.

Fergason stared at the wall monitor filling a section near Canny’s station. It showed three-dimensional representation of the P area of space Canny had been monitoring. She had put up a line starting at Jump Base Peanut and ending about halfway to Jump Base Perry.

What’s the ship? Fergason asked, stunned that he was seeing what she was indicating. He had never had a drop-out on his watch, and the last serious drop-out that had occurred was two years before. Ships, with all the fail-safes, and the nature of the hyper-space tubes between jump points, just didn’t drop out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere.

Yet one just had.

"It’s a supply and research ship, a big one called the Western. Headed for the lower edge of the D section to help supply a new colony there."

Fergason nodded. Nothing unusual at all.

Seventeen jumps successful, Canny said, thirty-six more to go."

So any signal from the ship? Fergason asked, following procedure.

Nothing, Canny said. One minute it was fine, the next it had dropped out of hyper.

Can you pinpoint its location? Fergason asked, still following the questions he was supposed to ask a controller in this situation.

I did, Canny said. She reached forward and tapped her board, changing the image on the screen on the wall.

Fergason just shook his head. The area shown on the map where the ship would have dropped back into normal space was a sphere of over three light years in diameter.

There was one more question on the list that he had to ask any controller in this situation, just for the record. Could you get a reading on the real-space speed of the ship as it dropped?

Fast, Canny said. Ninety-one-point-three percent of the speed of light.

Damn, Fergason said.

You can say that again, Canny said, shaking her head. The poor guy. He probably isn’t even awake yet, with the difference in time factored in.

Only one crew? Fergason asked. Usually freighters had two or three. The Western must be one of the newer model ships, only needing one man to take the chance on the deep sleep and the hyper jumps with the cargo. And all that one man did was wake up at each jump point, run diagnostics of the systems, then give the all-clear for the ship to make the next jump.

She leaned forward, tapped a key on her board again, and then sat back. His name is Reeves, from Earth actually.

What part? Fergason asked, as if that was going to make any difference at this point.

Canny again glanced at her board. Idaho region.

One of the old United States areas. Fergason had never been near it on any of his visits to Earth. Maybe next time.

Alert rescue, Fergason said, glancing at the other controllers who were watching the event. Tell them to get a ship headed to the center of his possible drop-out area. Make sure you feed them all your data, including his likely speed.

Canny glanced back at him, her green eyes showing surprise and maybe a little something else. Sir, you know they will veto you. It’s not worth risking the lives of a rescue team and ship in an unscheduled hyper-drop.

Fergason knew, but he said nothing.

Canny went on. "Plus the percentage chances of finding one ship in that much area are close to zero, even if the thing was equipped with a newer emergency beacon. The rescue ship would have to stumble within light-days of the Western to trace-hear it."

I know, Fergason said. But I’m not going to be the one to make the decision to let that poor man die out there alone.

She looked at him harder than she had ever done before. There was a caring and understanding in the look that he hadn’t seen before. Finally she nodded and turned back to her board. Alerting rescue, she said.

Later that night, she asked him to join her for dinner. It had been fantastic, a special baked-trout dinner with all the trimmings. That night she told him how much she admired him and his heart.

And later that night they kissed and kissed and finally talked about being together for the rest of their lives.

The next morning he learned, as they had both expected, that Rescue Control had declined to send a ship.

Reeves from Earth was on his own.

Three

Reeves knew, without a doubt, that he would grow tired of fresh-caught, freshly-cooked trout, no matter how good they tasted.

He had set up camp with bedding, a tent, and a change of clothes in an area of the botanical garden near where he had cooked the fish the first time. After dinner that first night he had changed into some western-style clothes he had found in supplies for the colonists. Then with the addition of a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a duster he felt almost at home. He could almost imagine he was back in the mountains of Idaho, especially when he was near his fire.

He had reset the lighting in the garden so that there was more night, because that was the time he didn’t have to think about where he was, and what had happened to him.

After finding the clothes he had gone to a mirror in one of the bathrooms. The hat hid his white forehead and receding hairline, and the duster swung loose and free, giving his body a lean and mean appearance. He had been lucky that the colony this ship had been packed to supply was for a western-based group. He hoped they survived the loss of these supplies long enough to get more.

Too bad there hadn’t been something he could have done about saving the ship. He had been in cold sleep, as anyone was going through jump space, when the ship had malfunctioned and dropped out of hyper-space. His last readings before the jump had shown no indication of any problem at all.

The moment he had woken up to the sounds of the alarms filling every inch of the cold sleep chamber, he knew he was in trouble.

Deep trouble.

It had taken him a long time to check all the ship’s systems and discover everything was just fine, except for the fact that he, the ship, and all its cargo were no longer in hyper-space. He had no idea what had gone wrong, and didn’t have the skills or the desire to find out.

He had set the rescue beacon just in case someone came for him, and actually found him, and then he had sat for hours just staring out of the control room’s viewports at the stars and the blackness of space. He had no idea where he was, or even exactly how fast he was moving, or where he was heading.

Hyper-space travel used jump stations, connected to other jump stations. Only close-in system travel used actual real-space movement. It just took too long and had too many troubles with the differences in ship-board time and real time.

While he sat there staring at the stars and feeling sorry for himself, he started thinking about never seeing Earth again, and just generally considering his future death alone in deep space. Then, as if hit by a sudden blast of realization, he really understood his situation. He might die alone out here, but until he did he was now a really free man.

No more worrying about money, or jobs. The ship had more than enough supplies to last him for a very long life.

He no longer had anyone to answer to, to be chewed out by.

He was on his own, in a seven-mile-long space ship full of everything he might need.

With the realization he had laughed out loud, staring at the stars. The entire thing was sort of a glass half-empty, glass half-full sort of thing. Yes, he was trapped in deep space with almost no hope of rescue, yes he had known this possibility might happen, but now that it had happened, he could live any way he wanted.

He could cook fish over an open campfire.

He was a free man who loved fresh-caught fish.

Finally, on the third day of staying in the meadow near his campfire, it became clear he was going to need other fresh foods beside fish. So after finishing a wonderful breakfast of trout, he made a trip through the seven mile-long ship to the embryo stores near the nose of the giant ship.

He felt odd walking in his cowboy boots down the wide halls, his duster swirling around his legs with every step. And his duster was a little warm for the environmental settings, but he didn’t care. He was living on a new frontier, just like his ancient ancestors had done when they had gone west in the old United States. There were hardships on the frontier, the least of which was heat and cold.

They had been alone, in a wild and dangerous place.

He was alone in a wild and dangerous place.

They had survived in their way, he would survive in his.

It had taken him hours to finally reach the right area, not wanting to use the ship’s directional systems to help him. His ancestors didn’t have directional systems to help them out west.

After only a few wrong turns, he found the storage area he was looking for. It was where the animals that were scheduled to be born and raised on the new colony were kept. He pulled up on a screen the animal cargo list and smiled when he saw it was as he had hoped it would be. Cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, and so on. And there was enough feed on the ship as well to keep the animals well-fed for many years.

And another thing that worked in his favor. The ship was carrying an Accelerated Growth Lab that could take an animal from embryo state to full grown in three or four days.

He studied the list of his choices. He didn’t want to raise too many animals too quickly, mostly because he only needed as much as he could use over a few months time, and he wanted to make their feed last as long as possible. So he did some calculations as to exactly how long the feed would last for a certain number of each animal, then went to work taking out a few of the animals and putting them in the Accelerated Growth Lab chamber.

Then, as almost an afterthought, he picked out a horse and put it in the chamber as well. His ancestors rode horses, so could he.

He spent three days there in the lab, eating rations while wishing for trout, sleeping in a bunk room, growing the animals to a decent size. He used that time to set up sections of the ship for each group of animals to live.

The chickens he put in a large storage area with old-world furniture they could nest in, then set the timer on the ship’s computer to remind him every three days that he needed to replenish the chicken’s food and supplies, and with luck harvest the eggs.

His mouth watered at the idea of eggs and bacon, cooked over a camp fire. What a perfect life he was setting up.

He worked out similar environments for the cattle and pigs, then prepped a slaughter area and then used it to kill a calf, using a colony butchering-machine to package and refrigerate the meat all in one process.

Tonight, back in his meadow, over his campfire, he would cook veal. And then tomorrow he would start changing a few of the areas in the gardens for fruit and vegetable growing. Maybe in a few weeks he might have corn-on-the-cob with a great New York steak. His mouth watered at the thought as well.

Finally, after everything was set up, and his saddle bags were packed with the veal and oat feed for the horse, he led the big, brown mare he had raised into the hallway and back down the miles of corridor to the botanical gardens.

On this trip he felt better walking the halls in his duster, the horse’s hooves clopping on the hard surface behind him. He now felt like a true pioneer going into the unknown.

Four

Ferguson sat at his desk in his living room and stared at a picture of Canny, his wife of over sixty years. He missed her more than he wanted to admit. Their children and grandchildren were good company, visiting him often, but nothing could replace the closeness that he had had with Canny.

They had had a great life together, happy, and had recently been planning trips back to their different home worlds to visit family. Then, without warning, a few months before she had died of a heart attack at the young age of only 104. He had another thirty or forty years of life expectancy these days, yet he couldn’t imagine living those years without her. It was as if everything inside him had been ripped out.

Grandpa? a voice said from behind him.

The voice was from his youngest grandson, Steph, standing respectfully in the door to the study. Steph was going on thirty, and was already making a name for himself in Space Rescue Corp.

Fergason took a deep breath and slowly swung around, looking up into the green eyes and pale skin of his grandson. The kid was about the same age as Canny had been when they had started working together. Steph had her eyes and her good looks and fair skin.

You all right, Grandpa?

Fergason shrugged. I guess as good as can be expected.

There was no other answer to that question. Of course he wasn’t all right. He had lost the love and meaning in his life.

Thought you might be interested in this, Steph said, stepping forward and handing a report from Rescue Central to him. It came into control today after one of the test runs of a new search system.

Fergason glanced at the paper, not really seeing it. Then suddenly a name caught his attention. Western.

He quickly scanned the sheet, stunned at what he was reading. They had finally found the cargo ship Western, over sixty years after it had dropped out of hyper-drive and vanished.

He glanced up at Steph who was smiling. This is the ship that was lost on your grandmother’s watch. I was supervisor that day.

I know, Steph said, smiling. You and grandma decided to get married that night, didn’t you?

Fergason nodded as he stared at the report. He couldn’t believe the Western had been found. He hadn’t thought of that ship for decades.

There was a man on that ship, Fergason asked, trying to find the information on the report that he was looking for, but failing. What happened to him?

Steph snorted. His name was Reeves. Shipboard time only had two weeks passing. But the guy didn’t manage to survive that long.

Fergason shuddered. He couldn’t imagine the loneliness the man named Reeves must have thought he was facing. Deep space did that to people, sent them over the edge and into insanity, often far quicker than two weeks.

Fergason knew he was facing the same type of loneliness without Canny.

What did he do, kill himself?

No, Steph said, shaking his head. He broke his neck.

Fergason glanced up at his grandson. How?

From what the investigators could tell, Steph said, he fell off a horse.

A horse?

A horse, Steph said. And he had grown cattle, pigs, chickens and who knows what else in an old Accelerated Growth Chamber. He even had a campfire going in a botanical garden. He had reverted to being a cowboy from the old west region of Earth.

Fergason shook his head as his grandson went on, not really understanding how a spaceman could become a cowboy on a hyper-drive jump freighter in less than two weeks.

You ought to see a picture of the guy. He put on the cowboy hat, duster and all.

You’re kidding? Fergason asked, knowing his grandson wouldn’t joke about something like that."

Nope, Steph said, it’s the truth. And what’s even more amazing is that he’d only been dead for less than an hour when they found the ship. There was even burnt fish still cooking over a campfire.

Fish? Fergason asked, remembering the wonderful fish dinner he and Canny had had the night the Western vanished sixty-three years before. The dinner that had changed their lives.

Fish, Steph said. Burnt fish. I doubt they’re ever going to get the smell out of there.

Fish, Fergason repeated softly to himself, shaking his head and remembering the dinner that night all those years ago.

The dinner over which he and Canny had decided to spend a lifetime together.

He glanced up at his grandson. He fell off a horse?

His grandson smiled. Broke his neck while cooking a fish dinner over an open campfire.

For the first time since Canny had died, Fergason laughed, knowing without a doubt that Canny would have laughed with him.

One

The last three years had gone faster than Chairman Evan West had expected. Around him on the bridge of the Rescue One, the fifteen members of his main crew were all standing ready at their stations on the three levels, all scanning ahead as much as they could.

He knew that through the entire ship the thirty thousand people on board were also watching intently.

West was a tall, thin man with bright green eyes, balding head, and wide shoulders. People said he had a smile that made him a lot of friends and he liked to laugh and have fun.

Lately he hadn’t smiled much.

The air was tense in the large room around him, but professional. The large screen that filled the tall wall in front of them only showed the quickly approaching front edge of the small galaxy they were calling Destination. The galaxy had a number, but no one called it by that anymore.

West stood beside his large chairman’s chair, watching not only his instruments, but those of his second and third in command at their stations on either side of him.

Nothing.

Just nothing out of the ordinary at all.

They were on a mission to find out what had happened to the Dreaming Large, one of the huge Seeder mother ships. It had vanished in the small galaxy they were now approaching.

That had been four years ago, a short time for a Seeder, but a very long time for a major mother ship to vanish completely.

Mother ships were the size of large moons and could hold a thousand ships and upwards of a half million people. It was from the mother ships that Seeders spread humanity from one galaxy to another, always moving forward.

Chairman West had been a seeder now for three thousand years and had seen many galaxies along the way. And he had helped in birthing more billions of human societies than he wanted to even try to imagine.

He loved his job.

He didn’t much like this mission. His wife and best friend, Tammy, had been on the Dreaming Large when it vanished. He missed their nightly routines of telling each other their days through trans-warp link, even when they had been apart for years. He loved her and always had loved her. And he missed her now more than he wanted to ever admit.

Their plan had been for him to finish up the last part of a seeding mission in the previous galaxy and then his ship and a dozen other front-line ships with him would catch up with the Dreaming Large. He liked working the front edge of the seeding as he always did after the terraforming was finished.

He had worried for the three years it took them at full trans-warp speed to get here and he had missed Tammy every moment of it. He had no idea what they were going to find. No one had an idea, even though the speculation was rampart.

How could a major Seeder mother ship simply vanish?

Without a word of notice, the two chairmen who jointly ran the mother ship had stopped reporting in to Chairman Ward and the other overseeing body of the Seeders.

When that had happened, Chairman Ward had contacted him and the idea of Rescue One was born.

There were twenty-two mother ships now, built over centuries, with more being built all the time. The Dreaming Large was the first to have vanished.

Tammy had been one of the head botanists on Dreaming Large. She had loved her job, just as he loved his.

The Rescue One had been built specialty for this mission. Unlike most Seeder’s ships, the Rescue One had a full military contingent and four warships on board, commanded by West’s best friend, Admiral Cline. Seeders, by their very mission and scouting ahead, never had much need for military until some of the growing new human cultures hit their early space age stage. So to even put together a military fleet, Cline had scrounged through some more advanced human cultures recently seeded for ships and enough new Seeders to man the ships.

It had taken Cline as long to put his force together as it had to build the Rescue One.

The Rescue One had been built in preparation for almost anything they might find. It also had in its huge hanger twenty of the Seeder’s fastest scout ships, all crewed and ready to go.

And it had room, if necessary, for upwards of a hundred thousand survivors, a fraction of the humans who had been on the Dreaming Large when it vanished.

Now, finally, after the year of building and three years of travel at the fastest trans-warp speeds any seeder ship could go, they were almost there.

Anything? West asked, breaking the silence on the large bridge and glancing around the three levels at his bridge crew.

All of them just shook their heads.

Full stop at scouting distance from the edge of Destination, he ordered.

We’ll be at full stop in one minute, Korgan said.

Korgan was his second in command and had been chairman of his own scout ship before volunteering to go on this mission. He had family, a son and a daughter, on the Dreaming Large.

In fact, a good third of the crew of the Rescue One had family or some personal connection to crew on the Dreaming Large.

That made this crew very, very motivated to find the lost mother ship.

Dropping out of trans-warp now, Korgan said, his voice seeming to almost echo in the silence of the large bridge.

Full scans, West said.

Then he motioned to Korgan to have the crews of the scout ships stand ready and be scanning as well.

West moved over and stood beside his chair. He couldn’t make himself sit in the chair until they knew what had happened to Dreaming Large. But from where he stood, he could see all the data streaming in.

It was a small spiral galaxy on the scheme of things, with about 80 billion stars of all standard sizes. It showed no unusual areas at all.

And not a sign of the Dreaming Large.

Nothing.

The huge mother ship had just vanished.

Two

West got up from his chairman’s chair after a few minutes and walked slowly around to all the stations on his bridge, not so much for information, but to give everyone some time and let himself relax a little.

He had been preparing for this moment for four years. Rushing anything now might lead to even more problems.

Finally, after the longest half hour he had ever spent on the bridge, he broke the intense silence.

Let’s have some reports, he said. So everyone can be together on this. And broadcast these reports to the entire ship please.

Korgan nodded for West to go ahead.

Anything unusual at all about Destination?

Three stations reported in that there was nothing unusual. Then Korgan added. "What we are reading matches exactly the last reports of the scout ships two hundred years before the Dreaming Large arrived here."

West nodded. Any signs of alien or human habitation?

Six reports came in quickly, one after another, cutting the small galaxy down into six quadrants, just as it would have been seeded.

Nothing.

No alien life, no human life, no remains of any ship anywhere.

As with most galaxies, this one was empty. And if it had an alien race at any level anywhere in the galaxy, the entire galaxy would have just been left alone and the Dreaming Large would have gone on to the next empty galaxy.

Not one sign that the Dreaming Large had even started terraforming the Goldilocks zone planets around yellow stars. Whatever had happened, it had happened before the Dreaming Large entered Destination.

More information as we have it, West said, signaling to Korgan to cut the communication to the entire ship.

West did one more walk around the bridge, looking at details on a few reports, but finding nothing different at all.

Finally, he went down to stand near his station.

Rescue One, he said, "please put on the screen a two dimensional representation of the galaxies closest to Destination. Limit the galaxies to a one year travel time for the Dreaming Large from this point."

Thirty-one galaxies came up, represented as dots. There were a couple clusters and ten galaxies seemed to have formed a group. Over the last three years he had stared at this very map more than he wanted to admit.

But he knew that the Dreaming Large would not have gone to any of those other galaxies without reporting in. And with Destination being an empty galaxy, perfect for seeding, there would have been no reason to move on.

This was exactly what he had feared. What Chairman Ward had also feared.

"Now, Rescue One, West said to his ship, please add into the scanning equipment the ability to see pockets of empty space."

Everyone on the bridge crew just stopped and looked at him like he had lost a marble or two.

Almost no one had heard of empty space. He hadn’t either until this mission started.

West had been briefed by Chairman Ward on the very reality of empty space, or void space as it was sometimes called.

Basically, empty space was a very small bubble in space, often not more than the size of a standard solar system, where space was completely empty and time and the rules of physics did not apply for some reason inside it.

Over the centuries, Seeder ships had just vanished when they ran into a bubble of empty space.

And they would often emerge thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years later having only spent less than a ship-board few hours in empty space.

Chairman Ward had warned West that if there were no logical reasons for Dreaming Large to have vanished, no signs of any debris, or any human survivors, then West was to look for empty space pockets.

The scientists on some of the more advanced Seeder ships had developed a program to show complete emptiness, something normal space did not have.

It had taken the scientists three years of frantic work to finally develop and test the long-range scanning program.

And if this worked, every Seeder ship would get the program as an update and hopefully no more ships would be lost to centuries in an empty space bubble.

For the year that the scanning program had been uploaded to Rescue One, the scientists had continued to make adjustments and sent them along. West had told no one about any of it.

Loaded, Rescue One said.

Display on the screen as dots the empty space areas within four galaxies radius of this location, West said.

Then red dots appeared. Only about eight total in that much space, but one was seemingly right where they were.

They were within brushing distance of the edge of an empty space bubble.

Shit!’ West said. Back us away from the edge of that thing to a distance of two light years."

West couldn’t believe that they had almost vanished right into empty space as well.

That had been far, far too close.

We’re back away from it, Korgan reported. What exactly is empty space?

"That’s where the Dreaming Large is trapped," West said.

The big mother ship was right here very close to them, only stuck in a bubble of no time and space. And the mother ship might not emerge for a hundred thousand years.

All West could see in his mind was the smiling face of his wife.

Somehow, they had to rescue the big ship, even though, more than likely, no one on the big ship even knew anything was wrong yet.

But they had to do it.

Somehow.

Three

Over the next five years, the Rescue One went from a military-based rescue operation to a full-fledged science ship. West had remained as Chairman on request, a request that Chairman Ward had gladly granted.

And Chairman Ward had put West in charge of the overall mission. All ship’s chairmen reported to him.

Entire parts of Rescue One were being reconfigured into research labs to study the empty space bubble holding the Dreaming Large mother ship.

Admiral Cline had taken all his military ships and headed back to help out at the last seeded galaxy with upcoming wars between developing human planets.

The fleet of scout ships they had brought with them all scattered out to do what they do, scout ahead, map galaxies and spot trouble galaxies that had the occasional growing alien race.

Almost every day another science ship arrived at Rescue One and took a location either in space near Rescue One or on one of the large decks where the military ships and scout ships had once been housed.

Almost fifty smaller science ships had now surrounded the small bubble of empty space, studying it, trying to see inside it.

Every Seeder’s ship now had the scanning ability to see and avoid empty space bubbles, something that West had no doubt would save ships from losing thousands and thousands of years.

Now they just had to figure out a way to get the Dreaming Large out of there in under a few thousand years.

Every day Chairman West had a meeting with the four top science advisors to get reports on any progress. They usually met for breakfast in his own kitchen in his apartment, taking turns cooking and cleaning and talking about the problem.

All four were Chairman of their own major science ships.

It was right before one meeting, about six months after they had figured out where Dreaming Large was, that West came up with an idea. He had been sitting at his kitchen counter, staring at a surface rendering of the patterns on the border of the empty space and he suddenly saw it a different way.

They had been working to find a way to shield themselves from the effects of the empty space, go in and shield Dreaming Large as well. What would happen if they just drained the empty space out into normal space?

Or better yet, filled empty space with normal space.

In essence, they needed to pop the bubble, leaving the Dreaming Large surprised at all the company it suddenly had around it.

The four scientists loved that idea and after the meeting, West contacted Chairman Ward and told him about it to get scientists in numbers of galaxies working on the problem as well.

It took seven more years to find the solution.

Seven very long and frustrating years.

Now West stood on the bridge of the Rescue One yet again, sixteen years after he had agreed to join this project, ready to try to finally release Dreaming Large.

As everyone had been warned, no one on Dreaming Large would even realize they had been in trouble. As far as those on board the giant mother ship knew, only a few seconds had transpired since they entered empty space and their trans-warp drives had suddenly shut down.

If what Rescue One and all the other ships were about to do worked, the hundreds and hundreds of ships that now swarmed the area would suddenly just appear to those on Dreaming Large.

If it worked.

And if the forces didn’t pull Dreaming Large apart.

Chairman Ward and others had said that the giant mother ships were designed to withstand plowing into planets and going right on through. Ward wasn’t worried about that at all.

But West was.

They had calculated the trajectory where Dreaming Large had entered the empty space bubble and cleared every ship out of the way where it would be headed.

What they were going to try to do was in essence take the pressure of empty space away by opening not just one, but thousands of holes in it all at once. Just as firefighters did to a burning structure under pressure. They opened many outlets instead of just one.

The scientists a few years back had determined exactly what strange gravitational force was holding empty space together like a bubble, allowing a ship to enter and leave, yet holding the space together.

And once they had determined that force, they knew how to puncture the force to not so much let empty space out, but to let regular space and time flood in.

The entire bubble should, the scientists had told West, just vanish as if it had never existed.

West could only hope.

Report status, West said to all the ships around the bubble ready to send a hundred probes each to open up holes.

A moment later Korgan looked up at him and nodded. All eighty ships report green, Chairman.

West nodded, staring at the big screen in front of him showing nothing but empty space.

Mission go, West said.

West knew that once he said that, a computer program from Rescue One would launch all probes at the exact same moment from all ships. West had been told that the probes would have a small charge when they hit the membrane, so it would look like eight thousand tiny lights flashing at the same time in a sphere shape in open space.

Five seconds, Korgan said.

Intense, heavy silence filled the bridge of the ship.

West had no doubt not one word was being said anywhere in the large fleet of ships surrounding the empty space bubble.

West could not take his gaze for a second away from the massive screen in front of him.

Suddenly, there was a white flash of light from what looked like the surface of a sphere.

Then a moment later, the massive mother ship Dreaming Large appeared.

Cheering erupted around the bridge.

West just stood there grinning, staring at the screen, knowing that finally, after sixteen years, he would get to see his wife’s face again. And maybe a little later actually hug her and kiss her.

After a moment, Korgan, a smile almost splitting his face, turned to West. "I have two chairmen of the Dreaming Large asking just what the hell is going on?"

West just smiled right back at Korgan. Tell them to contact Chairman Ward and let him explain.

Then, for seemingly the first time in sixteen years, he went and sat down in his Chairman’s chair.

And then on a private channel he said to Rescue One, "Please contact my wife on Dreaming Large and put her through to my personal screen here."

I will be glad to, Chairman, Rescue One said.

Thank you, he said.

And then, for the first time in sixteen years, he took a deep breath and relaxed.

If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess

Sabrina knew she was dreaming when the vast green ocean of smooth water that covered the blue planet rippled like someone had dropped a stone in it, obscuring her reflection, turning her from a young woman to one with wrinkles and shimmering skin. Then the ripples sucked back in on themselves, as they can only do in a dream, and the ocean became smooth again, showing her almost-true face in the reflection as she drifted through the air.

She had long hair in this dream, not short and cut tight against her scalp like she had kept it for the last four years. And her nose was shorter, just like she’d always wished.

And her hips were narrower.

And she was naked.

And hungry.

She could see fish swimming down under the water, smiling up at her with the face of her old history teacher back in college on Earth. She could eat one of them, but she doubted they would taste very good, since she had always hated his classes.

Ahead she could see a small island, with two large trees and a man standing under one tree. The next instant she stood beside him under the other tree, the shade making her nipples hard and goosebumps form on her arms. The man was her husband, Lyman, and he was naked as well. He was taller than her, and looked even more handsome than she thought he looked normally. His blue eyes seemed to shine with extra light, and his dark hair blew in the breeze.

She realized she was hungry for him, not food.

Sabrina, he said, you’re naked and dreaming and thinking about sex and I like your hair longer and your nose shorter.

I know, she said as a giant fish six feet long flopped up on the shore