Dry Ice: A Short Story Collection

By S.C. Mae

- On an inhospitable planet, a cargo hauler comes across something walking the road when it’s eighty below outside.
 - A time-traveler turned celebrity thinks he’s gotten away with murder.
 - Lamenting the fact that pickings are far slimmer than when he was younger, an aging adventurer considers retiring to sunny Clawrida.
 - Born in the ocean but unable to survive there, a genetically-altered teenager struggles with life on land amidst a prejudiced, fearful community.
 - In search of a legendary recluse who has found meaning in existence, a young man arrives at a planet on the edge of the universe.
 - A book-loving heretic’s paranoia threatens to get the best of him.
 - After their excitement at discovering an ancient alien space station, a pair of treasure hunters quickly realize the place is not as dead as it first appears.

Meet the above individuals and more in this eighteen-story science-fiction bonanza!

And if you’re a Jazz Healy fan, she’s the star of two tales in Dry Ice: A Short Story Collection! So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get your read on!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Space Badger Publishing
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9780473621940

Book preview

S.C. Mae

Dry Ice

A Short Story Collection

First published by Space Badger Publishing 2022

Copyright © 2022 by S.C. Mae

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

S.C. Mae asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

S.C. Mae has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-473-62147-6

Hardback ISBN: 978-0-473-62148-3

First edition

ISBN: 978-0-473-62194-0

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

For you, my everlasting love, always for you.

Contents

Introduction

Dry Ice

Home-Time

Pistols at Dawn Amongst the Evergreens

Dromedary

Goldar the Unwieldy

Plurality

Seaborn

The Parthemon Caper

The Coffee Moon Bounty

The Sun Sets No Different at the Edge of the Universe

A Touch of Heresy

Clinohumite

Night Terrors

Just Add Water

Fire Season

Machinations

Orion’s Belt

The Lor Majority

Coming Soon: Spider’s Hub, introducing Lincoln Reilly

About the Author

Also by S.C. Mae

Introduction

I’ll do my best to keep this brief. Eighteen short stories follow this introduction, representing all the short fiction I’ve so far had published, plus a handful of stories that are appearing for the first time. Two of those were accepted by zines but never made it onto their pages. Another is a sequel (in the loosest sense of the word) to one of the accepted but not published stories, and the other was written especially for this collection and features Jazz Healy, the protagonist from the Reunion series.

Speaking of Jazz, she stars in two stories in this collection. Originally, I meant for those to both be brand new tales but it became evident as the publication deadline approached that only one would be ready in time. The other is drafted, and I’m in the process of polishing it up, but it needs a lot of polishing. If I were to rush that process just so it could be included I’d be doing all you readers a big disservice.

So, instead, I’ve included The Parmethon Caper, which I often refer to as Jazz’s origin story. I use the term, not in the way comics and movies typically do, but in the sense of this being my first steps creating the character. You’ll see that a lot about her is the same, but a lot is different (there are also elements of this universe that are very different to the universe of the Reunion series). Written in 2013, before now the story has only appeared behind a paywall on my Buy Me A Coffee page. The other Jazz adventure is The Coffee Moon Bounty, a tale set in the six months between Chak’r’Das and Garbadon Major.

At this point, convention dictates that I should do some more teaser-type stuff, get you all hyped for the stories that follow. But I’m not going to do that. I mean, most of you have probably already gone to the stories, right, and are only reading this introduction as an afterthought. So go discover and (hopefully) enjoy.

Oh, and for the sake of accuracy, all the published stories that follow were published under the byline Samuel Mae.

If you do enjoy the collection, then please consider leaving a review at your reseller of choice. Reviews help a lot in attracting new readers.

Best,

S.C. Mae

Dry Ice

Four hours more to Simpton and five back to Porter. Jesse Matten had nothing ahead of him but hard, cold clay and nothing behind him but hard, cold clay. He turned the truck radio up loud–just because he was feeling reckless–and reached over into his cooler for a bottle of Dry.

The bottle-cap joined the pile of its brothers on the floor and the bottle touched his lips.

Was that a shape just up ahead? His hand tightened around the steering-key and he set the bottle down. The monitors showed nothing behind or beside him except clay and road. He checked again and adjusted the night-vision settings, but still nothing. And still the shape in front.

The shape moved. Jesse sat upright. Shapes didn’t move out here at night. It was eighty below outside. Anything with the bad sense to be on the clay at all would surely find somewhere to lay its head long before darkness fell.

Radio reception dropped off, the music replaced by the hiss of static. Without taking his eyes off the shape Jesse reached out, turned the sound down and slowed the truck to a crawl. Most likely the shape was just a sick refoe separated from its herd and finding somewhere to die. Even so, Jesse didn’t want to spook it. Sick refoes could still do a lot of damage to a truck.

An auto-scan came up on screen to his upper left. Not a refoe, this shape. There was too much heat–and it walked upright like a man. That couldn’t be. Jesse gave the side of the screen a slap. The image shuddered but didn’t change. Still, it couldn’t be. No men ever walked the clay. That was impossible.

He upped the night-vision to its brightest and squinted at the frontviewer. Well, it could be a man. The diagnostic said it was and it sure looked the shape. His throat was dusty and his hands clammy. Eyes might lie on the clay sometimes, but diagnostics never did.

What to do now? If it was a man he couldn’t leave him out here. But what if it was a trick? He’d heard tales–mostly in hashish bars, mind–of varels who disguised themselves in men’s robes and waited at pit-stops for weary runners. Not that he had ever seen a varel. And not that any of the other runners he knew had ever seen a varel. But still, whenever a runner didn’t berth on schedule the rumors went around like a preacher’s wife on leave.

It was so beautiful and clear tonight. Out here, where stars sparkled like diamond specks in the distant sky and the only noises were the low rumble of his truck engine and perhaps the radio if he felt like company, things weren’t confusing or uncertain. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen on nights like this. Jesse wiped a hand across his forehead and it came away wet.

The shape stopped and turned to face the truck. It wore a baggy robe, but no ice hung from it. Another thing to add to the list of couldn’t be’s. And then Jesse drew abreast of the shape and it reached what had to be arms up and pulled the hood of its robe back.

Without any conscious thought, Jesse twisted the brake key full-circle, automatically correcting for any swerve with deft flicks of the steering key–the truck such a natural part of him. But what he saw, that couldn’t be natural. No way on this fine earth.

It was a man! How in the name of all that was preached could this be? And this man’s face, though lined with cracks, was not frozen. It was a man and it was alive out here, somehow, in the void of clay.

Jesse’s lips quivered. He wasn’t given to holy words, but if ever there was a time for prayer now was it. He silently recited the only one he could remember and raised his head. Maybe this man who couldn’t be a man would be gone. But no, Jesse wasn’t about to get off that easy. The man stood directly in front of the right sideviewer feed, an expression of concern on his unfrozen face. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.

Memories of stories told him as a child, of glass-crawlers and clay-reapers, crowded his mind. Old-wives tales told to keep little ones from doing bad or to scare you at church. His hands gripped the steering key so tightly his arms shook.

Get a hold of yourself, man. You’ve served three tours, fought alongside strange aliens while fighting against fellow humans, seen this earth rotating from far above, yet an unfrozen man on the clay is about to give you a heart rupture.

The man tapped at the sideviewer. The speakers! No wonder he couldn’t hear the man’s words. Most of him wanted to kick the truck back into gear and drive away as quickly as possible, but what if this person needed help? What if another runner had dumped him out here? He turned the volume up.

–thing all right in there? The voice was tinny, but that was the speakers’ fault.

Jesse switched his external mike on and held it close to his lips. Who are you?

The unfrozen face looked confused for an instant. I am Aron. Are you sure everything is all right in there?

Uh, yeah, I’m okay I guess. Just not used to seeing a man walking the clay. ‘Specially not without protectives.

Well, I am sorry to startle you, Jesse.

Jesse clapped a hand to the base of his neck and squeaked, How do you know my name?

Aron laughed. "Your truck has Jesse’s Dream painted down this side. Naturally I assumed your name was Jesse."

Oh. Jesse felt his cheeks redden. Okay, that, uh, that makes sense.

I am sorry. I forget what a shock one of us can be to you dome-heads. Oh dear. Sorry again, I did not mean that in a nasty way.

That’s okay. Jesse’s mind was too busy processing all the information in the statement to take offense. So… Aron. How are you out here on the clay? Why aren’t you frozen?

Aron didn’t respond immediately. He looked past the truck instead, brow scrunched.

Jesse glanced at his instrument panel. Temperature was still eighty below. Yet somehow there this man was, staring off into the distance with a face unfrozen and pink-cheeked. At the very least there should be icicles hanging from his nose, but by all rights he should be a corpse.

Finally Aron turned back to the sideviewer.

I am hitchhiking, he said with a sad smile.

* * *

It was more than eerie having this ‘person’ in his cab. Aron still wore the thick robe, but his boots and satchel were in the lock. They too were somehow free of ice. Jesse watched Aron wiggle his toes and stretch out his feet and make himself comfortable in the hastily cleared passenger space.

So far Jesse had resisted the urge to reach out and touch his passenger to make sure he wasn’t a hallucination. He did, however, find himself pressed uncomfortably against the side panel–as far from Aron as possible–and stealing glances at him every two seconds. All the scans showed him to be a man–a man letting off almost no body heat, but a man nonetheless. He carried no concealed weapons, his body wasn’t full of lethal germs, his physiology was ninety-nine-point-nine percent human. Jesse had no good reason not to let him in the truck. But that didn’t mean any of this made any kind of sense.

Where is it you want to go, exactly? Jesse said, gaze back on the road before Aron could make eye contact.

Whichever direction you are heading, Jesse.

Okay. Jesse nodded. There was so much he had to ask before this could be anything more than a lane-runner’s dream.

What is it like, to live in the domes? Aron asked.

Jesse looked directly at him, entirely unprepared for that question. And, truth be told, he didn’t really have an answer for it either. Well, I guess it’s, well, it’s just natural I s’pose. Though I probably spend more time out here in my truck than under the Glass.

Is it warm?

Jesse couldn’t help a chuckle. Warmer than out here, that’s for sure.

I have always wondered what it would be like to live under… ‘the Glass’, as you called it. Away from the heat of day and the cold of night, in dwellings made with machines and not underground, able to get places without using one’s feet, able to eat all sorts of strange and different things. I would love to experience that so much.

Aron’s tone was so wistful Jesse’s apprehension faded. He reached into his cooler for a bottle of Dry, twisted the cap off and handed the bottle to Aron. The boy–for Jesse realized from Aron’s speech and expression that was what he was, despite his weather-beaten face–took the bottle gingerly and held it below his nose.

Drink, Jesse said.

Aron took a sip. His mouth wrinkled, but then his eyes lit up. This, this is wonderful. He took another sip. Is everything your people make this amazing?

Jesse smiled, but then he had a sudden, overwhelming need to dampen Aron’s enthusiasm for a world in which he himself rarely felt at home in. It’s not all tea and cupcakes, Aron. Because of the Glass sometimes the air doesn’t smell good and is bad for your lungs. And a lot of the food might taste real nice, but isn’t good for your body. And every little thing you want to do has some different rule that goes along with it and there are so many people crammed in such a small area it’s real hard to have your own space—

But, surely, Aron said, the good outweighs the bad. Do your people know Vlenter fever?

No, I don’t think so. Though we could have another name for it.

How about dust poisoning?

I’ve heard of it, but only among runners who get punctures in their protectives.

And I can see your face has not withered from the cold and wind like mine has.

No, I guess it hasn’t.

And is it true you can go anywhere within your dome and even to another dome at any time you choose without restriction?

To a certain extent, I s’pose. Of course, things like traveling from one Glass to another are a little restricted– y’know, travel permits and background checks and such, but yeah, within a Glass travel is pretty much unrestricted. Jesse corrected the truck for a gradual turn in the road.

And if you really want to, you can sit under a covering and watch the sky and clouds through the dome without going blind?

Yeah, if that’s your thing, sure.

Well, Aron said, I would trade everything I have for any of that.

Hold up just a tick. I still don’t know who you are or where the hell you’re from. Yet, you seem to know everything about the world I live in.

Aron took another sip of his Dry. How can you not know about me and my people? Our leaders and your leaders talk and trade. Our people have even worked together in the past. Without us, this road you are driving along could never have been built.

Jesse gave Aron a suspicious look. Before tonight nobody I know, except maybe the odd crazy man piped up on hashish, has ever mentioned anything about anybody living outside the Glass. I didn’t think it was possible. Temperature it is right now, you should be dead and frozen solid. Temperature it is during the day you should be dead and burnt to a crisp. And yet here you are, looking as healthy as me and talking my language. I’m still not entirely sure you aren’t some version of a preacher’s torment come to punish me for my sins.

That is very strange. Aron sounded genuinely baffled. We are both of the same stock; it is a basic thing taught in our schools. The Settlers’ came, this world was not what they thought it to be, there was a difference of opinion and then a rift, some were asked to leave the domes, and here we are today, many, many centuries later.

Well, I know this world wasn’t quite what was expected, and the First Ones didn’t have the resources to leave, but why don’t I know about you? Why haven’t I been taught this? Why weren’t you fighting alongside us in the Boresk conflicts?

I do not know. Red patches had formed on the skin beneath Aron’s eyes. But I am sure what I have been taught is the truth. Your scanners say I am a human male, do they not?

Well, they say you’re ninety-nine point-nine percent human male.

If that were outside of their margin for error, I truly doubt you would have let me on board.

Maybe so, but how the hell can you walk the clay?

Aron shrugged. The bits of arm visible outside his cloak were thin and sinewy. "It is another basic thing. When the Settlers came they had special doctors amongst them, doctors who could change the structure of our human code. That was what the difference of opinion happened over. Some thought we