Now We Paint Worlds: A Tor.com Original

By Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel's "Now We Paint Worlds" is a space operatic Tor.com Original short story.

Orna, a representative of a universe-wide trade union, undergoes a drastic change in perspective while investigating the disappearance of three planets and their inhabitants on a newly terraformed world.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250823427

Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel is the author of King of Shards and Queen of Static, and is a World Fantasy Award finalist and multiple Nebula Award finalist. His short fiction has appeared in many publications including Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, Interzone, the anthologies Cyber World, Naked City, After, and many other markets. He co-hosts the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan with Ellen Datlow. By day he codes websites, and by night he recites Blade Runner in its entirety from memory. He lives in New York City.

Book preview

By the time Orna reached the stone house high up the mountain, Yasimir’s sun had begun to set, and only the tallest peaks still shone in its silvery light. The climb had been difficult, and Orna had stopped often to catch her breath and take in the majestic views. Fields of grass and wildflowers lined the valley, and hundreds of waterfalls, fed by furiously melting glaciers, stirred up huge clouds of rainbow-filled mist. For a station-hopping jeek like her, it was breathtaking. The climb had left her soaked, and the sun was dropping fast; Yasimir’s day was only fourteen hours long. She thought about setting up a tent and heater and changing into something dry. But the mists lingered like smoke, and the leaves steadily dripped with moisture. Changing, she knew, would be an exercise in futility, like her mission here. She dragged herself up the last few meters toward the stone house and sighed.

A doorless opening led into its shadows. Hello? she called. My name is Orna Liat Obote Manashampo, she said in the local dialect of Mandreen. I’m Acting Representative of the Free Trade Union, Outer Deep Region 59. Is anyone home?

When there was no response, she sighed again. She should have been home, enjoying some well-earned time off, and now she had hauled herself across hundreds of light-years for nothing more than a rumor. Well, almost nothing more. It had been years since she had set foot on a planet, and Yasimir was truly beautiful. There was no other word for it. It was hard to believe that a few decades ago this world had been a frozen, lifeless rock, and likely to reach the heat death of the universe without a single microbe gracing its surface. Now its valleys blossomed with alp grass and coneflower, pollinator bees skipped gleefully across the plains, and the air smelled sweetly of pine and