Author
Patricia Russo
The One Mission
They were the last rats on the ship, but the ship was not sinking. Its propulsion units were self-maintaining, self-repairing. The best-designed part of the vessel, the proton scoops and energy converters would keep the ship going and going, even if every other system failed.…
When The World Was Full of People
Once, when the world was full of people, I saw a man who looked exactly like my brother: same height, same stringy ponytail, same puffy cheeks, same big gut. Same type of clothes, too--bleach-splattered jeans, faded plaid shirt with cut-off sleeves. I was across the street, and…
I'll Leave The Light On
***Editor's Note: Adult language, used judiciously*** The boy throwing rocks at the No Parking sign on Tide Street at around eight p.m. (she'd had to work late, and afterwards had made a detour to a convenience store, and then decided to take this way home--pure chance, nothing…
The Midnight Knock Again
This is what everybody knows about the Midnight Knock: It doesn't always come at midnight. We call it the Midnight Knock out of tradition. Or laziness, which amounts to the same thing. Happy people never hear it. And oh, how happy people love to point this out. Especially in…
What Never Happened to Kolay
The flowers never hugged him. When Kolay was a child, Grannie Brian had had a garden of motile plants. The grown folk looked askance at this. Wasting time playing with genes, when half the communities north of the river went hungry in the winter and starved in the spring. And…
Cloaks and Gloves
As far as cloaks went, Rall had to admit that Verenisse's were good ones. She had fooled him more than once, and he expected her to walk abroad under guises. One time she'd crept up to him as a barely adolescent boy, all shaggy dark hair and bright curious eyes, and he'd talked…