Author
Tom Jolly
Unwound
The peculiar idea occurred to Bradley while he was in the shower. He noticed for the first time ever that when he showered, he always turned clockwise to rinse off. What, he thought, if all this turning like a clock was what made a person older and grayer, marking the passage of…
My Home, My Galaxy
David Berger looked up from his book when his son Carl walked into the room. Carl flopped down on the couch next to his father and instead of reaching for the TV controller, he just frowned, as though he was thinking hard about something. "What's up, son?" David asked. "Well,"…
The Diplomats
This is my first encounter with the Tarak species. They are insectoid, enclosed in a brightly colored exoskeleton, but anatomically arranged much like a human. I watched the video about them without paying much attention. They have two rows of holes--breathing orifices--along…
Space Rise
"It's so quiet up here!" Harold leaned out over the portal window mounted a meter above the center of the floor, looking down at the Earth four thousand miles below them. The only noise the space elevator ever made was a soft hiss as it rose through the atmosphere, but anywhere…
Damn the Asteroids, Full Speed Ahead!
Captain Markus Halsey stared in dismay at the dense, careening field of asteroids on the display screen. His Chief Scientist, Obu sub-Abu, shook his head. "They're smacking into each other constantly. Look at how close they are!" The Captain frowned and nodded. "All moving, and…
Cradle
The alien splayed a group of five tendrils above its body, extended from the primary bulk of its multicellular colony. The saurian in the room nodded to the alien and said, "The Amass gives its greetings to you," then looked back at the group of humans for a reaction. Its…
On Disposing of a Corpse
The two men walked slowly through the graveyard, glancing at the five-or-ten word death-tweets carved on the stones. Roger Hartley seemed agitated as they passed more and more of the worn and overgrown headstones. They all seemed too old, few showing terminus dates later than…