Asimov's Science Fiction 2011-07 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors [Authors, Dell Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magazine, 2012
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2011-08-03T03:02:11+00:00

Short Story: BRING ON THE RAIN by Josh Roseman

Josh Roseman (not the trombonist) lives in Georgia (not the country). In addition to Asimov's, his fiction has appeared in Big Pulp and Fusion Fragment, as well as in podcast form on Drabblecast and Dunesteef. Josh also blogs for Escape Pod, and has narrated stories for StarshipSofa. To find out what he's doing right now, visit his website, roseplusman.com, or find him on Twitter @listener42. The author's first story for us takes a brittle look at the consequences of a very long term draught and what they mean for competing groups of people when the heavens finally . . .

The commodore's cabin is clean, free of the sand that seems to have settled everywhere else. The surfaces are polished, the floor spotless. William guesses the cabin was once a bedroom, but now the only furniture is a huge desk and three chairs, one for the commodore and two for his guests. Bookshelves are built into the walls, crammed with as much literature as the colony has been able to collect in its travels.

And it's been traveling for a long time.

"You're sure, Lieutenant?"

William has long since grown accustomed to the designation. “Yes, Commodore. I'm sure. All my computer models agree."

The commodore steeples his fingers and leans back in his chair, a wooden antique worn smooth with more than a century of use. William stands and waits; his computer models have been continuously refined over the past three decades, and only once in five years has he been wrong. After several seconds of consideration, the commodore nods. “Very well.” He writes on his tablet and presses the commit button; William knows that, up on the bridge, the commodore's orders will appear on a repeater screen for the crew to act upon. “You may go, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Commodore.” William walks down the narrow corridor to the main cabin, still as well-appointed as it had been when the ship was built in the 1990s. He retrieves his sidearm from the lieutenant who runs the commodore's personal guard, then goes out onto the aft deck. He squints in the bright sunlight—no clouds in the sky to lessen its impact—before covering his eyes with sunglasses.

"Lieutenant,” says the Officer of the Deck—a greeting and an acknowledgment of William's greater rank; the OOD wears an ensign's single black bar on his shoulders.

William has never approved of the military fashion in which the commodore runs the colony, and long ago he chose to ride in the middle of the pack, holding his appointed rank of lieutenant but never actually ordering anyone around. “Can you bring my car in, please?"

"Yes, sir.” The ensign blows a four-note melody on his whistle, then shouts to a couple of enlisted men riding on a skid off to port. “Lieutenant Portis, disembarking!"

William watches as the two men work a complicated pulley system; his car, docked at the end of a long, narrow girder, begins moving closer. As he steps up onto the platform, he feels the ship's engines thrumming harder.

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