Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 124 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short stories, short story, science fiction, magazine, novelette, short fiction, Science Fiction And Fantasy, clarkesworld
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2017-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Gary Kloster is a writer, librarian, martial arts instructor, and stay-at-home father. Sometimes all in the same day, but seldom all at the same time. His short fiction has appeared in venues such as Apex, Clarkesworld, and Escape Pod. His first novel, Firesoul, is out now.

Milla

Lorenzo Crescentini and Emanuela Valentini

Translated by Rich Larson

She revealed her name on the second day, under the light of a sunset.

Marek had mistaken the fairy-like voice in his head for a neurosis at first, a hallucination brought on by his long journey spent in cryo. But when she started mourning her planet’s vanished civilization, he’d reconsidered. He had encountered stranger things in his explorations than this mysterious new companion.

“Marek?” she asked, as he crested a muddy slope. “What do you think happened?”

Marek ignored the question, turning to look at the lush valley now spread out below him.

“Record,” he said. There was a soft chime in his head as his cams activated. He pivoted slowly, trying to make the recording as smooth as possible.

“What did you say?” Milla asked. Her voice echoed in the implant at the base of Marek’s skull. In the stillness, it seemed to carry all the way to the foothills of the distant mountains.

Marek’s implant had been designed for basic data storage and computation. He couldn’t do either now that it was being hijacked by an alien AI.

“Wasn’t talking to you.” The regulation helmet had an optic strip that provided a full feed in 360 degrees, but he’d given up on it the day before. Its bulky reconnaissance suite had snagged once too often in the sort of ivy that grew here.

The lenses grafted to his retinas did the job well enough, and once he had the comm system running, once Earth could see what he saw, nobody would give a damn about helmet protocols.

“Marek,” she repeated. “What do you think—”

“You tell me. You’re the one who should know.”

He turned away from the valley and started toward the tree line. There was a sort of resin oozing from under the bark; he paused to take footage. When he pinched a bit between his thumb and forefinger it smeared acid green against his white glove.

Some kind of worm, pale pink in color, poked its head out from a crack in the trunk. It regarded him for a moment with six globular black eyes, then plunged back inside the tree cavity.

“End recording,” Marek said, once he was sure it wasn’t coming back. He sat down in the shade, rolling his sore neck.

“I have never seen that animal,” Milla said. “Once it did not exist. Oh, Marek, it was all so different!”

There was a reason Marek accepted solo assignments to the furthest corners of known space. He did not like company. He liked conversation even less. But something in Milla’s distraught voice, a voice that was ancient and childlike at the same time, made him want to comfort her.

“Species migrate and evolve,” he said. “It’s the way of things.”

“And not only that animal,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him.

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