Brilliant! Can I vote on this somewhere? On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 9:46 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote:
> > This is my entry to the New Scientist science fiction competition (340 > words, open until mid-October). > > The New Europans > > Jenkins crashed out in the living quarters, 'mushroom juice' leaking > from his lips, eyes bright, mind given up to peace. Europa was hard, > desolate work. A slug of his now cold potion and I joined his dream. > The transit ship was due tomorrow to take our bodies back to a bliss > of gravity they could understand and time away from the plasma bubbled > protection from cosmic radiation death that was the truth of space- > work. Earth was still the only home we could know, even after the wars > of the mid-twenty-first Century. There were homes elsewhere in the > universe. Europa had given up peculiar life from its underground > ocean, living on radiation and gravity-rift energy from Jupiter and > different paced transits of its main moons. Jenko motioned to take > another sip of the foul swill that eased the pull of competing > gravitation, to dream of not being human or of sweet women and cold > beer on sun-warmed sands. I eased the bowl to lips marked by the > strange burn of apparently purified water from the depths below, then > set some stew to fester on the geo-thermal stove. Dull stuff, but > better than we'd get on the weightless voyage and exercise regime via > Moonbase Three to our eco-bubble on Earth. We liked to pretend to > survive our six-month shift like civilised men discussing philosophy. > Other crews were carried out babbling and feet first. This concern > with 'face' was a vestige of what was left Anglo-Saxon in our DNA. > Chris, the younger man was more spliced up than me and hacked the > conditions better until boredom loomed on us like a fog. He was too > young to remember fog. I slumped beside him, a last knowing look > between our eyes that the morning, whatever one was in these > artificial conditions, began our trip to the cold lager we remembered > and the women who had forgotten us. New life rested quietly in the > sample flask. A first hope, perhaps, of a future beyond the human. > > The idea is to write a few words based 100 years from now. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
