davetam

The skies are shaded, blackened: No star shall bestow its light On the surface of this place. The woodcutter hides his eyes From this, wracked with sheer despair. He falls to his knees, praying For some merciful god to Return from Abyss's depths. No one comes: the gods are dead. Man must take their vaunted place. After a time, he rises Just as a bereaved widow Must, after a time, move on. The woodcutter opens his Eyes. The world has broken. The resplendent, sprawling trees That ornamented the glen Are gone: ripped from the soil By the same force that saw them Planted there. The ground is torn. Beginning to walk, furtive,

Angry gust of leeching cold Twists the trees about fitfully The men and mice alike hide As the outside world contorts Under Zephyr's blind raging And the woodcutter huddles Warm in a cave, safe for now From the gyre and fury That now tears the firmament And agitates the ocean He sees fit to lay down, now, And soon falls to sleep, fitful And dreams of what waits outside: What sundered Earth shall remain When the gods finally leave? When the woodcutter rouses, Woken by plaintive howls Of the Earth itself, it seems, He stands, and musters up what Little courage he has left. The mouth of the cave opened Out to a verdant meado

When they arrive at the shinkansen terminus for the trip home, Tau Ceti has just begun to set on Popravka's eastern hemisphere. It's exactly 19:40, and the station rings with the clamor of the train bells as the sleek diamond-plated maglev vehicles whirr onto the platforms. The friends go their separate ways; Luukas back to Mycenae, and Roland to the shining splendor of the arcologies at Ionia. As he steps into the spotless interior of the Mycenae Line Train 4 and settles into a generously stuffed reclining couch, his mind is still racing with thoughts of political dissidents and strange soldiers in riot gear that obviously isn't just for sta

 I hack convulsively for around a minute before I regain enough composure to open my eyes and take in the rather disconcerting scene about me. Blinking blearily against the harsh glare of the lighting strips flickering epileptically above, I notice that my chest and face are covered in the shimmering gray haze of a utility cloud, an armada of virus-sized robots that previously lodged in my lungs. And the outsole's coming off of my left shoe. Great. I turn my head experimentally, only to be greeted by a shooting pain down my neck. What the fuck happened? I certainly seem to be in my stateroom, but it's definitely not in the condition I remembe

 The Clinton Boweries are quietly aflutter with the cool April breeze that rustles the leaves of the venerable oaks overhanging the cobblestone avenues, their peaceful mutterings occasionally punctuated with the unobtrusive whirring of a hydrogen-cell streetcar. The apartments seem to throw off a nebulous aura in the sunshine of Spring, their spidery carbon solar arrays and parabolic radio dishes glinting brightly. Above, the flock of bucolically puffy clouds is delineated by the sharp vapor trails of suborbital liners. It's a Saturday afternoon, and most of the residents of Mycenae are either indulging in a siesta, out to lunch, or have take

I stare up at the strange fractal infinity showing through the overarching domain wall. Doing so is enough to remind me of humanity's stupid, unbelievable hubris, that self-assured bravado that brought us here, out beyond Sirius. Fifty million pink hairy apes huddling under a shell of diamond, like vermin lurking beneath a moss-covered stone in the garden of a god. The nanoscale-engineered radiation collectors wheel by, lapping up the all starlight and gamma waves they can get, then funnelling it down to the surface via superconductor lines. Might as well make the most of the situation as we wait for death. No one really knows who they are,

     The docking procedure proceeded smoothly, for the most part. There was a slight thud as the ship completely halted. It was rather boring after the takeoff. Still, Claudio's lust for adventure was gorging itself on the whole experience. He stepped off the veritable deathtrap of a ship, and  nearly stumbled as the slight amount gravity took hold of him yet again. This time, he didn't puke... at least, not as much. Probably since he'd already emptied his stomach on the shuttle. Claudio shuddered to think of it, so he didn't.     Geosynchronous Space Ring Mars 2, otherwise known by most native Martians as Steve (Martians had an abstruse an

The intense heat crawled through the gaps in the space suit's insulation with voracious speed, creating a surreal haze of panic yet utter exhaustion. Such a deluge of contradictory impulses flooded over Claudio as he struggled to gather himself to move, despite the present danger. Still he stirred himself to stumble forward. His willpower gathered and soon he surged forth with a fierce determination, through a corridor consumed entirely with flame. Ira followed close behind with equal fervor, for this was their only chance to escape. They were ten feet from the door to the escape pod. Claudio felt sweat drip down the back of his neck. "Hold