Jude-Marie Green

The Winter Astronaut
by Mark Patrick Lynch

Flood
by Jennifer Pelland

Flash

The Last Temptation of Humanity
by Paul Woodlin

A Clockwork Break
by Shawn Scarber

Poetry

Jumpers
by Karen A. Romanko

The Lament of the Naga's Mother
by Rachel Swirsky

time the illusion
by s.c.virtes

It will appear on your water and sewerage bill
by Julia Sevin

Tinker
Samantha Henderson

a Mars cycle

untitled scifaiku
by Deborah P. Kolodji

Excess on Mars
by Deborah P. Kolodji

Sojourn on Mars
by Deborah P. Kolodji and ushi

The curse of beauty
By Rich Magahiz

In the four seasons since his naming, Naschi had built up herds of nutrient balloons rich in particulate density enhancing his own spectra - an intense bright oxygen blue. Now though, he was weak, slow in speed, pale in color, unable even to plant his foot on the planet’s hot, restoring surface.

The blue storm was in trouble. He was on the outskirts of his storm family, ostracized and perhaps dying. His balloons needed nourishment. They were pale turquoise rather than the strong oxygen blue they should have been. The encounter with Coromell had worn him out. She had taken the largest part of his life force.

Coromell. He had strayed to the outskirts of his storm cluster. Other storm clusters smelled different from his group. Some smelled like salt, some of the bitter acids churned up from the planet's depths. His own storm cluster smelled of electrified oxygen and sported blue-shaded bands from crown to foot. He allowed his outer bands to touch the fingers of an anonymous green storm which swirled away from him and then he saw her.

She advanced on his bands then brushed into him. The brief contact generated long trails of sparks and cancelled some of his momentum.

Naschi swirled faster, inviting her closer. She ignored his advancing storm front and gusted away. Her droplets left behind a unique perfume of salt and electricity that he found irresistible. Her swirling bands of pink and peach mesmerized him. He followed as she twirled into his storm cluster.

She dived from her heights towards two lower storms. The juvenile blue storms shivered as she engulfed them.

They tried to separate from her. Her coriolis force caught at their edges and pulled them close. Their bands unraveled into her winds. The blue mineral threads wrapped her then melted into her. Her funnel swelled and spun even more fiercely. The young storms disappeared.

Naschi swirled, aghast at her actions. Juvenile storms were not strong enough to merge or even to share. He had met these younger brothers; they weren't even named yet. To get her attention, he threw a bolt of hot lightning at her.

"Who are you?" he said.

Her bands slowed as she tasted him then she twirled fast, spraying droplets. Her calm center expanded, forcing her bands up and out, tall and far. She shivered then split into double-funnels and danced around him.

Naschi screamed then threw himself at her.

She consumed him, her pink and peach bands of storm melding into his azure winds. Her winds shaded to purple and slowed.

She spat him out. He was much weaker, a pale washed blue. She had stolen from his herds and the ones that remained rumbled with electric hunger.

She snarled, "I am Coromell," then she swirled away.

Samma Jordan thought the survey ship's profile perfectly reflected the dual nature of its mission. The sleek cabin where she and Pachan Dao lived and worked and . . . did whatever they did while Versys wasn’t looking . . . was married to a bulbous science bay that held the mission's precious cargo of probes and satellites.

Versys, the mining corporation, employed Pachan. He worked in the cabin, controlling probes and synthesizing data. The numbers might have been enough to keep Pachan fascinated—and employed—but Samma needed more to work with. HQ had leased her services to Versys to find life on the surveyed worlds. All the long-range reconnaissance had indicated that the planet should offer flora and fauna to categorize, distinct ecologies to study. Up close, though, Pachan’s probes hadn't found a thing.

Video feeds of the storms swirling across the planet’s surface had fascinated them both for a while, but now Samma was bored. She assigned herself to checking inventory in the science bay.

She gritted her teeth as always at the sight of HQ's trademark plastered across every surface. Joint mission. Right. Versys paid exorbitant prices for HQ’s technology, and they figured that gave them the right to put pressure on her, too. Like she was just another piece of replaceable gear. She’d hoped for more from HQ, but their last relay had been terse—-almost angry.

Samma ran her hand over the holographic HQ logo on the satellite probe in its cradle. The adamantine crystal rocked under her hands. Circuitry traces filled the inside of the teardrop-shaped probe along the flaws threaded through the crystal. It looked a bit like an enormous Easter egg filled with smoke and foil.

She gave in to the urge to climb onto it. The probe rocked as she vaulted up but she kept her balance. She straddled it like a rocking horse then laid out full-length. The cold crystal tickled her cheek.

Her eyes were only closed for a few minutes before she smelled Pachan’s deodorant soap. Seven years together in this small space and he still took pains to stay clean and smell nice.

"How long before it hatches?" he said.

She grinned and slid off the crystal.

"I thought perhaps we could send in another probe to replace number eight," she said. "Think you could program it?"

Pachan shook his head. "We don't need it. The other probes made groundfall. They're sending back consistent data. Another probe now would be a waste."

"Consistent," Samma said. "You mean no change. Blasted wind-battered ground and minimal ocean. No life. The verdict hasn't changed."

"We haven't processed all the data yet," Pachan said, "and we've only surveyed ten percent of the planet. Look, anything could be down there."

"Anything but life," Samma retorted. She took a deep breath then sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated. We've been here a week and there’s nothing I can use. All we’ve done is generate tons of meaningless chemistry reports. We haven't even played ‘Name That Planet’."

"What do you think we should name this place?" Pachan said.

She smiled at this familiar game they’d played so many times before.

"Planet of Blue Storms?"

"That's a terrible effort," Pachan said. "You know the girdle of blue that snakes around the southern hemisphere? Your 'Blue Storms'? Those are storms contaminated with oxygen and cobalt. The storms change dominance over time. The blue ones subside and the orange ones strengthen. After a while the green belt overwhelms the others. For a while anyway. Has something to do with the axial tilt."

Samma considered. "Rainbow World? How rich are the iridium veins?"

"More than average. The planet must have suffered some serious meteor impacts once upon a time. Anyway, you’re showing too much imagination! They never name the planet based on the planet. I just got the update from Versys. They’ve named it 'Wexless.'"

"Let me guess: another partner?"

Pachan snorted. "Nope, it's the new wife."

She laughed. "That makes, what, four planets named after partners and eight for wives?"

"Someday I’ll name a world after you," Pachan said, not looking at her. "I just need enough time to make a partner bonus."

Samma kissed the top of his head; he turned his face up to meet her lips.

"I don't have very long," Samma said, pulling back. "I mean, before Versys gives up on finding life and sends in the mining team."

"What do you want me to do?" Pachan said, spinning his chair around to face her. "I mean, they can’t be expected to care about some mystery indigenes who probably don’t even exist. Seven years and you’ve never found life anywhere."

"You’re saying my work is useless? Or just that I’m incompetent?"

He blinked up at her. "Of course not. No one can hold you responsible if there’s nothing to find."

He turned back to the displays as if that had settled everything. "Too bad none of the probes passed through the big red storm. I wonder if it’s carrying iron ore."

She snorted. "That’s only the most interesting system on the planet. Couldn’t you have aimed better?"

He spun back, annoyed. "I don’t know what to say to you when you get like this."

"When I get like this? They’re going to split us up, Pachan. Doesn’t that mean anything?"

"Of course they won’t. We’ll find something," he said. "If not here, then on the next one. We can’t be unlucky forever."

The crystal teardrop seared through Naschi’s cloud bands, tunneling laterally. He noticed it just in time to catch it with a shift of winds. He twirled it with a tiny whirlwind then funneled the crystal teardrop to one of his remaining herds of balloons that lived in the skirt of his calm center and waited while they engulfed it.

Naschi recovered from the encounter with Coromell by burying himself in his storm cluster. He didn't dare touch his foot to the ground. He feared his storm would spin out and dissipate. He stayed near the Ancients, old storms who wouldn't steal from him. He spoke to them and sometimes they answered.

"Who is Coromell?" he said once. The Ancients groaned and sizzled and sparked huge amounts of ozone. Naschi thought they'd ignore him forever; he considered other questions.

One of the Ancients spoke. Tepec was a skinny deep blue storm reputed to own fewer herds than a first season juvenile, though each airbag held uncountable treasures and food from the planetary depths. He trailed sparks from his bands as he spoke.

"One who was separated and longs to return," he groaned.

"Forever apart, forever yearning," agreed Pecer, the oldest of the blue Ancients.

"Coromell, Coromell, return to the Father and be consumed," thundered Tehau the fat.

Naschi shuddered. Where the Ancients touched him, he felt sliced apart. The words rebounded through his calm center and fueled his bands to faster speeds.

"The Father? You mean the Great Red Father of All Storms?"

Naschi had heard of Vardarac, the Father. All juveniles heard the stories passed along by the parent storms. Long ago, they said, a giant from the above passed by our world. Out of boredom the giant kicked the world and the world twisted. Three times he threw mountains from the above and they struck the ground. Red Vardarac sprang from the heat and fire of the strikes and vowed to battle the giant. He circled the world, waking storms by his angry passage. Together Vardarac and his brothers caught the mountains and hurled them back at the giant. Three times they hit the giant and at last he broke into too many pieces to count. The sky rained stones from the above, fire-bright brothers that brought the balloons. That though was another story.

Not all believed the stories, though. Who had seen the Great Red Father of All Storms? Naschi scoffed; no one storm could be that powerful. The blue Ancients would know the truth.

"Tell me about Vardarac," he said.

The Ancients groaned in that way of old storms and stopped talking. After a time they gently shoved Naschi away.

Naschi had to get Coromell to return to him. She'd take the crystal teardrop, he was sure of it. He would buy back his herds and his strength from her. He would merge with her and they'd spin out strong storm children.

He pulled the crystal teardrop from his herds' keeping and held it high in his bands. It refracted rainbows onto his clouds and gleamed with light. He let his neighbors know that this was a gift for Coromell.

"See!" he said. "With this, she can bribe a place from Vardarac himself!" His neighbors laughed at him but obligingly passed the message through the ranks of storms.

He waited only a short time before he scented her again. Her salt and mineral perfume floated on a wave of electricity. She swirled into view, her strong pink and peach bands flashing with red bolts of lightning. He cowered back from her, remembering the damage she'd done to him, then he surged forward and touched her.

"Coromell," he crooned. "I long for you. Coromell, merge with me!"

"Where is the crystal teardrop?" she demanded. She twirled around him, caressing him from crown to foot. The full contact tingled and Naschi stuttered when he replied.

"Here and it is yours." He hid the crystal teardrop with his balloons. "Yours, once we merge."

Coromell poured herself into him.

Samma nibbled Pachan's chest as they clung together in the vertical hammock. He wrapped his arms around her, grabbed a handful of her short hair, and tugged.

"Stop that," he said. "No bite marks."

She grinned at him.

An alarm buzzed just inches from Pachan's ear. He winced and smacked the cutoff button. The display blinked blue text.

"What's up?" Samma said.

"Looks like number eight started up again. We're getting info from its satellite." He slid out of her arms and padded barefoot to the monitoring station.

"Samma! Come look at this."

He was too excited for it to be mail from Versys or HQ. She fought free of the hammock. "What do you have?"

"Organic data, just what you’ve been looking for!"

She stared at the video screen. "They look like floating sacs of mineral ores. They're mudballs." She chewed her lip. "But they’re organic mudballs. Do we have any additional data on them from the other probes?"

"Nothing yet. I'll send a zap to refresh the probes." He punched a key that sped a signal from the ship to the satellite to the probe.

"Ah damn! The return signal from number eight flatlined." He sighed.

"You fried the line just as it was sending useful data." Samma smacked the back of his seat. "Can’t you bring it back up?"

"We’ll have to wait for the program to cycle," he said. "At least half an hour. But we know number eight isn’t dead; if its signal came up once, it’ll come back again."

Naschi felt a herd of his precious balloons die and cupped them in a pillow of wind. The withered balloons oozed dry minerals and fused metals. They had been closest to the crystal teardrop; he'd tasked them with keeping it safe. Perhaps something from the crystal teardrop had killed his balloons. Naschi tasted the crystal teardrop and smelled the burned ozone on the foreign object. He understood that it had somehow poisoned his balloons. He opened a tunnel to the ground far below and let the crystal teardrop fall. Now that he had Coromell he didn't need the lure any longer. He turned his attention to his other half, his beloved Coromell.

"We should have done this long ago," they said together. "We've never felt so strong! Now we can go to Vardarac and merge with him?"

"What?" they said.

Naschi said separately, "What? I don't want to lose myself in a dream."

"Vardarac is not a dream, he's real. I've seen him."

"Why do you want him? Stay with me."

Coromell cried, "He's all I've ever wanted! Vardarac wouldn't take me, he required a larger tribute than I had. Your herds with the crystal teardrop and mine together are more than enough to buy entry. Come with me, let Vardarac persuade you." She spun against him; sparks seared through them both.

He read the truth of Vardarac in her electricity and scents.

"Vardarac will consume you. You won't exist," he said. "I won't exist." He pulled himself apart from her.

She screamed and flung herself into him, trying to shred his winds. He fought to free himself but she clung to him. He remembered a childhood trick to win free: he caught up her tailwind and flipped. She spun out three times before she pulled her bands away from him.

"Oh, you gentle breeze," she sneered. "I'll go to Vardarac alone!"

"Go, then," he said. He felt tired. He felt like stopping.

"I have the crystal teardrop," she said. She tossed it near Naschi, ready to snatch it if he reached out. "You promised it to me and then you threw it away. But I saw where you dropped it and I grabbed it. I'll give it to Vardarac!" She spun away.

"Coromell! No! It's poison, Vardarac will punish you for a treacherous gift," he shouted, but she was gone. Her flavor dissipated. "Oh, Coromell," he sighed.

Versys finally responded to their regular status reports. Pachan opened his message and whooped in glee.

"Bonuses!" he shouted. "Bonuses for both of us and guaranteed future percentages. We are rich. Not quite partner level, but rich!"

Samma barely heard him. She stared at her own message from HQ and slumped in her chair.

"My new orders just arrived from HQ," she said. "When Versys gets here I'm going back to the training station. I'm to be an instructor. You're staying here to help Versys apportion the planet."

"HQ can't just break us up," Pachan said. "We've been together for seven years and a dozen missions."

"A dozen missions and we've never found indigenous life. They must believe we're a bad team."

Pachan crossed his arms. "We don't have to accept the new orders."

"Sure, we'll just homestead here," Samma said. "We'll become the indigenous life. HQ can put us under the protection they give other worlds with non-human life and Versys can share its profits with us."

"I'll go to the training station with you."

"HQ is sending out a new partner for you," she said.

Pachan said, "Huh. Wonder why they think they can break us up?" He reached for her but she shrugged away.

"There's no life here. Nothing here! All these worlds we've seen and always nothing." Tears slipped down her cheeks.

"We still have some time," Pachan said. He put his arms around her and this time she didn't turn away. "You never know what might come up. And I'm not leaving you."

He held her until her tears ran dry.

Naschi agitated his nearest neighbors.

"I need to get to Vardarac before Coromell does," he told them. "Sweep me forward."

"You'll need to cross three clusters at least," said his orange uncle. "The girls come and go at will but you'll have to pay tribute. You'll lose your herds."

"I don't care," Naschi said. "I have to stop her before she gives the poisonous crystal teardrop to Vardarac. He'll stop her winds, he'll obliterate her herds."

"You should have gone with her, boy," the orange storm rumbled. "Get ready."

The orange uncle attached himself to Naschi all along his height then heaved him forward.

Naschi flew, for the first time ever untethered from the nurturing rich ground and the protective cluster of his family’s blue storms. He bounced into the next cluster but didn't put down his foot. The big green storm sank into him and snatched a portion of his herds. Naschi felt them cry as they passed through his outer bands into the opaque protection of the big green storm.

Naschi was tossed three more times, flying first, sinking into strange clusters, losing parts of his herds. Nearby clusters laughed and jeered as he passed.

He descended into the cluster nearest Vardarac. He had few herds left, and he'd lost a good portion of his electricity-generating spin. He sank his foot to the planet's depths and pulled up some fresh momentum from the ground heat.

"We know what you want. Vardarac is just there," said the gold storm that touched him now. "And so is the lovely Coromell."

Naschi could smell her through the soup of iron salts that flavored the atmosphere. She closed in on him then touched him.

"Vardarac will take me this time," she said, "because of your unique gift to me."

Naschi said, "Don't give it to him. It's poison! It killed a herd of my balloons; that's why I dropped it." He tried to catch at her winds but his foot was stuck in the ground and Coromell danced away. Then she pounced.

He didn't resist but he held himself separate. He felt her electric flavor through his entire self, felt her surprise at his depleted state, felt her mercy as she pushed portions of her own herds into him.

He felt her withdraw just as they spun even with Vardarac.

The wall of red winds curved as far as they could see in either direction. Vardarac's bands shaded from dark cinnabar through ferric red to a pale copper blush. His winds flew by faster than any storm Naschi had ever known. The shriek of Vardarac's movement tore at them and they clutched their own winds together with difficulty.

Vardarac smelled of everything red. Naschi couldn't even smell himself in the great storm's presence.

The idea of joining with Vardarac's storm pulled at Naschi. To join with the legend would make him part of the legend. Juvenile storms would hear stories about brave Naschi and huge Vardarac.

Naschi quelled the thoughts with difficulty. Juveniles would hear about Vardarac. Naschi's name would be lost, consumed into Vardarac's legend like his winds lost in Vardarac's storms. Naschi pulled himself a little apart from the Great Red Father of All Storms.

Coromell shouted, "Vardarac! Great Father, let me merge with you. See, I have a gift to pay my way." She pulled the crystal teardrop into her outer bands for his inspection.

Naschi screamed "No!" even as Vardarac said, "So? Come in, then, Coromell, and welcome."

Coromell slid into his red vastness with no hesitation. Not even a moment of color change marked her passage.

Naschi threw himself at the Great Red Father of All Storms. Vardarac laughed and threw him back.

"Why do you think the crystal teardrop is poison?" Vardarac said as he soothed Naschi's winds.

Naschi told him.

Vardarac mused, "What happens once may happen again. I don't need the gift but I need Coromell's strength and youth. You say the crystal teardrop came from the above?" Vardarac produced the object and tossed it like a plaything. "I'll return it there."

He tasked a section of his storm bigger than Naschi to handle the crystal teardrop. The wind spun ever faster, funneling higher than even Vardarac's head. Lightning sizzled from its foot to its crown and then it squeezed tight, collapsing beneath the crystal teardrop to spit it into the above with explosive force. They watched the object disappear into the above. It didn't return.

"Don't fret for Coromell," Vardarac said. "This is what she has always wanted: to be part of me.

"Travel with me a while. Coromell thinks well of your company." Vardarac boomed laughter and nearby storms cringed, including Naschi. "Gentle breeze indeed!"

Pachan spotted the activity on the monitors.

"Samma, look at this," he breathed. "Number eight just launched out of the gravity well and into orbit! It's above its satellite."

"I don't believe you," she said. "The probe doesn't have that much propulsion."

"Believe it," he replied, rechecking the monitors. "The data keeps coming in."

Samma held back for a moment. "Wait. Play back the overhead visuals from the slave satellite. What happened before number eight came out?"

In double-speed motion the probe fell back into the planet's atmosphere. A narrow twirling tornado swallowed the probe; its winds slowed and melted into the big red storm.

"The storm spat it out?" Pachan scratched his chin, puzzled.

"The storm spat it out," Samma’s eyes were wide. "Look at the pressure exerted on the probe. That was a contrived propulsion.

"Let's backtrack," she continued. "Where has it been for the last few days?"

The spotty recording showed number eight's haphazard trek in the body of a cobalt-and-gallium-laden storm across swaths of other storm systems. Then another storm, a blue oxygen storm, possessed the probe. They watched this storm, the one number eight had originally pierced, handle the probe.

"Number eight never went to ground," Pachan leaned back in his chair, stunned.

"No. That storm caught it," Samma said.

"That wasn't random movement," he said slowly.

"No, that was intelligent movement..."

They stared at each other for a long moment, their grins slowly widening.

"Contact Versys," Samma crowed. "Call off the miners."

"You’ll have to build up a synopsis and send the data to HQ," Pachan said. "There’s a lot of work to do here. But first," and he stood and pulled her from her chair, "we celebrate!"

They twirled around the tiny cabin until Samma broke into fits of giggles; Pachan retrieved bulbs of strawberry juice from the nearby galley and saluted her as he returned.

"You always knew we’d find something," he said, handing her the bulb.

"No." She shook her finger at him and he grabbed it, pulling her close. "I always knew you’d find something. Now all we have to do is make contact."

He kissed her forehead and smoothed back her hair. "But how are we supposed to communicate with weather?"

"I don't know," she answered, leaning up against him. "We'll think of something."

Jude-Marie Green lives in Los Angeles with her neurotic white cat and sociopathic red-lored Amazon parrot. If pets truly take after their owners, then she probably needs therapy. Her story Til The Wildness Cried Aloud appeared in Say, Why Aren't We Crying? Some day she hopes to read all the books stacked up in piles around her apartment.