Sci Fi for 2013

THE COURIER—A SPACE OPERA

Jack Bragen

The Space Couriers were an elite breed of human on New Venus, trained to deal with any and every situation that might arise.  They were skilled to the utmost in numerous forms of combat, had extremely fast reflexes, and could survive seemingly impossible situations.  Venwick proudly wore their emblem.  Venwick was on an assignment. 
     Venwick, for the umpteenth time, ran a system check on the checkable parts of his tiny spacecraft.  He traveled alone, and the one person ships were known to be inimical.  Radar continued to show no obstacles in the ships path, and indicated that no ship, projectile or guided missile followed. 
     He took a bite of synthetic cheese and sat facing the control panel of his spacecraft, although this wasn’t necessary, as the ship was on autopilot.  To his back was a bunk to sleep on and a small nook in which to sit and eat, read, or view videos.  There was not much living space.  (The ship had an exercise machine, designed not to take up much space, it worked through electronic stimulation of the pilot’s muscles.)
     And Venwick was alone.  He would continue to be alone in this tiny ship for the next few years (and then for a few more years on his return trip).  It was enough to drive mad any person who lacked the same level of fortitude. 
     The lone space traveler was carrying documents from the Chief of his home planet, New Venus, directly to the head of a recently constructed outlying military base that had been built to deal with the threat of several star systems further along in its vector. 
     Venwick heard a low rumble that pervaded his ship, which as a reflex, gave him a painful knot of apprehension in his gut. The spacecraft had encountered a dense pocket of interstellar gas.  An alarm from the autopilot system told Venwick that action was necessary.  At these extreme speeds, encountering a pocket of gas could melt the skin off of his ship within a matter of minutes.  He had to decelerate and had to do so immediately. 
     Something going wrong when traveling in deep space was universally terrifying.  Venwick’s training had taught him to put his fear aside so that he could function.  He put down the piece of cheese he had been working on.  He pressed a button to automatically strap him into his piloting seat. 
     He pointed the ship’s nose to the rear, activated his ship’s inertia reducer at maximum, and fired the engines at the maximum thrust that he could tolerate without the G forces incapacitating him. 
     He was using up a lot of propellant with the deceleration, and he was losing valuable velocity.  Venwick worried that he might not arrive at his destination, except maybe fifty or a hundred years hence because of his reduced velocity.  His ship emerged from the opposite side of the cloud of gas, and another series of scans indicated that his ship’s outer hull was intact. 
     Venwick’s ship’s computer instructed him that he was in a dense gravity field that would not have been an issue had he not unfortunately lost a lot of his interstellar velocity.  The ship was being diverted toward a neutron star.  Venwick asked the computer for solutions.  The computer told Venwick that he could point his ship on a vector just to the side of the neutron star and use its gravity field to give him momentum that would then be used to get out the other side of the star’s pull.  This would use ninety percent of his remaining propellant, and he would likely die while adrift in the interstellar void, according to his ship’s computer.  The computer recommended this course of action, since it would make him die later rather than sooner. 
     Venwick gave the computer permission to perform the piloting.  He reached into a cubbyhole to the side of the control panel, and removed a bottle of red capsules, and swallowed one of them.  He put on a facemask that would help him breathe during the extreme acceleration.  And then his ship began to accelerate, pinning him in his chair and making it impossible for him to raise his arms.  His fate was in the hands of his ship’s computer. 
     The extreme G forces affected his blood circulation, and he began to hallucinate.  Venwick was suddenly at the Sugar Plum Diner sitting across from Gina, a woman with whom he had a one night stand ten years earlier and with whom Venwick had fallen in love, only the feeling wasn’t mutual.  And yet had been an almost magical time. 
     “You’re a very handsome young man.  Almost any woman could fall for you.  I’m in love with Arnie.  A one-night affair won’t change that.  What we have is just physical…” Gina took his hand.  “Try to enjoy it.  Don’t glom onto me.  Have a good time.” 
     And then Venwick was in the kitchen of Gina’s apartment, it was New Year’s Day and he was getting a goodbye kiss.  A beam from the setting sun leaked in through the kitchen window and illuminated Gina in golden light.  Venwick would never forget. 
     A moment later, Venwick’s consciousness returned, and his mind was again in the cockpit of his tiny ship, and he was drenched and shivering with a cold sweat.  The star pattern on his screen indicated he had gotten past the vicinity of the neutron star. 
     The ship was on a completely different course than the one he needed to be on, and he had almost no propellant—enough for a safe landing and no more than that. 
     Besides that, it was a billion to one unlikelihood that he would be fortunate enough to drift to a habitable planet. Venwick contemplated opening his bottle of emergency gin.  
     The ship’s radar detected a large object directly in the ship’s path.  Venwick needed to change course again.  He pivoted the ship so that the engines could fire perpendicular to the vector the ship was on.  He fired the thrusters enough, he thought, so that the object would be avoided. 
     The ship’s collision alarm sounded again, jangling Venwick’s nerves.  The object had moved and was again directly in Venwick’s ship’s path.  Venwick resigned himself to death.  He did not have sufficient propellant to get anywhere or to land safely if he did. 
     Venwick sent a radio transmission aimed at New Venus detailing his situation and what had happened.  He had an hour or so before impending collision with the object.  He hadn’t given any thought to wonder why the space object had moved. 
     The ships radio transceiver powered up, apparently in response to a pending transmission—it jolted the space traveler out of the sad reverie that he had begun to have. Venwick pressed a button allowing the transmission to come through.  There was some risk involved in accepting an unknown signal, yet at this point, Venwick had nothing to lose. 
     A face appeared on his ship’s main video display of a creature that had mottled green and yellow skin, three eyes on its face, and bat-like ears set very high up on the sides of its head.  It had a gaping mouth encompassing large yellow pointy teeth, and it had a large trio of nostrils in the middle of its face.  A knot of panic wrenched Venwick’s gut.  A human from New Venus had never before encountered a humanoid of non-terrestrial origin.  Venwick hoped he was dealing with someone friendly. 
     “Prepare for docking,” said a voice in Minglish, which was the main language spoken on New Venus.  The non-terrestrial’s mouth hadn’t moved, and it was probably speaking through a translation device. 
     The ship’s computer indicated that the unknown object was no longer headed for collision, and had approached and was flying parallel to Venwick’s ship at a very close distance.  The obnoxious collision alarm ceased, to Venwick’s utter relief. 
     The courier was uneasy about the prospect of interacting with non-terrestrials.  And they were docking with his ship.  His mind went back to his education of fifteen years earlier, when he had been taught the likely dangers of alien microbes.  For that reason as well as the likely difference in air pressure, Venwick needed to wear an atmosphere suit.  There was one in the ship’s small storage closet, that would have gathered dust, had dust been permitted aboard a space vessel.  Venwick slipped into the suit, forcing himself to recall the details about putting it on and adjusting it, as well as turning on the air processor.  It would not do to suffocate for want of pressing the correct button.
     A small jolt in Venwick’s small spacecraft, and a brief hiss of air told him that the alien ship had docked with his, and air pressures had equalized.  Venwick stepped into the airlock of the alien vessel, and noted the similarities in construction to New Venus technology.  A video display showed incomprehensible symbols, green against a white background.  And then, the door to the main part of the alien vessel slid open, to reveal two strange looking creatures bearing weapons. 
     “Bacteria are not an issue with us,” said a voice in Minglish. After a pause the alien said, “Please divest of spacesuit, surrender to us, and beg for mercy.  We might not kill you if you beg well enough.”  
     Venwick stepped forward from the airlock into the main part of the alien vessel. 
##

Venwick stood before the two, weapon bearing, green and yellow mottled skinned humanoids.  “I didn’t hear you very well, what was it you said?”
     “Take off spacesuit, surrender, and beg for your life,” the alien gestured with its weapon and pointed it at the headpiece of Venwick’s spacesuit, adjacent to the temple. 
     “What do you mean, ‘beg’?  I’ve never heard of that before.” 
     The alien on Venwick’s right side said, “First you get down on your knees…”  The creature extended an arm, thinking he was stronger than Venwick and would force the human to his knees. 
     Venwick sacrificed a portion of his agility by being in a spacesuit, but decided to fight, anyway.  He believed there was no chance of the aliens sparing his life, and that begging would simply humiliate him before death.  His motions surprised the aliens, and he was able to knock the weapons from the hands of both, with some lucky jujitsu moves.  He was also able to punch and kick both creatures, and knock them both down and silly.  He was on the verge of picking up a weapon from the floor when he was surprised by the presence of a third alien. 
     “Don’t move,” said the creature, as it stood in a hatch with a weapon, several feet from Venwick and out of reach of his moves. 
     Venwick’s response was to stand straight up and show the alien an upper thrust middle finger, as a last gesture of defiance.  “Screw you,” he added in his native Minglish. 
     “Step into that box over there, or I will shoot you—why be dead any sooner than you must?”  It seemed that the life form of extraterrestrial origin would beg the human, even while holding a weapon on him. 
     “You’re weak,” said Venwick.  He stood facing the alien and made no move toward obedience. 
     “Please remove your spacesuit.  I’m asking you nicely.  I will shoot you if you don’t.”  The alien stood too far from Venwick to disarm, but close enough that a shot fired would probably incinerate or blow a hole in him, depending on the type of weapon.  Venwick thought of his mother on New Venus who awaited his return, and obliged the alien by getting out of the spacesuit.  He was now dressed in no more than a pair of boxer briefs and a t-shirt. 
     “Well muscled,” commented one of the two aliens who Venwick had beaten, as it got up from the floor. 
     The other replied with “Shut up.” And it too arose from the floor. 
     They each grabbed a side of the human.  They tried to shove him into the box, which was tall enough for Venwick to stand in, which apparently was some kind of restraint device.  He didn’t resist on instinct that he might get a chance at some future point to escape.  He felt their strength as they put him in the box, and it wasn’t nearly that of the human, highly trained and conditioned in combat on New Venus. 
     The force field inside the box was uncomfortable, and Venwick struggled against it to breathe.  Even eye movement was difficult.  He wondered if he had made a mistake by finally surrendering, since now the strange humanoids could do with him whatever they wanted.  Venwick wondered how long the aliens would force him to be in that box.  There was nothing he could do.  He began to regret his decision because it had deprived him of a clean, probably painless death. 
     “We think we can sell you for profit.  Get used to obedience—it will soon be your life.”  The creature drank a glass of green refreshment in front of the human, making Venwick realize he was fairly thirsty. 
     The second creature said, “They’ll probably use you as a gladiator.  Your death will come soon enough.”  After a pause, the humanoid said, “That box is also a cryogenic box.  Maybe we’ll freeze you for the rest of the trip.  Would you like that?”  The humanoid nodded at Venwick in sarcasm.  (The gesture angered Venwick.)  Cryogenic treatment tended to be extremely uncomfortable, and space travelers avoided it whenever they could.  “Ok, I’m gonna freeze you now,” said the humanoid. 
     Venwick struggled against the force field; the restraint prevented him from shouting a series of obscenities at the alien.  
     Chill gases began to fill the box Venwick stood in, and it was painful.  Venwick wanted to scream.  Soon he lost consciousness and was in the oblivion of suspended animation.   
##

Venwick returned to consciousness and opened his eyes to see a tiled ceiling.  He tried to sit up and realized there was gravity, unlike the weightlessness that was usually the condition in space.  He lumbered up and realized he had been sleeping on a hard steel bench, looked around and realized he was in some kind of jail cell.  He licked dry lips, and realized there was a water faucet and toilet within the cell.  The plumbing and steel bars were constructed differently enough to tell him he was in a strange place, but similar enough to those on New Venus that he could recognize their purpose.  Venwick availed himself of the water faucet and toilet, and realized he was trembling as an aftereffect of being cryogenically frozen. 
     A humanoid appeared plainly wearing an armored suit.  It opened the steel-barred door of Venwick’s cell, and made a motion indicating he should step out of his cell and through a doorway in the adjacent wall.  Not having any better plan, Venwick did as he was bid and found himself in the middle of a stadium, standing on a rubberized surface.  Venwick noted the high walls and the fact that there were no exits presently available from the middle of the stadium where he stood.  A cool draft within the stadium nipped at Venwick’s skin, and he recognized the smell of blood.  Battles had been recently fought here. 
     He jumped at the sound of a metallic “thud” and realized that a very large sword had been dropped near him.  Venwick picked it up and realized the blade wasn’t too heavy or too light for him to use effectively. 
     What followed was a series of contests in which Venwick had to fight a number of creatures, humanoids, monsters and other things, all of which he dispatched with his sword, in one fight after another.  Venwick was exhausted, but the audience cheered.
     Flowers and wrapped candy were thrown at the human, and he realized he was now a popular person among this race of beings. 
     The same armored humanoid appeared in the stadium, and greeted Venwick with a thumb up, with its three-fingered hand.  Venwick realized that some gestures apparently were universal.  Or perhaps this race of creatures had some familiarity with humans from New Venus—which seemed unlikely.  The armored humanoid escorted Venwick back to his cell; in the cell was a scantily clad woman, a human one.  Venwick saw that a mattress had been tied to the steel bench in the cell.  Venwick had been in space, alone, for three years before his capture and didn’t have any idea how he could survive if he continued to be a gladiator. Venwick did not hesitate to take what was offered. 
     After lovemaking with Venwick, the woman said, “You’re better at it than the others before you.” She paused and Venwick said nothing.  She said, “I might know a way out of here…”
##

     “Let’s hear it,” said Venwick.
     “They may invite you to a party, you’re that popular.  They hold the parties in a room adjacent to their launch pad.  They get under-the-table drunk.  You might have a chance to shoot them all and escape in a ship,” she said.
     “Before we proceed any further, what’s your name?” asked Venwick.
     “Sherry,” she replied.  “And yours?”
     “Venwick Cooke,” replied Venwick.  “Now, if we both die at the hands of these assholes, we will know each other’s names.” 
##

A guard came the next afternoon for Venwick.  The human was subjected to another round of contests, and he again dispatched several beasts and humanoids in a row.  It seemed he was unbeatable in a fight.  He even surprised himself. 
     On the way back to his cell, the alien in armor refrained from locking the door to Venwick’s cell, and handed the human a blaster weapon.  He made an incomprehensible gesture, which the human thought might signal appreciation.
     “Some of us believe it is unfair how you are being treated,” the guard said through a translation device.  “Here is your chance at life.  Don’t say a word.”  The alien then said, “It should not be too hard to make an escape, considering your abilities.” 
     The guard had taken a huge risk on behalf of the captive human.  Venwick wanted to say thanks, and shake the guard’s hand, but the guard immediately exited.
     (Venwick took a quick look at the weapon he had been given, and realized it functioned similarly to weapons from his planet.)  Venwick and Sherry walked out the cell door and into the hallway.  The doors were marked with symbols that were unfamiliar to Venwick, but Sherry could read them. 
     “The exit is this way,” said Sherry, pointing at one of many identical doors. 
     Another guard approached from down the corridor, and Venwick aimed his weapon and incinerated the alien on sight, before the humanoid could react. 
     Venwick and Sherry found themselves to be outside the building on a purple and yellow lawn.  A building about two hundred yards away appeared large enough to be a launch dome, and it also had a roof that looked like it could slide open.  Venwick and Sherry walked toward it and were not bothered by any of the passersby.  They walked nonchalantly into the launch dome and Venwick spotted his spacecraft, parked among numerous other space vehicles. 
     Another guard in the launch dome put up a hand, which apparently indicated that the two humans should stop.  Venwick shot the guard, incinerating it with his weapon.   Venwick’s luck was holding up. 
     They were at the point of getting into Venwick’s ship, when a loud siren sounded.  Venwick opened the hatch of his vehicle and climbed inside, and Sherry followed.  He took a seat and the control panel and discovered that the propellant tank had been refilled.  The ship rocked and thudded, as it was being fired upon with handheld weapons.  The ship’s video display showed several humanoids with three eyes and green and yellow mottled skin, and they were angry.  Without hesitating, Venwick applied thrust, and moved his ship upward, on a course to collide with the closed door of the launch dome.  Venwick fired his ship’s weapons at the door, a dangerous stunt.  A hole was blown in the hanger, through which Venwick’s ship could exit.  Before he exited, he fired on several spacecraft that were parked in the dome, which could otherwise be used to pursue him.  Venwick’s ship gained altitude above the launch dome.  The launch dome became engulfed in flames. 
     Venwick’s ship got into a low orbit of the planet.  No ships from the alien planet followed, and Venwick concluded that his own ship’s weapons might work a lot better than theirs, and they might not want to be blasted into oblivion. 
     They rode Venwick’s spacecraft into deep space.  Venwick continued to head for the military outpost in order to complete his mission, although now he had built-in entertainment for the rest of his flight.  Venwick fulfilled his mission, carrying the secret documents to the commander of the outpost.  The documents were concealed in a one-centimeter-long metallic rod that had been implanted under the skin on Venwick’s wrist. 
     Venwick parted ways from Sherry upon their return to New Venus. 
     He went home to his mother’s house, and his mother (now more than ten years older than when Venwick left) gave Venwick a big hug. 
     Venwick believed that one should never give up on oneself; and that if you just keep trying, including when a situation seems hopeless, you might find that the obstacles are surmountable. 

BAD BLACK AND DECKER TOASTER OVEN

Black and Decker is another example of the decline of venerable brands.  My wife bought a toaster oven at Fry’s, a Black and Decker unit similar to one that had served us well for several years before it finally burned out.  The new unit is without several of the safety features and usability of the previous, similar model.  This unit has a sleek black paint job and a fancily curved front glass plate.
     To begin with, the markings of the controls are unreadable without a lighted magnifying glass.  The numerals are a pastel gray against a black chassis, and they are quite small.  The unit is without a shut off feature when the door is opened, something which the old model had.  When the timer knob is twisted counterclockwise to manually shut off the unit, you had better be careful—if you twist it a bit too far it goes into the “stay on” mode.  The previous unit had very visible markings, had a door switch that shut the unit off when opened, and had controls that made much more sense.  The only improvement in the new unit is an easily removable crumb tray.  However, the problem with this is that the unit can still be turned on when the crumb tray is completely out.
     This is an unsafe unit for numerous reasons and ought to be recalled.