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Cast of Wonders 322: Your Words There for the World to See (Banned Books Week)


Your Words There for the World to See

by Aimee Ogden

The school library doesn’t have the book you want. No surprise there. There are a few dozen volumes on its shelves; plenty of other books are out there in the cloud, but the part of the cloud with your book is partitioned off too. It’s in the Premium Access tier and a Title X school in Ass-Nowhere, Wisconsin is not exactly Premium Access quality. The librarian apologizes for that, but apologies don’t put the words in your hands.
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Cast of Wonders 320: Presumed Dead (Part 7)

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Presumed Dead (Part 7)

by Rick Kennett

The Xenoid hadn’t tried to cover up evidence of its theft.

Her raft had been dragged out from behind the fungi bush and now lay on the white sand beach. Many of its locker doors hung open, their contents spilled on the floor. There was a gouged-out space on the control console where the computer had been.

It’d probably planned to use the raft after eliminating her, Cy guessed confidently. But, being a calculating creature, it had to secure the computer’s memory module when it had the opportunity. It represented a prize too invaluable to risk to the chance of failure.
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Cast of Wonders 319: Presumed Dead (Part 6)

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Presumed Dead (Part 6)

by Rick Kennett

For a moment she puzzled over why the plants up ahead had all turned white and were sparkling under the sun.

Then, in a single step she left the warmth of the day and entered the cold of the island. A sudden, severe plunge in temperature, far colder than she’d ever known – colder still than the day she’d run, bare-footed and exposed, across the sands of Mars.
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Cast of Wonders 318: Presumed Dead (Part 5)

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Presumed Dead (Part 5)

by Rick Kennett

The map in her hand now showed only the blue-green of the sea. Apparently there was nothing but ocean ahead for the foreseeable future.

“Plain sailing form now on, Lazarus,” she said, turning to look for the spider, but could see it nowhere.
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Cast of Wonders 317: Presumed Dead (Part 4)

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Presumed Dead (Part 4)

by Rick Kennett

Cy looked into her palm and said, “Mountains?”

Light as a feather atop her head, Lazarus hadn’t twitched a leg for hours. The map in her hand, however, was in motion. By slow degrees all afternoon a series of tiny V shapes, some inverted, all askew, had crept down into view from the top of her palm to inch along towards her little finger.

She shaded her eyes to the west where sunset blazed the sky with banners of red and crimson and orange. It was only now she realized then how much she missed the quiet purple sunsets of Mars. There was something overstated about these dramatic colours.

If there were mountains on the route she had intended then perhaps they were the reason for the detour. Perhaps whatever put the map in her hand was not so capricious after all.
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Cast of Wonders 316: Presumed Dead (Part 3)

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Presumed Dead (Part 3)

by Rick Kennett

Night came quickly in these latitudes, dropping out of the late afternoon sky like a black weight. Though she thought it silly she didn’t much like the idea of coming across spiders in the dark. Not that she imagined there was a posse after her or that she might be ambushed. But the notion was hard to shake. The spiders were an unknown quantity.

In the lengthening shadow of a capsized hulk she stopped to sniff the air. The hot iron smell of the wreck vied with the scent of rain. A thunderhead was forming in the north. Watching the brewing clouds, for a moment she thought kindly of the dry red of home and its clear pink-brown skies.
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Cast of Wonders 315: Presumed Dead (Part 2)

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Presumed Dead (Part 2)

by Rick Kennett

Half stumbling, almost tumbling, she made her way down the slope to the plain. The need for shelter and overwhelming curiosity had replaced the urgings of caution.

The first wreck she came to was little more than a collapse of iron plates with only a suggestion of a hull shape. A small steamer with a compact superstructure and squat hull offered a dry but debris-strewn interior. Sections of both sides were crushed in, twisted hull plates making seemingly deliberate spikes of malice within. Cy wanted shelter, but not at the risk of cutting herself in half.

The next wreck was more intact, but too close to a swiftly running stream, which she regarded with a feeling bordering on horror. She was Martian enough to know the constant sight and sound of all that water just flowing away, uncontained, unused, would be too disturbing.
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Cast of Wonders 314: Presumed Dead (Part 1)

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Presumed Dead (Part 1)

by Rick Kennett

Days later, while sheltering from rain that had lost its novelty, she decided the end had begun when George McClusky said, “So what do you suppose that is?”

That had been the moment. Everything leading up to it may have had a bearing, may have been a primer, but hadn’t been the trigger. Not the utter mental void of floating in space with only the whisper of her rebreather for company. Not when the McMurdo Sound disintegrated around her. Not even the battle itself.

Cy De Gerch slumped against the mushroom big as a tree trunk and closed her eyes to let another dizzy spell pass. The ghost of Jos Manxman would be appearing soon. She knew it. But right now she couldn’t stomach facing the spectre again, arguing with it again.

The rain continued to fall as it’d fallen for days without number, or so it had seemed.
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Cast of Wonders 313: Desert Dogs


Desert Dogs

by Drea Silvertooth and Lian Rose

The vast desert sprawled before Kei, burnt sienna beneath the rising sun. In the distance, derelict buildings of the Old Cities defined the horizon, their dark and splintered silhouettes pointing like daggers at the sky.

Behind her, the city gate clanged shut with a heavy sense of finality. The outer sentries ignored her as she shouldered her supplies—food, water, and the exact number of bullets allowed for intercity travel—and walked toward the stables. Her red cloak dragged in the sand, leaving a path in her wake like a winding snake.

A half-mile out stood a small, hunched figure waiting for her. The faded blue fabric of his robes was drawn up over his face to protect from the stinging wind.

“My driving student,” he said warmly, extending his hand as she approached. “Mister Zhang?”

“Miss,” Kei corrected, taking his hand.
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Cast of Wonders 305: All Systems Go


All Systems Go

by Gerri Leen

The spaceport at Norn Five is a shining ode to order, automation, and interstellar travel. State-of-the-art communication ports dot the walls, offering instant access to loved ones, bosses, or eccentrics offering revolution at bargain prices.

Travelers move across the floors, various forms of locomotion taking them from point A to point B. Walkers tends to be the most common, but there are also floaters, crawlers, slitherers, and the odd vaporous beings that just sort of waft.

And working around it all are the units of the robotic char force. One in particular moves slowly along the wall, sucking up the residue left by one of the slithering public. It gets stuck for a moment when it hits a point where one being’s slime has mixed with another’s, making a sort of glue of the noxious kind. The bot revs forward, then backward, sucking up goop up as it goes, spritzing solvent onto the floor and then wiping it up so no one slips.

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Cast of Wonders 303: What You’re Missing


What You’re Missing

by Allison Mulder

“Something’s missing.”

The words slipped past Anya’s lips, not for the first time. Most days she could keep them buried under other, safer thoughts. But on quiet, peaceful days like this one, when she’d successfully coaxed Colton past the fences to the off-grid hills, the words had a nasty habit of wriggling out to warm themselves in the sun.

“Of course something’s missing,” Colton said, staring back toward the sprawling gray city. Sun sparkled off the high chain link fences between the hills and town. “No Wi-Fi, no cell signals. The power grid’s scrapped out here. If it bothers you, let’s head back.” He fiddled hopefully with his loose tie, obviously ready and waiting to tighten it.

Anya shook her head, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of unbound hair swishing against her cheeks. “Not what I mean.”
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Cast of Wonders 301: Ana’s Asteroid


Ana’s Asteroid

by M.K. Hutchins

I raced Cornelius home after school, through the corridors of the Platinum Phoenix. He took the right hand side, I took the left. The dents in stainless steel walls made our reflections wobble.

“I’ll beat you this time!” Cornelius called from behind. He was eleven — two years younger than me.

I laughed. “I doubt — ”

But my feet slipped out from under me. I skidded across the floor. Like all the other kids on this asteroid mining colony, my clothes were sewn from surplus mylar blankets — slick stuff. I crashed into a sealed-off door. There were plenty of unused corridors like that, leftover from better days when the Platinum Phoenix actually had passengers.
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