Read Online Diamonds in the Sky by Ed. Mike Brotherton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ed. Mike Brotherton
Tags: Science-Fiction, Short Stories
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the Orion star-forming region, while Vanessa remained on Georgia for a time before taking the plunge into the Galactic center to study the supermassive black hole there, weighing some three million times the sun, and its exotic environment.
When Cody and Vanessa met again, it was the second age of Cytannus, a regional empire in the Sagittarius arm, in the year 4432, as reckoned by their calendar. They fell together again like no time had passed, even though one was an android and the other was a space mermaid. Sometimes life is like that.
They compromised and settled together as sea leviathans on a water world and sang symphonies to each other for several centuries. Post-human existence had its possibilities.
Together they traveled to watch dwarf novas, novas, supernovas, and hypernovas, all from appropriately safe distances. Explosions were always good entertainment.
They made the trip to Andromeda and met the alien species that had colonized that galaxy from rim to core. The aliens smelled bad, but were very nice people.
Three point seven million years after the astronomy class in which Cody and Vanessa had first met, they shed their corporeal bodies entirely in favor of distributed pan-dimensional intelligences and entered a different realm of existence where even more was possible.
Over the following billions of years, time moved on, and the universe expanded in an accelerating fashion.
They would have cried, if they could have, when some five billion years after their astronomy class, just as their professor had predicted, the sun expanded into a red giant. All life on Earth died in a slow, intense roast.
Billions of years further along, after the Milky Way and Andromeda had merged and galaxies beyond the Local Group had vanished from sight, Cody knew that the game was winding down and it was only a matter of time. But what a grand time!
Cody loved Vanessa in a mental, physical, and emotional way that was incomprehensible in the century that they had met. What is it really like when you can know someone in every way possible, and accept them as you do yourself? Someone you had spent billions of years knowing? No one in the 21st century could have articulated the nature of their relationship. He knew it now, at the end.
“I remember,” he thought, back in the end times of the present.
Vanessa sent him another thought to echo through his extended mind. “Did you get the point?”
“Yes,” he thought, “I got the point,” appreciating what he was and where he had gone, where they had gone.
The universe continued to rip itself apart in its death throes, and together they shared the unique experience.
© Mike Brotherton
Squish
by Daniel M. Hoyt
Meyer felt his brain
squish
into being in his new biobod.
A struggling investigator, he never could have afforded the exotic light-speed transport himself, but his client, Benton Reege —
Time and Space
magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year for 36 years running since the mag named him Architect of the Milky Way in 2100 — dropped as many solcreds on his weekly haircut.
“First time, huh?” A high male voice boomed directly in front of him, but Meyer only saw a too-bright yellow haze and closed his eyes.
“It takes a few minutes for your mind to adjust to your new biobod,” the man recited. “You’ve just had your brain mapped, flung through space on an encoded light wave, and rewired from scratch into this brand-spanking-new brain matter; you can’t expect to see clearly right off the bat. Your mind needs to learn the physical connections first.”
After several failed trials, Meyer was able to open his eyes long enough to get a clear look at the medtech, a stumpy blond casually inspecting his fingernails. He wore a simple white lab coat, with the Reege company emblem embossed on the chest.
“Ready?”
Meyer nodded. His neck felt thicker than he’d expected; in fact,
everything
felt too large. “I’m big,” he said,
When Cody and Vanessa met again, it was the second age of Cytannus, a regional empire in the Sagittarius arm, in the year 4432, as reckoned by their calendar. They fell together again like no time had passed, even though one was an android and the other was a space mermaid. Sometimes life is like that.
They compromised and settled together as sea leviathans on a water world and sang symphonies to each other for several centuries. Post-human existence had its possibilities.
Together they traveled to watch dwarf novas, novas, supernovas, and hypernovas, all from appropriately safe distances. Explosions were always good entertainment.
They made the trip to Andromeda and met the alien species that had colonized that galaxy from rim to core. The aliens smelled bad, but were very nice people.
Three point seven million years after the astronomy class in which Cody and Vanessa had first met, they shed their corporeal bodies entirely in favor of distributed pan-dimensional intelligences and entered a different realm of existence where even more was possible.
Over the following billions of years, time moved on, and the universe expanded in an accelerating fashion.
They would have cried, if they could have, when some five billion years after their astronomy class, just as their professor had predicted, the sun expanded into a red giant. All life on Earth died in a slow, intense roast.
Billions of years further along, after the Milky Way and Andromeda had merged and galaxies beyond the Local Group had vanished from sight, Cody knew that the game was winding down and it was only a matter of time. But what a grand time!
Cody loved Vanessa in a mental, physical, and emotional way that was incomprehensible in the century that they had met. What is it really like when you can know someone in every way possible, and accept them as you do yourself? Someone you had spent billions of years knowing? No one in the 21st century could have articulated the nature of their relationship. He knew it now, at the end.
“I remember,” he thought, back in the end times of the present.
Vanessa sent him another thought to echo through his extended mind. “Did you get the point?”
“Yes,” he thought, “I got the point,” appreciating what he was and where he had gone, where they had gone.
The universe continued to rip itself apart in its death throes, and together they shared the unique experience.
© Mike Brotherton
Squish
by Daniel M. Hoyt
Meyer felt his brain
squish
into being in his new biobod.
A struggling investigator, he never could have afforded the exotic light-speed transport himself, but his client, Benton Reege —
Time and Space
magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year for 36 years running since the mag named him Architect of the Milky Way in 2100 — dropped as many solcreds on his weekly haircut.
“First time, huh?” A high male voice boomed directly in front of him, but Meyer only saw a too-bright yellow haze and closed his eyes.
“It takes a few minutes for your mind to adjust to your new biobod,” the man recited. “You’ve just had your brain mapped, flung through space on an encoded light wave, and rewired from scratch into this brand-spanking-new brain matter; you can’t expect to see clearly right off the bat. Your mind needs to learn the physical connections first.”
After several failed trials, Meyer was able to open his eyes long enough to get a clear look at the medtech, a stumpy blond casually inspecting his fingernails. He wore a simple white lab coat, with the Reege company emblem embossed on the chest.
“Ready?”
Meyer nodded. His neck felt thicker than he’d expected; in fact,
everything
felt too large. “I’m big,” he said,
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