Lightspeed Magazine Issue 4 Read online

  So what are our intrepid future space explorers to do once they get that itch? Self pleasure only goes so far, and on those long, cold, lonely space nights, a willing bedmate, whether skinned or scaled or carapaced, sure does beat another game of Guitar Hero in the mess hall with the guys. And who knows? Maybe aliens would actually make better lovers. Better than that cute chick at Alpha Centauri with the bondage closet in her quarters, you ask?

  It’s possible. Let’s find out how…

  THE PHYSICAL

  Alien bodies will most likely be much different than ours. After all, they’ve evolved on planets wholly unlike Earth—different atmosphere, different gravity. But does physical incompatibility really pose that much of a hurdle? New bodies can make for some exciting new physical configurations. And whereas even our most ambitious human conjoinings generally dissolve into your basic “insert tab A into slot B” arrangement, human-alien encounters could conceivably include not only a slot B but a C, D, E and F as well. And what about those extra tabs? You know, there’s a reason anime tentacle sex is so popular.

  Then there are alien pheromones. Or, as we like to call them, intergalactic beer goggles. Thanks to these nifty chemicals, aliens, no matter how grotesque, will be able to send us humans over the moon with just one sniff. And conversely, our strange human smells might send aliens over…well, some other planetoid, anyway.

  Of course, you’ll still want to use protection. Just because our sperm and ova don’t play nice together doesn’t mean we’re immune to Martian STDs. So be safe and remember to double bag that bad boy, okay? ‘Cause herpes is bad enough. Do you really want to go down in history as Patient Zero in the upcoming intergalactic sexual pandemic?

  THE MENTAL

  One zillion percent of sex is in your head (note: fact checker still AWOL on this one), but if your alien boyfriend comes from a planet of telepaths, well now, that really is a whole new world. And while a lover who doesn’t have to be shown where to put his antennae is a pretty exotic thing in and of itself, the point here really is this: who wouldn’t want to live in a future where love means never having to say you’re horny?

  Of course, outside the bedroom, telepathy isn’t really the best marital aid. Get ready to have all your innermost thoughts made as public as a Facebook post as he discovers 1, how many men you’ve slept with, 2, how you really feel about his mother, and worst of all, 3, that, despite what you’ve been telling him, size really does matter.

  Even when you’re talking about antennae.

  THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT ISSUE

  Ask any woman who’s lusted after her roommate’s boyfriend—or any man who was inappropriately aroused by a prepubescent Christina Ricci in The Addams Family—taboo relationships are hot.

  So what could be hotter than dating someone from the wrong side of the Van Allen belt?

  Of course, it is human nature to despise The Other, but what if the aliens were just as intolerant? Who knows what kind of laws you could run into on Zerg 3?

  Imagine it: Xxerxe invites you home for Christmas, but before you can even sit down to dinner, you’re arrested for breaking some obscure Zergian miscegenation law. You become the center of an interplanetary media circus as Zerg’s FOX affiliate posits that sex with humans just might be bestiality. Lawyers from both sides take to the airwaves to argue the case. You’re a cause célèbre in three systems. Then, shock! Victory! Barriers are broken across the universe. You’re the 25th century Lovings, heroes to interspecies couples everywhere.

  But you know what? None of it matters, ‘cause at the end of the day, he’s still not going to marry you. Not because you’re human, but because his mother thinks you’re a publicity whore.

  THE MORALS QUESTION

  Despite the fact that sexual politics have come a long way in the last hundred years, sex without the benefit of clergy is still considered taboo by most of our world’s religions. And over the centuries, they certainly have come up with many clever ways to, oh, how can we say this…take the sweet out of the lowdown?

  But what about those alien religions? Do they have some ultra-wacky, do-it-through-a-sheet rituals as well, or have their social mores produced a whole different sort of sexual dog and pony show?

  For instance, maybe instead of censuring sex, they celebrate it. Oh, imagine the shock when, after receiving our first off-planet wedding invitation, we discover their marriage rites involve elaborate public consummation ceremonies between the couple, the bridal party, the officiants, and, in some more orthodox sects, the entire congregation.

  And you thought the chicken dance was embarrassing.

  THE GENDER BENDER

  On planet earth, we have a multitude of races, but our genders are limited to male and female. Aliens species, on the other hand, could have a much more colorful array. They could have both genders, three or more genders, or perhaps even no gender at all.

  And what about a switch hit gender? How fun would that be? Like some futuristic Orlando, you could spend a few decades as a man then, presto chango, you’re a woman. (And won’t that teach you to leave the seat down.)

  Of course, on the practical side, an alien lover with no preconceptions or prejudices about sexual orientation would certainly make the gender fluid humans among us a lot more comfortable. Imagine an alien utopia without judgment on who you sleep with, what genitals you possess, or what gender you choose to identify with. That could be the next alien society we encounter. Or maybe it’s just Friday night in San Francisco.

  But best of all, confused humans experimenting on the down-low can now convincingly pass off an encounter with a gender-unspecific alien with a shrug and the time-honored disclaimer “What? I thought it was a chick!”

  CONCLUSION

  Sure it’s fun to speculate about human-alien pairings, but until we experience first contact with an evolved, carbon-based life form, this particular final frontier will forever remain an unchecked box on the interstellar Purity Test.

  Which is kind of a pity, because obviously aliens would make great lovers: they’re adventurous and exotic and different. But then again, so are humans. And although we don’t have antennae or mandibles or tentacles for caressing all those hard-to-reach places, what humans lack in appendages, we certainly make up for in raw imagination.

  Which, when you think about it, is all we really need to convince our brand new alien friends to become…our brand new alien friends with benefits.

  When she is not freelance writing, Carol Pinchefsky is the editor of the Space Future Journal (www.spacefuture.com), a website dedicated to space tourism, as well as the humor competition editor for F&SF magazine. To Serve Man is her favorite cookbook.

  Travelers

  Robert Silverberg

  “Are we all ready, then?” Nikomastir asks. He has fashioned a crown of golden protopetaloids for himself and gleaming scarlet baubles dangle from his ears: the bright translucent shells of galgalids, strung on slender strands of pure gold. His long pale arms wave in the air as though he is conducting a symphony orchestra. “Our next destination is—” and he makes us wait for the announcement. And wait. And wait.

  “Sidri Akrak,” says Mayfly, giggling.

  “How did you know?” cries Nikomastir. “Sidri Akrak! Yes!

  Yes! Set your coordinates, everybody! Off we go! Sidri Akrak it is!”

  A faint yelp of dismay comes from Velimyle, and she shoots me a look of something that might almost have been fear, though perhaps there is a certain component of perverse delight in it also. I am not at all happy about the decision myself. Sidri Akrak is a nightmare world where gaudy monsters run screaming through the muddy streets. The people of Sidri Akrak are cold and dour and inhospitable; their idea of pleasure is to wallow in discomfort and ugliness.

  No one goes to Sidri Akrak if he can help it, no one.

  But we must live by our rules; and this day Nikomastir holds the right of next choice. It is devilish of Mayfly to have put the idea of going to Sidri Akrak into his head. But she is li
ke that, Mayfly. And Nikomastir is terribly easily influenced.

  Will we all perish on hideous Sidri Akrak, victims of Mayfly’s casual frivolity?

  I don’t think so, however nasty the visit turns out to be. We often get into trouble, sometimes serious trouble, but we always get out of it. We lead charmed lives, we four travelers. Someday Mayfly will take one risk too many, I suppose, and I would like not to be there when she does. Most likely I will be, though. Mayfly is my mask-sister. Wherever she goes, I go. I must look after her: thoughtful, stolid, foolish me. I must protect her from herself as we four go traveling on and on, spinning giddily across the far—flung worlds.

  Sidri Akrak, though—

  The four of us have been to so many wondrous lovely places together: Elang-Lo and the floating isle of Vont, and Mikni and Chchikkikan, Heidoth and Thant, Milpar, Librot, Froidis, Smoor,

  Xamur and Iriarte and Nabomba Zom, and on and on and on. And now—Sidri Akrak? Sidri Akrak?

  We stand in a circle in the middle of a field of grass with golden blades, making ourselves ready for our relay-sweep departure from Galgala.

  I wouldn’t have minded remaining here a few months longer. A lovely world indeed is Galgala the golden, where myriads of auriferous microorganisms excrete atoms of gold as metabolic waste. It is everywhere on this planet, the lustrous pretty metal. It turns the rivers and streams to streaks of yellow flame and the seas to shimmering golden mirrors. Huge filters are deployed at the intake valve of Galgala’s reservoirs to strain the silt of dissolved gold from the water supply. The plants of Galgala are turgid in every tissue, leaf and stem and root, with aureous particles. Gold dust, held in suspension in the air, transforms the clouds to golden fleece.

  Therefore the once-precious stuff has grievously lost value throughout the galaxy since Galgala was discovered, and on Galgala itself a pound of gold is worth less than a pound of soap. But I understand very little about these economic matters and care even less. Only a miser could fail to rejoice in Galgala’s luminous beauty. We have been here six weeks; we have awakened each morning to the tinkle of golden chimes, we have bathed in the golden rivers and come forth shining, we have wrapped our bodies round with delicate golden chains. Now, though, it is time for us to move along, and Nikomastir has decreed that our new destination is to be one of the universe’s most disagreeable worlds. Unlike my companions I can see nothing amusing about going there. It strikes me as foolish and dangerous whimsy. But they are true sophisticates, untrammeled creatures made of air and light, and I am the leaden weight that dangles from their soaring souls. We will go to Sidri Akrak.

  We all face Nikomastir. Smiling sweetly, he calls out the coordinate numbers for our journey, and we set our beacons accordingly and doublecheck the settings with care. We nod our readiness for departure to one another. Velimyle moves almost imperceptibly closer to me, Mayfly to Nikomastir.

  I would have chosen a less flighty lover for her than Nikomastir if matters had been left to me. He is a slim elegant youth, high-spirited and shallow, a prancing fantastico with a taste for telling elaborate fanciful lies. And he is very young: only a single rebirth so far. Mayfly is on her fifth, as am I, and Velimyle claims three, which probably means four. Sembiran is Nikomastir’s native world, a place of grand valleys and lofty snow-capped mountains and beautiful meadows and thriving cities, where his father is a minor aristocrat of some sort. Or so Nikomastir has said, although we have learned again and again that it is risky to take anything Nikomastir says at face value.

  My incandescent mask-sister Mayfly, who is as small and fair as Nikomastir is tall and dark, encountered him while on a visit to Olej in the Lubrik system and was immediately captivated by his volatile impulsive nature, and they have traveled together ever since.

  Whither Mayfly goeth, thither go I: that is the pledge of the mask. So do I trudge along now from world to world with them, and therefore my winsome, sly, capricious Velimyle, whose psychosensitive paintings are sought by the connoisseurs of a hundred worlds but who belongs to me alone, has willy-nilly become the fourth member of our inseparable quartet.

  Some people find relay-sweep transport unlikable and even frightening, but I have never minded it. What is most bothersome, I suppose, is that no starship is involved: you travel unprotected by any sort of tangible container, a mere plummeting parcel falling in frightful solitude through the interstices of the continuum. A journey-helmet is all that covers you, and some flimsy folds of coppery mesh. You set up your coordinates, you activate your beacon, and you stand and wait, you stand and wait, until the probing beam of some far-off sweep-station intersects your position and catches you and lifts you and carries you away. If you’ve done things right, your baggage will be picked up and transported at the same time. Most of the time that is so.

  It is a stark and unluxurious mode of travel. The relay field wraps you in cocooning bands of force and shoots you off through one auxiliary space and another, kicking you through any convenient opening in the spacetime lattice that presents itself, and while you wait to be delivered to your destination you drift like a bauble afloat in an infinite sea, helpless, utterly alone, bereft of all power to override the sweep. Your metabolic processes are suspended but the activity of your consciousness is not, so that your unsleeping mind ticks on and on in the most maddening way and there is nothing you can do to quiet its clamor. It is as though you must scratch your itching nose and your hands are tied behind your back. Eventually—you have no idea whether it has been an hour, a month, a century—you are plunked unceremoniously down into a relay station at the planet of your choice and there you are. Relay-sweep transport is ever so much more efficient than any system requiring vast vessels to plough the seas of space from world to world; but all the same it is a disquieting and somewhat degrading way to get around.

  So now we depart. Mayfly is the first to be captured by the sweep-beam. Perhaps half an hour later Nikomastir disappears, and then, almost immediately after, Velimyle. My own turn does not arrive for many long hours, which leaves me fidgeting gloomily in that golden meadow, wondering when, if ever, I will be taken, and whether some disjunction in our routes will separate me forever from my three companions. There is that risk—not so much that we would fail to arrive on Sidri Akrak at all, but that we might get there many years apart. I find that a melancholy thought indeed. More than that: it is terrifying.

  But finally the dazzling radiance of the sweep aura engulfs me and hurls me out into the Great Dark, and off I go, dropping freely through hundreds of light-years with nothing but an invisible sphere of force to protect me against the phantoms of the auxiliary spaces through which I fall.

  I hang in total stasis in a realm of utter blackness for what feels like a thousand centuries, an infinity of empty space at my elbow, as I go my zigzag way through the wormholes of the adjacent continuua.

  Within that terrible passivity my hyperactive mind ponders, as it all too often does, the deep questions of life—issues of honor, duty, justice, responsibility, the meaning of existence, subjects about which I have managed to learn nothing at all, basically, either in this life or the four that preceded it. I arrive at many profound conclusions during the course of my journey, but they fly away from me as fast as I construct them.

  I begin to think the trip will never end, that I will be one of those few unfortunate travelers, the one out of a billion who is caught in some shunt malfunction and is left to dangle in the middle of nowhere for all eternity, or at least for the ten or twenty thousand realtime years it will take for his metabolically suspended body to die. Has this actually ever happened to anyone? There are only rumors, unfounded reports. But there comes a time in every sweep-jump when I am convinced that it has happened to me.

  Then I see a glare of crimson and violet and azure and green, and my mask-sister Mayfly’s voice purrs in my ear, saying, “Welcome to Sidri Akrak, darling, welcome, welcome, welcome!”

  Nikomastir stands beside her. A moment later Velimyle materializes i
n a haze of color. The four of us have made a nearly simultaneous arrival, across who knows how many hundreds of light-years. We definitely do lead charmed lives, we four.

  Everyone knows about Sidri Akrak. The place was settled at least a thousand years ago and yet it still has the feel of a frontier world. Only the main streets of the half-dozen big cities are paved and all the rest are mere blue dirt that turn into rivers of mud during the rainy season. The houses are ramshackle slovenly things, lopsided and drafty, arrayed in higgledy-piggledy fashion as though they had been set down at random by their builders without any regard for logic or order. After all this time the planet is mostly jungle, a jungle that doesn’t merely encroach on the settlements but comes right up into them. Wild animals of the most repellent sorts are permitted to rampage everywhere, wandering about as they please.

  The Akrakikans simply don’t care. They pretend the animals—monstrous, appalling—aren’t there. The people of Sidri Akrak are a soulless bloodless bunch in the main, altogether indifferent to such things as comfort and beauty and proper sanitation. Primitive squalor is what they prefer, and if you don’t care for it, well, you’re quite free to visit some other world.

  “Why, exactly, did we come here?” I ask.

  It is a rhetorical question. I know perfectly well why: because Nikomastir, clueless about our next destination, had opened a void that Mayfly had mischievously filled with one of the most unappealing suggestions possible, just to see what Nikomastir would do with it, and Nikomastir had as usual given the matter about a thousandth of a second of careful consideration before blithely leaping headlong into the abyss, thereby taking the rest of us with him, as he has done so often before.

  But Nikomastir has already rearranged the facts in what passes for his mind.

  “I absolutely had to come here,” he says. “It’s a place I’ve always felt the need to see. My daddy was born on Sidri Akrak, you know. This is my ancestral world.”