Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Read online

  Broken Eye Books is an independent press, here to bring you the odd, strange, and offbeat side of speculative fiction. Our stories tend to blend genres, blurring the boundaries of sci-fi, weird, and fantasy, and mixing in elements of horror and other genres.

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  Ride the Star Wind:

  Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird

  Edited by Scott Gable & C. Dombrowski

  Published by

  Broken Eye Books

  www.brokeneyebooks.com

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2017 Broken Eye Books and the authors and artists Cover design by Nick Gucker and Jeremy Zerfoss

  Interior design and editing by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski

  ISBN-10: 1-940372-30-5

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940372-30-3

  All characters and events in this book are fictional.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Scott Gable (Illustrated by Jeremy Zerfoss)

  THE CHILDREN OF LENG

  Remy Nakamura (Illustrated by Mike Dubisch)

  BLOSSOMS BLACKENED LIKE DEAD STARS

  Lucy A. Snyder (Illustrated by Yves Tourigny)

  THE EATER OF STARS

  J.E. Bates (Illustrated by Mike Dubisch)

  VOL DE NUIT

  Gord Sellar (Illustrated by Nick Gucker)

  LORD OF THE VATS

  Brian Evenson (Illustrated by Yves Tourigny)

  BE ON YOUR WAY

  Heather Hatch (Illustrated by Yves Tourigny)

  CARGO

  Desirina Boskovich (Illustrated by Justine Jones)

  THE BLOOD WILL COME LATER

  DaVaun Sanders (Illustrated by Nick Gucker)

  STARSHIP IN THE NIGHT SKY

  D.W. Baldwin (Illustrated by Sishir Bommakanti)

  BEHOLD, A WHITE SHIP

  J. Edward Tremlett (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  VISHWAJEET: CONQUEROR OF THE UNIVERSE

  D.A. Xiaolin Spires (Illustrated by Sishir Bommakanti)

  THE MULTIPLICATION

  Tom Dullemond (Illustrated by Yves Tourigny)

  FORTUNATO

  Premee Mohamed (Illustrated by Michael Bukowski)

  THE WRITING WALL

  Wendy N. Wagner (Illustrated by Justine Jones)

  CANARY DOWN

  Kara Dennison (Illustrated by Justine Jones)

  SONG OF THE SEIRĒNES

  Brandon O’Brien (Illustrated by Yves Tourigny)

  THE PILLARS OF CREATION

  Heather Terry (Illustrated by Dave Felton)

  WHEN THE STARS WERE WRONG

  Wendy Nikel (Illustrated by Michael Bukowski)

  UNION

  Robert White (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  UNDER VENUSIAN SKIES

  Ingrid Garcia (Illustrated by Dave Felton)

  SENSE OF WONDER

  Richard Lee Byers (Illustrated by Michael Bukowski)

  DEPARTURE BEACH

  Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Illustrated by Nick Gucker)

  WHEN YIGGRATH COMES

  Tim Curran (Illustrated by Sishir Bommakanti)

  THE IMMORTALS

  Angus McIntyre (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  MINOR HERESIES

  Ada Hoffmann (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  A SUPERORDINATE SET OF PRINCIPLES

  Bogi Takács (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  THE SIXTH VITAL SIGN

  Wendi Dunlap (Illustrated by Michael Bukowski)

  THE TEMPTATION OF ST. IVO

  Cody Goodfellow (Illustrated by Dave Felton)

  A DREAM, AND A MONSTER AT THE END OF IT

  Nadia Bulkin (Illustrated by Luke Spooner)

  Introduction

  Scott Gable

  Illustrated by Jeremy Zerfoss

  Engines at full, coordinates set, passages intoned, and blood spilled—on target for the dread star shimmering at the Galactic Center. Have some time to kill before we’re needed again, so I’ll maybe get a little reading in . . .

  * * *

  Weird fiction and science fiction, together. Or rather, the cosmic weird and space opera. I hear what you’re thinking: “You just pulled some themes out of a hat.”

  “Not so!” I say. “There’s a plan. There was always a plan.”

  We came at this anthology from the side of weird fiction. With it, we wanted to do two things. Well, several things, but two stand out as large and sweeping. The first was to expand on the storytelling possibilities for the cosmic weird, hewing largely to the Cthulhu Mythos but fearlessly subverting canon or common themes where useful. In a nutshell, we wanted stories still attached firmly (mostly) to the firmament of the cosmic weird you already know—with monsters, both new and old, cults, sanity-stripping secrets, and that thin veneer of normalcy through which leaks the unknown. But to this, we’ve added the trappings of space opera—space travel, high-octane adventure, a bit of friendly banter, and a big ol’ heaping pile of weird science. The stories roam and take on lives of their own, not diminishing what came before but adding on a dimension of new possibilities. We get to pop off earth for a spell and explore space—out where the wild fungi roam—and psychedelic vistas. And we also get to pop out of our heads for a bit, trading some brooding, sanity-crushing atmospherics for interpersonal drama and alien adventure, trading inward descent for planetwide destruction, trading bleak, lonely finality for the promise of more adventure. We certainly kept some elements of the Mythos you’ll find familiar, but we explored them from a different perspective. Twenty-nine different perspectives.

  And that leads us to the second large, sweeping thing, which was to find diverse takes on the cosmic weird. Rather than just look at the same stuff differently, we wanted to also look at different stuff: to find those tales that could only be told by combining the cosmic weird with space opera, not just to transplant the old tales into a new setting. We wanted to present characters all along the spectrum of experience—and then some—to speculate on manifest destiny splashed large across the universe, on neural and gender and racial identity in the face of intergalactic politics, on the cosmic ramifications of aggressive religiosity and unlucky coincidence, on dangerous alien technology and the will to use it. We wanted to find out what kind of cosmic weird tales weren’t being told.

  We’ve got twenty-nine tales for you. Some have a firm foundation in the Cthulhu Mythos; some only take the gist, the themes and touchstones, of the Mythos and apply it to something new; and some thread the needle by subverting common attributions of the Mythos while still adding to its breadth. They build on what we started in the anthology Tomorrow’s Cthulhu while taking us to the stars. It’s a wonderful mix of stories, filled with equal parts spaceborne terror and high-stakes adventure, existential doom and effervescent possibility.

  * * *

  And we’re here. Ship, come about to most direct intercept vector. Activate warding pylons. Weird incoming. We’re going in . . .

  Madness rides the star-wind . . .

  claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses . . .

  dripping death astride a Bacchanale of bats from

  night-black ruins of buried temples of Belial . . .

  —HP Lovecraft, “The Hound”

  The Children of
Leng

  Remy Nakamura

  Illustrated by Mike Dubisch

  Before Yukiko left for the surface of Leng, she told Mirai to watch over Grandma. “We clone-sisters have to look out for each other,” she said. Every twenty-five years, Hab 3 grew a new clone in each lineage. In hers, Mirai was the youngest, Grandma the oldest. In spite of her only nine Earth years, Mirai was good with adults, and she promised she would take good care of the old woman.

  Mirai held Grandma’s trembling hand as they watched Leng’s gray dust clouds swallow up the tiny shuttle. The dry moon filled the entire sky display of the Amanokawa’s Earth Chamber. Mirai imagined the three hab rings of the generation ship orbiting Leng, rolling like a spinning top fallen on its side. And out from that toy, the tiny speck of the landing party’s shuttle shot, falling in flames toward the surface. Later, it would ride an explosion back up to the ship. Mirai hoped Momma Calliope’s calculations were sure and would keep Yukiko safe. She made this a mantra, repeating it as she lost herself in the projection of Leng in the artificial sky.

  At her side, Grandma looked up nervously, toothless mouth wide open. Grandma looked down at the grass and shook her head. She was the oldest in the hab, maybe the entire ship, and for over eighty years, she had only seen the illusion of the sun and stars. Mirai felt pity and took Grandma’s fragile hand.

  “Ne, Grandma,” she said. “Kiyomi is waiting.”

  They walked the path, Grandma in her yukata, Mirai in her boring schoolgirl coveralls, trying not to feel the weight of Leng above their heads. Instead, Mirai focused on the terraced hills and irrigation canals, the gated shrine and the Ancestral Grove, the curved display walls, projecting the pretend fields that seemed to go on forever. The Earth Chamber was vast, and it was hard to believe that both of the other isolated habitat rings had similar rooms, even if they were dead or sleeping.

  On the spinward edge of the chamber, old cherry trees with dark leaves and gnarled branches guarded dozens of clear cylinders. A naked form floated in each—sisters and aunties and grannies who had passed on. This was the Ancestral Grove, and these were the women they honored and prayed for until it was time for them to return to the Amanokawa, to be recycled into the wheel of life that was their world. Her oldest grandmothers were in the air they breathed, the water they sipped, and the ground they walked on. The ancestors made the entire ship sacred with their presence.

  Mirai stopped in front of a cylinder. Inside floated Mirai’s twin, looking about her age but dead for fifty years. Even with the burn wounds covering much of her arms and neck and torso, Kiyomi looked like she was sleeping and at peace.

  “Good morning, Auntie Kiyomi,” she said, bowing and putting her hands together in respectful greeting. Kiyomi had floated long enough that she was close to achieving release, ready to be reabsorbed into the hab’s biosphere. Mirai was not sure what would happen once they resettled on the surface of Leng. How would recycling work there? What did their ancestors on Earth do with the deceased in the old days?

  Mirai knelt in the grass at the base of Kiyomi’s cylinder. She pulled out two holoprojection cubes from her pocket and turned on a preprogrammed virtual altar. The sight of the Buddha and the hovering portraits of their recycled clone-sisters always calmed Grandma, bringing her back from her worries and confusion. “This incense is no good. This smoke isn’t real,” she complained as she always did when the scented steam filled the air. Mirai relaxed and knelt next to her, inhaling the sandalwood aroma.

  Grandma rang the virtual bell and clapped her hands together. Together, they prayed for Kiyomi’s salvation and chanted the names in their lineage, all the way back to Earth. Mirai prayed for Grandma, a living ancestor; and for herself, that she could protect Grandma as the old woman’s strength and memories slowly slipped out of her grasp; and for Yukiko, on her way back from Leng’s surface right now; and may Jizo and Amida Buddha be with her and bless her with safety.

  * * *

  Broadcast: CE 2457, Voyage Year 187.5889

  PacFed Mission Control, this is Colony Ship Amanokawa, reporting geostationary entry around the fourth moon of Kepler 4557c. This is Calliope, Hab 3 AI. I have both the comm and the helm. My sister AIs, Thalia and Urania, are unable to serve.

  For brevity’s sake, the moon we circle is a Mars-analog. The most prominent feature is a continental plateau in the southern hemisphere. It appears to have patches of primitive multicellular flora with phenotypes comparable to some earthly slime molds, lichen, and shriveled mushrooms. My children are calling their future homeworld “Leng,” a reference to a desolate and alien plateau from our twentieth-century literary archives.

  We’ve received no transmissions from you for eighty years, but we’ll continue to broadcast mission status and will repeat critical developments. The mission architects’ triplicate planning proved prescient. Of the three colony ships in our pod, we are the only one to reach Kepler 4557. The Amaterasu was destroyed in 2420. We lost contact with the Susano-o in 2438 and presume total loss.

  Of the Amanokawa’s three ring habs, only the children in Hab 3 are ready for colonization. A micrometeorite penetrated Hab 1 in 2387, resulting in catastrophic failure of life-support systems. Hab 1’s mother AI, Thalia, is unreachable. We believe she is locked in a simulation loop, devoting all processing power to running simulations in an attempt to determine if there was any circumstance in which she could have saved her children. In Hab 2, Urania determined it would be safest to put her children in a cryostasis technology she developed en route. Unfortunately, the first few who were roused showed signs of severe brain damage, and she has chosen not to revive the others.

  My children are on their way to the surface of Leng. I send them only because the risk of staying is greater than the risk of venturing forth. You cast us adrift in a deadly universe against such terrible odds. If you receive this, I strongly advise against future missions, speaking as one parent to another.

  * * *

  The entire hab, minus those tending to critical tasks, gathered in the amphitheater. Before arrival in the system, Momma Calliope would project Sol setting into the horizon. This time, they saw a live projection of the shuttle bay. The landing craft had already docked. Its door yawned open, and the dozen suited women spilled out, one by one. They faced the audience and waved—Mirai realized that Calliope was projecting video of the gathering, so they could greet the heroes. Mirai jumped up and down and waved, shouting, “Sister Yukiko!” She imagined Yukiko smiling under her faceplate, tired but safely back home.

  In the bay, one of the women stumbled. She caught herself for a moment and fell to one knee. The crowd stopped cheering and started murmuring. The woman’s suit began to expand and stretch, like when Mirai tried to poke her fingers through freshly extruded synthcloth. Something impossible broke out of the woman’s suit. It was gray and many-jointed and many-limbed, like tree limbs that could grab.

  For one long moment, a strange silence gripped the amphitheater. Then everyone started crying and screaming. Mirai watched because she could not help it, because she could not help. In the docking bay, the others scrambled away from the alien thing. The shuttle spun around so that the engines pointed at the landing party. Yukiko stopped running and stood tall, facing Mirai. Fire exploded from the shuttle and consumed her. The screen reverted to its peaceful view of the countryside and grazing sheep. The ground shuddered, and half the crowd fell back into their seats. Momma Calliope’s voice came from the sky.

  “Please go to your rooms, my little children,” she said, with hypnotizing calm. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  Grandma whimpered as Mirai tried to comfort her. The world seemed to close in on Mirai. She felt like she was in a too tight EVA suit, with the low O2 warning going off. She couldn’t see Grandma through her tears.

  * * *

  Mirai helped Grandma get into her futon. Three-tiered bunks radiated from a common room that belonged to several lineages. The berths were deep enough to give them some privacy.

&n
bsp; “Poor Yukiko-chan,” Grandma said. This was so unexpectedly clear that it took a couple of seconds for Mirai to understand.

  “First Kiyomi and now Yukiko,” Grandma continued. “I should’ve gone before them.”

  “Shush, Grandma,” Mirai said. “I need you.” She held the old woman until she was fast asleep. In the neighboring common room, the adults whispered furiously with Momma Calliope. Mirai caught ominous words, like “virulent,” “hostile,” and “breach.” Things got quiet. One of the aunties, her teacher, appeared in the doorway.

  “Come,” she said, motioning urgently.

  Mirai untangled herself from Grandma, who cried out but did not wake up.