Short stories

I swear I had already laid out the plot based on this concept of lunar ark. Too late, reality has caught up with me !

https://www.space.com/proposed-lunar-ark-for-biodiversity

Go and have a look. This is huge! Maybe even where you are, you who reads this, wherever you are on Earth.

https://www.space.com/universe-expansion-rate-may-vary.html

The HMS Explorer accelerated to one c, his crew sleeping deeply, each in his own cryogenic coffin. They cruised at that speed following the curvature of the universe. The theory was simple. They would return to their point and time of origin. It would take an infinite time and no time at all, relativistic speed helping. But maybe to a better point of origin. Earth was failing so fast now. No humans would survive another century.

They cruised and cruised. A few died when their cryogenic coffins malfunctioned. But all in all, four hundred awoke when the ship braked out of one c. Earth was in front of them, where they had expected it. But no communications came. No radio signal. No electromagnetic wavelength. They took their shuttles and landed, discovering homo neandertalis at the peak of his society.

Universe was not homogenous. Curvature and speed had brought them back. But not to their point of origin. So, well, they settled the land. Again. Hoping for the best.

I don’t want to be out there during one of them … and you ? Another idea for a short story

https://www.space.com/solar-super-storms-very-common.html

Original article : https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46811618

This signal has been decyphered. From insider source, here is what it says …

“My dear friend,
I have nowhere else to turn and am signaling to you as a last resort. I am the daughter of the great governor of the subimperial quadrant Epsilon Eridani. My late father has hidden antimatter shells worth trillions of Imperial credits, to prevent their use in terrible wars. They are now in ennemy territory and I am assembling a party to recover them.

Have you ever watched this most excellent short movie ?

‘Dear Satan’, An Animated Short About a Girl Who Accidentally Writes Letter to Satan Instead of Santa

Here is the short story it inspired me.

It had started as a mad plan from Baal, his favorite, after an apprenticeship on Earth in a marketing agency. They would switch two letters and create a new identity. Hell had a bad reputation? Baal’s design would change it forever. They would keep his colors, the fiery red, as an emblem and change everything else. The location, the henchmen, everything.

And for a wonderful century, it worked. Santa enjoyed his new life as only one condemned for eternity could. And he did his best. Baal had requested to become the lead deer and seemed happy. The devils continued to help him and the damned became small elfs, crafting gifts under his orders. They labored without a break, sweating day after day.

Until a dark night of full moon in November when a little girl broke the spell and wrote to him, his real him, Satan. Some says, hell is paved with good intentions…

A few weeks ago, the SciFi Round Table organized a competition : write a story with 100 words. Here is what I submitted :

The Professor bargained with the Devil. Prove Riemann hypothesis within a day for my soul. Otherwise, make me a rich man.

The Devil had hated mathematics for ages. He tricked many scientists just because he couldn’t stand science. But a bargain bound him. He worked like Hell, as only he could, travelled through Time and to other dimensions.

A day later, he had no solution. So he took the only decision he could.

He appeared in the Professor’s classroom and laid out his equations on the blackboard. Since then, any who knock at the door is transformed into a frog.

Nota : this is a rewriting of an old classics from the 60s I read long time ago The devil and Simon Flagg from Arthur Porges. He had the idea. I merely rewrote the story in 100 words. 🙂