PLANET MAGAZINE

Illustration: “Ghost” © 2005 by Patrick Stacy

Dan Constantine had steeled himself and thus was not at all surprised. When Lucian Renoir’s small hand came out in greeting as they stood at a side entrance of the magazine of Dan’s employ, Dan knew not to evaluate what his eyes saw. Here was a fellow, hardly a man yet, with fair eyes and skin and already acclaimed of greatness in the mode of the stalwarts of science. His eyes instantly balked at placing this fellow on the same podium as Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, and Hawking. Yet, what he’d done was as astounding as any of them. Lucian did not smile and his eyes merely darted at Dan’s own, and they quickly entered into a corridor of BOLD QUEST until they found the room where the interview was to be conducted.

Just inside the door another shaking of hands, this time with Lou Mangionne, Dan’s managing editor. “Monsieur Renoir, we couldn’t be happier to have you with us. Can I get you anything?”

“Yes, maybe two crackers and some mineral water, please.” Renoir’s English came out with a strong hint of his French heritage but otherwise was excellent.

The men quickly sat down and Renoir immediately took in the lighting. The protocol letters they’d exchanged had clearly stated his aversion to certain kinds of light, and the gentle nod of Renoir’s small head gave Dan immediate hope.

Lou spoke first and gestured with exaggerated, beefy strokes. “I’m glad we met initially by tele-conference, because you already know who we are. Of course we know who you are, but our thirty million subscribers are very curious about the most famous man on this planet. We hope our questions today will be forthright, to the point, and revealing. Monsieur Renoir, I’m going to leave in a minute and you and Dan can get to work. Do you have any questions for me at this time?”

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Illustration: “Genghis in Space” © 2007 by Romeo Esparrago

time dilation

we sail headlong
towards distant stars
blinking at us–

like sirens
their cosmic call
everywhere at once
apparently

but the light left
so long ago
we would be late
even if we could
eventually arrive there
in vestigial time

exhausted by the trip
& generations
later much too late
to explain to those
we met

how it is they
like us
must endure the ironies
of E=mc2

but the trick is
to trust the appearing
or the disappearing

or maybe just the slow dilation,
knowing better than to trust your eyes.

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Recently, the Planet Magazine offices received the following message from “The UFO Pilots Ass’n of Testbed Earth”. Interestingly, it came in via traditional fax. We were able to verify the information as correct, however, via the 1-866 contact number on the press release. When we called to ask, “A fax, WTF?! LOL!!”, the alien representative we spoke with told us that fax technology is a pure form of Lo-Tek and therefore fashionable among many in the Galactic Hierarchy.

Anyway, here is the communication in full, given the importance of the subject:

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Illustration: “Self-Portrait” © 2007 by Robert Sorensen

The sun was sinking beyond the grotesque spires. There were times when Jacob wanted to topple them. In a few years, maybe the Venus sands will have corroded them enough that a good loud shout would fell them. Somehow, though, he doubted that.

No matter how far he traveled, he couldn’t seem to get away from the spires. They rose into the blood-colored sky like flat-tipped, colored fingers embedded with specks of glass.

* * *

“Didn’t they say there were supposed to be jungles here?”

Stepping off the rocket a month earlier, Jacob had felt ready to slap the speaker, a man named Eddie. Jacob had been ready thousands of miles before they had even reached the planet. Being around Eddie was like traveling in a car with someone who reads aloud every road sign. Jacob would have avoided him, but the others aboard spoke incessantly of the golden days before the War, which had devastated almost all of the world. So long to the countries of leadership; it was every person for himself in the aftermath. There wasn’t a can of food to be found on Earth that one person wouldn’t slay another for in the hours and days following the devastation. Those who survived the War and found their way back to civilization had been lucky enough to find enough canned food — usually in or next to the hands of the dead. It was just two weeks after the War that the first rocket started to be built. They had to start from scratch; the War had turned the other spacecraft into fused pieces of metal.

“They said a lot of things back there,” Jacob replied to Eddie, feeling the hot air on his exposed face and hands, and looking around at the rocky baked ground. Still, not bad, he told himself. The terraformers did a pretty good job, considering the challenge.

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As of February 1, 2007, the Odyssey Writing Workshop is offering free podcasts on its website, www.odysseyworkshop.org.

Odyssey is an intensive, six-week workshop for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror whose work is approaching publication quality. The workshop is held each summer in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The podcasts are excerpts from lectures given by guest writers, editors, and agents at Odyssey. Every month or two, Odyssey will release a new podcast. Each one is ten to fifteen minutes long. The first podcast is an excerpt from a lecture Charles L. Grant gave in the summer of 2000 on characterization. Future podcasts will feature lecture excerpts from Robert J. Sawyer, Melissa Scott, Jeff VanderMeer, Gardner Dozois, and others.