Exhausted, she gave up for a while, resting her head on her knees. Odd, she realized, that she could move into that position voluntarily, but couldn't point at the door. "It's only when I'm trying to tell somebody else something that my body shuts down," she thought.
The kids were getting scared.
"You okay, Miss?"
"I want Mommy."
"What's wrong with teacher?"
"I don't like it―stop it."
Wanting to comfort them, she worried she was just frightening them more by flailing at them desperately. She needed time to think. Her rest didn't last long. The children's confused weeping changed tone, becoming frantic.
Zulaikha raised her head. Bright little Danny, usually so articulate, flopped his mouth like a seabass. His eyes bulged from his slackened face. The other kids, sensing his despair, started to panic. Some crouched on the floor, hands crammed in mouths, muffling hysterical sobs. Some curled up under their chairs or in the play corner, surrounded by toys.
Crawling around the room, Zulaikha wanted to comfort them. But she must have looked nothing like their familiar Miss Akhami. When they backed away, she tried to say, "There, now. Everything's okay," but she felt her face spasm.
She reached out to pat Yuko's shoulder, but her hand, with its fingers crooked menacingly, froze inches from the child.
"Nooo," Yuko wailed, pulling her sweater over her face.
"I'm so sorry, honey," Zulaikha longed to say, but couldn't.
Hoping that regular movement would help alleviate whatever kind of nerve disorder this was, she kept crawling around with a determined rhythm. She was nearing Danny, who hadn't made a sound in several minutes.
From the tension around his eyes, she could tell he wanted to run, wanted to scream, wanted to call for his mama. But all he could do was stare at his teacher, as blocked from self-expression as she was.
"God, this virus is fast," Zulaikha thought. "How can I keep it from spreading to the other children?" She focused on trying to outsmart her illness. "If I can crawl," she thought, maybe I can corral the kids away from Danny."
The execution of this plan started off fine. She made her way toward the clump of kids still gawping at Danny. But as soon as she came within inches of them, her movements slipped out of her control. Without warning, she flopped flat onto the floor and rolled over manically, sending a trio of girls shrieking.
As soon as Zulaikha gave up on the idea of communicating with the children, she was able to command her body to behave again. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that avoiding all those terrified little faces would help her keep her sanity. However, her ears sabotaged that sensible plan. The chorus of cries and whispers around her was growing weaker. Zulaikha wanted to believe it was because the kids were too worn out to sob any more. Instinct warned her that the truth was more sinister.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes and looked around. One by one, the children's mouths went limp and their eyes filled with silent horror. The illness snatched them all.
Medda
Anger threatened to drown Medda. She didn't know why she was angry. Frustrated, yes. Tired, absolutely. But there was no reason for the rage she felt. It slithered through her veins, heating her blood, controlling her movements.
"Captain, please calm down," begged Banjeree.
Her intellect told her that his outstretched arms were meant to be caring. Another part of her, something primordial, overrode her reason. She moved suddenly and forcefully, not intending to. Her throat was hoarse from a scream she couldn't hear. Warm liquid splattered onto her face. Medda squinted and blinked to clear her eyes, opening them to a crimson filter over the world.
And she saw Banjeree lying on the floor, trying to dam a torrent of blood in his abdomen with trembling hands. And she saw the folding knife in her hand, dripping blood. Her hand was not trembling.
An ensign named Li knelt next to Banjeree, sobbing as Banerjee's life bled away. "Captain, what have you done?" she asked Medda.
"Doctor Markel?" Medda imagined calling. Although she could hear it in her head, she knew her mouth wasn't forming the words. Scanning the crimson-tinged room, she found the doctor.
"Doctor Markel?" she still couldn't say. The doctor faced a blank monitor with his back to her. Medda's voice lay dormant. "Help Banjeree, Doctor. I've done something." There was nothing for him to hear. Nevertheless, Medda sensed that her own silence wasn't what kept Dr. Markel from turning around.
Pushing through her dread, she reached toward him to poke his shoulder. The little knife in her hand distracted her mid-movement and she dropped the weapon just behind the doctor. At the clattering, the doctor turned.
From the lost, desperate expression on his face and the way his mouth hung open uselessly, Medda recognized his condition. "Same as me," she tried to tell him with her eyes. If he understood, he didn't show it. All he showed was fear. His fingers twisted around each other.
Ensign Li gasped at Banjeree's side. When she turned, Medda saw what she expected: the horrified, vacuous look on Li's face. Two other crew members circled Li and Banjeree warily.
A young major whose name Medda couldn't recall entered the bridge. He gave the bloody corpse of Banjeree a quick, wide-eyed look, then saluted Medda. "There's an airborne sickness, Captain," he reported with almost hilarious understatement. Apparently he believed she was still in command of the Exceptional.
"I know about the sickness," she told him silently.
Oblivious, or insane, or blinded in the presence of power, the major went on. "Ma'am, I've received emergency calls from every sector of the ship. People are, I don't know, shutting down somehow. I was getting a report from the director of Culinary, but he stopped, right in the middle of talking. Started sort of gagging." The young major's voice shook. "Never said another word."
Medda tried to grunt sympathetically or soften her face, or pat this poor guy on the shoulder. She couldn't do any of that, and he still hadn't taken a close look at her or Dr. Markel.
"Whatever happened to the Culinary Director," the major said, "I guess he couldn't turn comms off." He pointed to Dr. Markel, who swayed helplessly in front of the control board. "Kinda like the doc there. Anyway, the comms were open and I could hear everything, you know?" His eyes darted frantically as he described the experience. "Voices suddenly went muffled, like there was someone strangling them. People saying, Call a doctor, or whatever, and then they'd stop talking and start gurgling, and someone else would get all freaked out and crying and say, Call a doctor, and then it would happen to them."
Finally he looked hard at Medda. "Oh god, oh god, oh god," he whimpered, folding down onto his knees and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. "It's everyone. We're all lost."
Medda scanned the bridge: the computer systems hummed away. Maybe their programming was so good that they'd take the Exceptional all the way to the Belkin Fields Galaxy, with no help from the humans.
But what if the ship did make it all the way to Alendara? What would the colonists on that planet find? Probably a ghost ship. Certainly a ghost ship.
Medda looked at Banjeree, bled out on the floor. The blood was red. Such pretty red. It was soothing to her eyes, red was.
Sitting cross-legged in a pool of her friend's blood, Medda laid her hands on his sticky wound. It was still warm.
Ndu
Ba'al licked Ndu's face. He wanted to hug his good dog, but his arms wouldn't move that way.
"Security Ops?" said a stressed voice in the call speaker. "We need help. Is anybody there?"
Ndu, unable to speak, looked around the police station. It was full of people, but were any of them still "there," he wondered? The young woman, Karin, had managed half a self-righteous speech before the sickness got her and she stopped mid-sentence and started drooling.
"Are you okay, Miss?" Ndu had asked. "You want some water?" Those turned out to be his last words. It didn't hurt. It was more like numbness. Almost comforting. Ndu had never enjoyed talking anyway.
/> And he still had Ba'al. She wasn't affected. Maybe dogs couldn't catch whatever it was. Or was it just that she couldn't speak to begin with, so the sickness would do something different to her?
"Help! Please!" cried a voice through the comms. The mute people in the station looked at the speakers.
One who could still talk, an officer much younger than Ndu who had done nothing but weep for the past twenty minutes, pressed "Reply" on the screen. "We can't even help ourselves," she informed the caller.
There was no response. Another one down.
The young officer started sobbing again, pressing her hands to her cheeks. She spun and addressed Ndu where he sat. "I don't know what to do. What should I do?"
Ndu figured his face was blank, and he didn't try to change it. He didn't care what she should do. The old him, the Ndu of half an hour before, would have taken her by the shoulders and tried to think of something wise to say. What he actually said, though, would come out all awkward and strange. The young officer would shrink from him, misconstruing his words. It had happened like that a thousand times in his life.
The new Ndu in this new world wasn't obligated to say anything or fix anything or comfort anyone. He hoped the numbness in his tongue was permanent. He didn't want to talk. Now he could be left alone.
The only thing he did wish was that he could put his arms around his dog. Ndu closed his eyes and focused on Ba'al's warm, wet kisses and her concerned panting. No point in watching everyone else suffer; nothing he could do to help anyway.
"God knows," he thought, "I helped enough people in my time on the force." He smiled slightly, his eyes still closed. "These last few minutes, or hours, or days, I'm looking out for Number One."
Zulaikha
Zulaikha's only hope of saving the children was to go for help herself. Even if she couldn't explain the problem, even if she couldn't point toward the classroom, maybe a fellow teacher or a parent would recognize her and think to check on the kids.
Crawling on all fours past children who looked at her longingly but only groaned, Zulaikha made it to the hallway. She found a war zone out there. It looked as if a bomb had gone off, but the only thing it had blown up was people's minds. Victims of the blast wandered aimlessly or stood staring or slumped against walls. Stymied hands hovered near the tears on hollow faces, unable to wipe them away.
There were still a few wretches who could speak, not that it did them much good. A handsome, dark-haired man cradled Zulaikha's colleague, a science teacher named Michael Wen. "Michael, Michael," the younger man keened, rocking the man he obviously loved. Michael gawped at nothing. "It's me. It's Goren. Can you hear me, Michael?"
"He can hear you," Zulaikha wanted to say.
Rising to her knees, she tried to push toward Michael and Goren, but her muscles wouldn't cooperate. "Keep talking to him," she prayed. "What I wouldn't give for someone to talk to me right now."
"I love you, Michael."
Because Zulaikha's body had turned her away against her will, Goren's voice was behind her now. "My poor darling Mich—" A quiet rattling replaced the voice. A heavy thud. Managing to turn, Zulaikha saw Michael roll away from his partner's limp arms. Goren stared at nothingness.
Zulaikha's view was cut off by a pair of legs in fashionable plastic jeans. A teenager. She recognized this girl from an incident a month before. The girl had been trouble, mouthing off to everyone. Hadn't liked life on the Exceptional. Claimed her parents forced her to come along. Now all this girl could do was moan and drool. Pointless. Finished.
Zulaikha rested her face in her hands, trying to remember Earth. Why she'd left. Could it have been so bad that it was worth risking this?
She remembered now. It had been horrible. Abuse. Discrimination. Fearing for her life, not only because of warfare but because, in her culture, women weren't suppose to love to read. Weren't supposed to have an imagination. Her imagination had saved her then. The stories she invented had kept her alive until she'd found the call to join the Exceptional crew as a teacher. So much promise. So much hope. Didn't need her wild stories anymore, except to entertain the children.
Zulaikha looked up now at the silent, fearful people. Worse than Earth. A story began to take shape in her mind, blocking out the horror, replacing the world with a new reality. She narrated to herself.
"The stars are beautiful, sighed a princess in a shimmering jeweled gown. More beautiful than you? the dark stranger inquired. He took the princess by the hand and pushed off into space. The stars blazed like ... like ..."
Zulaikha furrowed her brow and concentrated, but she couldn't come up with a simile that wasn't trite. "Like fire?" she thought critically. "Like the sun?" Panicked for her story's sake, she looked around. What if her imagination let her down and her mind became empty? How would she cope?
"The stars blazed like fresh desire."
That wasn't her thought, yet somehow it had entered her head. Looking around, Zulaikha tried to tell which of her fellow passengers had thought such a lovely simile. Everyone's face was blank. It could have been anyone. It could even have been a mind outside the ship. Intrigued, Zulaikha continued the story. "The couple danced from star to star, seeking a safe haven."
Another mind added, "Monsters were everywhere, but these two people carried safety in their own spirits, an armor of love."
Another thought-voice joined in. "The two created a planet in Deep Space from the remnants of shattered ships and lives."
"They floated forever in peace," another consciousness contributed, "and nothing of the physical world mattered."
More and more minds found freedom and comfort by linking into Zulaikha's story. The story grew and changed and twisted and never ended until all the minds grew still. And the Exceptional drifted on.
Drawing on an eclectic background that includes degrees in classical languages and musicology, Anne E. Johnson has published in a wide variety of topics and genres. She's written feature articles about music in The New York Times and Stagebill Magazine, and seven non-fiction books for kids with the Rosen Group. Dozens of her short stories can be found in Liquid Imagination, PerihelionSF, FrostFire Worlds, Shelter of Daylight, The Future Fire, Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, and elsewhere.
The humorous Webrid Chronicles, a series of science fiction novels that includes Green Light Delivery and Blue Diamond Delivery, are published by Candlemark & Gleam. She is also the author of two tween novels: paranormal mystery Ebenezer's Locker and medieval mystery Trouble at the Scriptorium.
Besides writing, Anne stays active in the literary community by volunteering as a judge at RateYourStory, where she is also the social media manager. On the website Eat Sleep Write she contributes a weekly column about children's literature. Anne lives in Brooklyn with her husband, playwright Ken Munch. Learn more about Anne on her website, blog, and Twitter.
Remembrance Day
by Simon Kewin
Magnus kept one eye on the gang of Martians. Five of them, roaring with laughter in the corner of the bar. They were going to be trouble. Slaughter-tourists up from the equatorial cities, Wells or Bradbury. A few days running wild on the lawless Strip and they could go back home and tell everyone how crazy it had been. It was always the same. The people who actually lived on Möbius were rarely the trouble-makers.
It occurred to him, once again, that running a bar was pretty similar to combat. Long periods of boredom, constant vigilance, the occasional explosion of violence. He scanned the room as he poured Mars Red for one of his regulars. In truth the raucous Martians didn't concern him much. He could deal with them easily enough. It was the ghost two tables over that really worried him. A ghost from his past, sitting there alone, sipping her drink and studying him. It couldn't be chance she was here.
Images flashed through his mind as he thought about her. Scraps of memory. Walking with her hand-in-hand through the hubbub of some Earth city. The feel of her body as they embraced. The smell of her hair. The memories were random, disjointed, their sequ
ence unclear. He wished he had more.
With a crash of glasses, one of the Martians tipped their table over. The others cheered. An asteroid-belt trucker drinking nearby stood up, his hair sprinkled with shards of glass. He roared something and strode towards the Martians, pulling hand-held weaponry from a holster.
Magnus picked up the zapper he kept charged behind the bar and aimed it at the Martian. Fifteen metres, stationary target, easy. He could have hit with his eyes shut. He fired, blasting the Martian through the air to crash into the wall beyond. The bar went silent, just for a moment. The trucker nodded, justice done, and returned to his drink. Magnus strode over to the unconscious man slumped in a huddle of limbs on the floor. He'd recover; the shot wasn't fatal. If people thought they might get killed, they went to other bars.
The other Martians didn't appear to appreciate his thoughtfulness. They jostled around him, wide-eyed, urging each other on. They were, Magnus thought, little more than boys.
"You killed Dev!" One of them held a knife. He lunged at Magnus.
Magnus stepped aside. The knife nicked his bare forearm. It was amusing more than anything. They probably had guns, bought somewhere on the Strip to make them feel dangerous, but he still couldn't take them seriously. He had fought the Basilisks hand-to-hand for three years.
He nodded to the mech, standing stationary in the centre of the room like some towering metal war-god. Tourists often thought it was decoration, a three-metre prop erected in the centre of the bar to give the place some atmosphere. When it moved and began firing their expressions were always a delight to see.
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