GlitterShip

You Inside Me

by Tori Curtis

It'll be fun, he'd said. Everyone's doing it. You don't have to be looking for romance, it's just a good way to meet people.

"I don't think it's about romance at all," Sabella said. She wove her flower crown into her braids so that the wire skeleton was hidden beneath strands of hair. "I think if you caught a congressman doing this, he'd have to resign."

"That's 'cause we've never had a vampire congressman," Dedrick said. He rearranged her so that her shoulders fell from their habitual place at her ears, her chin pointed up, and snapped photos of her. "Step forward a little—there, you look more like yourself in that light."

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 57 for May 21st, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you.

GlitterShip is now part of the Audible afflilate program. What this means is that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible to get a free audio book and 30 day trial at Audible to check out the service.

If you're looking for more queer science fiction to listen to, there's a full audio book available of the Lightspeed Magazine "Queers Destroy Science Fiction" special issue, featuring stories by a large number of queer authors, including John Chu, Chaz Brenchley, Rose Lemberg, and many others.

To download a free audiobook today, go to http://www.audibletrial.com/GlitterShip and choose an excellent book to listen to, whether that’s "Queers Destroy Science Fiction" or something else entirely.

Today I have a story and a poem for you. The poem is "Dionysus in London" by Tristan Beiter.

Tristan Beiter is a student at Swarthmore College studying English Literature and Gender and Sexuality Studies. He loves reading poetry and speculative fiction, some of his favorite books being The Waste Land, HD’s Trilogy, Mark Doty’s Atlantis, Frances Hardinge’s Gullstruck Island, and Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. When not reading or writing, he can usually be found crafting absurdities with his boyfriend or yelling about literary theory.

Dionysus in London

by Tristan Beiter

The day exploded, you know.

Last night a woman with big bouffant hair told me, “Show me a story where the daughter runs into a stop sign and it literally turns into a white flower.”

I fail to describe a total eclipse and the throne of petrified wood sank into the lakebed.

James made love to Buckingham while I pulled the honeysuckle to me, made a flower crown for the leopards flanking me while I watched red and white invert themselves, white petals pushing from the center of the sign as the post wilted until all that remained was a giant lotus on the storm grate waiting to rot or wash away.

I let it stay there while the Scottish king hid behind the Scottish play and walked behind me, one eye out for the mark left when locked in. You go witchy in there—or at least you—or he, or I—learn to be afraid of the big coats and brass buttons, like the ones in every hall closet; you never know if they will turn, like yours, into bats and bugs and giant tarantulas made from wire hangers.

The woman showed me our reflections in the shop window while one or the other man in the palace polished the silver for his lover’s table and asked me who I loved; I decided on the cream linen, since the wool was too close to the pea coat that hung

by your door. I suppose that the cat is under the car; that’s probably where it fled to as we walked, knowing we already found that the ivy in your hair was artificial as the bacchanal, or your evasion, Sire, of the question (and of the serpents who are well worth the well offered to them with the wet wax on my crown). I

suppose the car is under the cat, in which case it must be a very large cat, or else a very small car. I eat your teeth. I see brilliantine teeth floating in her thick red lipstick. James tears apart the rhododendron chattering (about) his incisors and remembering the flesh and—nothing so exotic as a Sphinx, maybe a dust mote or lip-marks left on the large leather chaise. Teeth gleam from the shadows where I wait, thyrsus raised with the cone almost touching the roof of the forest, to drown

in a peacock as it swallows (chimney swifts?) the sun—or was it son—or maybe it was just a grape I fed it so it would eat the spiders crawling from the closet. It struts across the palace green like it owns the place, like it will replace the hunting- grounds with fields of straggling mint that the king would never ask for.

The woman teases up her hair before the mirror, filling the restroom with hairspray and big laughs before walking back into the restaurant, where we wait to make ourselves over—the way the throne did when the wood crumbled under the pressure of an untold story, leaving nothing but crystals and dust.

We argued for an hour over whether to mix leaves and flowers, plants and gems, before settling on four crowns, one for each of us.

Her hair mostly covers hers. The cats will love it though, playing with teeth that were knocked into your wine in the barfight (why did you order wine in a place like that, Buck?) and you got replaced with gold, like I wear woven in my braids as the sun sets on the daughter that, unsurprisingly, none of us have. But

if we did, she would turn yield signs into dahlias and that would be the sign to move on with the leopards and their flashing teeth and brass eyes and listen. To the walls and rivers, to the sculpture that is far whiter than me falling. And to the peacock which has just eaten another bug so you don’t have to kill it. Get yourself a dresser and cover it with white enamel it’ll hold up, and no insects live in dressers. Keep

the ivy and the pinecone in a mother-of-pearl trinket box with your plastic volumizing hair inserts and jeweled combs. And put a cat and dolphin on it, to remember.

Next, our short story this episode is "You Inside Me" by Tori Curtis

Tori Curtis writes speculative fiction with a focus on LGBT and disability issues. She is the author of one novel, Eelgrass, and a handful of short stories. You can find her at toricurtiswrites.com and on Twitter at @tcurtfish, where she primarily tweets about how perfect her wife is.

CW: For descriptions of traumatic surgery.

You Inside Me

by Tori Curtis

It'll be fun, he'd said. Everyone's doing it. You don't have to be looking for romance, it's just a good way to meet people.

"I don't think it's about romance at all," Sabella said. She wove her flower crown into her braids so that the wire skeleton was hidden beneath strands of hair. "I think if you caught a congressman doing this, he'd have to resign."

"That's 'cause we've never had a vampire congressman," Dedrick said. He rearranged her so that her shoulders fell from their habitual place at her ears, her chin pointed up, and snapped photos of her. "Step forward a little—there, you look more like yourself in that light."

He took fifteen minutes to edit her photos ("they'll expect you to use a filter, so you might as well,") and pop the best ones on her profile.

Suckr: the premier dating app for vampires and their fanciers.

"It's like we're cats," she said.

"I heard you like cats," he agreed, and she sighed.

Hi, I'm Sabella. I've been a vampire since I was six years old, and I do not want to see or be seen by humans. I'm excited to meet men and women between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five.

"That's way too big of an age range," Dedrick said. "You want to be compatible with these people."

"Yeah, compatible. Like my tissue type."

"You don't want to end up flirting with a grandpa."

I'm excited to meet men and women between the ages of twenty and thirty-five.

I'm most proud of my master's degree.

You should message me if you're brave and crazy.

It took days, not to mention Dedrick’s exasperated return, before she went back on Suckr. She paced up the beautiful wood floors of her apartment, turning on heel at the sole window on the long end and the painted-over cast-iron radiator on the short. When she felt too sick to take care of herself, her mom came over and put Rumors on, wrapped her in scarves that were more pretty than functional, warmed some blood and gave it to her in a sippy cup. Sabella remembered nothing so much as the big Slurpees her mom had bought her, just this bright red, when she’d had strep the last year she was human.

She wore the necklace Dedrick had given her every day. It was a gold slice of pepperoni pizza with “best” emblazoned on the back (his matched, but read “friends,”), and she fondled it like a hangnail. She rubbed the bruises on her arms, where the skin had once been clear and she'd once thought herself pretty in a plain way, like Elinor Dashwood, as though she might be able to brush off the dirt.

She called her daysleeper friends, texted acquaintances, and slowly stopped responding to their messages as she realized how bored she was of presenting hope day after day.

2:19:08 bkissedrose: I'm so sorry.

2:19:21 bkissedrose: I feel like such a douche

2:19:24 sabellasay: ???

2:20:04 sabellasay: what r u talkin about

2:25:56 bkissedrose: u talked me down all those times I would've just died

2:26:08 sabellasay: it was rly nbd

2:26:27 bkissedrose: I've never been half as good as you are

2:26:48 bkissedros

Njàbò

by Claude Lalumière

Njàbò, my only child, my daughter, walks with me. She is as old as the forest, while I was born but three and a half decades ago. Our ears prick up at the sound of drums. We scan the sky and spot a column of smoke to the northwest. We run toward it. The ground trembles under our feet.

The settlement is ringed by rotting carcasses. Their faces are mutilated, but the meat is left uneaten. These are the bodies of our people.

I weep, but Njàbò is past tears. She sheds her calf body. Njàbò the great, the wise, the ancient thunders with anger; her flapping ears rouse the wind.

[Full transcript after the cut.]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 56. This is your host Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.

Our story today is Njàbò by Claude Lalumière, read by Leigh Wallace.

Claude Lalumière (claudepages.info) is the author of Objects of Worship (2009), The Door to Lost Pages (2011), Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes (2013), and Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment (2017). He has published more than 100 stories, several of which have been adapted for stage, screen, audio, and comics. His books and stories have been translated into seven languages. Originally from Montreal, he now lives in Ottawa.

Leigh Wallace is a Canadian writer, artist and public servant. You can find her latest story in Tesseracts 19: Superhero Universe and her art at leighfive.deviantart.com

Njàbò

by Claude Lalumière

Njàbò, my only child, my daughter, walks with me. She is as old as the forest, while I was born but three and a half decades ago. Our ears prick up at the sound of drums. We scan the sky and spot a column of smoke to the northwest. We run toward it. The ground trembles under our feet.

The settlement is ringed by rotting carcasses. Their faces are mutilated, but the meat is left uneaten. These are the bodies of our people.

I weep, but Njàbò is past tears. She sheds her calf body. Njàbò the great, the wise, the ancient thunders with anger; her flapping ears rouse the wind.

Njàbò charges the human settlement, trumpeting her fury. Everywhere there is ivory, carved into jewellery and other trinkets, evidence of the mutilation of our people. She squeezes the life out of the humans and pounds them on the ground. The humans and their houses are crushed beneath the powerful feet of the giant Njàbò. She kicks down the fireplaces and tramples the ashes. She screams her triumph.

Njàbò’s shouts go on for hours. Our scattered tribe gathers from around the world to the site of Njàbò’s victory.

Throughout all of this I have been weeping, from pride and awe at Njàbò’s beauty, from horror at the deaths of both elephants and humans, from relief, from grief, from sadness and loneliness at my child’s independence. And, like too many nights of the past eight years, I wake, quietly weeping, from this dream that is always the same.

Waters is sitting on Cleo’s chest, nuzzling her nose, purring. Cleo’s cheeks are crusty from dried tears. She guesses that she’s been awake for two hours or so. She’s been lying on her back—motionless, eyes wide open—trying to forget the dream and the emotions it brings. The skylight above the bed reveals that dawn is breaking. She should get up, get started.

She stretches. It sends Waters leaping from her chest and out through the beaded curtain in the doorway. Cleo slides out of bed, two king-size futons laid side-by-side on the floor. She looks at her lovers in the diffused early-morning light: a domestic ritual that marks the beginning of her day.

Tall, graceful, long-legged Tamara, with her baby-pink skin, rosebud breasts, and long hair dyed in strands of different colours, has kicked off the sheet, lying on her back.

The hard curve of West’s shoulder peeks out from under the sheet he holds firmly under his armpit.

Assaad is sleeping on his stomach, his face buried in his pillow, his arm now stretched out over Cleo’s pillow, his perfectly manicured feet sticking out from the bed, as always.

And Patrice—gorgeous, broad-shouldered Patrice—isn’t back from work yet.

Patrice comes home from the night shift at The Small Easy to find Cleo yawning over the kitchen table, the night’s tears not yet washed away. He crouches and hugs her from behind.

“You look so tired, baby.” Cleo hears the smile in his quiet voice, the smile she’s always found so irresistible.

She turns and rubs her face against his chest. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Patrice kisses her on the forehead. “Then go back to bed. Let me make breakfast.” Again, that smile. She feels herself melting, almost going to sleep in his arms.

“But,” she says, yawning, “you’ve been cooking all night at the café. You should rest.”

He laughs and pats her butt. “I’ll be alright, Cleo. Allow me the pleasure of taking care of you, okay?”

She thinks, Can you make my dream go away? But she says nothing. She squeezes his hand, forces a smile, and leaves the kitchen.

For a few seconds, Cleo is confused, does not know where she is. Has she been sleeping? And then she remembers. This is the girls’ bedroom, the girls’ bed. The curtains are drawn, the door is ajar. What time is it?

She’d quietly snuck into the girls’ room after Patrice had come home, careful not to wake them. She’d crawled in between them and was calmed by their sweet, eight-year-old smells. She had only meant to lie down until Patrice called breakfast. Where were the girls now?

Shouldn’t Cleo be smelling tea, pancakes, eggs, toast? Hearing the chaotic banter of the breakfast table?

The kitchen is deserted and wiped clean. Indefatigable Patrice, again. No-one leaves a kitchen as spotless as he does. She looks at the clock: it’s nearly half past noon. She can’t remember the last time she slept in. Last night, the dream was more vivid than usual; it drained her.

Her mouth feels dry. She gets orange juice from the fridge and gulps it down. She wanders from room to room. She stops in the bathroom to splash her face.

The quiet is strange. She usually spends the morning and early afternoon tutoring the girls. West must be at the university, Assaad at The Smoke Shop. Patrice, she notices, is sleeping. Waters is curled up on the pillow next to his head. Where are the girls? And then she remembers: Tamara is back. She must have taken them out somewhere.

Just two days ago, Tamara returned from a six-month trip to Antarctica. She brought back photographs she’d taken of strange vegetation, species that paleobiologists claim have not grown for millions of years.

Cleo ends her tour of the house with Tamara’s office and is startled to see her sitting at her computer, fiddling with the photos from her trip. “Tam?”

“Clee, love, come.” Tamara, naked as she almost always is around the house, waves her over. Cleo is enchanted by her beauty, more so all the time. Cleo missed her while she was away.

Cleo settles in Tamara’s lap. Tamara is so tall that Cleo’s head only reaches up to her neck. Tamara’s poised nudity makes Cleo feel frumpy and unattractive, especially now that she notices the rumpled state of her own clothes, slept-in all morning. The feeling evaporates as Tamara squeezes her, digging her nose into Cleo’s neck, breathing her in. “I haven’t been back long enough to stop missing you, Clee. There were no other women on the expedition.” Tamara pulls off Cleo’s T-shirt, cups her sagging breasts. As always, Cleo is fascinated by the chiaroscuro of the soft pink of Tamara’s skin against her own dark brown. “They were like little boys, nervous at having their clubhouse invaded by a female, at having their secret handshakes revealed, protective of their toys.”

“Tam ... Where are the girls?” How could Cleo have thought that Tamara had taken the girls out? Of all of them, Tamara was the least interested in the girls. She let them crawl all over her when they felt like it and was unfalteringly affectionate with them, but she never set aside time for them. She was vaguely uneasy with the idea of children.

“West took them to school. At breakfast, he talked about his lecture, to warm up. His class today is about the symbolic use of animals in politics. One of his case studies is about African elephants. You should have seen Njàbò! She got very excited and asked him tons of questions. She wanted to go hear West at school, and he thought it would be a treat for both of them. Especially seeing as how you seemed to need the sleep.”

“I can’t believe Sonya would be interested in that.”

Tamara runs her fingers through Cleo’s hair and says, “Doesn’t Sonya always do what Njàbò wants? Sometimes I think all of us are always doing what Njàbò wants. She’ll grow into a leader, that one. She’ll trample anyone in her path.”

Cleo is momentarily reminded of her dream, but she makes an effort to push it away. She jokes, “Wanna play hooky and go out for lunch? At The Small Easy?”

Eight years ago, Cleo gave birth to Njàbò. Most people thought that the girl looked like Patrice, especially because of her dark skin—like Patrice’s, darker than Cleo’s—but she could just as easily have been fathered by West or Assaad. The five of them had agreed not to do any tests to find out.

Assaad was Sonya’s biological father and her legal guardian. She’d been the daughter of their friends Karin and Pauline. Both women had died in a car accident the day after Njàbò was born. Sonya was three months older than Njàbò.

A few days later, a grey-brown cat jumped through the kitchen window while Patrice prepared breakfast. The cat drank water from a dirty bowl in the sink, and then refused to leave. The family adopted him and

Episode 55 is part of the Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 issue!

"The Huntsman's Sequence" is a GlitterShip original.

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here:http://www.glittership.com/buy/

The Huntsman's Sequence

by Octavia Cade

01011011101111....

m-configuration: Knife

The war is blank.

Not in its individual parts, but as a whole. It covers everything, smothers everything. It blows continents open with opportunity. Much of that opportunity is for death, for carcasses hung up and split open in massive consumption, a grind of bone and blood, but for some the opportunity is a tool for all that. Something to insert into the space between ribs, to lever open and dissect.

Not everyone dies in war. Not everyone sinks into blank nothingness, into unmarked graves and mass burials, into fields turned red and mud that stinks of iron. Some fight with symbols instead of flesh, their weapons heady and hidden, and it is in combination and in permutation that Turing finds his battleground.

[Full transcript after the cut.]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 55 for May 5, 2018. This is your host Keffy and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you today.

Before we get started, I want to let you know that GlitterShip is now part of the Audible afflilate program. What this means is that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible to get a free audio book and 30 day trial at Audible to check out the service.

If you're looking for a great book with queer characters, I recommend checking out Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. Amatka is set on a colony world in which objects can only maintain their shape if they are properly named. While visiting a colony not her own, Vanja discovers truths that alter the way she thinks about the world forever.

To download a free audiobook today, go to http://www.audibletrial.com/GlitterShip and choose an excellent book to listen to, whether that's Amatka or something else entirely.

On to the episode, we have one original story and a poem for you today.

The poem is "Telegram From Tomorrow's Lovelorn" by Shannon Lippert.

Shannon Lippert is a reluctant New Yorker, a former professional Internet surfer, and a performing artist. She writes plays, essays, poems, short fiction, long fiction, bad fiction, and fanfiction.

Telegram From Tomorrow's Lovelorn

By Shannon Lippert

oh how good it is to be alive in a time without miscommunication, we have so many tools for reconciliation, we are inclined to be happy with our upward trajectory—the next tool to be improved upon is love

we have experimented with procedures and policies that calculate for irregulars and deviations in nature, and designed a program suitable for all kinds, in the future we will not worry about a thing

the remarkable innovation of the essential human experience is made possible by contributions made by companies you’ve never heard of with wealth you’ve never dreamed of, for the creation of lovers to be

no more the messy business of hiring a writer for your profile or interviewing for the position of life-partner you will be intuited, distilled, contained STOP

in the future love will be sleeker an organic machine of orgasmic proportions conducted by an algorithm calibrated to destiny the beta version has been intriguing, and produced an object

an artifact of more visceral traditions, tomorrow there will be no more incompatibility, no more irreconcilable differences, for all will be reconciled categorized, tagged, compartmentalized, converted to data

this is virtually reality, with a few minor upgrades the bugs reported and removed, like the hair between one’s brows, or the men with low testosterone, the women who are too driven

unnecessary inclinations will be resolved in the future, with equations installed in a binary system of zeroes and ones the problem is not one of variables, but imbalance, which drove the initiative towards simpler paradigms of passion STOP

reducing the complexity has caused initial disturbances but overall the product has been well-received by focus groups, carefully selected, who long for a time when lonely is no longer something one has to be

it is a wonder the species was able to replicate at all, with the mire of mundane relations and deeply confusing infatuations, and now our relief is in the last stage of development, to learn the art of loving STOP

we will have models that are easy to duplicate, simple to impose on any group or subgroup, our assets determined not by unquantifiable inherent value, but by the concrete fact of what we need to be

to other people, to those that assess us like the auditors of old, only for fate we can now be evaluated for attractive features more easily, leaving more time to construct our true love

Our original short story for this episode is "The Huntsman's Sequence" by Octavia Cade.

Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication, who particularly enjoys writing stories about science history. She’s currently working on a collection of short fantasy stories set at Bletchley Park during WW2; “The Huntsman’s Sequence” is one of these. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Shimmer, amongst others. She attended Clarion West 2016.

Our guest reader is Jacob Budenz.

Jacob Budenzis a writer and multi-disciplinary performer whose work has been published by Assaracus, Hinchas de Poesia, Polychrome Ink, The Avenue, and more. Currently,Jacobresides in New Orleans in pursuit of an MFA in Creative Writing.

Content warning for mention of suicide and dysphoria.

The Huntsman's Sequence

by Octavia Cade

01011011101111....

m-configuration: Knife

The war is blank.

Not in its individual parts, but as a whole. It covers everything, smothers everything. It blows continents open with opportunity. Much of that opportunity is for death, for carcasses hung up and split open in massive consumption, a grind of bone and blood, but for some the opportunity is a tool for all that. Something to insert into the space between ribs, to lever open and dissect.

Not everyone dies in war. Not everyone sinks into blank nothingness, into unmarked graves and mass burials, into fields turned red and mud that stinks of iron. Some fight with symbols instead of flesh, their weapons heady and hidden, and it is in combination and in permutation that Turing finds his battleground.

He’s under no illusion that it keeps his hands clean. The information he extracts from the body of Enigma, the sweet little Snow White of his waking dreams, is used for murder as much as if he did the stabbing himself.

He can live with that, because he has the skills and it is a necessary thing, what he has become. The war, when he holds it, is sharp and bright and clean-surfaced and he knows his role, knows what it makes him.

For Turing the war is a knife that cuts him off from the old life; that sutures him into the new. He uses it to make little holes in his skin; to lace up the flesh again in new configurations, for the open theater of conflict comes with orders and betrayal. Academia was exploration, but what he does at Bletchley comes with focus, with tracking down and opening up. He cuts through code as if it was wild boar, slices out the heart of it, the liver and lungs, and offers the organs up to others.

He is the Hunstman.

new m-configuration: Huntsman

m-configuration: Huntsman

The huntsman is 1.

Turing is solid in himself, upright. Not simply in a physical way, though he is proud of his body. A runner’s body, swift and sure and when he runs of a morning, he is certain of his steps for he counts each one, catalogues the variation and speed and distance. There is little fat on him. He is smooth and straight and lean.

This is the shape he admires in others. A man’s shape, like his own, and he is not ashamed of where his desires lead him.

A huntsman is built for the chase. He has stamina, and strength. He has the determination to follow through mud and thorn thickets and shell holes, through bureaucracy and ill weather. He has patience, too, for there are times a huntsman has to stay downwind, to wait and wonder and make his best guess as to where the prey is hiding.

The huntsman is an analyst. He is able to follow the bare pattern of footprints, covered over as they are by leaves and leavings to pick out the true trail amidst the false. There are many false trails. They’re left to confuse him, to put him off the scent. It’s hard to pick out one pattern among many when the letters are sneaking by, in such numbers that the ones he wants are camouflaged by the rest.

It takes an analyst to butcher, too. The huntsman’s job isn’t over with the hunt: he must string up and dissect, pull out the organs for inspection and passing over.

He must have the scent of blood.

new m-configuration: Huntsman

Episode 54 is part of the Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 issue! (Yes! It's actually out now!)

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here:http://www.glittership.com/buy/

Oh, Give Me A Home

By Nicole Kimberling

Up along the edge of the ridge, Gordon could see them gathering. The mass of bugs formed a ragged silhouette against the hazy lavender sky. Each critter stood only ankle-high—about as big as a yappy dog—six-legged, like ants, with azure exoskeletons hard as crash helmets. Individually they posed little threat, but if only a few of them spooked, panic could ripple through the herd, bringing all thirty thousand of them swarming down.

The stampede could crush him and Paint flat.

From his position at the bottom of the crater, Gordon gave a long chirping whistle. Amplified by his hardsuit’s external speaker, the trill echoed through the crater. Gordon imagined it lifting up through the thin atmosphere to reach the three rings that encircled New Saturn. Here, near the equator, the rings bisected the sky in a thin, glittering band, shining apricot and peach, reflecting the light of the G-class star that shone down on him.

A few of the bugs—called microbe-seeding terrestrial injectors or MSTIs, by the terraforming corporations that had genetically engineered them—turned their attention toward Gordon at the sound, but still hesitated. The bugs were naturally fearful of new territory, preferring to follow the scent trails previously laid down by other bugs.

Gordon had loaded new scent into Paint’s dispersal unit before riding down into the crater, so he knew a perfectly good trail existed. The bugs should be following him to the center of the crater, where Gordon had spread a banquet of feed—so many white pellets they almost obscured the fine pink sand.

[Full transcript after the cut]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 54 for April 10, 2018. This is your host Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.

After a long wait, the Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 issue is now available, and you can purchase that at www.glittership.com/buy or via some of your favorite ebook sellers.

Our story today is a reprint by Nicole Kimberling, "Oh, Give Me A Home," read by Dave Liloia.

Nicole Kimberling is a novelist and the senior editor at Blind Eye Books. Her first novel, Turnskin, won the Lambda Literary Award. Other works include the Bellingham Mystery Series, set in the Washington town where she resides with her wife of thirty years. She is also the creator and writer of “Lauren Proves Magic is Real!” a serial fiction podcast, which explores the lesser case files of Special Agent Keith Curry, supernatural food inspector.

Dave Liloia is a voice actor and narrator from Seattle, WA. He co-hosts both the Warp Drives podcast with his wife TJ and Rat Hole podcast. His day job is to move electrons. You can find him on Twitter @warpdrives.

Oh, Give Me A Home

By Nicole Kimberling

Up along the edge of the ridge, Gordon could see them gathering. The mass of bugs formed a ragged silhouette against the hazy lavender sky. Each critter stood only ankle-high—about as big as a yappy dog—six-legged, like ants, with azure exoskeletons hard as crash helmets. Individually they posed little threat, but if only a few of them spooked, panic could ripple through the herd, bringing all thirty thousand of them swarming down.

The stampede could crush him and Paint flat.

From his position at the bottom of the crater, Gordon gave a long chirping whistle. Amplified by his hardsuit’s external speaker, the trill echoed through the crater. Gordon imagined it lifting up through the thin atmosphere to reach the three rings that encircled New Saturn. Here, near the equator, the rings bisected the sky in a thin, glittering band, shining apricot and peach, reflecting the light of the G-class star that shone down on him.

A few of the bugs—called microbe-seeding terrestrial injectors or MSTIs, by the terraforming corporations that had genetically engineered them—turned their attention toward Gordon at the sound, but still hesitated. The bugs were naturally fearful of new territory, preferring to follow the scent trails previously laid down by other bugs.

Gordon had loaded new scent into Paint’s dispersal unit before riding down into the crater, so he knew a perfectly good trail existed. The bugs should be following him to the center of the crater, where Gordon had spread a banquet of feed—so many white pellets they almost obscured the fine pink sand.

“How’s it going down there, Gordy?” Henry’s voice poured into Gordon’s earpiece, smooth as cool water.

“Not great,” Gordon’ replied. “We’ve got a bunch of shy Shirleys at the front of the column when what we really need is a couple of bouncy bold Bonnies to start moving down the trail.”

Though learning the personality of every bug would have been impossible, Gordon had broken the herd down into a few basic temperaments. Shirleys were the workhorses of the MSTIs, processing feed quickly and more efficiently than any other type. But they were also the most recalcitrant. The Bonnies showed distinct initiative and curiosity, behaving as scouts. They also got lost a lot. If Gordon had to negotiate some rocky ledge at a suicidal angle during a sandstorm, nine out of ten times it was because a Bonnie had gotten herself into a jam. A few other personality types had emerged in this, the first-ever free-range experiment: lusty Leroys, deceptive Daisys, lazy Lorraines. But there was only one Queen Elvira. She stayed in the enclosure at their homestead, laying eggs.

“Did you try a whistle?”

“Of course I tried a whistle,” Gordon said. “I did ‘Turkey in the Straw.’”

“I’m almost at the lip of the crater now. I’ll swing around and see if I can get them going from the back.”

“Roger that,” Gordon said.

Lifting his head to scan the crater’s rim Gordon spotted Henry mounted on his excursion vehicle, which he called Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s horse. In truth, neither Paint nor Bucephalus resembled horses so much as long-legged spiders, but a dearth of positive musical or historical arachnid names had naturally led them to choose equine names for the robotic transport vehicles.

Gordon raised his hand, and Henry returned the gesture. The sunlight glinted off the arm of his blue hardsuit. Henry pressed the MSTIs from the flank, urging them forward. Still they balked till the jostling from the back pushed one over the edge. Instinctively the MSTI rolled into a tight ball. Another tipped over the edge and another till a steady stream of bugs rolled toward Gordon.

Being given to spontaneous musicality, Gordon began to sing:

See them tumbling down

Pledging their love to the ground

Dusty but free I’ll be found

Drifting along with the tumbling MSTIs

I’m a rovin’ cowboy ridin’ all day long

MSTIs around me sing their lonely song

Nights beneath New Saturn’s Rings

I’ll ride along and tunes I will sing

“Nice one, Gordy,” Henry said. Sitting astride his vehicle, encased in a hardsuit that could barely contain his muscle, Henry was hale and hearty as any old-time terraformer or wildcatter sent from a mining company.

Gordon couldn’t be more different. Having been born and raised in space, he’d simply never developed the muscle or bone to cope with the daily terrestrial struggle against gravity.

When they’d first started courting, Gordon had gone to great lengths to never fully remove that armature—not even when they were in orbit at the Free Station 19, where the pull of gravity wouldn’t cripple him. He felt sickly against Henry’s strappy, Earth-bred muscles and thick, sturdy bones.

But Henry’s three-pronged strategy of sincerity, sweetness, and song had eventually gotten him inside the hardsuit long enough to get a ring on Gordon’s finger. A homestead had followed soon after. Now they ran the only free-ranging herd of MSTIs across ten thousand acres of barren soil for Homesteads for Humanity Interstellar. They’d completed three years of a five-year contract. The MSTIs were part of the second phase of terraforming. Their job was to masticate and defecate, enriching the soil with microbes crucial to farming Earth-style plants. Once the soil was ready, he and Henry spread spores of beneficial fungus. Then, after the fruiting bodies emerged, their work was done. He and Henry would mosey along to the next homestead, leaving the land for the first-generation farmers. They would bring their pressurized greenhouses and be the true pioneers here on New Saturn.

In a previous life, Gordon had worked for Vanguard Commercial Terraforming as an animal wrangler and vet tech. After culling thousands of bugs that could have been useful given even the tiniest amount of medical attention, he decided to trade his fat paycheck for the grand experiment run by Homesteads.

By the time Henry reached him, the first wave of MSTIs had finished their spherical descent and were beginning to unroll and tuck into the chow.

Or most of them were.

A couple of lusty Leroys who’d landed by each other had decided to hump instead.

“They’re at it again,” Henry remarked. “You’d think they’d go after a Shirley.”

Gordon shrugged, “Some Leroys prefer the simplicity of other Leroys, apparently.”

“You should make a note of it in your log,” Henry said. “And get a VR image for documentation.”

“Yes, professor.” He di

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode #53 for March 29, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing these stories with you. Today we have three GlitterShip originals for you: a poem, a piece of flash fiction, and a short story for you. The poem is "Cucumber" by Penny Stirling.

Penny Stirling edits and embroiders in Western Australia. Their speculative fiction and poetry can be found in Lackington's, Interfictions, Strange Horizons, Heiresses of Russ, Transcendent and other venues. For aroace discussion and bird photography, follow them atwww.pennystirling.comor on Twitter @numbathyal.

Cucumber

Penny Stirling

He lullabies my ghosts so I can sleep in,

my life-compeer, my comrade-errant,

and I risk griffin bite for his medicine.

We don't kiss or act how a couple should

and people enquire: when will we progress?

Surely we've been just friends long enough.

We find tracking migrating dragons

more wondrous than our hearts,

entrusting each other's lives in combat

more significant than vows,

unearthing riddle-hid treasure before rivals

more satisfying than sex;

we are closer than quest-allies

yet less physical than love-couples.

But feelings outside romance have less import

even if we are one another's most important.

Just friends.

He doesn't care, he says. He never cares

what allies or enemies say, he says. I say

enough! My life-partner, my peril-mate,

we are enough. But I just

have had enough. My friend, please:

matching rings, balance-enchanted.

He doesn't care, either, congratulated

for finally maturing enough.

We don't kiss or act how a couple should

yet people don't enquire if we will progress.

Being just spouse and spouse is enough.

END

Izzy Wasserstein teaches English at a midwestern university, writes poetry and fiction, and shares a house with several animal companions and the writer Nora E. Derrington. Her work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming fromClarkesworld,Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet,Pseudopodand elsewhere. She is an enthusiastic member of the 2017 class of Clarion West. She likes to slowly run long distances. Her website isizzywasserstein.com

Ports of Perceptions

Izzy Wasserstein

Chase had come down with both kind of viruses, and worried Hunter had been growing distant, so Hunter suggested they indulge in some PKD. While the drug kicked in, they sprawled on the mattress in Hunter’s flat and exchanged. Hunter’s arm-ports synched with the receivers on Chase’s back and data flowed between them, which they agreed was worth the risk, despite Chase’s cold and the v0x virus still being rooted out by antivi. Chase felt Hunter’s concern turn to desire, and they explored each other and the PKD. Chase unclasped each of their right forearms, then swapped them. Hunter’s arm, which was, or had been, or would be Chase’s, moved over their bodies. They disconnected Hunter’s not-quite-legal sensory enhancer and synched it with Chase’s, and the rush was like data exchange but more immediate, more vivid. They swapped more parts as the sensory loop built between them. Soon Chase cried out for release, but Hunter let anticipation build, feeling Chase’s rising desire, which was Hunter’s. The drug worked on their flesh, their firmware, their coil of tech and limbs; it bypassed the neurons that told Chase which body was Chase’s, which Hunter’s, that told Hunter where Hunter ended and the Universe began; and so they grew into each other, their bodies and consciousnesses spreading from their node across the web. They were together. They were everywhere. When finally they collapsed and held one another, Chase said Hunter’s name, or Hunter said Chase’s, or each said their own. They lay in the tangle of each other, and Chase was Hunter and Hunter’s thoughts were Chase’s, and neither was sure where they ended and reality began. Hunter caught Chase’s cold, or had always had it, or had always been Chase. Neither cared, if indeed they had ever been separate.

END

Amy Griswold is the author (with Melissa Scott) of Death by Silver (winner of the Lambda Literary Award) and A Death at the Dionysus Club, fantasy/mystery novels set in an alternate Victorian England. Her interactive novel The Eagle's Heir (with Jo Graham) was published in 2017, and their second interactive novel Stronghold, a heroic fantasy game about defending a town and building a community, is forthcoming in 2018.

The Questing Beast

Amy Griswold

The first time Sir Palamedes is tempted to give up pursuing the Questing Beast, he is tramping through the woods on a bleak winter day, his frosty breath hanging in a white cloud each time he exhales. His feet are sore, and his shoes are worn thin. His horse went lame a week ago, and is returning home in the uncertain care of Palamedes' squire. Palamedes is following the sound of distant barking, and is beginning to think the sound will drive him mad.

He is far off any beaten track, although he can see the prints of men and horses frozen into the icy turf. They might have been following the Questing Beast themselves, overcome with wonder at a sight that Palamedes is beginning to find commonplace. Or they might have been about some other errand entirely. They might even now be sipping mulled wine by a warm fire at home, rather than tramping through the woods after an abominable beast.

The trees are thinning, and through them Palamedes can see the rutted track of a road. It will be easier walking, and surely he can pick up the trail of the Beast again later. Nothing else leaves such tracks, shaped like the hoofprints of a deer but dug deep into the turf under its monstrous weight. Nothing else makes such a clamor, like a pack of hounds gone mad with no answering music of horns.

He smells smoke before he sees the little camp by the side of the road. A horse is picketed and cropping at the thin brown grass, and a man is warming his hands over the fire. His shield is propped against a log, and it is by the arms more than by his travel-dirtied face that Palamedes knows him: Sir Tristan, who swore to kill Palamedes when they last met.

They have been sworn enemies for years, for reasons that begin to seem increasingly absurd. Once when Palamedes was a light-hearted youth, Iseult the Fair smiled at him, and he supposes that explains why he and Tristan must be enemies, even though Iseult has long since wedded Mark of Cornwall in obedience to her duty. He suspects that competing for a lady's adulterous favors is less than the true spirit of chivalry.

And yet he pauses, thinking of Iseult with sunlight on her hair, her face tipped up to him as she asked him curiously about distant Babylon which he will never see again. She did not scorn him for keeping faith with the gods of his childhood. Perhaps she would never have married a pagan, but there can be no question of marriage, now. If Tristan fell, and he were there to bring her the comfort she would not seek in her unloving husband's arms …

But these are unworthy thoughts. If he steps out of the woods and declares himself, it will be to meet Tristan in battle as Tristan has long desired. Tristan looks cold and drawn, clearly the worse for his travels, but surely no more so than Palamedes himself. Tristan has been riding, not walking, his heavy cloak not frayed to shreds and his boots not worn parchment-thin. It would be a fair fight, surely.

The sound of hounds baying rises over the woods, a wild familiar clamor. Tristan lifts his head, gazes into the trees for a moment, and then turns back to warming his hands, like a man too weary to think wonders any of his concern.

Palamedes turns and sees the Questing Beast through the trees, distant but clear, its serpent's neck outstretched, its heavy leopard's body, from which the barking of hounds perpetually sounds, crouching balanced on its cloven hooves. The beast itself is mute, no sound coming from its throat even when it opens its mouth as if to taste the air.

The voice that whispers in his head is an older one, the goddess of his childhood, Anahita-of-the-beasts. Or perhaps there is no voice at all, only the familiar sound of his own thoughts, his only companion on his long road.

Will you keep faith with him, or with your oath? it asks.

He swore to follow the Beast, and not only at his leisure. Palamedes turns his back on the fire, the fight, and the ease of following the road, and follows the Questing Beast, quickening his steps as the Beast begins to run.

The second time Sir Palamedes is tempted to stop pursuing the Questing Beast, he is riding down a well-traveled road on a warm summer evening. He has met with many travelers, and answered their courteous inquiries with the tale of his quest, which is becoming wearisome to tell. Most of them look at him as if he is mad, which is not entirely out of the question.

The tracks of the Beast are dug deep into the mud beside the road, and he does not fear losing its trail, though it must be a day or more ahead of him. It will sleep, for the night, and so must he. He turns his horse's head from the road into a meadow beside a running stream. Another traveler

Do-Overs

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

I have ridden dinosaurs. Big, bitey ones. I've traveled on the Hindenburg, fought alongside Joan of Arc, punched Jack the Ripper right in the face.

The point I'm trying to make is being a time traveler puts you in some scary situations, but this is easily the most terrifying.

Asking out a pretty girl.

(Insert shriek of terror here.)

I've been putting it off, shoving it to that dusty place in the back of my mind where I keep things I'm afraid of—like the fact that house centipedes exist—but it has to be now, before she goes back home.

I take a deep breath, my heart beating like a drum roll, and step into the lab.

And there's Ada, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, world's first computer programmer, and unquestionably 1840's sexiest woman alive.

[Full transcript after the cut.]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip for March 9, 2018. This is your host Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing these stories with you. First things first: if you're listening to this episode when it comes out, you have until March 12, 2018 to get a great deal on the ebook of GlitterShip Year One. This anthology collects every GlitterShip story that came out between our launch and the end of 2016 and is on sale for just $2.99. You can pick it up direct from the GlitterShip website at glittership.com/buy, on Kindle, Nook, or Kobo.

Today I have three short reprints for you.

The first is Corvus the Mighty by Simon Kewin

Simon Kewin was born and raised on the misty Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea, but he now lives in the English countryside with his wife and their daughters. He is the author of over a hundred published short stories and his works have appeared in Analog, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Abyss & Apex and many more. His cyberpunk novel The Genehunter and his Cloven Land fantasy trilogy were recently published and his clockpunky novel Engn is to be published by Curiosity Quills Press in 2018. Find him atsimonkewin.co.uk.

Corvus the Mighty

by Simon Kewin

Gedric found the ramshackle hut half way up the hillside. He tethered his horse, the best they’d been able to spare, to one of the low stone walls marking the garden out from the sweep of sloping land. He stood and waited to be spoken to. The man he’d come to find, stripped to the waist, powerful but grey-haired now, dug a trench in the heavy soil with rhythmic swings of his shoulders. The man didn’t speak, didn’t appear to have even noticed his visitor.

Gedric had grown up with tales of him. They all had: the exploits of Corvus, Corvus and his trusty Shieldsman Way, were the stuff of children’s bedtime stories and mead-hall roister. Corvus, who had saved the seven clans again and again, defeated marauding nightmares then drunk for a week to celebrate. And now here he was, tilling the reluctant peat of this desolate hillside, this man who could have lived out his days in golden palaces had he chosen to.

While he waited, Gedric turned away to look out over the land. Now that he saw Corvus in the flesh, his doubts returned. Could one old man really save them? He regretted this fool’s errand more and more. He should be down there, fighting the invaders. At least he’d be doing something. Dimly, in the far distance, he could make out a line of smoke cutting into the sky. Some homestead or town burning. Impossible to say where from up there. But it might be Ravn. Ravn, with its walls of spiked pine trunks and its stone tower. Ravn where he’d left Eliane two days earlier, vowing he’d return with help. The invaders had been sighted even as he’d galloped away. Was she still alive? She and their child she carried within her? Were any of the people he’d grown up with still alive? He imagined her calling out his name in desperation as she died, surrounded by shrieking bone-men.

Corvus speared his shovel into the earth as if it were a beast he had slain. He regarded Gedric, an irritated look on his lined face. His chest heaved from his exertions.

“I come in search of Corvus the War Chief, Lord of the Seven Clans,” said Gedric.

“Have you now? Well, you’ve come a long way for nothing, boy.”

Gedric had been warned Corvus had turned his back on everything he’d been. Wanted only peace and solitude now. This reaction was only what he’d expected.

“My lord, the clans are in great need,” said Gedric, giving him the speech he’d practiced in his head as he rode up the hill. “The bone-men have come out of the west, hundreds of their white ships making landfall on the coast to pillage and destroy. We fight them, but they keep coming, more and more every day.”

“Sorry to hear it. At least they shouldn’t bother me all the way up here.”

“But the clans, my lord. They fall, village by village, town by town. Soon there will be none of us left.”

The man shook his head.

“And I told you. I’m not the man you’re looking for.”

“But you could be him once more, my lord. You are still Corvus. You could unite the clans, lead us against the foe.”

The old man laughed. He looked up at the sky in the manner of farmers and homesteaders everywhere, assessing the chances of rain.

“Young fool, I mean I’m really not him. Corvus died six winters ago.”

Gedric smiled. He’d been told to expect this, too.

“You mean, he died and this humble crofter I see before me was born at the same moment. I understand your desire for solitude, Corvus, but times are desperate.”

“I mean he died, boy. Corvus the Mighty, Lord of the Seven Clans and so on and so on. He gave up his ghost. In his sleep. He was just a ragbag of wounds by the end, anyway. Couldn’t feed or clean himself. Don’t mention that in the sagas, do they?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll show you his mighty bones if you like, buried on the hilltop.” The man nodded up the slope. Gedric saw the line of a well-worn path leading up there.

“But I don’t understand. Everyone I spoke to said Corvus lived here. And here you are. Yet you claim you’re not him.”

“I am not Corvus.”

“Then who are you?”

“Are you really the brightest one they could find? My name is Way, boy. Obviously.”

“No, but, I’m sorry, Way was a small man. Clever and agile as a cat. It’s in all the sagas.”

“Let me tell you something about storytellers,” said the old man. He looked around in an exaggerated way, as if there were anyone within thirty leagues who could overhear. “The thing is this. They make things up. That’s what they do, what they’re for. I can assure you I am Way. I should know. I’ve been me all my life. And for the record, I was a hand taller than Corvus. Better swordsman too, truth be told.”

Gedric had never even wondered what had happened to Way. He was just the constant companion in the tales: the one who broke into the dungeons to rescue Corvus the night before he was to be executed, or who cut his ropes when the Pirate Kings thought they had him bound and trapped belowdecks.

“But I don’t understand, Corvus came here for peace and solitude. Everyone knows that. And yet here you are. What, you came up here to rescue him from these ferocious sheep?”

The old man shook his head.

“I see the storytellers got that wrong, too. We came here for peace and solitude. They have me as, what, Corvus’s faithful companion? His servant?”

“His Shieldsman.”

The man laughed. “Do you really think we could have stood each other all that time if we’d been just comrades? Or master and servant? The world was ours to roam together. I was his lover, not some Shieldsman. Ah, he was a beautiful man in his youth, let me tell you. People would do anything for that smile of his. I know I did.”

A weight of dread filled Gedric at these words. Corvus had been their last hope. A remote hope, to be sure. He thought of Eliane and the bright, fearless look on her face. The swell of her belly. Her gentle touch.

“Then I am sorry,” said Gedric. “You have lost a lot more than just a hero.”

Way shrugged. “We had our time together, down there in the world and up here in the quiet afterwards. It barely matters now. He’s gone. Isn’t a day goes by I don’t miss him, but pining won’t bring him back, will it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get these stonefruits planted before the rains come. Make yourself useful and I’ll let you rest here the night. You can leave in the morning.”

Unable to think of anything else to say to the old man, Gedric climbed over the wall to help.

That night, Gedric lay on a mattress of springy heather beneath the furs Way had provided. The old man was outside somewhere, tending to his tatty, distrustful sheep. Gedric sighed. He had failed in his quest to find Corvus, failed to bring him triumphantly back to the clans. They would all die now, sooner or later.

He leafed through the sheaf of dispatches he’d brought with him: descriptions of the skirmishes fought against the bone-men, plans for future battles. He sought good news, some flaw they’d missed, some new strategy they could adopt. He found nothing. The bone-men came in their hundreds and left behind a trail of the dead and dying. Gedric read for an hour or more by the flickering light of Way’s fire until his eyes began to prickle. Exhausted by his journey, by his labor in the field, he lay back and fell asleep.

He woke to rain drumming on the wooden roof of the hovel. He thought, still half-asleep, the bone-men had come for him, had set fire to their house. Imagined Eliane there beside him, rea

Smooth Stones and Empty Bones

by Bennett North

There’s a skeleton in the chicken coop. It’s some bare collection of abandoned bones, maybe a former fox, and it’s slishing through the pine needles and bumping liplessly against the gate. The chickens, for their part, don’t look concerned.

Mom is still in the house, folding laundry. I take a watering can from where it’s sitting next to the potted mums and haul it out to the coop. When I dump it on the skeleton, it shivers like a wet dog but doesn’t retreat.

I glance over my shoulder at the house again, then open the gate to the coop. The skeleton doesn’t appear to notice, so I get behind it and shove it out. The skeleton stumbles around like a dog with vertigo.

“Shh,” I say when it clacks its teeth. If Mom sees this, I’m in so much trouble.

[Full transcript after the cut.]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 50 for February 20, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm back with a reprint of "Smooth Stones and Empty Bones" by Bennett North.

By day, Bennett North maintains computer labs at a local university. By night, she writes both short and long format speculative fiction (when she’s not too busy playing Minecraft or Fallout 4). She likes to think of herself as a runner and a rock climber, although she doesn’t do either of those things nearly as often as she’d like. She lives somewhere between Providence, RI and Boston, MA.

Smooth Stones and Empty Bones

by Bennett North

There’s a skeleton in the chicken coop. It’s some bare collection of abandoned bones, maybe a former fox, and it’s slishing through the pine needles and bumping liplessly against the gate. The chickens, for their part, don’t look concerned.

Mom is still in the house, folding laundry. I take a watering can from where it’s sitting next to the potted mums and haul it out to the coop. When I dump it on the skeleton, it shivers like a wet dog but doesn’t retreat.

I glance over my shoulder at the house again, then open the gate to the coop. The skeleton doesn’t appear to notice, so I get behind it and shove it out. The skeleton stumbles around like a dog with vertigo.

“Shh,” I say when it clacks its teeth. If Mom sees this, I’m in so much trouble.

Its vertebrae are sharp and don’t look to be held together by anything tangible. I haul the thing out of the yard, stepping over the low stone wall that rings my mother’s property and marching out into the pine forest until I can’t see the house anymore.

The further from the house I get, the less the skeleton moves, and by the time I’m down by the river, the skeleton is shedding bones like breadcrumbs. I drop it and it doesn’t get up again. I rub the indents on my palm left by sharp bone-points and hunch my shoulders a little.

I hope it was the only one.

When I arrive back at the house, my mother is hollering out the door for me. I shout a reply and then collect the eggs I’d originally been sent to get.

My mom is a witch, or at least that’s what the people in town call her. She dyes her frizzy hair black and when she’s working she gives herself full drag-queen makeup, with the blood-red lips and glittery green eyelids. Right now, though, her face is washed clean of makeup and she looks old. She’s sitting at the table, the newspaper spread in front of her. Coffee is perking and strips of bacon sizzle in the pan. I put the basket of eggs on the counter next to the open bag of ground coffee.

“How do you want them? Over-easy?” I ask, hoping she won’t ask why it took me so long.

Mom hums. “Poached,” she says. “I’m watching my weight.”

I fill a pot with water and put it on a burner. The bacon is crawling with white foamy grease.

“How late are you working today?” Mom asks.

“Just until three.” I dash some vinegar into the water and don’t look at her. “I think I might hang out with Mariposa after work, though.”

My mother beams. “I’m glad you’ve found a friend,” she says. “I was afraid you wouldn’t meet anyone new after you dropped out.” She rises from the table and plants a kiss on the top of my head, then grabs some tongs to flip the bacon.

My name is Helena. I’m seventeen years old.

Tonight after work I’m going to show my girlfriend how to raise the dead.

I work in the local Gas ’n’ Go. Business is pretty slow, so I mostly spend the day reading the newspaper. The local news headline is about the continued search for a nine-year-old boy who went missing in the woods a few days ago. It’s been cold these last few nights, nearly down to freezing, so it’s becoming less and less likely that they’ll find the kid alive.

Quarter to three, one of the high school coaches comes in. I vaguely remember him from back when I still attended school, although I was never in any sports. He picks through a rack of cookies for a few minutes and I continue reading my magazine until he comes up to the register and tosses a pack of Oreos on the counter in front of me.

“Forty bucks on number nine,” he says. I ring up the Oreos and the gas as he roots in his back pocket for his wallet.

“That’s forty-two ninety-nine,” I say.

He fishes a couple twenties and a five out of his wallet and nods at the newspaper rack. “They come by to talk to you yet?”

“What?” I glance at the rack, too.

“That missing kid. Fucking suspicious, if you ask me. Kid goes missing, I say to start with the Satanists in the woods and their animal sacrifices. ”

“We had nothing to do with it,” I say stiffly.

He snorts and waits for his change. Once I give it to him, he adds, “If another kid goes missing, I think a couple of us might take matters into our own hands. You tell your mother that.”

He leaves the store. I stare at his retreating back and wish I were a witch like my mother. I’d make him piss sugar ants.

The mental image keeps the sick feeling in my stomach at bay until Geoff shows up for the next shift. I try to wash off a bit of the stale coffee and gasoline smell in the bathroom, then head outside. Mariposa’s car is just pulling into the lot and she waves at me as I approach her.

She’s borrowing her mother’s car, which is a teal Ford Taurus that’s probably as old as me. There’s a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror between two pine-scented air fresheners. I slide into the passenger’s seat and close the door.

“Hi,” I say giddily. I reach across the seat and she grabs my hand. It’s the most I dare to do within sight of Geoff in the gas station.

“Missed you,” Mariposa says.

“It’s been ages,” I say, and we both laugh. We’ve spent more time together in the past week than we have apart.

She exits the lot and onto Reservoir Street. Technically we shouldn’t be driving together since we’re both under eighteen, but I don’t think anyone’s going to catch us.

“How’ve you been?” I ask as she drives. “Any . . . news?”

Mariposa shakes her head and her mouth tightens. She’s got lots of glossy black hair and perfectly plucked eyebrows, and even when she’s upset, she still looks like a movie star. I can’t comprehend how someone can be so attractive.

“Nothing,” she says. “My mom’s arranging a vigil. She still thinks they’ll find Javi alive.” Her breath hitches. “And I mean, I do, too, but I think . . . I don’t know. It’s like some kind of nightmare.”

I squeeze her hand tightly. She squeezes mine back.

“I don’t want to think about it,” she says. “Every time I do I just feel helpless. Distract me.”

I tell her about work, although I don’t mention the high school coach. I don’t have many interesting stories, so I make some up and get her to laugh. By the time we arrive at her house, the two of us are giggling.

Mariposa’s house borders the woods just like mine does. The same woods that her little brother has disappeared in. A bunch of cars are parked in the driveway and along the side of the road.

“There’s a group of local guys looking for him,” Mariposa says. “They leave their cars here.”

I think of the coach and then look down into my lap. “Um, want to go somewhere else?”

“Like where?” She looks at me. “Oh, Helena, it’s fine. They’re not going to be jerks to you.”

I’m not so sure. “I just sort of wanted to go somewhere . . . private?”

She looks at me and her cheeks turn a little pink. “Okay,” she says.

“The reservoir,” I say. “Let’s go there.”

There’s a kayak launch on the reservoir behind a row of houses. Mariposa parks there nearby and then we pick our way along the shore until we find a little rocky beach. There’s a ring of scorched stones here where some teenagers lit a beach fire. The fire pit is filled with a couple half-burnt potato chip bags and broken Heineken bottles.

We sit on a patchy bit of grass at the edge of the beach. The air is sun-warmed but has that mid-autumn chill to it that means tonight will be cold, too. The trees towering behind us are all red and yellow. A damp burnt smell lingers over the fire pit. Mariposa huddles under my armpit and clasps my hand between hers, trying to warm it up.

“I feel like . . . like television lied to me,” she says, and then sort of laughs in a way that doesn’t sound happy.

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever bad things happen on TV, it’s because someone was doing something wrong.” She laces her knuckles between mine. “Like the kid goes missing because his older brother was smoking pot while babysitting. The girl gets raped because she was underage d

Episode 49 is part of the Autumn 2017 / Winter 2018 double issue! "Granny Death and the Drag King of London" is a GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL.

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

Granny Death and the Drag King of London

By

A.J. Fitzwater

Monday, November 25, 1991.

Lacey James had been working for Redpath Catering for three months when Freddie Mercury died.

"Fuck," she mouthed around her fist and bit harder into her numb flesh. The news was hours old, but still her oesophagus made odd wheezy hiccups, and she couldn't swallow past the perpetual lump of granite in her chest. "Fuck fuck fuck."

All going terrible, the weird black sparkles that invaded her vision at a whiff of death would arrive soon, the awful memories of helping nurse Stevie and Toad would nail her, or the creepy old lady that haunted funerals on her catering beat would turn up. Or all at once.

Kitty. Stevie. Gin-Gin. Toad. Paulette. Manil. Now Freddie. Not another one. Not Freddie. No. Hold it together. Big bois don't cry.

[Full transcript after the cut]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 49 for February 13, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I last brought you any fiction—to make it up to you, this episode is part of a double issue, which means that there are six originals and six reprints coming your way as quickly as I can get them out for you.

I would also like to officially welcome Nibedita Sen as GlitterShip's official assistant editor. She will be helping out with keeping the Ship running smoothly... and hopefully more on time than it has been in the past.

Today we have a poem and a GlitterShip original for you. The poem is "Seven Handy Ideas for Algorithmic Shapeshifting," by Bogi Takács read by Bogi eirself.

Bogi Takács is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person currently living in the US as a resident alien. Eir speculative fiction, poetry and nonfiction have been published in a variety of venues like Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons and podcast on Glittership, among others. You can follow Bogi on Twitter, Instagram and Patreon, or visit eir website at www.prezzey.net. Bogi also recently edited Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2016, for Lethe Press.

Seven Handy Ideas for Algorithmic Shapeshifting

by Bogi Takács

Try it now – guaranteed enjoyment or your money back!

Loss of life not covered under the terms of the user agreement.

The classic original: Shapeshift to a surface color the inverse of your environment [reverse chameleon] To confuse people: Shapeshift to duplicate a nearby object, then change as others move you around [pulse in rhythm / undulate / who turned the sound off] For a drinking game: Shapeshift into a weasel for 5 seconds whenever someone drinks a stout [some puns deserve to remain obscure] [mind: wildlife needs to be careful around humans]

To make a somewhat mangled political statement: Shapeshift into an object whose possession is illegal in the state and/or country you are entering [no human is illegal] [weaponize your thoughts / fall under export restrictions] [make sure to read the small print]

To receive blessings: Shapeshift into a monk when in the 500 m radius of a Catholic church, respond to Laudetur [nunc et in æternum – practice] [works well in combination with previous] For the trickster types: Shapeshift into a set of food items, then change back to your original shape as the first person attempts to eat you [do not change back] [change back after you passed through the alimentary canal / the plumbing / all water returns to the sea] To satisfy extreme curiosity: Shapeshift into a cis person, at random intervals of time. Cry for 5 minutes. Change back [how did that feel?]

The GlitterShip original short story is "Granny Death and the Drag King of London" by A.J. Fitzwater, also read by the author.

AmandaFitzwateris a dragon wearing a human meat suit from Christchurch, New Zealand. A graduate of Clarion 2014, she’s had stories published in Shimmer Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, and in Paper Road Press's "At The Edge" anthology. She also has stories coming soon at Kaleidotrope and PodCastle. As a narrator, her voice has been heard across the Escape Artists Network, on Redstone SF, and Interzone. She tweets under her penname as @AJFitzwater

There is a content warning for slurs, homophobia and a lot discussion of AIDS deaths.

Granny Death and the Drag King of London

By

A.J. Fitzwater

Monday, November 25, 1991.

Lacey James had been working for Redpath Catering for three months when Freddie Mercury died.

"Fuck," she mouthed around her fist and bit harder into her numb flesh. The news was hours old, but still her esophagus made odd wheezy hiccups, and she couldn't swallow past the perpetual lump of granite in her chest. "Fuck fuck fuck."

All going terrible, the weird black sparkles that invaded her vision at a whiff of death would arrive soon, the awful memories of helping nurse Stevie and Toad would nail her, or the creepy old lady that haunted funerals on her catering beat would turn up. Or all at once.

Kitty. Stevie. Gin-Gin. Toad. Paulette. Manil. Now Freddie. Not another one. Not Freddie. No. Hold it together. Big bois don't cry.

The brick wall of the east end church (where the hell am I today?) didn't do its job of holding her up and she slumped behind the rubbish skip. She didn't care if that bastard Rocko docked her pay for a wet and dirty uniform. She didn't care about the latest job rejection letter crumpled in her pocket. She didn't care if the cold bricks made her back seize up; there'd be no sleep tonight.

The back door pinged on its spring-hinge, banging off the scabby handrail, and Lacey sprang to her feet.

"Oi!" Rocko Redpath barked, all six foot two of his dirty blondness. "How long does it take one to take out the rubbish. Move one's dyke arse."

Not a dyke, arsehole.

Lacey let her square ragged nails do the work on her palms.

"Coming."

"You better be."

The stagnant scent of cabbage and wine biscuits gusted out as the door banged shut.

Why do I have to keep putting up with this git? Because I can't get a serious job in this town. No one wants a dyke import. Loser.

Lacey knuckled her dry eyes and straightened her ill-fitting jacket best she could. The darts under the arms made it too tight across the chest even though she'd bound up with a fresh Ace bandage that morning.

Come on, loser. Be the best king Freddie'd want you to be.

Inside, the strange blast of cold concrete and oven heat sunk claws into Lacey's flesh. She bit her lip hard to hold back another dry heave sob. Breathing deeply sometimes delayed the black sparkles. But this was a funeral. They were bound to come.

Stainless steel clanged. Ovens whooped. Crockery clattered. Scones hunkered everywhere. Girls in too tight skirts bickered with too young chefs in too skinny pants.

Rocko Redpath lorded over it all. Redpath sounded like a lad but he dressed Saint Pauls, pretending he was James Bond on a Maxwell Smart budget.

"Jesus, you kiwis are all so bloody lazy." He sneered, the perfect villain. "What's the matter, Lace? Who took a dump in your cornflakes?"

Only my friends call me Lace, arsehole.

"Got the news a friend died," she mumbled as she swung towards the door with a tray of finger sandwiches.

Was that a flinch from Rocko?

"Aww, poor widdle Wace all boo hoo. You gonna cry, widdle girl?" He clicked his fingers in front of her face, blocking her path, sunshine breaking across his craggy, broken-nose face. "Wait, wait. I think I heard it on the news. That rock star fag you like. That who you mean?"

That...feeling. A tickle on the back of her neck; it was how she imagined if the black sparkles were made flesh. All jokes about gaydars aside, she was one hundred percent dead on (dead. on) at picking them. She knew some closeted gay guys had massive internalized issues, but Rocko?

One of the girls whipping cream flinched, her pink mouth popping open in shock. "But Freddie only announced two days ago..."

Rocko snapped his fingers in her direction and pointed, finger quivering slightly. "Quiet. Lace. That homo with the mo. That who you cut up about?"

Shut up I need this job shut up. Good girls don't get into fights.

"Ah forget it. One less virulent motherfucker clogging up the NHS." Rocko flipped a hand. Lacey flinched away. Rocko's eyes were red like he was on another bender. "Do yer job. Go say hello to your favorite funeral-loving geriatric."

"What?"

"Eff-day Granny-yay," Rocko stage whispered as he whisked asi

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 48 for September 26, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is a reprint of "Circus Boy Without A Safety Net" by Craig Laurance Gidney. Potential background dog noises are unintended, but provided by Rey, Finn, and Heidi.

Content warning for slurs, homophobic bullying, and descriptions of porn.

Craig Laurance Gidney is the author of the collectionsSea, Swallow Me & Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2008),Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press, 2014), the Young Adult novelBereft (Tiny Satchel Press, 2013), andThe Nectar of Nightmares (Dim Shores, 2015). He lives in his native Washington, DC. Website: craiglaurancegidney.com. Instagram, Tumblr & Twitter: ethereallad.

Circus Boy Without A Safety Net

by Craig Laurance Gidney

Lucifer came to him in drag. He was disguised as Lena Horne.

C.B. went to see The Wiz with his family. The movie was pretty cool, by his standards, even though he thought Diana Ross was a little too old to be playing Dorothy. But the sets were amazing--the recasting of the Emerald City as downtown Manhattan, the Wicked Witch's sweatshop, the trashcan monsters in the subway. The songs sometimes lasted a little too long, but they were offset by Michael Jackson's flashy spin-dancing. But it was the image of Lena Horne as Glinda the Good Witch that would follow him.

She appeared in the next to last scene in a silver dress. Her hair was captured in a net of stars, and she was surrounded by a constellation of babies, all wrapped in clouds, their adorable faces peering out like living chocolate kisses. He fell in love. Ms. Horne was undeniably beautiful, with her creamy, golden skin, and mellow, birdlike features. Her movements during the song "Home" were passionate. They were at odds with shimmering, ethereal-blur in which she was filmed. Indeed, she could not be of this earth. In all of his life in Willow Creek, NC, C.B. had not seen anything like this before.

He was in love, all right. He researched her in libraries, finding old issues of Ebony and Jet; he watched old movies that she'd appeared in, like Cabin in the Sky. He collected some of her records; his 8-track of "Stormy Weather" was so worn, he had to buy another copy.

But in the weeks afterwards, he began to sense that this love of his wasn't quite right. His brother and his father would tease him about his "girlfriend," who was 70 years old, and about how, when he came of an age to marry, she would be even older than that. Of how he could never have children. His brother was particularly mean: he imagined a wedding, held at Lena's hospital bed, with her in an iron lung, exhaling an "I Do" as ominous as Darth Vader's last breath. But C.B. wanted to explain that it wasn't like that at all. He couldn't quite put it into words.

Lena wasn't an object of desire, someone who he wanted to kiss or hold hands with. She was something more. She was a goddess of Beauty, an ideal. She was something beyond anything he'd ever known. She hovered above Willow Creek, an angel, looking down on its box houses that were the color of orange sherbet, lemonade, and his own robin's-egg-blue house. She wasn't someone to sleep with; she was someone to be like.

C.B. made a bedroom shrine to his goddess. Old pictures of her, protected in cellophane, marched up his wall. But the ultimate treasure lay unseen. In the unused chest of drawers in the back of his closet, he hid a Barbie doll, bought at a flea market and transformed into her likeness: painted skin, eyes blackened with a pen, stolen hair dye darkening the blond tresses. And he sprinkled lots of glitter on her dress, so it would be silver, like hers was in The Wiz. (This had involved experiments with several doll's dresses. There was a measure of discretion; he came up with a story about how his sick sister collected Barbie dresses, so that the store clerks wouldn't think he was strange. He ended up dunking a powder-blue dress in Elmer's glue, and dredging it in silver glitter. He learned it by imitating his mother, when she made fried chicken: first the eggwash, then the seasoned flour).

But buried treasure sends out signals. Especially to mothers.

She zeroed in on the spot. Oh, there was some excuse about her wanting to check out the chest, so that she could sell it at the church bazaar. Lena was exposed. His mother and father met him at the kitchen table one day after school, holding his creation in their hands. When C.B. saw them, looking as solemn as they did when they watched reruns of King's historic speech, he knew something was wrong. He thought he was going to get a lecture on idolatry. Instead, he was told, in the calmest tones they could muster, that he was not to play with dolls ever again. That was that. His mother stood up, and started making dinner. His father left the room, his head hung in shame.

C.B. felt strange. They were treating him as if he were diseased. As if they'd discovered that he was freak of some kind. ("When your child reaches the age of twelve, his eyes will grow to the size of grapefruits..."). It was his brother that laid it out for him. He'd been listening in on the conversation.

"They think you're a faggot."

When he got to his room, the walls had been stripped. Everything of Lena was gone. The walls looked like he felt: exposed.

He didn't eat dinner that night. They didn't call him to the table.

He popped an 8-track of The Wiz into the player, and put the giant earmuff headphones on. Lena sang softly: "If you believe in yourself..."

C.B. snatched the tape out of the player. He unspooled the brown ribbon, until it lay in curls on the floor around him.

#

C.B. had a Voice. That's what everybody at the church choir said. He felt it, too. His chest would fill with warmth, the spirit of sound. And when he opened his mouth, all of that warm feeling would come sliding out, like a stream of maple syrup, rich and sweet. It would circle over the church. He could feel it soaring like an angel, over Willow Creek, notes raining down on the box houses the colors of mint-green, bubblegum pink, and pastel violet.

He convinced himself that he was singing to God. All of the ladies with their wiry hats would come up to tell him what a wonderful gift he had. For a while, he gained the pride and trust of his parents. Sort of. At least of his mother.

His father grudgingly gave him respect for his voice; but his father must've known that singing didn't really undo all of embarrassment he'd caused when he failed at various sports. Having a musician son was a poor substitute for having a normal one; but it would have to do.

Within the tiny whitewashed church, he was safe from the worst of himself. The Devil—or Lena—was imprisoned, locked away. Her smoky vocals couldn't slip in between the glorious notes of hymns. Her fabulous gowns were safely replaced by neutral choir robes.

He jumped through a hoop, pleasing the Lord. C.B. thought of God as a great ringmaster, and Heaven as a circus-dream of angels and tamed beasts. The dead could trapeze through the stars, and see the little marble that was Earth below. But first, you had prove yourself worthy. Jump through this hoop, ringed with razors. Now through this circle of fire... C.B. knew that his life would be a dazzling and dangerous tightrope performance from now on. One slip and he'd fall into a Hell of naked boys and show-tunes. The church was his safety net.

Another bonus of singing was the admiration of the congregation.

C.B. was an average student. He struggled through math and science, tolerated history and English. He didn't have any friends. Regular kids tended to avoid religious kids. Since that was his disguise, he was a loner. He avoided the actually religious kids himself—he felt that if anyone could see through his charade, they could. They would sniff it out like bloodhounds. Everyone was at a safe distance. And the holiest of music surrounded him like a shield.

He felt the most secure, when the Devil heard him sing.

He came in the form of the music and drama teacher, Mr. P. Mr. P traipsed into town in loud colors. He wore banana yellow jackets, pink shirts, and bow ties as large and comical as a clown's. In a way, he matched the colors of Willow Creek's houses. His skin was dark and smooth, like a Special Dark candy bar. He had large glasses that magnified his sad-clown brown eyes. And his hair was a mass of wild and wet Jericurls. His lisp reminded C.B of Snagglepuss, the cartoon lion. Like Snagglepuss, Mr. P was prissy and aristocratic, given to fey and archaic phrases.

Word got around school that C.B. could sing. He'd fastidiously avoided anything to do with the drama and music department. First of all, he reasoned, they played secular music. He sang for the glory of the Almighty. But the real reason was Mr. P. A whiff of his spicy cologne in the crowded school hall made him cringe; Mr. P's loud, theatrical laugh when he was a lunch hall monitor could set his teeth gnashing.

It was around January when he was approached. He left the lunchroom, walking right by Mr. P. (who wore a suit of lime-green, with an electric blue bow tie), when he was stopped.

Mr. P. spoke his name.

"Yes, sir?"

"I heard that you can sing, child. How come you haven't been around the chorus?"

"I... I guess that I've been too busy. With school. And church." He invested the last word with an emphasis he hoped wasn't lost on Mr. P.

But Mr. P flounced right by the Meaning, with a pass-me-my-smelling-salts flick of his wrists. "Nonsense. I would just love to hear you sing. Can you stop by the music room sometime this w

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 47 for September 23, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a poem by Jes Rausch, "Defining the Shapes of our Selves," and a GlitterShip original, "The Last Spell of the Raven" by Morris Tanafon. This is the last original story from GlitterShip Summer 2017, which you can pick up at glittership.com/buy if you would like to have your own copy. More importantly, however, this means that the Autumn 2017 issue is coming out soon!

JesRauschlives and writes in Wisconsin, with too many pets and too much beer for company. Nir fiction has appeared or is forthcoming atStrange Horizons,Apex Magazine, and Lethe Press. Find nem not updating nir Twitter@jesrausch.

"Defining the Shapes of our Selves"

by Jes Rausch

Book One

when we reached Fire Nest on Summit, hot sun hanging low in the sky like an egg, biding, the dirt streets were dusty as smoke. So this is what the capitol of the Dragon Lands is like, i said, and, i never dreamt i’d be here, breathe in dust that must once have been the scales of ancients. There, you said, and pointed out a spire among spires, the twisting of another sculpted tail in a sea of swirling tails and horns and There, you said, and interrupted my awe with one of your smiles, man to me. When we reached Fire Nest on Summit, our pouches full of rubies, the aura of crime marinating them to a fine delicacy, we strode down streets dusty with smoke, smoky with the scent of food and sounds and flashes of golds and crimsons. We were here for a reason, a purpose, a journey, and here we were at the door carved of real dragon bone before the set of scale-clad guards, to bargain and banter and barter our way into the deal of a lifetime. Said the guard who stepped forward, He requires men and women meet specific challenges attuned to their natures to pass, and Step this way, to you. When we reached Fire Nest on Summit, you walked through your designated door, and i left behind in your dust, was told to wait when the guard could not determine which frame fit. Said the guard, it is better this way, after all, you cannot meet the challenges without a reason, a purpose, a journey.

Book Two

When I stepped into the apartment I heard the burble of the fish tank, that constant watery murmur that gives me what little comfort it can. I turn on all the lights today, and a little music too. The curtains already drawn, this little home a sanctuary where I can pee however I want to, and with the door open. Out there in the world deemed real, I can try too hard to talk with coworkers, meet company standards, go by unseen. But here I can make chicken tikka. Chicken tikka doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care if you live or die either, so in a way, it is the world deemed real, and here, in my home I can devour it.

Book Three

when we slid into Io Port 7 dock, powered down, cleared the security scans, and disembarked after five long hours of waiting around in the mess, prisoners in our own ship, i was ready for a bit of fun. Ten months out in a vacuum will do that to you. Chasing odd jobs around stars, snagging a get-rich-quick scheme out of orbit is a tiring way to live. Dull as an old hull, random as a time of death. Our boots made the obligatory clank- clank noise down the corridors, our voices blocked them out. See, i was never free ‘til i reached for a star and grabbed a bucket of rust, made the engines run on sweat and blood and nightmares. See, you can smell the aching shell of it from the inside, but then, you probably never will. i take care choosing a crew who can withstand the raw scent of a being rotting from the inside out, fighting against the lack of friction for all days. When we emerged from the decaying ship, pristine outer hull, and slid ourselves into Io Port 7 dock and down and down the corridors already the rest and relaxation curled its way up to us. Somewhere in the center of port, a band was playing, Venus Colony 3- inspired beats pulsing and ebbing through the artificial grav. Some persistent restaurant owner was preparing dishes from Old Earth, warm smells competing for dominance with the aromas of Orion-inspired cuisine. When we descended into Io Port 7 dock, followed the sounds and smells down to get our access passes from the automated entrance bot, i entered in my name, retinal scan, handprint, voice sample. i completed the three-part questionnaire: reason for visit, profession, personal information. i turned to accept my pass scan, and the bot flashed dismissal. I’m sorry, the cold voice said, but you don’t have the appropriate body mods to legally be permitted to select that gender. I count only two of the required five.

END

Morris Tanafon lives in Ohio but still feels like a New Englander. His work has appeared inCrossed Genres andMythic Delirium and he blogs sporadically at https://gloriousmonsters.wordpress.com

The Last Spell of the Raven

by Morris Tanafon

When I was very young, I watched my mother win the Battle of Griefswald. Standing knee-deep in our ornamental pool, she transformed the surface into a picture of Germany, and dripped fire from her hands into the water. I stood with my tutor in the crowd that watched, and did not understand why she gripped my shoulders until they ached, or why the people watching cheered and gasped. I saw the fire snake around the houses, and tiny people running from it. But until I was older I did not understand that it had been real.

Nobody talked to me about magic. My father never spoke of it, and my mother believed that I took after my father and had no talent for it. Still, at the age of seven I used it for the first time—a desperate child will reach for any tool. I knew that magic existed, from my mother’s conversations with her friends, and that it could be used to do wonderful things. And I knew that my cat Morrow was dead. So when I was given the body to bury it, I took her out to the backyard instead, and performed my best guess at a spell. The form was foolish, but the intent genuine, and intent was all it needed.

Morrow stirred, and my cry of delight caught my mother's attention. She looked from me to the cat, heard five seconds of my babbled explanation, and began screaming.

"Galen, you idiot!" She slapped me. "Things that come back are barely alive, and now you've wasted a spell! If you use more than four spells you die, do you want to die?"

I began screaming, convinced I was going to drop dead on the spot, and the reborn Morrow added a thin, ugly caterwaul to the din.

It was my father who ended the stupid affair, in one of the rare moments he left his study. He scooped up Morrow, plucked me away from my mother, and took us both inside, ignoring my mother's spitting rage. I don't know what she did after that. It didn't matter to me at the time, because my father took me into his study. I had never seen the interior before, and when he put me down I froze in place, afraid I’d break something. He dropped Morrow in my arms; I could feel her tiny, tinny heartbeat against her ribs. She smelled like mothballs and felt like paper-mâché, as if I hugged too tightly I'd crush her.

"I have no say in the matter," my father said, "but I suggest you never use magic again."

I must have looked ready to start screaming again, because he began speaking quickly—something he never did.

"I would never have married Evelyn if I knew she was a magician. In the country I come from, it is despised, for good reason. Who would willingly rip their soul apart?" He sat down, drumming his fingers, and watched me for a minute. I stared back dumbly—I still didn't understand.

"There's a story we tell children," he said. "Once, a raven was swallowed by a whale, and inside it he found a little house. There was a beautiful girl there, with a lamp by her side."

Morrow scratched my shoulder. I put her down but she stayed by my legs, winding around them.

"She told the raven: The lamp is sacred, do not touch it. But every few moments she had to rise and go out the door, for she was the whale's breath." I wanted to ask why the whale's breath was a girl, but my father signaled me to be silent. "And the raven, being arrogant and curious, waited until she was gone and touched the lamp. In an instant it went out, the girl fell down dead, and the whale died too, for the lamp was the whale's soul."

I pressed my hands to my chest.

"You're not going to die," my father said. "Not if you stop now. But listen—the raven dug its way up through the whale's dead flesh, and found it beached. There were men gathered around. And instead of telling them, 'I meddled with something beautiful and destroyed it', the raven merely cried, 'I slew the whale! I slew the whale!' And he became great among men, but lived a cursed life thenceforward."

The meaning was not obvious to a seven-year-old. "Am I cursed?"

"All magicians are," my father said flatly, "for that raven, greedy for the power he tasted from the whale's soul, became the first magician. Now go, and think about what I told you."

I went, and I did. To this day, that's the longest conversation my father shared with me.

Morrow perished again seven years later, despite my best efforts. I fed her bugs and graveyard dirt and tiny pieces of liver and locked her in my room to prevent her from jumping off a too-high surface and crushing her fragile front legs. But I forgot to lock the door one day, and a maid wildly kicked at the grey shape that appeared in front of her, and that was the end of Morrow.

I was angry, but the maid c