The readings were of no use, yet again.
Just another cold barren piece of space debris. Chacula drooped despondently over her charts. She’d been honoured when the job had been given to her; first in her field on graduation there’d been no contest. But it had been such a long time now, and still no sign of anywhere in the cosmos to fit her search criteria. The local stuff she’d painstakingly observed were all dead, icy chunks of rock left over from the creation , just space dust orbiting her world. Further out, eons away, there were bright tempting jewels which beckoned to her.
Chacula glowed with irritation. A scorching breeze floated past her, warming her on its way to eddy and swirl within the gravity mix.
All she needed was one find; just one. That would get her name into the history plasma. The weather on her world was changing, cooling rapidly. Her people needed to look elsewhere for a home. Their numbers were dwindling with each pulse of quanta which left the world; each life sapping pulse cooled her world just a little more. Time was running to entropy.
Heat flowed from her eyes and quenched her flames momentarily. By all that was holy, why could she not fulfil the trust and hope placed in her and find a new home for her people?
Snivelling about it would not serve, she decided. Straightening her essence, she determined to work harder.
***
“Will j’ya look at that?” marvelled Johnny.
He was the newest recruit at the observatory, fresh out of university, he was full of it. He’d scored the highest marks of his year, and it had been an almost automatic appointment.
“We need minds like his,” the chairman had intoned when asked about the boy’s suitability. “If we are ever to dig ourselves out of this mess. He’ll grow up as he gets bedded down here.”
The rest of the staff in Los Alamos doubted that. Johnny was fifteen and still heavily into puberty. Hormones were bursting out of every pore, and practical jokes were his favourite hobby. The last one had been an elaborate hoax on the CETI team, over in the other building. They’d gotten really excited, until they’d decoded the message, and found a often used curse of Johnny’s along with a picture of a bare bottom.
His presumably.
Complaints had been issued, and warnings given. But nobody expected them to stick. Johnny was Teflon-coated when it came to criticism, it just dribbled off him like water off a greased wall. And given the state of his skin, this analogy was very apt.
“I said… Will you look at that” Johnny repeated. He hated being ignored, and since the bottom incident, nobody was keen to get too close.
His office roomie sighed and gave in.
“What?” he asked with resignation.
“The codes coming over this frequency. They’re… funny.”
“That’s it… they’re funny? Can’t you do better that that, jerk? Don’t waste my time.”
Johnny glared at him, then shrugged. No skin off’a his if nobody here wanted to see what was in front of theirs. Let “˜em stew. He went back to watching in fascination the pretty patterns steadily filling his screen. It was a sure-fire thing; somebody out there was trying to get in touch.
Reaching for his keyboard, he started to reply.
***
Yes!
Chacula watched in amazement as her plasma filled with regular patterns. Somebody out there was sending a reply. Heavens be praised. Maybe their world would accommodate the remaining ones of her people. They were expiring at an alarming rate now, Chacula herself sometimes tended towards that entropy which ended in non existence. It took all her determination to keep warm enough to work on. She decided to check this one out herself. No time to hand it on to the researchers.
After checking the link thoroughly, she was sure. This was the real thing. Maybe this was their new home. Quivering on the edge of a heat sink, she sent her next message. Then she sat back, exhausted, and waited.
***
Hot damn, this is fun, thought Johnny exultantly.
It was better than online gaming any goddamn day. Those you only get to talk to terrestrials. This was more, much more; he just knew it. It was early morning, and dawn was just about to peep. He’d been at his screen all night. All the other plebs had gone home yonks ago–left the weirdo to it. Well he’d show them. Just wait “˜til they got here, they’d damn well see what they’d missed. A real live extra; no doubt about it. And he’d hooked it.
His eyes lit up as another burst of characters hit his screen. This was like a realtime message service; but so much cooler. Avidly, he set to decoding. Lost in his own little world, he forgot the dawn. After a short while, with the message opened before his eyes, he typed his last response, and hit the send button.
***
There! See!
Intelligent life, Chacula was certain. She’d found a new home for them all; all the continents of her world. It was time to start the exodus. She had access to the control to do this; it would be her honour to so. A new home, with all the temperature they could possibly need; to bathe, to eat, to live. Life-giving heat.
Her world was dying from the inside, time was running to entropy; she pushed the button and her world expanded. They were on their way. Exultant, she knew she’d be immortal in the plasmas, forever.
***
Johnny looked up as the dawn’s light hit his screen. Man that sun was bright, today.
And it kept getting brighter. And hotter. Then, as the expanding plasma ball seared off the atmosphere of the Earth in seconds, Johnny’s last thought was:
“What goes through a bug’s mind last thing before it hits a windshield?”
***
(answer: its bum)
Avis Hickman-Gibb lives in Suffolk, England with her husband, one son and two cats. She gained a BSc. in Environmental Chemistry more years ago than she cares to admit, and worked in the fledgling computer industry whilst still a babe-in-arms. She’s had stories in Every Day Fiction, Twisted Tongue, PygmyGiant, BackhandStories, Boston Literary Magazine, Short Humour, The Ranfurly Review StaticMovement, Microhorror, Bewildering Stories & The Shine Journal. She’s currently working on a book of short stories and a novel but is addicted to writing flash fiction. If you want to read more of her writing, you can find links at http://www.writewords.org.uk/Hickman-Gibb/ and http://avishickmangibb.blogspot.com/.
Did you like this story?
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed! (what is rss)
Don’t miss another story! Subscribe to Every Day Fiction via RSS.- Share on Facebook
Rate this story
41 Responses to “ALL THE CONTINENTS OF THE SUN • by Avis Hickman-Gibb”
Comments
« THREE WISHES–A FAIRYTALE • by Robin Vandenberg Herrnfeld | Home | BECOMING COTTONTAIL • by Deven D Atkinson »
September 10th, 2008 at 1:06 am
LOL, Avis. I’m not a reader of science fiction, but this seemd to me a very creative idea with a humourous twist.
Good job.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:06 am
Thanks Robin!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Avis, as a fellow Suffolk girl, I think this story was brilliant. I love the ‘teflon-coated’ sentence. Well-balanced story. A great piece of flash. Loved it!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Avis,
When I saw yours was the story in my mail today I was excited-and for good reason. Thanks for a terrific story.
Best,
Pamela
September 10th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Celeste – Hi there Tractor Girl!
And Hey Pamela!
Thanks for those lovely comments, and perhaps this one is pertinent considering what’s going down in CERN today.
I have views; read them on my blog:
http://avishickmangibb.blogspot.com/
Visit and leave a comment.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:02 am
“LOL, Avis. I’m not a reader of science fiction, ”
Apparently, neither is Avis.
Hated almost everything about it. I’m an SF fan so I may be over-critical. Nothing wrong with the writing though.
Entropy – to quote the Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.”
September 10th, 2008 at 4:09 am
“A new home, with all the temperature they could possibly need” – the word is “heat”.
“Time was running to entropy” – meaningless.
“The weather on her world was changing” – assuming her world was a sun that would be SOME weather. Weather implies atmosphere which doesn’t sound right in the context of a plasma-based life-form.
“she pushed the button and her world expanded” – you maintained the whole essense/plasma thing right through it and now there’s a frickin’ “button”?
I know I’m being especially horrible but this story just disrespects the genre.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Avis – this is fabulous – I love it
Thank you for brightening up my day.
Chacula and Johnny – a match made in heaven?
September 10th, 2008 at 5:40 am
I loved it Avis.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Interesting setup, Avis, and worthy of an ending with greater import than a bar joke. Comments and needed edits to come–offline–if you wish.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Avis, I enjoyed the style and the voice of this piece.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:48 am
a disorganised universe indeed, Avis but not a disorganised story…wonder if we’ll ever get that call?
September 10th, 2008 at 8:59 am
I liked your use of language in this piece. It really served to set apart the two worlds. It especially gave the alien a sense of “other” very distinct from the Earth bits.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
GD – why not get a life m’dear and stop this useless babble? Let’s see one of yours, entered via the usual submission process all of us authors go through, for a change.
I am quite comfortable with the use of entropy & the running down of time… I am mildly surprised you aren’t.
And I have to say, you are judging this piece with all the… blinkered open mindedness I’d have expected. If one writes aliens, what use if they have the same concepts as us? T’aint alien then, boy!
Yes Walt – email me.
Thank the rest of you lovely people for your very kind and supportive comments.
Cheers
Avis
September 10th, 2008 at 10:27 am
it was a fun story…the ending wasnt quite as satisfying as i thought it might be…but im not sure what i was expecting really. I found the writing fine.
However…seeings as it is used so much…i wish i bloody knew was entropy meant.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:48 am
The Universe acquired energy initially from the Big Bang. The system is in a state of expansion now, still. But that rate of expansion is slowing down. One Day(!) it will run out of energy – so you could consider that as stuff slows down or cools, entropy increases. Or to put it another way, nature tends from order to disorder in any closed system – such as The Universe. The longer The Universe exists, and the more it cools the greater its entropy. See?
September 10th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Particularly liked Johnny’s character, Avis.
My only nit, and it’s really just a matter of personal preference–the second section seemed a little short for a POV shift. I think you could have accomplished what you wanted all from Johnny’s POV.
For the most part, though, I really liked this. I enjoyed the humor. I liked the parallel between Johnny and Chacula. And props for being willing to write sci-fi. Those sci-fi experts can be ruthless!
September 10th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Avis,
Great flow and voice. Nice concept and slant. Don’t mind the critics who always seem to forget the “fi” in sci-fi.
And even science is ah, ‘relative’, huh?
Both Johnny and Chacula were well formed characters.
Good job!!
–dj
September 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Avis,
this is good science fiction. I don’t know where Mr Demayne is coming from? If he’s an SF fan he should know that there’s hard and soft SF. Yours is somewhere in the middle i.e. between Asimov and Ray Bradbury – a very good space to occupy.
That said, yeah, I’ll offer a negative criticism. I don’t think you offered enough guidance on why the plasma beings would be seeking intelligent life. I believe it would be because such life is likely to be at an optimum distance from the sun, near enough for the crossover of the plasma beings. On the other hand, any real SF fan would figure this out, it’s part of the challenge of the genre.
Like you, I encourage Mr Demayne to submit to EDF, or point out where else we can read his work. So, for the time being, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, constructive criticism is one thing but beginning a comment with ‘Hated almost everything about it’ is bad manners and he owes you an apology.
I hope he’s man enough to make it.
Cheers
Mark
September 10th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Thank you Mark for that, and thank you all (especially GD, who really gave me a laugh today) for your wonderful comments on this piece.
I’m glad that my heroes of Sci-Fi, Bradbury, Clarke and Heinlein didn’t take GD’s approach when writing their stuff.
Not that I compare myself to them, but put up or shut up GD, is what I say!!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I just recently learned that Mr Demayne actually puts work of his on the forum here, instead of submitting by regular means. Whilst I thank him for his recent positive comment on my own work, his habit of rubbishing the work of others whilst in turn avoiding public scrutiny of his own, is pussilanimous in the the extreme.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Avis–
The title definitely drew me in–really liked that.
I also understood your use of entropy as it relates to “heat death.” I think GD may have been confused because entropy is used in different ways in thermodynamics, cosmology, sociology, and information theory. Your use, I thought, made perfect sense here.
I have to agree the button thing threw me off, as did the mention of weather on a star, but then that didn’t bother me so much because you were, to me, offering a different explanation (kind of a fantastical explanation, rather than a science fictional possibility) about what a star/sun is, why it explodes when it dies, and what inhabits it before its death. And I liked that.
I also agree that fifteen year-old boys may be the doom of this planet.
Thanks, Avis!
September 11th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Ah the dangers of untamed puberty! Very funny and astute, Avis. Thank you for brightening my day with this story.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Dear Editors, there seems to be a typo in Mr. Demayne’s comment: “I know I’m being especially horrible but this story just disrespects the genre.”
Past (and indeed recent) experience would suggest that this was meant to read:
“I know I’m being especially horrible but that’s how I get my kicks.”
Yours faithfully,
SH
September 11th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Dear Mr Demayne, please dismount from the cross. The wood is needed elsewhere. Also, you’re giving SF fans a terrible rap. Thank you. SH
September 11th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Thank you all for your lovely comments, and support for my story and in the face of GD.
Maybe he can’t help himself? Perhaps it is a compulsion with him? Who knows, or even cares at the moment? Will I ever stop asking questions?!!!
Nope!
September 11th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Funny story, Avis! Brilliant.
Don’t think it really matters if the story does not comply with any boring sci facts. But of course, different people may have different views. At least GD put an effort to share his thoughts.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Thanks for your lovely comments re the story, AB.
I appreciate your point of view re readers taking the time to comment. But there is sharing and sharing – y’know? Even when I dislike a story, I don’t feel I should be down right rude. If I dislike it enough, I won’t comment at all.
But being rude is a tendency GD has – when one reads his comments both on this story, and other authors’ stories in the past. His comments can also appear to attack other readers too; rubbishing them, if their opinions don’t tally with his. This is why I think he received such a strong knock back here.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I enjoyed this one, very much Avis.
I do like science fiction, and I did not have a problem with your use of language.
When a story involves alien intelligence, the most delicate task of the writer is to find a language bridge that spans the chasm between two worlds, both physical and cultural. As is the case between differing human cultures and languages, there are often problems in translation. Words and ideas exist in some languages, but not in others. A good SF writer creates language that guides the reader into the understanding of concepts outside of his own experience.
Thanks for the story.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Thanks B.
It always make me laugh when the aliens talk English. On SG-1 they all speak perfect English – even in other Galaxies! In Star Trek they at least had The Universal Translator!
Yes I wanted to express some of out concepts in other ways and terms – hence the heat/temperature/entropy stuff.
Glad it worked for you.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Much enjoyed and an unexpected ending, with a humorous note at the end. Yes, truly GD–”Get a Life!” There is a way to critique without being so rude.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
GD can be harsh (and can be positive as well) but I have to admit, I’ve noticed his negative comments on stories that I also felt have missed the mark.
I struggled with the logic and timing of the story but perservered, to find an old joke as the pay-off.
The writing was fine but I can’t help but feel that the story could have gone somewhere.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Terri & Sylvia
Thanks for taking the trouble to read & comment.
Terri glad you agree.
Sylvia, I have no problem with criticism, just the way GD doles it out. The logic was fairly simple, cross wires and trigger happy youth, and the need to look before we leap, really about sums it up. The timing? In the sorty, or because it was the day before CERN was switched one?!!
Glad you read it anyway, and you were MOST polite when commenting, so I got back to you and engaged!!
September 15th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Meanwhile, I’ve gone away to learn how to spell persevered.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
…same here with story! Fingers – eh? Can’t live with them, can’t type with them!!!
September 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
GD properly critiques word choice.
“A new home, with all the temperature they could possibly need”
Temperature is a property of matter. Everything has temperature. Thus it doesn’t make sense to say “all the temperature they could possibly need” — GD is right, the word is heat. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature
“Time was running to entropy”
Time, more generally space-time, cannot “run to entropy.” This doesn’t make any sense. You could have said “Entropy increased as time went on,” but not what you said.
And as for your comment about writing about aliens, that may be true; but if one writes about aliens to humans, one should write for humans, not for aliens. Always write to your audience.
Finally, a question:
What happens at the end?
A plasma ball breaks off the sun and hits Earth? Why, exactly? I’m confused as to what Chacula sought. Did she look for the sun? But if the sun, why did she seek intelligent life? I admit I’m lost as to what she was trying to find.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:22 am
Thank you Anon for your time here. A pity you didn’t want to leave a name. I think you & GD are obsessing too much on Earth bound phrases and terms. I am aware of the definitions of Temp, entropy and Heat.
Let me ask this – if you EVER met an alien – would you expect him/her to call the atomic arrangement of one proton & one electron – Hydrogen? Would you think less of them if they didn’t?
Thanks for the suggested change re Entropy – but I found the phrase you supplied… clunky.
Good tip about audience – Yes I do try to write to my audience – and indeed would be VERY surprised if I got an Alien critique on this ( but then maybe not, everybody and his dog has taken a pop it seems!!). But if I’d written both sides as “Human” the story would have fallen flat.
And the story’s premise is simple – Chakula lived ON the Sun, and was tasked with finding a new home/star for her people (Theirs was cooling down- all all Suns are). To cut to the endgame – she caused a supernova and wiped out the Earth – a hazard of letting adolescents loose in Grown Up’s jobs.
Hop this clears up a few points.
Cheers
Avis
September 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Loving most genres, including SF, my favourite author being Iain M. Banks, and to be honest, not really understanding scientific gobblydegook, I will say, as an ordinary reader, I enjoyed the story, its characters and the funny ending.
Loosen up GD, it’s only a story.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Thanks Avis.
I see your point about alien naming schema, though I guess I’m used to most authors just waving their hands and assuming ease of communication with aliens.
Chakula caused a supernova of the Sun? I thought the Sun is too small to supernova… “Solitary stars with a mass below approximately nine[5] solar masses, such as the Sun itself, evolve into white dwarfs without ever becoming supernovae.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova
Taking on faith that Chakula caused the supernova, why did she cause a supernova when she and her people left the sun? Where did they go? And how did her search for intelligent life fit into all of this?
September 30th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Sometimes, anon, the subjective, poetic ambiguous story trumps the scientific expository. Personally, I never could stand Arthur Clark. Look beyond the physics in Avis’s story, and see the irony.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 am
Hi Jennifer and Walt
Thanks for those comments. And Anon, this was only a flash – not a full novel.. If I ever expand it, I’ll keep your comments in mind.
Now, Life moves on, chaps…