This issue features stories from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, China, and Cuba.
It’s been difficult to focus on finalizing this issue.
As I type these words, my home town of Odessa, Ukraine is bracing for an invasion by Russian forces. The familiar streets and landmarks where I spent my childhood are filled with sandbags and Czech hedgehog anti-tank obstacles....
Yonkers sprawled out below me, rotting in places, shiny in others. Vehicles the size of toys tooled along, too far away for me to hear their engines. In the parking lot directly below me, two kids who’d been trying to sneak a smoke were being marched back into the building by a gray-haired security guard....
Happiness is a choice. That phrase is etched in my mind. Not because it’s true, but because it was the calibration clinics’ slogan.
I’m talking about forty years ago. After the practice was legalized, but before the first home care kits....
It is said to be the most exquisite delicacy in the world—why else would the Emperor himself demand it while lying on his deathbed?
As the shuttle whistled and slowed while entering the thick atmosphere of planet Yan, Ding Jie instinctively shrank his neck backward....
When he docked in the airlock the lights flickered for just a second or two before they came back alive. The station’s soothing mechanical voice said, “Increased sunspot activity affecting shipping routes until—”
Nugget didn’t bother listening to the rest of it....
Unavailable. Unavailable. All the ingredients Shoshana had special-ordered were unavailable.
“But I placed that order weeks ago!”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do,” the station quartermaster said. “The war in the Celosian System has messed up our supply lines....
“Where are we going?” I asked, sprawling out in one of the departure lounge’s couches.
The couch was analog, solid, covered with animal leather. Maybe it was supposed to impress visiting principals, or accustom us to stiff, non-ergonomic steel springs. It even smelled like curing oil....
This issue features stories from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, China, and Cuba.
Table of contents
It’s been difficult to focus on finalizing this issue.
As I type these words, my home town of Odessa, Ukraine is bracing for an invasion by Russian forces. The familiar streets and landmarks where I spent my childhood are filled with sandbags and Czech hedgehog anti-tank obstacles....
Yonkers sprawled out below me, rotting in places, shiny in others. Vehicles the size of toys tooled along, too far away for me to hear their engines. In the parking lot directly below me, two kids who’d been trying to sneak a smoke were being marched back into the building by a gray-haired security guard....
Happiness is a choice. That phrase is etched in my mind. Not because it’s true, but because it was the calibration clinics’ slogan.
I’m talking about forty years ago. After the practice was legalized, but before the first home care kits....
It is said to be the most exquisite delicacy in the world—why else would the Emperor himself demand it while lying on his deathbed?
As the shuttle whistled and slowed while entering the thick atmosphere of planet Yan, Ding Jie instinctively shrank his neck backward....
When he docked in the airlock the lights flickered for just a second or two before they came back alive. The station’s soothing mechanical voice said, “Increased sunspot activity affecting shipping routes until—”
Nugget didn’t bother listening to the rest of it....
Unavailable. Unavailable. All the ingredients Shoshana had special-ordered were unavailable.
“But I placed that order weeks ago!”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do,” the station quartermaster said. “The war in the Celosian System has messed up our supply lines....
“Where are we going?” I asked, sprawling out in one of the departure lounge’s couches.
The couch was analog, solid, covered with animal leather. Maybe it was supposed to impress visiting principals, or accustom us to stiff, non-ergonomic steel springs. It even smelled like curing oil....
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