Питер Филлипс - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

The walking-stick people have re-appeared before the flier. I feel sure, from their lesser height, their brighter coloring, and the immature development of certain members, that they all represent a new generation. None of my former visitors have survived the winter; but somehow, the new ones seem to regard the Selenite and me with the same curiosity and reverence that were shown by their elders. They, too, have begun to bring gifts of insubstantial-looking fruit; and they strew filmy blossoms below the por . . . I wonder how they propagate themselves, and how knowledge is transmitted from one generation to another. . . .

The flat,lichenous vines are mounting on the rocks, are clambering over the hull of the Selenite . The young walking-sticks gather daily to worship me—they make those enigmatic signs which I have never understood, and they move in swift gyrations about the vessel, as in the measures of a hieratic dance. . . . I, the lost and doomed, have been the god of two generations. No doubt they will still worship me when I am dead. I think the air is almost gone—I am more light-headed than usual today, and there is a queer constriction in my throat and chest. . . .

Perhaps I am a little delirious, and have begun to imagine things; but I have just perceived an odd phenomenon, hitherto unnoted. I don’t know what it is. A thin, columnar mist, moving and writhing like a serpent, with opal colors that change momently, has appeared among the rocks and is approaching the vessel. It seems like a live thing—like a vaporous entity; and somehow, it is poisonous and inimical. It glides forward, rearing above the throng of phasmidae , who have all prostrated themselves as if in fear. I see it more clearly now: it is half-transparent, with a web of grey threads among its changing colors; and it is putting forth a long, wavering tentacle.

It is some rare life-form, unknown to earthly science; and I cannot even surmise its nature and attributes. Perhaps it is the only one of its kind on the asteroid. No doubt it has just discovered the presence of the Selenite , and has been drawn by curiosity, like the walking-stick people.

The tentacle has touched the hull—it has reached the port behind which I stand, pencilling these words. The grey threads in the tentacle glow as if with sudden fire. My God —it is coming through the neo-crystal lens—

Pets can enrich a person’s life, but this person, and his life, needed more enriching than any pet should be expected to accomplish. And the sort of pets he kept weren’t the warm and fuzzy kind, but then neither was he. His new acquisition was a very exotic type of creature from another planet, with high entertainment value. Maybe he should have considered the possibility that the entertainment might become mutual . . .

If the name of George R.R. Martin is unfamiliar to you, I’ll assume that you’ve spent the last decade or longer in the Foreign Legion, doing research in Antarctica, or were abducted as a child by aliens who just now dropped you off at the corner of Main Street and Loopy Lane. Time magazine selected him in 2011 as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” His award-winning high fantasy series, collectively titled A Song of Fire and Ice, which began with A Game of Thrones and has continued through four more novels, with two more planned, owns the New York Times best seller list, and has spun off art books, board games, video games, and a popular HBO TV series. He has won five Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, five Locus Awards, a Quill Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Convention’s Life Achievement Award. He created (and frequently contributed to) the long-running and popular Wild Cards series, presently totaling 23 volumes. Martin has long had an interest in horror—his early Hugo-winner, “A Song for Lya,” can be read as an ambiguous horror story—and wrote the novels Fevre Dream (described as Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain) and The Armageddon Rag , a horror story set in the rock music culture of the sixties and eighties. And of course, there’s the story you’re about to read, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. But first make sure your skimmer is in working order . . .

Simon Kress lived alone in a sprawling manor house among the dry, rocky hills fifty kilometers from the city. So, when he was called away unexpectedly on business, he had no neighbors he could conveniently impose on to take his pets. The carrion hawk was no problem; it roosted in the unused belfry and customarily fed itself anyway. The shambler Kress simply shooed outside and left to fend for itself; the little monster would gorge on slugs and birds and rockjocks. But the fish tank, stocked with genuine Earth piranha, posed a difficulty. Kress finally just threw a haunch of beef into the huge tank. The piranha could always eat each other if he were detained longer than expected. They’d done it before. It amused him.

Unfortunately, he was detained much longer than expected this time. When he finally returned, all the fish were dead. So was the carrion hawk. The shambler had climbed up to the belfry and eaten it. Simon Kress was vexed.

The next day he flew his skimmer to Asgard, a journey of some two hundred kilometers. Asgard was Baldur’s largest city and boasted the oldest and largest starport as well. Kress liked to impress his friends with animals that were unusual, entertaining, and expensive; Asgard was the place to buy them.

This time, though, he had poor luck. Xenopets had closed its doors; t’Etherane the Petseller tried to foist another carrion hawk off on him; and Strange Waters offered nothing more exotic than piranha, glow-sharks, and spider squids. Kress had had all those; he wanted something new.

Near dusk, he found himself walking down the Rainbow Boulevard, looking for places he had not patronized before. So close to the starport, the street was lined by importers’ marts. The big corporate emporiums had impressive long windows, where rare and costly alien artifacts reposed on felt cushions against dark drapes that made the interiors of the stores a mystery. Between them were the junk shops—narrow, nasty little places whose display areas were crammed with all manner of off-world bric-a-brac. Kress tried both kinds of shop, with equal dissatisfaction.

Then he came across a store that was different.

It was quite close to the port. Kress had never been there before. The shop occupied a small, single-story building of moderate size, set between a euphoria bar and a temple-brothel of the Secret Sisterhood. Down this far, the Rainbow Boulevard grew tacky. The shop itself was unusual. Arresting.

The windows were full of mist; now a pale red, now the gray of true fog, now sparkling and golden. The mist swirled and eddied and glowed faintly from within. Kress glimpsed objects in the window—machines, pieces of art, other things he could not recognize—but he could not get a good look at any of them. The mists flowed sensuously around them, displaying a bit of first one thing and then another, then cloaking all. It was intriguing.

As he watched, the mist began to form letters. One word at a time. Kress stood and read:

WO. AND. SHADE. IMPORTERS.

ARTIFACTS. ART. LIFEFORMS. AND. MISC.

The letters stopped. Through the fog, Kress saw something moving. That was enough for him, that and the word “Lifeforms” in the advertisement. He swept his walking cloak over his shoulder and entered the store.

Inside, Kress felt disoriented. The interior seemed vast, much larger than he would have guessed from the relatively modest frontage. It was dimly lit, peaceful. The ceiling was a starscape, complete with spiral nebulae, very dark and realistic, very nice. The counters all shone faintly, the better to display the merchandise within. The aisles were carpeted with ground fog. In places, it came almost to his knees and swirled about his feet as he walked.