SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Please, Esteemed Elders: take this warning seriously. This is about Life as we know it on our planet. We must convince the factions to bring us the doomsday weapon so that it can be disassembled in a safe environment, in a lab. It never should have been built, and I will curse my own curiosity for the rest of my days.

Sincerely,

John Tycho

Dearest Love:

I have written to the Councils of Elders and Judges. I don’t have any faith that they will hear my warnings. You should take our family and travel as quickly as you can to the Halls of the Elder Dragons and throw yourself and our cause on their mercies. In spite of not truly knowing their intent, I believe they may be our only hope at survival. Plan to leave our home forever. Bring as many of your friends as you can convince to come along. I will try to meet you there soon.

I know this sounds crazy, but if the Faction succeeds in its plan to detonate the cursed weapon that I developed in a crazy bid to provide endless energy to our world, we will all be destroyed.

My love, I long to be with you now, but I am traveling today to the Capitol to try to talk sense into the Judges there, personally. I hope that I am not too late.

I send you my heart, my soul, and my endless kisses. I hope that I see you and our children soon.

Love,

John

To the Leaders of the Faction:

I beg of you, return the device that is in your possession back to its rightful owners. I agree that we all need a dialogue about the direction our planet’s governmental rulers have chosen with the Dragons. We must discuss the wide-spread effects of space travel on our world in an intelligent, rational manner.

Your religious beliefs are strong, I understand. You must please hear me: the device you hold in your hands could trigger an unbelievably catastrophic series of events that could destroy life as we know it on this planet.

We have nowhere else to go that has homes for us to live in, and any emigration to other planets at this point is unfeasible. Please allow me to speak to you about a device and a danger that I never intended.

Can we not negotiate like civilized people? The day is long and the night is longer—but the sun will bless those of us who save our world.

You hold our fate in your hands. Please look at your loved ones, your children’s faces, and know that it is within your power to change the world for the better, not the worse.

Sincerely, with hope,

John Tycho, inventor of the weapon you hold

To: The Elder Dragons

Anahita Region

Esteemed Friends:

I believe the time for negotiations has ended. You in your wisdom have provided us a means to travel the galaxies, indeed, the universe. But there are those on our world who are afraid of the gifts you give. They will destroy us all in their fear. My search for renewable energy has caused me to inadvertently create a device that could destroy us all in the hands of those in the Faction.

You will recall the stories you have told me about what happened to your planet, so long ago before you came to us. How the Evil Ones took over, and caused a catastrophic meltdown of your planet’s energy sources. I fear that pattern is happening here, as well. Your interplanetary travel might be all that saves us.

I wish more of our people knew of your story, but I understand your reluctance to share your species origins, that you are extra-planetary beings come here to co-exist with us. I wish we were as intelligent of a species as your initial findings showed us to be.

I believe you must prepare the ships to transport as many of our planet’s people as possible to the Third Planet in our solar system. As you know from your own explorations of our solar system, it is not very hospitable, and there is no civilization to speak of.

The ships must be well-stocked with supplies, both for building, for medical care, to combat the diseases and environmental disasters that will surely befall our people on the barbaric surface of that planet. Not to mention the dangers of super-carnivores which still stalk the Northern hemisphere, and the primitive tribes of barbaric humanoids who live there. They are our distant genetic cousins, yes. But they have nothing in common with our civilized planet.

It has taken 4.6 billion years since the formation of this solar system and indeed, the universe. And it will take mere seconds for it to turn into a raging pit of acid, ammonia, and clouds. It will be, indeed, like the Hell their religion speaks of.

I am sending my wife and children to you. Please, I beg of you, save as many as you can. You, and your starships, are our only hope for some measure of survival.

John Tycho

From the Desk of Joan Lummoch

Official Transcriptionist of the Courts of the Hall of Judges

Five of the Elder Dragons appeared at the Hall of the Council of Judges today. We were in session, discussing the problem of the Faction having gained access to what some are calling a penultimate doomsday device, and that some are dismissing as mere sabre rattling. There was from the area of the larger doors an uproar, voices raised in a combination of alarm and joy. This is not the official record, but my own recollection of what happened. So I may miss things in the excitement.

The Elder Dragons are rarely seen outside of their own Halls, and the Dragons that most people get to see are the navigators and younglings, who mix regularly with our own children and young people.

These were five of the most respected, most wise of the Dragons, the ones that people in the know believe are the leaders of their community.

The first through the doors was Xiuhcoatl. Some said he is in charge of wars, and that he would be a sort of battlefield general if there ever came a need to fight. He was huge, his skin green and yellow colored. Unlike most Dragons, he didn’t have any wings, even vestigial ones, but instead there was a beautiful spiny ridge of red and green spikes coming from his back, tip of his tail to top of his head. His eyes shone a dark jade-green color, and he swung his head back and forth to observe everyone in the room, as though sizing us all up.

The next dragon was thought to be a female, named Ladon. Apparently some dragons can be either male or female, depending on their preference for mating. But she generally refers to herself as a female, so everyone waited to hear from her what her preference was before using pronouns. She was a dark blue, with large purple-red wings that spanned, when opened, twice her body length. She was said to be a water dragon, who would swim regularly in the great pools out behind the Hall of Dragons, and she clearly was not impressed with the lack of moisture in the Hall of Judges. She looked annoyed, and uncomfortable, but also resigned that she needed to be here. Being a water dragon, people speculated later that it was because of her intimate knowledge of the environment, and her scientific training in water and chemistry that she had come along, although she preferred solitude and scientific study to public appearances. I thought she was the most beautiful of all of them.