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    The Martian Wave: 2013
    The Martian Wave: 2013
    The Martian Wave: 2013
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    The Martian Wave: 2013

    By J Alan Erwine

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    About this ebook

    The 2013 issue of The Martian Wave, now being published by Nomadic Delirium Press, brings you stories and poems that look at the exploration and colonization of the universe, with a special focus on our solar system. In this issue, you'll find colonists being stalked on an alien world, murder, dangerous missions to planetary moons, and aliens, lots of aliens, meddling in human evolution. Every story and poem will make you wonder whether we should be leaving our homeworld to face the dangers of the universe, and the answer will be...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNomadic Delirium Press
    Release dateJul 24, 2013
    ISBN9781301702770
    The Martian Wave: 2013
    Author

    J Alan Erwine

    J Erwine was born Oct. 15, 1969 in Akron, Ohio. Early in his life he was exposed to science, and specifically astronomy. From there on, J's passion turned to science fiction, a passion that's never died. Due to family issues, J eventually found himself in Denver, Colorado, where he still lives (well, right outside now.) From the time he could put subject and predicate together on paper, J has been writing stories. None of those early stories exist anymore (thankfully), but that passion for writing has never waned. After several years of rejection, the story Trek for Life was eventually sold to ProMart Writing Lab editor James Baker. It wasn't Asimov's, but it was a start. Since that time J has sold more than forty short stories to various small press publishers. In addition ProMart also published a short story collection of J's entitled Lowering One's Self Before Fate, and other stories, which is still available. ProMart also published a novel from J entitled The Opium of the People, which sold a few copies before going out of print. The relevance of the novel after the events of September 11th caused J to self-publish the novel, as he felt the story had a lot to say in the new reality we now find ourselves living in. Now, this same book has been re-released by Nomadic Delirium Press. Eventually J would become an editor with ProMart. Then, after the untimely death of ProMart editor James Baker, J would move on to ProMart's successor Sam's Dot Publishing. J also spends most of his time working as a freelance writer and editor. J's novel was voted a top ten finisher in the 2003 annual Preditors & Editors contest, and his short story The Galton Principle won a ProMart contest for best story over 5,000 words. In addition, a number of his stories have been voted "best of" in various issue of The Martian Wave and The Fifth DI… and have been included in Wondrous Web Worlds Vols. 2, 3, 4, and 6. In 2009, the Ephemeris Role Playing Game was released. J is the co-creator of this game, and has written numerous supplements for the game. J has now sold three novels and four short story collections, all of which are still available from various sources, including Smashwords. J currently lives with his amazing wife, three wonderful children, three cats, and a very quiet turtle.

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      Book preview

      The Martian Wave - J Alan Erwine

      THE MARTIAN WAVE

      2013

      Edited by J Alan Erwine

      Published by Nomadic Delirium Press at Smashwords

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The Martian Wave is an annual publication of Nomadic Delirium Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including physical copying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without expressed written consent of the author and/or artists.

      The stories and poems in The Martian Wave are works of science fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

      Cover illustration: Galactic Glitch copyright 2013 by Laura Givens

      Cover design by Laura Givens

      First printing August 2013

      Nomadic Delirium Press

      Aurora, Colorado

      e-mail: nomadicdelirium@yahoo.com

      INTRODUCTION

      Welcome to the 2013 issue of The Martian Wave. This magazine has seen a lot of changes over the years, and this year has been no different. We’ve moved to a new publisher, Nomadic Delirium Press, after the sale of our old publisher, Sam’s Dot Publishing. After a successful Kickstarter, the magazine is now available and will continue for years to come.

      As the long-time editor of this magazine, I’d like to express my personal thanks to everyone who supported the Kickstarter. You’ve all made it so much easier to get this magazine off the ground yet again.

      In the realm of space exploration, we’ve seen a lot of great things happen over the last year. The probes on Mars are finding all kinds of great things, the Kepler telescope has been discovering Earth-like planets, and there have been a number of other great discoveries in the realm of unexplored exploration.

      Unfortunately, human exploration has dropped off significantly. NASA has pretty much given up on these missions for the moment, and other countries aren’t launching as many missions as they used to, although China is now joining in the game as well. While governments may be cutting back, private industry is trying to pick up the slack, and I think we will see some major strides made in this area in the years to come.

      This issue of The Martian Wave gives you the usual blend of future visions. Some are dark, some are more optimistic…now, which will become true? That’s up to the people of Earth to decide…I hope they decide well…

      J Alan Erwine

      July 7th, 2013

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      STORIES

      Harvest by GC Rosenquist

      The Jains by Robert E. Porter

      Fishing on Enceladus by Robert P. Hansen

      Beyond the Belt by James McDonnell

      The Seas of Titan by Glen R. Stripling

      POEMS

      Truants by Alicia Cole

      Reading John Carter of Mars on Mars by John Grey

      Aspirations of Mystic Asteroids by Sandra Sowers Platt

      Our Find by Francis W. Alexander

      As the World Turns by Frank DeCanio

      Harvest

      By GC Rosenquist

      Me and Rokvic were security officers for the New World Settlement Council (NWSC).

      What we do is escort scientists and their graduate students down to the surface of newly discovered, human habitable planets so that they can spend a year exploring and investigating them for possible human colonization. We’ve been doing this for thirteen years now, pulled each other’s asses out of so many molasses jars that I’ve stopped counting. I always tell people when they ask that no, I’ve never been tempted by her red-headed babeness. That would ruin everything, especially when you’re both trying to bring down a four ton eatamasaurous before it ingests your scout pack.

      We were called up for a job on a newly cataloged paradise named P71Sag (because it was the 71st planet found in the Sagittarius constellation – these things don’t get properly named until the settlers arrive). We picked up our clientele on Earthbase 14. They were a fresh young crew; even the professors were younger than me.

      Let’s see, there was a blond meteorologist named Perry, hotter than a Labor Day barbeeque on Venus. She had a pair of legs I would have loved to use as toothpicks. Hergott was an entomologist and he looked like one; tall, real skinny, an Adams apple the size of an...well, an apple, and he wore a pair of those small round glasses that amazingly, never slid off a long ski slope of a nose. Gutierrez was the geologist, big man with fingers that looked like sausages. He had a red-headed graduate student named Arcott who had a skin condition that told me that puberty wasn’t yet through with him. Then there was the mandatory wedded couple, both archeologists, named Chad and Susan Weber. They looked, acted and smelled like hippies, something they pretended to be ignorant of. The medic was Medberry again; he’d been with us on three previous jobs. He took health seriously. His body was built like a battleship. Good man. Fielder was the only black in the group, he was the ecologist. Finally, Overton was the zoologist, his name fit him well. I could see him slowing us down during a chase or having a heart attack in his sleep. He had a young, dark haired, Asian female student with him named Deri, attractive but too petite for my liking.

      With the package picked up, me and Rokvic delivered it to P71Sag in less than a week. The Postman was the fastest ship in the council, used to be a mining ship in the belt back in the day but the council bought her in auction when her mining days were over, refit her propulsion system then assigned her to me. She was a huge, clumsy looking beast but we could count on her when times got rough, and they usually did.

      I parked The Postman in a field of pinkish high grass, between two red-canopied woods. There was a green lake nearby; to the west was a large butte system with layered, orange rock. It seemed like the area had something for everyone on board. I displayed a floating holomap of the area to be explored, for them. Looking at Overton, already sweating in anticipation, I figured a short five mile circle would be safe to start off with. Then we would move on to another location and explore that. They accepted the plan then I led them down the ramp, the Z-300 in my hands, cocked and ready to go. I wore extra ammo belts around my chest, grenades hung from my waist. I had a few other surprises in the deep pockets of my Kevlar vest just in case. I’d been through too many of these camping trips not to be properly prepared. Rokvic book-ended the group so that there was someone armed fore and aft. She was also packed to the gills.

      Do you two have to come out here pretending to be battlenauts? Chad Weber, the archeologist asked. His wife, Susan, shared the same superior, elitist grimace.

      Yes, she cut in. Don’t you think that will antagonize the native wildlife?

      I stopped, turned around and stared at them. They stared back at me while the whole time, from somewhere in the red woods, strange, dangerous sounding roars echoed into the air. I let the music play for a few seconds then I spoke.

      You want me and Rokvic to stay behind?

      The echoing roars mixed with chilling hissing sounds now, and something that sounded like two cats fighting.

      All of them were shaking their heads frantically, telling the Webers to shut up. I just loved it when Nature worked with me.

      I led them out of the shadows of the ship, into the high, pink grass of the field. The three suns rising in the eastern sky splashed warmth across my face immediately. We were all carrying water flasks and it looked like we were going to need them. Poor Overton, I thought.

      The ground, though, was soft and spongy, as if it had rained hard the night before. When I looked down, I saw that the ground was covered in white dust. I crouched down, scooped some of the dust up in my hand, stood up again. Fielder approached me and did the same. The white dust felt and smelled familiar.

      What is it? I asked Fielder.

      He shook it from his hand, smiled at me. It’s dirt, he said. He filled a sample vial full of the stuff. Probably so full of nutrients a dead tree could come back to life in it.

      White dirt, I echoed softly. That’s a new one for me.

      We went into the woods and immediately, the atmosphere changed. It smelled like burnt cherries and wood. The shade made it a little cooler but something didn’t feel right. It felt

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