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    Through Many Vices
    Through Many Vices
    Through Many Vices
    Ebook27 pages22 minutes

    Through Many Vices

    By Nicholas Stillman

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    About this ebook

    All of Earth succumbs to hedonism and cradle-to-grave intoxication. When drug experimentation and pleasure-seeking reach all new highs, global technological collapse grows imminent. Only the long-silent Venusians can save Earth from her euphoric self via their space-age technology. Thankfully, a dedicated ambassador, Barkhouse, becomes the eighth astronaut to approach the hot and acrid planet. He comes with a plea, a pitch, and a political speech crafted and delivered with the most brilliant methods available—and it will take handfuls of recreational drugs to achieve.

    Barkhouse, possibly the most disciplined and iron-willed Earthling alive, must get higher to get the attention and sympathy of the stoic Venusians. But can his heightened performance at negotiating break their decades of fierce isolationism, or has the hellish planet made them colder than space itself?

    Get “Through Many Vices” now, and blast off from the biggest farewell party in history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStillman Sci-Fi
    Release dateFeb 16, 2018
    ISBN9781386503439
    Through Many Vices
    Author

    Nicholas Stillman

    Nicholas Stillman writes dark but entertaining science fiction. His weekly short stories and collections aim for variety and novelty with fun and thought-provoking twists. They often branch into dystopia, crime, horror, medical fiction, black comedy, romance, adventure, adult, and the completely new. Some of Stillman’s themes include civilizational collapse, addictions of the future, medicine in space, dark psychology, and the terrifying fate of our healthcare. Stillman offers monthly free short stories at StillmanSciFi.com. Get yourself free, easily accessible short stories for life--the perfect way for any science fiction fan to spend time on commutes or at home.

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      Book preview

      Through Many Vices - Nicholas Stillman

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      Through Many Vices | By Nicholas Stillman

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      Through Many Vices

      By Nicholas Stillman

      © 2018 Nicholas Stillman

      Get free short stories monthly at stillmanscifi.com

      HIS MIND SWIRLED LIKE the acid clouds of Venus. Barkhouse could barely stand at the porthole of the Uniter 8 radio room. The steel wall of the spacecraft wobbled and sang to him, even though he felt its sure, cold hardness under his palm. The last four pills he took made his head swimmy and the walls runny. Drug tolerance took weeks with the latest brands. He felt as though Venus pulled him right outside for a swim in her milky atmosphere a hundred kilometers below. As he stared out the porthole glass, the vastness of her clouds made him even more dangerously stoned.

      The mission, however, needed his utmost inebriety. As the chosen ambassador from Earth, Barkhouse had just given the most cathartic speech of his life to the Venusian colony. It required a cocktail of recreational drugs, and their combined euphorias still inspired him. He could beseech the Venusians for yet another hour with poetic deliverance, with perfect tonal variance and flummery. He could sway the most cynical politicians into a sweeping faint replete with dreams and blissful tears upon waking. He could not even remember his enveigling speech from just minutes ago. The drugs took that experience from him as efficiently as they had given it to him. But he knew his words compelled on levels unachieved by Uniters 1 through 7. He could check the recording later.

      The elocution still tired him, even though no one below that sulfuric murk had seen him waving his arms. The underarms of his uniform remained soaked down to his sides as though he had tried to conjure

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