Doom Overtakes 3 Very Totally different Planets, Earth Included, in This Eerie Sci-Fi Quick Story

io9 is proud to current fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. As soon as a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s present problem. This month’s choice is “Loss of life Echoes Overlapping” by Megan Chee. Get pleasure from!

Loss of life Echoes Overlapping

By Megan Chee

On the necropolis area station of the Tau Andromeda planetary system, the keepers of the tomb attended to the lifeless and the dying. They cleansed, ready, and prayed over the our bodies. They carried out the final rites, paying intricate consideration to the customs of every particular person’s native neighborhood. This was probably the most sacred of duties. Carelessness or disrespect was not tolerated; only one mistake meant quick dismissal.

The interstellar megacivilization of Tau Andromeda was constructed throughout 5 planets. Each day, hundreds of thousands of the dying and the lately lifeless have been ferried on nice funeral ships to the necropolis station. It was finest in the event that they arrived earlier than drawing their final breath, however that was not at all times attainable.

When a physique was prepared, the keepers of the tomb harvested their dying echoes in glowing thuribles. The thurible breathed within the power from the dying echoes, till the core was saturated with pale blue mild. The power was channeled via a sequence of metallic pipes, culminating in an immense vat on the middle of the area station, which was in flip distributed to the power grids of every of the 5 planets.

To the individuals of Tau Andromeda, the act of dying was no tragedy, however a present given gladly in return for the pleasures of life. Their megacivilization lived in peace and lots, fueled by the passing of those that got here earlier than.

However aeons handed, and no golden age stays golden without end. Civilizations rose and fell on the 5 planets of the Tau Andromeda system. There have been schisms and wars and reunions. There was illness and disorganization. For a time, the rise of recent faith noticed the decline of the dying echo harvests, with the outdated apply immediately seen as archaic and heretical. Ultimately, the inhabitants of Tau Andromeda dwindled and died out.

Now, the planets of Tau Andromeda are overgrown with wildlife, nature reclaiming the skyscrapers of a once-advanced megacivilization. The keepers of the tomb are lengthy lifeless. The necropolis station hangs silent in area. The tombs stay, preserved eternally within the chilly darkish expanse.

• • •

Thousands and thousands of years after the golden age of Tau Andromeda, civilizations on three totally different planets are destroyed. Their deaths are nearly instantaneous. One is swallowed by a gamma-ray burst. One annihilates itself with a weapon of mass destruction. One collapses underneath a swarm of matter-devouring nanobacteria, self-replicating at astonishing speeds: an undiscovered lifeform launched to the planet by a small asteroid.

These three planets are in numerous galaxies, huge distances away from each other. Their civilizations don’t have any idea of the others’ existence. It’s a bodily impossibility for anybody from any of those worlds to ever meet. However of their second of destruction, their dying echoes—that unusual power, solely ever really understood and measured by the keepers of the Tau Andromeda necropolis area station—ripples out throughout unimaginable distances. Their dying echoes overlap and reverberate via area and thru time.

• • •

Earth, AD 2237. It’s monsoon season on the Singapore Strait. The rain cascades in heavy sheets, drumbeat-loud towards the metallic platforms of the Singapore Floating Archipelago.

Esther sits on the highest stage of the watchtower. She sips a cup of watered-down kopi as she retains a bored eye on the dashboard arrange on her desk. She is supposedly monitoring for unauthorized international exercise on the storm-tossed sea: motorized sampans that deserted the Jakarta Megaship’s infinite voyage round Indonesian waters, or submarines that drifted away from the Undersea Federation of Malaysia.

As common, there isn’t any unauthorized international exercise to be discovered. She is more and more conscious that her job on the Division of Safety is a defunct function, a symbolic gesture of the federal government’s safety. These days, there are not any pirates, no organized crime, no drug commerce. There aren’t even any refugees. Nobody is fleeing from their properties within the hope of a greater future, not anymore.

Whereas wars rage throughout the remainder of the world, the superpowers of east and west tearing one another aside over the remaining slices of liveable land, their forgotten nook of Southeast Asia is slipping quietly away into the rising ocean.

A cartoon envelope pops up on the backside of the monitor, an old school image indicating that she has acquired a message. Esther sighs however clicks on it anyway. As anticipated, it’s from Wei Jie.

“can we discuss? after work”

She replies: “perhaps weekend,” after which mutes the interdepartmental chat.

She ended her relationship with Wei Jie final week. She doesn’t really feel significantly unhappy about it, however Wei Jie appears to really feel sufficient for each of them. He sobbed via the brief, awkward dialog. “Is it as a result of I hold nagging you concerning the child allow? I’ll cease bringing it up, I promise. Perhaps subsequent 12 months we will give it some thought.”

It’s not concerning the child allow, though she was certainly baffled that he truly nonetheless wished to breed, even with the final remnants of human civilization on the point of extinction. It’s his obliviousness. It’s the truth that he genuinely believes there will probably be a subsequent 12 months, and a 12 months after that. The truth that he works within the Division of Dwelling Affairs however nonetheless by some means failed to note that nobody’s child allow functions are getting permitted anymore. That, if nothing else, is a transparent sign that there are not any future generations to plan for. Their solely precedence now’s to be sure that the residents who’re at the moment alive can carry on dwelling in first rate circumstances for so long as attainable.

As soon as she started to really feel the blunt fringe of contempt, she knew the connection was over.

Sadly, he can’t appear to simply accept what’s blatantly apparent to her. What’s the level of this obstinate refusal to simply accept the reality? He’s not the one one. There are such a lot of individuals nonetheless valiantly planning for an unimaginable future, nonetheless willfully blind to the details. Esther accepts the upcoming finish, lets the inevitability of it wash over her and thru her. It’s okay. In the end, every part returns to the ocean.

She gazes out on the raging, empty ocean. She is aware of with a deep, self-satisfied certainty that she has nothing to complain about. All through historical past, billions of individuals led brief, brutal lives and died disagreeable deaths. She, not less than, has been privileged sufficient to reside for thirty-five years, and though it’s largely been a slog, she will’t deny it was interspersed with temporary moments of happiness, perhaps even love. She feels flatly contented.

• • •

Within the verdant meadows of the planet Autura, the Collective morphs into the Farmer. The Collective consists of trillions of tiny Models. The Models are miniscule insectoid creatures with shiny black exoskeletons. They swarm collectively in excellent unison right into a rippling mass. As every Unit falls into their appropriate place to make up the Farmer’s physique and mind, the neural patterns of the Farmer’s thoughts take form. Impulses stutter into thought. The Farmer attains consciousness.

The Farmer walks throughout the meadow in a sleek, lumbering movement. Their many legs drag in lengthy grooves via the filth, tilling the soil in neat rows. As they stroll, sacs of their underbelly excrete a nutritious fluid fashioned from the liquidized corpses of lifeless Models.

Of all of the Collective’s Characters, the Farmer leads one of the vital contented lives. Not like the Thinker, the Farmer doesn’t agonize over the which means of life as a Collective, the intricacies of non-public id, and the everlasting query of whether or not a Character dies a brand new dying each time the Collective dissolves to kind another person. Not like the Chief, the Farmer doesn’t fear about the way forward for the Collective, the course of their civilization, and the opportunity of unknown threats looming on the horizon. Not like the Trainer, the Farmer doesn’t bear the daunting accountability of creating new Characters to fulfill the wants of the Collective’s evolving society.

The Farmer ploughs the land, crops the seeds, fertilizes them, after which harvests the milky-white fruit that gives vitamin to the Collective. The repetitive movement brings consolation and satisfaction. The Farmer is just fashioned through the planting season and the time of harvest, so their life is one in every of daylight, heat and lots.

As a single cell within the neural community of the Farmer’s mind, Unit XJ7832 experiences consolation, satisfaction and heat too—insofar as a person Unit can consciously expertise something. Unit XJ7832 was born three revolutions in the past within the wealthy effervescent swamp of the Mom’s Embrace. It emerged from the soup with hundreds of thousands of its siblings, intuition driving them to hitch the comfortably amorphous form of the Mom, the place they study their locations in every of the Collective’s Characters.

Surrounded by trillions of its siblings, all united in a single objective, there isn’t any want and no want for particular person thought. Unit XJ7832 performs its half, and collectively, the Collective strikes ahead.

• • •

Fixed storms rage on the fuel big planet of Lalesh. Winds blow at supersonic speeds throughout the floor of the planet.

The Wisps of Lalesh would not have names; their distinctive patterns of motion as they hurtle alongside the air currents are identification sufficient. Product of skinny, weblike tissue that catches the highly effective wind like sails, they journey the storms on an everlasting journey across the planet.

If an alien ever visited Lalesh to admire the fantastic thing about the raging storms, they could be forgiven for failing to appreciate that the fluttering slips dancing on the winds are alive in any respect. The Wisps don’t seem to maneuver autonomously. They don’t must eat, as a result of their weblike pores and skin absorbs all of the power they want from the motion of the storm itself.

However the Wisps should not simply alive; they’re vibrantly, intellectually, colorfully alive. As they fly via the wind, they ruminate on the philosophies of the universe. They clear up advanced calculations. They compose poems of epic scope. All that is communicated by way of an intricate language of rippling motion.

Relying on the thickness, composition and floor space of their fluttering our bodies, the Wisps traverse the winds at totally different speeds. This divides them into separate flocks. A flock flies on the identical pace in the identical trajectory, and all of the whereas they inform tales and sing symphonies and marvel on the luminescence of one another’s minds. Your new theorem, revolutionary! This verse of your poem, it redefines literature!

One Wisp, nonetheless, doesn’t fly with a flock. Their physique has an ungainly shred down the center, making their flight path lurching and inconsistent. The Lonely Wisp passes via flocks occasionally, however attempt as they could, they’ll by no means stick with the group. They both lag behind or hurtle helplessly forward.

The Wisps should not meant to be alone; they’re artists, poets, scientists, and students. The wonders of their minds are supposed to be shared, admired, exalted over. However the Lonely Wisp dances via the storms on a solitary path, creating lovely issues that nobody else will ever see.

• • •

The dying echoes of the three planets ripple throughout huge distances from the purpose of destruction. The waves of power meet mid-space and move via one another with a discordant buzz. Power sparks and jumps, stuttering via time.

Within the remaining days of Earth, Autura, and Lalesh, their individuals change into subliminally conscious of one thing alien, one thing unfamiliar, urgent in on the periphery of their unconscious; experiences so wildly totally different from their understanding of existence that their waking minds can not make sense of it.

Once they sleep, they dream unusual goals.

• • •

Esther has been buried alive. Throughout her is pitch blackness, however not the silent, nonetheless darkness of her quarters at night time. This darkness is alive, writhing, and skittering. She is buried in a sea of bugs. She desires to scream and battle—however she will’t. As a result of she’s one in every of them. She has change into a small scuttling factor herself amid an enormous throng of small scuttling issues.

Horror swells in her, however there isn’t any launch. She will be able to’t make a sound. She will be able to’t transfer towards the writhing mass of bugs urgent towards her. She is trapped.

With nowhere else to go, she retreats inside herself, desperately making an attempt to dam out the nightmare unfolding round her. Steadily she turns into conscious of one thing else, one thing past the horrible scuttling motion, past the trillions of exoskeletal our bodies and insectoid legs. She begins to really feel a sample to the motion. Unbelievably, there’s a semblance of order right here amid the chaos.

She provides in to it. What else can she do? She strikes within the sample that she is known as to maneuver in, lets it pull her alongside, and shortly she realizes that her physique is aware of what to do, even when her aware thoughts doesn’t. She swims alongside the flowing present of bugs, and though they transfer collectively, each has its personal distinct function to play.

As she strikes via the tides of Models, her perspective begins to shift. There’s a broadening, a zooming-out, like looking at an optical phantasm and immediately seeing the massive image.

And it dawns on her—

She is only one cell amongst trillions on this huge organism. She is not any higher than any of the others. She is not any smarter, no extra jaded, no much less ignorant. They’re all the identical, and individually they’re insignificant, insentient. However collectively, they’re a considering factor, with a thoughts—a consciousness—a soul.

She jolts awake, gasping. Tears stream down her face. She rolls off her bunk mattress and staggers to the small mirror hanging on the wall. Her reflection is nearly unrecognizable; she shrinks again from her bloodshot eyes, her pale pores and skin, her expression twisted in confusion and concern.

She will be able to’t keep in mind the final time she cried. For thus lengthy, every part has felt so muted, so meaningless; her feelings like a stagnant pool, stirred by neither pleasure nor despair. However now she remembers the phobia of that writhing place, buried alive within the swarm of their our bodies. And the marvel of it, the fantastic thing about their synchronized motion, working collectively to kind a seamless complete, a particular person.

Somebody kilos loudly on the door. She staggers the few steps over to it, unlatches the lock with trembling fingers, and pulls it open. Standing there, one fist nonetheless raised to knock, is Wei Jie.

“What occurred?” he calls for. He lives within the room throughout the hall. It was the compromise they landed on, again when he wished them to maneuver into married-couple housing however she was reluctant to surrender her snug solo quarters. She beat astronomical odds to win the poll for this room, whereas a lot of the different singles slept in double-decker beds down within the dormitories. It simply pained her an excessive amount of to surrender that privilege, even for love. “I heard you screaming all the way in which in my room. You okay?”

Esther runs a hand over her sweat-slick face. “Only a nightmare.”

Wei Jie appears to be like skeptical. “Since when do you get nightmares?”

He used to explain his goals to her after they met for breakfast. Esther truly fairly loved listening to about his goals; they have been bizarre and creepy, absurd and humorous. She, alternatively, by no means had something attention-grabbing to report. “I dreamed I failed my examination,” or, “I dreamed my boss scolded me.”

For a second, she thinks about their boring mornings collectively, studying information pamphlets over diluted cups of kopi brewed from reused grounds, and he or she feels a stab of one thing horribly like longing. She appears to be like at Wei Jie and wonders—is she justified in her contempt? Does she have the suitable to evaluate him? Aren’t all of them primarily the identical small scurrying creatures, dwelling their temporary lives and following the roles set out for them?

She has not requested such questions of herself in a very long time. It’s uncomfortable.

“I had a bizarre dream too,” he provides. “However it was a pleasant one. I used to be flying. It was chilly, however I didn’t really feel chilly. Throughout me was this superstrong wind. There have been bizarre flapping animals within the wind with me. Someway I may perceive them. Certainly one of them informed me this superb story. Want I may keep in mind it. Ten occasions higher than the outdated Chinese language dramas they display within the rec room.”

“That sounds good,” Esther says, shocked to listen to the unfamiliar notice of wistfulness in her personal voice. “I want I dreamed that as a substitute.”

“Perhaps you’ll tomorrow night time,” he replies. He smiles at her, a little bit nervously.

Esther can’t assist it; she smiles again. Wei Jie appears to be like startled, after which his smile broadens. They each stand there for a couple of awkward seconds, smiling foolishly, earlier than she mumbles some excuse and geese again into her room.

• • •

Unit XJ7832 has no idea of itself as a person. It doesn’t suppose, or really feel, or expertise something past the Collective.

However there was a short time, early in its life, when it did consider itself as a discrete entity. It was proper after it matured from larvae within the swamp of the Mom’s Embrace. After it crawled out of the clutch of slimy eggs the place it had grown to maturity, Unit XJ7832 stood on the muddy shores of the Embrace, and for a short time it was merely itself. It gazed upon the amber sky and the glowing solar setting over the effervescent swampland. It noticed the panorama of its homeworld via its personal eyes, not the eyes of the Collective.

Throughout it, its siblings have been retreating. Unit XJ7832 acknowledged the decision of its ancestors, the instinctive understanding handed down via generations. It parted its shell to disclose a pair of gossamer wings and buzzed into the air, becoming a member of the thick swarm of Models.

Hovering within the air was the huge amorphous type of the Mom, ready for them, exuding mild benevolence. The new child Models flew into the Mom and have become the Mom themselves.

Unit XJ7832 reached the Mom and was absorbed into them. Because the mass of Models closed in round it, that heat sensation of consolation and belonging was the very last thing that Unit XJ7832 skilled as itself. After that, there has solely been the Collective.

Till now.

Now, Unit XJ7832 isn’t with the Collective. It’s some other place. And it’s alone.

Unit XJ7832 shivers on the mattress, pulling the skinny blanket round itself. The place are its siblings? It longs for the Collective. It appears to be like down at itself, horrified and entranced by its unusual, lengthy, pale, mushy physique. It stands up and appears down at its arms. Unusual arms, weak and inefficient, in contrast to the highly effective appendages of the Warrior or the agile many-jointed fingers of the Craftsman.

These ideas . . . These emotions . . . They aren’t coming from the Collective. They don’t originate from neurological pathways comprised of trillions of Models. They originate from . . .

From itself.

Unit XJ7832 doesn’t permit itself to dwell on this huge impossibility, this warped new actuality. As a substitute, it flexes its arms, specializing in that as a substitute. The appendages are so strong. The pores and skin is easy. It’s one factor, not an amalgamation of trillions. How alien.

Intuition propels Unit XJ7832 in direction of the door of the small room. It opens it and steps into the hall exterior. There are neither doorways nor rooms on Autura, however by some means it understands these international issues intuitively.

Unit XJ7832 walks alongside the hall, glancing up on the flickering fluorescent lights. Different Characters stroll previous it, generally muttering a fast greeting.

It is a startling sight. Unit XJ7832 has by no means witnessed a Character from the skin. The Collective is just giant and complicated sufficient to kind one Character at a time. The Collective is an enormous, interconnected household, however each Character is totally alone.

It should be a lonely existence.

Unit XJ7832 barely understands the thought that flits throughout its fledgling consciousness. These are unusual, unfamiliar, alien ideas. It’s half itself, half one thing else.

It walks down the hall, pushes open a door, and steps out into the balmy night time air. The residential quarters are on a floating metallic platform in the midst of the ocean. Unit XJ7832 gazes round on the huge expanse of darkish, rippling water. The night time sky above is dusted with constellations of stars.

It crouches down beneath the railing that separates the sting of the platform from the ocean, and realizes that it desires. It desires to leap into the ocean. It desires to really feel the cool water towards its pores and skin. It desires to style the salt.

It reaches down, fingers brushing the rippling floor of the water—

—Unit XJ7832 awakens within the Collective. Its allotted hours of relaxation and replenishment are over. It’s time to return to its duties. Different Models will transfer into the replenishment space for his or her flip to relaxation, and Unit XJ7832 should take their place.

Is being a part of the Collective a sort of dying?

That sudden, inexplicable query hovers simply past Unit XJ7832’s capability for understanding. For a second it nearly thinks, nearly feels. Then it rejoins the seamless movement of Models, falling again into its correct place, and forgets itself amid the nice and cozy embrace of the Collective.

• • •

There isn’t a wind.

The Lonely Wisp can hardly grasp the idea of life with out wind. Lalesh is a world of air; the Wisps are creatures of flight. However right here on this unusual place, the Lonely Wisp stands on strong floor.

They’re standing in a subject of orange grass, swaying gently within the breeze. Above them, the amber sky is streaked with pale inexperienced clouds. The sphere is studded with delicately twisting crystalline sculptures, shimmering within the daylight, reaching skyward with its translucent tendrils.

The Lonely Wisp appears to be like down at themself. Their physique is product of a swarm of tiny creatures. As they take a step ahead, their physique ripples, trillions of Models transferring in a synchronized wave. The Lonely Wisp raises a whole bunch of many-fingered arms and gazes at them, via eyes which are additionally product of insectoid Models.

Collectively, they’re the Artist.

The Artist’s many arms transfer in a blur as they form the crystal constructions, carving intricate designs, twisting and pulling the crystalline materials with highly effective many-jointed fingers. Because the sculptures develop taller, the Artist grows with it, the swarm of Models scaling down and stretching upwards to accommodate the sculptures’ peak.

The amber solar meanders throughout the sky. Ultimately the shadows develop lengthy, and the sky darkens. The Lonely Wisp gazes out on the crystalline constructions, twisting artfully skyward. Because the solar units, the sky turns wealthy hues of purple, gold and pink. The colours are mirrored within the sculptures’ shimmering translucency.

There isn’t a-one else right here to witness the fantastic thing about what they’ve created, however in time, there will probably be. Ultimately, different Characters will stroll this subject and look upon the sculptures. For so long as the Collective lives, these sculptures will stand: the embodiment of the Artist’s luminous thoughts.

***

Esther is flying.

The dashing wind round her is inconceivably chilly, just some levels above absolute zero. It’s scrumptious. She is a creature of the frigid air, nearly weightless. Her insubstantial physique flaps in an uncontrolled dance. She desires to snort, to howl her pleasure in a refrain alongside the howling wind throughout her, however she can not make a sound. All she will do is spin wildly, buoyed by the supersonic wind.

She has by no means believed in any sort of afterlife. It appears an excessive amount of like wishful considering—to consider that they’re so essential that they deserve immortality in any kind, that their dying is simply too nice a loss for the universe to endure. However perhaps she is flawed. Perhaps that is heaven. Perhaps it’s this, solely this, for eternity.

Please, she begs, let me keep right here. Let me be this without end.

• • •

Esther jolts awake to the discordant blaring of an alarm.

She stumbles in direction of the door and pushes it open, not caring that she is dressed solely in an extended t-shirt. The hall exterior is full of individuals, pushing and chattering in panic.

Via the group, a hand reaches out and grabs hers.

“Wei Jie,” she gasps. “What’s occurring?”

“It’s the top,” he says, and he or she is struck by how completely calm he appears to be like, how serene. “Some nation has set off a doomsday weapon.”

She gapes. She has heard the rumors, after all, that every of the worldwide superpowers are creating weapons of such huge harmful potential {that a} single blast can destroy what’s left of human civilization. Deep down, she has by no means believed it. It’s too absurd to pour assets and power into creating a doomsday weapon when humanity is already shambling in direction of the quiet whisper of an ending. Let it finish, she thinks despairingly, let the candle flicker and die. Give us that, not less than.

However they don’t even get the luxurious of a quiet dying. As a substitute, they may meet their finish in fireplace and ache—all of humanity, united finally.

A monotonous voice pronounces over the intercom system, “Report in a peaceful and orderly method to your assigned bomb shelters. Don’t cease to help others.”

Wei Jie’s hand tightens round hers as he pulls her right into a nook. “I don’t need to go together with them,” he says. “Will you include me?”

“What? However the bomb—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “ that. The bomb shelters received’t hold anybody protected. I don’t need to die down there at the hours of darkness, packed like sardines. Let’s go exterior.”

She gazes at him wonderingly. The place is his timidity, his placid adherence to the foundations, his dedication to the established order? Skinny and bespectacled, he appears to be like simply the identical as he has for the final ten years, however she has the odd feeling that she is seeing somebody completely new.

“Okay,” she says.

They comply with the jostling crowd, however because the others surge in direction of the staircases that may carry them to the undersea ranges, Esther and Wei Jie slip away via an open door. They step out onto the gently bobbing platform, respiratory within the briny scent of the ocean.

The sky is purple. The horizon is aglow.

Esther lets out a sob, which climbs right into a wail. She doesn’t need to die. The belief horrifies her. She thought she was prepared; she was so certain she was prepared. However her stoicism has failed her within the second she wants it most. She howls with wild abandon and animalistic fury. There’s a unusual pleasure in it too, a launch. Recognition, finally, that her dying is one thing to grieve. It issues, doesn’t it? Her life. Her experiences. Her ideas. Why has she by no means realized earlier than, how a lot all of them matter?

Wei Jie holds her tight as she screams and rages. His skinny, wiry arms wind round her as she thrashes. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. It received’t damage. It’ll be over so quick. We received’t really feel a factor.”

“I used to be flying,” she says, muffled towards his chest. “In my dream, similar to the one you had. I used to be dancing within the chilly wind.”

“I don’t suppose it was a standard dream,” Wei Jie says. “It was one thing else.”

“Sure. I do know.”

“Perhaps we’ll find yourself there, after this,” he says, ever optimistic. “Let’s meet once more within the windy place. I’ll search for you there.”

Every part lights up in scarlet.

• • •

A swarm of unknown nanobacteria is consuming via Autura. Crops shrivel into lifeless crisps. The lakes dry up. Animals are decimated into shards of bone.

They’ve fought illness earlier than, however that is one thing new. The Collective transforms into the Doctor, however there isn’t any time to analyze the trigger or concoct a remedy. The micro organism surge into the Collective. The Models die within the hundreds of thousands, tiny our bodies falling to the bottom.

The Doctor staggers. They raise their hand, watching in horror as items of themself dissolve.

Unit XJ7832, a part of the Doctor’s eye, watches as every part falls aside. The Doctor’s concern and loneliness ripples throughout the surviving Models. For a second Unit XJ7832 feels afraid, not simply because the Doctor, however as itself. After which it feels nothing in any respect.

• • •

The Lonely Wisp is composing a brand new poem as they soar on the wind. Misplaced within the ecstasy of creation, it nearly doesn’t matter that it’s going to by no means have an viewers. Magnificence for magnificence’s personal sake is the very best type of artwork.

They do not know the gamma-ray burst is coming till it hits.

• • •

The dying echoes of the three planets crest out via area like an awesome shockwave, breaking over planets and stars and nebulae.

The waves of power move via the Tau Andromeda system, sweeping unnoticed over the 5 lifeless planets. However when it passes over the necropolis station, for a second each empty thurible glows with power. Firelight glints in lamps on the necropolis partitions. The gears of nice clockwork machines groan into stiff motion. Stagnant fountains trickle and start to movement.

For a second, the necropolis area station lives.

Then, with a sigh, the dying echoes fade. The once-great necropolis area station lies nonetheless and silent as soon as once more.

In regards to the Creator

Megan Chee is a Singaporean writer who has lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US, and is at the moment based mostly in Singapore. Her debut science-fantasy novel “The Archaeology of Falling Worlds” will probably be printed in early 2027 by Daphne Press (UK) and Bindery Books (US). Her brief fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Journal, Uncanny Journal, Unusual Horizons, Lightspeed Journal, and different venues. Her work has been translated into Chinese language in Science Fiction World, and has been featured in The 12 months’s Finest Fantasy anthology (Pyr Books). Her brief story “The God of Minor Troubles” was narrated by Wil Wheaton on Season 1 of his audiobook podcast It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton. You’ll find her on-line at meganchee.carrd.co, @meganflchee on X and Bluesky, and @megancheewrites on Instagram and TikTok.

Please go to Lightspeed Magazine to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the February 2026 problem, which additionally options brief fiction by Alexander Weinstein, Phoenix Alexander, Audrey Zhou, Rukman Ragas, Deborah L. Davitt, Modupeoluwa Shelle, Susan Palwick, and extra. You’ll be able to watch for this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire problem proper now in handy e-book format for simply $4.99, or subscribe to the e-book version here.

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