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

io9 is proud to current fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. As soon as a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed’s present concern. This month’s choice is “Dying Echoes Overlapping” by Megan Chee. Take pleasure in!

Dying Echoes Overlapping

By Megan Chee

On the necropolis house station of the Tau Andromeda planetary system, the keepers of the tomb attended to the useless 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 essentially the most sacred of duties. Carelessness or disrespect was not tolerated; only one mistake meant instant dismissal.

The interstellar megacivilization of Tau Andromeda was constructed throughout 5 planets. Day by day, hundreds of thousands of the dying and the lately useless had been ferried on nice funeral ships to the necropolis station. It was greatest in the event that they arrived earlier than drawing their final breath, however that was not all the time doable.

When a physique was prepared, the keepers of the tomb harvested their loss of life echoes in glowing thuribles. The thurible breathed within the vitality from the loss of life echoes, till the core was saturated with pale blue gentle. The vitality was channeled via a sequence of steel pipes, culminating in an immense vat on the middle of the house station, which was in flip distributed to the vitality 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 many, fueled by the passing of those that got here earlier than.

However aeons handed, and no golden age stays golden endlessly. 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 loss of life echo harvests, with the previous observe all of a sudden 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 useless. The necropolis station hangs silent in house. The tombs stay, preserved eternally within the chilly darkish expanse.

• • •

Hundreds of thousands of years after the golden age of Tau Andromeda, civilizations on three completely different planets are destroyed. Their deaths are virtually 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 haven’t 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 loss of life echoes—that unusual vitality, solely ever really understood and measured by the keepers of the Tau Andromeda necropolis house station—ripples out throughout unattainable distances. Their loss of life echoes overlap and reverberate via house and thru time.

• • •

Earth, AD 2237. It’s monsoon season on the Singapore Strait. The rain cascades in heavy sheets, drumbeat-loud in opposition to the steel 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 countless voyage round Indonesian waters, or submarines that drifted away from the Undersea Federation of Malaysia.

As ordinary, there isn’t a 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 houses 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 obtained a message. Esther sighs however clicks on it anyway. As anticipated, it’s from Wei Jie.

“can we discuss? after work”

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

She ended her relationship with Wei Jie final week. She doesn’t really feel notably 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 maintain nagging you in regards to the child allow? I’ll cease bringing it up, I promise. Perhaps subsequent yr we will give it some thought.”

It’s not in regards to the child allow, though she was certainly baffled that he truly nonetheless wished to breed, even with the final remnants of human civilization getting ready to extinction. It’s his obliviousness. It’s the truth that he genuinely believes there will probably be a subsequent yr, and a yr after that. The truth that he works within the Division of Residence Affairs however nonetheless one way or the other failed to note that nobody’s child allow purposes 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 present alive can carry on residing in respectable circumstances for so long as doable.

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 just accept what’s blatantly apparent to her. What’s the level of this obstinate refusal to just accept the reality? He’s not the one one. There are such a lot of individuals nonetheless valiantly planning for an unattainable future, nonetheless willfully blind to the details. Esther accepts the approaching finish, lets the inevitability of it wash over her and thru her. It’s okay. Eventually, every thing 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 stay for thirty-five years, and though it’s largely been a slog, she will’t deny it was interspersed with temporary moments of happiness, possibly 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 Items. The Items are miniscule insectoid creatures with shiny black exoskeletons. They swarm collectively in good 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 swish, lumbering movement. Their many legs drag in lengthy grooves via the dust, tilling the soil in neat rows. As they stroll, sacs of their underbelly excrete a nutritious fluid shaped from the liquidized corpses of useless Items.

Of all of the Collective’s Characters, the Farmer leads one of the crucial contented lives. Not like the Thinker, the Farmer doesn’t agonize over the that means of life as a Collective, the intricacies of private identification, and the everlasting query of whether or not a Character dies a brand new loss of life 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 potential for unknown threats looming on the horizon. Not like the Instructor, the Farmer doesn’t bear the daunting duty of growing 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 barely shaped throughout the planting season and the time of harvest, so their life is one among daylight, heat and many.

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 affix the comfortably amorphous form of the Mom, the place they be taught their locations in every of the Collective’s Characters.

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

• • •

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

The Wisps of Lalesh don’t 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 comprehend 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 vitality 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 complicated calculations. They compose poems of epic scope. All that is communicated through 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 completely different speeds. This divides them into separate flocks. A flock flies on the similar velocity 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 a clumsy shred down the center, making their flight path lurching and inconsistent. The Lonely Wisp passes via flocks once in a while, however strive as they may, 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 stunning issues that nobody else will ever see.

• • •

The loss of life echoes of the three planets ripple throughout huge distances from the purpose of destruction. The waves of vitality meet mid-space and cross via one another with a discordant buzz. Vitality sparks and jumps, stuttering via time.

Within the last days of Earth, Autura, and Lalesh, their individuals turn out to be subliminally conscious of one thing alien, one thing unfamiliar, urgent in on the periphery of their unconscious; experiences so wildly completely 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 evening. 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 among them. She has turn out to be a small scuttling factor herself amid a large throng of small scuttling issues.

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

With nowhere else to go, she retreats inside herself, desperately attempting 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 named to maneuver in, lets it pull her alongside, and shortly she realizes that her physique is aware of what to do, even when her acutely 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 Items, her perspective begins to shift. There’s a broadening, a zooming-out, like gazing an optical phantasm and all of a sudden seeing the large 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 sort of unrecognizable; she shrinks again from her bloodshot eyes, her pale pores and skin, her expression twisted in confusion and worry.

She will’t keep in mind the final time she cried. For thus lengthy, every thing 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 entire, 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 comfy solo quarters. She beat astronomical odds to win the poll for this room, whereas many 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 best way in my room. You okay?”

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

Wei Jie seems skeptical. “Since when do you get nightmares?”

He used to explain his goals to her once they met for breakfast. Esther truly fairly loved listening to about his goals; they had 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 uninteresting 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 seems at Wei Jie and wonders—is she justified in her contempt? Does she have the appropriate to evaluate him? Aren’t all of them primarily the identical small scurrying creatures, residing 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 might perceive them. One in every of them informed me this superb story. Want I might keep in mind it. Ten instances higher than the previous 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 evening,” he replies. He smiles at her, a bit of nervously.

Esther can’t assist it; she smiles again. Wei Jie seems 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 had been chickening out. 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 Items.

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

Unit XJ7832 reached the Mom and was absorbed into them. Because the mass of Items 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 will not be with the Collective. It’s some place else. 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 seems down at itself, horrified and entranced by its unusual, lengthy, pale, gentle physique. It stands up and appears down at its palms. Unusual palms, 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 produced from trillions of Items. They originate from . . .

From itself.

Unit XJ7832 doesn’t enable itself to dwell on this huge impossibility, this warped new actuality. As an alternative, it flexes its palms, specializing in that as a substitute. The appendages are so stable. 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 outdoors. There are neither doorways nor rooms on Autura, however one way or the other 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 surface. The Collective is barely giant and complicated sufficient to kind one Character at a time. The Collective is a large, 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 evening air. The residential quarters are on a floating steel platform in the midst of the ocean. Unit XJ7832 gazes round on the huge expanse of darkish, rippling water. The evening 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 in opposition to 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 Items 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 loss of life?

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

• • •

There isn’t any 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 stable floor.

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

The Lonely Wisp seems down at themself. Their physique is product of a swarm of tiny creatures. As they take a step ahead, their physique ripples, trillions of Items transferring in a synchronized wave. The Lonely Wisp raises lots of of many-fingered palms and gazes at them, via eyes which might be additionally product of insectoid Items.

Collectively, they’re the Artist.

The Artist’s many palms transfer in a blur as they form the crystal buildings, 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 Items scaling down and stretching upwards to accommodate the sculptures’ top.

The amber solar meanders throughout the sky. Ultimately the shadows develop lengthy, and the sky darkens. The Lonely Wisp gazes out on the crystalline buildings, 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 any-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 area 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, only a few levels above absolute zero. It’s scrumptious. She is a creature of the frigid air, virtually weightless. Her insubstantial physique flaps in an uncontrolled dance. She desires to giggle, 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 vital that they deserve immortality in any kind, that their loss of life is simply too nice a loss for the universe to endure. However possibly 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 endlessly.

• • •

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 outdoors is filled with individuals, pushing and chattering in panic.

By means of the gang, a hand reaches out and grabs hers.

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

“It’s the tip,” he says, and he or she is struck by how completely calm he seems, 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 growing weapons of such huge damaging 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 sources and vitality into growing 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 loss of life. As an alternative, they’ll meet their finish in hearth and ache—all of humanity, united finally.

A monotonous voice broadcasts 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. “You recognize that. The bomb shelters gained’t maintain anybody secure. I don’t need to die down there at the hours of darkness, packed like sardines. Let’s go outdoors.”

She gazes at him wonderingly. The place is his timidity, his placid adherence to the principles, his dedication to the established order? Skinny and bespectacled, he seems 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 observe the jostling crowd, however because the others surge in direction of the staircases that can deliver them to the undersea ranges, Esther and Wei Jie slip away via an open door. They step out onto the gently bobbing platform, respiration 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 conclusion 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 loss of life 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 gained’t damage. It’ll be over so quick. We gained’t really feel a factor.”

“I used to be flying,” she says, muffled in opposition to his chest. “In my dream, identical 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 little thing lights up in scarlet.

• • •

A swarm of unknown nanobacteria is consuming via Autura. Crops shrivel into useless 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 a time to analyze the trigger or concoct a remedy. The micro organism surge into the Collective. The Items 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 thing falls aside. The Doctor’s worry and loneliness ripples throughout the surviving Items. 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 virtually doesn’t matter that it’ll 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 loss of life echoes of the three planets crest out via house like an ideal shockwave, breaking over planets and stars and nebulae.

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

For a second, the necropolis house station lives.

Then, with a sigh, the loss of life echoes fade. The once-great necropolis house station lies nonetheless and silent as soon as once more.

In regards to the Creator

Megan Chee is a Singaporean creator who has lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US, and is at present 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 Yr’s Greatest 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 could 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 concern, which additionally options brief fiction by Alexander Weinstein, Phoenix Alexander, Audrey Zhou, Rukman Ragas, Deborah L. Davitt, Modupeoluwa Shelle, Susan Palwick, and extra. You possibly can await this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire concern proper now in handy e book format for simply $4.99, or subscribe to the e book version here.

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