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 situation. This month’s choice is “Dying Echoes Overlapping” by Megan Chee. Get pleasure from!

Dying Echoes Overlapping

By Megan Chee

On the necropolis area 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 group. This was probably the most sacred of duties. Carelessness or disrespect was not tolerated; only one mistake meant fast dismissal.

The interstellar megacivilization of Tau Andromeda was constructed throughout 5 planets. Day-after-day, tens of millions of the dying and the not too long ago 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 potential.

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 gentle. The power was channeled via a collection of metallic pipes, culminating in an immense vat on the heart of the area station, which was in flip distributed to the power grids of every of the 5 planets.

To the folks 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 eternally. 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 For a time, the rise of latest faith noticed the decline of the dying echo harvests, with the outdated apply out of the blue seen as archaic and heretical.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 area. The tombs stay, preserved eternally within the chilly darkish expanse.

• • •

Tens of millions of years after the golden age of Tau Andromeda, civilizations on three completely 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 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 dying echoes—that unusual power, solely ever really understood and measured by the keepers of the Tau Andromeda necropolis area station—ripples out throughout inconceivable 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 in opposition to the metallic platforms of the Singapore Floating Archipelago.

Esther sits on the highest degree 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 overseas 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 standard, there is no such thing as a unauthorized overseas 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 style 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: “possibly 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 quick, awkward dialog. “Is it as a result of I maintain nagging you concerning the child allow? I’ll cease bringing it up, I promise. Possibly subsequent yr we will give it some thought.”

It’s not concerning the child allow, though she was certainly baffled that he truly nonetheless needed 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 can be a subsequent yr, and a yr after that. The truth that he works within the Division of House Affairs however nonetheless in some way 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 ensure that the residents who’re at the moment alive can carry on dwelling in respectable circumstances for so long as potential.

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 folks nonetheless valiantly planning for an inconceivable 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. In the end, all the things 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 quick, brutal lives and died disagreeable deaths. She, at the very least, 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 transient 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 sleek, lumbering movement. Their many legs drag in lengthy grooves via the grime, tilling the soil in neat rows. As they stroll, sacs of their underbelly excrete a nutritious fluid fashioned from the liquidized corpses of useless Items.

Of all of the Collective’s Characters, the Farmer leads one of the crucial contented lives. In contrast to the Thinker, the Farmer doesn’t agonize over the which means of life as a Collective, the intricacies of non-public identification, and the everlasting query of whether or not a Character dies a brand new dying each time the Collective dissolves to kind another person. In contrast to the Chief, the Farmer doesn’t fear about the way forward for the Collective, the path of their civilization, and the opportunity of unknown threats looming on the horizon. In contrast to the Trainer, the Farmer doesn’t bear the daunting accountability of creating new Characters to satisfy 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 throughout the planting season and the time of harvest, so their life is one in all 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 tens of millions of its siblings, intuition driving them to hitch 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 goal, there is no such thing as a want and no want for particular person thought. Unit XJ7832 performs its half, and collectively, the Collective strikes ahead.

• • •

Fixed storms rage on the gasoline 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. Fabricated from skinny, weblike tissue that catches the highly effective wind like sails, they trip 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 is perhaps forgiven for failing to understand 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 are usually 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 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 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, nevertheless, 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 every so often, however attempt as they could, they’ll by no means stick with the group. They both lag behind or hurtle helplessly forward.

The Wisps are usually 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. Vitality sparks and jumps, stuttering via time.

Within the remaining days of Earth, Autura, and Lalesh, their folks grow 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’t make sense of it.

Once they sleep, they dream unusual desires.

• • •

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 all them. She has grow to be a small scuttling factor herself amid an enormous throng of small scuttling issues.

Horror swells in her, however there is no such thing as 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 making an attempt to dam out the nightmare unfolding round her. Progressively 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 offers 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 acutely aware thoughts doesn’t. She swims alongside the flowing present of bugs, and though they transfer collectively, every one 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 looking at an optical phantasm and out of the blue seeing the large image.

And it dawns on her—

She is only one cell amongst trillions on this huge organism. She isn’t any higher than any of the others. She isn’t 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 concern.

She will’t bear in mind the final time she cried. For therefore lengthy, all the things has felt so muted, so meaningless; her feelings like a stagnant pool, stirred by neither pleasure nor despair. However now she remembers the fear 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 needed 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 way in which in my room. You okay?”

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

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

He used to explain his desires to her after they met for breakfast. Esther truly fairly loved listening to about his desires; they had been bizarre and creepy, absurd and humorous. She, alternatively, by no means had something fascinating 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 she or he feels a stab of one thing horribly like longing. She appears at Wei Jie and wonders—is she justified in her contempt? Does she have the proper to evaluate him? Aren’t all of them primarily the identical small scurrying creatures, dwelling their transient 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. In some way I may perceive them. One in every of them advised me this superb story. Want I may bear 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 word of wistfulness in her personal voice. “I want I dreamed that as an alternative.”

“Possibly you’ll tomorrow night time,” he replies. He smiles at her, slightly nervously.

Esther can’t assist it; she smiles again. Wei Jie appears 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 assume, or really feel, or expertise something past the Collective.

However there was a quick 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 quick 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 withdrawing. 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 light 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 just isn’t 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 appears down at itself, horrified and entranced by its unusual, lengthy, pale, smooth physique. It stands up and appears down at its palms. Unusual palms, weak and inefficient, not like the highly effective appendages of the Warrior or the agile many-jointed fingers of the Craftsman.

These ideas . . . These emotions . . . They don’t seem to be coming from the Collective. They don’t originate from neurological pathways made out of 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 an alternative. 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 outdoors. There are neither doorways nor rooms on Autura, however in some way it understands these overseas issues intuitively.

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

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

It have to 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 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 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 stream of Items, 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 discipline 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 down at themself. Their physique is manufactured from 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 a whole bunch of many-fingered palms and gazes at them, via eyes which can be additionally manufactured from 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 crimson, 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 can be. Ultimately, different Characters will stroll this discipline 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 speeding wind round her is inconceivably chilly, only a few 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 chuckle, to howl her pleasure in a refrain alongside the howling wind throughout her, however she can’t 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 dying is simply too nice a loss for the universe to endure. However possibly she is fallacious. Possibly that is heaven. Possibly it’s this, solely this, for eternity.

Please, she begs, let me keep right here. Let me be this eternally.

• • •

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 folks, pushing and chattering in panic.

By way 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 she or he is struck by how completely calm he appears, 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 sources 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, at the very least.

However they don’t even get the posh of a quiet dying. As an alternative, they are going to meet their finish in hearth and ache—all of humanity, united eventually.

A monotonous voice declares 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 along with them,” he says. “Will you include me?”

“What? However the bomb—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You realize that. The bomb shelters gained’t maintain anybody protected. 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 foundations, his dedication to the established order? Skinny and bespectacled, he appears 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 convey 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 crimson. 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, eventually, 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 gained’t harm. 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, similar to the one you had. I used to be dancing within the chilly wind.”

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

“Sure. I do know.”

“Possibly 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.”

The whole lot 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 is no such thing as a time to analyze the trigger or concoct a remedy. The micro organism surge into the Collective. The Items die within the tens of millions, 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 all the things falls aside. The Doctor’s concern 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 nearly doesn’t matter that it’s going to by no means have an viewers. Magnificence for magnificence’s personal sake is the best type of artwork.

They don’t know the gamma-ray burst is coming till it hits.

• • •

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

The waves of power move 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 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 stream.

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 Writer

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” can be revealed in early 2027 by Daphne Press (UK) and Bindery Books (US). Her quick 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 Finest Fantasy anthology (Pyr Books). Her quick 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 will discover 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 situation, which additionally options quick fiction by Alexander Weinstein, Phoenix Alexander, Audrey Zhou, Rukman Ragas, Deborah L. Davitt, Modupeoluwa Shelle, Susan Palwick, and extra. You’ll be able to look forward to this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should purchase the entire situation proper now in handy e book format for simply $4.99, or subscribe to the e book version here.

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