I’ve got a new short story up at Metaphorosis about an audacious plan to save humanity and a scientist who must cope with failure twenty-five light years from home. This is a purely sci-fi story, so not my usual spooky flash-fare, but there is some dreaminess to it. I hope you enjoy it.
A scientist has travelled to a planet in the Vega star system, giving up many years of her life in order to study the results of her research in person. The aim of the research is to find new worlds for humans to inhabit by sending genetically engineered “bugs” to several exoplanets. Some of the bugs are supposed to perform various terraforming tasks, while some are meant to occupy any native species they find and modify them. This is a quiet, fascinating story about life and science, and about what we might choose to do with our lives when we find ourselves growing old, far from home. I love how this story gets progressively stranger and more intimate as it goes, and by the end it is, literally, transformative.
Maria Haskins’ Monthly Roundup on CuriousFictions.com
Read The Skin of Aquila Cadens here.
