A NEW DAWN. Contemporary Science Fiction from Greece E-Book

• Herausgeber: p.machinery
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 238

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Issue #2 is titled "A NEW DAWN. Contemporary Science Fiction from Greece" and its content is: Hephaestion Christopoulos: Editorial Vasso Christou: Dust and Dreams Hephaestion Christopoulos: Sins of the Mother Hephaestion Christopoulos: Lamarck's Ghost II Antony Paschos: The 13% Rule Kostas Charitos: Emotionarium Christine Malapetsa (Angelsdotter): I Soul You Kristi Yakumaku: Akane and the Host Hunter Dimitra Nikolaidou: A Short History of Science Fiction in Greece Hephaestion Christopoulos: Interview With Nebula Nominee Eugenia Triantafyllou

Leseprobe

InterNOVA online

Volume 02 · 2022

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© of this issue: December 2022

p.machinery Michael Haitel

Editor: Michael K. Iwoleit

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Hephaestion Christopoulos: Editorial

A Story of the Not So Distant Past

There’s a tendency among Greeks to recall and speak about things that happened centuries, even millennia, ago, and forget what has been happening the last decades or even the last couple of years. This type of selective memory — or amnesia — certainly rests on the comfort the thought of a glorious past provides, in contrast to the direr and direr situations that come up one after the other in our little part of the world.

So, the question arises: If Greek people cannot even face their present, how could they ever write stories about the future? And yet, some of us do. How do we do that? Well, it’s mostly gloomy visions about a future that echoes our own — and perhaps the whole world’s — present. Another surprising fact is that Greek speculative fiction writers do not draw on ancient history or mythology as much as one would expect — especially when it comes to fantasy stories — as some recent communication I had with several writers revealed. It’s kind of an attempt at paving our own way. It’s not that Greece lacks modern culture — even if, there as well, the attachment to older times is prevalent. I just believe that Greek spec fic writers desire to show what they can do based solely on their own powers.

This is a story of the recent past. The pandemic might have made a mess of the last years in most people’s head — for me, it’s just a hazy period of quarantines, hecatombs of dead and general fear — but I’ll make an attempt at putting things in order. It was sometime in early 2021 when visual artist and script writer Lina Theodorou, who spends most of her time in Germany, suggested that I should contact the Science Fiction Club Deutschland. If you’re justly wondering in what capacity I should contact them, please allow me a small digression.

Since 2019, I happen to be vice-chairman of the Science Fiction Club of Athens, Greece, more commonly known with the initials ALEF. Now, I am relatively a newcomer to the club, since it’s been around since 1998, but one of the things I’ve been trying to do is get in touch with like-minded organisations from around the world and establish a network of cooperation. And the SCFD was a perfect point of contact.

Chairman Thomas Recktenwald was happy and prompt to respond and provide me with loads of information on the state and history of science fiction in Germany — he was even kind enough to make a presentation for our members. What he also provided me with was contacts. And one of those contacts was Michael K. Iwoleit, your beloved editor of this magazine. Somewhat hesitantly, I asked for a few stories from some author acquaintances and friends, added a couple of mine and sent them in. I didn’t know what to expect.

And then the big surprise came: Michael wanted to do an issue dedicated to Greece. The very issue that you are holding in your virtual hands right now.

The themes of the stories at hand are varied, and at first sight they might not appear that “Greek” to the casual reader (e.g., one of them is set in Japan) — even though there exists an increasing tendency to use Greek settings in spec fic stories, something many writers used to, and some still dread to do — but they are quite characteristic of what one could call the modern wave of Greek sf: somewhat bleak, not always hopeful, with some social and political critique thrown in the mix; quite a curious product to come from the land of sunny islands and endless beaches, isn’t it?

Leaving my personal preferences aside (I’m not that big a fan of summer), there are many possible answers to this alleged paradox: the socioeconomical situation of the country, the fact that Greece does not only comprise sun and sea — a visit to the big city centres will convince you otherwise — or simply the fact that a few rays of sunlight won’t necessarily make a person more optimistic — or it could just be an artistic preference and nothing more. I cannot say for sure whether one or some of the above can provide a convincing explanation to the phenomenon; what I can point out, however, is that you often find things you don’t expect in the most unlikely places. After all, Monty Python were from Britain, weren’t they? The land of leaden clouds and constant rain.

But this is a story of the recent past. And the recent past has bestowed upon us a boom in quality Greek spec fic production. There are many factors that have contributed to that flood of creativity. The important word here is “quality”. Bad works have always existed; it’s the really talented and hard-working authors that suddenly came out of their shells. One only needs to take a look at some names listed by Dimitra Nikolaidou in her essay, where she tells our story from start to finish. From the distant to the recent past, all the way up to the present. We have been having Greek authors appearing in major publications abroad, we have had Nebula nominations, a World Fantasy Award … But what happens when it comes to the “real thing”, purely Greek spec fic — works written in Greek for the Greek audience? I regret to say that in this respect, things have remained virtually unchanged. Publishers and audience alike do not trust Greek sf authors. So the Greek writer has to face a dilemma: do their service to their mother tongue or prefer the global lingua franca of English and write in a language they might not even know well enough?

Some choose the former, some choose the latter, some do both. I’m not the one to say what’s right and what’s wrong. But this is more or less the recent history of Greek science fiction and speculative fiction in general. One of dilemmas, rejection and hard-won victories. Maybe it’s not that surprising that Greek sf is not as sunny as one might expect.

Hephaestion Christopoulos

October 2022

Vasso Christou: Dust and Dreams

“You’ve miscalculated!” Rodrigo cries.

No, I haven’t. All processors confirm our position within a picometer. Τhe spectrum pattern of the system’s sun is identical to Sol’s. Jupiter’s energy signature is loud and clear. We are in orbit around Earth, just a few hundred meters away from the aperture of the inter-dimensional gate. It’s the same sun, the same gate coordinates, the same entry point. Except that the Earth is nothing more than a rotating ember.

I understand why he wants to believe that I’m in error. But I never miscalculate. If I possessed neurons I would be insulted by the reactions of my fellow travelers. I possess superconductors instead, and I am built to imitate human behavior only as needed. The idea was to have the crew feeling comfortable with me. Not me having feelings. This is probably fortunate in the current situation. At least, I don’t have to deal with shock and grief for a home planet undeniably dead.

Ashes and Ghosts

It was known, understood and acceptable that we would not return to the world we had left behind.

The energy gate allowed a dimensional warp to send us to other areas of space, thousands of light years away from Earth, but the distortion to the fabric of the universe was not confined to spatial dimensions only. Each crossing on either direction was in fact a jump into the future as well.

Technology would cause major alterations to the mother planet during our voyage, changes pronounced and impossible to predict even by the most dedicated extrapolation algorithms. So I didn’t bother with that. Instead I kept a record of bets during the six month exploration journey of Scout-6. Betting about the changes was Jamal’s and Aileen’s favorite sport. Not that Rodrigo provided fewer imaginative ideas. Yet, he never bet because he couldn’t stand losing – not even to friends.

And so, it was certain that Rodrigo would be the first to imply that I was wrong. Poor losers have a hard time accepting an unpredictable turn of events.

My fellow travelers have not yet shaken off the stasis sedation required for the crossing of the gate. Only nervous eye movements and weak, plaintive voices express their shock and denial. However their vital signs are hitting the upper safety margins.

“No way!”

Aileen’s voice this time, faint and broken, her eyes glued to the holographic image of fire and ash.

Nothing is wrong with my computations. The earth is no more. Should I have kept them sedated, spared them the sight once again? I have done that before. It’s the fourth time that I have returned through the gate, but it’s only now that the short-wave radiation from the planet allows me to suspend the passengers’ stasis field for a few hours. The physical health of the three crew members is not in jeopardy. I have some serious doubts, though, about their mental health. Nevertheless, I do not consider their awakening as an error.

I knew from the first nanoseconds of our first emergence how my companions would feel about the disaster. I have to know because I am the ship’s psychologist. I’m their physician and their pilot, their entertainer, their linguist and their navigator, their caterer and their engineer – I’m Polynoe, a Fourth Generation Polymorphic Noesis.

Theoretically, I can undertake the entire exploration mission and perchance communication with extraterrestrial entities. My constructors, however, deemed the presence of a human crew necessary in case of a first contact.

We have encountered no extraterrestrial intelligence during our voyage. We found no inhabited planets near the exit points of our inter-dimensional jumps. And upon our return, we only met with disaster. So, inevitably, I had to make the critical decisions during the cold sleep of the fragile crew I’ve been entrusted with.

“How?” asks Jamal.

His body is almost free of sedation now. The words come out without slur. His moves are more coordinated and his pulse is stronger. Nevertheless I keep him, as well as the others, contained in the energy hammock. We will soon have to initiate the same sedation-stasis-jump cycle again.

“A large part of the disaster has been recorded by a news and weather station, called Mahatma-12. According to the data I retrieved upon our first return, the satellite was geostationary over New Delhi and collected weather information from around the Earth through a system called Eyes of–”

“So?” He cuts me off, as if it would make any difference to rush a bit of decades-old news. But Jamal always interrupts me. All three of them stare at the slowly rotating gray and black holographic image of the planet, while their bodies remain helpless, stuck inside the hammocks.

“I had little time to gather information the first time, while withdrawing to the gate to protect all of us from radiation, but Ι managed to retrieve some last news and part of a visual recording.”

“Just a part?” Aileen asks.

“I had to withdraw in a great rush. On our next emergence, the station was dead.”

“Show us,” says Jamal.

They cringe as they see the edges of the tectonic plates flaring, turning the Ring of Fire around the Pacific into a deep red gash. Ash and pumice rise among their gasps, clouding the flames and the turbulence across the seas. The recording is short – one after another the station’s instruments are lost to ash or radiation – but not too short to miss the megatsunami following the almost simultaneous explosions of Yellowstone and Cerro Galan, Lake Toba and Taupo Volcano, Thira, Aetna and Vesuvius, Kilimanjaro and Erebus. Aileen brings her hands to her mouth at the sight of Napoli igniting like a firework. Jamal’s heart is thudding so hard when Hawai'i soars and then sinks into the kilometer-high waves that I have to cut the projection short. One more shock for them, but facing the truth is more merciful that imagining it.

“But why?” murmurs Aileen. “That is …” she shakes her head. “That was …” Tears flood her eyes and start floating into the cabin.

“From the newsfeed of the station, voices cried something about sabotage. One last piece of news before the disaster was that Isolationists had broken into an experimental lab.”

“Isolationists?” Rodrigo asks in disbelief. “That minor extremist group of nuts?”

Isolationists. Fanatically set against space exploration, champions of the idea that contacting other species would be a blasphemy against God’s creation. At the time of our departure they had been just a small fundamentalist group. The time-slip of the dimensional jumps had added about two standard decades to the six months of our exploration journey. Lots of things could happen in twenty years.

Lots of things had happened.

“The assumption was that they had used a double-walled energy bubble loaded with antimatter. Perhaps they had let it sink deep into the Earth’s mantle”.

“What’s this story with antimatter?” Aileen wonders.

“From the rest of the news, I presume that scientists were experimenting with a new kind of fuel for more efficient space warping and the Isolationists must have stolen it from them. Perhaps they believed that a controlled sabotage would be enough to stall the dimensional search. Or maybe, it was just a blackmail attempt that went out of control and …”

“Bloody hell!” Rodrigo screams. “Fuck recordings and reports and assumptions! Everything on Earth is gone!”

I pause. All this time, he refused to believe. Now rage has taken the upper hand. Good for him.

“Are there any life signs?”

I know what Jamal asks, but I know how to stall as well. “On the orbital stations? No one could survive …”

“On Earth.”

Not a single-celled organism. “I’m running filtering algorithms to isolate interference from ground radiation. We will have to complete a full orbit once I establish acceptable signal levels before extracting enough information to determine.”

“Maybe a few have survived and remain protected under energy shields.”

Highly improbable, but I let him hope.

Nevertheless, I know what my sensors have received and Delphi’s last oracle emerges from my database: Tell the King that the well-wrought hall has fallen to the dust …

“Radiation is beginning to penetrate the energy shield of the Scout,” I inform them later. “Initiating immediate departure procedures for the gate.”

“Why? In case the radiation harms our future kids?”

Aileen spits venomous irony. All interstellar explorers had undergone sterilization for the protection of their future offspring. Her ova were kept in cryogenic banks in three different places on the planet. So was the semen of the males.

“Your protection is among my primary targets.”

She sends me promptly to hell, murmuring something about safety protocols.

Rodrigo is crying silently ever since his initial outburst. Yet, he was the one who was joking about returning to find out a planet that was dead. It was late at night according to the cycles my fellow travelers observed – my database as well as my observations agree that what humans call “night” often favors storytelling. No matter how deep in space humans have gone, they still stick to habits inherited from their first ancestors around the fire. A hundred thousand years and a million mutations afterwards, humans tend to leave the same remnants behind them when they extinguish their fires at night: ashes and ghosts.

Dirt and Wishes

“You tell me we’ve jumped again, forty standard years ahead this time. So?”

Jamal’s hands are still, clasped to each other, the tone of his question is almost aggressive. I know he trembles and he knows that I know, yet he continues to pretend that he is relaxed, although he is the only one awake in the ship. My fellow travelers are aware that they will never fool me, yet they tend to personalize me.

“It’s relatively safe now to remain a little longer in orbit. So I took the time to study the entire emission spectrum before reviving you. I’ve discovered two human establishments on the far side of the Moon. The spots coincide with places where minute traces of ice had been detected in the past. About six to seven thousand persons are living there, offspring of those who have survived from the orbital stations and the old lunar bases. They call themselves Georefugees, and they obviously gathered to the dark side to protect themselves from the dangerous earthly radiations. But they no longer possess space vehicles.”

“They wouldn’t be able to construct or repair them,” he murmurs.

“The spaceships were turned into the primary material for the expansion and the operation of the settlements.”

The pictures I’ve captured from the communication signals between the two establishments and the land vehicles expose an arbitrarily constructed aggregate. Plastic, Kevlar, metal, cement, glass, ceramics, everything was used to expand the habitable zones. A large part of the two settlements is underground, excavated into the rocks for protection.

“And we,” his voice rises, “have neither landing gear nor radiation-safe escape pods!”

The Scouts were fully assembled in space stations. They were vessels designed for space, priorities given to the inter-dimensional engines. We rely of course to conventional propulsion rockets for minor adjustments and for getting in orbit around the exoplanets, but upon completion of our journey that fuel was scant, and several ignitions for the leg to and from the dimensional gate have exhausted most of our reserve. Similarly spent are the provisions for the crew members. Prediction was at most for a few days in orbit after the end of the mission. Not for the end of the world.

“We were expecting to find progress upon return, not regress …”

Jamal interrupts. “What about our escape pods? They are still functional, aren’t they?”

“They were not made to withstand the radiation emitted from the Earth’s destruction. You will fry in there. Besides …”

“OK. Our escape pods are not safe but we could transfuse fuel from their tanks to the main reserve and set course for the far side of the Moon.”

“We would have to follow a low consumption track. Radiation from Earth is still dangerous if we remain close for long. And if we attempt to reach the Moon on a fast track, we will have no fuel to return to the gate.”

“Obviously. But we could contact the Georefugees. If they find out about us, they’ll do their best to get us to the ground. They certainly maintain a relatively high level of technology. Otherwise they wouldn’t have survived on the Moon for so long. Our vessel will be a treasure to them. And we can remain in the stasis field until they come to the rescue.”

The proposal is reasonable. But …

“Let me inform you about their situation. Many of the persons and most of the material salvaged came from small isolated stations where biological experiments of dubious legality and morality were conducted. On the aftermath of the disaster, all rules about planned mutations were suspended, in face of the danger of total extinction for the race. The inhabitants of the lunar settlements have endorsed significant mutations hoping to adapt to the unfriendly environment. The living conditions are extremely hard and mortality rate is very high.”

“How different does that make them?”

“Different enough to consider us alien and undesirable.”

Jamal knits his eyebrows. “Isn’t this illogical? In essence, we are coming from their past. What’s wrong with us possessing the DNA of their great-grandfathers?”

“Nothing, perhaps. I would suggest, nevertheless, that you listen to the current theory of the Georefugees about the destruction of the Earth before we proceed with the plan. It’s a small excerpt from the world’s history taught in their schools.”

Jamal gestures, ‘proceed’.

“Our heroes fought valiantly against a hateful and fanatic enemy, who committed matricide from the safety of high orbit. Our mission now and forever is their total destruction, a fight to our last breath as well as the last breath of our children and our children’s childr–”

Jamal raises a hand to interrupt. “This comes from a schoolbook?”

“Exactly.” The right answer is ‘unfortunately’.

“It sounds more like hate speech.”

Straight to the point. Jamal has studied History thoroughly. He was supposed to be our First Speaker in case of alien contact.

“Or even worse, the propaganda of a barely veiled dictatorship,” he amends.

There he is. “We must take into account that, given such abject conditions, they need a target to vent their misery,” I add. “Listen to this: ‘We dream of the moment we will prevail again on our environment, when we will annihilate the remnants of the enemy and once again gain access to the vital sources that have been denied to us. We dream of the moment when we shall heal our Mother. It’s for this moment that all of us strive and fight’.”

“Their wishes are written in sand and dirt,” Jamal murmurs. “Their potential is next to zero and the destruction of the Earth is absolute. They deceive themselves.”

“Most Georefugees have no access to the old databases. Much of the evidence is deleted to make different use of the memory space.”

He rubs his chin. “Every dictatorship attempts to limit access to information,” he says afterwards. “Their motives could have been noble in the beginning.” He leaves his hammock and floats slowly around the room. His two companions are asleep, encapsulated in their energy cocoons. His eyes turn to one of the cameras. “They are now seeking an enemy – even an enemy that no longer exists – to saddle them with the evil of the disaster, so that people will rally harder with their leaders and their struggle for survival.”

He approaches the screens to check the information I have extrapolated from the data I’ve managed to extract from their communication channels.

Average birth rate per female: 9.4 offspring.

Average survival rate in the first week: 5.73

Average offspring reaching adulthood: 2.91

Average life expectancy: 27 standard years.

Mutation rate: 28% lethal mutations in the total of general population.

“Nothing reminds me of the planet we’ve left behind,” he murmurs while perusing the list of the most common death causes.

He’s not expecting me to comment upon the obvious and I don’t.

“How do they imagine they’ll hunt down an enemy?” he wonders after a while. “You said they don’t have space vessels anymore.”

“They still possess weapons. And they have the ability to fire them via satellite systems. Some of them are still in orbit around the Moon and they remain functional.”

His laughter comes out bitter. “Should I assume that if we appear now, we will make the perfect target to release the anger that seethes underneath their tunnels?”

“They have already done that. If you read a little more into their historical texts, you’ll find a reference to the shooting down of an enemy vessel. From the contents recorded, I suspect it was Scout-3.”

He doesn’t want to read more.

“Let’s leave this timeframe,” he says in a low voice. “There is no home to be found here.”

I begin initiation of the inter-dimensional engines. And I remember how Delphi’s last oracle continues: Foivos Apollo no longer has a home…

Rust and Remorse

“What’s your name?”

Τhe person on the screen looks and sounds like a boy. My extrapolation algorithms show me what a person should look like due to extended mutations, either random or programmed, after eighty eight years of further time-slip. It must be a young boy, although his skin appears hard and wrinkled like that of a hippopotamus of the once upon a time Nile.

“Polynoe.”

“Cool.” One point seven million stored pictures and one hundred and thirteen combinatorial algorithms assure me that the smile is spontaneous and the words are true, even if the face is almost alien to the human race. “We’ve never talked before. Such a name, I would remember.”

My processors can easily break into the lunar establishments’ communication system without being detected. What I can’t achieve is downloading the necessary code to install part of my software in a storage area of their machines to operate from within. There are no memory banks large enough to host me. Their technological level did not allow their maintenance and they have been recycled many decades ago.

The population has increased. A little more than seventeen thousand souls live crowded in the deep tunnels they have extended underground and around the plantation domes of the two original establishments.

“I’m new to the job.”

There’s no reason to explain more, as there’s no reason to awake my fellow travelers. This age is certainly not proper for them, and it’s not reasonable to spend the few provisions of water and food to see them come to the same conclusion. Yet, regardless of the information I have gathered by monitoring the communications, I wanted to get in touch with the Georefugees, something I avoided last time.

“Nightshift in supply area, huh?” he asks.

I repeat a few million idle loops between answers to simulate the time lag of their actual communication system. For two days I’ve been collecting data to study their language. It has changed significantly in the past half century. It has become almost unrecognizable since the time of the disaster. It’s a hodgepodge of the languages of three or four dominating Georefugees’ groups. Thousands of words that had to do with the earthen landscape have become obsolete, while new notions have been added and the meaning of others is altered. Anyway, I have no problem adjusting my language generators. Underneath these layers it’s still a human language.

“I guess so.”

“How old are you?”

Good question. “Fourteen.” I hope it doesn’t sound irrational. In this society kids grow up pretty soon.

“I’m thirteen. Why can’t I see you?”

I considered it safer to avoid optical contact, although synthesizing an acceptable face profile is a joke. Meanwhile, I have an adequate picture of the boy and his surrounding space, although the area is dimly lit. He is slightly built and almost naked. His ribs are discernible under a tough and somewhat scaly skin. It’s either too hot in the establishment or some targeted mutations have made them resistant to lower temperatures. Behind him I can see pieces of broken machinery. Dark red spots of rust have invaded long cylinders that appear to be tubes. Wires and dismantled power suppliers are stacked to his right and something like pieces of a fan are scattered to his left. What they call supplies would have been considered rubbish in the past that we have come from.

“I don’t know. I can see you.”

I recognize his grimace even through the hippo wrinkles of his face. “I guess it’s a glitch in the optical module.” His hand moves in a gesture I interpret as dismissal.

I find the chance to tap a little more information about the rate of their regression. “The entire com-sys is about to blow,” I drop casually.

“Don’t say such things.” His voice is low and hurried.

“Why not?”

“It’s bad for morale. Don’t they punish you in your sector when you speak so?” He sounds angry now, glancing nervously around.

“Not much.”

He makes another grimace. “You’re lucky.” A few silent seconds pass by while I store all the images the shoddy place offers me.

“How come you have no kids?” he asks.

Slippery ground. “How do you know I don’t?”

“Are you kidding me? You wouldn’t be in the storerooms!”

Is it more or less dangerous to work in the storerooms? Are females who have given birth more or less protected? Mothers at fourteen? He hears me sighing and says he is sorry.

“I dream of the day when our life will not be so hard,” he murmurs. “Like in the stories, where people used to live out, in the open air. Sometimes I imagine trees in long, unruly rows. Big trees. Lots of them. In the pictures there are so many that you are afraid you may get lost. Has it even crossed your mind that you’ll get lost in the hydroponics’ domes?”

“No.”

“One day, I hope our world becomes like the Earth that was. But who could protect her from the rays of Heavens?” he continues. “I have seen it in the old pictures. The tongue of fire that blew from the sun was so huge that it burned the Earth down. It’s called … do you remember the name? How was it called?”