Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

Fishing

Written by Thea Hutcheson

Illustrated by Kelley Hensing

Maruka slid a grasping tentacle through the slit into another universe and fished around. The fluid, a mild surfactant, meant she could do without a protective sheath, allowing her to feel viscously instead of groping blindly. Her timing was perfect; the fluid was calm and the agitation cycle was some moments away.

The exploration was disappointing again. The human in the other universe had begun clipping the fashion sheaths together, rendering them too big to pull through. Doubly sad, Maruka thought, flushing green. The fashion sheaths had been paying her survival debts.

The sheaths were a perfect fit for a Cleemlik's courting appendage, creating a veil from which it glowed demurely. The humans in the other universe wore them on the ends of their lower mobility appendages, inside their exterior protectors, so they became worn and stained, but odd was as odd does and universes were odd.

That thought brought her back around to Benizeer's recent oddness. All Maruka wanted was a dark umber relationship that ultimately ran deep cobalt through parenthood. And Benizeer, like that other being, insisted on clipping things to it. Certainly they should have offspring, but why two litters, and why so quickly?

"Of course," she thought, "it's the same thing, macro and micro." She quoted her mentor, Quemish. "You're looking at the bottom side of another universe. What do you think you're seeing, Maruka?"

Her grasping tentacle had shaded to black distaste in the liquid, which, she realized, was exactly how Benizeer made her feel. "You're looking at Benizeer's bottom side," she said. "What do you think you're seeing?"

She withdrew her appendage and wiped it off. She'd worked both relationship and claim very productively until recently when they both started to go puce. Now the claim seemed played out, which also described her relationship with Benizeer. Together, these thoughts made a gadabout an appealing idea. Her timing was good, too. The universe fabric was puckered here, forming a big suck at her top right as she faced the universe's underside. Scholars theorized that the pressure differential between the two sides of the universe created a low pressure system, which sucked matter through the dimple. It was going to commence shortly and she was dangerously close.

She moved away from the claim, closed her visuals and centered herself with a wan chi breathing ritual before spreading her awareness over the land. Drawn to face northwest, she focused and saw bluffs that were suffused red with the wealth of their slits.

Maruka felt drawn past them and concentrated. Yes, nestled two ridges over, a warm rainbow spelled an interesting community. She heard ticking. The suck hole dimple was beginning to draw. Its strength had increased since the last interval, drawing even her toward its mouth. She had told the universe cartographers and they had promised to send someone to look. She picked up her pack and began to move away. It would open quickly and suck anything in its radius into its maw. Cleemish knew where it would end up. She felt the suck's wind pull as she hit a ground-eating stride.

Maruka gadded throughout the day, reading the geography of the land, checking the color of any slits, laying stakes and marking sucks for placement on the great universe underbelly map. She went to register two small exploratory claims at the closest community. While she waited in