Bugs from the Black Box!

By Alexander Zelenyj

A mini collection of 5 brand new Weird science fiction stories from the author of Blacker Against the Deep Dark, Songs for the Lost, and more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foxhill Press
• Release date: Apr 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215114353

Book preview

Books by Alexander Zelenyj

These Long Teeth of the Night: The Best Short Stories 1999-2019

Bugs from the Black Box!

The Long Dirty Night Trilogy

Animals of the Exodus

Blacker Against the Deep Dark

A Test Tube Family

Songs for the Lost

Ballads to the Burning Twins: The Complete Song Lyrics of the Deathray Bradburys

Forgotten Hymns of the Death Angels

Experiments at 3 Billion A.M.

Black Sunshine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side A:

Peace Machines • 15

––––––––

Side B:

Long Before Eden • 35

The Dreamers • 41

Gods of the Meat-Hive • 63

The Electric Oak • 71

Advantages and Disadvantages of Black Box Testing

SIDE A

Peace Machines

It had been another long day of toil beneath the perennially rust-coloured sky. The ridding pit gave its final convulsions of his shift, swallowing down its mouthful of eliminated. Their dying screams echoed in the tired shell of his skull, as they always did.

Bin wiped a filthy hand across his face, breathing heavily from his exertions on the deposit station platform. The air he gulped was flinty and sooty, and he longed for his clean quarters ten miles beneath the crust of the earth. His strong blue pulse of earlier in the shift had waned considerably: he was tired. He felt his work in his bones. He’d been a feeder for too many years and wasn’t sure how much longer he could hack the labour. And that was only the physical weight of the years—never mind what it had done to his mind, though this he kept to himself; and, of course, Lolisr. He was fortunate, to have a partner with whom to share his deep-private thoughts.

He dismissed his small team and began gathering his tools. The other feeders trundled off in silence, too tired for conversation. Like Bin, they pulsed a wan blue of weariness. It had been a busy day. Bin was turning to follow them into the subterranean corridor, past the next feeder team milling there prior to the commencement of their shift, when a small thudding sounded in the tubing leading down to the collecting box. He followed the long curve of the tube trailing into the sky and disappearing, far above, into the belly of the immense collection ship docked at the ridding station. It cast a great shadow over the platform, and though working beneath that shadow all day long had gone as usual, the sight of the ship now sent a shudder of despondence through Bin. This was a peculiar reaction, he considered, a little stunned. Then he reasoned that he was very tired, so perhaps it wasn’t that strange a response after all.

The noise in the tubing concluded with a metallic crash inside the large box and, professional that he was, Bin paused and set his gear down. He motioned to the next team to hold off, several of whom saw and were making their way forward to offer assistance, pulsing the deep icy blue of work-diligence and emotional detachment. He quickly swung the steel door open, reached in and efficiently grabbed the first of the pair of creatures with one hand while batting its appendages away from his arm with the lasher in his left. He kicked the gate-control switch at the base of the box, sending its gridded steel door sliding from top to bottom, trapping the second of the pair in the box.

He hefted the baby Trillip, holding it steady with practiced ease despite its flailing appendages, and quickly swung about to drop it shrieking over the steel lip of the deposit station platform. Its cry echoed back up to him, its acidic expulsions spattering on the air, across the protective skin of his gloves and suit.

He winced at the chittering clamor, young and terrified, and at the frantic cries of its still-living counterpart locked in the box and witnessing the death of its fellow through the bars of the gate. Maybe it had simply come at the worst possible time, after his shift had already concluded following a very long and arduous work day. Death-dealing on a slow day could be difficult, after all, let alone at the conclusion of a particularly busy one. The endless shifts of multiple-species deliveries took their toll on any devoted servant of the Ganshars.

Shut up! he screamed, his voice ragged.

He looked up, startled at his outburst, to find the silhouettes of the security detail standing alertly behind the window glass overhead, and the next feeder team still idling in the doorway of