Free Si in Space by John Luke Robertson

until it opens its tiny mouth. It lets out an awful howling sort of sound.
    “You were really gonna try to get me with that knife, weren’t you?”
    You jerk your head around. Who said that? You peer into the corners of the square garbage disposal unit but can’t find the source of the voice. It sounds like a New Yorker.
    “Yeah, that’s right. I’m talkin’ to you. You think you’re gonna do that to me? Nobody does that to Johnny.”
    You look back at the slow loris.
    “Did that thing just talk?” you whisper to John Luke.
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s right, boys,” the loris says. “And you know what? There’s more of me where that came from.”
    With that, little heads emerge left and right. There might be fifty of them surrounding you.
    “You can’t see what you’re really standing in,” the one with the New Yorker voice says. They all start to laugh.
    What an awful way to end. Stuck in a pile of garbage and being mocked by a clan of slow lorises.
    Or is that slow lori ?
    THE END
    Start over.
    Read “Look at the Stars: A Note from John Luke Robertson.”

MAD WORLD

    YOU REACH THE DOWNED ESCAPE POD in about an hour via dune buggy. It’s intact, and both Ben and Jada appear to be okay inside. They grab their necessary gear and accompany you back to the landing craft.
    Once inside with your helmets off, able to breathe in oxygen and talk without your headsets, you all discuss the obvious: the explosion of the DC Enterprise and your chances of survival.
    “There is still the Starsailor ,” Ben says. “And we haven’t heard yet from Wade, Kim, and Franco. But we’re gonna keep trying.”
    “Did something go wrong?” Commander Noble asks.
    “No. All signs report that they got on board safely. Last transmission I heard came from Wade. He said everything looked fine and he’d report if and when he found any signs of the Starsailor crew.”
    “Well, hey   —isn’t that the moment all chaos is supposed to rain down?” you say. “When someone says everything looks fine?”
    “So we head back up there and try to connect with them,” Ben says.
    “Hold on,” Commander Noble replies. “Let me think about our options.”
    The small landing craft you’re in is already tight. It’s sorta like the Millennium Falcon , except the outside is just round and not that cool-looking. But it’s the only ship any of you have right now.
    “What was that duck call thing, anyway?” Ben asks.
    “That thing was dancin’ to the groovy tunes,” you say.
    “We won’t fully know until we can conduct some experiments,” Jada says. “That’s why I picked this up.” She shows you a few pieces of dark glass. “It’s from that object. We’ll take it back home and try to figure out what it was made of.”
    Commander Noble appears agitated. “Look   —we need to either make our trip back up to the Starsailor or figure out what to do down here.”
    Suddenly a telephone rings. Everybody looks at each other with strange faces.
    Who’s calling, Jack? And how in the world are we getting cell coverage way out here?
    The commander answers the call, listens for a minute, then gives the phone to you. “It’s the publisher.”
    “No,” you say.
    Everybody looks like someone died. No, worse. This could be lights out. All it takes is one simple press of the Delete button . Then boom. All of this, gone.
    You put the phone to your ear. “Hello?”
    “Uncle Si?”
    “You got that, Jack.”
    “This is Karen Watson, associate publisher at Tyndale House. First off, I’m a big fan.”
    You’re not quite sure what to say. “Okay.”

    “Look   —we’ve got a bit of a problem. I understand your spaceship just blew up, and I’m very thankful nobody died way out on Mars. And I also realize that you’re about ready to get on board the Starsailor to check things out. I’m sure that could be exciting and funny, but the thing is   —we have a bit of a word count problem.”
    “A what?” you ask.
    “A word count