We’re already wrapping up 2022, but we still have a few treats in store before we see the year off! Next issue, our cover story features the return of an iconic science-fiction character: when a genetically-modified animal is killed and the details don’t add up, ARM sends one of its top investigators—Gil Hamilton! Get the whole story in “Sacred Cow,” by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes.

Our fact article for the issue, from Christopher MacLeod, wonders if rather than the popular Alcubierre drive, a quantum mechanical star-drive might instead be “Another Way To the Stars.”

The Jazz Age
by Mark W. Tiedemann

Lerin Olva entered the Grand Hall of the Accords and reveled briefly in the surge of shared excitement. Beneath the arching transparency, through which the shoulder of Mars and the variegated assemblage of the Trishti mothership glowed, the highest lattices of government and society gathered for the Jubilee. This was only Lerin’s second visit to the hall, the first in an official capacity. He had grown up watching broadcasts of the events in this space, and it still possessed an aura of mystery for him. He paused at the end of the ramp up to the peaked entryway, touched the silk accent Josa had folded into his breast pocket, briefly distracted by the tinge of disappointment that she had chosen not to accompany him tonight, and stepped into the arena with a sensation of passing from one life into another. READ MORE

Sacred Cow
by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes

Taffy’s bedroom was a bit too warm, but I sensed that the chamber itself was cold. Couldn’t feel it of course. It was just a projection from Geneva. And it was probable that none of the people I faced were really at ARM’s Geneva facility at all.

The committee chamber was dark at the edges, with bright glowing circles spotlighting each of five ARM executives. Martin Lister sat second from the left. He was one of my supervisors and seemed more irritated than the others. Maybe that was just his default face, as if a normal person had gargled with lemon juice. “Before we retire to consider, have you anything to say, Officer Hamilton?” Lister stands five feet two, lean and muscular, straight black hair, pale complexion, sharp-edged nose and chin and cheekbones. It’s hard to meet his eyes. They burn, especially when he is pissed. At those moments there’s someone else living in there, someone I’m not sure I’d want to know. READ MORE