Many people know all too well that an outbreak of pandemic proportions can leave large amounts of the population with long-lasting health issues. When one of those issues is memory loss, it may become vital for people to have a way for their past selves to tell their future selves important information. But can you ever completely trust that your past self is telling you the truth? Well, your future self will find out in our lead story for July/August, “Vouch for Me,” by Greg Egan.

Exoplanets can be classified in a variety of ways, and while much attention is paid to the search for “perfect” ones. . .

The Last Days of Good People
by A.T. Sayre

One

Everyone was on the operations deck while Gare was on the conference call with the Ministry back home. Retii Major had just set below the mountain range opposite, but half of Retii Minor was still above the peaks in the slowly reddening sky. It cast long shafts of light deep into the darkened room through the windows facing down into the valley. The shadows against the back wall shimmered and waved like water in the interference from the camouflage barrier covering the windows, masking their presence under the illusion of an unbroken rock face. A line of shadow cut across Gare’s closed office door diagonally. Its flutter made Warin think of a pennant. READ MORE

Great Martian Railways
by Hûw Steer

Blowing the whistle wasn’t nearly as impressive as it should have been. For one thing, there was barely any atmosphere to carry the noise; for another, the water reclamation systems meant that no steam was ejected into the air at all, so the normally satisfying plume was entirely absent, sucked back into the condensers.

But she heard it, in the sealed cab. She felt the great boiler thrum, heard the muffled shriek of released steam, and grinned as she closed the whistle and diverted more steam to the massive pistons. Ahead of her, silver rails gleamed like tear-tracks in the red soil of Mars. READ MORE