It’s probably hard to believe—if you read this in mid-October, when this issue goes on sale—that our next installment is already the November/December seasonal issue, but it is! (And if you think that’s weird: I’m writing this in late May!)

So we begin to close-out 2023 with “Apollo in Retrograde,” a follow-up to Rosemary Claire Smith’s popular 2012 novelette, “The Next Frontier.” Time has marched on since we last saw Natalya Orlova, and so has the space race, after the events surrounding the Apollo 13 mission in the previous story. But while failure isn’t final, success is fleeting, and new challenges arise that Natalya and the rest of the crew may have more trouble handling as the years progress and the program moves into the ’70s.

Flying Carpet
by Rajnar Vajra

Recently, I’d given in to marital pressure and upgraded our aging but perfectly adequate home AI to the latest Household Operations Serving Technology, model J33V35, “Jeeves.” It had taken me three intense hours to install, program, debug, and get the new HOST interfaced with the extended range in-wall speakers I’d been pressured into installing last month so that a certain party could enjoy ultra-fidelity sound anywhere in the house.

Now I was regretting the upgrade. This AI was a whole lot smarter and more sensitive than the old system.

I smelled coffee brewing, which meant Jeeves had calculated from our breathing or heartbeats or movements that at least one of us was awake. Either that, or the HOST had already come down with a case of system error. READ MORE

Apollo In Retrograde
by Rosemary Claire Smith

April 1970
Folded newspapers marched like soldiers in military precision across the conference table in Deke Slayton’s corner office. Headlines blared, “PARALYZED APOLLO 13 SPLASHES DOWN,” “INJURED ASTRONAUT HOSPITALIZED,” and “APOLLO IN RETROGRADE.”

On this stiflingly humid spring day, all the astronauts except Natalya Orlova studiously avoided as much as a glance at the dismal pronouncements spelling out how seriously her adopted country had stumbled. Everybody thought the U.S. won the “Space Race” five months ago, she mused, when Pete Conrad and I became the first people to land on the Moon. The triumph was soon eclipsed by the near-fatal Apollo 13 accident. The world watched that ill-fated spaceship limp home like a wounded three-legged dog with its tail between its legs. Today, the astronaut cadre, Natalya included, greeted two of its three crew members with heartfelt relief and sympathy. Having come so close, Lovell gave her a wry look while Swigert bottled his emotions. They had to ache for another chance to reach the Moon. So did Armstrong, Aldrin, and Bean after their aborted launch last year. Pete and I are the fortunate ones, and every day I itch to set foot on the Moon again. READ MORE