Pg. 75
Poetry | Editor’s Contribution
Saturn’s Scimitar
Saturn’s rings,
a revolving scimitar of rock and ice,
awaiting the return of the starships,
an interstellar caravan of translucent-red Saturnian scientists and celestial entrepreneurs,
compiling data from their sojourn in the field,
enjoying the voyage home in glowing, disc-shaped craft
possessing the untold quicksilver magic of technologies an astronomical eon
beyond that of the bestial Earthlings.
The Saturnians had shared a collective thought-chuckling at their expense.
Saturn awaits its ancient race,
as it has for over a billion years. Saturn will now also, await the Earthlings.
Decisions have been made in collective thoughtings. A cold calculus of efficiency. A mandate.
The whole of planet Earth and the Moon will soon be gravitationally entrained
by Saturnian world-gripping technology and pulled to the rings,
protected by immersion cloaking.
There they will remain for a time.
To be studied scientifically, the lifeforms cataloged, hybridized, and harvested. Planetary experimentation will be conducted, and extreme resource stripping, the development and testing of new and still unstable weaponry, and advanced waste neutralization processes.
Eventually, the protective field removed, our Earth and Moon will join the debris of the countless others that came before them, before us, becoming one with the rings.
The flaccid bodies of the Saturnians pulse with bioluminescence, thought-lights deeply rippling,
refracting through a muted physiology, dissolving —
throbbing globs of cherry Jell-O held aloft, shimmering in the starlight.
Their plan for the watery-blue Earth and its dry-gray Moon is an exquisite manifestation
of the severity of thought — and its application — that makes the Saturnian civilization
the cosmic equivalent of a can opener: the quivering envy of so many lifeforms in this solar system and far beyond.
Saturn’s scimitar awaits.
[Easter 0]
New Mars Recipe for Old Earth Lemon Beer
A simple and delightful Old Earth recipe for lemon beer found in the Interstellar MindBank Interface from the book Fortunes in Formulas for Home, Farm, and Workshop, 11th edition, 1944, edited by Gardner D. Hiscox, M.E. and Prof. T. O’Conor Sloane, Ph.D. that has been revised to suit the unique requirements of 3rd generation colonists on Mars.
Old Earth recipe for lemon beer:
Boiling water, 1 gallon
Lemon, sliced 1
Ginger, bruised 1 ounce
Yeast, 1 teacupful
Sugar, 1 pound
Let it stand 12 to 20 hours, and it is ready to be bottled.
New Mars recipe for lemon beer:
Boiling, chemically-neutralized atmospheric condensate, or purified waste water (avoid using Obloid Deep Cavern Lake water), 1 gallon
Rehydrated, freeze-dried lemon from the 1Gen cryovaults, sliced 1
Rehydrated, freeze-dried ginger from the 1Gen cryovaults, bruised 1 ounce
Indigenous origin, lab-cultivated, zelphoidal biospore yeast substitute (avoiding any such yeast from strains stamped with collection during the Martian winter, originating in the valley of blue dust, or found in the environs of antizelphoidal propulsive biophage clusters), 1 teacupful
Agricultural region 18, Agricultural Zone 7, cultivation quadrant 83, sector 42, biodome 12, section 27, subsection 33, plot 19, subplot 43, raised bed 76, hybridized, GMO, accelerated adaptability, forced growth matrix 122, forced adaptation 244, Martian suitability-type 185, subtype 1,098, ultra-evolving strain-type 53, nonmutational strain-type 786, deep space cryostorage none-risk category 1, index 14, high-radiation resistant, reanimating agent type 2.7, generation 310, acclimatization program 473, subacclimatization program 473, advanced adaptation program 300 with matrix 5 bioinjunction regulator, simulated subreacclimatization program 1000, pseudo-sugarcane bioreplication units, sugar-like crystalline substance, 1 pound
Let it stand 13 to 21 Martian hours, and it is ready to bottle.
— The Editor