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    In The Space Of Nine Lives
    In The Space Of Nine Lives
    In The Space Of Nine Lives
    Ebook46 pages36 minutes

    In The Space Of Nine Lives

    By R R Angell

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Tom’s best friend, his schoolmates, and all his teachers on the interstellar ship exist in virtual reality. The only other living person on board is the Pilot, and Tom is being groomed to take his place, ensuring that the colonists in hibernation reach their destination planet after their centuries-long journey.

    But after Pilot retires to his own hibernation, young Tom has a life-changing event that makes him question the mission’s purpose, and his own. Meanwhile, the ship seems to have its own agenda concerning a mysterious cloud of debris. Will Tom accept fate or choose his own destiny?

    This novelette was first published in the January 2006 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherR R Angell
    Release dateJul 25, 2019
    ISBN9781949532067
    In The Space Of Nine Lives
    Author

    R R Angell

    R. R. Angell is a queer writer (he/him) whose short fiction has been around for more than twenty years in literary and science fiction magazines and anthologies. Most notably: The Baltimore Review, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Chelsea Station, Best Date Ever: True Stories That Celebrate Gay Relationships, and in Frank M. Robinson’s memoir, Not So Good A Gay Man (afterward). His queer science fiction novel published in May 2019.

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      Book preview

      In The Space Of Nine Lives - R R Angell

      In The Space Of Nine Lives

      In The Space Of Nine Lives

      R R Angell

      Sisu Publications

      Copyright © 2019 by R R Angell

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-949532-06-7

      Published in the United States by

      Sisu Publications

      www.sisupublications.com

      Cover design by Teagan Gavet

      This story originally appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine January 2006

      Reprinted by permission of the author.

      Contents

      The Story

      About the Author

      About the Publisher

      In The Space Of Nine Lives

      By R. R. Angell

      The ship’s cat slipped Tom’s grip and ran up the curving floor toward the galley. As he stalked her, young Tom felt less sure of himself. He could talk it over with Pilot, but Pilot was in sim and not to be bothered unless it was an emergency.

      Was a dare an emergency? Only if he failed.

      His standing among his sim friends would plummet again, and he’d be teased and shunned. So what if his friends weren’t real? When he was in sim, they could beat him up just as well. And they could ignore him anywhere in the ship. His sim friends were living, after all, just in a different way. Tom enjoyed their company, except when he was being teased, but that was part of growing up, as Pilot would say. It didn’t matter if the kid was on-planet or on a colony transport ship, kids were kids, and he had to deal with them in school no matter what.

      So he followed Widget around the habitat ring and found her at her feeding station. He removed his shirt, snaring her, then went to one of the access tubes and climbed toward the hub. His spirits lightened with his weight. She wriggled in the makeshift bag, but he was determined.

      The hatch closed behind him as he floated out of the hub, and he grabbed a handhold to stop spinning. Tom turned the cat loose in the sterile corridor between the habitat and farm wheels. He laughed as she reached for everything, her tail whipping her body this way and that, turning her into a wild, gyrating ball of fur and claws.

      Now the first lesson in no-grav is to stay calm and move real slow until you get used to it, he said to her. This didn’t stop her from trying to claw her way to a wall. She started howling.

      So that’s what happens, Singh said from the view panel. Dottie and Singh were watching. Singh stared at the animal while Dottie stuck out her tongue.

      Are you happy, now? Tom blurted. He tried to find a way to grab the cat without getting scratched. His friends giggled behind him. He turned on them. Screen off, he yelled. They were gone, but yelling only made things worse. This wasn’t

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