short stories

Screamers


“Pigeon or canary?”

Cadet Serren Psora halted before the entrance to the briefing room and blinked up at the gaunt. She hadn’t realized how many bones you could see in such a translucent face. “Sir?” she said.

The gaunt’s upper lip curled away from his silvery teeth. No, not silvery; more a shimmer, as though he weren’t all there. Which, of course, he wasn’t. “Too polite to act bright, is that it?” he asked.

Sf. Formerly called “Pigeons,” which was a lousy title. Titling things is not one of my gifts. Thanks to Viable Paradise VIII’s writing exercises, Teresa Nielsen Hayden (“find your inner editor and mug her”), Kate Salter, Jax, April, my sister, Rilina, Elizabeth Bear, Mer, Mrissa, Charles M., Margaret Ronald, Scott Andrews, and Julie Pascal. Appeared in Ideomancer vol. 6, issue 2.