Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to Game100's "Free Week" Challenge.

Note: These peeks at the past all take place pre-Clone Revolt, sometime between 2019 and 2085.

Dean
"I can't pretend to understand why you're doing this, doctor." When Dr. Subrah Dean did not respond, his guest continued: "Look, this quirk of yours, to treat him like one of the family – it's going to cause problems in your careers."

"I know." Dean wiped the moisture from his forehead with a cotton handkerchief. The tropical heat this year was brutal. "But it's something we have to do. He's human, just as we are – "

"He's not." Sorayamin rubbed the three-day stubble on his chin.

"He is." Dean's voice had turned hard. "You'd do well to remember that before it's too late."

Dina
Someone's left a tube of lipstick on the vanity counter. The JHJG-768 series Androsynth stares at it as if she expects it to move. She looks back at the doorway, even as she knows no other females are at work here at this hour. Hesitantly, she reaches for the tube.

A quick twist to rotate the barrel and then she applies it, shaky-handed, more out of curiosity than any great desire to dress up. And it looks bloodily bizarre on her, when she's never worn makeup at all. Androsynth have no need to attract mates. She washes it off violently.

Nick
The owner's son kept lurking around the lab, and it made everyone nervous, especially the KORB-7B. They'd all been 'gifted' to the current owner by a very liberal interpretation of local laws involving death and taxes. The son, it was rumored, had ties to illicit dealings. Still, except for the Androsynth, they were nominally free, and natural, men. Clones, though...

The KORB-7B drank his coffee with the rest of them and tried to relax. When the alarms began to ring and the guns to fire, however, he panicked like all the others. Unlike them, he was only four years old.

The gunner
"Mr. Sorayamin," his aide said in a whisper.

He half-listened to the aide as the facility's Androsynth-handling procedures were explained. Several of the clones were nearby, and one in particular stared at Sorayamin. It was a stare that promised death if only it could be managed properly. It was a stare that read you know what they do to us and what we are, and you condone it, and you will pay.

Sorayamin knew the clones were very intelligent, but he hadn't expected an ultimatum delivered in one clone's expression. Then it grinned.

He'd take that look to his grave.

Grif
He wondered, sometimes, how Hsien Ho had ever teased apart the secrets of genetic code. The BioTekNik had produced many Androsynth, yet kept a tight lock on exactly how. He'd heard, too, that Ho's team now aimed at cloning deceased scientists, and augmenting them.

A door slammed shut, startling him, and he muttered a curse as he restarted the molecular examination. Probably one of the Board; they had huge fancy offices just down the hall, with cut-crystal decanters and thick carpet, and so many, many books.

Someday, perhaps, if he worked hard enough, he might be allowed to step inside.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com