Ancestor’s Gift
"When he returned from his travels, he brought a contingent of scientists and engineers who built the tower and several other structures. But, after a year of serious work, they packed up and left."
Descent
"She didn’t care about any of my academic curiosities. About ii-mo or gba’agbo. She only cared about her sound mining business. About getting a competitive advantage. About winning."
Bat Monkey
"‘I don’t want you to fail. But…’ Kahindo pointed back in the direction of the huts where Priti would no doubt be drinking with Chase. ‘They know nothing about our people.’ He looked down at the floor and for a while neither of us spoke, then he said, ‘There are no flying monkeys.’ I glared at him. ‘So what the hell–’ ‘We needed the money. Without guards and bribes, the poachers would destroy everything. I won’t let that happen,’ Kahindo said. ‘So you made it all up? Is this some kind of joke to you?’ ‘It’s not a joke, they fly, but they’re not monkeys,’ Kahindo said. I stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "
The Algorithm
"They called themselves the Gaia Accord. A group of elites and technocrats that pushed for global technocratic stewardship. Governments replaced by systems, presidents replaced by panels, parliaments by predictive models. The climate collapse had come faster than anyone expected, and in the aftermath of the Migration Years, the famines, the water wars, the pandemics that never ended, people were too tired to argue. That they controlled Lethal Autonomous Weapons through their monopoly over AI systems, meant arguing was futile anyway."
A Shadow in the Sun
"Here we are. Six magnificent black rhinos, muscles rippling under thick, wrinkled hides – the first to tread this earth in more than a decade since the last beast died alone in a miserable British zoo. Granted, they’re all young still – mere babies, according to Theuns Theunissen, director of Houmoed Private Game Reserve. Dear god, I loathe that man with the power of a hundred suns going nova. He looks like he’s stepped out of one of those nature doccies on one of the major streaming services – all blond, with a tan out of a bottle, and his teeth so white they must’ve cost as much as a small car. Apparently, he’s eighty, but doesn’t look a day over forty. Amazing what money can do. Especially when it comes to scrubbing what he did to a young, upcoming influencer at a product launch five years ago."
Under a Slippery Sky
"The other ’mancers spoke first and no one had good news. Even those who reported fewer abnormalities in their readings remained baffled by the lack of rain, the absence of the turtles, the thinning schools of fish, and the withering crops."
Every Centre is an Ant
"When children in my region completed their schooling, they left to live and work at The Centre. Other children in other regions went to the ships to lay undersea cables. In the poorer regions, they went to work underground in the lithium mines. In some parts of the world, we were told there were Centres located underwater, and even some in outer space. But I couldn’t imagine my people living under the sea or up in the sky. We were people of the land, and our memory was in the soil."
The Whaling
“Excess energy creates sonic storms, as we all know from Órino-rin. But depletion is equally dangerous. Sound pollution, industrial harmonics, and unregulated amplification, these all thin the ambient field. When flare energy strikes a depleted system, it doesn’t heal it. It fractures it, and if left unchecked, it can produce deserts of silence.”
Constellations on Water
"She smiles. It never gets old to her, the act of growing something for the first time. She remembers sprinkling the tiny dry seeds onto moist soil and leaving the planter, a rose-gold tin out in the sun. She wonders what the tin used to be, in its past life, a hundred years ago. What it was first filled with, all the things it’s carried and will carry in the future. For now, it carries fragile life."
Miss Doe and the Leafy Man
"The campaign was slowly yielding fruits, with the whole village collectively involved in fighting the epidemic. Then, a company calling itself Pest and Germ Control Corporation came up with a new method. It had modified the genes of the anopheles and created a new species that does not carry malaria parasites. It called this breed Miss Doe. It asked the government for a trial site. A powerful politician influenced the Ministry of Health to choose Abedo. He thought the project would bring employment to his people, and thus increase his popularity. Genetic scientists from PGCC then camped in the area, and introduced Miss Doe. Their plan was to out populate and replace the naturals with the disease free bugs. A simple plan. A great plan."