John Adams - Lightspeed: Year One

Welcome to Lightspeed: Year One!

For those of you not already familiar with Lightspeed, some background may be in order: Lightspeed is an online magazine (www.lightspeedmagazine.com) that focuses exclusively on science fiction. Within its pages (or pixels, as it were), you will find all types of science fiction, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between.

Every month, we publish a mix of original fiction and reprints, and feature a variety of authorsfrom the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you havent heard of yet. So when you read Lightspeed, our hope is that youll see where science fiction comes from, where it is now, and where its going.

Which brings us to the anthology that youre reading right now. This is the first in a planned series of print anthologies that will annually collect all of the fiction originally published in the magazine. This first volume will collect all of the fiction originally published in Lightspeed, from June 2010 to May 2011.

Weve had a great first year. Nine out of the sixteen original stories published in Lightspeed in 2010 have been selected for reprint in a best-of-the-year anthology. Additionally, two of our storiesArvies by Adam-Troy Castro and Im Alive, I Love You, Ill See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftanhave been named finalists for the Nebula Award, and another storyAmaryllis by Carrie Vaughnwas nominated for the Hugo Award. Lightspeed itself and yours truly were also nominated for the Hugo Award, and Lightspeed won the Million Writers Award for Best New Online Magazine. Were hugely honored to have received all these accolades, but wed like to think that these accolades are only a sign of more great things to come!

While fiction is Lightspeeds focus (and only our fiction is included in this anthology), Lightspeed is also a nonfiction magazine. Alongside of our fiction selections, we run articles that riff off the ideas in the fiction. For instance, in our debut issue, we have a story about relativistic travel, so we asked sf author and expert astronomer Mike Brotherton to tell us about the science behind that familiar sf trope. We also regularly feature brief interviews with the authors we call author spotlights, in which the authors talk a bit about the stories behind their stories.

But theres more to Lightspeed than that, too. Lightspeed is also a podcast, which features two stories each month in audio format, produced by Grammy- and Audie Award-winning narrator/producer Stefan Rudnicki.

And, finally, Lightspeed is not just a weekly online magazine, its also a monthly ebook magazine, so if youd rather read it every month on your Kindle or Nook or Sony Reader or iPad (or even your PC!), that option is available, and you can also subscribe to the ebook edition via Weightless Books (www.weightlessbooks.com).

I hope you enjoy the anthology. If you do, I hope youll go to our website at www.lightspeedmagazine.com to let us know what you think. And alsotell a friend!

We have a history of missed connections, you and I. Years ago, when you called goodbye from the shuttle launch, my flight was landing in Zurich. Id changed planes, been re-routed from Frankfurt. Thats why you got my voicemail. Id have answered if I could, and wouldve wished you luck, even if you wanted a life without me. I never managed to see Europa, like you didjust Europe, where I met my first husband. The one I wished was you.

When I heard your message, I was glad you were happyyes, Ive always wanted you happy, even during our divorce. I thought of you traveling to Alpha Centauri, time dilating between us like a portal. I envisioned it like a slow-motion movie. Youd be back in forty years. Id be sixty-four, and youd only be half my age.

I saved your message for weeks, until I accidentally deleted it. It felt symbolic. Wed be happier apart, I thought to myself. But apart was always the way we connected. The word defines us relative to each other: one cannot be apart without the other.

Einstein spent ten years thinking about a mirror that troubled him. If he traveled at the speed of light and looked into a hand-held mirror, would he see his reflection, or not? Setting aside vampirism, or poorly-made glass that cracks at high speeds, the answer is that he must. Relativity means that you cant tell how fast youre going unless you have a point of reference.

Weve been together for as long as I can remember. Just kids, running around the Sacramento suburbs. I liked you because youd play with a girl. I ran faster, fought harder, and hit harder than any boyand I knew it. Remember that time we played Capture the Flag and you couldnt find mine? I shoved it in a drainpipe. You could still see its corner. That counts.

I was the girl next doorsafe, reliable, undesirable. When I was thirteen, and you were sixteenI was crazy-in-love with you. But you were blind. Best friends forever, you told me.

I thought that youd never see me as a woman your own age. I had to hear about all those girls you dated. Remember that awful redhead who stole cigarettes from her grandmother? I bet she got lung cancer.

Best friends, I told you too. We were together, yet completely apart.

I used to wonder how to make you see me. Should I tell you what I felt? Stay silent and hope youd see?

But you made the choice for me: you left for the military. So I joined the Peace Corpsthe polar opposite of what you did. This drew us together again like magnets. Its why we ended up living together in San Francisco. Roommates and lovers.

I didnt know this then, of courseall of this I figured out during the journey to Alpha Centauri.

Two magnets, apart, continue to exert force on each other. Their power lies in the space between.

Einstein says that nothing moves at the speed of light, because the faster things get the heavier they become.

Its true that as I accelerated, everything had more weight: two decades of child-rearing, juggling flute practice with my photography career, balancing a marriages weight against single independence. But weight is relative, and whats heavy on Earth is light on the Moon and monstrous on Jupiter. Yet the mass remains the same. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When I think about the changes in my parents livesand how much more Ive already seen, in fewer yearsI think of Moores Law.

My world is doubling every year. Somewhere in old Italy, Galileo is searching the skies with his telescope, wondering why his life doesnt feel as full as it should. Its because I have it all, four centuries laterhis life, and millions of others.

The doubling sequence surprises people whove never thought it through.

Reno, you told me once. Reno, Nevada. When we lived in San Francisco, in that tiny apartment above a Mission District taqueria. Do you remember that conversation? We were sitting on that awful brown loveseat youd rescued from a dumpster. You were heating dinner in the microwave, and the room smelled like curry. The fog rolled through the city and we both wore old sweaters. I didnt yet know the relevance of Reno.

If were separated, you said.

Why Reno?

Its inland. When the big quake hits the Bay, Renos safe. Or if theres a missile strike or something. No one strikes Reno.

Youre paranoid, I said.

You shrugged. Im aware.

Wed been living together for six months. We made good roommatesboth of us loud, and neither of us tidy. You took out the trash, and I sorted the mail; we both did dishes when needed, and not more often. I didnt mind your waterskis propped against the fridge, or your physics books scattered on the pizza-stained carpet. You didnt mind the way I always slammed doors and drawers, no matter how quiet I tried to be. It was a good arrangement. But not what I wanted.