Waking Up in the Genie Shop

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, January 2018


“You came to us as a female amphibioid and paid us to change you into a male canid. You’re a Heffen now, one of the most common species here on Crossroads Station.”

Sloanee opened her eyes and felt her heart racing.  What was she doing?  Lying down?  She was on the lam.  She should be running or hiding.  Nowhere was safe from the royal guards pursuing her.  Queen Doripauli and her army of photosynthetic tumbleweed-like aliens would stop at nothing to catch and punish the amphibioid who had betrayed them.

Betrayed her. Continue reading “Waking Up in the Genie Shop”

Home Remodeling

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, March 2020


“This spaceship doesn’t want to attract attention. I can tell it’s doing its best to look like the set from a thirty-year-old sitcom… after thirty years of gathering dust.”

A spaceship crashed down at the end of my street this morning.  Its inertial dampeners and camouflage shield must still be in working order, because it looked like nothing more than a parabola of blue light followed by a puffy white clump of cumulonimbus cloud streaking down from the sky.  After the crash, the puffy cloud dissipated with the morning fog, leaving behind a boxy, non-descript, ranch-style house, painted a bland shade of tan.  The paint is even peeling.  Sure, the lot at the end of the street had been an empty field all winter long, but somehow people have a way of forgetting that. Continue reading “Home Remodeling”

Crystal Fusion

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Voice of Dog, August 2021


“Yet she found herself speechless, staring at the crystal facets, mesmerized by the way the light played over them, winking and shining at her as if the light itself were a lifeform trying to catch her attention.”

“Here, let me carry those,” Lt. Vonn woofed to the team of scientists packing a crate with electronic devices that looked like funny mechanical spiders, sprouting metal legs in every direction.

The scientists — an orange tabby cat wearing techno-focal goggles, an arctic fox android, and a very striking brown cat with leopard spots — finished arranging the last few mechanical spiders, closed the top over them, and stepped back from the heavy crate gratefully.  Lt. Vonn stood a head and shoulders taller than all three of them — even the spotted cat, who was unusually tall for a cat. Continue reading “Crystal Fusion”

Ensign Mewly

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Tri-Galactic Trek, November 2021


“Ensign Mewly used the lumo-bay programs more than any other officer. He found them useful for practicing social scenarios and simply escaping from the constant sensation of being lost in the deep, dark void…”

A cat with ghost-white fur walked into the lumo-bay, the sleeves of his Tri-Galactic Navy uniform pushed up above his elbows and a bucket of electronic tools hanging from one paw.

The blue grid lines of the lumo-projectors usually sketched out regular, hexagonal patterns on the dark lumo-bay walls when it was not in operation.  Right now, they looked more like drunk squiggles. Continue reading “Ensign Mewly”

Cosmic the Pangolin

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, October 2022


“She ran until — and this had never happened to the zippy little pangolin before — she started to feel tired.”

Cosmic the Pangolin raced over the hills and vales of Mossy Valley Zone, her clawed feet skipping across the emerald ground so fast her talons left burning skid marks in the grass behind her.  She saw a loop-de-loop looming ahead where the ground swerved into the sky and in preparation she curled her head forward, tucking her chin; then she dropped into a complete roll, her entire nebula-purple body tightening into an armored ball.

She raced forward at an unbelievable speed, leaving the grass burnt behind her.  She raced the clock.  She raced against time.  She raced herself on previous attempts at this zone.  But most importantly, she raced against Professor Robotron and her diabolical mechanical chickens. Continue reading “Cosmic the Pangolin”

Sarah Flowermane and the Unicorn

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, September 2022


“I want to grow a mane,” Sarah stated simply. “A mane of flowers. I know you have magic. Can you help me?”

The lion cub hid among the rushes and narcissus flowers at the edge of the lake and watched her father, King of the Jungle, meet and talk with the shining white unicorn who presided over the deep dark woods adjacent to the lions’ sunny savanna home.

Sarah thought the unicorn’s forest looked more like a jungle than their savanna did, and she wanted to tell the unicorn that… but she’d promised her father to hide quietly during his meeting.  He only brought one cub with him at a time to these meetings, and given her plethora of sisters, brothers, half-siblings, and cousins, Sarah’s turn to accompany her father didn’t turn up very often.  She wanted to prove she could be a good little cub, so she stayed quiet as a mouse. Continue reading “Sarah Flowermane and the Unicorn”

Necessary as a Rose

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, January 2020


“Because when there’s something fragile but wonderful to tend to, something that needs you, something that you can watch grow and blossom… It’s easier to survive the darkness outside.”

Sleek and silver, your spaceship sliced through the darkness of space.  Cold, mechanical, everything a rocket needed to be to survive the harshness of vacuum and background radiation and simply the crushing depression of being totally isolated in the middle of a vast nothingness.

But inside.

Yes inside, a bubble of warmth and life support.  Oxygen, nitrogen, puffy gases expanding out to fill the mechanical shell.  All those good ingredients that let humans breathe.  And dogs breathe.  And cats breathe. Continue reading “Necessary as a Rose”

The Pink Agate

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2018


“…when told to pick an agate to represent her in the mosaic, the little lizard girl had picked the pinkest, warmest looking stone of them all. A warm stone to represent a cold-blooded child.”

Clori, a koala-like woman, twisted wires about the pink and white agate in her paws, bending the delicate silver strands carefully with her claws.  When she was done, the heart-shaped stone’s wavy lines were cradled in a net of silver that she hung from the mosaic of agates — each one collected by one of her adopted children. Continue reading “The Pink Agate”