Tag: elephant

The Seamstress Robot and the Insect Bride

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, July 2023

“Am-lei’s mother had, at least, enjoyed the benefit of having beautiful, colorful, butterfly wings that distracted humans from the Kafkaesque qualities of her actual body.”

The Seamstress Robot’s shop was a little hole in the wall in the Merchant’s Quarter of Crossroads Station.  The seamstress robot herself looked a lot like a giant mechanical spider — all spindly silver legs, overly jointed and coming to extremely delicate points, capable of grabbing, manipulating, and piercing fabric.  Also, generating fabric.  The seamstress robot, like an actual spider, could generate silk.  And synthetic cotton.  And synth wool.  And velvet, taffeta, patterned prints, fake leather… just about any material you could imagine could be generated, strand by strand, from the tip of her 3D printer leg. Continue reading “The Seamstress Robot and the Insect Bride”

Hypercrystal Wish

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2018

“In her mind, she wasn’t playing alone — she was voyaging through space, meeting alien races even weirder than herself, and making all kinds of friends.”

Jeko coiled her long nose around one of the glittering hypercrystals.  They weren’t really hypercrystals.  Just shiny bits of polished, angular glass.  Spiky, colorful shapes.  But Jeko liked to pretend.  She liked to pretend that they were hypercrystals and could grant wishes.  She picked up a green star-shaped one and rolled it carefully across her desk with a gentle toss from her prehensile nose. Continue reading “Hypercrystal Wish”

Elephantine Daydream

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Fantasia Divinity Magazine, July 2017

“Jeko’s wide ears blushed, and she wondered if he was offering to be her friend.”

Jeko stared out the window at the asteroids and curled her elephantine trunk.  She didn’t want to be in class with a bunch of dumb Heffen kids and newly sentient robots.  The Heffen kids acted like stereotypical canine aliens and kept to their packs, and the robots weren’t really kids like her…  They showed up one week super-naive and talking all stilted, like computers, and a few weeks later they were smarter than… well… computers, and they graduated out.

Continue reading “Elephantine Daydream”