vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
plain 🟫

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.

(I may tackle it tomorrow in fact. It's a nasty cold)

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

An unadorned carryall made its way down the corridor, guided by a simple program. Passers-by gave it little more than a glance, having seen dozens of them every day.

Something about it twigged Betty Margrave's curiosity enough that she took a closer look. On the surface she couldn't see anything obviously wrong. But shouldn't it have identifying marks and barcodes connecting it with a department or private organization?

Back home in Shepardsport, she'd have the authority to stop it at once. Here in Grissom City, she'd have to go through its Department of Safety and Security -- but better a little friction with her colleagues than to allow something dangerous to get to its intended destination. Nobody had forgotten what happened to Luna Station -- had it really been five years ago?

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

The land stretched as far as the eye could see, flat as Kansas. From what the Kitties' scientists were saying, this planet had relatively little tectonic activity, which made the abundance of complex life upon it a scientific puzzle.

Unless one wanted to subscribe to the theory that the similarity between all the various species of Chongu Empire was not merely the result of panspermia, of motes of life drifting between systems, but of some unknown ancient species reseeding the Orion Arm after some kind of galactic catastrophe had wiped it clean of life. While there were puzzling discontinuities in the geological record on many planets, invoking a deliberate technological effort to spread a specific type of life, without compelling evidence to exclude natural explanations, seemed a dangerous stretch.

[marycatelli]

Jasper looked back. "The best rule is probably to just look for a way out. Since they have already befogged our way to the gate."
"We should have gone around the forest and seen where the gates were," said Sonia.
"Hindsight is wonderful but useless," said Emalie. "Onward. And hope."