Sci-Fi Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show

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Orson Scott Card's - Intergalactic Medicine Show -

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show is an online fantasy and science fiction magazine. We are a bi-monthly publication featuring content from both established as well as talented new authors. In addition to our bi-monthly issues, we offer weekly columns and reviews on books, movies, video games and writing advice.

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The Sound of Distant Thunder
by Mike Barretta

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Artwork by Andres Mossa

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Updraft
A Novel by Fran Wilde

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(Published by Tor Books, September 2015) Chapter 1
My mother selected her wings as early morning light reached through our balcony shutters. She moved between the shadows, calm and deliberate, while downtower neighbors slept behind their barricades. She pushed her arms into the woven harness. Turned her back to me so that I could cinch the straps tight against her shoulders.

When two bone horns sounded low and loud from Mondarath, the tower nearest ours, she stiffened. I paused as well, trying to see through the shutters' holes. She urged me on while she trained her eyes on the sky.

"No time to hesitate, Kirit," she said. She meant no time to be afraid.

On a morning like this, fear was a blue sky emptied of birds. It was the smell of cooking trapped in closed towers, of smoke looking for ways out. It was an ache in the back of the eyes from searching the distance, and a weight in the stomach as old as our city.

Today Ezarit Densira would fly into that empty sky -- first to the east, then southwest.

I grabbed the buckle on her left shoulder, then put the full weight of my body into securing the strap. She grunted softly in approval.

"Turn a little, so I can see the buckles better," I said. She took two steps sideways. I could see through the shutters while I worked.

Across a gap of sky, Mondarath's guards braved the morning. Their wings edged with glass and locked for fighting, they leapt from the tower. One shouted and pointed.

A predator moved there, nearly invisible -- a shimmer among exploding gardens. Nets momentarily wrapped two thick, skycolored tentacles. The skymouth shook free and disappeared. Wails built in its wake. Mondarath was under attack.

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