An Arc of Lightning Across the Eye of God

[p_h_lee]

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It had all seemed so simple, five months ago in the governor’s mansion with his uncle. Shenkong Bian was a hardship posting without the hardship. He’d be eligible for promotion in only two years, and with a glowing reference from His Lordship besides. Shenkong Bian had no taxes to collect, no levies to maintain, no peasants to murder each other in their incomprehensible dialects. It was even at an unusual transit point—an opportunity to really use all the physics he’d studied at the academy.

All he had to do was keep his nose clean. No repeats of the incident...

My story about imperial magistrates, vacuumorphic languages, and the problems of first contact is up on Clarkesworld.

I'm really proud of this story and I hope you'll like it as well.