Golden Visions, February 2010

"An Arbitrary Deprivation of Life"

Pages 23-28

When a member of an alien delegation visiting Mars is murdered, Avery Granitski of the BSR finds himself called upon to find the killer.

The first short story that was spun-off from my unpublished novel "Alien Impact", this one occurs a year and a half after the tale told in the novel. The alien Keleyat, who have sent a band of delegates to Mars to open negotiations with the Human Race, have had one of their own murdered, and the police turn to Avery for help.

The story is technically a prequel to my other story, "Shadows of Revolution" and used the same primary character, Avery Granitski of the Bureau of Social Responsibility. It is the story that set up the Keleyat on Mars science fiction series of short stories.

The story is in Issue #9, available at Golden Visions Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy.