They arrived from deep space and ignored us. When they left, they left scars all over the planet and especially on our souls. We didn't know who they were or why they came, but when they left, we knew what they had done.
Upon arrival at Proxima Centauri, the Exodus-9 crew detects a mysterious object floating in space. They believe it is an alien threat and are panicked. What follows is a chain of absurd misunderstandings, extreme paranoia, and catastrophic decisions that almost spark an interplanetary conflict... against a piece of human junk. Only a stroke of luck prevents a thermonuclear conflict.
A quiet desert priest witnesses a strange ship land in his pasture. Inside is a hungry alien mother whose food machine has failed—and whose newborns cannot survive on anything Earth offers. Gentle, eerie, and morally sharp, Zenna Henderson’s classic first-contact tale asks what mercy costs.
The Altarai arrive to strip mine the planet, and it's very much the end of life as we know it. But, hey, even all-powerful aliens can get bored and run into trouble. And then humanity's remaining one per cent becomes part of the solution. Linked to “A Burning Love...” ~ 3k words.
After a strange interstellar journey, Maskull, a man from Earth, awakens alone in a desert on the planet Tormance, seared by the suns of the binary star Arcturus. As he journeys northward, guided by a drumbeat, he encounters a world and its inhabitants like no other, where gender is a victory won at dear cost; where landscape and emotion are drawn into an accursed dance; where heroes are killed, reborn, and renamed; and where the lure of Shaping, who may be God, torment Maskull in his pilgrimage