A story in the Mage and Magic Universe Universe
His life sucked, everything about it. He had a bitch of a wife, no job, nothing, but all that changed one day, for the better? Who could say? Yet?
THREE AGAINST THE STARS! A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention... First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets... The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System...
In the distant future of 1973, Professor Chalmers of Blanley University is having a little trouble with his history class. He knows the subject and all his facts are true, the only problem is none of them have happened yet. After a disastrous lesson where he accidently revealed foreknowledge of an assassination yet to happen, Professor Chalmers has to face down against a dean threatening to fire him in spite of tenure.
Space is huge and governments control as much of the space around and between their systems as they can, but there are still a very small parts of space not claimed by any government. Very few people are born on the ships travelling between the stars, and even fewer are born in the unclaimed areas of space, but that one thousandth of one percent who are so born are called Space Born and have some very odd citizenship rights and duties.
As you read this, something very real and old is passing behind our Sun. We call it 3I/ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar object ever detected. Each story that follows explores a different possible future that this ancient visitor might reveal to humanity as it comes around the Sun. These are meditations on what we might learn from something that has traveled far further than we know how to… (yet).
With Dr. Keller's genius for hitting at vital spots every time, he now gives us a brand new idea and an ingenious solution. We hope no racketeers read this story. They might, as a result, cause the police some trouble. Fortunately, however, the racket has a flaw.