by Hugh Howey
The Alien Chronicles
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright owner listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein.
The stories in this book are fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, place, event, or tentacled enslaver of humankind… is purely coincidental.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Foreword copyright © 2015 by Stefan Bolz. Used by permission of the author.
“Guests of the Chitterer Liberation Force” by Blair S. Babylon, copyright © 2015 by Blair S. Babylon. Used by permission of the author.
“Uncle Allen” by Will Swardstrom, copyright © 2015 by Will Swardstrom. Used by permission of the author.
“The Kholorian Conspiracy” by Geoffrey Wakeling, copyright © 2015 by Geoffrey Wakeling. Used by permission of the author.
“318” by Autumn Kalquist, copyright © 2015 by Autumn Kalquist. Used by permission of the author.
“Crawlies” by Annie Bellet, copyright © 2015 by Annie Bellet. Used by permission of the author.
“The Insect Requirement” by B. V. Larson, copyright © 2010 by B. V. Larson. First published by B. V. Larson in 2010. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Hanging with Humans” by Patrice Fitzgerald, copyright © 2015 by Patrice Fitzgerald. Used by permission of the author.
“Emily May” by Moira Katson, copyright © 2015 by Moira Katson. Used by permission of the author.
“Remember Valeria” by W.J. Davies, copyright © 2015 by W.J. Davies. Used by permission of the author.
“Alien Space Tentacle Porn” by Peter Cawdron, copyright © 2015 by Peter Cawdron. Used by permission of the author.
“Trials” by Nicolas Wilson, copyright © 2015 by Nicolas Wilson. Used by permission of the author.
“Vessel” by Samuel Peralta, copyright © 2015 by Samuel Peralta. Used by permission of the author.
“The Grove” by Jennifer Foehner Wells, copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Foehner Wells. Used by permission of the author.
“Life” by Daniel Arenson, copyright © 2015 by Daniel Arenson. Used by permission of the author.
“Second Suicide” by Hugh Howey, copyright © 2014 by Hugh Howey. First published by Hugh Howey in 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.
All other text copyright © 2015 by David Gatewood.
Edited by David Gatewood (www.lonetrout.com)
Cover art and design by Jason Gurley (www.jasongurley.com)
Print and ebook formatting by Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)
The Alien Chronicles is part of the Future Chronicles series produced by Samuel Peralta (www.samuelperalta.com)
STORY SYNOPSES
Guests of the Chitterer Liberation Force (Blair S. Babylon)
It’s just a bar story, one of those wild tales of action and adventure that you tell a bunch of your fellow drunks at a college party. No one could survive being captured and held hostage by an alien terrorist group like the brutal Chitterer Liberation Force. Yet when Blake tells it, it’s charming, it’s hysterical, and for Wellington Smyth, it’s familiar.
Uncle Allen (Will Swardstrom)
When twentysomething Rachel visits her Grandma Naomi and Uncle Allen for a week, all she’s planning to do is clean out the attic. But between the odd behavior of her senile grandmother and the strange diary page she uncovers in the cluttered attic, Rachel may have uncovered a family secret bigger than she could have possibly imagined.
The Kholorian Conspiracy (Geoffrey Wakeling)
Professor Serelah Delekin is accustomed to uncovering the secrets of alien artifacts. But when one of her co-workers is killed while researching their latest find, she soon realizes that this particular artifact is protecting far more than ancient secrets—it harbors a conspiracy that will soon put her own life at risk.
318 (Autumn Kalquist)
Test subject 318 is next in line for experimentation. One doctor assigned to the case will face the consequences.
Crawlies (Annie Bellet)
Sadie’s short life on a backwater space station has never been easy. But when she accidentally stows away on an alien trading vessel, it will take all the youthful charm and courage she possesses to deal with the danger that awaits.
The Insect Requirement (B. V. Larson)
An exploratory mission discovers the first non-Earth planet truly compatible with human life. But for the planet’s first colonists, certain sacrifices will be required.
Hanging with Humans (Patrice Fitzgerald)
It’s time for The Zeldar Show, where the audience tunes in every day to watch host Trazil Krang, the “Funnest Guy in the Galaxy,” send someone down to an alien planet at the edge of the universe. Today’s contestant is Glendorp Freundzap, a nice young Zeldarian who puts his pants on one leg at a time—all twelve of them. Glendorp is thrilled to be headed for an exotic little planet called Earth. There he’ll enjoy a classic human ritual known as the high school prom…
Emily May (Moira Katson)
Harry has a stable job, a tolerable boss, and a regular crew on the freighter Emily May, the namesake, alas, of an infamous ghost ship from the early days of space travel. Everything seems to be smooth sailing—until the Emily May picks up an unusual piece of cargo, and all of Harry’s calculations go to hell…
Remember Valeria (W.J. Davies)
The leaders of the Valerian rebellion intended only to liberate the Freya, an enslaved race of cyber sapient beings, by granting them free will. But something goes wrong, and instead of simply attaining freedom, the awakened Freya lash out against their flesh-and-blood masters, causing untold devastation. Now it is up to one rebel soldier to salvage what is left of the rebellion—and rescue the Freya from complete annihilation.
Alien Space Tentacle Porn (Peter Cawdron)
A 1950s hospital. Temporary amnesia. A naked man running through Central Park yelling about alien space tentacles. Tinfoil, duct tape, and bananas. These are the ingredients for a spectacular romp through a world you never thought possible.
Trials (Nicolas Wilson)
When the Nexus shifts to one-man missions to make first contact, the security division’s second-in-command accepts a challenging assignment to negotiate with the most dangerous planet yet. Where reason does not persuade this alien species, militaristic skill might. If he lives through the trials.
Vessel (Samuel Peralta)
In suspended animation, on the long journey home from an ice moon orbiting a gaseous planet, she sleeps, unaware that she carries in her dreams something more than she imagined.
The Grove (Jennifer Foehner Wells)
An ancient and lonely child wants to discover the universe—but she meets another lonely child who needs a savior.
Life (Daniel Arenson)
For years, the Agency has kept its vast field of satellite dishes pointed to the heavens, seeking even a glimpse of extra-terrestrial life. Now, at last, the long-awaited day has come: the day when their telescopes capture an actual photo of a distant alien.
Second Suicide (Hugh Howey)
Eight days to planetfall, and I’m being transferred to Gunner. My tentacles slime in disgust. Or is it fear? If
this is the last planet we ever conquer, I’ll be glad. Be nice to settle down somewhere, get off this ship, own a square of land, learn to love all that open sky. Eight more days before planetfall. Eight days before we reach planet Earth.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Stefan Bolz
Guests of the Chitterer Liberation Force (Blair S. Babylon)
Uncle Allen (Will Swardstrom)
The Kholorian Conspiracy (Geoffrey Wakeling)
318 (Autumn Kalquist)
Crawlies (Annie Bellet)
The Insect Requirement (B. V. Larson)
Hanging with Humans (Patrice Fitzgerald)
Emily May (Moira Katson)
Remember Valeria (W.J. Davies)
Alien Space Tentacle Porn (Peter Cawdron)
Trials (Nicolas Wilson)
Vessel (Samuel Peralta)
The Grove (Jennifer Foehner Wells)
Life (Daniel Arenson)
Second Suicide (Hugh Howey)
A Word from the Editor
A Note to Readers
Foreword
by Stefan Bolz
“You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
– Carl Sagan, Contact
When Ellie Arroway first discovered a message from the stars in Carl Sagan’s masterpiece Contact, the world was, suddenly and unmistakably, confronted with a powerful truth: We are not alone.
In Contact, the alien species was technologically advanced, highly intelligent, and benign. It used a universal language we all could understand. We’d studied that language in schools and universities; we’d found its presence in snowflakes and in the leaves of a tree. That language of communication was mathematics. And because the language was mathematics, we could not deny it. We could not twist it into something other than it was. We had to believe it.
Carl Sagan’s book gave us a highly plausible scenario in which an alien race would make first contact—albeit with a completely unprepared Earth.
On the other end of the spectrum stands the most frightening, unsettling, and nightmarish vision of alien life there is to date. The phrase “In space, no one can hear you scream” is still one of the most widely known tag lines for any movie. The sentence came out of Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s script for Alien. The screenplay was pitched to studios as “Jaws in space”—a fitting short description for a movie that merged the horror genre with science fiction.
Where Contact gives us hope, Alien destroys it. Where Contact touches on the spiritual, religious, economic, and social consequences of our first encounter with an extraterrestrial species, Alien makes us dread that very same first encounter, hoping against hope that we are not going to have to defend ourselves against a highly evolved organism that has acid for blood and lays eggs inside our body. But there is a middle ground. Between a light touch and extinction, there is room for visionary ideas—ideas that push the imagination to previously unimagined heights.
The Alien Chronicles—an anthology of such ideas—has been crafted by some of the most visionary science fiction authors writing today, and has the potential to make your mind soar high above the Earth, break through the exosphere and reach into vast space, where nothing is impossible, where science and fiction fuse together, and where the question Are we alone in the universe? is answered in unique, exciting, and deeply moving ways.
In June of 2013, the Huffington Post conducted a poll on whether or not the American people believed in intelligent extraterrestrial life. Thirty-eight percent thought it possible. Twenty-two percent did not believe it, and the other forty-one percent weren’t sure.
I read through the entire article and discovered something very interesting. Nobody asked the follow-up question. I caught myself thinking that we have no problem with not being alone in the universe. We might even embrace the possibility. It’s thrilling to think that we might have neighbors. But the question whether or not we are alone isn’t the real question, is it? I think it is safe to assume that somewhere within the one hundred billion galaxies that span the known universe, there is intelligent life besides ours. But there is a second question. It arises after we have pondered the first one for a while. This one is far more unsettling, for it probes to the core of what it means to be human in all its aspects, to be “capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares,” as Carl Sagan predicted.
The question is this: Are we ready?
Are we ready for our very own close encounter with an alien race? Are we prepared? I don’t mean do we have a plan of action to defend ourselves. I’m sure our military has a response to hundreds of scenarios. But are we ready? Us. You. Me. All of us humans? We have not eradicated apartheid in the world, have not even begun to let our belief systems stand side by side with those of others. The gap between rich and poor, between black, brown, white, and yellow, seems more prevalent than ever. Are we ready to add green as an additional color and maybe welcome a race that has one eye instead of two? (Perhaps those of us who watch Futurama will have adapted already.)
And as I considered these questions, I was suddenly terrified. Not so much of an alien race invading and taking over our planet, but of our reaction to a benign species trying to make first contact. Would we be able to lay our preconceived notions aside and meet this new species with respect, honor, and an open mind? Given the history of our planet, I would say no.
Is that one possible explanation why it hasn’t yet happened?
Visionary writers have always told the truth. Not only have they “invented” things that were to come to pass hundreds of years later—from Jules Verne’s submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to the communicator on board Star Trek’s starship Enterprise—they also spoke the truth about the human condition, that frail sense of superiority that could screw everything up, big time.
The stories collected here ask the question what if in many different ways. What if there is life on other planets? What if an alien species wants to make contact with us? What if we have been watched for thousands of years already, and the prime directive of the other species simply does not allow for them to engage us?
Who knows, there might be, on the other end of the galaxy, a group of writers who are about to publish their stories, about to open the minds and hearts of their readers to the possibility of alien life. They might be talking about us—the two-eyed people, the ones with the two arms and two legs. And maybe, hopefully, one day in the not so distant future, we will exchange our Alien Chronicles with each other, gather around, and smile in glad astonishment that we are much more alike than we are different.
Guests of the Chitterer Liberation Force
by Blair S. Babylon
Don’t mind me. I’m not the important one here. Blake is the one with the story to tell.
Blake, lovely Blake. I had been watching her since she arrived at the party, just out of the corner of my eye as I chatted up the women, trying to edge out the other guys and clutching my jacket around myself. My heart palpitated just being around her, like I was having a subliminal panic attack, not that I had those. Blake’s hair was the pale amber of the light beer she held in her thin hand. Her eyes were the delicate gray of Earth’s cold skies and nothing like the sun. Her skin was whiter than the gleaming alabaster columns and slabs on the floor, so pale that it looked like she had been living underground for a year or more.
Everyone else’s skin was the crispy brown of repeated radiation burns. Everyone’s except mine. I burn easily, even for a guy, so I slather on the radblock and stay on the university’s station. Most radiation damage occurs on shuttle flights. A sunburnt tan means you’re well traveled, which means you’re rich.
The party was at my buddy Victoria’s apartment, far above the clouds of Jupiter on one of the more posh orbiting
stations. The apartment had windows, real windows, not just vid screens. Standing next to the immense panes of diamond would have freaked me out if I hadn’t been so wasted. The vast iciness of space penetrated all the planetary orbital stations, drying me out so that I shivered constantly, but the smoke and boiling-blood atmosphere were right there, right outside, centimeters from my where my fingertips pressed on the crystal window. That damned red spot was coming around again.
Victoria’s concentrated alcoholic punch, ripe with artificial, reconstituted strawberry puree and ethanol, absorbed through my tongue and dampened my brain enough so that I could, well, not exactly enjoy, but appreciate the view, rather than cringe by the back wall. Agoraphobia is common among people who have spent a lot of time in enclosed, windowless environments like space stations and whatnot. It’s not weird.