‘But nothing like us.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Maureen stood and put the sphere down in the middle of the lawn. The grass was just faintly moist, with dew, as the air cooled. ‘Will it be all right here?’
‘I should think so.’
The ground shuddered, and there was a sound like a door slamming, deep in the ground. Alarms went off, from cars and houses, distant wails. Maureen hurried back to the pergola. She sat with Caitlin, and they wrapped their arms around each other.
Caitlin raised her wrist to peer at her watch, then gave it up. ‘I don’t suppose we need a countdown.’
The ground shook more violently, and there was an odd sound, like waves rushing over pebbles on a beach. Maureen peered out of the pergola. Remarkably, one wall of her house had given way, just like that, and the bricks had tumbled into a heap.
‘You’ll never get a builder out now,’ Caitlin said, but her voice was edgy.
‘We’d better get out of here.’
‘All right.’
They got out of the pergola and stood side by side on the lawn, over the little sphere of instruments, holding onto each other. There was another tremor, and Maureen’s roof tiles slid to the ground, smashing and tinkling.
‘Mum, there’s one thing.’
‘Yes, love.’
‘You said you didn’t think all those alien signals needed to be decoded.’
‘Why, no. I always thought it was obvious what all the signals were saying.’
‘What?’
Maureen tried to reply.
The ground burst open. The scrap of dewy lawn flung itself into the air, and Maureen was thrown down, her face pressed against the grass. She glimpsed houses and trees and people, all flying in the air, underlit by a furnace-red glow from beneath.
But she was still holding Caitlin. Caitlin’s eyes were squeezed tight shut. ‘Goodbye,’ Maureen yelled. ‘They were just saying goodbye.’ But she couldn’t tell if Caitlin could hear.
Afterword
The title of this collection is of course a nod to Olaf Stapledon, but it reflects some of my current interests, shaped by my work with a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) study group which considers the consequences of first contact, and with a British Interplanetary Society study group called Project Icarus which is designing an interstellar probe, in the hope of provoking first contact. And first contact is the subject of ‘Erstkontakt’, original to this anthology.
‘In the Abyss of Time’ was nominated for the Locus Award for best short story of its year. My stories often deal with the big themes, the far future and the destiny of mankind, and this story is an attempt to dramatise the latest cosmological ideas through the classic sf trope of the fantastic voyage.
‘Halo Ghosts’ is an early story, a first attempt at the idea that I eventually worked up into my story ‘Traces’ (1991); I later decided I liked the original version too and reworked it.
‘Tempest 43’ is an attempt to look into the middle term future, when current anxieties have played themselves out.
‘The Children of Time’ is a speculation about a further future, a middle way for mankind between galactic cornucopia and extinction. It uses a Stapledonian viewpoint, appropriately enough given the collection’s title. This was the first story bought by Sheila Williams when she took over the editorial chair at Asimov’s, and won the reader’s poll for that magazine’s best short story of its year.
Another of my long-standing fascinations has been alternate history. One such piece with a rather outlandish alternate-historical hinge is ‘The Pacific Mystery’; it features another fantastic voyage, this time through a non-Euclidian geometry. This story was nominated for the Sidewise Award for best alternate-history short story of its year; I later became a judge on the award.
‘No More Stories’ is quite a personal story, an attempt to root a fantastical idea in a story of human relationships.
‘Dreamers’ Lake’ was the outcome of a specific commission: to deliver a story as a tribute to the movie Forbidden Planet. It contains a nod to Shakespeare, like the movie, but unlike the movie there’s also a nod to Dire Straits.
‘The Long Road’ is an attempt at one of the most difficult forms of fiction, the short-short.
‘Last Contact’ was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus awards. It is another attempt to dramatise the cosmological, this time through a personal story: eschatology and gardening. The story was partly inspired by my reading Nevil Shute, my father’s favourite author.
Copyright
First edition, published in the UK April 2012
by NewCon Press
IMG 002 hardback
This collection copyright© 2012 by Stephen Baxter
Published by NewCon Press by arrangement with the author
All stories copyright © by Stephen Baxter
“Erstkontakt” copyright © 2012, original to this collection
“In The Abyss of Time” copyright © 2006 originally appeared in Asimov’s
“Halo Ghosts” copyright © 2000, originally appeared in Roadworks
“Tempest 43” copyright © 2009, originally appeared in We Think Therefore We Are, Daw Books
“The Children of Time” copyright © 2005, originally appeared in Asimov’s
“The Pacific Mystery” copyright © 2006, originally appeared in The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, Robinson Publishing (UK), Carroll & Graf (US).
“No More Stories” copyright © 2007, originally appeared in Fast Forward vol. 1, Pyr Books
“Dreamers’ Lake” copyright © 2006, originally appeared in Forbidden Planets, Daw Books.
“The Long Road” copyright © 2006, originally appeared in Postcripts No. 6
“Last Contact” copyright © 2007, originally appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, BL Publishing.
All rights reserved, including the right to produce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
ISBN: 978-1-907069-40-6 (hardback)
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