So… why am I sitting here telling you all this? Is Del Bradden a man of his word or not? Is he so eager to publicize his grand publishing achievement that he’d betray an alien being too far away to do anything about it?
No. It’s because circumstances change. Sometimes in ways we can’t conceive.
Ordinarily, the acquisition stage of book publication is boring to the general public. And it may be so in this case. I’ll give you the short version.
I returned to the office late in the afternoon and made a quick comm call to my father. He was smiling the instant he saw me on his screen. Apparently, Aly’wanshus had informed him of our meeting. Dad said he was thrilled that the cat was out of the bag with me. We agreed on how to set up the contract, and to have a long talk over (and after) dinner that night.
I printed out the basic translation for Mr. Burke’s review. The author, I said, was an eccentric crewman from one of the original colony ships, who lived in Star Falls (the conveniently distant town where my father had set up the Doctor’s account). I told Mr. Burke we could have the book for a song, and the author wanted any money from it to accrue to his account for any family members who might come to Christea at some later date.
Mr. Burke read it that night, and loved it. “Could use a bit of editorial polish, Del. But, I think you’ve got something special here. Give the old fellow ten percent above our usual first-timer advance. We all owe quite a bit to the ones who weren’t born here.”
About twenty minutes after the contract was signed, and the advance transferred, Dr. Aly’wanshus’ ship lifted off. And he left Christea for good.
Even in this age of the electronic distribution of books over ColNet and SolNet, book production is not instantaneous. Well… quality book production, anyway. And I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my work. It took me a few months to properly edit Beyond Here. Not because it needed a lot of work, but simply because any revisions I made had to be absolutely perfect. At the very least, I owed it to Aly’wanshus to be sure I delivered the closest thing to his original vision for the story. When I keyed it in as approved for distribution, I was sure I had delivered.
Mr. Burke agreed to do some publicity for the novel. We made no false claims about the author; just called him “a brilliant new talent in a classic mold.”
Beyond Here was released to the general public under the pseudonym Steven Forrester. And sold like no novel had since the colonies were founded.
The reviews glowed like… well… like Aly’wanshus’ fictitious transition coil drive. “Rich in detail and language.” “A literary masterwork from a lost genre.” “Should be required reading at all secondary school levels.” And my favorite: “Here’s hoping Forrester’s follow-up is already on his editor’s comp.”
Ten months at #1 on every bestseller list, out here and on Earth.
In truth, the book lasted at #1 longer than that. But when it had been out for six months, things started to change.
I was promoted to full editor, with my science fiction releases coming out under our (my) new StarSong line.
Four months later, I arrived at the office one morning. My new assistant, Helene, also came in every day, and she greeted me cheerily. I was lucky to find someone who loved her job as much as I loved mine. I even made a promise to myself that if she stayed a year I’d let her choose a work-from-home day, if she wanted one.
I dropped into my chair, and read my internal messages. Meeting at midmorning. Lunch with Mr. Burke. Drinks with influential mediator in the evening.
Then, I opened my external messages.
And there it was.
<dbra.ktp.chr.ColNet>
Mr. Del Bradden
K&T Publishers
16 Elray Circle
Landfall CHRISTEA
Dear Mr. Bradden:
Attached please find my science fiction novel The Terran Seven for publication by your company.
I feel certain that you are the appropriate editor for this novel. While I do not know Steven Forrester personally, I believe he and I share a certain philosophy and upbringing. My reading indicates that Beyond Here carries far deeper levels of meaning than your regular readership can recognize. The Terran Seven is similarly composed.
Please listen to my novel. Messages to this address will reach me, subject to a slight delay in response.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Wilosh’yata
<File Attachment: TerranSeven.lyr>
It was the first of three such submissions that arrived on my comp that week. One more arrived the next week—two more the following. And it continues to this day. So far, I’ve published every one of them.
I often wonder if the Aaul’inah authors will ever reveal their very successful contact with humans to the rest of their kind. Dr. Aly’wanshus had hoped to change the ideas of his people. All I can do to assist him is to keep their secret as long as they wish.
<end personal journal recording>
<file seal and encryption: activated>
Sean P. Fodera spent his high school and college years attending SF cons and dreaming of working (and writing) in the science fiction and fantasy field. An unrevealed number of years later, he became the Director of Contracts, Subsidiary Rights and Electronic Publishing at a major New York science fiction/fantasy publishing house. “Attached Please Find My Novel” is Sean’s first professionally published short story, and marks the fulfillment of the second of his genre dreams. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his lovely wife Amy and their two adorable children Christina and Austin.
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Lereesa Norton watched the yellow-and-black shuttle complete its docking maneuver and sighed, only partly at the delicate beauty of the winged rocket-plane’s movements against the silver glitter of the stars and the blackness of space, the stabbing flicker of the guidance rockets, and the remnant red glow of its vents.
When I got this job… an actual chance to work in space! What’s that old saying? Be careful what you wish for: you may get it.
What she’d wanted was to work for the station in a real job, not as a glorified shepherd for groundlings. She felt like a fraud in her stone-gray close-fitting ship suit.
Here I am on the glorious high frontier… bored now, she thought, running a hand over her close-cut, loosely-curled black hair—she was of North American-Columbian-Zulu-English descent, a wiry brown young woman with regular, high-cheeked features and green eyes. She’d never imagined men that she could be so bored.