In 1977 Zah Helen, an undercover operative, receives a new high profile assignment to interfere with the human search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), so the efforts at one particular radio telescope will not spot a radio signal that has been accidentally sent toward the earth.
During a period of intense solar flare activity Marianne and her family take a holiday at a remove wilderness cabin. This brings them close to a place called, the top of the sky, that some people think has mystical significance. What Marianne and her parents don’t realize, is that the top of the sky is also the destination for a group of aliens who live in the corona of the sun.
A 500 hundred year old terraforming project is derailed by an imminent invasion. No one, except a small group of scientists, understands the true nature of the threat and its real implications for the future of their civilization.
This story evolved out of a discussion on James Lovelock‘s Gaia hypothesis that the earth is an single complex organism, the recent announcement of the creation of a synthetic genome, and a story that appeared about the possibility of life on Titan, based on an entirely different chemistry then our own.
A passing celestial being is trapped by earth’s gravity and dragged reluctantly to its surface in the middle of a Moscow winter. Stranded in the body of a dog the alien being is forced to intervene in the early Russian Space program in order to get a ride home. The story is loosely based on the Sputnik 2 mission that carried a dog named Laika into space on November 3, 1957.
Time can seem to slow down when there is nothing to do, and this was particularly true for Abeo who had been forced to endure a summer without her friends on a lonely research station. Her father and the other adults were too distracted by some unusual observations too pay attention to Abeo. One day she finds a mysterious friend her own age in a field, and her summer begins to pass quickly, but the visits of her new companion have unexpected consequences.
