Hard Contact

Childhood therapy cured Stephen Fisher of disturbing visions and the delusion of having come from another world. But when his daughter obsesses over a star in the night sky, he fears that his genetic legacy may have burdened her with the same illness. His sanity is then shattered when he loses his child and the military abducts him claiming that she recorded a song broadcast from another world.

Lux keeps inventing things or adapting alien tech (ancient tech to the aliens) because the active alien civilizations they discover through portals and probes have gone through cycles of war, decline, and rebirth several times. Lux further develops the portals using discovered alien tech. Earth empties refugee camps the UN was running (1,200,000) and sends them with a military escort for their "safety." The military sends many ships for escort duty with orders to take over the colony and use the refugees as a labor force.

In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: The prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future.

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

Sometimes the few must stand against the many. From the dark, cold void came an unknown force. Their target: a remote planet, the home of a group of people distancing themselves from mankind and pursuing a path of piety and peace. If they have any chance at survival, a disparate group of pilots must come together to fight back any way they can. But the best these aces can do might not be good enough.

It is 2076: Lancer, Earth’s first starship, is on a mission to find interstellar civilizations. Although astronaut Nigel Walmsley’s experiences with alien encounters make him the expert, no one believes Nigel’s theory that machines are the dominant intelligent beings left in the galaxy and that their purpose is to annihilate all organic life. Then the explorers discover once-living planets where only machines remain – and ruined worlds where fugitive survivors must evade omnipresent and lethally advanced A.I. warships.

Onboard an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a faraway planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally - one that may determine humanity’s true destiny.

The Lunar colony is a mining colony with only internal security capabilities. Nobody had even considered that there might soon arise a need to defend the colony from the Earth! But that day has come. Something has been uncovered on the moon. Something important. Something...alien.

When Kell and his team return to Earth many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart.

Zwei Menschen und ein Roboter auf sich gestellt im Alpha-Centauri-System: Marchenko, Adam und Eva haben Asyl auf einem von Außerirdischen bewohnten Planeten gefunden. Sie könnten hier in aller Ruhe den Rest ihres Lebens verbringen. Aber offenbar gibt es noch viel mehr Menschen, die wie sie ohne Rückfahrkarte und ohne gefragt worden zu sein in fremde Systeme geschickt wurden – Schiffbrüchige mit ungewissem Schicksal, die ihre Hilfe brauchen. Ihre außerirdischen Retter bieten ihnen großzügig an, mit einem ihrer Raumschiffe auf die Suche zu gehen.

Their family reunion will be disrupted, however, when a catastrophe strikes the space station. The crew of the Edison suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives - and amongst the chaos, Taniya will discover that she's not the only member of the crew with a secret....

Years ago, one starship and its crew discovered an alien entity which changed everything. Its discovery finally bought an end to the interstellar war being fought between the masses of humanity and the few pockets of genetically engineered colonists. An uneasy peace was negotiated as the human race realised there was something else sharing our universe. Something that had plans for us. But the aliens have remained silent. The earthers have begun to test the edges of the peace treaty.

Two humans and a robot on their own in the Alpha Centauri system: Marchenko, Adam and Eve have found asylum on a planet inhabited by aliens. They could spend the rest of their lives here in peace. But apparently there are many more people who, like them, have been sent to alien systems without a return ticket and without being asked - castaways with uncertain fates who need their help. Their alien rescuers generously offer to take them on a search in one of their spaceships.

After a long journey to Saturn’s moon Enceladus, spaceship ILSE is on its way back to Earth, carrying crucial cargo. The crew is exhausted and wants nothing more than a quick return home. Suddenly, a chain of malfunctions puts the expedition in peril. The difficulties appear to be related to planet Jupiter, whose orbit they are crossing. Is it the giant planet itself that won’t let these travelers pass? ILSE’s crew is heading toward catastrophe as an unknown power is forging plans designed to influence the future of human civilization.

With the Death Wave no longer a threat to humanity, humans have spread out and colonized all the worlds of the solar system. The technology of the Predecessors has made Earth a paradise, at least on the surface. But a policy of exiling discontented young people to the outer planets and asteroid mines has led to a deep divide between the new worlds and the homeworld, and those tensions are about to explode into open war.

The diplomatic mission from Earth to World ended in disaster, as the Earth scientists discovered that the Worlders were not the scientifically advanced culture they believed. Though they brought a limited quantity of the vaccine against the deadly spore cloud, there was no way to make enough to vaccinate more than a few dozen. The Earth scientists, and surviving diplomats, fled back to Earth. But once home, after the 28-year gap caused by the spaceship transit, they find an Earth changed almost beyond recognition.

Reports of a strange, new habitable world have reached the 20 Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space to minimize the risk her very presence may pose.

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.