Carapans: Exclusive Photos of Earth’s Enigmatic “Aliens”
Terry Bisson
Rosalie Winard

Because of the exclusive nature of this photo-essay by award-winning author and photographer team Terry Bisson and Rosalie Winard, we are unable to provide a preview of this article before publication. A photograph of a Carapan in its tidelands habitat appears on the cover graphic above.

The True Story of Merganther’s Run
David D. Levine

I was born on Earth, but my life didn’t really begin until the day they took Mars apart.

I awoke in a sweat, as usual, choking and gasping because my sleep helmet’s air filter was clogged again. As soon as I pulled the soundproofed, opaque helmet off my head, the buzz of my roommate Meyerowitz’s malfunctioning worksystem and the unavoidable sweat-stench of eight guys crammed into less than a hundred cubic meters assaulted my senses. I kept my eyes shut against the light while I cleaned the dusty gray gunge out of the air filter by feel, but by the time I got the helmet back on my head I was well and truly awake. I sighed and decided to go to work early, maybe beat the worst of the crowds.

As I waited for the bathroom I checked the latest news about the Marscracker on my watch. After so many years of delays and setbacks, all was finally in readiness — the first full-scale detonation would be some time that day.

My roommate Higashi rolled his eyes as he emerged from the bathroom and saw what I was watching. “What, still got your hopes pinned on that Mars thing?” He made a rude noise. “It’'ll be just like Earth Two, or EcoRecovery, or that oxygen whatsit. Pipe dreams and moonbeams.”

“This is different,” I said.

He laughed in my face.

Twilight at the Change House
Jaine Fenn

Coming up to six o’clock and still no sign of the man.

Choi looked round the room for what felt like the fiftieth time. The dozen or so guests eating, chatting or lounging around the plastic tables and sagging armchairs didn’t pay him any particular attention. From the ersatz alpine architecture Choi reckoned that Changers Hostel (“a warm welcome in the wilds”) had been built about fifty years ago, not long after the turn of the millennium. Amazing that it kept going in the post-tourist age.

He wondered why the contact wanted to meet here. Maybe because the sea-access from the loch made the location good for smuggling, though the score was meant to be pretty compact. Unless the whole set-up was Uncle Han’s idea of a joke. Or a test.

“Good evening.”

Choi jumped, and looked over to see a man sitting at the next table, facing the window. Choi hadn’t heard him sit down. Trying not to act startled, Choi nodded and said, “Evening.”

The description fitted – Caucasian, late twenties, slight build, black curly hair - and the shapeless green jumper looked like just the thing a smuggler might wear, but the man seemed engrossed in the view. Choi waited a while then said, “I was meant to meet someone here an hour ago.”’

The man, eyes still on the mountains, said non-committally, “Oh, aye.”

Black Swan, White Swan
Eugie Foster

Bird Lake is named after the multitude of avian visitors that summer on the glassy waters: mallards, wood ducks, and Canada geese. But summer is half a year away and Delia looks out on forlorn blackness, devoid of a single feathered denizen. The moon, a plump gibbous whiteness, shades the lake and its border of skeleton trees a stark chiaroscuro. Around the pier, the water is a black mirror, an expanse of fathomless reflection.

Delia complements the scenery, her face carved into pallid lines by inky streamers of hair. No one knows she is there, and no one will find her for months and months. If they ever do.

“Everyone’s got a story to tell.” The voice is liquid light, bright and clear as rain.

“Who’s there?” Delia searches the shoreline, distraught at the idea of a trespasser on her solitude. But the lakefront remains lonely and still. Even the ice crystals her words have formed, winter’s white breath, hang motionless in the air.

Concentric circles lap beneath the dock’s wooden planks. A swan floats out, its shining plumage driving the water’s void back.

Off-Season at Jay Lake
Michael Hiebert

The sign up there by the pier says WELCOME TO JAY LAKE. It looks a lot like that Amity one from that Jaws movie, ’cept ours has a big notch out of the side. They say a zeppelin took out that piece. It’s one of them stories you don’t really believe, but you heard it so much you just start tellin’ it like it was true. Same with the pier. See the way the end’s all sunk under the murky green water? Well, folks say a great big cog fell from the sky one day, smashed it to bits, and dragged the rest of it down. Tell you what, you listen to what some of the people around here go on about, there’s some pretty strange stuff at the bottom o’ this lake.

Not a lot of fish though. Not no more.

Guess that’s why folks stopped coming around a while back. By the way, I’m Clyde. See me over there across the way in front of the cabin? I’m the one sitting on the steel drum wearing the overalls too short for me, no shirt underneath, and the red cap. See, now I’m waving? Yeah, that’s me, the guy with the fishing rod in my hand. Like I said, not a lot of fish, but, hey, it gives me something to do.

apple: not a fairy tale
Laura Anne Gilman

Seven dwarves lived in the house on ____ Street. They landed there by chance — driven by work and finances to a place they could be comfortable living in, all seven of them. Their neighbors looked at them once, and then looked away. That was fine for five of the dwarves; the sixth longed for someone to stare back at him.

The seventh kept his own quiet council, and waited for what might come.

The work they did was simple, but so much relied upon it: the workings of the secret world clockwork within our own. The dwarves did not remark on it: they woke, dressed, went down into the mines, and came home. Their neighbors did the same. Chores were done, television watched, bills paid and Christmas cards sent.

Half or more of those cards came back, every year: no such resident, forwarding expired. Five of the dwarves shrugged and dropped the returned cards into the bin. The sixth deleted the incorrect addresses from their list.

The seventh sat in a window and did not let himself sigh for the connections lost.

There were never new names to add to the list.

Patriot Girls
Amy Sisson

Tuesday, May 16

It’s hard to believe, but by this time tomorrow I’ll be a Patriot Girl. Ma tried to talk me out of it, and begged me to finish the school year at least, but I’ll be sixteen so there’s nothing she can do. I told her I have the right to do what’s right for my country. And besides, everyone who’s anyone is a Patriot Girl.

Me and Alicia are taking the bus to Austin to register tomorrow. You get free bus fare when you join up. Alicia turned sixteen a month and a half ago but waited for me so we could go together. It was really nice of her, especially since her sister Mary has already been a Patriot Girl for a year and a half. So I printed my birth certificate off the net and packed one small bag, which is all they let you bring. You don’t need to take much, because they give you clothes and everything else you need.

I’m a Patriot Girl! We took our vows the day before yesterday, but they’ve kept us so busy I didn’t have time to post until now. First they had an orientation assembly for the new recruits. They explained that our main duty is to support the Patriot Boys who are about to go off to War. These boys are already heroes because they give up everything to defend our freedom, and we need to let them know how much we appreciate it.