by Issui Ogawa
“Sohya…” Tae looked up at him, a twinkle in her eye. “You really believe we can make friends with them, don’t you?”
“We’ve got to try. It may not be easy. Just like in any relationship—you meet, communicate, maybe misunderstand each other, and you figure out a way to overcome that. Eventually you get to know each other really well. You go from total stranger, to acquaintance, to friend—”
“To lovers,” Tae whispered, and smiled. “And there’ll be a kind of marriage between humans and Architects. Sixth Continent is just the place for that.”
Sohya laughed. “That’s right. Sixth Continent will be the new world. This is where the adventure starts.” He looked down at her. “Maybe Ryuichi was right. Maybe it’s our time too.”
She pinched him. “We promised to wait till we can both live here permanently, after the base is expanded. But I’m not Reika. I’m can’t wait fifteen years!”
“I can’t either. We’ll be the first couple to marry and settle here. It’s just a little longer.”
“Then again—we could do it now.” She looked at him mischievously. Sohya’s eyes widened with surprise. She pulled him down onto a soft bed of ferns.
Their children would be born here, and their grandchildren.
Their descendants would encounter beings from another star and build a new world. Their day would come, just as it had for Sohya and Tae.
Not yet, but soon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1975 in Gifu Prefecture, issui ogawa is rapidly becoming known as one of Japan’s premier SF writers. His 1996 debut, First a Letter from Popular Palace, won the Shueisha JUMP Novel Grand Prix. The Next Continent (2003), a two-volume novel (complete in this single-volume Haikasoru edition) about settlement on the moon, garnered the 35th Seiun Prize. A collection of his short stories won the 2005 Best SF Poll, and “The Drifting Man,” included in that collection, was awarded the 37th Seiun Prize for domestic short stories. Other works include Land of Resurrection, Free Lunch Era, Fortress in a Strange Land, Guiding Star, and Lord of the Sands of Time (Haikasoru 2009). Ogawa is a principal member of the Space Authors Club.
HAIKASORU
THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE
LOUPS-GAROUS BY NATSUHIKO KYOGOKU
In the near future, humans will communicate almost exclusively through online networks—face-to-face meetings are rare and the surveillance state nearly all-powerful. So when a serial killer starts slaughtering young people, the crackdown is harsh. And despite all the safeguards, the killer’s latest victim turns out to have been in contact with three young girls: Mio Tsuzuki, a certified prodigy; Hazuki Makino, a quiet but opinionated classmate; and Ayumi Kono, her best friend. As the girls get caught up in trying to find the killer—who just might be a werewolf—Hazuki learns that there is much more to their monitored communications than meets the eye.
THE STORIES OF IBIS BY HIROSHI YAMAMOTO
In a world where humans are a minority and androids have created their own civilization, a wandering storyteller meets the beautiful android Ibis. She tells him seven stories of human/android interaction in order to reveal the secret behind humanity’s fall. The tales Ibis tells are science fiction stories about the events surrounding the development of artificial intelligence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At a glance, these stories do not appear to have any sort of connection, but what is the true meaning behind them? What are Ibis’s real intentions?
SLUM ONLINE BY HIROSHI SAKURAZAKA
Etsuro Sakagami is a college freshman who feels uncomfortable in reality, but when he logs on to the combat MMO Versus Town, he becomes “Tetsuo,” a karate champ on his way to becoming the most powerful martial artist around. While his relationship with new classmate Fumiko goes nowhere, Etsuro spends his days and nights online in search of the invincible fighter Ganker Jack. Drifting between the virtual and the real, will Etsuro ever be ready to face his most formidable opponent?
ALSO BY ISSUI OGAWA
THE LORD OF THE SANDS OF TIME
Sixty-two years after human life on Earth was annihilated by rampaging alien invaders, the enigmatic Messenger O is sent back in time with a mission to unite humanity of past eras—during the Second World War, in ancient Japan, and at the dawn of humanity—to defeat the invasion before it begins. However, in a future shredded by love and genocide, love waits for O. Will O save humanity only to doom himself?
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