by Maggie Allen
2017 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide
Edited by Corie and Sean Weaver
Contents
Introduction
The Robot Did It
In the Middle Gray
Rela
Blaze-of-Glory Shoes
Trench 42
After the Fall
The Fantastic Tale of Miss Arney’s Doubloon
Weeds
Builders for the Future
Where Treasure Drifts in Space
Man’s Best Friends
Terror on Terra 5
Crimson Sky
The Recondite Riddle of the Rose Rogue
The Three Brother Cities
Cinnamon Chou: Space Station Detective
Vasilisa and the Delivery
I. Will. Not.
The Traveler’s Companion
The Ghost in the Aurora
Leaves, Trees, and Other Scary Things
Juliet Silver and the Seeker of the Depths
The Biting Sands
The First Dawn of Earth
Also by Dreaming Robot Press
Middle Grade Fantasy by Dreaming Robot Press
Young Adult Speculative Fiction by Dreaming Robot Press
Permissions
Introduction
I read science fiction far before I knew what science fiction was. It may have started with Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Or perhaps Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Maybe even before that, with Bruce Coville or Ursula K. Le Guin or Isaac Asimov…I don’t know which story I first picked up that introduced me to worlds far different from our own, but I do know I didn’t read them because they were science fiction. I read them because they were good.
That’s one of the magics of reading while young: You’re not reading because of labels. You’re just looking for a good story.
As I grew older, I started introducing false boundaries to the book I chose. I can’t read this; it’s a boy book, or, I can’t read this; I don’t look like the girl on the cover, or I can’t read this; it’s too childish. At the end of the day, I was filling my bookshelves with a lot of I can’ts, and that, quite honestly, is a terrible way to approach books. And life.
It took growing up a little more for me to return to books for youths, both as a reader and a writer. I was never more concerned about appearances than I was as a teenager. I wanted to seem older and wiser, and so I surrounded myself with books I didn’t really like all that much; I just thought they were “literary.” I forgot for a time that the value of the book is in the magic of the words, not in whether or not the book was wrapped in a leather-bound cover stamped in gold foil.
I had also forgotten the value of stories written for young people. I was so busy trying not to be a young person myself that, much like Susan in Narnia, I’d thrown aside all my childish things and forgotten what was really important. There is a sort of truth that exists in books for young people that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Maybe it’s because, as Nancy Kress’s narrator says in “The Robot Did It,” adults’ brains are “less plastic” and that, for children, the truth is right now, such as in R.W.W. Greene’s “I Will. Not.” Regardless, in many ways, Madeleine L’Engle’s words on the matter are truer now than ever before:
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
This collection of science fiction contains stories ranging from robots to space travel, with characters that embody many different walks of life and attitudes, and each one contains the sort of truth that you can only find in stories for young people. And—as with all good stories—the heart of each one is that of discovery and adventure, strength and courage. So whether you’re a kid yourself, or smart enough to have returned to liking the same sort of stories you liked as a kid, you’re sure to find something here that will remind you of the magic of reading.
This collection is for the people whose bookshelves are filled with I can.
* * *
Beth Revis,
New York Times bestselling author of the
Across the Universe series,
The Body Electric and A World Without You
The Robot Did It
by Nancy Kress
Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, (for “Out of All Them Bright Stars,” “Beggars in Spain,” “The Flowers of Aulit Prison,” “Fountain of Age," "After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall," and "Yesterday's Kin"), two Hugos (for “Beggars in Spain” and “The Erdmann Nexus”), a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for Probability Space). Most recent works are the Nebula-winning Yesterday’s Kin (Tachyon, 2014) and The Best of Nancy Kress (Subterranean, 2015). Her work has been translated into Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Lithuanian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, and Klingon, none of which she can read.
In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including Clarion; in 2008 she was the Picador visiting lecturer at the University of Leipzig. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle.
My name is Nia. I am ten years old. Robots suck. That is all I am going to say right now because I am too mad to say anything else.
Okay, it is later and I have calmed down. A little bit, anyway—enough to say this: It was not my fault. It wasn’t H’raf’s fault, either, no matter what Mom says. The whole thing was the robot’s fault. Totally. To blame H’raf and me is just wrong!
Now I’m more calm. Maybe it was a little bit my fault, and a little bit H’raf’s. But mostly the robot’s. And it isn’t even fair to blame H’raf and me because we didn’t mean it to happen. I would never deliberately almost destroy Moon Colony Alpha! I love Alpha! I grew up there! The part that was H’raf’s and my fault wasn’t planned, it just sort of happened. And all because of language.
Mostly.
This is what happened: As soon as summer vacation started in Colesville, Illinois, my family traveled back to Moon Base Alpha, where I used to live. We went back because some aliens had landed on the moon. Their scientists were working with our scientists, which included my mom because she’s an important biologist. Also, the aliens wanted their kids to play with human kids because kids can learn each other’s languages more easily than adults can. Dad says that’s because after twelve or so, human brains get “less plastic” and don’t pick up foreign languages as easily. Every time he says that, I think of plastic Tupperware in my head and start laughing. Dad laughs, too, but it annoys Mom. She thinks I should be more serious. Also more careful and less impulsive and a lot of other things I’m mostly not.
But the three alien kids and us three human kids on Alpha liked each other. We played together all summer. Not that you can tell it’s summer on the moon; we don’t have seasons. We played tag in the rock corridors of Alpha, which is underground, and we had picnics above ground under the Dome, where you can see a gazillion stars all the time and Earth hangs in the sky like a big blue-and-white ball.
We played in the aliens’ apartments, too. They breathe different air than we do, so when we were in their homes, Ben and Jillian and I had to wear space suits with air packs on our backs, and when we were all in human spaces—which was most of the time—the alien kids wore their space suits, which were a lot lighter and better looking than ours, and which somehow turned our air into their air without air packs. Our scientists studied that a lot.
It was a good su
mmer, even though I missed my friends on Earth and my dad's dog, Bandit. We played basketball and tag and a weird alien game that involved blinking lights and a lot of somersaults. H’raf, an alien boy, and I got to be good friends. They look a little weird—bluish, with six tentacles where we have five fingers. They also have tails. But you get used to all that, and H’raf, Jinfroh, and B-b-b-jump! were nice. We three human kids learned to speak a lot of their language, which we called Alienese. Well, you don’t just speak it, which is why their names are so strange.
It’s also what caused all the trouble later on.
“Tell me again how to say his name,” Dad said, after H’raf left our apartment to go home for dinner. We can’t ever eat together. Our food would make them sick, and theirs would sicken us. Still, anything they eat can’t be any worse than broccoli. I hate broccoli.
I told Dad a lot of times already how to say H’raf’s name, but he can’t seem to get it right. “You blow air out your lips real fast, say ‘raf,’ and raise up your left pinkie.” All words in Alienese use both sound and body movements. “Try it.”
Dad tried it.
I said, “No, you just said ‘sleeping mat.’ H’raf is not a sleeping mat. Like this.” I showed him again.
This time he did better. He said, “And how do you say the girl’s name?”
“Jinfroh. Sort of gargle on the ‘Jin’ part, then spit out ‘froh’ real fast while you twist your right wrist to the left.”
Dad didn’t gargle right. I said, “You just said ‘rock head.’”
“I give up. I never was much good at languages!”
Actually it’s a good thing that Dad gave up, because the littlest alien kid’s name is the hardest: B-b-b-jump! You stutter with your lips, jump up, and make a clicking sound. If you make the click wrong, you end up calling him a toilet and he doesn’t like it.
The aliens say my name perfectly, only they add a little thumb flick on the end. I didn’t ask them what I would be called if they left out the thumb flick. Sometimes it’s better to not know things.
“Can I go now? I told H’raf I’ll meet him in the gym.”
“Yes, but just one more thing.” Dad ran his hand through his hair. He should really stop doing that—I think it’s what’s making him go bald. “Dr. Porter wanted me to ask you this.”
Dr. Porter is the chief language scientist on Alpha. He’s making a video dictionary of Alienese. I have to meet with him every few days and answer a gazillion questions. We don’t like each other. He thinks I’m badly behaved and too sassy. I think he’s the kind of adult that talks all fake-sweet to kids but doesn’t really like them.
Dad took out his phone and ran a video of H’raf’s mom saying something. She raised her ring finger, said “clanth!” twisted her thumb, and said, “pof,” very softly.
“Dad, I have no idea what that means.”
“Dr. Porter says it’s important. Could you ask H’raf?”
He still wasn’t pronouncing it right. This time he called H’raf a metal chair. I said, “Why doesn’t Dr. Porter ask H’raf himself?”
“He did. But the answer wasn’t clear. I don’t think H’raf likes Dr. Porter much.”
I grinned. Dad gave me a fake swat on the bottom, and I ran off to meet H’raf in the gym. We were going to program Luna, my robot dog, to do some new tricks. H’raf learned really fast to program human computers, but we can’t do anything with theirs. Mom says they use completely different physics. Then she said a whole lot of long words I didn’t understand, so I stopped listening.
Also, H’raf was going to bring his bic!dul, which is maybe the coolest toy in the whole universe. It looks like a green blob, but you talk to it and tell it what you want it to turn into, and it does. It can look like him, or me, or Luna, or a coffee pot, or the Dome—anything. We are only supposed to play with it when adults are around. Mom says that until she understands the science behind it, it could have “dangerous aspects.” But the bic!dul fits in H’raf’s pocket, and so sometimes we sneak into a storage closet to play with it. What’s dangerous about a green blob that turns into the shape of a coffee pot? It’s not like you can make hot coffee in it.
“C’mon, Luna! Let’s go!” She scampered after me as I ran along the smooth rock corridors to the gym. Alpha Colony is always growing; big machines bore through rock to make new tunnels and rooms. I was looking forward to having H’raf all to myself. Jillian and Ben both had to make up time they missed on the exercise machines—it’s important to exercise a lot, because if you don’t, the moon’s lower gravity turns your muscles to mush. I liked Jinfroh and B-b-b-jump!, but they didn’t approve of H’raf smuggling the bic!dul out of his quarters for us to play with. Jinfroh can be too big-sisterish sometimes. B-b-b-jump! is still sort of a baby.
I burst into the gym. H’raf was there, but I knew right away that something was wrong. He was making the pattern with his feet that meant he was upset. “Nia!” he said in English, but with the thumb twist on the end. “We must to go!”
“Go where?”
“We have trouble!”
I looked around the empty gym—I didn’t see any trouble.
“Not at Alpha,” H’raf said. “Trouble at home!”
“Home? You mean, your home? Your planet? You’re leaving?”
“Yes! Big trouble! We must to go today!”
“What trouble?” I asked. But when H’raf started to explain, I didn’t understand any of the words. All at once I got mad, which is what I do when I’m scared. Mom says it’s a bad habit. Dr. Porter says I’m undisciplined. I didn’t care. I said, “You can’t go! Make them leave you here!”
H’raf raised his right arm, which is sort of like us shaking our head no. “Can’t.”
“Will you be coming back? When?”
“I don’t know.”
Well, of course he didn’t know—nobody tells kids anything. They just order us around. Move to Earth, Nia. Leave your friends. Move back to Alpha, Nia. Make new friends. Now it would probably be: Move back to Earth, Nia. And this new friend leaves.
I shouted, “I’m sick and tired of good-byes!”
“Yes. Me. Also,” H’raf said. “I must to go now.” Then he leaned toward me and whispered, “Before I must to go, I give to Nia a present. Only not here.”
I knew immediately what he meant. We held hands—he has one more tentacle than I have fingers, but it doesn’t matter—and ran out of the gym, away from the security cameras. My phone was ringing wildly: Mom or Dad calling me. I ignored the phone. In the storage closet, H’raf pulled out the bic!dul. “Look, Nia.”
The green blob sat on his hand. He said to it, “H’raf.” The blob changed shape and in a minute there was a little green H’raf sitting on his palm. “To remember of me.”
“I would remember you anyway, H’raf. Forever.”
“Yes. I remember Nia for all time of all stars. But one more important, Nia. If this bic!dul makes trouble, you must to say this three turns.” H’raf raised his ring finger, said “clanth!” twisted his thumb and said, “pof,” very softly, and then he said, “tarn!-dal!-jump.”
It started with the same words that Dad said Dr. Porter wanted to know, but then went on longer. I said in Alienese, “What does it mean?”
H’raf looked like he was searching his memory for the right words. He didn’t find them. The storage closet door flew open. I snatched the bic!dul from H’raf’s hand and shoved it in my pocket.
A security officer stood there, looking really mad. He wasn’t one of Alpha’s security team; he’d come up from Earth when the aliens first showed up. Serious security. He grabbed me by the arm but didn’t touch H’raf. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you hear your phone? Everybody’s looking for you two!”
“Let go! I’m coming!”
H’raf flicked both wrists upward and made a snorting noise in his nose. That all added up to a very bad word in Alienese. I couldn’t help it; I grinned at him.
It was my last smile for a long time.<
br />
There was a quick going-away ceremony under the Dome, and then the aliens were gone. I sat in our apartment with Mom and Dad. “What happened? Why did they have to go?”
“There is a crisis on one of their colony worlds,” Dad said. He ran his hand through his hair.
“One of their colony worlds? You mean they have a lot of colonies? How many?” We only have two: Alpha and the Mars colony. My friend Rosa’s family moved to Mars last year.
Mom said, “It’s not clear how many colonies they have.”
“Why not? Can’t they count? Can’t you count?”
“Nia,” Dad said, “don’t take that tone with your mother. I know you’re upset, but it’s not her fault.”
That was true. It didn’t make me feel any better. I said, “Everybody leaves! Or you make me leave them!”
Luna rushed up to me and whimpered. I programmed her to do that when I’m upset. She climbed into my lap.
Mom said, “Nia, you need to learn to accept things that you can’t control. Now I need to ask you something. Please think about it carefully. Those words that Dr. Porter asked you to have H’raf explain—”
“Angela,” Dad said, “maybe this isn’t the best time. She’s pretty upset.”
But there is no stopping Mom when anything scientific is involved. She barreled ahead. “I know. But this is really important. What did H’raf say?”
“I didn’t get a chance to ask him!”
There was a long silence. Finally Mom said, “Nia, we trusted you with this.”
It was too much. I said, “Well, I trusted you to not tell me to make friends with H’raf, and then when I do, to just care about what information I can get out of him! I’m not some sort of spy!”
Dad said, “Of course you’re not, honey,” at the same moment that Mom said, “Nia, nobody said anything about—”
“I don’t feel good,” I said and threw up on the kitchen floor.
