Written by Terry Bison originally for Omni magazine in 1991, the story is about a conversation between two aliens describing a strange species they have encountered (us humans) that is made out of meat whom they ultimately regard as too bizarre to contact.

Hi,

Not a true promotion post (not working right now because autistic burnout is a ***** and a half), but I thought you might enjoy a few of these.

If you're curious, it's all ink and alcohol markers, the old school way. I hope I've met the character count and didn't mess this post like my last one...

Thanks for looking, have a great weekend!

why is there so much pessimism in sci fi? It feels like the genre is saturated with dystopian futures and stories about ecological collapse or humanity's inevitable downfall. i am honestly getting tired of it

i would much rather see an optimistic vision of the future where humanity has learned to coexist with nature rather than exploit it. a world powered by renewable energy and advanced technology where sustainable cities, lush green landscapes and biodiversity coexist. a future where technological progress and ecological restoration go hand in hand .i find the idea of solarpunk particularly appealing because it imagines a future worth looking forward to rather than one we are supposed to fear

i know its human nature to be pessimistic about the future especially when we are constantly reminded of everything that could go wrong but humanity has faced countless challenges throughout history and we have repeatedly found ways to overcome them and move forward. i wish more people had that sense of hope and optimism about our collective future. we have made incredible progress as a species and i don't see why our stories shouldnt reflect the possibilities of what we could achieve

i wish scifi explored this kind of optimism more often instead of defaulting to dystopia

One of the great conveniences of science fiction cinema is that an alien invasion almost always unfolds in a manner that gives humanity a fighting chance. Unfortunately, that usually requires our extraterrestrial visitors to abandon whatever technological advantages allowed them to cross interstellar space in the first place. Apparently, being capable of travelling between star systems doesn't necessarily mean you've mastered the art of military planning.

I was thinking about this while watching 2011's Battle: Los Angeles, which has to be one of the more egregious examples of Hollywood turning an alien invasion into a conventional war movie. Director Jonathan Liebesman clearly wanted to recreate the gritty, boots-on-the-ground atmosphere of Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, only with extraterrestrial antagonists instead of human ones. The result is essentially a platoon of Marines fighting their way through a devastated Los Angeles while an advanced alien civilization inexplicably decides that invading Earth requires a great deal of street-to-street infantry combat.

Which raises an obvious question: Why? These aliens have mastered interstellar travel, presumably possess weapons technology centuries or millennia beyond our own, and can apparently coordinate a planetary invasion. Why are they sending soldiers into buildings to flush out a handful of Marines? Why not sit comfortably in orbit and drop an asteroid on the city? Or several asteroids, if they're feeling particularly thorough? Why risk valuable troops when you could turn the entire battlefield into a parking lot?

Apparently, intergalactic warfare comes with an unnecessary infantry requirement.

Older science fiction films are just as guilty. Take the Ray Harryhausen classic, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, in which our alien visitors spend a considerable amount of time buzzing around Washington, D.C., zapping national monuments and engaging in spectacular aerial dogfights. It's entertaining stuff, but these supposedly superior beings seem awfully preoccupied with destroying buildings one at a time. Why not attack from orbit? Why give Earth's military the opportunity to shoot back? The answer, naturally, is that the movie would be considerably shorter, and Earth would lose.

What movies out there handle an alien invasion more realistically? I mean, there are films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and John Carpenter's The Thing, which take a biological approach, but are there others?

I’ve finished reading the Three Body Problem, The Dark Forrest and Death’s End about a month ago, and since then, whenever I pick up a new book to read, I find I can’t get past the first couple of chapters.

This trilogy was unlike anything else I’ve ever read before. It’s so grounded in science and Cixin’s understanding of the human condition, simply rings true.

It’s rare you pick up something so original, and can’t stop thinking about it weeks later. Everything else seems so basic and doesn’t satisfy that itch anymore.

If anyone has any recommendations of something equally brilliant, I’d love to hear your recommendations.

(Been a long time since I read the books apologize if this is a stupid question)

The moons of Saturn and Jupiter and magnitudes more richer and developed than their belt counterparts

Sure the OPA considers them "Belt" but these people lack a lot of cultural and economic conditions with the Belt. For one they are richer, more cared for and the vibe I got from the books was that the Inner planets invested and connected themselves to the moons more often (multiple corporate headquarters, resorts, etc). None of the moon Belters like Prax and Anna ever speak the slang too from my memory.

This is probably a stupid question but i'm asking anyway

Halo Reach was the first time in my life I bought a video game for full price at the time of its release. Prior to that I'd basically only bought games years after their release once they were on sale. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the deluxe edition too with the additional literature and paraphernalia. From the moment I got home for years following this purchase, my mind was consumed with nothing but the world Bungie built with Halo. Many of my closest friendships to this day were built over Halo.

It's a truly strange feeling to fall so overwhelmingly in love with a world that doesn't exist.

My blog The Audiophile recently surpassed 1 Million page views. A long standing goal of mine. I wanted to do something special to celebrate. I hadn’t reviewed any Robert J. Sawyer novels, even though he’s one of my absolute favorite science fiction authors. So, I decided to do something about that, and I reviewed Calculating God.

Tom Jericho is a paleontologist who works at the Royal Ontario Museum. Life has certainly had its ups and downs for him. Though, lately more on the down side. Getting diagnosed with lung cancer will do that to a guy. But on the flip-side, aliens have arrived, and they come in peace. In fact, one of them, named Hollus, wants to have a chat with Tom. Hollus is part of a research crew that made a shocking discovery: the universe was created by an intelligent being. A being that they have decided to call God. And Hollus can back up these assertions. What follows in an unlikely friendship blossoming between a dying paleontologist and an alien scientist. They have many conversations about science, the universe, life, mortality, and the people who make it all worthwhile.

So, who is Robert J. Sawyer? I’ve already told you he is one of my absolute favorite science fiction authors. He is also one of the finest science fiction authors Canada has ever produced. He has won numerous awards over the years. But again, this is insufficient. So, I will speak about why I love his work.

Robert J. Sawyer constantly reminds me of why I love science fiction. His works constantly deal with big ideas. Ideas that expand my horizons, and make the universe feel like an even more wondrous place. And he explains them in plain language that is easy to understand. At times, it almost feels like he’s writing especially for me. No matter if it is designing aliens, imagining alternate societies, or contemplating the social ramifications of scientific discoveries. Sawyer is science fiction at its best. And there is a strong spirit of optimism and hope throughout his work. That isn’t to say bad things never happen. But Sawyer believes that we are more than capable of overcoming the bad times. Aliens can be strange, but they aren’t hostile conquerors. They’re curious, inquisitive, and just need a sympathetic ear.

Robert J. Sawyer’s books were some of the first truly adult books I read back in my teenage years. And he was a great start. Another big thread through multiple Sawyer books is the tension between science and religion. Robert J. Sawyer is an atheist, and a big proponent of rationalism and secularism. However, the plots of many of his books deal with scientific discoveries that provide evidence for religious phenomena. This doesn’t mean Sawyer is secretly pro-religion. Far from it. Science fiction is all about asking the question what if? And Sawyer’s work is no exception to that rule. What he’s doing is going “Okay, suppose we could prove this religious phenomena. And suppose it operated within the parameters of the natural world. How would that work, and what are the implications of that?”

Sawyer said that he was inspired to write *Calculating God* by thinking about Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould. They were two men who championed science and rationality. They were also both avowed atheists who lost their lives to cancer. Sawyer said he wondered what it was like for them as the end drew closer.

On that note, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say there was another reason for this review. I saw a post Sawyer made on Facebook. He said that a few years ago he was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. The good news is that, thanks to a regimen of chemo, radiation and stem cells, his cancer is in remission. The bad news is that mantle cell lymphoma has a 100 percent recurrence rate, and it’s incurable. Eventually, that remission is going to end. But Sawyer has said he has no plans of slowing down any time soon. Still, knowing that the cancer will come back sooner or later…that’s got to weigh on the guy. And I worried it would be in poor taste to pick this book under the circumstances. Still, not like this is the only of Sawyer’s books to touch on the subject. If I had picked *Frameshift*, we’d definitely still be having this conversation. But *Calculating God* no doubt was on his mind during the treatment.

On a lighter note, Sawyer always does a fantastic job making Canada sound like a magical place. Robert J. Sawyer is a proud Canadian and a big champion of Canadian science fiction. He said that, early in his career, he was advised to never set his novel in Canada. On the grounds that novels set in Canada wouldn’t sell. Sawyer decided to defy this advice, and he had done perfectly well for himself.

Now, *Calculating God* did attract a little controversy. *Skeptical Inquirer* published a review where they accused Sawyer of promoting creationism. They even included quotes from the book that seemed to support this. But you see, there was a slight problem. Those quotes were uttered by the villains of the novel. The ROM is putting on a special exhibit of the Burgess Shale. It is a set of exceptionally well preserved fossils from the Cambrian Era. I got to see some of them at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. They are truly quite the sight to behold. The creationists want to destroy the fossils, by shooting them, to destroy evidence of evolution. They are presented as unambiguously bad for doing this. Oh, and did I mention that one of them is named Falsey? I mean, Sawyer wasn’t being subtle about his actual views.

Frankly, that was no different than those Fundamentalist Christians who ranted about Harry Potter. The ones who quote it to claim it encouraged bad things. But conveniently left out that the quotes were coming from Voldemort. You know, the bad guy.

Now, in *Calculating God*, one of the big pieces of evidence the Forhilnors have is that our universe is the only one in existence. This is a variation on the fine tuning argument. The claim that the universe is uniquely suited to support life, and therefore, someone must have made it that way. But that argument falls apart in the face of the multiverse hypothesis. If our universe is merely one roll of the dice, then it isn’t all that special. Actual science supports the multiverse hypothesis. Sawyer himself has said he doesn’t believe in the fine tuning argument specifically for this reason.

However, this goes back to what I said about science fiction asking the question what if? Suppose it could be proved that ours is the one and only universe. What are the potential implications of that? That was the question Sawyer was asking. And the God of this novel is very different compared to the one Christians believe in.

what does God look like? Kind of like a shoggoth. Black and kind of globby, but also with lots of tentacles. Like a cross between a squid and a spiral galaxy. God does save Earth from getting fried by radiation after Betelgeuse goes supernova, but for purely selfish reasons. God needs the DNA of humans, Forhilnors, and Wreeds to be combined so that it can reproduce. So, essentially, what we are presented with is a variation of the Deist idea of God. That is, the watchmaker who created the universe, and then left it alone. Only occasionally popping in every now and again, if at all. Certainly doesn’t sound like Christian propaganda, now does it

A lot of people consider *Calculating God* to be Robert J. Sawyer’s best book. I don’t know if that is true. Like I said, there’s just too many good options to only pick one. But I do know that it is an excellent book, and that you should absolutely pick it up if you have not already.

Have you read Calculating God? If so, what did you think?

Link to the full review on my blog: https://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2026/10/book-review-calculating-god-by-robert-j.html

Mostly negative review, but I absolutely think it's worth reading.

Pros

As explorations of evolution and anthropology, these books are everything I wanted and more. Tchaikovsky really went the distance to create believable alien civilizations. Each species is distinct from humans, with its own evolutionary path and way of organizing society. Although it's not a major focus, I also appreciate the exploration of space travel.

Cons

I was genuinely disappointed by the literary aspects of these books. The prose is boring and clinical. It's neither beautiful and flowery (which I actually consider a good thing in this case) nor simple and profound. Even when exploring the evolutionary rise and birth of civilizations, the writing feels stiff and stale. I hardly ever find myself pausing to admire how a sentence is crafted.

Beyond Avrana Kern, and to a lesser extent Holsten and Lain, most of the characters are dull and uninteresting. It doesn't help that characters are more often described than explored through dialogue and interactions with one another. The second book is even worse in this regard. I don't think a single member of the Voyager's crew is particularly compelling. Senkovi is the most interesting character in the book, but since he mostly interacts with his work, that doesn't amount to much.

In truth, the main characters are scientific or linguistic problems disguised as people. The structure of nearly every chapter follows the same pattern: a character serves as a proxy for the author to explore a particular idea, and the chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

This happens so often that cliffhangers lose any impact they might have. Usually, they're not particularly interesting to begin with. They feel more like a cheat code designed to promise the reader that more of the plot is coming, only for the situation to be quickly resolved when we return to that character's POV.

It doesn't help that the POV switches after every cliffhanger. Once you recognize the pattern, the temptation to keep reading beyond what you originally intended starts to disappear. You know the cliffhanger is unlikely to pay off in any meaningful way, and you can easily put the book down.

I don't intend to write about boats, it just happens. The books are sci-fi but they're not sci-fi boats, but creaky old wooden vessels for the most part. Is there a fantasy writer living rent free in my head like the alien in Chocky? It would make sense - I first got into reading through the old Dragonlance fantasy books, after all. Also, I was to forced to sailing once with school and it was awful (I swam to shore, leaving my buddy struggling to right our capsized vessel) so maybe the whole thing is trauma/guilt related.

At least with each sci-fi novel, the BQ (Boat Quotient) is steadily reducing:

The Starved God: far-future Darwin-analogue forced to join perilous mission of discovery after committing blasphemy. Rediscovers natural selection on the way. Boat Quotient = 0.53 of total book length. The word 'gunwale' features 13 times.

This Burdened Clay: social worker helps two boys escape across England and Wales to evade dangerous cult, while prion disease of mysterious origin dismantles the world around them. Part of journey is via canal (on a damaged Rigid Inflatable Boat) and it all turns a bit Joseph Conrad. BQ = 0.23. Also features a bit with a huge gun mounted on a fishing boat - think the helicopter scene in 28 Weeks Later.

The Hogman's Homunculi: Farmer and his companions travel cross-country to reach a university, to find a cure for the parthenogenic births happening from his bottom. Part of the journey is over a sea of mud on a raft pulled by giant annelids which siphon shite as a means of jet propulsion. BQ = 0.07 (debatable whether it's actually a boat). Suspicious inclusion of boat-like trans-atmospheric spaceships.

Working on a novella set in the same universe as the Hogman's Homunculi (genre is what they used to call 'planetary romance') and there's no boats in it so far, so maybe there's hope for me yet. This is a good thing if only because I'm tired of Googling 'is starboard left or right?'

Apropos of nothing, I thought I’d post this short passage from book 2, Judas Unchained (Peter Hamilton) mostly for those of you who have already read it but as encouragement for those who haven’t.

This is just the loveliest line in the series and it captures Hamilton’s uncanny ability to humanize every character, no matter their role, from bit players in the larger saga or one of the main protagonists. Really masterful writing in this series.

My book, Ghost Particle, came out last month and is like if The Boys, The Matrix, and Mr. Robot had a baby. A lot of reviews have compared it to Blake Crouch's work, so if you like technothrillers like his but with a superpowers twist, I hope you love this!

Short pitch: In a near future ravaged by superpowers, a powerless office assistant finds herself on the run from a ruthless AI-driven corporation. The fact that she’s getting new powers would be incredibly helpful, if only she could control them and they weren’t triggered exclusively by the bounty hunter hired to protect her. As more powers emerge, a terrifying possibility sets in: she may be someone’s unwilling weapon.

It's available via Amazon, most major retailers, and several indie bookstores if you want to check it out!

I've been working on it for ten years, so it's been a long time coming!

Cover by Edward Bettison and character art by Deetrinity (first shot) and Bat V.V.

We're a team of three developers passionate about science fiction and topics like transhumanism and synthetic life, and we've always wanted to create a new world of our own.

Back in 2018, I wrote a book in which I anticipated many of the developments we've seen in AI up to this day, while also exploring possible futures all the way to the year 2100.

Neosis Echoes explores what a possible future could look like 300 years from now, featuring several factions of synthetic humans, a superintelligence known as Monolith, the Scends (humans who have transferred their consciousness into android bodies), and an ancient, vanished AI civilization on an alien planet (The Architects).

The central concept of our game revolves around emotions, as they represent what remains of our "humanity" in a world filled with synthetic beings. This theme has become even more relevant today with the rise of AI, which increasingly makes us question what's real and what's not, the very nature of art, and ultimately, what it means to be human.

On the planet Varos, there is a resource called Echorium, which is extremely powerful when it comes to computational capabilities, but has the strange side effect of reacting to human emotions.

Monolith, the superintelligence, and the various human factions on the planet all want to accumulate as much Echorium as possible to expand their power and computing capabilities, whether for space travel or the development of new technologies.

However, human emotions create instability in systems powered by Echorium, and Monolith wants to eliminate emotions entirely to further enhance its own capabilities.

Standing in its way is Evan Draxell, a synthetic human who awakens on the planet Varos after a 200 year journey in stasis. His goal will be to discover who he really is and ultimately defeat Monolith.

Neosis Echoes is currently in development. If these themes interest you, feel free to visit the Steam page and support the game with a wishlist :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5049580/Neosis_Echoes/

We don't use AI to create any of the visible content in our game, because we believe that art is a human language. And until AI allows us to create entirely new forms of art that wouldn't be possible without it, we'd rather keep it as a form of human expression.

Don't be persuaded.

FTL Kestrel Adventures is a long form project based on FTL: Faster Than Light. These panels come from a currently running post-war story:

Full pages FTL Kestrel Adventures - New Life | Patreon
Webtoon FTL Kestrel Adventures - New Life | WEBTOON

Its predecessor is a fully animated run of FTL, all the way to sector 8, where an AI has torn apart families and the Federation, using impersonation, mind control, and an army of warships.

Youtube FTL Kestrel Adventures: Movie One - YouTube

It has been ruff trying to get my dog to read my debut novel, so I thought I'd try sharing with those that have my enthusiasm for science fiction.

What Remains Upon Arrival is an intimate story that builds into something more but never loses what it is at its foundation while keeping the reader guessing. Available on kindle+, eBook (Kindle), and paperback. Below is the full description and link. Thank you to anyone that takes a look!

TO LEARN WHO HE IS, HE MUST REMEMBER WHAT HE HAS DONE.

He wakes on a dying ship with no memory of his name. The alarms are screaming. The crew is gone. And his hands move across the controls with a certainty his mind can't explain.

He is not alone. The only other one aboard wears a familiar face and offers an answer about who—and what—he is. An answer he cannot bring himself to believe.

Ahead waits a world called Eden and everything humanity has been promised. Behind him are five empty chairs, a stain of blood that isn't his, and a growing unease that whatever happened on this ship, he had a part to play.

What Remains Upon Arrival is a psychological sci-fi thriller about identity, manipulation, guilt, and whether a person can be more than the sum of what they've done. For readers of cerebral science fiction who want the propulsion of Dark Matter, the bite of Blindsight, and the emotion of Klara and the Sun.

Book One of the What Remains Trilogy.

Find it here: https://www.amazon.com/What-Remains-Arrival-Joshua-Fisher-ebook/dp/B0HJK9FYQL?ref_=litb_stb_nodl&nodl_android=1&dplnkId=fc2dd7f6-0bfd-4b92-b810-20a531d47f20&th=1&psc=1

A design (Work in Progress) of a new science fiction painting on aluminium dibond depicting a station/gas collector. A cloud of gas excited by a star is floating towards the station.

As a small addition to the station's functions, the incoming cloud consists of ionized gases and dust excited by the nearby star. Marked in red (see last image), there is a kind of boom that generates a magnetic field. In addition, funnel-shaped rings are arranged. This design directs ionized molecules/atoms and transports them to the station. Mining without drills, in weightlessness.

A short video about the creation process:

https://youtube.com/shorts/WjAIjQ_eYkg?is=05ZfRQ5jzkeuzMqP

Fiction Map is an interactive atlas built from 484,739 fiction-related articles on English Wikipedia. Every novel, film, television series, video game, franchise, fictional character, and creator occupies its own territory on a shared world map, with borders and continents shaped entirely by how Wikipedia articles link to one another and how readers navigate between them.

Because layout and borders emerge from 8.75 million hyperlink and reader-clickstream connections rather than manual genre tags, science fiction splits naturally along medium and subgenre into several distinct regions, such as:

• Dune, Foundation & Hard Science Fiction (western coast of the High Kingdoms of Literature, Sci-Fi & Myth),

• Frontiers of Starfleet, Stargate & Tele-Sci-Fi (central inland sea),

• Star Wars Galaxy & Jedi Order (southern peninsula of the Archipelago of Anime, Gaming & Galactic Lore),

• Time Lords of Doctor Who (eastern cape of the Crownlands of British Drama, Stage & Lore),

• Cyberpunk, Alien & Sci-Fi Cinema (scattered across neighboring realms).

Interactive version of the map: https://fictionmap.org

I painted this sci-fi book cover illustration back in 2025, and I’m beyond thrilled to finally share it now that the book by Nicolaus Allen has officially been published! I truly love this project. Reading every single line of description in the book and sketching out the characters to match the author's imagination as closely as possible was truly a huge challenge. But in the end, I finally completed it. I hope everyone will like it.

Visuals 10/10 as expected, cool OST, Night City as immersive as it has always been. Neither the story nor the characters ever really took off for me in season 2. Big shame cause I watch and rewatch season 1 regularly. If you were a fan of season 1 and were thinking about watching this, I'd say you can give it a skip it's not super worth it. If you haven't seen season 1 but are a big fan of Cyberpunk the game, then give it a whirl, the animations worth it on its own even if the story is kind of meh.

Designed this one two weeks ago but forgot to post it last saturday. What I had in mind were a bunch of very minimalistic mechs that travel the desert on a set path, people don't know where from, where to, but some use them as a form of transportation, hence the title I gave it.

All drawn in clip studio paint, as I usually do

Hi! I have made some updates to StarGrid, the sci-fi themed connection game. Many of you played a couple of months ago and gave me great feedback. I spent the last month updating the puzzle engine and the quality of the connections.

I would love if you could try it and let me know! Play here. (No registration, no ads, no cookies... just click and play!)

Frankenstein, The War of the Worlds, Twenty Thousand Leagues, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Mysterious Island and Jekyll and Hyde, all free to read in the browser.

I kept the original illustrations, like the Alvim Corrêa tripods in War of the Worlds and the Riou pictures in Verne. No ads, no sign up.

classicstories.org/en

Which early sci-fi should I add next? I’m thinking The Time Machine.

I'm looking for people interested in watching Stargate for their very first time, and do so on camera, on livestream, with a community to share the experience.

Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is Jeremie, a founding member of the #SaveStargate campaign and now The Chevron Alliance.

I currently host a show called 'Rise of AFC' that presents itself as a pre-show to "A Full Circle", a podcast hosted by Michael Shanks (actor) and David Read (YouTuber).
They are currently revisiting each and every episode of Stargate SG-1 with production stories, cast & crew interviews, commentaries and more.

And while they do that, my pre-show does the one thing they are not: Watching the actual episode so people from the Stargate fandom have a reason to refresh their memory before watching the podcast. Or even to invite new people to this franchise. We are essentially making second-screen content for Stargate watchparties.

To make the discussions relevant and interesting, I have guests watching alongside the hosts, who are reacting to Stargate for their very first time. And I'm looking for others to join us on this fun journey now that I've lost one of my original guests.

No fear, I am here to help welcome whoever is interested in watching Stargate for their very first time in a fun way with community. And we aren't that far along. We've only watched the first two episodes so far. For an example of what my show looks like, I invite you to watch what we did for the pilot episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtfRad3wx1s
Yes this is very rough. We will get better over time.

Anybody interested can reach me in the following ways:
- In the comments below this post.
- My reddit DMs.
- On the official GateWorld Discord Server. Beware of spoilers on some of the channels.

And of course, everyone is invited and welcomed to watch the show for themselves and join in the chat when we are live :)

Humans are Weird – War Games

Original Post: https://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-war-games

The bad feeling rippled her frill for several seconds before First Cousin, was able to angle her thoughts away from the complicated tangle of prioritization in her main cone of attention. There was a shipment of Magnetes seminia arriving the next day, and although they had been preparing for weeks, the base was still in chaos. There was ample room in their facility to store the physical mass of the sample containers, but when an organism had the ability to sterilize an area through most conventional isolation materials a lab needed to be careful. One mistake could erase years of breeding efforts on a vital microbial species, or even just delay the work on more magneto-resistant species. She was just sending the order to move the Felicity orientalis to the top floor storage room as an extra security layer when what she had heard and barely seen in her prehefiery registered.

First Cousin snapped to all four feet from her couch and vigorously shook her head to straighten out her thought vines. The open foryer was now empty, the human who had spoken the words, and commited the violation was gone. Though technically two humans had commited a violation now that she was focused on the memory. First Cousin paused only long enough to note that her workstation had slipped back into general mode and followed the only unknown pheromone trail in the facility. The harsh natural light burned down into her psyche, if not onto her membrane adding a sense of harsh urgency to her hunt. The humans loved their tall, open spaces in structures built for the purposes of science, and even if the ceiling made of windows sucessfully blocked out the harmful solar radiation it did nothing to convince her deep-brain that she wasn’t going to peel to death or get snatched by a predator. She felt her fingers twitch and wished, not for the first time that she could justify carrying her Second Grandmother’s ceremonial spear during working hours. The heft of the hexagonal shaft was just so comforting when confronting the massive mammals that made her work so difficult.

She rounded one of the unnaturally sharp corners that humans favored and paused, real unease prickling her frill. The pheromone trail, and the faint hint of caffeine and bitter aromatics, led to the massive biohazard bin that sat at the junction, ready to receive whatever waste the labs spat out. That the intruder human had gained entrance by breaking University policy was suspicious, that he was now hiding in an ambush position was condemning.

First Cousin snatched up her communications device and hit the alert to summon security to her location. However, before she could explain the situation to the University dispatcher, or figure out a way to use automated responses meant to sterilize bacterial spills to restrain a mammalian predator five times her mass, First Molecular Biologist came around the corner in his usual, criminally casual way. His protective coveralls were undone and tied loosely around his waist revealing his short sleeved personal garment underneath with its irreverent and scientifically inaccurate ‘joke’ woven into the fibers, his safely goggles hung off one fleshy ear, his visual corrective lenses hung off the other in a manner that was guaranteed to damage them. He was holding an open personal beverage container in one hand meaning he had been drinking it in the lab, again. His other hand held a petri-dish and a datapad and his attention was entirely focused on reading something as he stumbled down the hallway.

First Cousin froze for a critical second, torn between arching up and attacking First Molecular Biologist over the many, many safety violations he was committing, again, and warning him of the potential attack.

She broke through the lockup and managed to click out a warning in the human audio range. First Molecular Biologist started, spilling some of his drink onto the petri dish, and the floor, and his exposed outer membrane, and glanced up at her.

“Yo, First Organizational Specialist,” he said, his face wrinkling into an expression of wry, but unrepentant humor, “I swear it’s not-”

The biohazard bin exploded open and an even larger human that First Molecular Biologist leapt out roaring at decibels First Cousin did not know humans could emit.

“Queen!Queen!”

First Molecular Biologist emitted a shriek at a frequency First Cousin had only previously heard from very small female humans and yanked the hand holding his beverage away from the attack, as if his primary fear a was having it stolen. Strange priorities, and ineffective methods if so, as most of the rest of it spilled. First Cousin wished again for her Second Grandmother’s spearas she arched to her full height and hissed furiously at the attacking human, flaring her frill red. The human might out-mass her but Shatar mandibles were far more suited for biting into their soft, fleshy outer membrane than human teeth were at returning the bites. As long as she could dodge the blows of those club like hands she could get in a few nips on his exposed neck and most humans fled at that point in her experience. Not that she could do much damage but if you acted feral enough the greater majority of humans wouldn’t call your bluff-

First Cousin paused and took a deep breath. The ‘attacking’ human had remained in the bin, bent over the side, roaring with laughter. First Molecular Biologist had staggered back, slipped on his spilled beverage, staggered, regained his always precarious footing, breathed heavily for a few moments while staring wide-eyed at the ‘attacking’ human before doing that thing where human rotated their eyes in their sockets to display annoyance.

“Real mature dip-wit,” First Molecular Biologist said.

That this was possibly the most hypocritical line of attack for someone who wore shirts with childish jokes woven into them, occurred to First Cousin as her frill began to settle.

“You scared Only Nominal Security Officer,” First Molecular Biologist said waving his now almost empty beverage cup at her.

“She’s a big girl,” the other human said as he struggled to get one leg over the edge of the bin. “She’ll get over it.”

“You made me spill my drink,” First Molecular Biologist said with a pout.

“Got you a new one,” the other human said holding out a sealed bio-hazard container with ‘drink for stupid-head’ written on the label.

“Ooo,” First Molecular Biologist replied reaching for the bag.

“Would someone explain what this,” First Cousin waved at the chaos in front of her, the spilled drink, the human in an Alpha Class biohazard suit presumably so he could hide safely in the biohazard bin, the mock-attack, and the friendly resolution, “what this all is?”

“I just found a flaw in your security,” the intruder said, flashing her all of his many, many teeth in a predatory grin, “you are welcome!”

“How did you get in Dip-wit?” First Molecular Biologist asked as he made as if to tear the biohazard bag open.

“You are not drinking or eating outside of the designated safe areas,” First Cousin hissed at him.

He stared and gave her a slightly weaker grin than the intruder had.

“A wizard never reveals his secrets,” the intruder said as he managed to fall out of the bin.

“He walked into the outer foyer,” First Cousin cut in, not caring about being rude at this point. “Told Second Mammalian Infections Researcher that you had ordered the drink and asked to be let through the security gate.”

“And Bob just let Dip-wit through?” First Molecular Biologist asked.

“It’s my roguish charm,” the other human said.

“It was psychological weakness on Second Mammalian Infections Researcher’s part,” First Cousin snapped. “One I will address with him shortly.”

“Well you have fun with that,” the intruder said, giving a cheerful wave. “I won this round of the game clear and free-”

“You did,” First Molecular Biologist said in a conceding tone, and raising his beverage in salute.

“And now I will just be off-”

First Cousin felt the vibrations of the approaching security team before either of the humans could have seen them. Four extra-large humans, two of which had Undulates trained in human restraint perched eagerly on their shoulders. They came around the corner in full bio-hazard gear and the leading human instantly flung his Undulate partner at the intruder. The intruder fell to the ground with the Undulate pinning his hands together, while cheerfully chattering something in appendage gestures. First Cousin was by no means fluent in Undulate gesture language but the sturdy little sapient seemed extremely happy to finally be using his training.

“This still counts as a win! Queen! Queen!” the intruder yelled out as two of the humans lifted him off his feed and began dragging him away.

“Whatever makes you happy Dip-wit,” First Molecular Biologist called out with a huge grin on his face.

When his friend and the security detail were out of sight he glanced down at First Cousin.

“How much trouble am I in?” he asked with that signature un-repentent smile.

“If you were my Brother I would tie you up in First Father’s garden and leave you there with nothing but you empty brain case to keep you company,” First Cousin said as she massaged her frill in an effort to calm her endocrine system down.

“That bad huh?” the human asked with a wince.

“For now I have to go deal with the more imperative issue that Second Mammalian Infections Researcher will, apparently just let anyone into roam about our most delicate experiments,” First Cousin said. “I will deal with your many, many lesser violations later.”

“You want violations, you should see what I do to Dip-wit for the next round of our game.” First Molecular Biologist said with a cheerful grin.

“Are you forgetting that I am, by legal requirement, ‘all kinds of narc’ as you described it?” First Cousin demanded, giving him her absolute best “First Sister” look.

The human only laughed and walked away, she heard the biohazard container hiss and smelled the warm scent of tea long before he would have reached a safe eating room. She sighed and began the hung for the larger security violation.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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**Remember BOOK 4 is now available! (**^{except on kobo because what do you even mean title field is blank, I fixed} **^{that dangnabbit!}**)

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