Reading · Beyond the Droid

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Greetings, lovely humans (and you, robot, hiding behind the ficus)!

First, let’s talk about that beta read of my new novel, T is for Time Travel. If you already filled out the form to be one of my beta readers, then awesome! You can skip ahead a bit.

For everyone else… I’m still looking for a few more folks who are interested in Beta Reading T is for Time Travel. This book will be the first of the T-Set, the follow-on to The Robot Galaxy Series.

I expect that most of the beta readers will have read at least the first book or two in that series, however, I do need at least 2 or 3 people who HAVE NOT read The Robot Galaxy Series! I will need opinions from the POV of readers who first start in my Robot Galaxy Universe with this book… So please, if you’re interested, no matter what you have or haven’t read of mine, fill out this form:

https://forms.gle/yub3HPg8UKWUiBC98

The beta read itself is going to go out within the week. Likely by the end of this weekend! Look for a separate email on that.

Before we move on and get into today’s flash fiction, here’s my usual plug for all the books and stories I have out there, with their links:

Links: Lunar Logic | Robot Galaxy Series | Final Orbit | Objective Reality

Also make sure to read to the end of this newsletter and check out other Indie writings! (And my bonus pic at the end.)

“What about aliens?” is a line in a Carbon Leaf song, titled “What about everything?” that I’ve been obsessed with lately.

Okay, not just that song… I’ve been obsessed with the whole Carbon Leaf catalog.

I’m so obsessed, I’m sharing my Fave Carbon Leaf playlist (YouTube Music version—and I also recreated it on Spotify) with y’all. Yes, a few songs are on the list multiple times with multiple versions (i.e., live and studio recorded). I’ve been a fan of the band since their album Echo Echo came out in 2001, but had forgotten about them for a while. Sometime over the summer, they resurfaced in my awareness and well… obsession.

Why the obsession? I don’t know. But I can tell you that I’ve been daydreaming of writing a story that had something to do or was in some way inspired by the “What about everything?” song.

I’ll be honest… I have no idea what the song really means, and each song on the playlist is a fave for a different reason. For some, it’s the music. For others, it’s the lyrics. For some of the live versions, well, I just like live versions of songs I already like. (The live version of their “Desperation Song” is amazing, btw).

Of course, when I get inspired to write, it’s something sci-fi-y and in this case, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this story should be told from the perspective of aliens. Afterall, when they get to that line in the song: “What about aliens?” it’s… momentous.

As it should be.

I mean… what about aliens? (And if there are aliens, they might be asking the same exact question. But from their perspective, we’re one of the aliens…)

Anyhoo… I’m not sure this is exactly the story I thought it would be, but it’s what it is and I hope you enjoy it!

Please read on and let me know what you think! (Either send me an email, or post a comment on Substack)

What about aliens?

“What about them?” Bimori asked, notepad in one tentacle and a pen in the other.

“Maybe that was just rhetorical,” Cybrella responded, looking at her own tentacles that she couldn’t keep still. “I’ve just had all these… questions… they’re big. They’re unanswerable. I didn’t mean to say them out loud.”

Bimori’s lower body let out a grumble that he hoped Cybrella didn’t hear. Ever since Cybrella showed up at his clinic—he couldn’t quite remember how long it had been without referring to his notes—she had been improving. This felt like a step back.

Clearly, she had been lonely. Isolated. Sadly, that was not unusual these cycles. But what brought Cybrella in had been the fantasies about an alien world, home to nearly 10 billion aliens, that had only recently been discovered based on observations from two of the most sophisticated space telescopes to ever have been created.

The news caused a stir—this news that they were not the only creatures in the galaxy, and Bimori’s clinic was busier than ever with individuals suffering from existential dread.

Cybrella was a little unusual in that regard. She wasn’t filled with dread, but rather a longing to visit that alien world, convinced her soulmate walked among them.

And unable to act on that conviction, she was driving herself insane.

“You are here to voice your thoughts,” Bimori said. “Or get them out of your head in some fashion. Have you kept up with your journal?”

The shine of Cybrella’s outer covering dimmed momentarily in embarrassment.

“A little but…” she trailed off.

“But what?”

“It’s so silly. All I did in my last entry was ask all these questions that have no answer.”

“Would you like to read some of it?” Bimori asked.

Cybrella looked over at the journal that was on the table. She’d brought it to each session, like Bimori asked, but they rarely referred to it and this was the first time that Bimori asked her to read from it.

She took it in one tentacle and fidgeted with it, passing it from tentacle to tentacle, not opening it.

“Did you hear they approved the new mission? They’re going to launch a probe in the direction of the alien planet.”

“I had not,” Bimori said earnestly. While he was mildly interested, he had enough to think about with his patients and couldn’t worry about a whole other species. The way his own species was going—progressively diminishing birthrates, the isolation epidemic, not to mention how under some less than stellar leadership, medical science had stopped advancing and was leaving more people at risk for life-threatening diseases—soon there wouldn’t be anyone left to think the big thoughts or reach out to communicate with others within… well, the worst-case predictions were saying two generations.

“Oh you should definitely look up the mission brief! So many things are coming together to make this work! They’re going to use a solar sail and include some of our DNA and… get this… instructions on how to contact us back!”

“That’s…”

“Incredible? Right?” Cybrella said. Her initial hesitation to talk about anything today had completely turned around as she spoke of the mission. “And you know what I did? I applied for all the open positions and ways to participate!”

Bimori wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do, since it could only stand to drive a wedge between Cybrella and others here on their own planet. He decided to try another line of questioning.

“Cybrella, imagine one of those aliens were here with us. What would you say to… it?”

“Oh, it would be a ‘he’ for sure. You know I get along with ‘hes’ better than other ‘shes’.”

“Ok, what would you say to him?” Bimori thought it harmless to indulge in the fantasy that the aliens were similarly gendered, even though he knew there were endless possibilities with that genetic feature.

“I’d ask him what about the moons and stars? I’d ask what he thought about my life so far? What about my dream? What about—”

“Your dream?” Bimori interrupted.

Cybrella looked down and shone in a blush.

“I told you this, didn’t I?”

Bimori looked back at his notes. If she had told him about a dream recently, he hadn’t recorded it. And dreams were so rare that he couldn’t imagine either not writing it down or not remembering it.

“No, tell me.”

“I saw him. The alien. They don’t look like us, but it didn’t matter to him. It was quiet on a street, near midnight, clear, and windy. And he saw me. Do you understand? He saw me.”

“Did anything happen? Or was it—he—the alien, was he just standing there?”

“That’s just it! He was asking me the big questions, but they were about things I didn’t understand. He asked, ‘what about aeroplanes? And what about ships that drank the sea?” Cybrella said. “Do you know those words?”

“No,” Bimori said, waving his tentacles to express that he was baffled.

“I think that’s just it,” Cybrella said. “We both have the same big questions. The biggest one, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Bimori said.

“What about everything?” Cybrella said. “What about everything.”

Bimori closed his notepad slowly. For the first time since Cybrella walked into his clinic, he didn’t have an answer. He looked at her instead. “What about everything,” he whispered back, and let it be enough.

What did you think of the story?

Simply reply and let me know what you think! (I treasure feedback!) Or do any of these things:

What’s next?

Continuing my hard work on the Annotated Robot Galaxy Series and T is for Time Travel, especially getting ready for the Beta Read of the latter.

Today’s picture is from the recent Capclave literary convention. Saturday evening at Capclave is always the “mass autograph” event and I got to share my table with fellow word-slingers Doc Coleman and Lawrence M. Schoen. Between the three of us, we cover a wide array of fiction! Check out there stuff (after you’re done checking out mine. ;) )

All always, thanks for being here and reading all of stuff. Remember you can reply anytime with questions/comments/feedback!

Until next time… be kind, be well!

-Adeena

What About Aliens?

What about aliens?

What did you think of the story?

What’s next?

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