Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

But that future was far, far beyond even this advanced time. For the remainder of the habitable span of the world, generation after generation of Morlocks would live here. Yes, there might have been an interregnum during which the crabs had been dominant, but that was over now. Morlocks ruled again, and, until the sun’s red light finally faded for good, they would continue to do so.

Still, new changes were propagating forward. The large white butterfly-like creatures were now gone. Perhaps, mused Grach, just as the giant’s kind had once metamorphosed into Morlocks and Eloi, so the Eloi themselves, flighty creatures at the best of times, had here in the far, far future, literally taken wing. But with no more Eloi in the past, of course no descendants of them could exist. A pity: the flying things had been delicious.

Grach looked out again at the blood-red beach, and he thought about the original Time Traveler, that giant from ages past. Had he found whatever it was he’d been seeking when he came forward from his time? Perhaps not in that year he’d numbered about 800,000. The injustice, after all, of the best of mankind being damned to a subterranean existence surely must have disappointed him. But, Grach thought, if the Time Traveler knew what his machine had ultimately made possible—this wondrous moment, with the very essence of humanity on the surface—surely he would be pleased.

The Eagle Has Landed

Like everyone who loves space travel, I was devastated by the loss on February 1, 2003, of the space shuttle Columbia. And, as writers always do, I worked out some of my feelings about that on the printed page—in this little piece that appeared in Mike Resnick’s anthology I, Alien.

I freely admit that this isn’t my best story—but it is my favorite one to read aloud. I do impressions of the famous people whose speeches are quoted, and the audiences and I always have a good time. But, still, because of the tragic inspiration that led to me writing it, thinking about this one always leaves me a little sad.

* * *

I’ve spent a lot of time watching Earth—more than forty of that planet’s years. My arrival was in response to the signal from our automated probe, which had detected that the paper-skinned bipedal beings of that world had split the atom. The probe had served well, but there were some things only a living being could do properly, and assessing whether a lifeform should be contacted by the Planetary Commonwealth was one.

It would have been fascinating to have been present for that first fission explosion: it’s always a fabulous thing when a new species learns to cleave the atom, the dawn for them of a new and wondrous age. Of course, fission is messy, but one must glide before one can fly; all known species that developed fission soon moved on to the clean energy of controlled fusion, putting an end to need and want, to poverty, to scarcity.

I arrived in the vicinity of Earth some dozen Earth-years after that first fission explosion—but I could not set down upon Earth, for its gravity was five times that of our homeworld. But its moon had a congenial mass; there I would weigh slightly less than I did at home. And, just like our home-world, which, of course, is itself the moon of a gas-giant world orbiting a double star, Earth’s moon was tidally locked, constantly showing the same face to its primary. It was a perfect place for me to land my starbird and observe the goings-on on the blue-and-white-and-infrared world below.

This moon, the sole natural satellite of Earth, was devoid of atmosphere, bereft of water. I imagined our homeworld would be similar if its volatiles weren’t constantly replenished by material from Chirp-cluck-CHIRP-chirp, the gas-giant planet that so dominated our skies; a naturally occurring, permanent magnetic-flux tube passed a gentle rain of gases onto our world.

The moon that the inhabitants of Earth called “the moon” (and “La Lune,” and a hundred other things) was depressingly desolate. Still, from it I could easily intercept the tens of thousands of audio and audiovisual transmissions spewing out from Earth—and with a time delay of only four wingbeats. My starbird’s computer separated the signals one from the other, and I watched and listened.