The asteroid work crews don't have much to do but tell tall tales to each other. One man tells a particularly riveting account of an expedition where he met a strange parasitic species that inhabits human bodies and barely escaped unscathed—or did he?

A grieving mother and accomplished linguist relives her child's lost life as she learns to communicate with the aliens that have landed on earth.

Online, space ship storytellers discuss why they tell stories for a living—and how to do it right.

A catalog of the tools different alien species use to read and write, leading to fundamental questions about what it means to make patterns of knowledge against the noise of the universe.

A modern Puerto Rican parrot meditates on why humans seek intelligence in other corners of the universe while they neglect the refined communicative capacities of their neighboring parrots.

When a talented linguist makes contact with the Martian species and is invited into their inner circle, he uncovers a culturally rich civilization in danger of going extinct.

Two extraterrestrial beings land on Earth in search of information and struggle to adapt.

When a far-away planet requests the return of two fugitive queer extraterrestrials, a closeted man finds the empathy necessary to enable their escape.

A newscaster recently arrived in space receives ominous advice from a jaded engineer: whatever you do, leave space because getting attracted to aliens will be the death of us all.

A woman on a space mission to help save the planet sends audio messages to her brother back on Earth. The last message contains gut-wrenching confessions, and reveals that her brother is the reason she is on the mission at all.