A human teacher travels to another planet to teach aliens about Manifest Destiny, and the benefits of being colonized by humans — from textbooks created by his employers, a mining corporation. After he develops an understanding of alien lives, he decides to help the aliens to fight for themselves.

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.

A group of alien archaeologists explores the Olduvai Gorge in Africa to learn about humanity, an extinct race. However, as they begin investigating artifacts, they discover that everything they knew about humans is entirely wrong.

In the near future, a young mother leaves behind a book for her daughter before she embarks on her space journey to the outer solar system in an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial creatures. Sections from her book are interspersed with her husband's verbal recollections of their love story, which he addresses to their young daughter.

A young alien scientist joins forces with other archaeologists to uncover the secrets of a race that died out many years ago.

When an alien spaceship lands on Earth in need of help, leaders of countries around the world help and house them, causing tension between humans and these costly guests.

At a space frontier, infected humans are turning into alien moth creatures and the government considers mass executing them all. A scientist who has seen signs of the moths' intelligence must fight for their lives.

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.

Human detectives work to solve the mystery of who killed a human woman at an Earth-based alien embassy. They soon realize that human methods of solving mysteries come into conflict with the social customs of the aliens.

In deep space, a crew of humans and artificial intelligence deliberate on whether or not to change course so as to preserve the life of an innocent-presenting alien-being.