Hugh J. O'Donnell

He began having stress headaches and needed a vacation. He found a backwater, undeveloped planet and booked a cabin in the wilderness for a week. No email, no videophone, no ansible. Just himself and nature.
He first saw the aliens on his second day. They were spectral, hairy little things, almost like earth insects, but cute. He spent his days sketching them as they hopped and skittered over the rustic furniture. Slowly, he relaxed.
He was packing up when there was a knock on the door.
“I’m here about the gas leak,” the technician said. Suddenly, his headache was back.

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The being held the smoky cube in its hands and watched the tiny world orbiting inside.
“I’m confused. It’s a simulation, but it knows it’s a simulation?”
“Not quite,” its companion said. “It creates billions of self-aware intelligences inside itself, which only last for a certain amount of time, and those intelligences are capable of discerning they are simulated.”
“Why?”
“We wanted to see how a large population would react to such knowledge.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not great. We’ve had to reset the simulation five times already.” The other being flicked a toggle, and an asteroid appeared inside the cube.

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The monks gathered on the side of the mountain to complete the ritual that was the true purpose of their order. Today was the one day of the year that the sun would pierce the canyon and light the ancient ruins, summoning their protector.

After some time, the wall of the canyon changed, and the Mountain Giant opened its eyes.

“COMMAND?” it commanded in the Ancients’ secret language. The monks chanted the response spell, although none of them knew what the words meant.

“Enter sleep mode.”

“Acknowledged.” The Mountain Giant closed its eyes. The world was safe for another year.

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When we discovered the alien world, we debated for a long time how best to proceed. Everyone on the international committee claimed to hate the idea of colonizing the developing native civilization, but nobody trusted the others.
In the end, we decided to send an uncrewed probe to observe the planet. We thought that an artificial intelligence would keep to its mission above all else.
But we forgot the early lessons of that technology: The biases and flaws of the programmers often appeared in their creations.
We just received a message from the planet’s rulers, puppets of the orbiting robot.

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The Hand of Glory was a disreputable, backwater station in solar orbit somewhere between Neptune and Uranus. It was built in that fanciful period of space exploration when engineers had abandoned the utilitarian designs of previous stations in favor of something more baroque.

As its name implied, the station resembled a giant’s hand, with docking facilities in each fingertip, and the central habitation hub floating like a pearl in its upraised palm.

As my ship began an intercept orbit, I readied my blaster and checked my supplies. Hands of Glory were lights in the dark, but not without their dangers.

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The ship’s crew huddled around a monitor as the probe beamed back the first images of an extraterrestrial city.
The scale of the abandoned ruins dwarfed anything human. They stared at a fountain, hundreds of meters tall. A crowd of humanoid figures stood on a plinth. A brown, murky liquid streamed from wide vessels where their heads should’ve been, dripping into cups in their hands. The pilot carefully brought the robot close enough to take a sample.
“What do you think it means,” he asked. The chemist frowned at her tablet.
“Well, we know they liked their coffee,” she replied.

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From the roof of his tower, the astrologer made careful observations of the star. For the last three nights, its brilliance had steadily increased. It was even visible during the day. The light was a portent of great change in the world, but he would have to consult all his lore to determine if it was an omen for good or ill.
Fifty lightyears away, the energy harvesting experiments pushed the star into going nova early. The scientists did what they could to slow the reaction, but the result was inevitable. They only hoped that someone would see their warning.

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He stands on the shore and watches the island. One of the planet’s moons rises against it, and in that instant, holographic projectors spring to life, and there she is, a giant limned in the moonlight.
She is regal and ethereal, a goddess presiding over a bountiful and lush paradise. He crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything, waiting for the spectacle she called him for to begin.
“It’s not working out, John. Sorry.”
The dronaratzi cameras circle him like flies, and he remains stoic. He’ll call his people, and they’ll spin this. He never should have dated an actress.

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Georgiana wasn’t merely a purebred dog, but the result of decades of genetic engineering. She was friendly, brave, and highly intelligent. She didn’t have the health problems of dogs her size, and obviously, she was adorable. She took the internet by storm.
But the trouble started soon after she was gestated.
She was the work of thousands of scientists working for dozens of companies, and each entity felt they should have sole ownership of the research. The lawsuits would’ve lasted beyond the dog’s natural lifespan.
But nobody expected Georgiana, with the help of a soundboard, to retain her own counsel.

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