Astronaut Dreams
By Joseph Green and R-M Lillian
“YOU STILL SPEND TOO MUCH TIME on Weary.”
Shepard Hentson, sitting on the edge of the relaxer, turned to look at his first wife in mild annoyance. Mickey stood in the open door of the cramped, dimly lit roaming room. The brighter light behind her outlined a petite but well-conditioned body, dressed in a thin sweat suit. Mickey worked out almost every day in the megacondo fitness center.
“Asumi said it would be an hour before dinner.” Shepard heard the defensive tone in his voice, and the annoyance grew. “Plenty of time to see what Isaac recorded today. I’ll be off the road before seven.”
Mickey stepped inside and walked around her own relaxer until she faced her seated husband. Shepard looked up slightly, into brown eyes that glistened in the faint light. They had been married for eleven years, seven as a couple until Asumi joined them four years ago.
Asumi had been Mickey’s best friend since their early teens. When her husband fell in love with another woman and divorced her, Asumi had asked to become Shepard’s second wife. Mickey had been happy to expand the long friendship into the much closer bonds of co-wife, legal since the three-mates act of 2031. Shepard, at first not in love with Asumi, had agreed only at Mickey’s strong insistence. But within a few months he had come to love his second wife, and her infant son Marcel, as much as he did Mickey and their son Arturo, then five and in recovery from his second operation.
“The condo store had some wild rice and fresh tofu today. Asumi’s going to a lot of work preparing a special dinner for us.”
“She told me.” Asumi had recently become interested in Asian cooking. Routinely she and Mickey alternated preparing dinner, and Shepard cleared the table and cleaned up in the kitchen. A light chore when the meal consisted of microwaved SoCakes and vat-grown meatpacs, it became time-consuming after one of Asumi’s oriental specialties. Shepard had not complained. The two boys loved the variety, and so did he.
Shepard stood up and put his arms around Mickey, drawing her close for a tight hug. She snuggled against his chest, the short curls of her hair—worn ebony black this month—tickling him beneath the chin.
After a moment Mickey pulled away and left, closing the almost sound-proof door firmly behind her. The brief physical closeness had not diminished her resentment. Shepard sighed, sat down again on the well-padded relaxer, and reached for the silvery helmet, waiting in its charger on the adjoining narrow table. He would be sleeping in Mickey’s bed tonight, in the usual alternation, but had a strong feeling they would not be sharing sex.
For twelve years now a million sites on Weary had offered an almost limitless variety of stimulated experiences, including sexual encounters of almost every type. For a few dollars anyone could spend a night with Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, or Marilyn Monroe. In the industrialized nations, far more men than women had chosen fantasy sex over real, leading to a high percentage of unmarried people living alone. The three-mates act, with its accompanying large tax deductions, had somewhat corrected this socially unhealthy trend. But in actual practice, two or three women proved far more willing to share a single husband than the equivalent men to share one wife.
It had been part of the agreement when Asumi joined them that Shepard would stop all fantasy sex. He had, and the Hentson trio marriage proved stable and satisfying for all three. But Shepard still spent a lot of time on Weary; there were a thousand other enjoyable activities available besides sex. Mickey felt they kept him from devoting time to his wives and children, and wanted him to give up some of them.
Shepard slipped the heavy helmet over his head and leaned back against the rear support, already adjusted to his favorite position of forty-five degrees. The cap sensed his presence, and its eight little positioning feet extended and clamped to his skull. The main body shifted forward a centimeter and moved slightly left, to where its array of transmitters and receivers aligned precisely with their target areas in his particular brain.
Shepard closed his eyes, then opened them after a few seconds, to find himself standing on the dark gray surface of the World-Wide Entertainment & Active Resource Utility, the Weary Road.
Shepard took the mandatory three steps that established his presence and allowed the operating program to recognize him. He became part of a moving crowd dressed in an endless variety of clothes, from men in togas and French culottes to women in Greek peplos and elaborate medieval gowns. But many, unwilling to take the time to design special clothes, wore the modern, loosely comfortable unisex leisure sweats that never left the home complex in real life. Among the latter, Shepard knew, would be many actual human beings, appearing in personas they had created. The more colorful travelers were often autonomous avatars, seeking worthwhile experiences they would record for later enjoyment by their master-owners.
Shepard mingled with the bustling, colorful throng, watching heads constantly swivel as the walkers read the signs posted on doors and short walls on both sides of the road. Most were engaged in the endless search for some new site that seemed worth experiencing. But Shepard already knew his destination. After a moment he visualized the familiar site address, then issued the shift command. A few seconds later he seemed to rise in the air and fly ahead with blurring speed, before slowing and descending to the surface again.
On Shepard’s left, a narrow cobblestone-paved walk led to a short section of wooden fence with a simple swing gate in its center. Unlike most sites on Weary, no sign hung on the fence, and no gatekeeper stood waiting to collect a fee. This was a privately owned site Shepard reserved for himself.
He stepped off Weary, and felt his contact with the operating program break. Walking to the gate, Shepard opened it and went through, to see ahead a familiar sward of thick green grass. Beyond it stood a very old two-story English farmhouse, tall chimneys rising on each end. He crossed the open area, opened the unlocked front door, and followed the familiar way to the study of Isaac Newton, in Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire.
“Good evening, Shepard.” Isaac rose from his desk by a large window and gestured his master to a chair. The avatar wore English woolens deliberately designed to be inconspicuous, suitable for a gentleman farmer of his era. A long-stemmed Meerschaum pipe, resting in a holder on the desk, emitted a faint trail of aromatic gray smoke.
Shepard knew these elaborate pipes had not come into common use until after Newton’s death, but had chosen to ignore historical accuracy. A mechanical engineer by education and training, he had imprinted two courses in software design and was a competent amateur programmer. After purchasing this expensive avatar program four years ago, Shepard had reworked it to suit himself. And he liked the image of the great 17th century genius smoking a Meerschaum.
Based on paintings made at about age fifty, Isaac Newton had been a man of moderate height, with a long nose, brown eyes, and grayish hair falling past his shoulders. More than one artist had managed to capture in that face the burning intelligence displayed throughout his long life, and the original commercial designers had done a good job of incorporating that look into this virtual avatar.
Shepard had reprogrammed his Newton to provide a short verbal summary of the day’s visits, allowing him to delay or decline a given item. Isaac routinely attended society meetings and forums where he was authorized to speak and vote for Shepard, but still had plenty of time left to search for interesting virtual worlds. Although he roamed only during the twenty hours a week Shepard spent at work—accidentally meeting your avatar acting autonomously on Weary could be psychologically harmful—he still recorded more than Shepard could experience. To keep peace with Mickey and Asumi, he deleted many of the free or low cost items after only hearing the summary.
Isaac briefly described four visits recorded while Shepard was at work that met his guidelines for likely high interest. The last was attendance at the monthly meeting of the Human Space Flight Society.
Shepard had been an avid supporter of human space flight since age nine, when his father drove them from Atlanta to the Kennedy Space Center in 2011—his mother had no interest in space and refused to come—to see the liftoff of the last Space Shuttle. He had returned as an adult in 2024 to watch the launch of a two-man spacecraft to intercept the asteroid Will Robinson, and the joint American-Russian-Chinese mission to Mars in 2031. But there were no plans for a second mission, and the effort to establish a permanent scientific base on the Moon had sputtered to a halt when costs became too high. Crew exchanges to the old but still operable International Space Station were now the only human spaceflight activity.
“I’ll take the HSF meeting now, Isaac. The Saturn rings observatory experience looks interesting, but save it for later.”
Newton nodded. Shepard visualized the familiar integrate command as he closed his eyes, felt the brief surge of transition ...
... and opened them again in the body of his avatar, walking on the Weary Road. Isaac ignored the usual hurrying crowd. After a few steps he turned off onto a short walk leading to a wide, flat concrete apron fronting a low building. An open tram car, more than a dozen passengers already on board, waited just ahead. Isaac climbed into a seat, inwardly grumbling about the mandatory trip into low Earth orbit. It was understandable that the society wanted its voting members to experience space flight, but forcing them to do so for every meeting seemed excessive.
Several more passengers arrived before the tram departed for the runway where the stub-winged orbital shuttle waited, shining silver bright in the sunlight. About twenty members, an unusually large number, boarded, were welcomed by two attractive female attendants wearing society uniforms, found seats and strapped in. The two women took their own seats at the head of the cabin, the three big convertible engines at the rear roared to life, and the shuttle raced down the runway for a hundred meters before lifting off. The vehicle climbed at about a forty-five degree angle until above the thicker atmosphere, then the convertible engines changed from jet to rocket mode. The acceleration, quickly reaching four g’s, pressed them hard into their padded seats.
Isaac knew the designers had frequently ignored historical reality when creating this virtual world. No convertible engine capable of taking a winged vehicle from the ground into orbit had ever been built. The propellant load made such a craft impractical.
The rocket thrust lasted for six minutes. When the engines stopped the passengers were free floating, only the straps holding them in their seats. The screen on the wall at the head of the cabin came to life, showing them approaching Undaunted, the society’s own virtual space station. Unlike the ungainly agglomeration of modules, struts and solar panels of the real International Space Station, the society had created a beautiful silver globe, shining brightly in the unfiltered sunlight. Only the docking port and an occasional sensor or antenna marred Undaunted’s uncluttered surface.
The docking went smoothly, as always, and a minute later the passengers were floating down the shuttle aisle to the exit, now opening into the station airlock. One of the attendants led them through it and on into the large operations room.
Isaac saw the usual six engineers at work, monitoring consoles and typing commands on keyboards. It looked very real and professional. But when the visiting members were escorted past them and into the conference room, it featured a large teakwood table with about thirty chairs. Each had a belt for strapping in. A capped drinking container with a positive pressure straw waited in front of twenty of the chairs.
The mixture of highly improbable table and heavy chairs, with very realistic drinks ready, had always irritated Isaac. They made too neat a metaphor for the society itself—yearning dreamers, most with no technical or scientific background, butting up against hard reality.
The society chair, a real person who appeared in the persona of a youthful Valentina Tereshkova, called the meeting to order. She dispensed with the usual order of business to go to a motion tabled last month; to dissolve the society and close down its virtual world.
Surprised—he had missed the previous meeting—Isaac looked around the table at the other attendees. Probably half were authorized avatars like himself, but the others were personas of real people, attending in person. That explained why the monthly attendance was about double the usual number. Members had turned out in force to either attack or defend the continuation of the society. This was a meeting Shepard should probably have attended himself, but too late now.
A member who had adopted a persona in the form of Carl Sagan raised his hand and was recognized. Sagan argued passionately that the Society should not abandon its work, that advocating for the expansion of human access to space was still an important activity. He listed the well-known reasons why on-site exploration of the accessible planets and moons was a highly desirable activity for mankind. He admitted it was true that human space exploration had reached an interregnum, one that might last several more years unless someone discovered a faster and less expensive system for interplanetary travel. But that was no reason to abandon their support. Government agencies responded to pressure, and if they continued to work with the many other parties interested in human space flight, mankind could reach Jupiter and its several interesting moons. Astounding discoveries could await, even the holy grail of alien life in one of the known moon oceans. To abandon human deep space exploration now would set the program back a hundred years.
Timothy Leary—obviously a persona of another member attending in person—followed Sagan, and presented the opposite point of view. He pointed out that all eight planets, plus Pluto/Charon and Ceres, had been examined by heavily instrumented unmanned spacecraft. Very little more would be learned by visiting them in person. History did not support the idea that great additional benefits would result from having humans instead of robots explore the outer planets. The added costs were astronomical, the additional knowledge minor. The time had come to fold their tents, and quietly steal away.
The vote, when it came, was anticlimactic. By fourteen to six, Isaac voting nay with the majority—he knew with certainty how Shepard would want him to vote—the members decided to continue the society and its work. Leary and several attending members promptly announced they would be resigning, and the chair expressed regret, but accepted their decisions. The society had over a hundred members, though most were inactive and seldom attended meetings.
The more routine business of the day took only a few minutes. When the motion for adjournment passed, the attending members unstrapped and headed for the door. Isaac felt relieved when he floated past it, transitioned through a few seconds of fog, and found himself standing on Weary. At least the society did not force its members to endure a doubly-boring simulated return trip to Earth.
Isaac took the three required steps, and the operating program recognized him. He shifted to the Woolsthorpe Manor address and hurried inside. As he entered his study the recording ended ...
... and Shepard opened his eyes to see Isaac tamping fragrant tobacco into the large Meerschaum pipe.
“Save it,” said Shepard, and Isaac nodded. The recording would go into storage instead of being discarded. Which reminded Shepard that he needed to check his list of stored programs, and delete those he was least likely to want to experience again. His locker was nearly full, and he didn’t want to pay for additional capacity.
Shepard rose to his feet. “I’ll see you later,” he said aloud, and realized that he was again being formally polite to a virtual avatar of himself. Ingrained habits die hard. He closed his eyes, issued the retract command, and was back in his real body in time to feel the eight little positioning feet withdraw. He sat up, pulled off the helmet, and placed it back on its charger.
Shepard scratched at two places where the tight contact had left his head itching, then checked the time. Events moved much faster in a stimulated virtual world than in the real, and the experience had finished well before seven, as expected. He headed for the condo’s small dining room, to find the rest of the family already seated and waiting. Mickey gave him a faint smile. At least he had not been late.
Shepard noted with approval that Arturo was sitting almost straight in his chair. The second operation a month ago had gone well, and after the third and final, in three more years, Arturo could expect to lead an almost normal life. His spine would never be completely straight, and he would not be playing football or soccer, but he could compete in swimming, running, and other sports less likely to injure a fused bone and titanium-braced back.
Arturo and Marcel showed their appreciation for Asumi’s delicious Asian dinner by eating until stuffed. They often had to be encouraged to finish the factory standard cakes, specifically designed for a child at their individual ages.
After dinner, Arturo and Marcel settled in front of the large 3-D screen in the living room to watch some favorite youth adventure program; thousands were available, for only a few cents each. The boys would have to be content with regular television until each reached age seventeen, when cat scans and a variety of other exams would determine if a person’s brain had physically matured. If it had, the next step in formal education, directly imprinting the courses needed for qualification in a chosen profession, could begin.
And they could start walking the Weary Road.
In less than two decades Weary had become the dominant entertainment medium for the entire world, putting most others out of business. Thoughtful people still debated whether Weary was the greatest and most widespread benefit technology had brought to the world, or a hugely popular and addictive drug an all-too-willing public had eagerly embraced.
Shepard cleaned the kitchen, and he and Asumi headed for the roaming room. It was Mickey’s turn to watch the boys for the evening, then get them through their nightly bathing and health regimens and into bed.
Asumi smiled at Shepard as she settled on her relaxer and lifted the heavy helmet off its charger. She had told him earlier of experiencing the first half of a four-hour legendary Japanese romance, the tragic tale of Gompachi and his lover, Ko-Murasaki. She was returning tonight for the second half. Asumi had ignored her ethnic heritage until recently. Now she had taken up Japanese cooking, and in virtual reality sought out experiences based on old oriental legends and folklore. But Asumi chose to experience only the great romances. She had little interest in the wars, conquests and losses, and technology developments that had shaped modern Japan.
Asumi leaned back and closed her eyes. Shepard watched her face become a little slack, the normal expression of someone under the cap. He made himself comfortable, lifted and placed his own helmet, and a minute later was again with Isaac Newton in his study.
“Let’s do that that Rings Of Saturn experience, Isaac. I hope it’s as beautiful as they claim.”
“I think it’s worth the money, Shepard,” said Isaac.
Shepard leaned back in the library chair, closed his eyes, and visualized the integrate command. When he opened them again he was in Isaac Newton’s body, and walking on the dull gray surface of the Weary Road.
Isaac walked at a fast pace along the one-way road, mingling with the hurrying throng. All possible types of interests and entertainments beckoned potential customers on both sides, some with prices posted in small numbers below the name, others forcing the traveler to stop and ask.
One sign, in softly glowing, swirling colors, caught Isaac’s eye: The Rings of Saturn. He stopped before a short, dark sidewalk, embedded with brightly twinkling stars. It led to what appeared to be a solid wall of ebony, featureless and black as coal. A gatekeeper, an avatar in the short, sturdy form of Galileo Galilei, stood waiting in front of a narrow wooden door. Light peeped past its deliberately ill-fitting edges, hinting at brightness within. Isaac thought that a nice little touch.
Galileo informed Isaac the fee was only two dollars, and the program lasted a virtual hour. Isaac agreed to the charge, and the site’s monitor reported the recorded transaction to Shepard’s on-line bank. It scanned Isaac to verify he was an authorized avatar of Shepard Hentson, and the money transferred.
The gatekeeper opened the narrow door and Isaac walked through, closing his eyes to avoid the often unpleasant visual wrench of transition. He opened them after a few seconds, to find himself standing in a large, pleasantly furnished lounge. Numerous chairs and couches scattered around the interior beckoned, several occupied by people lying down or leaning back, staring upward. A short wet bar took up one corner. A robot bartender, all silvery limbs and permanent white-toothed smile, stood washing glasses behind it.
If you wanted to enjoy the taste of a drink while you experienced the visual beauty you had traveled over a billion virtual kilometers to see, that would cost you another dollar. Isaac, acting on Shepard’s incorporated decision guidelines, chose to save the money.
The site designers had installed a glass dome to add realism, but the glass was so fully transparent it disappeared when the eyes focused past it. They had placed their observatory on a craggy little moon, about a quarter-million kilometers above the planet; far enough away that the view reached from roughly Saturn’s surface to the top of the A ring. And the designers had programmed this satellite to appear stationary as the rings rotated past, providing a slowly changing view of the largest and one of the most subtly beautiful natural wonders in the solar system. No such fixed position was practical in the real world, where the laws of physics applied.
Isaac found an empty chair, and leaned back at a sharp but comfortable angle. He reduced conscious awareness to the minimum level at which he could record, to provide the most deeply immersive experience possible, and let the beauty and immensity of the scene overwhelm his senses ...
A soft chime sounded, signaling the end of his virtual hour. The noise brought Isaac out of immersion, and he returned to fully conscious awareness. A recorded voice asked if he wished to purchase another hour of viewing.
Isaac’s gaze remained focused on the slowly rotating rings. With the return of self-awareness and independent thought, an item stored in his large memory surfaced. It was of an original Hubble Space Telescope image of Saturn, taken in the last century.
Isaac could see now what had not been obvious earlier. The rings were too colorful; noticeably more so than they would have seemed to an actual observer with human eyesight. And the darkness of the Cassini Division between A and B seemed too black and featureless to be real. The programmers had apparently used actual photographs and video from the several unmanned missions to create this virtual world, but then touched up the results to add color and contrast.
NASA had also treated photographs from telescopes and unmanned spacecraft to produce much brighter false color images of the rings, but that was to aid in studying them. This amplification, something people not already familiar with the rings would not likely notice, had been designed to improve the experience and earn dollars.
Isaac responded to the automated query by saying he did not want to buy a second hour, and the gray mist of transition rose to blot out the enhanced glory. He closed his eyes as usual to avoid the visual shock, and after a moment opened them again, to find himself standing on the ebony sidewalk with its twinkling embedded stars. Galileo smiled at him, and Isaac knew he was going to ask for a recommendation. He turned away as the gatekeeper started to speak and walked back to Weary.
After three steps on the road, Isaac visualized his own address and issued the shift command. He closed his eyes for the brief flight above the crowd—the illusion of flying giving the operating program the time it needed to move him—and opened them again opposite his own gate. He hurried inside and to his study, taking his seat opposite Shepard ...
... Who opened his eyes when the recording ended.
They sat in silence for a moment, then Isaac asked, “Was I mistaken in thinking you would like the rings observation? If so, please modify and sharpen my guidelines.”
Shepard sighed. His expression must have betrayed his thoughts. He had recently incorporated new programs on reading body language and facial expressions into his avatar. These abilities were helpful when Isaac interacted with other autonomous virtual beings, especially actual humans traveling the Weary Road in personas. Only later had Shepard realized Isaac would use them on his creator as well. After some thought, he had decided not to exclude himself from the programming. These added abilities reduced the number of words needed when giving directions.
“Mixed emotions, Isaac. A truly beautiful immersion experience, and worth the low price. But they took too many liberties with reality. Most customers probably wouldn’t notice or care, but I do. Guess that’s what comes from being an engineer. A good experience needs to make you believe it could really happen. Otherwise it’s no better than a vivid dream.”
Isaac lifted the Meerschaum to his lips, took a long, slow pull, then removed it and said, “Noted."
Shepard nodded, then issued the retract command rather than integrate another experience. He wanted to think, difficult to do when under the cap. He sat up, removed the helmet, and placed it on its charger. Asumi, lying almost flat on the next relaxer, mouth open and breathing a little heavily, remained immersed in her long Japanese epic romance. The virtual being she occupied was not engaged just then in any function, such as eating, sex, or other vigorous activity, that required stimulating the body’s physiological responses.
The original Isaac Newton, the pure scientist, would have been offended by the color enhancement of the rings, and the physically impossible stationary satellite. But Shepard had to admit that the changes made the rings more beautiful to an observer, without actually altering them in any fundamental way.
But no stimulated experience could equal reality. Shepard remembered the thrill he had felt as a nine-year old, hearing the voice from a speaker high on a pole above the little seaside park, counting down to zero. His father had brought along a portable TV; he knew from watching past launches that the bottom of the Space Shuttle was not visible from this far away. In his mind’s eye Shepard again saw the sudden spurt of flames from the orbiter’s three main engines, and seconds later the huge increase in brightness when the two massive solids attached to the central propellant tank ignited. He would never forget turning away from the television to watch the actual vehicle rising above the launch tower, swiftly gaining speed as it climbed toward the sky, staying just ahead of the huge cloud of red and orange flames that seemed to be chasing it.
Shepard’s father had warned him earlier that he would hear nothing for a few seconds, that sound traveled much more slowly than sight. But it was still surprising to experience it for himself, to see the Space Shuttle far above the tower before the first low mutter of the three hydrogen-fueled engines reached them. That soft rumble grew into a deep, continuous booming roar when the solids fired, so loud and strong the solid ground seemed to shake beneath their feet.
Men and women were aboard that flying thunder, frail human bodies exposed to the threat of catastrophe, and instant death. Two Space Shuttles and their entire crews had been lost, one shortly after liftoff. Watching, he wondered how anyone could be brave enough to do that, to willingly put your life at risk. But American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts had done so, time and again.
And he wanted to join that elite company. He knew, watching the brightness of the flames abruptly diminish when the solid rocket boosters burned out, what he most wanted to do with his life.
But he also knew that was an impossible dream. In preparation for this trip he had read several books and watched TV documentaries on NASA and the American space program. In addition to all the other requirements, astronaut trainees had to be healthy, pass strict physicals. He stood watching the swiftly diminishing last Shuttle with a back bent slightly to the left. It had been only five months since the second operation on his deformed spine, and the second titanium brace installed to correct the distortions of scoliosis. He could walk reasonably well now, and few people noticed that his posture was never quite straight. The doctors had said that, with luck, the next operation would give him a stiff but fully functional spine, and he could expect to live a reasonably normal life.
But Shepard Hentson would never be an astronaut. Many possible careers were open to him. The one he wanted most was not. The genetic flaw of scoliosis had struck his grandfather, missed his father, gotten him, and now his biological son. The grandfather had lived all his life with a curved spine. Modern medicine had saved himself and Arturo from such a fate.
Looking back, Shepard felt amazed that his younger self had the maturity to realize life had already cheated him of what he most wanted, that he would have to settle for a different career. When he returned to the Kennedy Space Center as an adult, to watch even larger rockets send astronauts on their way to capture an asteroid, and later a landing party to Mars, the launches could not match the impression that first liftoff had made on a nine-year old boy.
Enthusiasm for human missions to the outer planets had waned, but not died. Societies and individuals could still push governments to allocate resources for the development of better rockets and spacecraft, support the infrastructure that underlay a robust space program. It was possible ... but only if gadflies like the HSF society kept up their work. Shepard decided he would attend the next meeting in his own persona.
In real life Shepard would never board a space capsule, ride the thunder of giant rocket engines into the sky, feel the pressure of three gravities pressing him into his seat, experience the exhilaration of weightlessness in orbit.
But in VR Shepard had been an astronaut on missions to the Moon and Mars, on two of the best of the several recreated experiences of those great adventures. Both waited in permanent storage, and he could call up either and live it again at any time he chose.
Shepard lifted his helmet off the charger and held it for a moment, looking up at the dimly lit ceiling. Then he slipped it over his head again and leaned back. When Weary appeared beneath his feet he took three steps, visualized Isaac’s address, and issued the shift command. He had time to experience today’s two remaining programs before coming off the road for the evening. 
Joseph Green is a charter member of SFWA. He has published five science fiction novels and more than 70 shorter works in “Analog,” “F&SF,” and several original anthologies. This is R-M Lillian’s second collaboration for “Perihelion.”
