Escape Velocity: The Anthology Read Online Free PDF

something grabbed him round the middle. His appendages recoiled into his spots in his startle reflex. Oh no , thought Zuggyzu. Oh no!
           Zuggyzu felt himself lifted up, and carried along. He seemed to be in a human hand, but he didn't dare poke his eyes out to look.
           Pedro was relieved when Claire came back so quickly. She said, “Some joker's been playing around with the instruments and left this behind.” She lifted up something furry, but Pedro didn't bother to look closely. “And a Coke can I can recycle. Anyway, I fixed a loose cable, so let's try another exposure. How about Saturn?”
           Pedro moved the telescope again. Saturn blazed on the screen, and only needed a ten second exposure. Everyone stopped breathing while the data read out and displayed ... one pretty picture of Saturn. Pedro had never enjoyed the rings so much.
           Dr. Reid said, “So it's fixed. Ok, back to our galaxies, Pedro. Anne, delete the duff file. Pity it wasn't a message from the aliens. I could fancy the Nobel Prize.”
           “ Right,” said Claire, “I'll go hang this up in my car.”
          
    Zuggyzu felt sick. He had failed. He was trapped. He was going to die.
           The hand carried him, swaying in great arcs. They seemed to be going down steps. He heard a door creak, and then felt cold air flowing past, so he must be outside. Another door, metal this time, and the hand left him dangling in space. He heard the human leave.
           “ It's OK. She's gone,” said a voice. He poked his eyes out. A female of his species dangled beside him, along with something green.
           His companion said, “Are you the rescue team? I've been here for months.”
           “ But what do you eat?”
           “ This,” she said, pointing at the pine-tree car-freshener hanging beside them. It smelt delicious.
           “ Why have they hung us here?”
           “ I don't know.” Her spots turned a puzzled violet. “They call us fuzzy dice. They don't seem to realise that we're sentient at all.”
           Zuggyzu sighed. “No. Humans only see what they expect to see.”

A Smaller Step
     
    Michael Anderson
     
    The two astronauts waited patiently in the main corridor on the west side of the station, dressed in pressure suits and carrying helmets.
           One of them sat on a metal bench; the other stood at the door to the Ready Room and peered through the glass porthole, watching the activity inside.
           “ What are they doing?” asked Matthews.
           “ They have a lunar map spread out on the table. They're studying it and talking about something.”
           “ Talking about what?”
           “ Hell if I know, Rick. I don't speak Russian.” Walt Davis peeked through the window again.
           Matthews sipped from a small container of orange juice and shrugged. “They probably want to go on a rock hunt. This is the first time Russians have been allowed up to Lunar One since it opened. They don't have too many moon rocks.”
           Davis gave up spying on the cosmonauts and joined his partner on the bench. “Maybe we should take them over to site R-6. There's a good representation in that area. They can collect all the friggin’ rocks they want.”
           “ They don't look like geologists to me.”
           “ Who do you think they are, then?”
           “ Could be your typical black-bag types,” said Davis. “Probably sent up here to check out the base.”
           “ Should we do anything?”
           “ No. If they got this far, they passed the security clearances. Just keep an eye on them.”
           “ Good idea. Those two give me the creeps.”
           A few minutes later, the two Russians finally emerged from the Ready Room. They were dressed in dark blue coveralls with the initials of the Russian Federation stitched on the