Rajnar Vajra

“Her Scales Shine Like Music” by Rajnar Vajra is a moving science fiction novelette about an encounter and budding relationship between two aliens, one human, who are the only living creatures occupying a planet in deep space. The human is assigned to guard a valuable find, while his colleagues leave, to file a report with the company that hired them. Humble ice crystals high in the atmosphere often enrich sunsets on this cold world to glory.

November/December 2023 It’s probably hard to believe—if you read this in mid-October, when this issue goes on sale—that our next installment is already the November/December seasonal issue, but it is! (And if you think that’s weird: I’m writing this in late May!) So we begin to close-out 2023 with “Apollo in Retrograde,” a follow-up to Rosemary Claire Smith’s popular 2012 novelette, “The Next Frontier.” Time has marched on since we last saw Natalya Orlova, and so has the space race, after the...