Space Explorers Start Here

DOUGLAS HILL

Next time you're out on a clear night, looking up at the stars that fill the sky from horizon to horizon, think about this.

You're looking at the stars of our own galaxy. And in that galaxy, scientists believe, there are several million planets (which we can't see) that could support human life.

Not to mention millions of other planets possibly able to support life that isn't human.

And then, far beyond the edges of our galaxy, there are probably millions and millions of other galaxies. Each with millions of planets...

All that, the idea of the universe, might make you feel a bit small and unimportant. But if you're a sci­ence fiction reader (or writer), looking up at the night sky may give you another feeling as well.

It's a feeling that's called "a sense of wonder." Not just because the stars are wonderful, but because they make science fiction people start to wonder, to ask questions. What's out there, they (we) ask, on all those planets we can't see? More especially, who's out there?

If there are other planets with intelligent beings on them, what would those beings be like? Friendly and

Introduction

kind and funny, like ET? Or some sort of threatening horror, to remind you that "in space, no one can hear you scream"?

That kind of wondering comes naturally to science fiction fans. But they usually don't just ask what other worlds would be like. They go on to ask, what if those worlds are like this .. . or this ... or this ... ?

It's one of the first and oldest questions of the human imagination, and it's the basic question that gets every science fiction story started. What if. . .?

Of course science fiction asks that question about more than space and other worlds. Science fiction should really be called future fiction—and there will surely be a great many remarkable things besides space travel in any sort of future that's ahead of us.

But, all the same, the humans of the future probably will be in space, perhaps out among the farthest stars. It's simply the way we are, the way we've always been. All through our history, brave and curious people just had to wander off across the open sea, on clumsy canoes or flimsy rafts or leaky sailing ships, to have a look at what might lie over the horizon. In our future history to come, exactly the same sort of people will just have to fly off in rusty spaceships, for exactly the same reason.

It might well turn out for those future explorers that the worlds and creatures that they discover in space are not at all like anything in any science fiction story ever. So those explorers in their spaceships might smile and shake their heads if in their future they ever read the stories in this book.

If so, it won't matter. As yet, humans haven't gone out past the moon, and our unmanned ships have only just begun to venture out of the solar system. For now, we still have to do our exploring among the stars in other ways. In stories, in fictions.

But in fact, when we do go on those inner journeys, by means of science fiction, we'll always be starting from exactly the same place that those actual space explorers of the future will start.

From wondering what's out there? From asking what if..?

In their days to come, the future explorers will fire up their spaceships to go and look for the answers.

In our days, now, we simply fire up our imagina­tions—and open a book like this.

Happy exploring ...