In our first story this month, Liz Coleman’s “Join,” a man who has always felt alienated returns home to visit his family on Earth, and brings with him part of his new family—a newborn, parasitic alien.

Most of the universe is the regions between galaxies, yet no stories are ever set in that vast emptiness. In “Bubbles” by David Brin, we get to know Serena, a lonely entity traveling the space between galaxies.

D. Thomas Minton’s “Thief of Futures” follows Eshram Kingston through a future Kuala Lumpur, where he is hired for the dirty business of stealing the future of a child.

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s story, “The Island of the Immortals,” a traveler takes a vacation to an island where immortality might have been achieved. And it is—but at what price?