Chapter One

The Muffin Migration

Deep-space explorers struggling to survive on a new world. Bizarre alien life-forms, sometimes friendly, oftentimes not. Issues of survival, interpersonal conflict, malfunctioning equipment, the impossibility of rescue in the event of harrowing circumstances-all these are tropes of the adventure science-fiction story that existed even before the arrival of Amazing Stories in 1926. That they are old, even hoary, does not automatically render any of them invalid or useless as plot points in the telling of a tale. Or as John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding/ Analog, used to prefer to say when he found a good old-fashioned story that he liked, "I think you've got a pretty good yarn here."

A good story is a good story. I see the proof of it in the faces of very young readers whenever the occasion arises for me to read to them. They respond to the same elements as their ancestors have down through the millennia. Danger, new discoveries, the need to cooperate in order to survive-these are fundamentals of adventure storytelling that have existed since Ur-storyteller Norg first enthralled listeners around the cave fire with tales of what really lay behind those mysterious lights that appeared in the sky every night.

Today we look up at those very same stars with a good deal more understanding of their true nature. But our science is not yet all-encompassing, our knowledge far from absolute. Those stars still hold many mysteries, and where there is mystery there is always room for adventure. We know now for a certainty that around those stars orbit other worlds. Perhaps some that are much like our own. On those planets we can yet hope to expe