Walking to Aldebaran — Adrian Tchaikovsky

I'M LOST. I'M SCARED. AND THERE'S SOMETHING HORRIBLE IN HERE.


My name is Gary Rendell. I'm an astronaut. When they asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “astronaut, please!” I dreamed astronaut, I worked astronaut, I studied astronaut. I got lucky; when a probe exploring the Oort Cloud found a strange alien rock and an international team of scientists was put together to go and look at it, I made the draw.


I got even luckier. When disaster hit and our team was split up, scattered through the endless cold tunnels, I somehow survived.


Now I'm lost, and alone, and scared, and there's something horrible in here.


Lucky me.


Lucky, lucky, lucky.


A new standalone novella by the Arthur C Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time.