by Timothy Zahn
First published 2025
Toby has done this twelve times before. His consciousness travels to distant stars, inhabits his clone body, fixes whatever needs fixing on the spaceship, then returns to Earth. The routine should take only hours. This time Toby wakes up in jail. Alien soldiers fill the other cells. An ethereal boundary traps their spirits while their physical bodies remain elsewhere, slowly dying. The jailers cannot see their prisoners, but their strange pet can. The creature resembles both cat and iguana, and it races around with manic energy. Toby must find a way to escape this ghostly prison. The alien soldiers may be allies or enemies. The pet may be key to freedom or another obstacle. His choices will determine not just his own fate, but humanity's place in a universe far stranger than anyone imagined. Time runs short as their distant bodies weaken.
Genres: science-fiction, adventure, mystery, thriller
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
32 pages · Kindle Edition · Amazon Original Stories