Strange Horizons, July 20, 2015
Reviewed by Nicky Magas
Felockati sits rooted to the rocks in the depths of an all encompassing, alien ocean in Karen Myer’s “The Visitor,” waiting for something interesting to float by his notice. He has had infrequent contact with the rest of the world since his rooting, and news from the free-moving wanderers or just anything interesting to break the monotony of his days would be welcome. When an unfamiliar object breaks the surface and crashes down into the unreachable abyss, Felockati knows his wish has been granted. Something new and exciting has made its way to his part of the ocean, some animal he’s never seen before. In fact, the more he examines it, the more questions surface as to its origins. More exciting that anything else, though, is the strange animal’s ability to understand him and communicate in return.
This is one of the very few science fiction stories I’ve read in which the (presumably) human visitor interacts peacefully with an alien race. Myer’s flexibility to write a story in which the conflict does not stem from aggression between humans and aliens comes from putting the point of view first of all with the alien, and secondly by making the primary problem of the plot be Felockati’s inability to move. Felockati (who appears to be a sort of octopus/anemone hybrid) laments his rooted life and remembers fondly when he was young and free-floating, able to travel the ocean wherever he pleased. When his visitor, Kat’ina, appears to show him the world above the surface, above the atmosphere, beyond even his own star system, Felockati is made much more conscious of his inability to follow Kat’ina even as far as the surface, where her expedition team waits. Instead, the two share a brief exchange of their respective homes in a touching first contact story, which I feel is much more to the heart of human space exploration than are the stories about intergalactic war and conquest.