“It Holds Her in the Palm of One Hand” by Lowry Poletti

On Miphre, a planet hardly larger than a moon, jagged mountaintops stab above the cloud cover and harbor small ecosystems in the palms of their hands: rock eels and ribbon mosses and seabirds with rodents clutched to their breasts, each one nestled between those stony fingers.

“The perfect nesting spot for gastor,” the captain of The Cyclops Cradles Her Sheep said when they arrived on board a few hours ago. “It’s basically a buffet for them.”

Sun tilted her head to the side. “Gastor don’t nest.”

“I’m sorry?” The captain’s reply was concurrent with a pointed look from Dossa Nirav, Sun’s mentor.

“They’re ovoviviparous.” She paused and reluctantly added, “They retain their eggs until they hatch internally. Then they come planet-side to refill their crops after the birth. They don’t make nests.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

Now Sun watches the clouds with a mug of Earl Gray cupped in both hands. The observation is interrupted by the sound of the ship’s engines.

Please visit Lightspeed Magazine to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the February 2025 issue, which also features short fiction by Andrew Dana Hudson, Seoung Kim, Eugenia Triantafyllou, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Kristina Ten, David DeGraff, and more. You can wait for this month’s contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $4.99, or subscribe to the ebook edition here.

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