Sanctuary

By Allen Steele

Subjects: Alien contact, colony ship

Description: Imagine a world without plastic. Imagine a world where something in the environment eats plastic. Imagine arriving on such a world in a space ship. The human colonists of Tawcety don't have to imagine it—they have to survive it. After traveling light years to the Earth-like planet of Tau Ceti-e, they have only minutes to abandon ship before the native plastic-eating organism turns their space ship into a death trap of orbiting debris. Now they'll have to survive an 18th-century way of life with the forbearance of the not-exactly hostile—but definitely not friendly—natives.