The Merchant of Venus keeps two sets of books. One is for the League of Planets customs inspectors. This is the story told by the other one — a single transaction that the Merchant has never been able to explain, involving a trade made with someone who shouldn't have existed yet.
Docking Log: Intergalactic Space Port 77 A vessel has arrived at Space Port 77 bearing registry markings from a civilization the League of Planets has no record of. The ship is intact. The crew is gone. The cargo hold is full of clocks, all stopped at the same time. Write the intake report and what follows.
Sonny Eclipse, Off the Clock. Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café closes at midnight. Sonny Eclipse keeps playing until 2 AM. Write the story of the small, strange audience that gathers in the dark café after the tourists are gone, and what Sonny performs only for them.
The First Flicker At 0300 hours, every lamp, neon coil, and reactor node in the Metropolis went dark simultaneously — for exactly four seconds. The grid shows no anomaly. No one filed a report. Write the account of the one technician who was watching the board when it happened, and what they decided not to put in writing.