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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Nominee, Year's Best Science Fiction Selection, Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: A space-faring woman and her intelligent ship travel through many dangers, often needing to rely on their ship's ability to "undo" the last few minutes of time by invoking a special form of backwards time travel.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2002

941 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [48 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [49 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [35 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [142 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [38 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [79 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [108 KB] , hiebook (KML) [118 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [65 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [31 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [40 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [68 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [56 KB]
Words: 11185
Reading time: 31-44 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The ship screamed. Its screens showed Mada that she was surrounded in threespace. A swarm of Utopian asteroids was closing on her, brain clans and mining DIs living in hollowed-out chunks of carbonaceous chondrite, any one of which could have mustered enough votes to abolish Mada in all ten dimensions.

"I'm going to die," the ship cried, "I'm going to die, I'm going to ...."

"I'm not." Mada waved the speaker off impatiently and scanned downwhen. She saw that the Utopians had planted an identity mine five minutes into the past that would boil her memory to vapor if she tried to go back in time to undo this trap. Upwhen, then. The future was clear, at least as far as she could see, which wasn't much beyond next week. Of course, that was the direction they wanted her to skip. They'd be happiest making her their great-great-great-grandchildren's problem.

The Utopians fired another spread of panic bolts. The ship tried to absorb them, but its buffers were already overflowing. Mada felt her throat tighten. Suddenly she couldn't remember how to spell luck, and she believed that she could feel her sanity oozing out of her ears.

"So let's skip upwhen," she said.

"You s-sure?" said the ship. "I don't know if ... how far?

"Far enough so that all of these drones will be fossils."

"I can't just ... I need a number, Mada."

A needle of fear pricked Mada hard enough to make her reflexes kick. "Skip!" Her panic did not allow for the luxury of numbers. "Skip now!" Her voice was tight as a fist. "Do it!"

Time shivered as the ship surged into the empty dimensions. In threespace Mada went all wavy. Eons passed in a nanosecond, then she washed back into the strong dimensions and solidified.

She merged briefly with the ship to assess damage. "What have you done?" The gain in entropy was an ache in her bones.

"I-I'm sorry, you said to skip so ...." The ship was still jittery.

Even though she wanted to kick its sensorium in, she bit down hard on her anger. They had both made enough mistakes that day. "That's all right," she said, "we can always go back. We just have to figure out when we are. Run the star charts."