Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction (2001), edited by Al Sarrantonio. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 7 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Karhryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection The Wall of America (2008).

Security through physicality. Security through redundancy. Security through obscurity.

How do immortal artificial intelligences defend themselves? With an air gap. With a security force that has no connection to anything that can harm them. With a young woman, trained to fight and to die who, along with her cohort, must keep them safe. But in Xanadu things don't always go as planned...

Read the full story for free at Tor Reactor

The Golden People

Planeteers, go home!

The planet was called Golden in honor of the planeteer whose ship had crashed there years before. It was an Earth-type world, with humanoid natives, and other creatures that were--something less.

Or maybe more, for almost all of the planet was covered by an invisible Field which blanked radar, damped the power of the Earthmen's stunners, immobilized their robots and caused watches to run backward. No machine or weapon more complicated than the lever or knife could work inside the Field.

Which meant that the Space Force had to revert to the primitive to explore the world of Golden. And obviously, someone or something hidden in the vast reaches of the planet had planned it that way...

Exile From Xanadu

Regan's last waking memory was of the clamor of alarm bells--a sound that lasted a bare second before it dissolved and was lost in a holocaust of roaring noise and flame. He never did recall the reflex action that flung his screaming body towards the survival capsule.

When he awoke at last, there was nothing but blackness, yet the pain was gone. His body was compressed and comforted in an all-embracing nest of yielding softness that was like a vast mother-womb, so close did it enfold him. He moved slightly, and at once a voice said, "Can you hear me?" In a panic Regan tried to open his eyes, but could not. With dread, he lay very still, waiting. For the voice was not human...

Table of Contents:

• Xanadu--Wouldn't You? - essay by Jane Yolen
• The Poacher - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Lucy Maria - short story by Lisa Tuttle
• Unnalash - short story by Tanith Lee
• Return - short story by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
• Gravity - poem by Pat Schneider
• To Scale - short story by Nancy Kress
• The Stone Girl - short story by Elise Matthesen
• Attention Shoppers - poem by Steven Brust
• Jaguar Lord - short story by Anna Kirwan-Vogel
• Pale Moon - short story by Frances Stokes Hoekstra
• The Ring at Yarrow - poem by Jane Yolen
• Still Life with Woman and Apple - short story by Lesléa Newman
• The Perfectly Round Bagel - short story by Robert Abel
• Owlswater - novella by Pamela Dean
• After Centuries - poem by Donna J. Waidtlow
• Passage - short story by Gardner Dozois
• The Hound of Merin - novelette by Eleanor Arnason
• It Comes Lightly Out of the Sea - poem by William Stafford
• A Boy and His Wolf: Three Versions of a Fable - short story by John Morressy
• Time Travel, the Artifact, and a Famous Historical Personage - short story by Will Shetterly
• Baby Face - short story by Esther M. Friesner
• The Pale Thin God - short story by Mike Resnick

Table of Contents:

• Xanadu--After You - essay by Jane Yolen
• The Fifth Squashed Cat - novelette by Megan Lindholm
• Just Another Dragon-Slaying - short story by Vivian Vande Velde
• Laurel, Again - poem by Carol Jane Bangs
• In the Drought - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Young Woman in a Garden - novelette by Delia Sherman
• from The Book of the Dead Man (#2) - poem by Marvin Bell
• The Little Tailor and the Elves - short story by Barbara Hambly
• Metamorphosis - short story by Milbre Burch
• Shell Story - short story by George Mackay Brown
• Orkney Lament - poem by Jane Yolen
• Raven, Jade and Light - short story by Richard Kearns
• while i was in the woods - poem by Susan Solomont
• Desert Angel - short story by P M F Johnson and Sandra Rector
• The Hell Gamblers - short story by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
• Japanese Fan with Waterfall - poem by Carol Edelstein
• A Most Obedient Cat - short story by Tappan King
• The Dovrefell Cat - short story by Diane Duane
• The Newcomer - poem by T. Winter-Damon and Thomas Wiloch
• The Executioner - short story by Rose Kremers
• Bloodtide - short story by Mary A. Turzillo
• Tale of the Crone Goddess - (1988) - poem by Bruce Boston
• Transmutations - short story by Patricia A. McKillip
• Last Day in May Grammar Lesson - poem by Barbara Van Noord
• The Spinner - short story by Martha Soukup
• Weaver's Cottage - poem by Terri Windling
• Oldthings - short story by Will Shetterly

Table of Contents:

• Xanadu and Porlock, Too - essay by Jane Yolen
• Dairy Queen - short story by Shira Daemon
• The Harmony - short story by Paul Levinson
• Residual Flight - short story by Richard Rowand
• Recent Collections - poem by Ruth Berman
• Mollusk Dreams - short story by Nancy Etchemendy
• Up the Mountain - short story by Sue Young Wilson
• Fortune Tellers - poem by L. A. Taylor
• East of the Sun and West of the Moon - novelette by Claire Parman Brown
• Witch Watch - poem by Anna Kirwan-Vogel
• The Apple Golem - (1995) - short story by Bruce Holland Rogers
• Clay - short story by Linda Mannheim
• Charon's Wife - poem by Julie Kinney
• Nvumbi - short story by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem
• Tomorrow Never Knows - short story by Mark Garland
• Xanadu - poem by Christine Crow
• The Man Who Loved the River - short story by Jo Clayton
• The Night Journey - poem by Terri Windling
• A Report Concerning the Predator Population in the Northern Part of the Forest - short story by Jeremy Beckett
• The Champion - short story by Tanith Lee
• Old Woman Who Created Life - short story by Josepha Sherman
• Nettie's Garden - poem by Elise Matthesen
• King of Crows - short story by Midori Snyder
• Swan/Princess - poem by Jane Yolen
• The Lizard Queen - short story by Michelle Stone
• Arthur - poem by Brenda D. Crank
• Guinevere - poem by Brenda D. Crank
• Jo's Hair - short story by Susan Palwick
• The Hunter and the Stag - novelette by Astrid Julian
• Mothballs - short story by Marvin Bell
• Armdale Rotary Horse - short story by Malcolm Beckett
• Word Drift - short story by Jeanette Ingold
• The Asgard Philharmonic Plays Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture - poem by Lawrence Schimel
• Gil - short story by Dan Perez
• Gord and Fnord Go to the Zoo - short story by Charles Von Rospach
• Calliope - (1993) - short story by Micole Sudberg
• Your Essential Unsung Hero - short story by Nancy Kilpatrick