Steal Across the Sky

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The aliens appeared one day, built a base on the moon, and put an ad on the internet:

“We are an alien race you may call the Atoners. Ten thousand years ago we wronged humanity profoundly.

We cannot undo what has been done, but we wish humanity to understand it.

Therefore we request twenty-one volunteers to visit seven planets to Witness for us.

We will convey each volunteer there and back in complete safety.

Volunteers must speak English. Send requests for electronic applications to witness@Atoners.com.”

At first, everyone thought it was a joke.

But it wasn’t.

This is the story of three of those volunteers, and what they found on Kular A and Kular B.

Reviews

“Probability Space offers the pleasures, delivered, with all Kress’s unfailing intelligence and skill, of lovers united (though not without the possibility of future heartbreak), villains defeated (though other villains remain available and willing), actions completed (as much as they can be in a world of flux), and puzzles solved (except for the stubborn ones buried in the human, or alien, heart).” —Locus

“She is so deft in supplying background information that I had no trouble understanding the characters and the desperate situation they find themselves in….I look forward to reading more about this metaphorically rich variant in the social contract.” —New York Times on

Probability Space

“Kress’s always excellent characters wrestle with a splendid array of puzzles and problems, human, alien, and scientific; another resounding success for this talented, sure-footed writer.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Probability Sun

About the Author

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-five books, including twenty-eight novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. She has also authored over 100 short stories. Her work has won six Nebulas (for Beggars in Spain, The Flowers of Aulit Prison, Out of All Them Bright Stars, Fountain of Age, The Erdmann Nexus, and Yesterday’s Kin); two Hugos (for Beggars in Spain and The Erdmann Nexus); a Sturgeon (for The Flowers of Aulit Prison); and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for Probability Space). Her work has been translated into Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Lithuanian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, Hungarian, and Klingon, none of which she can read. Much—though not all—of her later work concerns genetic engineering, on which she holds strong opinions. She has contributed stories on this topic to an anthology based on Microsoft’s Advanced Research division and to one created by the magazine Economist to showcase tech developments in the year 2050, among others.

In addition to writing, Nancy has taught creative writing at various venues around the country, including Clarion, and abroad, and for thirteen years, she and Walter Jon Williams co-taught Taos Toolbox, a two-week intensive SF-writing course.

Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Pippin, a very indulged Chihuahua.

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Books By Nancy Kress