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Finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Investigator Andrea Cort faces a murder suspect who has three bodies. Andrea's own lover, the Porrinyards, has two bodies, so she's the perfect person to ferret out the truth.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, April 2011.

On a savage backwater world, the last ragged survivors of an expedition to hunt down the infamous war criminal known as The Beast Magrison set off into an inhospitable wilderness in search of the alien village that may be sheltering this beast. The hunters are aliens from two different species, the village is inhabited by strange aliens of yet another species, and Magrison himself is no sterling advertisement for humanity. Who's human in this situation? The answer may surprise and upset you.

This novella from acclaimed SF writer Adam-Troy Castro explores the fate of the dread Magrison. Readers can find out more about the world that spawned Magrison by tracking down his Andrea Cort novels, Emissaries from the Dead and The Third Claw of God.

This story is included in the collection Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories (2014).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

AnLab Readers' Choice Award-winning Novella

On the hostile home-world of the Caith, Andrea Cort has been assigned the case of a murderer who's been condemned to a horrible death. All legal options have been exhausted, but the Caith offer a rarely-used alternative to execution, one that purports to ensure that the accused will never break the law again. Alas, it's not so much another chance at life, but deliverance into a hell far worse than mere death...

Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

Includes bonus Novella Tasha's Fail-Safe (2015):

Once, she and Andrea Cort hated each other. Now the victim of a savage assassination attempt by a traitor to the Confederacy, she lies in an unresponsive state, the identity of her assailant locked inside her head. Can Andrea penetrate a vital secret she never even knew existed?

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1997. The story is included in the collections An Alien Darkness (2000) and Tangled Strings (2003).

Sturgeon and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2003. The story is also included in the collection Tangled Strings (2003).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

EMIL SANDBURG.

Serial killer. His victims were all Catarkhans, specimens of a closed-off sentient race incapable of sensing the great atrocities he committed against them. Prosecuting him by their laws is going to be a problem.

Enter ANDREA CORT.

Misanthrope. Genius. Controversial figure. Aware even as she takes the case that other alien forces intend to use her past against her, and against humanity. Unaware that its implications will change the course of her life...

Nebula-nominated and AnLab Readers' Choice Award-winning Novella

Andrea Cort. War criminal. Genius. Outcast. Heroine.

Sent to the home-world of the Zinn, a once-powerful race now on the long path to extinction, she's expected to sign the approval for a simple prisoner transfer - but why are the Zinn so eager to take custody of an unremarkable human murderer? What brutal crime is being planned against an innocent? What hidden agenda threatens to topple the balance of power?

This is the earliest adventure of Andrea Cort, heroine of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel, Emissaries From The Dead. This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011.

Two murders have occurred on One One One, an artificial ecosystem created by the universe's dominant AIs to house several engineered species, including a violent, sentient race of sloth-like creatures. Under order from the Diplomatic Corps, Counselor Andrea Cort has come to this cylinder world where an indentured human community hangs suspended high above a poisoned, acid atmosphere. Her assignment is to choose a suitable homicide suspect from among those who have sold their futures to escape existences even worse than this one. And no matter where the trail leads her she must do nothing to implicate the hosts, who hold the power to obliterate humankind in an instant.

But Andrea Cort is not about to hold back in her hunt for a killer. For she has nothing to lose and harbors no love for her masters or fellow indentures. And she herself has felt the terrible exhilaration of taking life....

Andrea Cort became a "war criminal" at the age of eight when an unexplained darkness invaded her soul.

Now, decades later, the Devil is calling her.

Employed by the Diplomatic Corps but secretly aiding the AI masters of the universe, Counselor Andrea Cort despises the powerful Bettelhines-unrepentant death merchants who have prospered from the annihilation of civilizations. Now curiosity compels her to answer a cryptic summons to their home world, where the only law is Bettelhine law. But a murder attempt greets her arrival at Xana's orbital entry port-and far graver peril awaits aboard the elevator transport meant to carry Andrea to the planet's surface.

Trapped miles above Xana-surrounded by suspicious Bettelhines, their slavishly loyal retainers . . . and a corpse liquefied by a 15,000-year-old weapon-Andrea must unmask an assassin or die an equally hideous death. But the true reason for her summons-and sordid secrets weaving through her own dark past-threaten to destroy Andrea Cort more completely than the Claw of God.

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Welcome to Greeve. A sun-drenched backwater world, where people earn their keep from the sea. It's nowhere important, far from any of Mankind's petty politics and intrigues. Few of its residents are more familiar than old John, who's been fishing its waters for decades. He keeps to himself, mostly. Nobody really knows him. No one knows where he came from. But how dangerous can he be?

Then another off-worlder settles in, with no apparent goal other than devoting the rest of his days to local drugs and local women. Old John is horrified to recognize him at once. How dangerous can Old John be? As dangerous as any man alive...

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2015. Read this novella for free at the author's website (PDF).

Finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

The woman in the pod has just asked him:"How long do you need me to have been your wife?" Draiken considers the contorted syntax. Not how long would you like to be married, or how long are we supposed to have been married, but how long do you need me to have been your wife, a construction that only fits this one situation, a contract to lie. And this lie will help the former spy get revenge on his past masters.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2016. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Draiken and Thorne, having both been imprisoned and tortured by the machiavellian organization for which they once worked, now seek vengeance by means of destroying their former employers. But in order to obtain information necessary to achieve their goal, Draiken agrees to be locked into a prison from which there is ony one way to escape; if he succeeds in solving the mystery of how to escape, he will win the release of all the prisoners and the information he requires. But the prison cell has technology which distorts his senses, making an escape seem impossible.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January/February 2018. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

finalist for the AnLab Reader's Choice Award

Still on his path of seeking the destruction of his former employers, Draiken engages in surveillance of prosecutor Andrea Cort, whom he believes has ties to his targets. But she is aware that he's up to something, and he may end up a casualty of her own machinations.

This story was originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2018. Read this novella for free at Analog (PDF).

Draiken, with Stang's help, is on a mission to capture a deadly enforcer/killer who works for a crime boss on a space station. But who are the mysterious clients waiting for delivery of the hostage on a nearby asteroid, and why does Draiken believe that the killer will be willing to cooperate with him?

This novella was a Finalist for the Analog Readers' Awards and was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in January/February 2019.

Read this story for free at Analog.

Analog Anlab Readers Award Finalist Novella

Far-future espionage operative John Draiken, after a long career, instead of retiring to enjoy the fruits of his high-paying but brutal job, has decided that his previous employer needs to be wiped out for its evil work in mind control on the galaxy's populace. His recently-acquired associate and companion, Delia Stang, is hanging out on a backwater hellhole planet for seemingly no reason - but where is Draiken? And if he's dead, how will his vengeance be fulfilled?

This novella originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, September-October 2020. Read it for free at the publisher's website.