“Shhhh,” they said.
Skye leaned in close to kiss away my tears. Oscin wrapped his arms around me, and performed the same service for my opposite cheek. Speaking in one voice, almost impossible to separate into its component parts, they rested twin foreheads against my temples and laughed their way through the necessary reassurances. “It’s all right, Counselor. This is more than enough for now.”
I sniffed, took each of them by a hand, and closed my eyes, wondering just why the hell life had to be so goddamned complicated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Has anyone, ever in the history of novels, read this page if they didn’t have some specific reason to consider themselves likely to be mentioned? (Voice of random reader: “Boy, that Joe Schmo, his third-grade English composition teacher, sure sounds like a nice guy!”) Just wondering.
In the meantime, various moments in the creation of this book were rendered easier thanks to the members of the South Florida Science Fiction Society writer’s workshop, including George Peterson, Chris Negelein, Wade Brown, Dave Dunn, Cliff Dunbar, Mitch Silverman, Brad Aiken, and the late Meir Pann, all of whom had helpful things to say about its composition. Thanks also to Michael Burstein, who tolerates being immortalized as the alien race Bursteeni. Thanks to Stanley Schmidt, who published the first appearance of Andrea Cort in ANALOG. Thanks to the late Julius Schwartz, whose DC Comics letter columns, back in the day, were a young boy’s first appearance in print. Thanks to Joey and Debbie Green, to David Goodman, to Elena and Ed Gaillard, to Janna Silverstein. Thanks to my agent Joshua Bilmes, for superhuman patience. Thanks to Diana Gill and Emily Krump. Thanks to Jack McDevitt and Rob Sawyer. Thanks to Harlan Ellison. Thanks to my webmaster Dina Pearlman, and thanks to the many denizens of my newsgroup on www.sff.net.
Love again to my lovely wife, Judi, who for some odd reason persists in believing in me. I dunno why. But I sure as hell hope she never stops.
Adam-Troy Castro
About the Author
ADAM-TROY CASTRO’s short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards. He lives in Florida with his wife, Judi, and their four cats. Emissaries from the Dead is his first original novel.
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By Adam-Troy Castro
The Andrea Cort Novels
EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD. Copyright © 2008 by Adam-Troy Castro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Microsoft Reader January 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-165827-3
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