On one of her frequent trips into deep space, Katmer Al-Shei, owner of one of the smaller information companies, is accused of smuggling artificial intelligence. When Al-Shei tries to clear her name, she uncovers conspiracy after conspiracy, all set against the backdrop of a looming war.

    A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined.

    Stories by Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, Lois McMaster Bujold, CJ Cherryh and more. — Meet the Women of Futures Past: from Grand Master Andre Norton and the beloved Anne McCaffrey to some of the most popular SF writers today, such as Lois McMaster Bujold and CJ Cherryh. The most influential writers of multiple generations are found in these pages, delivering lost classics and foundational touchstones that shaped the field.Contents: * Acknowledgments * Introduction: Invisible Women by Kristine Kathryn Rusch * The Indelible Kind / by Zenna Henderson (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1968) * The Smallest Dragonboy / by Anne McCaffrey (Science Fiction Tales, 1973) * Out of All Them Bright Stars / by Nancy Kress (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March, 1985) * Angel / by Pat Cadigan (Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, June 1987) * Cassandra / by C.J. Cherryh (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1978) * Shambleau / by C.L. Moore (Weird Tales, November, 1933) * The Last Days of Shandakor / by Leigh Brackett (Startling Stories, April 1952) * All Cats Are Gray / by Andre Norton (Fantastic Universe, August/September 1953) * Aftermaths / by Lois McMaster Bujold (Far Frontiers: The Paperback Magazine of Science Fiction and Speculative Fact, Volume V, Spring 1986) * The Last Flight of Doctor Ain / by James Tiptree, Jr. (Galaxy, March 1969) * Sur / by Ursula K. Le Guin (The New Yorker, February 1, 1982) * Fire Watch / by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 15, 1982) * About the Editor.