Introduction -- Sleeping dogs / Joe Haldeman -- Castoff world / Kay Kenyon -- Petopia / Benjamin Crowell -- Futures in the memories market / Nina Kiriki Hoffman -- A preliminary assessment of the Drake Equation, being an excerpt from the memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee / Vernor Vinge -- About it / Terry Bisson -- Somadeva : a sky river sutra / Vandana Singh -- Under the moons of Venus / Damien Broderick -- All the love in the world / Cat Sparks -- At Budokan / Alastair Reynolds -- Graffiti in the Library of Babel / David Langford -- Steadfast Castle / Michael Swanwick -- How to become a Mars overlord / Catherynne M. Valente -- To hie from far Cilenia / Karl Schroeder -- The hebras and the demons and the damned / Brenda Cooper -- Penumbra / Gregory Benford -- The good hand / Robert Reed -- The Cassandra Project / Jack McDevitt -- Jackie's-boy / Steven Popkes -- Eight miles / Sean McMullen -- Ghosts doing the orange dance / Paul Park.