Stories from Asimov's have won 41 Hugos and 24 Nebula Awards, and our editors have received 18 Hugo Awards for Best Editor. Asimov's was also the 2001 recipient of the Locus Award for Best Magazine. Current issue also available in various electronic formats at Halo by Charles Stross Charles Stross The asteroid is running Barney: it sings of love on the high lives in frontier, of the passion of matter for replicators, and its friendship Edinburg for the needy billions of the Pacific Rim. "I love you," it croons in Amber? s ears as she seeks a precise fix on it: "let me give you a h, big hug. . . ." Scotland, along A fraction of a light-second away, Amber locks a cluster of with a cursors together on the signal, trains them to track its Doppler couple of shift, and reads off the orbital elements. "Locked and loaded," cats, she mutters. The animated purple dinosaur pirouettes and twenty or prances in the middle of her viewport, throwing a diamond-tipped swizzle-stick overhead. Sarcastically: "big hug so time! I got asteroid!" Cold gas thrusters bang somewhere behind computers her in the interstage docking ring, prodding the cumbersome farm , and a ship round to orient on the Barney rock. She damps her very enthusiasm self-consciously, her implants hungrily sequestrating patient surplus neurotransmitter molecules floating around her synapses partner. before reuptake sets in: it doesn? t do to get too excited in free His novel, flight. But the impulse to spin handstands, jump and sing, is still "The there: it? s her rock, and it loves her, and she? s going to bring it Atrocity to life. Archive," The workspace of Amber? s room is a mass of stuff that is probably doesn? t belong on a space ship. Posters of the latest currently Lebanese boy-band bump-and-grind through their glam routines; being tentacular restraining straps wave from the corners of her serialized sleeping bag, somehow accumulating a crust of dirty clothing in from the air like a giant inanimate hydra. (Cleaning robots seldom Spectrum dare to venture inside the teenager? s bedroom.) One wall is SF? a repeatedly cycling through a simulation of the projected construction cycle of Habitat One, a big fuzzy sphere with a Scottish glowing core (that Amber is doing her bit to help create): three or SF four small pastel-colored plastic kawai dolls stalk each other magazine. across its circumference with million-kilometer strides. And her Toast, a father? s cat is curled up between the aircon duct and her collection costume locker, snoring in a high-pitched tone. of his short Amber yanks open the faded velour curtain that shuts her room off from the rest of the hive: "I? ve got it!" she shouts. "It? s all stories, mine! I rule!" It? s the sixteenth rock tagged by the orphanage so is far, but it? s her first, and that makes it special. She bounces off available the other side of the commons, surprising one of Oscar? s cane from toads? which should be locked down in the farm, it? s not clear Cosmos how it got here? and the audio repeaters copy the incoming Books signal, noise-fuzzed echoes of a thousand fossilized infant? s , him in the canteen. and the author "Well, yeah!" She tosses her head, barely concealing a smirk of ? s next delight at her own brilliance. She knows it isn? t nice, but Mom is novel, a long way away, and Dad and Step-Mom don? t care about Festival of that kind of thing. "I? m brilliant, me!" she announces. "Now Search Now: blended asimovssciencef To contact us about editorial matters, send an email to Asimov's SF. Questions regarding subscriptions should be sent to our subscription address. If you find any Web site errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning, please send it to the webmaster. Copyright © 2003 Dell Magazines. All Rights Reserved Worldwide