Elector by Charles Stross                                                       Charles
                                                                                Stross’s
    Sirhan walks, shrouded in isolation, through the crowds gathered for
                                                                                previous
    the festival. The only people who see him are the chattering ghosts of
                                                                                novelette
    dead politicians and writers, deported from the inner system by order
                                                                                in this
    of the Vile Offspring. The great terraforming project is nearly
                                                                                series,
    complete, the festival planet dressed for a jubilee that will last almost
                                                                                "Nightfa
    twenty of its years–four pre-singularity lifetimes–before the
                                                                                ll," made
    Demolition. The green and pleasant plain stretches toward a horizon a
                                                                                the 2004
    thousand kilometers away, beneath a lemon-yellow sky. The air
                                                                                Hugo
    smells faintly of ammonia and the big spaces are full of small ideas: for
                                                                                final
    this is the last human planet in the solar system.
                                                                                ballot, as
                                                                                did his
    "Excuse me, are you real?" someone asks him in American-accented
                                                                                novel
    English.
                                                                                Singulari
    It takes a moment or two for Sirhan to disengage from his                   ty Sky.
    introspection and realize that he’s being spoken to. "What?" he asks,       His most
    slightly puzzled. Wiry and pale, Sirhan wears the robes of a Berber         recent
    goat-herd on his body and the numinous halo of a utility fog-bank           SF
    above his head: in his abstraction, he vaguely resembles a saintly          novel,
    shepherd in a post-singularity nativity play. "I say, what?" Outrage        Iron
    simmers at the back of his mind–is nowhere private?–but, as he              Sunrise
    turns, he sees that one of the ghost pods has split lengthwise across       (a sequel
    its white mushroom-like crown, spilling a trickle of left-over              to
    construction fluid and a completely hairless, slightly bemused-looking      Singulari
    Anglo male who wears an expression of profound surprise.                    ty Sky),
                                                                                was
    "I can’t find my implants," the Anglo male says, shaking his head. "But     publishe
    I’m really here, aren’t I? Incarnate?" He glances round at the other        d by Ace
    pods. "This isn’t a sim."                                                   books in
                                                                                July, and
    Sirhan sighs–another exile–and sends forth a daemon to interrogate
                                                                                his next
    the ghost pod’s abstract interface. It doesn’t tell him much–unlike
                                                                                novel, A
    most of the resurrectees, this one seems to be undocumented.
                                                                                Family
    "You’ve been dead. Now you’re alive. I suppose that means you’re
                                                                                Trade, is
    now almost as real as I am. What else do you need to know?"
                                                                                due out
                                                                                from Tor
    "When is–" The newcomer stops. "Can you direct me to the
                                                                                at the
    processing center?" he asks carefully. "I’m disoriented."
                                                                                end of
    Sirhan is surprised–most immigrants take a lot longer to figure that        Septemb
    out. "Did you die recently?" he asks.                                       er. This
                                                                                novella,
    "I’m not sure I died at all." The newcomer rubs his bald head, looking
                                                                                along
    puzzled. "Hey, no jacks!" He shrugs, exasperated. "Look, the
                                                                                with the
    processing center. . . ?"
                                                                                other
                                                                                stories in
    "Over there." Sirhan gestures at the monumental mass of the Boston
                                                                                this
    Museum of Science (shipped all the way from Earth a couple of
                                                                                series,
    decades ago to save it from the demolition of the inner system). "My
                                                                                will be
    mother runs it." He smiles thinly.
                                                                                publishe
                                                                                d by Ace
    "Your mother–" the newly resurrected immigrant stares at him
                                                                                as
    intensely, then blinks. "Holy shit." He takes a step toward Sirhan.
                                                                                Accelera
    "Wow, you’re–"
                                                                                ndo in