Crossing the Line (40 page)

“What exactly?”

Nevyan cocked her head, taking in Aras and Bennett, who were just sitting on a low wall and not talking.

“I'm going to find my friend,” said Nevyan. “And I'm going to bring her home.”

Look for the third volume in The Wess'har Wars, coming soon.

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Charlie Allery, Debbie Button, Bryan Boult and Chris “TK” Evans, for thorough and critical reading; to Dr. Ian Tregillis and Mark Allery for technical advice; to Dr. Farah Mendlesohn for cheerleading; to my editor, Diana Gill, never fazed by wild plot changes; and to my father, George, who taught me the value of thorough preparation.

About the Author

K
AREN
T
RAVISS
is a former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist. She's now a political public relations manager and has also been a press officer for the police, an advertising copywriter, and a journalism lecturer. She has served in both the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. A graduate of the Clarion science fiction and fantasy workshop, her work has appeared in Asimov's,
Realms of Fantasy
, and
On Spec
. She lives in Wiltshire, England.

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Resounding praise
for the miraculous debut novel by
KAREN TRAVISS
CITY OF PEARL

“[A] satisfyingly complex tale of human/alien interaction on a colony planet which, at times, evokes the earlier moral fables of Le Guinâ¦at other times the revisionist critique of expanding human empiresâ¦and at times the union of romance with SF that we see in the work of Catherine Asaro or Lois McMaster Bujold. The fact that Traviss manages to keep these sometimes conflicting modes in balance, mostly through her strong sense of character, suggests that she's a writer worth watching.”

Locus

“In Shan Frankland, Karen Traviss has created a tough, interesting, believable characterâ¦
City of Pearl
is science fiction with teeth.”

Gregory Frost, author of
Fitcher's Brides

“A fascinating cast of characters involved in a richly complex situationâ¦Her people are convincingly realâ¦Traviss has created a vivid assortment of alien races, each with distinctive characteristics and agendasâ¦She brings a rare combination of insight and experience that will greatly contribute to our field.”

James Alan Gardner, author of
Expendable

Books by
Karen Traviss

T
HE
W
ORLD
B
EFORE

C
ROSSING THE
L
INE

C
ITY OF
P
EARL

Copyright

This book 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.

CROSSING THE LINE. COPYRIGHT
Â© 2004
BY KAREN TRAVISS
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-booksâ¢.

ePub edition June 2005 ISBN 9780061740985

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