Synners

Published bv HarperCollins Publishers 1991

First published in the USA by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1991 

Copyright © 1991 Pat Cadigan

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBNO 246 13755 X

Set in Caledonia

Printed in Great Britain by Hartnolls Ltd. Bodmin,Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication mav be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in anv form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This one is for Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper, who got me going on the original idea.

For fifteen years of late nights, wild parties, talking dirty, and all the other stuff that makes life worth living (I've got your dedication right here)

I could not have gotten through this project without the support of Mike and Rosa Banks. Besides sharing the broad range of his technical knowledge of computers and nets, Mike dropped everything to recover thirty pages of text that a failing disk drive had chomped into garbage, while Rosa dosed me with sanity, wisdom, and several jokes I'd never heard before. You had to be there – I'm grateful they were.

I am also grateful to Ralph Roberts for graciously allowing me an advance look at his book Computer Viruses (Compute!) at the very moment I needed it most.

A thank-you to Pat LoBrutto for his patience and care as an editor; to Shawna McCarthy for believing in the first place; and to Betsy Mitchell for getting me home in one piece. Also to Lou Aronica for consideration and good advice.

And many, many thanks to: Ellen Datlow (for Manhattan after dark, among other things), my agent Merrilee Heifetz, Bruce and Nancy Sterling, Lew and Edie Shiner, Barb Loots, Howard "Uncle Chowder" Waldrop, Sherry Gershon Gottlieb, Jim Loehr, Fred Duarte and Karen Meschke, Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter and Sean, Lisa Tallarico (for the pump), Jeannie Hund (for knowing), Ed Graham, Barry Malzberg (for the fun part), Kathy McAndrew Griffin (for phrasing the coin), Suzanne Heins (for sushi lunches), The Nova Expressions, Robert Haas, Mark Ziesing, Andy "Sahib" Watson, Tom Abellera (for Godel), Eileen Gunn and John Berry and Angela (for tower accommodations), Patricia "Spike" Parsons, Alan Wexelblat and Jennie Faries, the Delphi Wednesday-Nighters, the Rochester, NY Creative FIST, Malcolm Edwards, James Gunn, Paul Novitski (for food and ferryboats), Gary Knight and Kim Fairchild (for letting me play with their toys), my inlaws George and Marguerite Fenner, my mother Helen S. Kearney, and my husband Arnie Fenner and our son Bobby (for everything).