“Vortex” by Gregory Benford — Astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off.

“RedKing” by Craig DeLancey — A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally.

“Number Nine Moon” by Alex Irvine — Illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies.

“Of the Beast in the Belly” by C.W. Johnson — A young girl’s thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet.

“The Seventh Gamer” by Gwyneth Jones — A writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds.

“Chasing Ivory” by Ted Kosmatka  — A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia.

“Fieldwork” by Shariann Lewitt — A volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences.

“Seven Birthdays” by Ken Liu — A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons.

“The Visitor from Taured” by Ian R. MacLeod — A cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses.

“Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was” by Paul McAuley — The citizens of a small town on a “Jackaroo” planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts.

“Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee” by Alastair Reynolds — A graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.