By Deborah Teramis Christian
First Published: 1996
Reva is an assassin for hire, using her ability to navigate different versions of “now” to do her hits. When she chooses a singular timeline, other possibilities fade, and the reality she has chosen becomes her “mainline”. She is a deadly ghost, untraceable and uncatchable.

But don’t tell that to Yavobo: a bounty hunter from a fearsome alien race, he is a natural-born killing machine, and Reva has slain his client. With a blood oath of vengeance to fulfill, Yavobo is on the elusive assassin’s trail—but no one has beaten her yet. She fears no one, for everything is transient to her, and she can leave any danger behind as easily as breathing.

At least, she could before she met Lish, a young smuggler who reminds her too much of herself. When their friendship deepens, Reva decides—for now—to stay in that one Mainline, where relationships suddenly matter and the smuggler needs her help to clinch the biggest deal of her life. If the assassin moves on, she risks losing her “real” friend: the version of Lish she has grown close to in that timeline, and others who are part of their team. With criminal intrigues unfolding around them, Reva is committed to stay, pitting her wits against foes in a way that is refreshingly different from her usual hit-and-fade routine.

It is a novel thing, to be needed by others. Wanted, even. But it may not matter in the end, because Yavobo will not be stopped, and he is getting ever closer to his quarry in this Mainline.