Cindy Ward has long been publishing fiction with
Wildside Press’s magazines and anthologies—so
we recruited her to acquire some of her favorite
authors and stories for Black Cat Weekly. Here
is her first selection—a fabulous tale by
the incomparable Nancy Kress!
THE DEEPS OF THE SKY,
by Elizabeth BearStormchases’ little skiff skipped and glided across the tropopause, skimming the denser atmosphere of the warm cloud-sea beneath, running before a fierce wind. The skiff’s hull was broad and shallow, supported by buoyant pontoons, the whole designed to float atop the heavy, opaque atmosphere beneath. Stormchases had shot the sails high into the stratosphere and good winds blew the skiff onward, against the current of the dark belt beneath.
Ahead, the vast ruddy wall of a Deep Storm lo
