ALPHA
 Charon is dead.
Long live Charon!
The creator of a proscribed network of rogue AIs and androids has been destroyed, his multiple copies deleted. Except for one. Alpha: a female android who seems to possess a conscience–so much so that her execution is delayed. Big mistake. Now on the run, and with her former captor as hostage, Alpha moves to activate a long dormant master-plan – a plan that may well include the end of humanity and the violent transformation of the world as we know it!
A stand-alone sequel to Nebula Award winner Catherine Asaro’s moving cyber-thriller, Sunrise Alley.
Cover Art by Alan Pollack
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 Hardcover
Paperback
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
First printing, September 2006
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Asaro, Catherine.
Alpha / Catherine Asaro.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2081-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-2081-3
1. Androids—Fiction. 2. Robots—Fiction. 3. Intelligence service—United States—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.S29A79 2006
813'.54—dc22
2006015236
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2081-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-2081-3
Copyright© 2006 by Catherine Asaro
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
https://www.baen.com
Electronic version by Baen Books
https://www.baen.com
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To my cousins John and Joe
And their families
With love
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following readers for their much appreciated input. Their comments have made this a better book. Any mistakes that remain were induced by a space warp that twisted the fabric of the universe in the vicinity of the manuscript.
To Jeri Smith-Ready, Aly Parsons, John Hemry, Bud Sparhawk, Deborah Wheeler, and David Dalrymple, for their excellent insights on the full manuscript; and to Aly's Writing Group for their sharp critiques of scenes: Aly Parsons, Simcha Kuritzky, Connie Warner, Al Carroll, J. G. Huckenpöhler, John Hemry, and Bud Sparhawk.
Special thanks to my much appreciated editor, Toni Weisskopf; to my publisher, Jim Baen; to Marla Ainspan, Hank Davis, Danielle Turner, and all the other fine people at Baen who did such a fine job making this book possible; to my excellent agent, Eleanor Wood, of Spectrum Literary Agency; and to Binnie Braunstein for her enthusiasm and hard work on my behalf.
Heartfelt thanks to the shining lights in my life, my husband, John Cannizzo, and my daughter, Cathy, for their love and support.
Baen Books by Catherine Asaro
Sunrise Alley
Alpha
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