Sanction by Elizabeth Bear

Sometimes the greatest sin is survival.

The generation ship Jacob's Ladder has barely survived cataclysms from without and within. Now, riding the shock wave of a nova blast toward an uncertain destiny, the damaged ship - the only world its inhabitants have ever known - remains a war zone. Even as Perceval, the new captain, struggled to come to terms with the traumas of her past, the remnants of rebellion aboard the ship still threaten the crew's survival.

Yet as Perceval's relatives Tristen and Benedick play a deadly game of cat and mouse in pursuit of a traitor through a cast ship that is renewing itself in strange and dangerous ways, an even more insidious threat is building in a place no one ever thought to look. And this implacable enemy could change the face of the ship forever if a ragtag band of heroes cannot stop it.

Originally published in 2010 as Chill.

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. This, coupled with a childhood tendency toward reading the dictionary, doomed her early to penury, intransigence and the writing of speculative fiction.

She is a recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and a Locus Award, and has been nominated for the BSFA, Philip K. Dick and Lambda awards. She lives in southern New England with a presumptuous cat and her hobbies include archery, guitar and the indiscriminate slaughter of defenseless houseplants.