Alice Payne arrives

In 1788, Alice Payne robs coaches on the English roads under the name the Holy Ghost. Her targets are predatory men. She works with an automaton and with her lover, Jane Hodgson, and the three of them have built a life that suits them.

Centuries later, in the 22nd century, Major Prudence Zuniga is a soldier in a hidden war fought across time between two factions, the Farmers and the Guides. She has tried seventy times to alter history so that the war ends, and seventy times she has failed. Her next plan is more drastic: to stop time travel for good. It depends on accomplices spread across several eras.

Prudence's scheme and Alice's roadside career collide. Alice is drawn into a plot that will reshape the timeline, and she must weigh the life she has made against what happens to history if she refuses.

This is a science fiction novella that joins Regency-era adventure to time travel. The story moves between two timelines, one historical and one futuristic, and it was shortlisted for the Nebula Award. The length keeps it brisk, and the tone mixes swashbuckling with the strain of a war nobody can see.