"The Pitiless Stars" by Jim Young

A space-travel story with interesting elements of nanotechnology and stored personalities, but whose ending does not match the build-up the story initially promises. A ship from Earth lands on an alien world, only to discover an alien artifact. The ship 'uploads' an apparent prisoner of the artifact who urges them to leave before they are trapped like him. The ending is too convenient and leaves unanswered a question: how did the artifact survive the disaster it says the prisoner is responsible for?

• Read from Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 2005 issue