Prelude

Life diverges over time.

A moment came when Clemantine, alone on Griffin’s high bridge, stoically accepted this as her own truth. Once, she had regularly received subminds of her other self, replete with memories of life lived amid the garden of Dragon’s gee deck and in the company of cherished friends and lovers.

Even then, she’d been her own mind, only leavened by the humanity of her other self.

Now years had passed without any such update as Griffin slow-coasted in the void beyond Tanjiri, closely accompanied only by the two sentient missiles that Urban controlled.

How it irked that she did not control them! She should have been given the missiles to deploy because like those missiles, she was a weapon. The Tanji, those strange entities who both nurtured and guarded the dual living worlds of Tanjiri system, had recognized her as a weapon and for that reason had forbidden her ever to enter their realm. She, the defender of the fleet, compelled to wait alone through all the years Dragon’s people had chosen to linger on and around the world of Prakruti.

Too many years. So many, the separation between her two minds had surely become irrevocable. She thought it likely that an update from her other self now would at best fail to integrate, and at worst, confuse and weaken the structure of her mind.

For the sake of the fleet, she could not, would not risk it.

Not now, though Dragon had at last departed Tanjiri. Not ever, as she led the fleet toward a star she had chosen on her own, a first stop in a long future to be spent pursuing every bit of surviving life she could find amid the ruins of the Hallowed Vasties—because she craved the gleam of life; she hungered for it.

And she did not regret her isolation. Not at all. No, she enforced it instead by keeping a five light-hour lead on the nearest outrider while brushing off a persistent radio hail imploring her to reduce her velocity enough to rejoin the fleet and re-establish laser communication.

Her reply: I am here to ensure the way is safe.

A unilateral decision. Her Apparatchiks might have protested if she had not purged them years ago.

She told herself, It’s better this way. I am better without their chattering voices. I am stronger.

Griffin’s gleaming skin of philosopher cells picked up this thought and reinforced it with quick consensus:

And she responded in bold agreement: – sooth –

Chapter 1

Honua. Zemlya. Erde. Chikyū. Gaea. Terra. Diqiú. Earth.

These, Urban knew, were just a few of the many names given to the precious world where human life had begun. In the long millennia of humanity’s history, thousands of other names had doubtlessly been uttered and forgotten.

But did any of it matter now?

A bitter question. One Urban asked only of himself as he strove against a crush of disappointment, and of disgust.

Over centuries, Dragon’s Apparatchik, the one known as the Astronomer, had studied every star within the Hallowed Vasties. The ever more detailed observations he collected allowed him to confirm the existence of known planets or, more often, fail to confirm them because those worlds had been broken apart, shattered by the dimensional intrusion of a blade, the rubble cannibalized to create the cordons that had once veiled each star’s fierce light.

All those cordons gone now too, with only ruins left behind: broken structures adrift in debris fields or half-hidden in nebulas of dust and frozen gases.

Here and there, signs of life blazed among the ruins. At a star called Hupo Sei the combined efforts of the fleet’s telescopes had picked out glints and hints of what might be lacy little orbital structures amid the remnants of a vanished cordon. Another star, Sulakari, gleamed like Deception Well from within a dense nebula, one that surely required ongoing intervention to prevent it collapsing into planetesimals. Most intriguing, there was the Halo: a multitude of tiny but brightly blazing starlike objects encircling a central light—a star nearly veiled by vast, intricate layers of orbiting objects. Surely a cordon, but not like those of historical records. The ancient cordons had been warm dark masses visible only in the infrared. At the Halo, fragmented starlight shone through, demanding investigation.

In contrast, at the historical center of the Hallowed Vasties, around the star known as the Sun, nothing remained. Not even dust. The Astronomer had just confirmed it in a new report, issued a moment ago. Not even one of the Sun’s known planets had survived the collapse of the Hallowed Vasties.

Extended senses alerted Urban to Clemantine’s approach. He opened his eyes, and as she came into the cottage they shared, he looked up from where he sat on the carpet, cross-legged, his back resting against the sofa.

Her dark eyes met his, cool and questioning.

“They destroyed it,” Urban growled, giving in to the burn of a rising anger. “All of it, gone to madness.”

“It’s what we expected,” she answered, her matter-of-fact tone marred by the slightest of tremors. “It’s confirmation of what we already knew. We only hoped for better.”

He heaved a tired sigh. “I don’t want to go there.”

She sat on the sofa close beside him. Squeezed his shoulder. “We need to. The ship’s company will insist.”

“There are more interesting systems.”

“And we will visit them, before and after. But along the way, our path must take us past the Sun—out of respect, and as an apology for the foolishness of our kind  . . . and to confirm there truly is nothing left behind.”

He looked up at her. “We owe no apologies. Whatever happened had nothing to do with us.”

“Still,” she said, and made no other argument. One word sufficing, because she was right.

Urban knew the ship’s company well enough to understand that the Astronomer’s negative report would not shift their desire to eventually visit the Sun and sample whatever sparse dust remained, sifting for clues at the epicenter of collapse. But before ever they came to that passage there would be other star systems to explore, with time enough for chance to amend the path they would ultimately follow.

Be careful what you wish for.

A grim thought, a troubled smile. He said, “Unless Griffin succeeds in changing the course of this expedition.”

“She’ll come around,” Clemantine insisted. “She’s devoted to us. You know that. She just doesn’t want to be held back, to be set aside the way she was at Tanjiri.”

That alone would be bad enough. But more was going on. Urban felt sure of it. He had always been uneasy with Clemantine’s dark twin, but he’d trusted her. Now, that trust had withered. He said, “I need her back with the fleet, back within reach of a laser link, of constant communication. You need to persuade her.”

“You know I’ve been trying.”

He held her gaze. “She’s changed, Clemantine.”

“We all change. Dragon has changed.”

“Sooth. For the better. But Griffin? We need to understand what she’s become.”

Clemantine lowered her chin; her eyes narrowed in resentment: “You’ve already decided, haven’t you?”

He sketched the facts, for himself as well as her. “She doesn’t care for consensus. She won’t listen to argument. She rarely even responds to our radio hails. And on her own she has decided to lead the fleet past Ryo, despite our protests.”

“It’s because she’s bored. Ryo is a dead system. No hint of life there. So she’s pushing us to go on to Hupo Sei. She’s leading us on. She wants to be first this time—not to be consigned to the void, but to make discoveries of her own.”

Urban sighed. He shook his head. He got up from the carpet where he’d been sitting and paced the room, thinking, while Clemantine watched him from the sofa.

Throughout the years at Tanjiri, Urban had rebuilt the fleet. Dragon had fed from the belt of ruins, enough to birth two new outriders to replace the pair lost at Verilotus. And then the courser had fed more, regathering mass and growing, expanding the size of its reef, adding to the power of its gun—while Griffin bided alone in the void, not feeding at all, not growing.

Urban could overtake the smaller courser if it came to that, but there was another way, a better way, to test Griffin’s loyalty. Ceasing to pace, he turned to Clemantine. “We’re going to Ryo despite her. If she’s still part of the fleet, she’ll adjust her course to go with us.”

Doubt welled in Clemantine’s eyes. She nodded agreement anyway while eliding the obvious question: What will you do if she does not follow?

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