EXEUNT VI

Kira acted without hesitation. Time was short, and she had no intention of wasting it.

To the ships assembled around her, she said, “Stand clear. ” A scramble of activity followed as the captains pulled their ships back.

Then she ignited thrusters along the ribs of the station and began to move it, slowly and ponderously, toward the planet the Wranaui had been mining. The UMC had called it R1, but Kira thought it deserved a proper name. She would leave it to the people living on Unity to name it, though. It was their right as the inhabitants of the system.

Both Lphet and Admiral Klein signaled her as the station started to shift its position. *Navá rez, what are you doing? * Klein asked.

“Taking up high orbit around R1, ” she said. “It will be a better location for Unity. ”

*Roger that, Navá rez. We’ll secure your flight path. Next time, some warning would be appreciated. *

[[Lphet here: Do you require any assistance, Idealis? ]]

“None at the moment. ”

Moving Unity took several days. Kira used that time to make the preparations she needed. And when she had settled the station into its final orbit, she summoned the crew of the Wallfish to her once again.

They came without delay. The old, ramshackle ship docked near her central hub, and Kira saw that most of the damage the Wallfish had sustained had been repaired (though several of its radiators were still little more than needle-tipped shards).

The crew chattered amongst themselves with nervous excitement as they walked her hallways, but they kept the external speakers to their skinsuits turned off, and the moving of their lips was the only obvious giveaway. But she was curious, and she bathed their visors with an invisible wash of collimated light, which allowed her to read the vibrations of their voices.

“—idea what she wants? ” said Trig. He sounded excited.

Falconi grunted. “You’ve asked that three times now. ”

“Sorry. ” The kid sounded slightly abashed.

Then Nielsen said, “Klein was pretty clear about what we’re supposed to—”

“I don’t give two shits what the brass thinks, ” said Sparrow. “This is Kira we’re talking about. Not a Jelly, not a nightmare, Kira. ”

“Are you sure about that? ” Falconi asked.

A moment of silence followed. Then Sparrow thumped her chest with her fist. “Yeah. She’s got our back. She healed Trig, after all. ”

“And we’re still being quarantined as a result, ” said Falconi.

Hwa-jung smiled slightly. “Life is never perfect. ”

At that, the captain laughed, as did Nielsen.

Kira returned her sight and hearing to her remade body as the crew entered her presence chamber. They stopped before her, and she smiled down upon them. A slow fall of petals drifted from above, pink and white and smelling of warm perfume. “Welcome, ” she said.

Falconi inclined his head. A wry smile flickered about his mouth. “Don’t know why, but feels like I should be bowing to you. ”

“Please don’t, ” she said. “You shouldn’t have to bow to anyone or anything. You’re not servants, and you’re certainly not slaves. ”

“Damn right, ” said Sparrow, and gave Kira a small salute.

Then Kira looked at Trig. “How are you feeling? ”

The kid shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. His cheeks had regained a healthy color. “Pretty good. I just can’t believe all the stuff I missed. ”

“It’s not the worst thing. If I could have slept through the past six months, I would have too. ”

“Yeah, I know. You’re probably right, but jeez. Jumping off the maglev on Orsted! That must have been pretty exciting. ”

Sparrow snorted. “You could say that. Damn near suicidal would be the other way. ”

The kid flashed a quick grin before growing more serious. “But yeah, thanks again for patching me up, Kira. Really. ”

“I’m just happy I could help, ” she said, and the chamber seemed to glow in response. Then she shifted her focus to Vishal. He was standing next to Nielsen, their shoulders nearly touching. “Was there anything with Trig that I overlooked? Any problems that I might have caused? ”

“I feel fine! ” the kid proclaimed, puffing out his chest.

The doctor shook his head. “Trig appears to be the very picture of health. His bloodwork and neural responses could not be improved even if I tried. ”

Falconi nodded. “Seriously, we owe you, Kira. If there’s anything we can do for you—”

The leaves interrupted him with a stir of disapproval. “Seeing as how none of this would have happened if not for me, ” she said, “consider us even. ”

He chuckled. It was good to hear him laugh again. “Fair enough. ”

Trig hopped from foot to foot. He looked as if he were going to burst with excitement. “Tell her, ” he said, looking at Vishal and Nielsen. “Come on! Or I’ll tell her! ”

“Tell me what? ” Kira asked, curious.

Nielsen made a face, seeming embarrassed.

“You’re not going to believe this, ” Falconi said.

Then Vishal took Nielsen’s hand and stepped forward. “Ms. Kira, I have an announcement to make. Ms. Audrey and I have gotten engaged. And she asked me, Ms. Kira. Me! ”

Nielsen blushed and laughed softly. “It’s true, ” she said, and she looked at the doctor with a warmth Kira had never seen from her before.

Few things could now surprise Kira. Not the turning of the stars, not the decay of atomic nuclei, not the seemingly random quantum fluctuations that underlay reality as it appeared. But this surprised her, although—in retrospect—she supposed it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“Congratulations, ” she said with all the heartfelt emotion she could summon. The happiness of two beings might be a small thing when compared with the immensity of the universe, but what, ultimately, was more important? Suffering was inescapable, but to care for another and to be cared for in turn—that was the closest any person might come to heaven.

Vishal bobbed his head. “Thank you, Ms. Kira. We won’t get married until we can have a proper wedding, with my mother and sisters and lots of guests and food with—”

“Well, we’ll see, ” said Nielsen with a small smile.

The doctor returned the smile and put an arm around her shoulders. “Yes, we do not want to wait too long, do we? We’ve even talked about someday buying a cargo vessel and starting a shipping company of our own, Ms. Kira! ”

“Whatever we do, we’ll do it together, ” said Nielsen. And she kissed him on his shaved cheek, and he kissed her back.

Falconi went to scratch his chin, and his fingers bumped against his visor. “To hell with it, ” he growled, and unlocked and pulled off the helmet.

“Captain! ” said Hwa-jung, sounding scandalized.

He waved his hand. “It’s fine. ” Then he scratched his chin, and the sound of his nails rasping against his stubble carried throughout the presence chamber. “As you can tell, we’re all in a bit of shock, but they, uh, seem pretty happy, so we’re happy. ”

“Yeah, ” said Trig, sounding glum. He glanced toward the first officer and released a small sigh.

Falconi sniffed the air. “Smells nice, ” he said.

Kira smiled, sweeter than before. “I try. ”

“Okay, ” said Sparrow, rolling her shoulders as if she were about to lift a heavy weight. “Why’d you call us here, Kira? Just to chitchat? Doesn’t seem like you, say sorry. ”

“Yes, I’m rather curious about that myself, ” said Falconi. He rubbed a finger against one of the trunk-like pillars and then held it up before his face to examine the residue.

Kira took a deep breath. She didn’t need to, but doing so helped center her thoughts. “I asked you to come for two reasons. First to tell you a truth about the Maw. ”

“Go on, ” said Falconi, wary.

So she did. She told them the secret of the seven evil seeds that she had discovered amid the Maw’s memories. As she spoke, she watched as their faces grew pale and their expressions stricken.

“Gods! ” Nielsen exclaimed.

“You’re saying there are seven more of those things wandering around, Thule knows where? ” said Sparrow. Even she seemed daunted by the prospect.

Kira closed her eyes for a moment. “Exactly. And the Seeker is still out there also, and I can guarantee it’s up to no good. Neither the League nor the Jellies can deal with these sorts of threats. They’re just not capable of it. I’m the only one—the Seed is the only one—who can stop them. ”

“So what are you going to do about it? ” Falconi said, deadly quiet.

“What I have to, of course. I’m going to hunt them down. ”

For a time, the only sound in the chamber was the soft fall of petals.

“How? ” said Sparrow. “They could be anywhere. ”

“Not anywhere. And as for how … I’d rather not say yet. ”

“Okay, ” said Falconi, drawing out the word. “What was the other reason you asked us here then? ”

“For the giving of gifts. ” And Kira lowered herself from the wall and released herself from the mesh of rootlike fibers that had kept her wrapped in a tight embrace. Her feet touched the floor, and for the first time since the Battered Hierophant, Kira stood whole and unassisted. Her body was the same green-black material as the walls of the station, and her hair rippled as if in a breeze, but there was no breeze.

“Whoa, ” said Trig.

Falconi stepped forward, his ice-blue eyes searching her. “Is this really you? ”

“It’s as much me as anything else in Unity. ”

“That works, ” he said, and he caught her in a tight hug, and Kira felt his embrace even on the far struts of the station.

The rest of the crew crowded around, touching, hugging, slapping her (lightly) on the back. “So where’s your brain? ” asked Trig, his eyes wide with wonder. “Is it in your head? Or is it up there? ” He pointed at the wall she’d descended from.

“Trig! ” said Hwa-jung. “Aish. Show more respect. ”

“That’s okay, ” said Kira. She touched her temple. “Some is here, but most of it is back there. It wouldn’t fit in a normal skull. ”

“Not so different from a ship mind, ” said Hwa-jung.

Kira bowed her head. “Not so different. ”

“Either way, it’s good to see you in one piece, ” said Sparrow.

“Hear, hear, ” said Nielsen.

“Even if you do look like boiled spinach, ” Sparrow added with a laugh.

Then Kira took a step back to give herself space. “Listen, ” she said, and they listened. “I won’t be able to help you much from now on, so I want to do what I can while I can. ”

“You don’t have to, ” said Falconi.

She smiled at him. “If I had to, they wouldn’t be gifts. … Trig, I know you have always been interested in aliens. This, then, is for you. ”

And from the floor by her feet, a rod of green wood sprouted, and it grew in height until it formed a staff nearly as tall as Trig himself. Near the top, embedded within the braided branches, sat what appeared to be an emerald the size of a robin’s egg, and it glowed with an inner light.

Kira grasped the staff, and it came off the floor, into her hand. Small leaves grew from it in places, and the smell of fresh sap suffused the air.

“Here, ” she said, and handed the length of wood to Trig. “This is not a Staff of Blue, but a Staff of Green. It isn’t a weapon, although you may fight with it if you must. There is a part of the Seed in it, and if you care for the staff and treat it well, you will find that you can grow most anything, no matter how barren the soil. You will be able to talk with the Jellies, and wherever you plant the staff, life will flourish. The staff can do other things also, and if you prove yourself a worthy caretaker, you may discover them as well. Do not allow the UMC to get their hands on it. ”

Awe and wonder shone forth from Trig’s face. “Thank you, ” he said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t even know—Ah, jeez. Thank you! ”

“One more thing, ” Kira said. And she caressed the top of the staff. “Once a day the staff will put forth a fruit. A single, red fruit. It is not much, but it is enough to keep you from ever starving. You will never need worry about food again, Trig. ”

At that, tears filled Trig’s eyes, and he clutched the staff close to himself. “I won’t forget this, ” he mumbled.

Kira expected he wouldn’t.

She moved on. “Hwa-jung. ” From within her side, Kira took two orbs, one white, one brown. Each was just large enough to rest comfortably in the curve of her palm. She gave the brown one to the machine boss. “This is a piece of tech from the Old Ones. You can use it to repair most any machine. ”

The machine boss sucked on her lower lip as she stared at the orb she now held. “Aish. Will it eat the whole of my ship? ”

Kira laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s not like the Seed. It won’t spread uncontrollably. But be careful where you use it, as it may sometimes try to make … improvements. ”

Hwa-jung disappeared the orb into one of the pouches around her waist, and she mumbled her thanks. Red spots appeared on her cheeks, and Kira could tell how much the gift meant to the machine boss.

Pleased, Kira then handed the white orb to the doctor. “Vishal, this is also a piece of tech from the Old Ones. You can use it to repair most any wound. But, be careful where you use it, as it—”

“As it may sometimes make improvements, ” said Vishal with a gentle smile. “Yes, I understand. ”

She returned his smile. “Good. It could have saved Trig back at Bughunt. Hopefully you won’t ever need it, but if you do…”

“If I do, better to have it than not. ” Vishal placed his hands together, cupping the orb between them, and bowed. “Thank you, Ms. Kira, most sincerely. ”

Sparrow was next. Reaching down, Kira removed a short, all-black dagger from the side of her thigh and handed it to the shorter woman. The blade of the knife contained a faint, fibrous pattern, similar to the Seed. “This is a weapon. ”

“No shit. ”

“Metal detectors can’t see it: x-rays and microwaves won’t pick it up. But that’s not what makes this special. This knife can cut through anything. ”

Sparrow gave her a skeptical look. “Really. ”

“Really, ” Kira insisted. “It may take time, but you can cut through even the toughest materials. And no, you don’t have to worry about losing control of it, the way I did with the Seed. ”

Sparrow eyed the dagger with renewed interest. She flipped it around the back of her hand, caught the handle, and then tested the edge on the corner of one of her utility pouches. As promised, the blade sliced clean through the material, and when it did, a slight glimmer of blue ran the length of the edge. “Handy. Thanks. Something like this would have gotten me out of a couple jams in the past. ”

For Nielsen, Kira had no easy fixes. She said, “Audrey … I could solve your condition. The Seed has the ability to reshape any tissue, to recode any gene. But if I did—”

“You would have to change most of my brain, ” said Nielsen. She smiled sadly. “I know. ”

“It might not alter your personality or your memories, but I can’t promise it wouldn’t, even though the Seed has no desire to harm you. Quite the opposite. ”

The first officer took a shuddery breath and then lifted her chin, shook her head. “No. I appreciate the offer, Kira, but no. It’s a risk I’d rather avoid. Figuring out who I am wasn’t easy, and I’m rather fond of who I’ve become. Losing that wouldn’t be worth it. ”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more. ”

“It’s okay, ” said Nielsen. “Plenty of people have to deal with a lot worse. I’ll be fine. ”

Vishal hugged her. “Besides, Ms. Kira, I will do my best to help Ms. Audrey. Genetic modifications were always a specialty of mine in school, ah yes. ” And Nielsen’s expression softened, and she hugged him back.

“I’m glad to hear that, ” said Kira. “Even if I can’t heal you, there is something I can give you. Several somethings, actually, now that you’re engaged. ”

Nielsen started to protest, but Kira paid her no mind. She knelt and traced two equal circles upon the floor, both no more than four or five centimeters across. Where she touched, gold lines formed, and they glowed brighter and brighter until they were painful to behold.

Then the light broke and faded. In its place lay two rings: gold, green, and laced with sparkles of sapphires. Kira took them and presented them to Nielsen. “For you and Vishal, an early wedding present. You’re under no obligation to use these, but if you do, you will find that they have certain advantages. ”

“They’re beautiful, ” said Nielsen, accepting the rings. “Thank you. But I’m afraid they’re both too large for me. ”

Kira allowed herself a secret amusement. “Try and see. ”

So Nielsen slipped on one of the two rings, and she let out a cry as the band tightened around her finger until it formed a snug but comfortable fit.

“That is so cool, ” said Trig.

Kira beamed. “Isn’t it? ” Then she went to the nearest pillar and, from an alcove in the side, removed a pair of objects. She held out the first one to Nielsen. It was a palm-sized disk of what looked like a rough white shell. Embedded within the surface of the shell was a cluster of blue beads, each no bigger than a pea. “This is what I originally intended to give you. ”

“What is it? ” Nielsen asked, accepting the disk.

“Relief. The next time your affliction strikes, take one of these”—she tapped a bead—“and eat it. Just one, no more. They cannot heal you, but they can help you function, make things easier, more bearable. ”

“Thank you, ” said Nielsen, sounding somewhat overwhelmed.

Kira inclined her head. “Given enough time, the beads will regrow, so you will never run out, no matter how long you live. ”

Tears filled Nielsen’s eyes. “Seriously, Kira … thank you. ”

Behind her, Vishal said, “You are too kind, Ms. Kira. Too kind. But thank you from the deepest part of my heart. ”

Then Kira held out the other object: an ordinary q-drive. “Also, there’s this. ”

The first officer shook her head. “You’ve already done more than enough, Kira. I can’t accept anything else. ”

“It’s not a gift, ” said Kira gently. “It’s a request. … If you agree, I would like to name you as my legal representative. To that end, there is a document on this drive granting you power of attorney on my behalf. ”

“Kira! ”

She took Nielsen by the shoulders, looked her in the eyes. “I worked for the Lapsang Corporation for over seven years, and the work paid well. Alan and I planned to use the money to start a new life on Adrasteia, but … it’s not doing me any good now. My request is this: see that the money gets to my family on Weyland, if they’re still alive. If they’re not, then the bits are yours. ”

Nielsen opened her mouth, seemingly at a loss for words. Then she nodded, brisk, and said, “Of course, Kira. I’ll do my best. ”

Heartened, Kira continued, “The company might give you some trouble, so I had Admiral Klein witness and notarize this. That should keep the lawyers off your back. ” She pressed the q-drive into Nielsen’s hand, and the first officer accepted.

Then Nielsen wrapped her in a fierce hug. “You have my word, Kira. I’ll do everything I can to get this to your family. ”

“Thank you. ”

Once Nielsen released her, Kira walked over to where Falconi stood alone. He cocked an eyebrow at her and then crossed his arms, as if suspicious. “And what are you going to give me, Kira? Tickets to a resort on Eidolon? Magic pixie dust I can sprinkle over the Wallfish? ”

“Better, ” she said. She raised a hand, and from an arched doorway in the side of the chamber, four of the station’s caretakers trundled forward, pushing a pallet upon which sat a sealed case painted military grey and stamped with UMC markings.

“What are those? ” said Trig, pointing with the Staff of Green at the caretakers.

The creatures were small and bipedal, with double-jointed hind legs and short, T. rex arms at the front. Their fingers were delicate and pale to the point of translucence. A flexible tail extended behind them. Polished, tortoise-like plates armored their skin, but they had a feathered frill—red and purple—along the central ridge of their narrow heads. Four dragonfly wings lay flat against their backs.

“They tend to the station, ” said Kira. “You might even say they were born from the station. ”

“You mean, born from you, ” said Falconi.

“In one sense, yes. ” The caretakers left the pallet next to them and then retreated, chittering to themselves as they went. Kira opened the top of the case to reveal rows upon rows of antimatter canisters, each of them with the green light on the side that indicated they were full and powered.

Nielsen gasped, and Hwa-jung said, “Thule! ”

To Falconi, Kira said, “For you and the Wallfish. Antimatter. Some of it I recovered from the vessels I disassembled. The rest I manufactured and transferred into the containment pods. ”

With a stunned expression, Falconi looked over the case. “There must be enough in here to—”

“To power the Wallfish for years, ” said Kira. “Yes. Or you can sell it and stash the bits for a rainy day. It’s your choice. ”

“Thank y—”

“I’m not done yet, ” said Kira. She raised her hand again, and the caretakers returned, pushing another pallet. On this one rested pots full of dark earth from which sprouted a strange and wild array of plants that bore no resemblance to those of Earth, Eidolon, or Weyland. Some glowed, some moved, and one of them—a red, stone-like plant—hummed.

“Since you had to strip your hydroponics bay, I thought you could use some replacements, ” said Kira.

“I—” Falconi shook his head. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but how are we supposed to take them anywhere? We don’t have enough cryo pods, and—”

“The pots will protect them during FTL, ” said Kira. “Trust me. ” Then she handed him another q-drive. “Information on how to care for the plants, as well as details on each one. I think you’ll find them useful. ”

For the first time, she saw tears glimmer in Falconi’s eyes. He reached out toward one of the plants—a mottled, pitcher-like organism with small tentacles waving about its open mouth—and then thought better of it and pulled his hand back. “I don’t know how to thank you. ”

“Two more things, ” she said. “One, this. ” And she gave him a small metal rectangle, similar in size to a deck of playing cards. “For Veera and the Entropists to study. ”

Falconi turned the rectangle over. It appeared featureless. “What is it? ”

“Something to point them in the right direction, if they can make sense of it. ” She smiled. “They will, eventually. And two, this. ” And she placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him on the lips, soft, delicate, and with feeling. “Thank you, Salvo, ” she whispered.

“For what? ”

“For believing in me. For trusting me. For treating me like a person and not a science experiment. ” She kissed him once more and then stepped back and raised her arms to either side. Vines unfurled from the wall behind, wrapped themselves around her in a gentle embrace, and then lifted her back up to the waiting depression.

“My gifts are given, ” she said as she again melded into the substance of the station. With it came a sense of safety. “Go now, and know this: no matter where time or fate may take us, I consider you my friends. ”

“What are you going to do, Kira? ” Falconi asked, craning his neck back to look at her.

“You’ll see! ”

As the crew filed out through the entrance and back through the corridors toward the docking area, Kira reached out to Gregorovich, whom she knew would have been listening to the conversation via their comms. “I have something for you as well, ” she said. “If you want it. ”

*Oh really? And what might that be, O Ring Giver? *

“A body. A new body, as large or small as you want, metal or organic, in any shape or design that strikes your fancy. Just tell me, and the Seed can make it. ” To Kira’s astonishment, the ship mind did not immediately answer. Rather, he was silent, and she could hear his silence as a physical thing: a pressure of contemplation and uncertainty on the other end of the signal. “Think of it; you could go anywhere you wanted to, Gregorovich. You wouldn’t need to be bound to the Wallfish anymore. ”

At long last, the ship mind said, *No. But I think, perhaps, I want to be. Your offer is tempting, Kira, mighty tempting. And don’t think I’m ungrateful, but for the time being, I think my place is here, with Falconi and Nielsen and Trig and Hwa-jung and Sparrow. They need me, and … I won’t lie, it’s nice to have meatbags like them running around my decks. You might understand that now. A body would be nice, but I could always have a body. I couldn’t always have this crew or these friends. *

Kira did understand, and she appreciated his answer. “If you change your mind, the offer stands. ”

*I’m glad to have known you, O Queen of Flowers. You are a prickly and problematic person, but life is more interesting with you around. … I could not have chosen as you have, to pursue these miscreants of the Maw all on your lonesome. For that, you have my admiration. Moreover, you showed me the path to freedom. You saved me from myself, and thus, you also have my eternal gratitude. If you find yourself in the far distant future, remember us as we remember you. And if the tides of time are kind, and I am still sound of thought, know this: you shall always be able to count upon my aid. *

To which she simply replied, “Thank you. ”

With her visitors departed and her mind far more at rest, Kira started upon the next stage of her plan. In concept it was simple; in execution it was more complicated and dangerous than anything she had attempted since waking in the aftermath of the Maw’s destruction.

First, she moved herself near the skin of the station. There, she gathered material—organic and inorganic—until she had formed a second core, equal to the one at the center of Unity. Then, and this was the most difficult part, she separated her brain into two unequal parts.

Everything that was of Qwon and Carr, she isolated and placed in the heart of Unity. Everything that was of Kira, the Seed, and the Maw, she drew to herself. Some duplication was necessary—she could still remember Carr’s medical tests and Qwon’s time spent hunting in the waters of its homeworld—and some omissions and oversights were inevitable. But she did her best.

The process was frightening. With every move, Kira worried that she would sever some crucial part of her self. Or that she would cut off access to a memory she didn’t even know she needed. Or that she would kill herself.

But again, she did her best. As she had learned, sometimes you had to make a choice, any choice, even when it wasn’t clear which path was the right one. Life rarely provided such a luxury.

She labored for a night and a day, until everything that seemed to be her fit inside the skull she had chosen. The tiny, limited skull. She felt diminished, but at the same time, it was a relief to be free of all the sensory input pouring in from the station.

She checked on the Qwon/Carr consciousness one last time—a mother checking on a sleeping child—and then she separated herself from Mar Í neth and set forth toward the near asteroid belt, using her newly built fusion core to drive her through space.

As always, Klein and Lphet came clamoring for answers. So Kira told them of the Maw’s seven deadly seeds, and she explained her intentions. “I’m leaving to hunt them down, ” she said.

Klein sputtered. “But what about the station? ”

[[Lphet here: Yes, Idealis, I share the shoal leader’s concern. The station is too important for it to be unguarded. ]]

Kira laughed. “It’s not. I left Carr-Qwon in charge. ”

“What? ” said Klein.

[[Lphet here: What? ]

“The part of me that was them now watches over Unity. They will care for it and, if it comes to that, protect it. I suggest you don’t anger them. ”

[[Lphet here: Are you trying to create another Corrupted, Idealis? ]]

“I hate to say it, but I agree with the Jelly, ” said Klein. “Are you trying to give us another Maw? ”

Kira’s voice hardened. “The Maw is no more. I have removed all parts of the Seed from Carr-Qwon. What they are now is something different. Something unformed and unsure, but I can tell you this: none of the anger and pain that drove the Maw still exists. Or if it does, it’s inside me, not them. You have a new life-form to usher into existence, Admiral Klein, Lphet. Treat them accordingly, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Do not disappoint me. ”

When she reached the asteroid belt, Kira slowed herself to a stop near one of the largest asteroids: a huge chunk of metallic rock kilometers across and pitted from countless collisions over the years.

There she parked herself, and there she again began to build. This time, Kira drew upon an existing blueprint: one she had found buried deep within the Seed’s memory banks. It was technology of the Old Ones, devised at the height of their civilization, and it suited her purpose perfectly.

Using the Seed, Kira devoured the asteroid—adapting it to her needs—and using the Old Ones’ schematic, she built a ship.

It was not square and spindly and lined with radiators, like the human ships. Nor was it round and white and iridescent like the Wranaui ships. It was not like any of those things. No. Kira’s ship was shaped like an arrow, long and sharp, with flowing lines reminiscent of a leaf. It had veins and ridges and, along its flared stern, fanned membranes. As with Unity, the ship was a living thing. The hull expanded and contracted in subtle motions, and there was a sense of awareness about the vessel, as if it was watching everything around it.

In a way it was, for the ship was an extension of Kira’s body. It acted as her eyes, and through it, she could see far more than would otherwise have been possible.

When she was finished, Kira had a ship that was over half the size of a UMC battleship and far more heavily armed. Powering it was another torque engine, and with it, Kira felt confident she could exceed the highest speed of any of the Maw’s foul offspring.

Then, she took one last look at the system. At the Cordovan star, at the planet R1 and the verdant framework of Unity floating in orbit high above. At the fleets of human and Wranaui ships clustered thereabout, which were, if not entirely friendly, at least no longer shooting.

And Kira smiled, for it was good.

In her mind, she made her peace, said her last farewells; a silent lament for all that was lost and gone. And then she turned her ship away from the star—pointed it toward the Maw’s final memory—and with the smallest of thoughts, started on her way.

EXEUNT VI

Kira wasn’t alone. Not yet.

As she moved across the face of the void, four UMC battleships and three Wranaui cruisers trailed behind in close formation. Most of the vessels were damaged in some way: explosion-scarred and soot-besmirched and—in the case of the human ships—held together more with FTL tape, emergency welds, and the prayers of their crews than anything else. Still, the vessels were spaceworthy enough to accompany her.

Admiral Klein and Lphet seemed determined to provide her with an escort all the way to the Markov Limit. Not so much for protection, she suspected, as for observation. Also, perhaps, to give her company. Which she appreciated. If anything was going to do her in, it was the silence and the isolation. …

Once she reached the Markov Limit—which, for her ship, was far closer to the star than for the humans or Wranaui—she would leave her escorts behind. They didn’t have the means to keep pace with her in superluminal space.

And then she would truly be alone.

It was something she’d expected from the moment she’d made her decision. Yet Kira found the actuality somewhat daunting. With Carr and Qwon removed from her consciousness, her mind was a far emptier place. She was an individual again, not a plurality. And while the Seed was a companion of sorts, it was no substitute for normal human interaction.

She had always been comfortable working alone, but even on the loneliest outposts the Lapsang Corp. sent her to, there had been people to talk and drink with. People to fight and fuck and to generally bounce off, mentally and physically. On the long journey that lay before her, there would be none of that.

The prospect did not frighten her, but it did concern her. Though she felt secure in her self for now, would extended periods of isolation unbalance her the way it had Gregorovich when he’d been shipwrecked? And might that lead to her becoming more like the Maw?

A ripple passed through the surface of the Seed, and she shivered, though she was neither cold nor hot.

Inside her darkened cradle, she opened her eyes, her real eyes, and stared at the curved surface above her: a map of textured flesh, part plant, part animal. She traced the shapes with her fingertips, feeling their courses, reading their paths.

After a time, she again closed her eyes and sent a signal to the Wallfish, asked to speak with Falconi.

He replied as quickly as the light-lag allowed. *Hey, Kira. What’s up? *

Then she confessed to him her concern, and she said, “I do not know what I may become, given enough time and space. ”

*None of us do. … I’ll say this, though. You’re not going to go insane, Kira. You’re too strong for that. And you’re not going to lose yourself to the Seed. Hell, even the Maw couldn’t destroy you. This is a cakewalk in comparison. *

In the darkness, she smiled. “You’re right. Thank you, Salvo. ”

*Do you need someone to go with you? I’m sure the UMC and the Jellies would have no shortage of volunteers who would love to jet around the galaxy with you. *

She seriously considered the idea and then shook her head, though Falconi couldn’t see. “No, this is something I have to do myself. If anyone else were here, I’d be too worried about protecting them. ”

*Your call. If you change your mind, just let us know. *

“I will. … My one regret is that I won’t be around to watch how things turn out between us and the Jellies. ”

*It’s good to hear you use the word us. Klein wasn’t sure if you still thought of yourself as human. *

“Part of me does. ”

He grunted. *I know you’re going to be out past the rim, but you can still send messages back, and we can figure out a way to do the same. It might take a while, but we can do it. Staying in touch is important. *

“I’ll try. ” But Kira knew it was unlikely she would hear anything from the League or the Wranaui. Even if they knew where she was, by the time their signals reached her, odds were she would have moved on. Only if the Maw’s avatars led her back to settled space would it be possible, and she very much hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

Still, it meant something to her that Falconi cared. And she felt a measure of peace. Whatever the future held, she was ready to face it.

When they finished talking, she hailed the Unrelenting Force. At her request, Admiral Klein agreed to forward a message of hers (minus any information the UMC deemed classified) back to Weyland and her family. It would have been easy enough for Kira to broadcast a signal strong enough to reach Weyland, but she did not know how to structure the waves of energy so they could be received and interpreted by the listening antennas in her home system.

Kira wished she could wait for a reply. However, even under the best of circumstances, it would take over three months to hear back. Assuming her family could be found … and that they were still alive. It pained Kira to realize that she might never know the truth.

As she hurtled toward the Markov Limit, Kira listened to music sent to her from the Wallfish. Some Bach, but also long, slow orchestral pieces that seemed to match the turn of the planets and the shift of the stars. The music provided a structure to otherwise formless time—a narrative to the impersonal progression of nature’s grandest bodies.

She dozed inside her living casement, slipping in and out of wakefulness. A true sleep was near at hand, but she put it off, not ready to surrender awareness. Not yet. Not until space distorted around her and cut her off from the rest of the universe.

When she arrived at the Markov Limit, Kira felt a sense of readiness within the ship. The fabric of reality seemed to grow thinner, more malleable around her, and she knew the time to leave was upon her.

She allowed herself a final look around the system. Regret, anxiety, and excitement all stirred within her. But her purpose was just, and it stiffened her resolve. Hers was to go forth into the unknown, to root out the evil seeds and to spread new life throughout the galaxy. It was a good purpose to have.

Then she diverted power into the torque engine, preparing for the transition to FTL, and a deep hum pervaded the flesh of the ship.

Just as the hum peaked, a crackly transmission reached her. It was from the Wallfish, from Falconi. He said, *Kira, the UMC says you’re about to jump to FTL. I know it feels like you’re going to be all alone from now on, but you aren’t. We’re all thinking about you. Don’t forget that, you hear me? That’s a direct order from your captain. Go kick some nightmare ass, and I expect to see you alive and healthy when—*

The hum ceased, and the stars twisted, and a dark mirror enveloped her, isolating her in a sphere no larger than her ship. Then all was silent.

Despite herself, Kira felt sad, and she allowed herself to feel that sadness, to acknowledge her loss and give the emotion the respect it deserved. Part of her resisted. Part of her still made excuses. If she could find the Maw’s emissaries and eradicate them within a reasonable amount of time, maybe she could still return home, have a life of peace.

She took a breath. No. What was done was done. There was no going back, no point regretting the choices she had made nor, as Falconi had said, what was out of her control.

It was time. She closed her eyes, and though the prospect still unsettled her, she at last allowed herself to sleep.

And in that sleep, there were no dreams.

…

An emerald ship sailed through the darkness, a tiny gleaming dot, lost within the immensity of space. No other vessel accompanied it, no guards or companions or watchful machines. It was alone among the firmament, and all was quiet.

The ship sailed, but it seemed not to move. A butterfly, bright and delicate, frozen in crystal, preserved like that for all eternity. Deathless and unchanging.

Once it had flown faster than light. Once and many times besides. Now it did not. The scent it followed was too delicate to track otherwise.

The galaxy turned upon its axis for time without measure.

Then a flash.

Another ship appeared ahead of the first. The newcomer was dented and dirty, with a patched hull and an awkward appearance. On its nose, faded letters spelled a single word.

The two ships passed each other in a tiny fraction of a second, their relative velocities so immense, there was only time for a brief transmission to pass from one to the other.

The transmission was of a man’s voice, and it said: *Your family is alive. *

Then the newcomer was gone, vanished into the distance.

Within the lonely ship, within the emerald cocoon and the swaddling flesh, there lay a woman. And though her eyes were closed and her skin was blue, and though her blood was ice and her heart was still—though all of that, a smile appeared upon her face.

And so she sailed on, content to hold and wait and there to sleep, to sleep in a sea of stars.

ADDENDUM

APPENDIX I

SPACETIME & FTL

Excerpt from the Entropic Principia (Revised)

… necessary to outline a brief overview of the fundamentals. Let this serve as a primer and quick reference guide for later, more serious studies.

FTL travel is the defining technology of our modern era. Without it, expansion beyond the Solar System would be impossible, barring centuries-long trips on generational ships or automated seed ships that would grow colonists in situ upon arrival. Even the most powerful fusion drives lack the delta-v to jet between the stars as we do now.

Although long theorized, superluminal travel did not become a practical reality until Ilya Markov codified the unified field theory (UFT) in 2107. Empirical confirmation followed soon afterward, and the first working prototype of an FTL drive was constructed in 2114.

Markov’s brilliance was in recognizing the fluidic nature of spacetime and demonstrating the existence of the different luminal realms, as outlined in the earlier, purely theoretical work of Froning, Meholic, and Gauthier around the turn of the twenty-first century. Prior to that, thinking was constrained by the limitations of general relativity.

Per Einstein’s formulations for special relativity (coupled with Lorentz transformations), no particle with real mass can accelerate to the speed of light. Not only would that require an infinite amount of energy, doing so would break causality, and as later, practical demonstrations have shown, the universe does not break causality on a non-quantum scale.

However, nothing in special relativity prevents a massless particle from always traveling the speed of light (i. e., a photon), nor from always traveling faster than light (i. e., a tachyon). And that is exactly what the math shows. By combining several of the equations of special relativity, the underlying relativistic symmetry between subluminal, luminal, and superluminal particles becomes clear. With regard to the superluminal, substituting relativistic mass for proper mass allows superluminal mass and energy to become definable, non-imaginary properties.

This provides us with our current model of physical space (fig. 1):

Figure 1: Positive energy vs. velocity

Here the v=c asymptote vertical represents the fluidic spacetime membrane (which has a negligible but non-zero thickness).

By examining this graph, a number of things will become immediately and intuitively clear. First, that just as a subluminal particle can never reach the speed of light c, neither can a superluminal particle. In normal, STL space, expending energy (e. g., shooting propellent out the back of your spaceship) can move you closer to the speed of light. So too in FTL space. However, in FTL space, the speed of light is the slowest possible speed, not the fastest, and you can never quite slow down to it, not as long as you possess mass.

Since increasing speed moves you away from c in FTL, there is no upper limit to tachyonic speeds, although there are practical limits, given the minimal level of energy needed to maintain particle integrity (remember, less energy = more speed in superluminal space). And while rest mass in subluminal space is real, positive, and increases due to special relativity as v approaches c; in luminal space, rest mass is zero and v always = c; and in superluminal space, rest mass is imaginary at v=c, but becomes real, positive, and decreases when moving faster than c.

An implication of this is the reversal of time dilation effects with regard to acceleration. In both STL and FTL, as one approaches c, one ages slower with regard to the larger universe. That is, the universe will age far faster than a spaceship barreling along at 99% of c. However, in FTL, approaching c means slowing down. If, instead, one speeds up, traveling at ever higher multiples of c, you would age faster and faster compared to the rest of the universe. This, of course, would be a major disadvantage of FTL travel if ships weren’t encased in a Markov Bubble when superluminal (more on this later).

As one can see in the graph, it is possible to have a velocity of 0 in subluminal space. What does this mean when motion is relative? That you are at rest with regard to whatever reference point you choose, whether that be an outside observer or the destination you wish to travel to. A velocity of 0 in subluminal space translates to around 1. 7c in superluminal space. Fast, but still slower than the velocities of many FTL particles. Indeed, even low-end Markov Drives are capable of 51. 1c. Nevertheless, if you need to reach a destination as quickly as possible, it can be worth the delta-v to bring your spaceship to a complete stop with regard to your destination before transitioning to FTL in order to get that extra 1. 7c of velocity.

Were it possible to directly convert subluminal mass into superluminal mass, without a Markov Bubble, 1. 7c would be the highest possible speed achievable, as there is no practical way to further accelerate the mass (i. e. further reduce the energy state of said mass) aside from chilling it. One can’t suck propellent into your tanks, for example. This would be the second major disadvantage of FTL travel, again, if not for the use of a Markov Bubble.

The third disadvantage would be the fact that matter in superluminal space behaves radically differently than in subluminal space, to the point where life as we know it would be impossible to sustain. This, again, is circumvented via a Markov Bubble.

The three different continua—the subluminal, the luminal, and superluminal—coexist within the same time and space, overlapping at every point in the universe. The luminal exists in a fluidic membrane that separates the subluminal from the superluminal, acting as an interference medium between them. The membrane is semi-permeable, and has a definite surface on both sides, upon which all EM forces exist.

The membrane itself, and thus the entirety of three-dimensional space, is made up of Transluminal Energy Quanta (TEQs), which are, quite simply, the most fundamental building block of reality. A quantized entity, TEQs possess Planck length of 1, Planck energy of 1, and a mass of 0. Their movements and interactions give rise to every other particle and field.

Figure 2: Simplified diagram of spacetime

Taken as a whole, TEQs—and spacetime itself—behave in a quasi-fluidic way. Like a fluid, the luminal membrane exhibits:

· Pressure

· Density and compressibility

· Viscoelasticity

· Surface and surface tension

We will examine each of these in detail later, but for now, it’s worth noting that viscoelasticity is the property that gives rise to gravity and inertia and is what allows for all relative motion. As mass accumulates, it begins to displace the spacetime membrane, which thins beneath the object. This is gravity. Likewise, the membrane resists change, which means it takes time to displace when force is applied. (The viscousness of spacetime results in friction between boundary layers, which is the reason for the Lense–Thirring effect, aka: frame-dragging).

Since subluminal and superluminal space are physically separated by the spacetime membrane, STL mass and FTL mass can occupy the same coordinate points simultaneously, although this arrangement would be short-lived as (a) all matter in superluminal space moves at some speed faster than c, and (b) the shared membrane means that the spacetime displacement from mass, which is to say gravity, has an equal and opposite effect on the opposing realm.

An example to illustrate: in STL space, a planet will press down upon the fabric of spacetime to create the sort of gravity well we are all familiar with. At the same time, that depression will manifest in FTL space as a gravity “hill”—an equal and opposite prominence in the spacetime fabric. And the reverse is also true.

This has a number of consequences. First of which is that mass in one realm of space has a repulsive effect in the other. Stars, planets, and other STL gravitational bodies no longer act as attractors when one transitions to FTL. Quite the opposite.

The same is true of mass in superluminal space. However, since FTL contains a lower net energy density (a natural side effect of tachyons possessing a base speed of > c), and given the radically different laws and particles that exist in FTL, what happens is that the gravity hills produced by the denser, subluminal matter scatter the tachyonic mass, forcing it out and away. As confirmed by Oelert (2122), the majority of our local superluminal matter exists in a vast halo surrounding the Milky Way. This halo provides positive pressure on the Milky Way, which helps keep the galaxy from flying apart.

The gravitational effects of superluminal mass on our own subluminal realm were long a mystery. Early attempts to explain them resulted in the now-obsolete theories of “dark matter” and “dark energy. ” These days, we know that the concentrations of superluminal mass between the galaxies are responsible for the ongoing expansion of the universe, and that they also affect the shape and movement of the galaxies themselves.

Whether or not tachyonic matter coalesces into the superluminal equivalent of stars and planets remains an open question. The math says yes, but so far, observational confirmation has proven elusive. The rim of the galaxy is too far away for even the fastest drones to reach, and our current generation of FTL sensors aren’t sensitive enough to pick out individual gravitational bodies at that distance. No doubt that will change in time and we will eventually be able to learn far more about the nature of superluminal matter.

Another consequence of the well/hill caused by mass-induced spacetime displacement is the effect commonly known as the Markov Limit. Before that can be explained, it will be helpful to conduct a quick review of how FTL travel and communication actually work.

In order to have unlabored transition from subluminal to superluminal space, it is necessary to directly manipulate the underlying spacetime membrane. This is done via a specially conditioned EM field that couples with the membrane (or rather, with the constituent TEQs).

In gauge theory, ordinary EM fields can be described as abelian. That is, the nature of the field differs from whatever generates it. This is true not only of EM radiation but also electron/proton attraction, and also repulsion within atoms and molecules. Nonabelian fields would be those such as the strong and weak nuclear forces. They are structurally more complicated and, as a result, display higher levels of internal symmetry.

The other, more relevant, nonabelian fields are those associated with the surface tension, viscoelasticity, and internal coherence of the spacetime membrane. These arise from the internal motions and interactions of the TEQs, the details of which far exceed the scope of this section.

In any case, it has proven possible to convert ordinary EM radiation from abelian to nonabelian by modulating the polarization of the wave energy emitted from antennas or apertures, or by tuning the frequencies of alternating current to the toroidal geometries through which the currents are driven (this is the method used by a Markov Drive). Doing so results in EM radiation with an underlying field of SU(2) symmetry and nonabelian form, as described in Maxwell’s expanded equations. This couples in an orthogonal direction with the spacetime fields via a shared quantity: the “A vector potential. ” (Orthogonal, as tardyons and tachyons exhibit opposite motion directions along their packet lengths, and the conditioned EM field is interacting with both the subluminal and superluminal surfaces of spacetime. ) This has often been described as traveling in a straight line along a right angle.

Once the EM field is coupled with the spacetime fabric, it becomes possible to manipulate the density of the medium. By injecting an appropriate amount of energy, spacetime itself can be made increasingly thin and permeable. So much so that at a certain point the energy density of subluminal space causes the affected area to pop into superluminal space, like a high-pressure bubble expanding/rising into an area of lower pressure.

As long as the conditioned EM field is maintained, the encompassed subluminal space can be kept suspended within superluminal space.

From the point of view of an STL observer, everything within the bubble has vanished and can only be detected by its gravitational “hill” from the other side of the spacetime membrane.

From inside the bubble, an observer will see themselves surrounded by a perfect, spherical mirror where the surface of the bubble interfaces with the outer FTL space.

From the point of view of an FTL observer, a perfectly spherical, perfectly reflective bubble will have just popped into existence in superluminal space.

Mass and momentum remain conserved throughout. Your original heading will be the same in FTL as in STL, and your original speed will be converted to the superluminal energy-equivalent.

Once the EM field is discontinued, the bubble will vanish, and everything inside will drop back into subluminal space (a process no doubt familiar to many of you). Often this is accompanied by a bright flash and a burst of thermal energy as the light and heat that built up inside the bubble during the trip are released.

A few points on the specific features of Markov Bubbles are worth mentioning:

· Since the surface of the bubble acts as a perfect mirror, it is nearly impossible to shed waste heat from a spaceship during an FTL flight. This is why it becomes necessary to put crews and passengers into cryo prior to the trip.

· Given that, it is impractical to run a fusion drive while in FTL. Thus, Markov Drives—which require a not-inconsiderable amount of power to generate and maintain a conditioned EM field of sufficient strength—rely upon stored antimatter to produce said power. This is more efficient and results in the least amount of waste heat.

· Although a Markov Drive and the spaceship around it contain a large amount of compressed energy by FTL standards, the only energy that superluminal space sees is that which appears via the surface of the bubble. Thus, the more efficient a Markov Drive (i. e., the less energy it uses to generate the conditioned EM field) the faster you can travel.

· Were one unfortunate enough to collide with a chunk of FTL mass, this would result in immediate disruption of the Markov Bubble and immediate return to STL space, with possible catastrophic consequences, depending on one’s location.

· The less energy you use to generate a Markov Bubble, the increasingly delicate the bubble becomes. Large gravitational hills, such as those around stars and planets, are more than strong enough to disrupt the bubble and dump you back into normal, subluminal space. This is what is known as the Markov Limit. With adequate computational powers, the limit can be lowered, but it cannot be removed entirely. Currently, Markov Drives cannot be activated in a gravitational field stronger than 1/100, 000 g. This is why, in Sol, spaceships have to fly out to a distance equivalent to the radius of Jupiter’s orbit before they are able to go FTL (although if you’re actually near Jupiter, you’ll have to fly out even farther still).

As annoying as the Markov Limit is—no one likes having to sit through several more days of travel after weeks or months in cryo—it has actually proven to be a good thing. Because of it, no one can drop an FTL asteroid directly onto a city, or worse. Were there no Markov Limit, every spaceship would be far more of a potential threat than they already are and defense against surprise attacks would be basically impossible.

We are also fortunate that the viscoelasticity of spacetime precludes superpositional bombs. If a ship in FTL space flies over a mass in STL space that produces less than 1/100, 000 g, and the ship returns to subluminal space at that precise moment, the ship and the mass will push each other apart with equal force, preventing either object from intersecting. If they did intersect, the resulting explosion would be on par with an antimatter detonation.

Once a spaceship has entered superluminal space, straight-line flight is usually the most practical choice. However, a limited amount of maneuverability is possible by carefully increasing the energy density on one side or another of the bubble. This will cause that side of the spaceship to slow, and thus the vessel as a whole to turn. But it is a gradual process and only suitable for small course corrections over long distances. Otherwise you risk destabilizing the bubble. For more substantial changes, it is better to drop back into subluminal space, reorient, and try again.

Any changes in heading that occur in FTL will be reflected upon returning to STL. Likewise any changes to total momentum/speed, with the degree of change being inversely proportional.

Technically it is possible for two ships in FTL to dock, but the practical difficulties of matching exact velocities, as well as the mathematics of merging Markov Bubbles, means that while it has been done with drones, no one—to our knowledge—has been crazy enough to try it with crewed ships.

Although a ship within a Markov Bubble can never directly observe its FTL surroundings, some level of sensory information is possible. By pulsing the bubble at the appropriate frequencies, FTL particles can be created on the outer surface of the membrane, and these can be used both as a form of radar as well as a signaling mechanism. With careful measurement, we can detect the return of the particles when they impinge upon the bubble, and this allows us to interact with superluminal space, albeit in a crude manner.

This is the same method by which FTL comms and sensors work. Both may be used far closer to a star or planet than one can maintain a Markov Bubble, but as with the bubble, there is a point at which the associated gravity hills become too steep for all but the slowest, most energetic FTL signals to climb.

Due to the protection of the bubble, a ship retains the inertial frame of reference it had prior to FTL, which means it does not experience the extreme time dilation that an exposed superluminal particle would. Nor does it experience any relativistic effects at all (the twins of the famous twin paradox will age at the same rate if one of them takes an FTL flight from Sol to Alpha Centauri and back).

This, of course, leads us to the question of causality.

Why, one might ask, doesn’t FTL travel allow for time travel, as all the equations for special relativity seem to indicate? The answer is that it doesn’t, and we know this because … it doesn’t.

Although that may seem facetious, the truth is that the debate remained unsettled until Robinson and the crew of the Daedalus made the first FTL flights. It took empirical experimentation to answer the question of time travel for certain, and it was only after the fact that the supporting math and physics were fully developed.

What was found was this: no matter how fast a superluminal voyage—no matter how many multiples of c your spaceship travels—you will never be able to return to your origin point before you left. Nor for that matter can you use FTL signals to send information into the past. Some amount of time will always elapse between departure and return.

How is this possible? If one is at all familiar with light cones and Lorentz transformations, it should be blindingly obvious that exceeding the speed of light results in being able to visit the past and kill your own grandfather (or something equally absurd).

Yet we cannot.

The key to understanding this lies in the fact that all three luminal realms belong to the same universe. Despite their seeming separation (as it appears from our normal, subluminal point of view), the three are part of a larger, cohesive whole. And while local violations of physical laws may appear to occur in certain circumstances, on a global scale, those laws are upheld. Conservation of energy and momentum, for example, are always maintained across the three luminal realms.

Adding to that, there is a certain amount of crossover. Gravitational distortions on one side of the luminal barrier will have a mirrored effect on the other. Thus, an object moving in subluminal space will leave an STL gravitational distortion in the equivalent FTL space. Waves from the distortion will propagate outward at c no matter what, but the movement of the gravitational center will be less than c. And the reverse is true for a superluminal gravitational mass, which would leave an FTL track of spacetime ripples through normal, subluminal space. (Of course, no such FTL tracks were detected prior to the invention of the Markov Drive, but that was a result of—in most cases—their extreme weakness and the distance of most superluminal matter from the main body of the Milky Way. )

Note: it’s important to remember that just as anything moving faster than c in subluminal space could theoretically be used to arrange a causality violation, so too could anything moving slower than c in superluminal space. In FTL, c is the minimum speed of information. Above that, relativity and non-simultaneity are maintained, no matter how fast you might be going.

Even without the existence of a Markov Drive, we now have a situation where natural phenomena seem to be violating the light-speed barrier on both sides of the spacetime membrane, but again, without inducing any causality violations.

The question returns: Why is that?

The answer is twofold.

One: no particle of real mass ever breaks the light-speed barrier in either the sub- or superluminal realm. If one did, we would see all of the paradoxes and causality violations predicted by traditional physics.

Two: just as TEQs form the basis for every subluminal particle, they also form the basis for every superluminal particle. As their name implies, TEQs are capable of existing in all three realms at once, and they are capable of moving as slow as the slowest STL particle and as fast as the fastest FTL particle—which is very fast indeed, limited only by the lower boundary of energy needed to maintain particle coherence, and even then, TEQs can move faster still given their Planck energy of 1.

Thus, with the discovery of TEQs, we have an object that is capable of conveying information far faster than the speed of light. Normally this only occurs in the superluminal realm, but any TEQ is capable of such speeds, and they often transfer from sub- to superluminal velocities as their position within the spacetime membrane changes. These changes are responsible for much of the quantum weirdness seen at small scales.

The light cone, as it were, of an observer using TEQs for informational gathering would be far, far wider than if they were only using photons (wider, but not complete; TEQs have a finite velocity). The wider light cone—or TEQ cone—expands the total set of events that can be regarded as simultaneous. Although non-simultaneity and relativity are maintained throughout all three luminal realms (when considered as a whole), the immense velocity of TEQs reduces the events that can be considered non-simultaneous to a far smaller number, and those that are lie outside the fastest speed of an FTL particle. And while, in theory, the universe remains fundamentally relative, in practice, the vast majority of events may be regarded as ordered and causal.

This means that when a ship goes FTL, it cannot induce any causality violations within superluminal space, as the Markov Bubble is a superluminal particle/object and behaves as such. And when a ship drops back to STL, no causality violations occur because travel times are always slower than the top speed of the TEQs (i. e., the speed of information).

Where a paradox would have occurred in subluminal space, events are found to have proceeded in a causal relationship, one after another, without any contradiction. From a distance, it may appear that one can send a piece of information back to its origin point before it was transmitted, but appears is the word to keep in mind. In actuality, no such thing is possible. If one tries, the return transmission will never arrive any sooner than one unit of TEQ Planck time (where TEQ Planck time is defined as the length of time for a TEQ at maximal speed to traverse one unit of Planck length).

As a result, whenever one sees the possibility for a causality violation in subluminal space, one is, in essence, seeing a mirage. And whenever one tries to exploit said possibility, one will fail.

This renders a large number of observations in our subluminal universe illusionary. Prior to the invention of the Markov Drive (or failing that, detection of FTL gravitational signals), none of this mattered. Relativity was maintained throughout because FTL travel and communications weren’t possible. Nor could we accelerate a spaceship to high enough relativistic speeds to really begin to investigate the issue. Only now, with access to both the sub- and superluminal realms, has the truth become clear.

As the light signatures of our modern-day FTL trips begin to reach the nearby stars, an observer positioned there with a powerful enough telescope would see a confusing series of images as ships and signals pop out of nowhere, seemingly out of order. However, by observing TEQs instead of photons, the true order of events may be established (or by physically traveling to the sources of the images).

The exact mechanism that prevents causality violations in STL space is the top velocity of the TEQs. As long as that isn’t broken (and no known mechanism would allow for this), FTL will never allow for time travel into the past. And for that we should be grateful. A non-causal universe would be sheer chaos.

With our overview finished, we will now examine the theoretical possibility of using conditioned EM fields to reduce inertial effects and to lessen or increase perceived gravity. Although as yet impractical with our current levels of antimatter production, in the future, this could be a means of—

APPENDIX II

SHIP-BASED COMBAT IN SPACE

Transcribed from Professor Chung’s Lecture at the UMC Naval Academy, Earth (2242)

Good afternoon, cadets. Be seated.

Over the next six weeks, you’ll receive the finest education the UMC can muster on the means and methods of ship-based combat. Fighting in space isn’t twice as hard as fighting in air or water. It isn’t three or four times as hard. It’s an entire order of magnitude more difficult.

Zero-g is a non-intuitive environment for the human brain. Even if you grew up on a ship or station, as some of you have, there are aspects of inertial maneuvering you will not understand without proper instruction. And no matter how sharp you might be when it comes to good old slower than light, FTL throws those rules out the airlock and stomps on them until they’re a bloody mess.

The maneuvering capabilities of your vessel and those you fight alongside will determine where you can fight, who you can fight, and—if needed—the requirements of retreat. Space, as has often been stated, is not only large, it’s larger than you can imagine. If you can’t close the distance between you and your target, they are invulnerable to your fire. This is why it is often advantageous to drop out of FTL with a high degree of relative motion. But not always. Circumstances vary, and as officers, you will be called upon to make those sorts of judgment calls.

You will learn the capabilities and the limitations of our fusion drives. You will learn why—despite what you may have seen in games or movies—the concept of personal combat space vessels is not only outdated, it never was a thing. A drone or missile is not only cheaper, it is far more effective. Machines can withstand far more g’s than any human. Yes, on occasion you get a radicalized miner or a local cartel member who uses a smaller spaceship for piracy or the like, but when confronted with a proper warship such as our new cruisers or battleships, they always lose.

When you do engage the enemy, combat will be a strategic interplay between the different systems of your ships. A chess game, where the goal is to inflict enough damage on the hostiles to disable or destroy them before they do the same to you.

Every weapon system we use has different advantages and disadvantages. Missiles are best for short- to medium-range attacks, but they’re too slow and carry too little fuel for longer-range engagements. And once you fire them, they’re gone. Point-defense lasers can stop incoming missiles, but only a certain number and only until the laser overheats. Casaba-Howitzers are also short- to medium-range weapons, but unlike missiles, lasers can’t stop them once they’re fired. In fact, nothing short of a solid wall of lead and tungsten ten or twenty meters thick is going to stop the radiation beam from a Casaba-Howitzer. The downside is their mass; you can only carry so many Casaba-Howitzers in your ship magazine. Also, at long range, the beam from a howitzer will widen, leaving it about as powerful as a wet fart in a blizzard. Medium to long range, you rely on your keel laser. But again, you have to worry about overheating, and your enemy can counter with chalk and chaff to disperse the incoming pulse. Mass drivers and nuke-powered penetrators can be used at any distance, as kinetic weapons have effectively infinite range in space, but they’re really only practical in close-range engagements where the enemy doesn’t have time to evade or long, long-range attacks where the enemy doesn’t know you’re shooting at them.

No matter which weapon or weapons you choose to employ, you will have to balance their use with your ship’s maximum thermal load. Do you fire your keel laser one more time or do you execute another evasion burn? Do you risk extending your radiators during a firefight in order to shed a few extra BTUs? How long can you risk cooling down before jumping to FTL if the enemy is chasing you?

Ship-to-surface combat has different requirements than ship-to-ship. Stationary installations such as orbital defense platforms, hab-rings, and converted asteroids all require unique strategies. If you choose to board an enemy vessel, how best to protect your troops as well as your own ship?

Along with physical combat, you will have to contend with electronic warfare. The hostiles will be trying to subvert your computer systems and turn them against you. Jamming may not protect you, as the hostiles could use a line-of-sight beam to initiate a system handshake.

All these things and more must be taken into account when engaging in space combat. The environment wants to kill you. The hostiles want to kill you. And your own instincts and lack of knowledge will kill you—and everyone around you—if you don’t master these fundamentals.

Now, some of you are thinking, “Won’t the ship mind or our pseudo-intelligences handle most of these things? ” The answer is yes, they will. But not all the time. A ship mind doesn’t have hands. What they can move or fix is limited, and that goes double for pseudo-intelligences. In an emergency, some things can only be done by a human. And there have been numerous cases where the ship mind or the ship’s computer system has been disabled by enemy action. When that happens, these decisions will fall to you, the next generation of UMCN officers.

The next six weeks will be some of the hardest six weeks of your lives. That’s by design. The UMC doesn’t want anyone who is unqualified to step onto a spaceship where they can endanger not only their own lives but the lives of their fellow crew. Better that you wash out now and go back to being swabbies who only have to worry about keeping their boots polished and their jaws off the deck. If you don’t think you can handle this sort of responsibility, get up and leave. The door’s right there, and no one, not me, not your superiors, and not the UMC will think any less of you for walking out now. … No? Alright then. Over the next month and a half, my staff and I are going to put you through the wringer. You will wish you gave up. But if you do the hours, work hard, and learn from the mistakes of those who paid for their knowledge with blood and lives, then you have a good chance of wearing your officers’ pips—wearing them and doing justice to them.

So study hard, and at the end of this program, I expect each and every one of you to impress me with your knowledge of space-based combat.

That will be all. Dismissed.

APPENDIX III

TERMINOLOGY

“May your path always lead to knowledge. ”

“Knowledge to freedom. ”

—ENTROPIC LITANY

“Eat the path. ”

—INARË

ABYSSAL CONCLAVE: sycophantic congress of Wranaui co-forms that resides upon the Plaintive Verge within the oceans of Pelagius.

ACUWAKE: see StimWare.

ADRASTEIA: moon in orbit around the gas giant Zeus in the Sigma Draconis system. In mythology, a nymph who cared for the infant Zeus in secret. Meaning inescapable in Greek.

AIGOO: Korean exclamation used to express many emotions including pity, disgust, frustration, mild discomfort, or surprise. Akin to a verbal sigh.

AISH: Korean interjection expressing frustration or discontent.

AJUMMA: Korean term for any middle-aged or older woman, or a married woman, even if young. Ajummas are often stereotyped as intense and overbearing.

ANTIMATTER FARM: large numbers of satellites placed in close orbit around a star. Solar panels convert sunlight into electricity, which is used to generate antimatter. The process is hideously inefficient but necessary, as antimatter is the preferred fuel for Markov Drives.

ARCH ARITHMETIST: see Pontifex Digitalis.

ARMS: semi-autonomous political and sociogenetic organizations in Wranaui society. Each Arm acts as it sees fit, but impulses may be overridden by governing form. (See also Tfeir. )

ARROSITO AHUMADO: dessert common to San Amaro. Rice pudding flavored with caramel made by boiling dark sugar and filtering the syrup through the ashes of herbs.

ASPECT OF THE VOID: Wranaui viewscreen; traditionally an image generated within an orb of suspended water.

BATTLESHIP: largest standard ship class in the UMC Navy. Heavily armed, able to carry significant numbers of troops, slow to turn given its length. Never operates without support ships. (See also Cruiser. )

BEANSTALK: see Space Elevator.

BERYL NUTS: edible nuts with gem-like shells used in certain brands of meal packs. Gene-hacked species native to Eidolon.

BITS: cryptocurrency dated to Galactic Standard Time (GTS). Most widely accepted form of legal tender across interstellar space. Official currency of the League of Allied Worlds.

BLACK NOVA: cultivar of Capsicum chinense, gene-hacked to deposit pure capsaicin in a waxy outer layer. Developed by Ines Tolentira of Stewart’s World prior to winning the Tri-Solar Hot Pepper Bash.

BLASTER: laser that fires a pulse instead of a continuous beam.

B. LOOMISII: orange, lichen-like bacteria native to Adrasteia.

BOSS: generic Hutterite term for a person in charge of any sort of project or organization. Adopted into general usage with numerous variations following the Hutterite Expansion.

BUGHUNT: UMC name for system formerly settled by the Old Ones. Location of the planet humans call Nidus and final resting place of the Staff of Blue.

CARETAKERS: highly intelligent biomechanical creatures that live on Unity. Responsible for general maintenance and minor construction. Speculated to have some form of integrated hive mind.

CASABA-HOWITZER: nuclear shaped charge. Often mounted on a missile to increase its range. Term can refer to either pure Casaba-Howitzers (which focus a nuclear explosion into a narrow beam of plasma) or Casaba-Howitzers that use said explosion to propel explosively formed projectiles (slugs of molten tungsten with extreme destructive potential).

CHELL: tea derived from the leaves of the Sheva palm on Eidolon. A mild stimulant used throughout the League, second in popularity only to coffee. More common among colonists than Terrans.

“CHIARA’S FOLLY”: Weyland folk song about the misadventures of a cat.

CLOUD CITIES: lightweight, neutral density hab-domes that float in the clouds of Venus. Some of the largest and most prosperous settlements outside of Earth. Majority of structural elements come from trees and other plants grown in the domes.

CO-FORM: term for Wranaui that share the same physical shape.

COLLEGE OF ENUMERATORS: governing body of the Numenists at their headquarters on Mars.

COMPULSION: see Tsuro.

CONSERVATION PARTY: one of several major political parties in the League. Ecologically minded with a focus on preserving the flora and fauna of various xenospheres. (See also Expansionist Party and Stellarists. )

CONSTRUCT: an artificial (though biological) body grown to house the brain of a person who has lost their original flesh. Often an intermediate step along the way toward full conversion to ship mind.

CORDOVA: (Gliese 785) orange-red dwarf star used by the Wranaui as a forward operating base and long-term surveillance post for observing humanity.

CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP: territory-independent citizenship granted to certain employees of interstellar corporations. This allows for individuals to work, travel, and live among different nations/planets/systems with relative ease. Concept developed prior to formation of League, and is slowly being superseded by League citizenship, which grants an equivalent passport.

CORRUPTED: see Nightmares.

CRUISER: UMC ship designed to operate solo on long-distance surveys and patrols. Smaller and more maneuverable than battleships, but still formidable. Standard gear includes two Markov-equipped shuttles capable of traveling orbit-to-surface and surface-to-orbit.

CRYO: cryogenic sleep; suspended animation induced via a cocktail of drugs prior to FTL travel.

CRYO SICKNESS: generalized digestive, metabolic, and hormonal distress caused by spending too long in cryo (or too many back-to-back trips). Unpleasant to deadly with side effects scaling to length of time in cryo and/or number of trips. Some individuals are more prone than others.

CYCLE: Wranaui year. Roughly a quarter longer than an Earth-standard year.

DELTA-V: measure of the thrust per unit of mass in a spacecraft needed to perform a certain maneuver. In other words, the change in velocity that can be accomplished by expending the ship’s propellent. Maneuvers are measured in the delta-v required, and the costs add linearly. The mass of propellant required for any one maneuver is determined via the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: civilian department of the League responsible for overseeing the UMC.

DERPs: dehydrated excretory recycling pellets. Sterile, polymer-coated feces as processed by appropriately equipped skinsuits.

DIRECTOR OF INTERSTELLAR SECURITY: highest civilian intelligence officer in the League. Primary responsibility is the existential protection of humanity.

DQAR: Wranaui battle formation, typified by an inverted delta shape.

EARTH CENTRAL: main League and UMC headquarters. Built around the base of the Honolulu beanstalk.

EIDOLON: planet in orbit around Epsilon Eridani. An Earth-like garden planet teeming with native life, none sentient and most either poisonous or hostile. The colony there has the highest mortality rate of any settled planet.

ENTROPIC PRINCIPIA: central text of Entropism. Originated as a statement of intent, later expanded to a philosophical treatise containing a summary of all known scientific knowledge, with primary emphasis on astronomy, physics, and mathematics. (See also Entropism. )

ENTROPISM: stateless, pseudo-religion driven by a belief in the heat death of the universe and a desire to escape or postpone said death. Founded by mathematician Jalal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich in the mid-twenty-first century. Entropists devote considerable resources to scientific research and have contributed—directly or indirectly—to numerous important discoveries. Open adherents are noted for their gradient robes. As an organization, Entropists have proven difficult to control, as they pledge loyalty to no one government, only to the rigors of their pursuit. Their technology consistently runs several decades ahead of the main of human society, if not more. “By our actions we increase the entropy of the Universe. By our entropy, we seek salvation from the coming dark. ” (See also Nova Energium. )

ENUMERATION: broadcast of ascending numbers that Numenists are required to listen to as part of the observance of their faith. Some numbers, such as primes, are considered more auspicious than others. (See also Numenism. )

EUROPA COMMAND: League of Allied Worlds Europa Command (LAWEUCOM, shortened EUCOM) is one of seven unified combatant commands of the League military stationed within Sol. Headquartered on Lawrence Station with ongoing material support provided by the manufacturing facilities of Orsted Station by Ganymede.

EXOSKELETON: (EXO in common parlance) a powered frame used for combat, freight, mining, and mobility. Exos vary widely in design and function, with some being open to the elements and others hardened for vacuum or the depths of oceans. Armored exos are standard equipment for UMC combat troops.

EXPANSIONIST PARTY: one of several major political parties in the League. Founded to help foster the spread of humans outside of Sol, now mainly focused on preserving the interests of the established extra-solar colonies, often to the point of blocking the establishment of new ones. (See also Conservation Party and Stellarists. )

EXPEDITION BOSS: see Boss.

FARSCENT: class of durable chemicals secreted by Wranaui for long-distance communication in water. Metaphorical bandwidth is narrow and fidelity is low, making this of limited utility for large exchanges of data. (See also Nearscent and Lowsound. )

THE FARTHEST SHORE: spacer poem by Harrow Glantzer (Hutterite).

FINK-NOTTLE’S PIOUS NEWT EMPORIUM: famed amphibian retailer on Earth. Established by C. J. Weenus circa 2104.

FLASH TRACE: to travel by FTL far enough that one can stop and see the real-time light from an event. E. g., spaceship A wants to see when and where spaceship B left the Solar System sometime in the past day. Spaceship A flies the required number of light-hours (twenty-four in this case) from Sol, then sits and watches via telescope until it sees B leaving Sol.

FLEET INTELLIGENCE: branch of UMCN devoted to gathering information.

FOXGLOVE POPE: see Pontifex Digitalis.

FREEHOLDINGS: settlements, conclaves, stations, and outholdings unaffiliated with any major government.

FTL: faster than light. The primary mode of transportation between stars. (See also Markov Drive. )

FTL TAPE: slang for vacuum tape, a type of incredibly tough, pressure-sensitive tape. Strong enough to patch breaches in outer hull. Despite popular belief, not suitable for repairs intended to last the duration of FTL trips.

FULL SWEEP: highest hand in Scratch Seven, consisting of four sevens, two kings, and a nine, for a count of ninety-one and a score of thirteen.

GECKO PADS: adhesive pads on the bottom of skinsuits and boots intended for climbing or maneuvering in zero-g. As name implies, pads (which are covered with bristles around 5 μ m in diameter) depend on van der Waals force for adhesion. Shear force is limiting factor for maximal load, but also provides mechanism for release.

GLITTER BUG: small, insect-like animal native to Eidolon. Noted for their brilliant, metallic exoskeletons.

GLOWLIGHTS: bioluminescent lights grown by the Seed.

GRADIENT ROBES: traditional garb of observing Entropists. Adorned with the rising phoenix that is their sigil. Metamaterial laced with advanced technology that allows the robes to act as a skinsuit, armor, and, when needed, a weapon.

GREAT BEACON: first alien artifact found by humans. Located at Talos VII (Theta Persei 2). The Beacon is a hole fifty kilometers wide and thirty deep. It emits an EMP at 304 MHz every 10. 6 seconds, along with a burst of structured sound that is a representation of the Mandelbrot set in trinary code. Surrounded by a net of vanadium-laced gallium that may have once acted as a superconductor. Giant turtle-like creatures (without heads or legs) roam the plain surrounding the hole. As of yet, no one has discovered their relationship with the artifact. Six more Beacons are known to exist. They are assumed to have been constructed by the Old Ones, but definitive proof is lacking. Intended purpose remains a mystery.

GROUND-POUNDER: derogatory term for one who lives on or was born on a planet.

GST: Galactic Standard Time. Universal chronology as determined by emissions of TEQs from the galactic core. Causality may appear to be broken but only appear; a must always cause b.

HANZO TENSEGRITY: insurance company based out of Sol. Not known for their customer satisfaction.

HATCHING POOLS: shallow tidal pools where Wranaui would hatch their eggs. Now replicated in artificial pools for travel and convenience. Upon hatching, young Wranaui are combative and cannibalistic; only the strongest few survive.

HDAWARI: large, saltwater carnivore native to Pelagius. One of only a few predators known to prey upon adult Wranaui. Closely related to Wranaui but less intelligent.

HEPTARCHY: ruling council of the Old Ones. (See also Highmost. )

HERESY OF THE FLESH: see Tfeir.

HIBERNACULUM: Entropist term for a cryo tube.

HIGH LFARR: a famed prominence on Pelagius. Temperate weather made it a favorite location for Wranaui hatching pools. Later, acquired enormous socio-political and religious significance with the discovery of several artifacts of the Old Ones built upon it. Original site of the Wranaui Conclave (later the Abyssal Conclave) prior to the joining of the Arms and the ascendency of the regnant form.

HIGHMOST: wielder of the Staff of Blue. Leader of the Heptarchy.

HIVE MIND: psycho-mechanical joining of two or more brains. Usually accomplished by continual-beam synchronization of subject implants, ensuring agreement between intero-, extero-, and proprioceptive stimuli. Total exchange of prior sense memory is a common (though not required) part of establishing a hive mind. Effective range depends on signaling bandwidth and tolerance for lag. Breakdown tends to occur when physical proximity exceeds tolerance. Largest recorded hive mind was forty-nine, but experiment was short-lived as participants experienced debilitating sensory overload.

HUNTER-SEEKER: small drones used for surveillance and assassination.

HUTTERITE EXPANSION: series of intensive colonization efforts by Reform Hutterites, starting in the Solar System and expanding outward following the discovery of FTL. The period is said to begin shortly after the construction of Earth’s first space elevator and end with the settlement of Eidolon. (See also Reform Hutterites. )

HYDROTEK CORP.: company specializing in hydrogen extraction and refinement around gas giants. Hydrotek stations are the main refueling and remassing facilities in most systems.

IDEALIS: as the Seed is able to change shape/form at will, the Wranaui consider it the Platonic “ideal” of physical embodiment.

INARË: [[Invalid Input: Entry Not Found]]

IPD: interplanetary diploma. Only educational degree accepted throughout all of settled space. Accreditation is overseen by Bao University on Stewart’s World in cooperation with several schools in Sol. IPDs cover most relevant subjects, including law, medicine, and all the major sciences.

ITC: Interstellar Trade Commission. A department of the League tasked with overseeing interstellar commerce. Its remit includes enforcing standards, collecting tariffs, and fraud prevention, as well as providing loans and resources to spur economic growth throughout settled space.

JELLIES: see Wranaui.

KNOT OF MINDS: in general, any group of Wranaui bound and dedicated to a singular purpose. A solemn and sacred joining. Traditionally sealed by winding one’s tentacles/limbs around those of the other bondees. As such, a Knot often only has seven members (that being the number of primary tentacles the main Wranaui form has), but the concept is often expanded to include more. In the modern era, a Knot can be formed over lowsound nearscent, but there is a bias against those Knots as being less binding than those formed in person.

Specifically: the Knot founded by Shoal Leader Nmarhl and its compatriots with the purpose of opposing Ctein’s leadership and safeguarding the Idealis later bonded with Kira Navá rez.

LAMP LINES: seaweed-like growths that provide illumination in the depths of the Plaintive Verge.

LAPSANG TRADING CORPORATION: interstellar conglomerate that began as a mercantile venture before shifting into founding, funding, and running colonies such as Highstone on Weyland. Headquartered on Stewart’s World. Slogan: “Forging the future together. ”

LEAGUE OF ALLIED WORLDS: (LAW) interstellar government formed after the discovery of the Great Beacon on Talos VII. Consists of the settlements in and around Sol, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Indi, Epsilon Eridani, and 61 Cygni.

LION CLAM: animal native to Eidolon. Noted for its amber shell. Used in the manufacture of a sepia-colored ink.

LOADER BOT: semi-autonomous robots used for manual labor.

LOWSOUND: vocal emanations used by Wranaui for communication over long distances in their oceans. Similar to whale song.

LOWSOUND FARSCENT: traditionally a combination of the two methods Wranaui use for long-distance communication in water. More commonly, a term for STL or FTL transmissions, such as radio.

LUTSENKO DEFENSE INDUSTRIES: a Ruslan-based munitions company.

MACHINE BOSS: see Boss.

MAG-SHIELD: either the magnetospheric dipolar torus of ionized plasma used to protect spaceships from solar radiation during interplanetary trips or the magneto-hydrodynamic system used for braking and thermal protection during reentry.

MANYFORM: see Seed.

MARKOV BUBBLE: sphere of subluminal space permeated with a conditioned EM field that allows for tardyonic matter to transition through the membrane of fluidic spacetime into superluminal space.

MARKOV DRIVE: antimatter-fueled machine that allows for FTL travel. (See also unified field theory. )

MARKOV, ILYA: engineer and physicist who outlined the unified field theory in 2107, thus allowing for modern FTL travel.

MARKOV LIMIT: distance from a gravitational mass at which it becomes possible to sustain a Markov Bubble and thus transition to FTL travel.

MEDIBOT: robotic assistant capable of diagnosis and treatment for all but the most difficult cases. Doctors rely on medibots for the majority of surgeries. Many ships forego a doctor entirely, prioritizing cost savings over the relatively small risk of needing a human physician.

MEDIFOAM: sterile, antibiotic-laced foam that hardens into a semi-flexible cast. Used to stop bleeding, immobilize fractures and, when injected into bodily cavities, prevent infection.

MILCOM: official UMC communication network.

NANOASSEMBLER: 3-D printer that utilizes nanobots to produce complex shapes, machines, and—given the appropriate stock—biological structures such as muscles, organs, and seeds.

NARU-CLASS: medium-mass Wranaui ships that carry a limited number of troops. Usually no more than three squids, two or three crawlers, and the same number of snappers.

NEARSCENT: chemicals secreted by Wranaui for communication. Their primary method of conveying linguistic and non-linguistic information.

NEST OF TRANSFERENCE: Wranaui device for copying memories and basic brain structures from one body to another. Also used to imprint stored personalities/memories onto a new body after the original individual dies. (See also Tfeir. )

NIGHTMARES: malignant, self-sustaining growths caused by an unsuccessful joining between Seed and host (usually when either Seed or host—or both—are damaged beyond proper repair).

NNAR: coral-like organism native to Pelagius, commonly used as a decorative element by the Wranaui. Some varieties secrete a clear coating that has mild psychotropic effects on the immature forms of the Wranaui.

NOMATI: polyp-like animals native to the Arctic regions of Eidolon. Every solar eclipse, they detach from their anchor point (usually a rock) and hop fourteen times. Reason as yet unknown.

NORODON: fast-acting liquid analgesic suitable for mid-level to severe pain.

NOVA ENERGIUM: the headquarters and prime research lab of the Entropists. Located near Shin-Zar.

NSARRO: Wranaui measurement of length. Defined as the distance one can swim in seven pulses. (See also Cycle and Pulse. )

NUMBER SUPREME: largest number imaginable. As defined by the Numenists, the sum of all knowledge, containing the known and the unknown. The greater part of two equal halves. God.

NUMENISM: religion centered around the supposed holy nature of numbers. Founded on Mars by Sal Horker II circa 2165–2179 (est. ), Numenism quickly gained traction among colonists and workers dependent upon the technology of their new world for survival. Defining feature of Numenism is the ongoing broadcast of numbers—the Enumeration—from their headquarters on Mars. The Enumeration is working its way in ascending order through the list of real numbers.

NUMINOUS FLANGE: enormous geological structure on Ruslan. Uplifted granite slab laced with gold veins. Prominent tourist feature on Ruslan. Known to inspire religious fervor and existential crises among viewers. Setting of Adelin, an influential drama whose lead actor, Sasha Petrovich, was involved in a corruption scandal near the end of 2249, which led to the resignation of Ruslan’s governor, Maxim Novikov, and the appointment of Inquisitor Orloff to resolve the situation. Subsequent unrest continued on and off for several years.

NWOR: many-legged saltwater animal native to Pelagius. Has crustacean-like shell and omnivorous diet. Noted for its solitary habits.

OLD ONES: sentient race responsible for making the Seed, the Great Beacons, and numerous other technological artifacts found throughout the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. Humanoid, with two sets of arms, they stood about two meters tall. Seemingly extinct. Evidence shows their species was extraordinarily advanced and predates every other known self-aware species. (See also Highmost and Staff of Blue. )

ORBITAL RING: large, artificial ring placed around a planet. Can be built at nearly any distance, but first ring is usually built in low orbit. Basic concept is simple: rotating cable orbits equator. A non-orbiting, superconducting shell encases said cable. The shell is used to accelerate/decelerate cable as needed. Solar panels and structures can be constructed on outer shell, including stationary space elevators. Gravity on outer surface of shell/ring is near planetary levels. A cheap and practical way to move large amounts of mass in and out of orbit. Used by both humans and Wranaui.

ORB OF CONVERSION: Wranaui FTL drive. It “converts” a ship from STL space to FTL space.

OROS FERN: plant native to Eidolon. Green-black, with leaves that grow from a coiled shape similar to fiddleheads (thus the name).

PACKET: small, unmanned, FTL-capable messenger drone.

PATTERN: embedded directive that guides and sets the long-term goals of the Seed.

PDF: Planetary Defense Force. Local military, often civilian, attached to a certain planet.

PELAGIUS: human name for the Wranaui homeworld. F-type star. 340 light-years from Sol.

PFENNIC: fish-like animal native to Pelagius. Noted for copper taste of its meat. Common delicacy among the Wranaui.

PLAINTIVE VERGE: underwater volcanic vent in the oceans of Pelagius. Home of the Abyssal Conclave.

PONDER UNION: workers’ union based out of the Ceres shipyards.

PONTIFEX DIGITALIS: nominal religious head of the Numenists. Commands and answers to the College of Enumerators. Responsible for overseeing the Enumeration of real numbers.

PREMIER: head of the League of Allied Worlds. Elected by the constituent governments.

PRISONER: anyone not an Entropist. One imprisoned within the dying universe by their lack of knowledge.

PSEUDO-INTELLIGENCE: convincing simulacrum of sentience. True artificial intelligence has thus far proven more difficult (and dangerous) to create than anticipated. Pseudo-intelligences are programs capable of limited executive function but lack self-awareness, creativity, and introspection. Despite their limitations, they’ve proven immensely helpful in nearly every realm of human endeavor, from piloting ships to managing cities. (See also Ship Mind. )

PULSE: standard unit of Wranaui timekeeping. Equivalent to forty-two seconds. (See also Cycle. )

Q-DRIVE: a quantum-level memory stick.

QUESTANT: an Entropist. One who quests for a way to save humanity from the heat death of the universe.

RD 52s: hydrogen-cooled Casaba-Howitzers chilled to within a fraction of a degree of absolute zero. Used as mines. An early attempt at stealth weaponry in space.

REFORM HUTTERITES: heretical offshoot of traditional ethnoreligious Hutteritism, now far outnumbering their forebears. Reform Hutterites (RHs) accept the use of modern technology where it allows them to further pursue the spread of humanity and establish their claim over God’s creation, but they frown on any use of tech, such as STEM shots, for what they deem selfish, individual needs. Where possible, they hew to communal-based life. They have proven highly successful everywhere they’ve settled. Unlike traditional Hutterites, RHs are known to serve in the military, although this is still frowned upon by the majority of their society.

REGINALD THE PIG-HEADED GOD: local cult leader in the city of Khoiso. Gene-hacked human with a head in the shape of a pig’s. Believed by his followers to be a deity in flesh and possessed of supernatural powers.

REMASS: propellant expelled out the back of a spaceship. Usually hydrogen. Not to be confused with fuel, which in the case of nuclear rockets is the material fused or split to heat the remass/propellant.

RETICULUM: intra-ship network used by Wranaui.

RIPPLE: [[Invalid Input: Entry Not Found]]

RM: reserve mark. Indicates legal protection over a term, phrase, or symbol.

RODS: see SJAMs.

RSW7-MOLOTÓ K: Casaba-Howitzers manufactured by Lutsenko Defense Industries.

RTC NEWS: Ruslan Transmission Company. Newsfeed out of 61 Cygni.

RUSLAN: rocky planet in orbit around 61 Cygni A. Second newest colony in the League, behind Weyland. Primarily settled by Russian interests. Extensive mining takes place in the asteroid belts around A’s binary partner, Cygni B.

“SAMAN-SAHARI”: low, slow song originating from Farson’s Combine (a collectivist freehold established on a planetoid around Alpha Centauri during the early years of the system’s colonization).

SAN AMARO: small Latin American country. Location of Earth’s first space elevator.

SAYA: “to be sure. ” Direct translation is closer to “my surety. ” Common usage on Ruslan. Derived from Malay.

SCOURGE: microbe that killed twenty-seven of thirty-four humans sent to survey the rocky planetoid Blackstone.

SCRAMROCK: post-fusion hyper vibes, typified by samples of radio and plasma waves taken from the rings of various gas giants. Popularized by Honeysuckle Heaps in 2232.

SCRATCH SEVEN: traditional spacer card game. Goal is to accumulate as many sevens or multiples of seven as possible by adding values of cards (face cards go by their numerical value).

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: civilian official who oversees the League military.

SEED: self-organizing genetic potential. A spark of life in the endless void.

SEEKER: servitor life-form created by the Old Ones with the intent of enforcement and containment. Able to assume direct control over a living creature’s actions following physical contact and injections into braincase. Highly intelligent, highly dangerous, and known to amass large armies of enslaved sentients.

SEVEN MINUTES TO SATURN: war movie made at Alpha Centauri in 2242 about Venus’s failed attempt to win independence from Earth during the Zahn Offensive.

SEVENTH FLEET: numbered fleet of the League of Allied Worlds. Headquartered at Deimos Station by Mars. Part of the UMC Solar Fleet. Largest of the forward-deployed UMC fleets.

SFAR: Wranaui clearance level. Higher than sfenn, lower than sfeir.

SHADOW SHIELD: a plug of radiation shielding that sits between a reactor and the main body of a spaceship. Comprising two layers: neutron shielding (usually lithium hydroxide) and gamma-ray shielding (either tungsten or mercury). In order to keep stations and crew within the “shadow” cast by the shield, spaceships usually dock nose-first.

SHELL: Wranaui word for “spaceship. ” Derived from their own protective carapaces.

SHI-BAL: Korean profanity, equivalent to English “fuck. ” Exclusively used with anger and/or negative connotation.

SHIN-ZAR: high-g planet in orbit around Tau Ceti. Only major colony to refuse membership to the League, which resulted in armed conflict between Zarian forces and the League, and the loss of some thousands of lives on both sides. Notable for the high number of colonists of Korean descent. Also notable for population-wide gene-hacking in order to help the colonists adapt to the stronger-than-Earth gravity. Main alterations being: significantly thicker skeletal structure, increased lung capacity (to compensate for low oxygen levels), increased hemoglobin, increased muscular mass via myostatin inhibition, doubled tendons, and generally larger organs. Divergent genetic population. (See also Entropism. )

SHIP CAT: traditional pet aboard spaceships. Superstitious belief attaches great importance to the presence and well-being of a ship cat. Plenty of spacers will refuse to sign on to a vessel without one. More than one instance has been recorded of someone being killed after harming (intentionally or otherwise) a ship cat.

SHIP MIND: the somatic transcendence of humanity. Brains removed from bodies, placed in a growth matrix, and bathed with nutrients to induce tissue expansion and synaptic formation. Ship minds are the result of a confluence of factors: human desire to push their intellect to the limit, the failure to develop true A. I., the increasing size of spaceships, and the destructive potential of any space-faring vessel. Having a single person, a single mind, to oversee the many operations of a ship was appealing. However, no unaugmented brain was capable of handling the amount of sensory information a full-sized spaceship produced. The larger the vessel, the larger the brain needed.

Ship minds are some of the most brilliant individuals humanity has produced. Also, in cases, some of the most disturbed. The growth process is difficult, and severe psychiatric side effects have been noted.

It is theorized that ship minds—both on and off ships—are responsible for directing far more of the daily affairs of humans than any but the most paranoid suspect. But while their means and methods may sometimes be opaque, their desires are no different than those of any other living creature: to live long and prosper.

SHOAL LEADER: any Wranaui captain or commander in charge of more than three units, but usually reserved for leaders of equivalent rank to brigadier or admiral.

SJAMs: aka “rods from god. ” Inert projectiles made of tungsten rods that are dropped from orbit. Concept invented by Dr. Pournelle in the twentieth century. A form of kinetic weapon. Used by militaries when conventional explosives are impractical (as when wanting to avoid radiation) or when anti-projectile countermeasures are a concern.

SKINSUIT: general-purpose, skin-tight protective clothing that—with a helmet—can act as a spacesuit, diving equipment, and cold-weather gear. Standard equipment for anyone in a hostile environment.

SKUT: grimy, useless, as in, “Go do that skut-work. ” Derived from scut. Pejorative.

SLAVER MONK: see Seeker.

SLV: superluminal vehicle. League designation for a civilian vessel capable of FTL.

SMART FABRIC: metamaterial embedded with electronics, nanomachines, and other augments. Able to assume different shapes, given the proper stimuli.

S-PAC: robotic manipulator used for handling material in quarantine.

SPACE ELEVATOR: carbon-fiber ribbon that extends from the surface of a planet all the way to an anchor point (usually an asteroid) out past geostationary orbit. Crawlers transport mass up and down the ribbon.

SPACER’S TAN: inevitable result of spending days and months under the full-spectrum lights used in spaceships to avoid seasonal affective disorder, vitamin D deficiency, and a host of other ailments. Especially notable in native station dwellers and lifelong ship inhabitants.

STAFF OF BLUE: command module constructed by the Old Ones. Of great sociotechnological significance.

STAFF OF GREEN: fragment of the Seed, given life unto itself.

STELLARISTS: one of several major political parties in the League. Currently the governing party. Isolationist movement composed of the main governmental powers on Mars, Venus, and Earth. Gained traction following the troubles with Shin-Zar and the discovery of the Great Beacon. (See also Conservation Party and Expansionist Party. )

STELLAR SECURITY ACT: legislation passed upon the formation of the League of Worlds that resulted in the formation of the UMC and that grants sweeping powers to the military, intelligence services, and civilian leadership in the event of an exogenic incident (such as the discovery of the Soft Blade).

STEM SHOTS: series of anti-senescent injections that revitalize cellular processes, suppress mutagenic factors, restore telomere length, and generally return the body to a state equivalent to mid-twenties biological age. Usually repeated every twenty years thereafter. Doesn’t stop age-induced cartilage growth in ears, nose, etc.

STEWART’S WORLD: rocky planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri. First settled world outside of Sol. Discovered and named by Ort Stewart. Not a hospitable place, and as a result, the settlers produce a higher than normal proportion of scientists, their expertise being needed to survive the harsh environment. Also why so many spacers come from Stewart’s World; they’re eager to find somewhere more temperate.

STIMWARE: one of several brands of a popular sleep-replacement medication. The drug contains two different compounds: one to reset the body’s circadian rhythm, and one to clear the brain of metabolites such as β -amyloid. When sleep-deprived, dosage prevents neurodegeneration and maintains high-level mental/physical functioning. Anabolic state of sleep is not replicated, so normal rest is still needed for secretion of growth hormone and proper recovery from daily stresses.

STRAIGHT SWEEP: highest natural hand in Scratch Seven, consisting of four kings, two queens, and an ace, for a count of seventy-seven and a score of eleven.

STRIKE SHOAL HFARR: named fleet within the Wranaui military (there being one for each Arm).

SUNDERING: cataclysmic Wranaui civil war sparked by the discovery of numerous technological artifacts made by the Old Ones, including the Seed and several other forms like it. This led to the Tfeir’s heresy of the flesh. While Arm fought Arm for supremacy, the Wranaui also engaged in an ambitious expansionist campaign, colonizing numerous systems. Their internal conflict nearly destroyed their species, partly through conventional warfare, partly through the awakening of a Seeker, and partly through the inadvertent creation of Corrupted. Wranaui civilization was shattered, and it took nearly three centuries to fully recover. (See also Ripple and Tfeir. )

“TANGAGRIA”: folk song from Bologna, Italy. Composer unknown.

TEQ: see Transluminal Energy Quantum.

TESSERITE: mineral unique to Adrasteia. Similar to benitoite but with a greater tendency toward purple.

TFEIR: one of six Arms of the Wranaui. Noted for its heresy of the flesh: self-replication via the Nest of Transference without the death of one’s original form. Considered a sin of pride by the rest of the Wranaui. A major contributing factor to the Sundering.

THRESH: hardcore smasher metal that originated in the farming communities of Eidolon. Noted for use of agricultural implements as instruments.

THULE: aka the Lord of Empty Spaces. Pronounced THOOL. God of the spacers. Derived from ultima Thule, Latin phrase used to mean “a place beyond the borders of all maps. ” Originally applied to a trans-Neptunian planetesimal in Sol, the term came to be applied to the “unknown” in general, and from thence gained personification. Extensive superstitions surround Thule among the asteroid miners in Sol and elsewhere.

TIGERMAUL: large, felinesque predator native to Eidolon. Noted for the barbs on its back, yellow eyes, and high intelligence.

TORQUE ENGINE: generator and propulsive engine devised by the Old Ones. Used to power Unity as well as drive spaceships of the Old Ones’ design. Works by “torqueing” the membrane of fluidic spacetime in such a way as to allow the extraction of energy from superluminal space, despite the lower energy density of that space. The distortion can also be used to propel the engine through subluminal space via warping or to form a Markov Bubble for FTL travel.

TORQUE GATE: artificial wormhole generated and sustained by a torque engine stationed at either mouth. Used by the Old Ones for near-instantaneous travel over vast distances.

“TOXOPAXIA”: popular jig from one of the hab-rings around Sol.

TRANSCENDENCE: computer game where the goal is to guide a species from the dawn of sentience to colonizing nearby stars in as short a time as possible.

TRANSLUMINAL ENERGY QUANTUM (TEQ): the most fundamental building block of reality. A quantized entity of Planck length 1, Planck energy 1, and zero mass. Occupies every point of space, both sub- and superluminal as well as within the luminal membrane that divides the two.

TSURO: signaling device used by the Old Ones for summoning and controlling the Seed. Accomplished via a modulated TEQ wavefront.

TWENTY-EIGHT G: one of several commsats in orbit around Zeus and Adrasteia.

UMC: United Military Command. Combined military forces of the League drawn from the constituent members. Numerous of those governments have ceased maintaining their own militaries and instead direct all their defense resources to the UMC.

UMCA: United Military Command Army.

UMCI: United Military Command Intelligence.

UMCM: United Military Command Marines.

UMCN: United Military Command Navy.

UMCS: United Military Command Ship/Station.

UNIFIED FIELD THEORY: theory outlined by Ilya Markov in 2107 that provides the underpinnings for FTL travel (as well as numerous other technologies).

VANISHED: see Old Ones.

WEYLAND: colony planet in orbit around Epsilon Indi. Named after the Nordic/Germanic smith of legend. No notable native life-forms.

WHIRLPOOL: see Great Beacon.

WIRE SCAN: an in-depth, invasive review of all the data gathered by a person’s implants. Often damaging to the physical and mental health of the subject, given the strength of the electrical signals used as well as the intimate nature of the probe. Sometimes results in loss of brain function.

WRANAUI: sentient, space-faring race originating from the planet Pelagius. Highly complex life cycle, with an equally complicated, hierarchical social structure dominated by Arms and a ruling form. Wranaui are naturally an ocean-based species, but through extensive use of artificial bodies, have adapted themselves to nearly every possible environment. Aggressive and expansionist, they have little regard for individual rights or safety, given their reliance on replacement bodies. Their scent-based language is exceedingly difficult for humans to translate. Even without technological augmentation, Wranaui are biologically immortal; their genetic-base bodies are always able to revert to an immature form in order to renew their flesh and stave off senescence. Some evidence indicates they may have been genetically modified by the Old Ones at some point in their distant past.

YANNI THE NEWT: children’s entertainment show popular on Ruslan that led to a fad for owning pet newts.

APPENDIX IV

TIMELINE

1700–1800 (est. ):

· The Sundering

2025–2054:

· Development and construction of Earth’s first space elevator. Quickly followed by increased exploration and economic development within the Solar System (Sol). First humans land on Mars. Moon base built, as well as several space stations throughout Sol. Asteroid mining starts.

2054–2104:

· With the space elevator up, colonization of the Solar System accelerates. Hutterite Expansion begins. First floating city on Venus established. Permanent (although not self-sustaining) outposts on Mars. Many more habitats and stations built throughout the system. Construction begins on an orbital ring around Earth.

· Fission-powered, nuclear-thermal rockets are primary mode of transportation in Solar System.

· Mathematician Jalal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich publishes founding precepts of Entropism.

· Law enforcement becomes increasingly difficult throughout the Solar System. Clashes start between the outer settlements and the inner planets. International space law is increased and further developed by the UN and individual governments. Militias spring up on Mars and among the asteroid miners. Space-based corporations use private security firms to safeguard their investments. Space is fully militarized at this point.

· Venus and Mars remain tightly tied to Earth, politically and resource-wise, but independence movements begin to form.

· Giant solar arrays built in space provide cheap power throughout Sol. Overlays, implants, and genetic modification are common among those who can afford them.

· Powerful fusion drives replace older fission rockets, drastically reducing travel times within the Solar System.

2104–2154:

· Fink-Nottle’s Pious Newt Emporium established.

· STEM shots are invented, effectively rendering humans biologically immortal. This leads to the launch of several self-sustaining, sublight colony ships to Alpha Centauri.

· Soon after, Ilya Markov codifies the unified field theory (UFT). Working prototype of an FTL drive constructed in 2114. Experimental vessel Daedalus makes first FTL flight.

· FTL ships depart for Alpha Centauri, overtaking sublight colony ships. First extra-solar colony is founded on Stewart’s World at Alpha Centauri.

· Oelert (2122) confirms that the majority of local superluminal matter exists in a vast halo around the Milky Way.

· Several more extra-solar colonies follow. First on Shin-Zar. Then on Eidolon. Some of the cities/outposts are funded by corporations. Some by nations back on Earth. Either way, colonies are highly dependent on supplies from Sol to begin with, and most of the colonists end up deep in debt after buying the various pieces of equipment they need.

2154–2230:

· Weyland colonized.

· Numenism founded on Mars by Sal Horker II circa 2165–2179 (est. ).

· As they grow, colonies begin to assert their independence from Earth and Sol. Clashes between local factions (e. g., the Unrest on Shin-Zar). Relations with Earth grow fractious. Venus tries and fails to win its independence in the Zahn Offensive.

· Ruslan colonized.

2230:

· Kira Navá rez is born.

2234–2237:

· Discovery of the Great Beacon on Talos VII by Captain Idris and the crew of the SLV Adamura.

· The League of Allied Worlds is formed, with much resistance and suspicion. Some colonies/freeholdings abstain. Passage of the Stellar Security Act, leading to the creation of the UMC and consolidation of much of humanity’s forces. Battles of sovereignty occur with several groups that insist upon remaining independent, including, most notably, the planetary government of Shin-Zar.

· Severe winter storm on Weyland results in significant damage to the Navá rez family greenhouses.

2237–2257:

· Corruption scandal with Sasha Petrovich near the end of 2249 results in the resignation of Ruslan’s governor, Maxim Novikov.

2257–58:

· Survey of the moon Adrasteia and subsequent events.

AFTERWORD & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Greetings, Friends.

It’s been a long journey. Come in, have a seat by the holo, take the weight off your feet. You must be tired. There’s some Venusian scotch on the shelf to your side. … Yes, that’s it. Pour yourself a glass, if you want.

While you recover, let me tell you a story. No, not that one, another. One that begins all the way back in 2006–7 (the dates grow vague with time). I had finished my second novel, Eldest, and was nearly done with the third, Brisingr, and I was straining at the bit, frustrated that what had once been a trilogy had expanded into a tetralogy and that I would have to spend several more years working on the Inheritance Cycle. Mind you, I loved the series and was happy to finish it, but at the same time I wanted—no, I needed—to try my hand at something else. Discipline is a necessary prerequisite to creative success, and yet the value of variety should not be dismissed. By trying new things we learn and grow and maintain excitement for our craft.

So, while I spent my days in the land of Alagaë sia, writing about elves and dwarves and dragons, I spent my nights dreaming about other adventures in other places. And one of those dreams involved a woman who found an alien biosuit on a moon orbiting a gas giant. …

It was a rough idea, more of a sketch than anything. But even from the very beginning, I always knew how the story would start (with Kira finding the suit) and how it would end (with her drifting off into space). The difficult bit was figuring out all the parts in between.

After finishing Brisingr, I took a stab at writing the beginning of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. If you saw that early version, you would laugh. It was half-baked, underformed, but the bones of what would become this story were still there, waiting to be unearthed.

I had to put it aside to write and promote Inheritance. That took me until mid-2012 (touring for a popular book/series is no small thing). And after that, after finishing a series I had been working on from the age of fifteen to twenty-eight, I needed a break.

For six months, I didn’t write. Then, the old itch to create took over. I knocked out a screenplay (which didn’t work). I wrote a number of short stories (one of which was later published in The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, a sequel to the Inheritance Cycle). And I began to research the scientific underpinnings to my future history.

That research occupied most of 2013. I’m not a physicist, nor a mathematician—I never even went to college—so I had to put in a lot of work to reach the level of understanding I wanted. Why go to such lengths? Because, as magic is to fantasy, science is to, well, science fiction. It sets the rules to your story, defines what is or isn’t possible. And although I envisioned To Sleep as a love letter to the genre, I wanted to avoid certain technical conventions that would undermine the setting. Mainly, I wanted a way for ships to travel FTL that didn’t allow for time travel, and that didn’t blatantly contradict physics as we know it. (I was okay with bending a few rules here and there, but outright breakage didn’t sit right with me. )

Of course, all the world-building in the universe doesn’t matter if the story itself isn’t sound. And that, I’m afraid, is where I met my greatest difficulty.

For various personal reasons, writing the first draft of To Sleep took until January of 2016. Three(ish) years of hard, hard work. Upon finishing, my first reader, my one and only sister, Angela, informed me that the book just. didn’t. work. Upon reading the manuscript myself, I realized she was, unfortunately, correct.

The year 2017 passed in a frenzy of rewrites. None of which fixed the underlying issues. The rewrites were, to put it metaphorically, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, which did nothing to change the fact that the ship’s structural integrity was compromised.

The problem was this: after working on the Inheritance Cycle for so long, my plotting skills had gotten rusty from disuse. The problem-solving muscles I had built while developing the story for Eragon and sequels had atrophied in the decade since. And, I won’t lie, after the success of the Inheritance Cycle, I had, perhaps, been a bit cocky when starting To Sleep. “Well if I could do that, surely this won’t be a problem. ”

Ha! Life, fate, the gods—call it what you will, but reality has a way of humbling us all.

The situation came to a head at the end of 2017 when my agent, Simon, and then-editor, Michelle, gently informed me that the rewrites just weren’t cutting it.

At that moment, I nearly gave up. After so much work and time invested, to be back at nearly square one was … demoralizing. But if I have a defining trait, it’s determination. I really hate to give up on a project, even when common sense tells me otherwise.

So in November 2017, I stopped rearranging the deck chairs and, instead, went back to the basic blueprint of the story. And I questioned everything. In a week and a half, I wrote (by hand) over two hundred pages of notes dissecting character, motivation, meaning, symbology, technology … You name it, I looked at it.

And only then, only once I felt I had a new and stronger skeleton to hang this story upon, did I start writing again. Most of part one, Exogenesis, remained the same. And some of part two. But everything after that, I wrote from scratch. There was no Bughunt in the original version of To Sleep. No visit to Sol. No trip to Cordova. No nightmares, no Maw, no Unity, no grand adventure beyond 61 Cygni.

In essence, I wrote an entirely new book—and not a small one—over the course of 2018 and the first half of 2019. During the same time, I also wrote and edited The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, toured for it in the U. S. and Europe, and continued to tour the U. S. for the entirety of 2019 as Barnes & Noble’s writer in residence. Whew!

Writing and editing To Sleep has been by far the hardest creative challenge of my life. I had to relearn how to tell a story, rewrite a book I’d been laboring over for years, and overcome a number of personal and professional challenges.

Was it worth it? I think so. And I’m looking forward to putting the skills I’ve learned/reacquired to use on a new book. One that, if all goes well, will take substantially less than nine years to write and publish.

In looking back over the history of this project, it feels in no small part like a dream. So much time has passed. So much angst and effort and ambition. I finished the first draft while spending the winter split between a dingy apartment in Edinburgh and a slightly brighter apartment in Barcelona. Revisions were carried out where I live in Montana, but also at a dozen different locations across the globe as work, and life, took me about. The final edits were carried out during a pandemic.

When I first got the idea for To Sleep, I was in my mid-twenties. Now I’m in the latter half of my thirties. When I started, there was no white in my beard. Hell, I didn’t even have a beard! Now the first streaks of frost have appeared. I’ve even gotten married, and that’s been an adventure all its own. …

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars isn’t perfect, but it’s the best version of this story I could write, and I’m proud of the final result. To quote Rolfe Humphries from the foreword to his translation of The Aeneid: “The scope of an epic requires, in the writing, a designed variety, a calculated unevenness, now and then some easy-going carelessness. ”

All very true. I’m also fond of what he says further on:

“The last revisions are always the most enervating, and Virgil, one can well believe, having worked on the poem for over a decade, had reached the point where he felt he would rather do anything, including die, than go over the poem one more time. … Who wants an epic poem absolutely perfect, anyway? ”

My sentiments exactly. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the imperfections of this novel.

So. Now I’ve told a story about a story. The night grows late, and your Venusian scotch is nearly gone. I’ve spent long enough rambling on. But before you retire, a few final points.

One: those of you who are fans of the Inheritance Cycle may have noticed some references to the series in To Sleep. You weren’t imagining things. And yes, Inarë is who you think she is. (For those unfamiliar with that name, I recommend looking up Jeod’s letter on my website, paolini. net. )

Two: if you wish to dig deeper into the universe of To Sleep, I suggest paying attention to the use of the number seven in the story (where possible, all numbers are either multiples of seven or may be added up to equal seven). You may also find it interesting to locate places outside this novel where seven might be input.

Three: the table of contents contains some acrostic fun.

Enough. I’ve said my fill. The air is cold, the stars are bright, and this tale has reached its end, both for Kira and for me.

Eat the path.

In creating this novel, I was fortunate to have the support of an enormous number of people. Without them, To Sleep would never have seen the light of day. They are:

My dad, for keeping things running when I was buried in the manuscript for months on end. My mom, for patience and editing (so much editing! ) and continual support. My sister, Angela, for never letting me settle for second-best and for giving me the kick in the pants needed to fix Gregorovich’s story line (among many others). Caru, who created the awesome logos (aside from Shin-Zar’s) that appear in the terminology section, as well as tons of other concept art. My wife, Ash, for her ongoing support, humor, love, and various artistic contributions (including the logo for Shin-Zar). And a big thank-you to my whole family for reading this book more times than any sane person ought to.

My assistant (and friend), Immanuela Meijer, for her input, support, and some gorgeous pieces of artwork. She’s the one responsible for the map of Sigma Draconis, 61 Cygni, part of Bughunt, and the really awesome fractal endpaper/map.

My agent, Simon Lipskar, who—from the very beginning—has been a tireless champion of this book and what he knew it could be. Thank you, Simon!

My dear friend, Michelle Frey, who read several early versions of the book and who had the unenviable task of telling me that they weren’t working. Without her input, I never would have taken the leap and written a version that did work.

At Macmillan: Don Weisberg, who knew me during his time at Random House, and because of it, was willing to take a chance on an adult novel from someone previously only known for YA. Thank you, Don!

At Tor: my editors, Devi Pillai and William Hinton. They pushed me far harder than I expected … and the book is better because of it. Also in editorial: assistants Rachel Bass and Oliver Dougherty, and copy editor Christina MacDonald.

In publicity/marketing: Lucille Rettino, Eileen Lawrence, Stephanie Sarabian, Caroline Perny, Sarah Reidy, and Renata Sweeney. If you’ve heard of this book, they’re the ones responsible!

In design/production: Michelle Foytek, Greg Collins, Peter Lutjen, Jim Kapp, Rafal Gibek. Without them, the book wouldn’t have been published on time, and it sure wouldn’t have looked as good. And thanks to everyone else at Tor who has worked on this book.

Also thanks to Lindy Martin for the gorgeous cover image.

On the technical side of things: Gregory Meholic, who was kind enough to let me use his Tri-Space theory as the basis for my FTL system (as well as several of his graphs, which were redrawn for Appendix I). He also answered scores and scores of questions as I struggled to understand the specifics of how it worked. Apologies to him for bastardizing his theory in one or two places in the interests of fiction. Sorry Greg! Also Richard Gauthier—who originated the idea of TEQs—and H. David Froning Jr., who invented the technical groundwork for conditioned EM fields, which I used as the basis for my Markov Drives. And last but not least, Winchell Chung and the Atomic Rockets website (www. projectrho. com/rocket/). The best resource for anyone wanting to write realistic science fiction. Without it, the ideas in this book would have been far less interesting.

A special mention goes to the family of Felix Hofer, who were kind enough to let me use his name in this book. Felix was a reader of mine who, tragically, was killed in a motorcycle accident soon after his eighteenth birthday. We’d had some correspondence, and, well, I wanted to mark his passing and do my best to help Felix’s name live on.

As always, the biggest thanks of all go to you, dear reader. Without you, none of this would be possible! So again, thank you. Let’s do it again soon.

Christopher Paolini

September 15, 2020

A Conversation between Brandon Sanderson and Christopher Paolini

Christopher Paolini joined Brandon Sanderson in a conversation about their two upcoming books, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and Rhythm of War, Book Four of The Stormlight Archive, and along the way they discussed switching from fantasy to science fiction, and the particular challenges that come with writing massive books.

Sanderson started the chat off with a compliment to Paolini, telling him that he was about 20 percent through To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and “It is enormous, which is always a big plus in my book. ”

Christopher Paolini: It’s the biggest published book I’ve done—you’ll laugh at it cause you write quite a bit beyond this, but it’s 309, 000 words. A big boy.

Brandon Sanderson: Enormous!

Paolini added that “The goal was to do an entire series in one book. I’ve done the multi-book series with over a million published words, and I think you hold the record for the biggest of the big series at the moment—but I wanted to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end in one volume. It was a personal challenge, and I thought it was going to save me time instead of writing a series, but it took me nearly ten years to write the darn thing anyways! ”

BS [laughter]: Is there any A Fire Upon the Deep influence on this? That’s a book you’ve read?

CP: That is a book I’ve read, and I also had the enormous pleasure of meeting the author, Vernor Vinge, in an airport, between cons. I also enjoyed Rainbows End.

BS: I get a little bit of that! It’s really a cool book—I’m loving all the names, unless I’m completely off base, these are all little inside jokes? I’ve caught some aliens—

CP: Mm-hm.

BS: I’ve caught some science fiction author names for some of the names of planets and space stations, I’ve definitely caught some Dune here and there, little nods. I think it’s really cool.

CP: I threw everything and the kitchen sink in. I wear my influences on my sleeve with this book. This is my love letter to the genre of science fiction, and hopefully it shows some growth as an author, as a technician of storytelling. Of course it’s also frustrating, and I’m sure you appreciate this—this book is coming out and hopefully people will see some growth as an author on my end, but then I’ve learned so much from this already that I’m like, “I need to write the next thing! ”

BS: I’ve read a lot of your books, and this is by far your best technical writing so far. I’m loving the book. I can see the influences, but it doesn’t feel derivative in any way. It’s its own thing. This is a big departure in a lot of ways for you.

CP: The short fiction was a “breather moment” while working on a big book. I wanted to write something that had a beginning, middle, and end in one cohesive piece. And I watched your video where you were discussing Sonic the Hedgehog!

BS: Oh, did you?

CP: I did! And for anyone who is an aspiring author, I highly recommend that you watch. The way you broke that story down is exactly how my sister and I break down stories and discuss them. The funny thing is that the longest short story that I wrote, in The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, was actually because I watched a Hollywood movie. . . the 2014 Godzilla film?

BS: Yeah.

CP: As an audience member I felt that the film fundamentally misunderstood what its own metaphor was, what its own unfulfilled promise was, which was that Godzilla was a personification of death. And so as a result, you can’t defeat death, and the main character has to come to terms with death. So that was my short story—I wanted to do my own little take on that. . . but anyway!

BS: No, that’s really cool! This topic is really cool, because I would say that half of my works are responses in that same way. It’s not that I see something and say “Oh, they did it wrong” but I’ll see something and I say, “Huh, they didn’t take the path that I think would be interesting to take. ”

CP: Mm-hm.

BS: So, let’s take that path! See where it takes me. That’s the origin of Mistborn, my first series, it’s me saying “OK, what if the Dark Lord won? ” It’s not a critique on The Lord of the Rings, but it is me saying “what if we took it in a different direction? ” You know how people often ask “Where do you get your ideas? ” For me, that’s the only surefire way—there’s a theme of me responding to other pieces of art, that’s where I think a lot of art comes from, right?

CP: Culture in general! It’s a conversation not only with ourselves, but with other creators. I can read The Way of Kings and I start thinking about how you tackled the creative process, the storytelling process. I carried the hardcover of The Way of Kings in my leather bag for the entire friggin’ book tour of Inheritance. I carried it with me the whole tour.

BS: I am so sorry about that.

CP: [laughter]

BS: You’ll have that experience with this one—you’ll be making people carry giant hardcovers around all over the place.

CP: But I remember when I read The Way of Kings, there were two things that struck me, like from a technical standpoint—it felt like you tackled a fantasy world almost as if you were writing science fiction. And I found the pacing fascinating. You didn’t pace it as though it were going to be a standalone novel, or even like it was a trilogy—you paced it like it was the first book of a ten-book series, and each book was going to be about one thousand pages, and you just don’t see that, normally. As a reader I relaxed and said, “OK! I’m in for this big ride. ”

BS: Pacing for the big books is a really interesting challenge, right? On a littler book, you generally want to pace it so the reader has a sense that they need to get through it now. You can pace it in such a way that they feel this tension pulling them through. But in a large book that’ll exhaust readers. Your book, I think you did an interesting job with the pacing, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that has chapters and subchapters?

CP: I’m going to admit I shamelessly stole that from The Dark Tower. Specifically because when I wrote The Inheritance Cycle, I was doing the occasional thing with the line break to indicate a jump in time or in space, but I never felt comfortable with it. By adding the subchapters, which are numbered in the book, it gave a real sense of framing for it. Then I felt the freedom to make them as long or as short as I needed to.

BS: I think it really helps with the pacing. The danger with an enormous book is that it can feel turgid. But with this, each chapter feels like a mini fast novel? Like ripping you through with the subchapters, but then it gives you the breaks you need to relax a little bit. It felt like it’s paced like a much shorter book, which will make it read fast, but still feel like you had an entire meal.

CP: When I came to this book, the phrase I’ve become fond of is “informational density. ” As a reader I’ve noticed that the really great books—it doesn’t matter what the genre is—tell you something new and interesting with every sentence. For the most part they’re doing something interesting in every line.

CP: We’ve been talking about my book, but I want to talk about yours! Rhythm of War, Book Four of The Stormlight Archive.

BS: I’ve settled into this groove where I do the Stormlight books in three-year cycles. When I was newer at this, I thought “Ah, one a year! ”

CP: I remember you saying that.

BS: Robert Jordan got one out a year in the first part of his career! His first books were like one out a year. I could do that! . . . no I can’t do that.

CP: [laughter]

BS: I pushed for that for a while, and it just kicked me in the head. So eventually I was like, let’s try a three-year cycle: eighteen months on Stormlight and then eighteen months on whatever else I want to do—the weird wacky stuff. I’m on draft number four right now, I finished it yesterday. And I do five drafts on most of my books. I have the final polish left to do and it’s due July 1st.

CP: How do you manage that amount of material? You have your team, and of course the folks at Tor, but I know [revisions] get exhausting, I’ll finish 300, 400 pages and say “I just finished a book! I still have another book to go! ”

BS: I’ve gotten to the point where I know how much I can do in a day without burning myself out. Lots of practice has gotten me there. I look at the word count, and right now Rhythm of War is 474, 000.

CP: Gaaaah.

BS: I usually cut 10 percent in the last pass so it’ll end up at 430, 000.

CP: Is this your biggest book?

BS: Oathbringer is 460, 000—it started at 540, 000, and it needed a lot of trimming. I need that final pass to rein it in, to tighten everything up. I cut 10 percent from each chapter. If I’m doing actual daily new prose writing I can do between 2, 000 and 3, 000 words a day. Stephen King does 2, 000 words a day, and I always thought that was a good model for me, I really admire King’s work, and his work ethic.

CP: How much are you getting through when you’re editing or revising?

BS: In Draft 2. 0, 20, 000 words a day. It’s fast because I haven’t gotten any feedback from anyone else yet, I’m only fixing things I know I need to fix. Drafts Three and Four are alpha readers, my team and the Tor team, and beta readers, who are the first audience test. My team goes through all of those and insert the comments in the actual document.

CP: And how do you manage to not get overwhelmed by the feedback?

BS: With beta reads it’s a matter of submerging myself in the main feedback. Give me a twenty or thirty page document, and I’m going through beginning to end, reading, absorbing, and changing what I need to change. Really it’s a matter of bug-hunting. I list the problems from most important to least important.

CP: I do the same thing.

BS: I’m trying to cross things off the list, and there will still be things at the bottom of the list, but I can fix those during the publishing draft.

CP: How do you manage—it’s easy for editing to feel like it’s an attack on yourself, your ego. You’ve created something you care about deeply, and now here are people—whose advice you’ve solicited—who are telling you every single thing they think you did wrong. How do you keep a sense of success through that process?

BS: My beta readers know to talk about what they like, also. Cause, it feels like getting punched in the face.

CP: Yup.

BS: But a good editor knows to periodically tell you what they like as well. You get this carrot and stick sort of thing. But your mind is going to naturally ignore it, it’s going to gravitate to the one-star reviews. It is rough. But, I asked for this, and I know it’s going to make the book better. I wrote thirteen books before I sold one—and when I actually started selling was when I started listening to feedback, and learning how to take it.

CP: As Stephen King says, “No one gets it right the first time. ” We all edit, we all revise—what’s the saying in the military? “Embrace the suck. ” Go toward the hardest bit because that’s how you get better.

CP: You’re coming up on the fourth book of the Stormlight Archive coming out—is this the end of the first cycle of the series?

BS: Yeah. It’s really two five-book series, but ten is so mythologically important to the books that I had to call it a ten-book series. There will be some character continuity between the two series, but I kind of have them very separate in my mind. I’m coming to the first ending.

CP: And, how does that feel? Where are you at with it?

BS: The Stormlight Archive will be the defining series of my career. It’ll be the longest, and the one I’ve spent the most time on. If I’m going to be finishing the next six books of this, and doing them every three years, there’s twenty more years of writing on this series. It’s inseparable from what I wanted to do with fantasy. This is where I set out to carve my space in the genre. I’m on a very long journey to finish. Each of those five books have things built into them, in my original outline, which I’m really excited to share with the readers. There are secrets and character moments, and big set pieces that I’ve designed now for twenty years, which I finally get to write when I write each book.

CP: [delighted laughter]

BS: I’m looking forward to people finally being able to read it.

CP: You told me the final scene! Was it for the Stormlight Archive or for the Cosmere as a whole?

BS: I can’t remember which one I told you. . . my team all knows both of those. So I could have told you either one!

CP: I think it was Cosmere, but I’m going to keep that to the grave. Without spoilers, what can readers look forward to?

BS: There is a character moment that was one of the pillars of my outline from the very beginning. This scene that I was working on. There were only two or three scenes that were core pillars. My beta readers feel like it landed. There won’t be a moment like this again until Book Seven or Eight.

Audience Questions!

BS to CP: Do you plan a continuation of The Inheritance Cycle?

CP: Yes, I’m planning on more collections of short stories, because I find them to be palate cleansers, and a fun way to explore the world. There are a couple of large standalone novels in the world that I want to write in the future, probably the biggest one is the one I’ve affectionately been calling BOOK FIVE. [laughter]

CP to BS: Will we ever get anything from Wit’s point of view? Maybe an interlude?

BS: Each book has an epilogue from Wit’s point of view. You will eventually get his backstory. That’s a three-book series that I’m planning after the Stormlight Archive narrative is done, so I’ve gotta keep moving! I actually think it would be fun sometime to write a novel of him telling a story.

Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War, Book Four of the Stormlight Archive, will be out from Tor Books on November 17, 2020.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher Paolini was born in Southern California and has lived most his life in Paradise Valley, Montana. He published his first novel, Eragon, in 2003 at the age nineteen, and quickly became a publishing phenomenon. His Inheritance Cycle—Eragon and its three sequels—has sold nearly forty million copies worldwide. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is his first adult novel.

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