Dunyon

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

In a rundown bar on a space station at the end of the universe, a customer asks for passage to Dunyon. But the owner and bartender have never heard of Dunyon.

When the next night, more and more people show, Dunyon, that little bar, and the entire space station face a very big crisis.

“You always know you’re going to get something good from Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dunyon is her in top form. …To say any more would ruin this great little story with a good sting at the end. I liked this one, so much, that it will be on my Hugo short list for next year.”

—SFRevu

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Apr 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386328346

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

Dunyon

Dunyon

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing

Contents

Dunyon

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About the Author

Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Dunyon

It started in the far reaches of the sector—ships firing on each other, some destroyed. Keeping track became hard—communications turned sporadic, and who really followed which government was in charge of what anyway?

Rumors started, rumors impossible to confirm as communications throughout the system grew intermittent. Entire ships, destroyed. Cities, gone. A planet, blown up.

But most people saw no evidence of any of it. One would think, if a planet had been destroyed, there would be some kind of repercussion, but most people knew of none. Most people saw nothing.

Until one day the ships appeared overhead.

Most people barely had time to gather the family and the money, barely had time to get away, to find refugee ships.

But refugee ships make it sound organized, like an effort conducted by some charity organization or a benevolent and surviving government.

The ships weren’t organized or tied to each other or even very similar. Some were old-fashioned generation ships. Some were commandeered space yachts. Some were stolen trading vessels.

They made it only so far. Some refugees died in the blackness of space, the ships powerless, spinning slowly, the only thing surviving an emergency signal that would go forever unheeded.

Other refugees made it to the outer reaches of the sector. To supply stations and military outposts.

And the rest—well, the rest ended up here.

The