Defending Elysium

By Brandon Sanderson

As Brandon Sanderson’s #1 bestselling Skyward series celebrates its third volume, Cytonic, travel back in time to the origin of Cytonics in the novella Defending Elysium.

Centuries before Spensa looked skyward from the planet Detritus—back on Old Earth before it was lost—Jason Write faced a crucial question: was humanity ready to join galactic society?

When faster-than-light communications were discovered by a small telephone company in 2071, alien species such as the Tenasi and Varvax overheard them and came to visit Earth. Because the Phone Company controls all communications with the aliens, their operatives like Jason operate above the law.

Now, on the space platform Evensong, one of the Phone Company’s scientists has gone missing before surfacing in a hospital with amnesia, and Jason is sent to investigate. Right as he arrives, the body of a murdered Varvax ambassador is discovered, sure to cause a galactic incident. Coln Abrams of the United Intelligence Bureau seizes the opportunity to investigate Jason as he deals with the crisis. This could be the UIB’s chance to discover the Phone Company’s secrets—how does FTL communication work, and what is Jason hiding?

Winner of Spain’s UPC Award for Science Fiction in 2007.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dragonsteel, LLC
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781938570278

Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. His bestsellers have sold 32 million copies worldwide and include the Mistborn saga; the Stormlight Archive novels; and other novels, including The Rithmatist, Steelheart, and Skyward. He won a Hugo Award for The Emperor's Soul, a novella set in the world of his acclaimed first novel, Elantris. Additionally, he completed Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time®. Visit his website for behind-the-scenes information on all his books.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The woman thrashed and spasmed in the hospital bed. Her dark hair was matted to her head with sweat, and her uncontrolled motions seemed almost epileptic. Her eyes, however, did not have the wildness of the insane—instead they were focused. Determined. She was not mad; she just couldn’t control her muscles. She kept waving her hands in front of her with awkward movements, movements that seemed strangely familiar to Jason.

And she did it all in silence, never uttering a word.

Jason switched off the holovid, then leaned back in his chair. He had watched the vid a dozen times, but it still confused him. However, he couldn’t do anything until he arrived at Evensong. Until then, he would simply have to bide his time.

1

Jason Write had always felt an empathy for the Outer Platforms. There was something about the way they hung alone in space, claimed by neither planet nor star. They weren’t lonely—they were . . . solitary. Autonomous.

Jason sat beside the shuttle’s port window, looking at Evensong as it approached. The platform resembled others of its kind—a flat sheet of metal fifty miles long, with buildings sprouting from both its top and bottom. It wasn’t a ship, or even a space station—it was nothing more than a collection of random buildings surrounded by a bubble of air.

Of all the Outer Platforms, Evensong was the most remote. It hung between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, the farthest deep-space human outpost. In a way, it was like an Old West border town, marking the edge of civilization. Except in this case—no matter what humankind liked to think—civilization lay outside the border, not within