Lux Aeterna 1: The Wisp

By Zoe Nyx

The Lux 14 is a replicating star ship, built by an identical parent and sent to discover a new solar system.
Aboard, Doctor Lucien Morgan, fourteenth of her name, has just woken up for the first time in her life. Something unexpected has happened.
She thought she would be born to study a simple biosphere.
She dreamed of making first contact with a race like ours.
What she did not expect was an impossible structure wrapped around an ancient star.
Together with her crew, she must discover what The Wisp is, and find answers to a multitude of questions.
Who built it?
Where did they go?
And why is the only other race that knew of it now extinct?
The Wisp is old, built for a purpose, and full of secrets.
It is also not empty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Nyx
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005617264

Zoe Nyx

Living in Brisbane with my wonderful wife, writing queer science fiction in all senses of the word.

Book preview

The Wisp

Copyright 2020 Zoe Nyx

Smashwords Edition

To Emily, to Mum and Dad, to all my friends.

Chapter One

She remembered light.

At first, there was nothing. Then, suddenly:

A square, white against a black background.

A circle, red against a blue background.

A triangle, yellow on orange.

A pentagon, purple on silver.

A tetrahedron, its vertices radiantly electric green against an image of a mountain top.

More shapes, growing in complexity. More images, becoming more and more familiar. Familiar faces superimposed on familiar scenes. They blurred together faster and faster, each distinct and yet almost unseen, blurring onwards. Pain, physical and mental. Agonising, unending. Light. Blinding, infinite light, and a voice.

Whoa Doc, take it easy! You’re cool, you’re cool!

The voice was familiar. She’d never heard it before.

"Take it slow. All is as it should be. This is Lux 14. It’s me, Genff. You remember?

The voice hurt. Everything hurt. Something on the back of her neck hissed, and the pain turned off. Finally, she could think.

What- was all she managed. It was less of a question, more a statement of general uncertainty.

Doc, can you see me? Eyes probably feel like a bag o’ sand, but try, OK?

She tried. Focusing took effort, conscious effort. The light flickered, blurred, faded. She could see. She was lying on a bed in a medical bay, lights glowing overhead, unknown machinery humming around her.

A face looked down at her, older, slightly wrinkled. Grey hair cut just below the ears, framing a still-handsome face. She knew them.

Genff. Where am I? She was pleased, distantly, that she had managed a full sentence.

Long version or short version? said Genff, oddly unplaceable accent sticking to their words.

She mustered the best glare she could manage. She thought she might have squinted her eyes.

Short it is! Welcome, my dear Doctor Lucien, to the Lux 14, state-of-the-art science research ship. You were selected as team leader for this mission, whose imminent beginning you have been decanted for.

She closed her eyes. Thinking was hard, foggy, like being drunk and high all at once, but her mind was clearing, memories were returning, and-

She stopped. The memories weren’t returning. They were arriving.

She knew who, and where she was.

Her eyes snapped open, and her breathing quickened.

She had enough time to reach out a trembling hand to grab Genff’s arm before they were already injecting her with something.

There we are. You remember the long version, yeah? Shock for me too, and I had to do it alone. But that’s why I am here! Why I am me! Psychologically resistant, they say. Ha! Still feels like a kick to the balls, yes? said Genff happily.

She was calmer. The sedative put everything at a distance. Carefully, she examined the new memory.

2178. The Solar System, sufficiently explored and colonised, is no longer the frontier it once was. The next frontier, other stars and planets, remain decades of travel away. The Lux project is put forward.

Colonisation first requires exploration. But space is vast, and the resources to build a fleet capable of exploring even the nearest stars would bankrupt humankind. Von Neumann probes, replicating and spreading, can survey ever-increasing numbers of far and distant stars. Yet, automated probes can only do so much. Human minds, human intellect must be sent.

The Lux project had a devastatingly simple solution. Copy humans as well. Pick a team of humanity’s finest, and take DNA samples and mindstates. The first and only human-built Lux would arrive at Proxima Centauri ten years after its launch. It would harvest local resources, and build two new ships, the Lux 2, and the Lux 3. Pending any new orders from Earth, these two ships would launch towards the next two nearest stars. Left behind, the Lux 1 would make a decision. Did its advanced AI mind think the system worth colonising or researching? If not, it would transform into an automated station, functioning as a relay for interstellar messages, and a potential staging point for any far-future travellers. But if it did just the system worthy, it would clone its crew, and implant the memories of their original selves. Chosen for their ability to deal with their new existence as much as their expertise, the crew of the Lux would dutifully survey their new home, and begin using the manufacturing facilities on the Lux to build.

She was Doctor Lucien Morgan, team leader for the Lux mission. To be precise, given her presence aboard the Lux 14, she was the 14th clone of Doctor Lucien Morgan, team leader of the Lux mission.

She opened her eyes. I remember, Genff. And I’m OK.

Well that’s good, Doctor Lucien. I do have more happy juice though, if you feel raw horror of existence clamping down again.

She looked Genff in the eyes, wondering at the older face.

Genff, I told you, it’s Lucy. Why are you older?

Ah, I am older because I was decanted longer ago, and have slept for much of that time.

Lucy stared. The clones, her, should have been