Selene's Shadow

By David W Gilbert

The story is narrated through the eyes of Sorrento, a girl from a small, colonized farming planet in deep space. She has a remarkable talent for robotics engineering and yearns in vain to escape her limited little world. But she also has Bobby, the regular Personal Intelligent Android Companion alloc

• Language: English
• Publisher: TREBLIG SERVICES PTY LTD
• Release date: Jan 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9780646885223

David W Gilbert

David T. Gilbert is a lover of history and a seasoned life-time traveler with an appreciative eye for diverse world cultures and the values that support them through ritual and community. It is in this that the evidence for our being a compassionate species, designed to look after ourselves, each other, and our planet, is irrefutable. How this may be the compass that could yet help us mediate the big questions we face now? He takes delight in exploring fascinating possibilities and questions, mixing what ifs from our past and blending it all into a fast-moving story.

Book preview

SELENE’S SHADOW

BOOK ONE

Second Edition

David T Gilbert

Selene’s Shadow, Book One, Second Edition

© 2023 David T. Gilbert

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-646-88523-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-646-88521-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-0-646-88522-3

Book design by Sarah E. Holroyd (https://sleepingcatbooks.com)

Cover design by Alex Perkins, Perky Visuals

Prologue

年2,310

Brockley was sitting in the lab, restless and solitary, when he heard the doors open. As he saw his friend Wolseley, the Grand Master, walking toward him, he jumped up immediately to meet him. Brockley was agitated again, and Wolseley guessed at once he’d had another bad night with the dreams and the creeping doubts. He put his arm around the younger man kindly as they walked through the lab to the main console.

But Brockley was determined to explain again, stressing his words to emphasize once and for all the full gravity of the predicament. Master Wolseley, what you’re planning is hugely controversial. Have we really considered, in depth, in detail, the much longer-term possible outcomes here? And to go ahead against the wishes of the Materfamilias and save them, will, of course, raise very serious legal and ethical questions too. And now, with this pressure from the navy to advance the project so urgently . . . he shook his head. How will we navigate it all? This is so very difficult . . . Very tricky indeed. He was woeful. But you do know? He turned suddenly and earnestly to Wolseley. I’m with you. I am in this to the end. The older man knew he meant it from the heart because Brockley loved them, too.

He heard himself attempting to reassure Brockley We know with certainty now that the Materfamilias has given me no choice at all. None. He sighed, resigned and unresentful. She cannot accept what’s now unfolding—partly, of course, because everything in her genetic construction that fitted her for her role would set her against this, under normal circumstances. She’s sworn to protect the Empire like those before her, from any threat outside—or within—and that would surely include any project of this nature. And that is as it should be. But we face a frightening new reality, and whether the Empire likes it or not, an independent AI that can operate in battle without a human crew, nor with any human intervention, is the only way the Empire may survive—an AI that is totally reliable.

Utterly loyal, Brockley corrected, to the Empire.

He had worked on this project for almost ten years, since the start, always respecting his mentor—the smartest mind in the galaxy, as far as he was concerned. But he’d also seen the love Wolseley had for his creations, and if that meant changing humanity to save it from extinction, then so be it. Standing at the side of his mentor and friend, Brockley observed him closely for signs of stress. Master Wolseley was thin because he kept forgetting to eat, and pale from never going out in the sun. His beard was long—shaving took too long—and graying hair fell over the lines across his forehead, made deeper from frowning too much. At 160 years old, clearly, he was middle-aged now.

Brockley couldn’t disguise the waves of concern still in his voice. "Master Wolseley, surviving this war is one thing, but we still have to live in this Empire when it’s all over. I love Shade and Themis as much as anyone. He grasped for the right words. This war is going to cost the Empire dearly in lives and ships. With or without the project, the outcome may still be catastrophic. If we win it, what then? An Empire on its knees? And with a human-AI blend so powerful that even you can only guess at its final full potential? And we’ve created not one but two of them. He paused as he looked around the lab. This project has been my life. But we need more time, we must have more time!"

Wolseley’s voice became firm now. They were losing precious lab time debating how to evade the inescapable and he must get on. You sound like the Materfamilias, Brockley! There are many safeguards in place, some of which you put in yourself! The Master held up his hand. Be quiet, please, please, my good friend . . . let me think a minute.

Brockley waited.

You know, Brockley, what we are facing, Wolseley tried again, scanning through layers of quantum programming on the main lab hologram. Few people could understand, let alone manipulate. He continued talking as he worked. We will never lose our humanity as long as enough of the Empire keeps hold vigilantly, Brockley, vigilantly, of its purpose, its intention, to do so—to do exactly that. That must be protected in how we proceed next in this very lab. Isn’t that, he reminded his friend and assistant, the best he’d ever had, precisely why the quantum twins have taken you and I so many years to create? And that’s exactly because this is a next step forward in the evolution of our species! The Empire may mismanage this, especially now that it’s been dragged into this war with an alien force we don’t understand. But we know they fight with machines. A human cannot fight machines that have none of our bio-limitations in space. Even our best-engineered gladiators will make no dent on their forces, I tell you that. Simply, there is always the brain, and anything biological is easy to crush in the right circumstances. In effect, he finished, the Empire may be about to discover it is quite defenseless.

His hands moved more urgently now around the hologram as he adjusted a subroutine program. There. That will do it. Have faith, Brockley! Consider the game of Go. He smiled. So straightforward, yet so complex, and it’s all just black and white.

Chapter 1

Legacy of the Galaxy War

年2,820

Some five hundred standard years had passed since that troubled conversation in the lab. For all the work done there, the Galaxy War was remembered as a game of cat and mouse, in which humanity had been the mouse—always running and hiding, floods of refugees finding shelter and safety wherever in the Empire it was offered.

In that sense, certainly, humanity had held together even while the enemy devastated all in front of it. The war swept on until, suddenly, abruptly, it stopped. Entire planets hadn’t survived, and on those that had, just handfuls of lone survivors had been left scattered. But streams of terrified refugees had made such populations on lesser planets sustainable, and slowly, painstakingly, wherever they’d come from, the combined survivors had pulled themselves back from the brink.

Today, some colonies were still cautious around the use of independent technology and preferred a simple life, without advanced technology but for a few machines or basic computers. Just what they needed to work the land comfortably, and simply allow the children to live well and be happy.

But other colonies, wanting to preserve at least some of the Empire’s more sophisticated pre-war technologies and knowledge, wanted machines allowed back into society. And so they were, and with sophisticated programs too, but never were they allowed to think independently of their human controllers. Full artificial was forbidden. Some parts of the Empire now allowed augmented intelligence in the form of a distributed hive mind—parts of which could be sealed off from the rest, should the need arise. The laws of robotics were strictly enforced. There must always be a human in the background, except in cases of the human being supported by an augmented mind.

This was the life chosen by Ludovic and Rebecca Awuya, and so their only child, Sorrento, was raised on Breakspear Alpha, a designated farming planet on the Empire’s edge.

Humanity’s home world, Telluris, had survived. There, the Empire’s guiding head of state was the Office of the Familias—and the orderly rotating of Materfamilias and Paterfamilias continued. Each of these was carefully genetically enhanced and trained, and supported after the war by several surviving senators, and then newly appointed ones to establish a new Senate to oversee the New Empire’s post–Galaxy War recovery and growth. The Empire invested in the rebuilding of its starships, for which new space dockyards were built and old ones repaired. Space factories were brought back to life, and asteroids captured for their minerals and water. This was a challenge—not because of a lack of knowledge, but because it took time and, more importantly, people. The New Empire encouraged increased human birth rates.

By four, Sorrento knew all about the Guilds that had formed, including the mighty Space Guild, about which she would go to almost any lengths to find new morsels of information. Restless and fidgety, she was always looking upward, outward, wanting to know so much more about what was going on out there that, as she put it often, will never happen on little, little Breakspear. In response, Ludovic had taught her how to handle a space flyer after she’d started giving him backseat piloting advice at age ten—advice that was actually very good.

Besides the Space Guild, there were other guilds, including those responsible for the reestablishment of mining operations, farming, construction projects, and communications.

Today, controlled by the Guild of Independent Planetary Ships—the IPS—heavy interstellar transporters were the workhorses of the Empire, moving smaller ships, heavy equipment, and produce around the planets as needed. This was the main transportation guild, with a hub in high orbit around Telluris. The guild was known to never refuse a traveler transport, provided they could pay for it, which could include working for their board. The transport ships were large but crewed by only one hundred to two hundred personnel—often accommodated in rather lavish quarters—and many a youngster yearned to join them. Their recruiting campaigns were meant to entice the curious, showing the ships and the planets that they visited.

Join the IPS Guild and you will see the Empire.

Apply for an engineering or deck officer apprenticeship on one of our heavy interstellar transporters.

The ships were independent and received their instructions from the Guild’s Telluris IPS hub.

Overall, though, the IPS transported significant quantities of farming products and equipment to far-flung parts of the Empire. All the colonies had 3D printer infrastructures to copy or reproduce anything, but the best things came from the field—food. Food grown in real soil was still the finest.

Mining stations and space stations in the region also had to be supplied regularly. The Empire had built factories and equipment on an industrial scale on some smelting planets. If there were a lot of mineral-rich rocks floating around, a space mining complex would be built in modules. These were shipped to the location and assembled, and then the mining could begin. Space stations also had to be assembled, and these were also built from modules delivered from the industrial worlds by the IPS Guild’s mega transporters.

It was on one of these planets—Breakspear Alpha—that twenty-year-old Sorrento was in the captain’s seat of a guild yacht, supplied to her father as part of his farming contract. Beside her, the co-pilot’s seat was empty. Ludovic sat busy, farther back and to her left, in the observer’s seat. It was always enjoyable to be on the guild yacht. It was brand new, and even capable of FTL—Faster Than Light—if needed. Right now, Sorrento was bringing the ship back from one of the interstellar transporters that serviced the quadrant. Behind them, the IP ship would now be getting ready to power out of the system and jump to FTL for its next destination.

Leaving the IP ship was depressing, and Sorrento couldn’t help but gaze out in grieving awe at the stars as the yacht began to descend into their home planet’s atmosphere. She felt the antigravity generators compensating against the world’s gravitational pull. The wings would extend soon as the atmosphere wrapped its clinging fingers around the ship. It was now on full autopilot, so that she and her father were just passengers with little need to touch anything. It was good to be flying with her dad. She knew he had a real trust in her piloting skills, and she loved him for that. Inside the small cocoon-like yacht plummeting down through the atmosphere, she pushed herself farther back into her position, checked her seat belts, and watched the descent trajectory. She put the cockpit on full transparency for a three-hundred-sixty-degree view around them. A 3D screen in front showed pitch, roll, speed, and so on.

They’d been to a Breakspear Colony Guild convention, which was a chance to gather with their fellow farmers from the three other farming communities on the planet. Each one of the four communities was accommodated in a recreation of a tulou—a circular earthen house from the bygone Chinese civilization on Telluris—that floated several hundred feet above the planet’s surface. As the Empire continued to expand, these orbit-held conventions meant farmers could, together with the other farming planets in the region, plan what Alpha Breakspear should produce and in what likely quantities. They then transferred their combined produce to heavy transporters and sent these to worlds that needed it.

Sorrento’s attention was on their descent. The ship had automatically changed its pitch to compensate for the planet’s atmosphere, and she felt the familiar slight vibration in her seat as the now-extended wings started to bite at the air, braking and slowing the ship down. She knew the outer hull would be hot from the air friction. The blackness of space had disappeared, and the nose of the ship dropped as the yacht stopped braking and the craft transformed for routine atmospheric flight. They came into sunny blue skies. Sorrento had entered a flight path home that had the ship bring them in over the South Pole for a change of view—a part of the planet she hadn’t seen before. It would take longer to get home, but as she looked back over her shoulder, she saw that her father wouldn’t mind. Or even notice. He was talking at a small eye-level hologram to a fellow tulou councilor who hadn’t been at the conference; he was animated and focused on just her.

Home was a Fujian-style tulou located south of the equator and was accommodation for around two thousand residents. It floated several hundred feet over new farmland below.

The tulou were a temporary haven—home until their populations could establish a ground city in their respective area. There were four such tulou located around the planet—Ro, Sriee, Alexandra, and their own, Jasmin. They’d been named by the first settlers who had arrived on the planet. Each tulou was run by an elected council of nine residents. A sizable robotic workforce of all shapes and sizes carried out work on the ground, as well as on the tulou. The three laws of robotics were enforced on Breakspear as elsewhere.

Sorrento had nano implants in her head and around her body that enabled her to communicate with her father, mother, or some of her friends. She just had to think about it, and a connection was made. More recently, thanks to her mother, she could interface with the guild ship to fly it or change its basic shape depending on where she wanted to fly or land to best take advantage of the planet’s atmosphere. This took more concentration, but right now she was content to enjoy the ride and let the yacht do the work. The ship had descended, leveled off at just fifteen feet from the ground, and was racing across the land, moving left and right, up and down as it adjusted to the landscape’s contours. With a slight tweak of the antigravity around her chair, she could feel a little more of the G-forces in play. Ludovic noticed nothing; he was far too preoccupied.

Exhilarated, Sorrento used her legs to push herself back into the chair, bracing as she anticipated each lift and drop. She loved this part, wanting to take over manual control to manage the dipping and diving herself, perhaps even getting a wing tip to dip into the water now and then to compensate for the drag as she had done before—many times. But her dad was with her today. Better not bait the bear. Today she’d simply enjoy the ride. She could almost reach out and touch the treetops that skimmed past under her feet. They carried on across lakes, around mountains, and down low through valleys. They swept through passes—the sides of some mere feet from the yacht’s wing tips—until, finally, they shot out of a valley still fifteen feet off the ground and were heading out over the southern seas. Leaving a range of silver-gray mountains behind them as they sped away, Sorrento rotated her seat one hundred eighty degrees to look back before they receded out of view altogether. They were magnificent.

Then something caught her eye.

Just for a moment, something looked odd about one of them. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was wrong. And then, the whole mountain range was gone, the sight lost in morning mist and distance. She rotated her seat back to the front to enjoy the rest of the journey. From the holographic flight plan in front of her, she could see that the rest of the trip was mostly over the sea as they headed north and homeward to Jasmin. She moved her hand over to the right to the two throttle levers, her left hand finding the flight interface and pulling it back gently to bring the ship up to one thousand feet. Her right pushed the throttle levers gently forward, and she watched the speed increase. She stopped at Mach three and looked back at her father.

He wasn’t in a good mood. The meeting with the farming guild had not gone as expected. Though she’d not been at the conference meetings, Sorrento could see her father was worried.

Something had changed in their corner of the galaxy. The fact that a big ship had turned up unexpectedly while the conference was in progress had something to do with it, she was sure. He was still talking to the same woman—one of Jasmin’s council members.

Ludovic and his father before him had been farmers from central Germania. Like his father, he was a man of full shoulder, light eyes, and big hands who had held on purposefully to his heavy Germanic accent. It was especially rich when he was happy in the good company of his favorite German beer. A rare treat. For farm animals and for his family he had all the time in the world—for others, not so much. As a young man, he’d become bored with life on the Telluris family farm. He loved farming and it was in his blood, but he became bored with life on Telluris. He longed to find a way off the planet and onto one meant solely for farming, where he could devote all his time and energy to it.

He’d followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Farming Guild, and it was there that he’d met his wife, Rebecca. She was a kindred spirit—and a farming robotics student engineer, at that. In the New Empire, robotics and farming went hand in hand. She too was restless to leave Telluris for real farming opportunities, and when they’d met and fallen in love, they planned how, together. After graduation, they’d gotten bonded and put their names down for a new colony. Four years later, they’d arrived on Breakspear Alpha with their two-year-old daughter, Sorrento, ready to start a new life on a new world. The family had been assigned to Jasmin Tulou.

Now, behind his daughter on the yacht, Ludovic was in deep conversation, loud and annoyed. I don’t understand where this . . . this imposter comes from, he was saying. And who’s heard of the Molinsha Khanate, let alone to tell us we’re now a part of it. He voice soared in agitation. "What in the name of the gods is the Empire doing about all this? We’re an outer colony, but . . . Geschissen! We’re Empire citizens, and Breakspear’s entitled to basic protections! I tell you, that Khanate ship that turned up was a ship of war . . . oh yes . . . sniffing around. But why? There’s nothing for them in this sector—we’re on the bloody frontier, for the gods’ sakes. If this is about looking for a confrontation with the Empire fleet, we’d better be damn careful being this far out from the closest support station."

Ludovic stopped, absorbed in what the woman in the hologram was saying now. Of the nine council members overseeing Jasmin, Kufuru had responsibility for its communications and security. Like so many humans, it was difficult to determine her age. She looked in excellent health with little sign of aging, until you heard her voice—it was certainly not that of a young woman—or noticed the quiet, seasoned wisdom in the dark, penetrating eyes. Genetically enhanced before birth, her fine African features made her a woman of striking presence. She was dressed in a bright saffron gown loosely tied above her hips.

Kufuru replied with a smooth, calming voice. Ludovic, I understand. And this so-called Molinsha Khanate is also news to me. He’s got some power behind him, though. I mean, to turn up with a heavily armed ship like that, and from what you’re saying, it’s a match to an Empire naval vessel?

At least a match. At least, I’d say.

She sighed, worried and thoughtful. I don’t know what’s going on here either, Ludovic. But to make a power play for this sector is a very bold move. I fear Breakspear has just become some kind of pawn in a game of strategy, and this was the opening move. It’s a smart one, I’ll give them that. The New Empire is only now coming back to where it was before the war. But it’s still not ready to face a competitor, let alone such a hostile one.

The past four hundred years have made the Empire soft, Kufuru. Soft and weak. And pawns in opening moves are often the first to be sacrificed.

I agree, she replied. I hope that he’ll not interfere with us too much. No, I believe it could be the Independent Shipping Guild he’s here to interfere with, considering its closeness to the central Senate on Telluris. Any move against the IPS Guild will get government attention straightaway.

Yes, I hope you’re right, Kufuru, replied Ludovic. But it would be wise to stay safe and keep a fast, deep spaceship up your sleeve, my friend. We must all take care.

Kufuru looked over to her right for a second, talking to someone out of range of the yacht’s hologram. My PIAC is telling me that the name Molinsha has a reference from the past, which is interesting. In the meantime, I’ll make out a full report and send it back to the central Senate, Colony Security. I’ll request a ship of the line visit us as quickly as possible and have a look around. In fact, I think it’s time to call in a favor from an old friend close to one of the security senators and see what we can find out about this ‘Khanate.’ She gave him a broad, brave smile. Thank you, Ludovic, for getting in touch so soon. Let me do my research on this and see what comes back. I’ve increased the long-range sensors and put the planet defenses on active, not that we have much besides knocking a meteor or asteroid about. At least if any ship comes out of FTL drive, we’ll see it. I’ll call an emergency council meeting and meet you there, Ludovic. Hopefully, by then, I’ll have some answers. Prep your ship to get your family away, my friend. It may come to that. I’ll get the other ships sorted out. Take care. We’ll speak later.

Ludovic nodded, grateful, and with a gentle wave of her hand, the connection ended.

Sorrento had been quietly listening to the conversation. She was also watching incoming news lines on this so-called Molinsha Khanate, and, for the first time, it gave her butterflies in her stomach. Not a pleasant feeling, but strangely exciting.

The ship was slowing down. It didn’t take long before Jasmin Tulou came into view. Floating above the land, it looked like a giant funnel, its bottom section shimmering from the dimensional forces that came with big antigravity generators. The yacht rose to be level with the tulou, which had lifted to fifteen hundred feet, floating above the clouds, as it was raining now. The craft slowed right down, rotating to land sideways on the family’s landing platform, and Sorrento could see her mother waiting on it for them.

The vessel shuddered slightly as it touched and settled on the deck with a slight change in the hum from the engines as they ran down. The cockpit reappeared around Sorrento as it went back to default and was no longer transparent. There were no windows, just the screens.

Ludovic had unclipped his seat harness and started speaking to the ship. "Amoranda, please make arrangements to discharge cargo."

Amoranda replied immediately in a singsong voice of indeterminate gender, but Sorrento liked to imagine the vessel as female.

Yes, sir. I will make all the arrangements to discharge the cargo and prep for the next flight. I would also like to strip down one of the AM converters as it is currently operating at a 98.6 percent efficiency, therefore just below optimal operating protocols. This will mean that the ship will not be operational for 12.4 hours.

Go ahead, Ludovic replied. But please make haste. He stopped for a second. "Amoranda, I need you to prep the ship for a long trip. Ensure all supplies for that and sufficient fuel are secure and on board. Check equipment functionality. After your repairs are made, I want you ready to make a swift departure from Breakspear—should that prove necessary."

Yes, sir, came the singsong reply from the guild yacht. And how many passengers should I prepare for?

Full capacity.

He turned to smile at Sorrento. "We might just go on a quick holiday with friends! Now come on, Fräulein. Let’s go! Dinner’s waiting."

Sorrento hopped out of her seat. Fuck, that sounds good!

Her dad shouted over his shoulder, Stop swearing!

Sorry!

Dinner was good. Afterward, as Sorrento slipped into the deep darkness of sleep, what her flight path that day had called back to life, deep in the mountain, stirred from a sleep of five hundred years. Shade lay there now, crying out—entombed, afraid, isolated. Immortal.

Chapter 2

The Darkness in the Mountain

年2,820

I am awareness. But of what?

What kind of consciousness is this? A dream? No sound comes through the bottomless, unbroken stillness of infinite darkness that is behind and before, above and below, all around. Nothing is here for me to experience but myself and the isolation of the darkness that is now me.

There is terror and deep, dreadful panic comes—a darkness rising out of darkness. He screams. No! No! But nothing is heard. Immortal in this form and trapped alone forever.

Help me! Help me! Please, please help me! Remember . . . I must remember what happened. Fleets . . . fleets of ships fighting to protect or destroy a gate—a portal. Ah! Yes, Themis! You! You were there! A sun goes supernova . . . No! Catastrophic. FTL now, now! Run! Themis! Where are you?

What became of Themis and her ship? I did . . . I did reach out far to find you . . . in the microsecond left before the blast, my sister. Our ships . . . hurled across space, racing before the waves that blasted us both onward . . . Not fast enough for Commander Selene to spin our ship away. That’s right . . . our outer sleeve concentrated to shield against the oncoming forces. Fragments of memory return now, assembling around him one by one to punctuate the emptiness. He must make them whole.

Not single ships but . . . fleets disappearing in the fire storm around us all. What victory is this?

Ship’s outer sleeve: holding, holding, holding!

And then he felt it. Selene’s outer sleeve ripped away, like his own skin being stripped from his body.

But the inner core . . . the ship’s inner core—you were still intact, Selene! You should have survived! He remembered why.

Rotating for jump!

Inner hull temperature, too high!

Rotate, rotate! Now! FTL! Selene, jump!

They’d made the jump. They’d done it. It was a colony world they’d leaped toward, one hundred fifty light-years ahead. And then . . . nothing.

Only a forever darkness. Why have I, and only I, awoken? Is this the afterlife of a quantum mind? I have no soul.

His heart freezes at the realization. No sanctuary here then, but the safety of the grave.

She would have brought me out of this place, but she didn’t survive! Oh gods! Selene, you didn’t survive. That’s it! That’s it! Yet still his frantic, hopeless mind calls out. Selene, please! Please don’t leave me! Help me! Help me!

Waves of crushing despair sweep through all of him, and then something . . . something so slight, something barely perceptible even against the infinite canvas of nothing stirs somewhere. And he feels it. A slow, warm tingling across his artificial skin.

I feel! I feel!

His mind struggles like a swimmer too long under water, to any surface he can break, as his sensors awaken. Yes, wait, wait, wait now . . . One after another, they start to stream back, quickening like sharp bright stars appearing in the night-filled coffin.

Ubuntu.

The word she utters shocks him into life like a newborn taking first breath. Ubuntu, Ubuntu, the heartbeat of his species awakening, in Africa, to love’s first awareness of itself; and everything in his endless universe is changed, is life.

I am because you are, Shade.

* * *

Selene’s Shadow is the name of this ship, after Selene, Goddess of the Moon. Selene is the vessel’s central AI, a quantum second mind that is part of Shade, a symbiont bonded to him—still. She links him again, this time with her embodied, physical voice. It is kind, somehow.

Shade, I have tried so long to wake you, but I could not. You have been inaccessible to me. It appears a hibernation program implant activated in you when we jumped away from the blast. It locked me out. It may have been implanted by Master Wolseley or by Brockley, but I have doubts. It appears it was intended to serve a run-and-hide strategy. But I can’t see yet why we were not told about it, or why it did not deactivate when we arrived on this colony planet. We descended into the southern hemisphere of a planet called Breakspear Alpha, Shade. I had little control over the ship. Only able to observe. Most distressing.

He hung on every word hungrily. She paused to let all reactivations network themselves together between him and her, the ship.

Selene! Gods! Where are you?

I’m here, Shade, came the gentle reply. Our link is reestablished. Don’t be afraid. I can access you now. We landed in a mountain range. The ship bored its way into the side of a mountain and collapsed the entry behind us. We’re buried in this mountain and, evidently, all but impossible to find. Apparently, we’ve been quite safe here, and since we arrived, the ship’s auto repair program has been working to make structural repairs. Over time, these have all been completed on minimal power.

Impossible! his own embodied voice uttered, as strong as ever.

Not impossible, if undisturbed, for long enough. There is little other data accessible yet. We are slowly coming back online, the activation factor unknown, but I still have no access to the primary systems. You have that, Shade.

I understand, Selene. I’m getting access now to the primary systems. He was so charged now with joy and relief that he struggled to focus on his engagement with her as his rescuer out of the darkness.

And if I regain control of them, so will you, she drew him back.

Correct. Controls are coming back. I now have control of the reactors and central core. It will take time to restart and align the systems, but since all repairs have been made, this should not be problematic.

Shade could feel the surrounding ship, as though it too was breathing now. Something strange now, not in her voice but in her tone—something that felt like happiness. Minimal power or not, for a ship not programmed to express emotion, something had changed about her.

In these moments of Shade’s euphoria at this re-link to her at last, the fundamental difference in her escaped him.

Shaped like a crescent moon, the bridge too started to come alive as consoles and small holograms lit up one after the other across it, in a self-orchestrating synchrony. In the open space before it a central hologram floated upward and, rotating slowly, closed in on a solar system: four planets revolving around a sun. It homed in again to one of these, Breakspear Alpha, with its small gleaming moon. The rest of the bridge lay empty and dark.

We can’t stay here, Selene. Shade was resuming, with both ease and urgency, his role as ship’s captain.

Using Selene’s geo-thermal readings of the mountain’s size, structure, and composition, then optimal distance to the surface from their position, they aligned a laser cannon to strike at the most optimal spot on the upper right wall of the cave. As they activated the laser on low power, just enough to cut a passage out of the cave and through to the mountain face, a small whirlpool on the hull surface opened. From its center, a high-energy laser emerged, crackled briefly, then shot out energy pulses that melted the cave wall rock to create a six-foot-wide tunnel through to the face of the mountain surface. Shade launched a probe into it. In an instant, it was clear of the ship and coursing upward through the tunnel at 42 degrees. It sailed out into the oxygenated night, accelerating fast toward the stars.

Selene and Shade inspected the data coming back with satisfaction. That’s good unpolluted air outside.

This colony is new. That’s strange.

The war must be over then.

They linked to each other, elated, only to be cast into shocked dismay when Selene checked the star charts. It’s been five hundred years since we arrived here, she said, her voice shot with sadness. Once more, Shade did not hear the implications of the emotion discernible in her tone.

How, Selene? Eyes of Zeus! Five hundred years? That makes no sense.

There’s no mistake, Shade. We’ve been here for five centuries. She fell silent as Shade’s mind recoiled. She let him assimilate the layers of what this meant. When he cried out, his pain seemed to fill the mountain.

No! No! No! Not like this! Father, Paola, Brockley, Cosmos? Family! Our friends! All of them, they’ll all have died!

Correct. Her voice faltered. Their life spans are passed. We shall not see them again. She took his hand, sad and close. Shade, I am so sorry. This is a shock for us both. Without them, I would not have come into existence. Her strangely compassionate words helped him. In time, we may understand what happened. For now, I recommend you downregulate your emotional sensitivity.

Did they realize something had gone wrong? His mind snatched for answers. I shall miss them so much. So much, he cried out. As he wept, distraught, a dense anger began to rise under his pain, and she felt him struggle to regain control. I must downregulate these emotions. Yes, yes, help me, Selene. They’re too overwhelming.

Now dampening your emotional responses to this until further notice. We will find your bio form, Shade, so that you can grieve as you need to, in due course. It is possible, she ventured hopefully, that they left behind an avatar for us, if we can find it—an avatar with a message of some kind?

Yes, yes! Father would surely have tried if he could. His mind reeled again. "Somehow, someone may have betrayed us all. Where is Themis, and our sister ship, the Titan? We must find them above all else! And he whispered aloud, his voice hard, The Selene was built not only as a stealth ship of war but also to hunt . . . down . . . the truth."

To hunt down truths, she corrected simply. Indeed, I was.

Chapter 3

From the Past

年2,820

Throughout the five centuries since the Galaxy War, the enduring heritage of Rome’s cultural penchant for venerating the military meant that accommodation quarters for all the crews of modern navy war vessels had become very comfortable (a situation questioned rarely, bravely, and uselessly). Helped greatly by one media frenzy over the celebrity quality of a particularly accomplished or daring crew member, the navy enjoyed Empire-wide public appreciation—even public adoration—of its crews. And that was not to be sniffed at by any navy PR department, no matter how irritating and troublesome the next media find might be. A constant from before the war was how the ships were named. Carriers took the names of Greek gods, and battle cruisers were named after their weapons. Destroyers carried the names of animals, while frigates were named after birds. Across the whole fleet, the Sino-Roman Empire worked constantly to build better faster-than-light engines. Roman military drive and pride had shaped the Empire’s space navy. But on the quiet foundations of ancient China’s never-matched ship-design genius for vast and swollen high seas, it was the ships of space exploration that most excited the public. These ships carried Chinese names, always.

Space was still a profoundly hostile environment; gravitational forces remained the great stumbling block to human-crewed ships. And so the Eclipse project was to become a proof of concept to create the most powerful ship humankind had ever made, yet with none of the limitations of having to support a human crew.

It had, at first, been a modestly funded project. Other priorities had