He would not allow himself to dwell on what he’d lost.
Such thoughts he locked away behind artificial barriers.
He adopted a routine of switching off his consciousness, rousing only twice in every twenty-four hours to check the ship’s status and to view new images of Dragon presented to him by the DI. Each image confirmed its revised course.
After a time, he discovered a slight increase in Dragon’s velocity. He matched it, then exceeded it. This raised his risk of obliteration in a random collision, but it would do no good to reach Verilotus after Lezuri.
He instructed the DI to devote all remaining telescope time to a detailed survey of the MSC-G-349809 system. It soon confirmed the presence of two gas giant planets in the outer system, then began a slow meticulous search for minor bodies.
Urban wakened for only brief periods, but he perceived no interval between them so it felt to him as if he was constantly awake, rocketing at mad speed toward Verilotus.
To endure it, he adapted the calm demeanor, the machinelike patience of the persona he called the Sentinel. But dark thoughts whispered deep within the architecture of his ghost.
What if? What if?
A constant, haunting refrain.
What if he had passed the beacon without visiting it? What if he had scuttled Dragon that day the entity infested it? What if he had forbidden Riffan to share his tablet with Lezuri? What if he had agreed to take Lezuri to Verilotus? What if Clemantine still lived?
Did she?
Had she made an alliance with Lezuri? If that meant she still lived, he hoped it was so.
What if he reached Verilotus and found a hostile goddess?
Or what if he found nothing? No way to level up, to gain the strength and knowledge needed to face Lezuri.
More frightening: What if he did find those things? What then? Who would he become?
The answers lay ahead.
FORTHCOMING
Inverted Frontier, Book 2
Silver
Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet.
Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his. He is desperate to return home to the ring-shaped artificial world he created at the height of his power, where he can recover the memory of forgotten technologies.
Urban is desperate to stop him. He races to reach the ring-shaped world first, only to find himself stranded in a remote desert, imperiled by a strange flood of glowing “silver” that rises in the night like fog—a lethal fog that randomly rewrites the austere, Earthlike landscape. He has only a little time to decipher the mystery of the silver and to master its secrets. Lezuri is coming—and Urban must level up before he can hope to vanquish the broken god.
Acknowledgments
A great gap of time separates Edges from its predecessor, Vast, and perhaps that’s appropriate given the span required for Urban’s voyage home.
Time, of course, changes us all.
Though I’d long been thinking about this novel, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Dare I try to re-enter a world I’d first imagined more than twenty years ago? And if I did, could I make it convincing for those who’d found Vast to be a memorable addition to their science fiction libraries? Eventually, I decided to try, convincing myself it would be a quick project. That did not turn out to be the case, but without that bit of self-deception, I might never have started.
Edges exists in its current form thanks to my freelance editor, Judith Tarr, who fearlessly insisted that an early draft needed a major rethinking. Judy later provided essential editorial input on a near-final draft, Kat Howard provided additional insight, and beta readers Larry Clough and Kristine Smith came to the rescue on short notice. Copyediting was done by Sherwood Smith, via the writers’ cooperative, Book View Café. All of you have my thanks and my gratitude. You tried to steer me in the right direction. All remaining errors and deficiencies are my own.
I also want to acknowledge those readers who spend time with me on Twitter, or visit my blog. Your encouragement and kind words are deeply appreciated. Thank you!
And last but certainly not least, a huge thank you to all those who’ve taken the time to read this book, or others I’ve written. You’re the reason I do this, and I’m deeply grateful for your ongoing support.
Also by Linda Nagata
Scarred by war. In pursuit of truth.
Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire. But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She’s left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.
The Last Good Man is a powerful, complex, and very human tale.
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