Descendant Machine, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Praise for Stars and Bones
Also by Gareth L. Powell and Available from Titan Books
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Prologue: Betting the Farm on a Hunch
PART ONE:
SURFING THE INVISIBLE GRADIENT
A Thing or Two About Survivor’s Guilt
Keeping their Deities at Arm’s Length
The Grand Mechanism
Within Acceptable Parameters
Wincing in Anticipation
A Puddle of Attitude
Assuming Room Temperature
More Important than Gold Stars
The Cronus Cluster
Flamboyant Elegance
Universal Consciousness, Telekinesis, or Even God
Quiet and Prickly
Gunmetal Ghost
Ass-first into the Darkness
Meat Speeds
Weird Parasites
Perilous Proximity
Beetle-like Sheen
Side-splash
Swiss Cheese
Allergic-to-Seafood
Target Acquisition
Frogs Could Swim
General Aulco’s Ass
Phantom Body Syndrome
Road to Nowhere
A Fuck-ton of Ifs
The Last Temptation of Orlando Walden
PART TWO:
ON A PITCH-DARK SEA
Vacuum Decay
One Should Never Discuss Matters of Importance Without Tea
Battered but Essentially Intact
Like Rain Softly
Guidance System
Ain’t No Whale
Like a String Quartet
Maximum Visibility
A Satisfying Series of Small Explosions
A Fair Fight
Primal Fear of Nonexistence
Above Me, the Pitiless Stars
Serving Science
Living in Trees
San Diego Sunset
Blue Fists Clenched
Amorphous Killing Machines
Eye of the Storm
Bigger on the Inside
All the Water Gets In
Absolute Philistine
An Arrow Looping Back on Itself
God-sized Brain
Fearsome Stellar Engines
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also Available from Titan Books
Praise for Stars and Bones
“Gareth Powell drops you into the action from the first page and then Just. Keeps. Going. This is a pro at the top of his game.”
John Scalzi
“An interstellar intelligence has a plan for Earth’s future, but is humanity a part of it? Fast-paced and thoughtful, Stars and Bones leaves the reader well-fed with hearty helpings of mystery, suspense, adventure, and terror.”
Marina Lostetter, author of Noumenon
“Gareth Powell’s Stars and Bones is shocking and beautiful—an electric, epic, and sometimes gruesome look at humanity facing its biggest challenge yet. Powell keeps the pressure on and doesn’t let go. I enjoyed it immensely.”
Karen Osborne, author of Architects of Memory
“A headlong, visceral plunge into a future equal parts fascinating and terrifying.”
Adrian Tchaikovsky
“A gripping, fast-paced space opera that poses the unique question: what if instead of saving humanity, aliens decided to save the Earth?”
Stina Leicht, author of Persephone Station
“A grand scale adventure packed with fun banter, snappy prose, and masterful science.”
Essa Hansen, author of Nophek Gloss
“A vividly imagined, propulsive read. Filled with a loveable cast of characters. Powell’s writing creates a rich tapestry of their voices and inner lives. I think readers will be thrilled by this story.”
Temi Oh, author of Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
“Big ships, big ideas and big emotions. Thrilling space opera which is epic in scope, yet always rooted at the human level, as all the best sci-fi is.”
Emma Newman, author of Planetfall
“Stars and Bones crafts a future that finds hope in dark places.”
Valerie Valdes, author of Chilling Effect
“An interstellar collision of massive ideas and startling originality.”
Zack Jordan, author of The Last Human
Also by Gareth L. Powell and available from Titan Books
Embers of War
Fleet of Knives
Light of Impossible Stars
Stars and Bones
GARETH L.
POWELL
DESCENDANT
MACHINE
A CONTINUANCE NOVEL
TITAN BOOKS
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Descendant Machine
Print edition ISBN: 9781789094312
E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094329
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: April 2023
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Gareth L. Powell. All Rights Reserved.
Gareth L. Powell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
For Dianne
“The dance is always danced above the hollow place,
above the terrible abyss.”
URSULA K. LE GUIN
INTRODUCTION
TO: COUNCIL OF SHIPS INVESTIGATIVE SUBCOMMITTEE
FROM: VANGUARD SCOUT SHIP FRONTIER CHIC
DATE: 03/09/125 NEW COMMON ERA
RE: INCIDENT #43675-A
My esteemed colleagues and members of the Council,
I understand many of you may be confused or angry about recent occurrences in the Jzat system, and I can’t say I blame you. I’m not particularly happy about it all myself. But, as I was there when everything went sideways, it has fallen to me to explain the events that led up to the death of the Rav’nah Abelisk and the reactivation of the Grand Mechanism.
After consideration, and having reviewed all the available evidence, I have decided to present my report to you in the form of a fictionalised narrative. In doing so, I hope to convey a deeper sense of the emotions and thought processes of those involved, as well as communicate the enormity of what we faced more effectively than I ever could through the mere recitation of data. This has enabled me to devote a chapter to each of the most significant turning points, and the reasoning behind each decision.
In compiling this account, I have drawn upon my own experience; the testimony of my navigator, Nicola Mafalda; and the letters sent from the scientific protégé, Orlando Walden, to his lover, Ramona Tyrell—as well as the journals, communications or recollections of several of the other major participants, where available. To help you keep track of whose testimony you are reading at any given moment, I have included the name of the narrator beneath the title of each chapter.
Although I have striven to ensure the accuracy of this account, I have inevitably made some aesthetic and literary choices in my presentation. For instance, although highly educated, impeccably dressed and well spoken, Ms Mafalda tends to employ profanity for both emphasis and punctuation. Indeed, when infuriated or intoxicated, she has a remarkable talent for fitting multiple instances of the word ‘fuck’ into almost every sentence she utters. So, in the interests of clarity, I have taken the liberty of excising most of these curses, sparing only enough to give an authentic flavour of her speech. I have also omitted the more intimate and sexually explicit passages from Mr Walden’s communiques, as well as whole sections that slowed the pace of the narrative and consisted entirely of snarky comments about other physicists.
Additionally, I have employed the occasional stylistic flourish, to make the whole thing more engaging to read. I know humans often find it easier to absorb a fictional account rather than a dry summation of events. They are natural storytellers, after all, and it is my humble hope that by thus framing my report as a literary narrative, my efforts will result in a wider public understanding of the chain of events Ms Mafalda referred to at the time as simply “this sorry clusterfuck”.
VSS Frontier Chic
“Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.”
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
PROLOGUE
BETTING THE FARM ON A HUNCH
NICOLA MAFALDA
As we left the atmosphere and the Frontier Chic powered upwards, a local gunboat hailed us.
“Hello,” I sent in the local language. “I’m honoured. I wasn’t expecting you to break out the big guns just to say goodbye.”
Although lacking interstellar capability, the Jzatian gunboat easily massed twice our size. It had the clunky, functional look of something whose builders had bolted it together with scant regard for aesthetics. The hull was a metal cube sporting at each vertex bouquets of large-bore thruster nozzles. Weapons emplacements and targeting sensors crusted five of its six faces.
“Nicola Mafalda?” the gunboat’s commanding officer replied. “This is not a ceremonial visit. You have a member of our diplomatic service on board.”
I checked the manifest. “Indra Petroq? Yes, she’s joining the Jzat ambassadorial delegation to the Continuance fleet.”
“Please be aware that we would like to take your passenger into custody.”
“Has she committed a crime?”
“That is none of your concern.” Gun mounts swivelled to target us. “You have one minute to signal your compliance.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fifty-five seconds.”
“Are you threatening me?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation from my tone. “Seriously?”
The Frontier Chic and I had come here to deliver our passenger. The rulers of Jzat had given permission for a physicist from the Thousand Arks of the Continuance to visit and study the Grand Mechanism. It would be the first time the Jzat had allowed a human within a hundred thousand kilometres of the thing, and apparently was a great honour.
The physicist was a young protégé who went by the name Orlando Walden. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’d allowed him to be present on the command deck as we approached Jzat—and he had seemed enraptured by the images of the Mechanism displayed on the bridge’s various monitors and screens.
“What do you think, Walden?”
The kid turned to look at me. He was tall but slight, with dark eyeshadow and black nail polish that only served to highlight the hollowness of his cheeks. He wore a collarless charcoal-coloured jacket that did up to the neck, and had scraped his long, dirty-blond hair into a ponytail. He had festooned the backs of his hands with smart tattoos simultaneously displaying newsfeeds, monitoring his vital signs, running through a variety of computer games and sims, and predicting the local weather conditions on Jzat.
“It’s fascinating,” he said, managing not to stammer.
Born and raised on the arks of the Continuance, he claimed this was his first trip beyond the confines of the fleet, and when we touched down on the planet, it would be his first experience of both natural gravity and natural sunlight.
Upon landing, we’d handed Orlando Walden over to a delegation of Jzat scientists eager to whisk him off to study their big hoop. The poor kid’s eyes were wide like saucers.
After that, we stayed for a few days as arrangements were made for our return journey. Then, once Petroq and a handful of other passengers were aboard, we began our return journey, bringing them back to the fleet, where they would take over the position of Jzat’s ambassadorship to the Human Continuance. It wasn’t a glamorous assignment for us but working for the Vanguard wasn’t all adventure and excitement; sometimes, you just had to swallow your pride and act like a taxi service.
“We cannot allow the individual in question to proceed with her journey. If you refuse to surrender her, we will destroy you.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“Forty-five seconds.”
“You know who I represent, right?”
“You represent the Continuance.”
“Yes, the Continuance.” I spoke as if addressing a particularly truculent child. “A thousand arks, each the size of a small nation, and each packing enough defensive firepower to wreck a planet. More specifically, this planet.”
“Nevertheless, we must insist. We cannot allow Ambassador Petroq to contact the Rav’nah Abelisk.”
I was about to ask who the fuck the Rav’nah Abelisk was, when the Frontier Chic’s sensors registered a huge gravity pulse. It moved across the system like the ripple of a boulder dropped into a pond.
“What the hell was that?” I tracked it back to its source. “Did that come from the Mechanism?”
I focused my sensors on the research vessels swarming like midges around the Mechanism’s black sphere and its attendant hoop. The Jzat had been studying the artifact since the dawn of their history, and had several long-established scientific stations dotted at various points around the hoop’s four-hundred-and-seventy-kilometre circumference. “Have you idiots finally found a way to start it up?”
“Uh…” For a second the officer’s confidence wavered. Then he pulled himself together and said, “Our activities are none of your concern. Do you have a response to our demands?”
“I have.”
“And your answer?”
“You should go fuck yourselves.”
“Very well. We have noted your intransigence. Firing missile.”
“Wait—”
“Missile away.”
Alarms screamed as the torpedo established a target lock on the Frontier Chic’s hull. The captain’s warnings had only been a formality; I was certain his orders had always been to destroy me, and he would use the transcript of our conversation as a way of covering his ass in any ensuing investigation.
“You’re a real dick,” I sent. “You know that, right?”
The weapon’s profile suggested a fusion warhead, but I had no desire to stick around to see if that guess was correct. I told the Frontier Chic to fire-up his flick generators, and he opened a wormhole into the substrate. The silver sphere glimmered into existence between his bow and the incoming missile, blocking line-of-sight. Momentarily disorientated, the weapon raked the heavens with its sensors, attempting to reacquire target lock—but we had already leapt into the buffeting fires of the substrate, and set the portal to collapse behind us.
Unfortunately, we weren’t quick enough. As my eyes gazed into the roiling chaos and my mind began to feed data to the navigational array, the nuclear-tipped missile slipped through the collapsing jump point and detonated metres from our stern.
* * *
I was unconscious for a time. Upon waking, the first thing I became aware of was that I appeared to be weightless and drifting. Everything hurt and my skin itched like sunburn. I opened my eyes. The only illumination on the bridge came from electrical fires in the ducts and on the main console. If the gravity wasn’t working, every system must be dead. Nothing focuses the mind like existential peril. When I managed to get my heartbeat under control, I began to take stock of the situation. It was an old habit: If in doubt, run a diagnostic.
Firstly, as far as I could tell from the lack of tell-tales visible on the instrument consoles, the ship was totally inert. No thrust, no lights. Not even any air coming through the vents. The additional shielding around the bridge had kept me from the worst effects of the heat and blast. But if the nausea and headache I was experiencing were any indication, a lot of the radiation had got through, which meant I only had a few hours or minutes before I succumbed to the final messy and agonising phases of radiation poisoning.
My heart felt like it was thumping against the inside of a steel ribcage. Somehow, I had to keep this bag of flesh functioning long enough to get back to civilisation and figure out what the hell had happened to us. Not knowing at that point how badly the ship might be damaged, I thought it unwise to open the hatch and attempt to access the medical supplies in the crew lounge. For all I knew, there might be a vacuum on the other side of the door. But without medical supplies, I’d soon be dead.
There was an emergency locker beneath the navigator’s couch. I pressed my thumb against the mechanism, and it clicked open. Inside, I found a lightweight pressure suit, a variety of tools and equipment, and a firearm. These were supplies designed to allow the navigator to survive on a planetary surface in the event of a crash landing. They were all robust and easily portable. But the one that interested me most right now was the pressure suit—or more specifically, the med panel on its left forearm. I struggled into the garment. It was a difficult process given the lack of gravity and my radiation sickness, but eventually I got both arms and legs into the right places and managed to pull up the long zip at the front. Closing this activated its systems, and I felt it tighten strategically around my frame. I didn’t bother to put the gloves on. It was easier to operate the med panel controls without them. Fighting down another bout of nausea, I scrolled through the available menu options until I found: SOLAR FLARE EXPOSURE.
