Your wife has been murdered and you want revenge. Your poor wife's soul demands justice, and not just for her sake but for the countless victims like her. Yet this is a war against a killer or killers who are ancient, smart and nearly invisible. How do you defeat such an enemy?
Carefully. That's how. Slowly and patiently. With centuries of endless preparation, plus a team of allies who are brilliant in their own fashion, and a little invisible when they need to be.
"Courage never lasted for long, which was why fright was the more reliable ally. One day, when the fear took hold of Tosylic again, he had no choice but to reenter the heatsuit woven from thermal bubbles and vacuum-infused yarn. Then he climbed to an unlit hatch inside one of the coldest portions of the Great Ship. That was where his wife's previous husband resided. A rare class of AIs, quantum quivers were always born inside frigid nebulae or zero Kelvin laboratories, their tiny minds swaddled by polariton condensates, and working as libraries and data repositories, they were famous for finding the good done by their masters and deserving clients.
"Quantum quivers were the first entities to live inside this habitat, and they were responsible for the name: The Way of Molten Air.
"Tosylic addressed the hatch with a two-stomp greeting and his name.
"'I know who you are,' a soothing voice replied. 'And I know something about your grief too.'"
Robert Reed is the author of hundreds of published science fiction stories, short novels, and fat novels too. He won the Hugo in 2007 for the novella "A Billion Eves." But Reed is best known for his ongoing epic Great Ship series.
Genre: Science Fiction
Carefully. That's how. Slowly and patiently. With centuries of endless preparation, plus a team of allies who are brilliant in their own fashion, and a little invisible when they need to be.
"Courage never lasted for long, which was why fright was the more reliable ally. One day, when the fear took hold of Tosylic again, he had no choice but to reenter the heatsuit woven from thermal bubbles and vacuum-infused yarn. Then he climbed to an unlit hatch inside one of the coldest portions of the Great Ship. That was where his wife's previous husband resided. A rare class of AIs, quantum quivers were always born inside frigid nebulae or zero Kelvin laboratories, their tiny minds swaddled by polariton condensates, and working as libraries and data repositories, they were famous for finding the good done by their masters and deserving clients.
"Quantum quivers were the first entities to live inside this habitat, and they were responsible for the name: The Way of Molten Air.
"Tosylic addressed the hatch with a two-stomp greeting and his name.
"'I know who you are,' a soothing voice replied. 'And I know something about your grief too.'"
Robert Reed is the author of hundreds of published science fiction stories, short novels, and fat novels too. He won the Hugo in 2007 for the novella "A Billion Eves." But Reed is best known for his ongoing epic Great Ship series.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Robert Reed's What>We>Will>Never>Be