For now, though, I had my paper, and I had my ink. But before I could start, I stationed myself at Bosa’s window and looked out of it, beyond the Nightjammer to the purple glint and glimmer of the Thirteenth Occupation, the fifty million little worlds of the Congregation, all the named worlds and baubles, the countless more that had never been named and never would be, huddling close to the Old Sun, pressed in from outside by all the magnificent darkness and silence of the Empty, and I mused on all the people on them, all the towns and cities, all the ships sailing between those places, proud with cargo and prizes, sails bright and billowing on the photon winds, and the bones that whispered secrets between the ships, and I wondered what it would take for me to ever feel that I could lead a settled and normal life in those worlds.

I shivered. It was cold in Bosa’s ship, but not half as cold as the void beyond that glass.

Something flickered behind my reflection. A dance of lights in Paladin’s head? But by the time I’d turned he was dim again, if indeed there had been anything there.

I returned to her desk, fixed myself to the chair, spread open the gutted covers of Rackamore’s 1384 edition of the Book of Worlds, and slid one sheet of my new paper between them. Then I took up my pen in my cold tin fingers and scratched down the name of my sister, because she was where it all began.

Also by Alastair Reynolds from Gollancz:

Also by Alastair Reynolds from Gollancz:

Novels

Revelation Space

Redemption Ark

Absolution Gap

Chasm City

Century Rain

Pushing Ice

The Prefect

House of Suns

Terminal World

Blue Remembered Earth

On the Steel Breeze

Poseidon’s Wake

The Medusa Chronicles (with Stephen Baxter)

Short Story Collections:

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Galactic North

Zima Blue

Beyond the Aquila Rift

Copyright

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Gollancz

an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © Dendrocopos Limited 2016

The moral right of Alastair Reynolds to be identified as

the author of this work has been asserted in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the

prior permission of both the copyright owner and the

above publisher of this book.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library.

ISBN (eBook) 978 0 575 09056 9