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Chapters (32)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  4. Transcript
  5. ZAHRA
  6. Fragment
  7. JAS
  8. Transcript
  9. ZAHRA
  10. Fragment
  11. JAS
  12. Transcript
  13. ZAHRA
  14. Fragment
  15. JAS
  16. Transcript
  17. ZAHRA
  18. Fragment
  19. JAS
  20. Transcript
  21. ZAHRA
  22. Fragment
  23. JAS
  24. Fragment
  25. ZAHRA
  26. JAS
  27. ZAHRA
  28. Transcript
  29. Fragment
  30. JAS
  31. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  32. What’s next onyour reading list?

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION ARCHIVE REF. [UNKNOWN/CORRUPTED]

Source: HOUSE OF WISDOM, SPEC RESEARCH

TimeDate: 11:01:37 01.04.393

BRIDGE: It’s been quiet for some time now. They’ve gone quiet. They were making a lot of noise earlier. Not the screams, but words. They were saying—it sounded like—

ENGINEERING 12-009: The words of the dead.

BRIDGE: Who is that? Where are you?

ENGINEERING 12-009: It’s me, Lilian. It’s Amita.

BRIDGE: For fuck’s sake. Where are you? Are you—it really is you?

ENGINEERING 12-009: I haven’t been infected. There’s nothing inside of me.

BRIDGE: Thank fuck for that. Is Vinod with you?

ENGINEERING 12-009: He’s dead.

BRIDGE: And your little boy? Is he—

ENGINEERING 12-009: I think I may have just killed him.

BRIDGE: Amita? What do you mean?

ENGINEERING 12-009: I had to get him away, get him out as fast as I could. He wouldn’t leave until I promised to come after. The evac system is locked down, so I sent him away on TIGER. We haven’t properly damped its acceleration system. I might have killed him.

BRIDGE: You’re in your dry dock? You have access to your vessels? You have to get away. You have to tell them what’s happened here.

ENGINEERING 12-009: What has happened here, Captain? Whatever would I tell them? Have we achieved the greatest dream of humankind, that hope that stretches all the way to before the Collapse?

BRIDGE: You have to warn—

ENGINEERING 12-009: Or have we walked right up to that dream only to find it was only ever a mirage all along? Do they seem intelligent to you? Can you see them?

BRIDGE: I’m looking at them right now. They’ve overtaken the bridge. Josef’s little girl is there. Jessamyn. She’s at the navigation control.

ENGINEERING 12-009: We’re under thrust. I can feel it.

BRIDGE: Yes. They’ve altered the course. I don’t think they’re very good at flying. Give it a few hours and this won’t be a sustainable orbit.

ENGINEERING 12-009: Have they also seized the environmental control system?

BRIDGE: No. They haven’t touched it. All they care about is propulsion and navigation.

ENGINEERING 12-009: Calculate a course for an indefinite stable orbit.

BRIDGE: I don’t have control of the ship, Amita.

ENGINEERING 12-009: I know. I know. Calculate it anyway.

BRIDGE: Why? What good will that do?

ENGINEERING 12-009: I’m coming to you. I’ll explain when I get there.

[ARCHIVED BY AUTOMATED COMMUNICATION PRESERVATION SYSTEM]

ZAHRA

We breathed in the darkness, Malachi and I.