Stars and bones, p.1
Stars and Bones, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
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Copyright
Prologue
Part One: Blue Arms Caught Me
Chapter One: Dream-Linking
Chapter Two: Full-Throttle Armageddon
Chapter Three: Boiling Miasma
Chapter Four: Substrate Fluctuations
Chapter Five: Invisible Hooks
Chapter Six: Really Wild Things
Chapter Seven: Rogue Growth
Chapter Eight: Comprehensively Trashed
Chapter Nine: Earth Was Over
Chapter Ten: Abrasions Of Sand And Time
Chapter Eleven: Cactus Shadows
Chapter Twelve: Accretion Disc
Chapter Thirteen: Peripatetic Megacity
Chapter Fourteen: Airtight Seal
Chapter Fifteen: One Of The Good Guys
Chapter Sixteen: Serious Fuckery
Chapter Seventeen: Internal Biological Processes
Chapter Eighteen: Fruit Rotting
Chapter Nineteen: Greasy And Unreliable
Chapter Twenty: A Boundless Universe
Chapter Twenty-One: Skull Damage
Chapter Twenty-Two: Marilyn Fucking Monroe
Chapter Twenty-Three: Infuriating Child
Chapter Twenty-Four: Rebuilt Or Replaced
Chapter Twenty-Five: Gnarly Surfing Conditions
Chapter Twenty-Six: Capitalism For Beginners
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Supervillain Lair
Part Two: The Broken World
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Godless Space Communism
Chapter Twenty-Nine: I Ain’T Used To Talking About This Kind Of Stuff
Chapter Thirty: Monkeys In Self-Driving Cars
Chapter Thirty-One: Raijin
Chapter Thirty-Two: Incomprehensible Function
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Ship Of Theseus
Chapter Thirty-Four: North Atlantic Conveyor
Chapter Thirty-Five: All The Guns
Chapter Thirty-Six: Blueprints
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Destructive Infant
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Distant Lanterns
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Fast And Clean
Chapter Forty: Crescendos Of Incomprehensibility
Chapter Forty-One: Hyena-Child
Chapter Forty-Two: Into The Trees
Acknowledgements
About The Author
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 J. 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
“An interstellar collision of massive ideas and startling originality.” Zack Jordan, author of The Last Human
“Stars and Bones crafts a future that finds hope in dark places.” Valerie Valdes, author of Chilling Effect
Also by Gareth L. Powell and available from Titan Books
Embers of War
Fleet of Knives
Light of Impossible Stars
GARETH L.
POWELL
STARS AND
BONES
A CONTINUANCE NOVEL
TITAN BOOKS
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Stars and Bones
Print edition ISBN: 9781789094282
E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094299
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: February 2022
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 © 2022 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.
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.
For Edith and Otis, with all my love.
“No single thing abides; and all things are fucked up.”
PHILIP K. DICK
PROLOGUE
The ship fled between the stars.
Before the massacre of its crew, it had been scouting the territory a dozen light years in advance of the main body of the Continuance. Its mission had been to prospect for useful resources and forewarn the fleet of any potential threats. Unfortunately, on the last planet it visited—an unprepossessing rock known only as Candidate-623— it stumbled onto something that fell squarely into that latter category: a threat the like of which it had never encountered.
At the bottom of a steep ravine in the mountains, something had killed its crew. They awoke an entity in that gorge, and it dismembered them. Whatever that invisible presence was, it reached through their suits and flesh and wrenched the skulls, pelvic bones and femurs from their thrashing bodies. It burst their eyes from their sockets and cut short their hoarse screams as it tore away their jawbones and slopped their steaming viscera onto the rainswept ground.
Like every other ship in the fleet, the Couch Surfer was dream-linked to its navigator, whose name was Shay, and so had to endure all the confusion and terror the poor woman felt as her ribs snapped and were twisted from her chest. It shared her pain and sorrow, and the unbearable stab of loss that pierced her heart as it was ripped from her. And now, as the ship ran through the emptiness of interstellar space, Shay’s absence hindered it. Without a navigator, it couldn’t accurately traverse the substrate. It couldn’t plot a course, but the imperative to warn the fleet remained deeply ingrained in its core programming. It was duty-bound to alert the Continuance. It had to send a signal, but protocol demanded it distance itself from the hostile force before broadcasting, to avoid the possibility of its message being tracked. The last thing it wanted to do was to lead an attacker back to the fleet, and the billions of civilians contained in its arks. So, the ship flipped and spiralled through the stars, blindly hurling itself through half a dozen random and potentially dangerous substrate jumps in an effort to throw off any chance of pursuit. Despite being unable to accurately navigate without a human mind on board, its only purpose now was to survive long enough to make its report to the Vanguard.
Something bad was down there. The Couch Surfer had no idea what that something might be—its crew had seemed to spontaneously burst apart like flowers opening to the sun—but the ship knew it had to relay news of the thing’s existence to its human masters before anyone else fell victim to whatever it was. Everything else, up to and including near-fatal engine degradation, came secondary to that objective. And so, it pushed itself harder and faster than it had ever pushed before, weaving an erratic course, no longer caring for its own physical survival. All that mattered now was the data it had collected, and the forewarning implicit within.
It was almost three light years from the site of the massacre and preparing to broadcast its message when, without warning or preamble, the same invisible presence that had dismantled its crew began now to reach into its mind…
PART ONE
BLUE ARMS CAUGHT ME
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“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.”
Werner Heisenberg
CHAPTER ONE
DREAM-LINKING
ERYN
“They get everywhere,” the Furious Ocelot moaned, speaking to me via the main console rather than through a physical envoy. “And you should see the state of some of their quarters. Clothes and empty plates all over the place. It’s disgusting.”
The Ocelot was a trailblazer. His job was to scout a path for the Thousand Arks of the Continuance. He was not— and he had taken every opportunity to point this out over the past few days—a passenger vessel. Usually, it was just the two of us out here among the unnamed stars, exploring the territory ahead of the main fleet. Having another three bodies aboard made the place seem overcrowded. Once we’d located Shay and her ship, I wouldn’t be sorry to say goodbye to this crew and reclaim my solitude.
From my seat on the Ocelot’s bridge, I stared out at the swirling, unreal light of the substrate. I knew Shay was out there somewhere, and I was going to find her. In the days since her ship’s disappearance, I’d lobbied hard to be allowed to lead this follow-up mission. I’d called in favours and banged on desks, and finally been given the assignment— on the strict condition I also bring a team of experienced search and rescue personnel. But the Ocelot didn’t like hauling passengers, and he made no secret of the fact.
“I’ll have a word with them,” I promised. “And ask them to pick up after themselves a bit more.”
“Please do.”
Green readouts on the windshield told me all the ship’s systems were operating within normal parameters. Despite his bitching, the Ocelot and I were still in synch. We were still functioning as an effective partnership. He remained the same old ship I had known for so long. I revelled in the familiar smell of the grease on the hydraulic arms supporting the cargo ramp, the clang of our footsteps on the metal gratings set into the decks, and the ever-present grumble of the engines.
The evening before our arrival at the Couch Surfer’s last known position, we gathered in the Furious Ocelot’s crew lounge for a final briefing from Tom Snyder, the ranking leader of the expedition. Food printers and a sink were set into one bulkhead, and a large screen into another. The rest of the wall space had been given over to equipment panels and overhead lockers. A hexagonal table took up one corner of the room. It doubled as an eating space and conference table. I sat with my hands curled around a coffee cup. The Ocelot’s envoy sat to my left. He was a heavy-set, bald, blue-skinned man in a three-piece suit the same colour as his complexion. Although physically human, he had no independent mind of his own, and it was the Ocelot that looked out from behind those cobalt eyes. The xenologist, Li Chen, sat beside him, with her back to the wall. She was somewhere in her twenties, and slightly built, with purple hair and contact lenses to match. Alvin Torres, the skinny paramedic, sat opposite me, and Tom Snyder occupied the stool to my right. With all five of us in there at once, the lounge felt cramped.
“Okay, listen up, folks.” Snyder had dark skin and a grey beard. “As you know, six days ago, one of our long-range scouts went missing. What you don’t know is that according to its last transmission, it ran through an emissions shell originating in this system.” The table surface cleared to reveal a map of nearby space. Snyder tapped one of the points of light. “More specifically on this planet here, which we’ve designated ‘Candidate-623’. It went to investigate, and it hasn’t been heard from since. Our job is to locate the missing ship and retrieve its crew, including Eryn’s sister.”
The Ocelot put his pudgy hand over mine. The others wouldn’t meet my eyes.
After an awkward moment, Chen cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, did you just mention an emission shell?”
Snyder enlarged the picture of the planet. “It’s coming from a single source, located in the southern hemisphere.”
“One of ours?”
“Not as far as we can tell.”
“Then what is it?” Torres demanded.
Snyder shook his head. “We have no idea. But I guess we’ll find out when we find the Couch Surfer.”
Torres was about to respond but Snyder held up a hand to stop him. “You’re all here because you’re the best in your fields,” he said. “I’ve seen your work. You’re conscientious, highly knowledgeable, and still young enough to be open-minded.”
“But why didn’t you tell us this was more than a straight rescue?” Torres was clearly unhappy. “Why weren’t we told up front about this signal?”
“Because the Vanguard decided to keep this mission as classified as possible. It didn’t want any rumours leaking into the general population, in case anyone else decided to hop in a scout ship and come trampling all over our investigation.”
“And Eryn?”
Snyder glanced at me, and then looked away. “She’s here because her sister was on the ship that made the discovery, and because she called in a lot of favours to be assigned.”
My head felt hot and dizzy. My pulse thumped in my ears. I pushed the coffee away, feeling suddenly woozy. “So, they haven’t just disappeared? Something might have got them?”
Snyder looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted you to be able to concentrate on your job.”
I opened and shut my mouth. Certain things were only now falling into place. For instance, the journey to the Couch Surfer’s last reported position had so far taken four days, and I’d spent most of that time hoping I might receive a substrate message from Shay saying she was back on our home ark and fine. When the signal didn’t come, I had resorted to touring the ship, inspecting all the fixtures and fittings. The Ocelot had just undergone an unexpected refit, so there were new scuffs and scrapes on the walls and equipment; a new aircon system had been bolted to the corridor ceiling; and the rusty ladder from the cargo bay to the crew area had been replaced with a bright new one.
The Furious Ocelot was a blunt-nosed wedge with large engines and four sturdy, retractable landing legs equipped with heavy-duty shock absorbers. Following the refit, a cluster of new blisters disturbed the lines of his lower hull. One housed a full-spectrum mil-spec sensor suite, which had been installed to aid our search for the missing ship. If there was anything larger than a hydrogen atom floating around out there, we were going to be able to spot it. The other blisters contained ship-to-ship beam weapons, and a complement of semi-autonomous combat drones.
When I’d first seen them, I had been confused. “That’s more firepower than I expected.”
The Ocelot’s envoy dabbed his forehead with a blue handkerchief. “It’s just a Vanguard thing. They want us to be prepared for all eventualities, however unlikely.”
And now I suddenly understood what those eventualities were.
Snyder said, “You’re upset.”
“Of course, I’m fucking upset. You just told me my sister vanished while investigating an alien beacon. Now, I don’t know what to think.”
“My apologies.”
Fighting my queasiness, I watched dust motes drifting through the beam of an overhead spotlight, borne aloft on the warm air. “Tell me what happened. I want to know everything.”
“I can’t really say. We don’t know much, and what we do know is classified. All I can tell you for now is that they put down on the planet designated Candidate-623, as I said, and we haven’t heard from them since.”
“That’s pretty fucking vague.”
“At the moment, vague is all we have.”
Into the ensuing silence, Torres said, “You knew there was a possibility they might have been lured into a trap, and you thought it would be a good idea for us to follow them?”
Snyder clasped his hands together. “Hence the combat drones and weapon upgrades.”
Chen rolled her eyes and let her head fall back. “Oh, fucking hell.”
CHAPTER TWO
FULL-THROTTLE ARMAGEDDON
