Futures edge, p.1
Future's Edge, page 1
CONTENTS
Praise for Future's Edge
Also by Gareth L. Powell and available from Titan Books
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
PART ONE:
MASS EXTINCTION
A Tree Falls
On the Beach
Up Against the Heliopause
From the log of the Crisis Actor – I
Los Estragos
A Scattering of Undervoid Echoes
Freudian Weakness Chambers
The Spiders Wake
The Universe, She Don’t Work Like That
Let’s Stop Flirting
Weaponised Archaeologists
Nature Versus Nurture
From the log of the Crisis Actor – II
PART TWO:
THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS APPLY
Uncertainty Principle
Fuck the Universe
The Start of a Beautiful Friendship
From the log of the Crisis Actor – III
Evolution’s Lottery
A Chandelier in the Sudden Breeze
From the log of the Crisis Actor – IV
Fuck Around and Find Out
Hypovolemic Shock
From the log of the Crisis Actor – V
Falling Away into History
PART THREE:
INTO THE DARK
And Yet, There is Light
From the log of the Crisis Actor – VI
Hold a Spear Accountable
From the log of the Crisis Actor – VII
Letting You Go
Dust Caught in a Shaft of Sunlight
From the log of the Crisis Actor – VIII
Galactic History
From the log of the Crisis Actor – IX
The Stuff of Legends
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise for Future's Edge
“Gareth brings his trademark blend of fierce action, ingenious SF ideas and an intriguing cast of characters. An excellent read.”
Adrian Tchaikovsky, award-winning author of Children of Time and Alien Clay
“Gareth Powell’s writing upgrades classic Science Fiction tropes with modern sensibilities and a nifty twist.”
Peter F. Hamilton, author of Exodus: The Archimedes Engine and Salvation
“Crazy inventiveness, vivid characters and enthralling action. This is thrilling, joyous stuff.”
M.R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl with All the Gifts and Infinity Gate
“Future’s Edge is Gareth L. Powell at his best, mixing exceptional world-building and galaxy-wide stakes with complicated relatable characters and enough heart to fuel a supernova. Horror, humour and hope in equal measures. Not to be missed.”
Cavan Scott, New York Times bestselling author and co-creator of Star Wars: The High Republic
“Gareth Powell pulls out all the stops with Future’s Edge! It’s a wild blend of alien invasion, body horror, and the power of the human spirit! Highly recommended!”
Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of NecroTek and The Sleepers War.
Also by Gareth L. Powell and available from Titan Books
Embers of War
Fleet of Knives
Light of Impossible Stars
Stars and Bones
Descendant Machine
GARETH L.
POWELL
FUTURE'S
EDGE
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Future’s Edge
Print edition ISBN: 9781803368634
E-book edition ISBN: 9781803368641
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: February 2025
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.
© 2025 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
PART ONE
____________
MASS EXTINCTION
CHAPTER ONE
A TREE FALLS
“Guv?” My barman was a mechanical, multi-limbed lifeform from a system in the vicinity of Arcturus.
“Yes, Siegfried?”
“You’d better get in here.”
I sighed. “What are we dealing with?”
Siegfried looked like a football thrown through a cutlery drawer. “Attempted shakedown.”
“Another one?” I rolled my eyes. “What’s that, like three this month?”
“Four.”
“Where are they?”
“Standing at the bar. You can’t miss them. They’re the ones that look like geckos in sweatpants.”
I pulled open my office door, to be greeted by the buzz of a dozen conversations in half a dozen languages. The place smelled of desperation and black mould. The only illumination came from a row of lights hanging above the counter. Tonight’s would-be gangsters were standing in a tight group at one end, trying to look simultaneously menacing and inconspicuous.
“For goodness’ sake,” I said. “They can’t be much older than hatchlings.”
I walked around the counter to face them. The tallest only came up to my chest, but they had pointed snouts filled with sharp teeth, and scalpel-like claws on their three-fingered hands.
“Are you the owner?” one of them asked in the Common Tongue. Judging by the length of the spines protruding from between his shoulder blades, he was the oldest of the bunch, and probably their leader.
“How can I help?”
“We have an offer for you.”
“Let me guess.” I folded my arms. “Does this offer have something to do with me paying you a percentage of my takings in return for protection?”
Eyelids flicked back and forth across large, black reptilian eyes. “Uh, yesss.”
“Sorry, kids. Not interested.”
The leader pulled himself up to his full height. “We could make thingsss very difficult for you.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I’m still going to have to say no.”
A hush fell as the patrons smelled a confrontation. Some of the smaller reptiles in the group looked around, unnerved to suddenly find themselves the centre of attention. The tall one didn’t seem to have noticed. His attention remained fixed on me. “This is your lassst chance,” he hissed. “A place like thissss, with a lot of wood and packing materialsss. Very flammable. Anything might happen.”
I uncrossed my arms. “You boys must be new in town. I assume you’re trying to carve out a little territory for yourselves. A little notoriety?”
“What of it?”
“You think you’re the first to try something like this? I’ve been here two years, and there are always parasites about, looking to take what they haven’t earned. I’ve seen gangs come and go. You’re no different.”
Claws flexed. “Are you going to pay or not?”
I shook my head. “The thing is, kids; if I needed protection, I’d already have it. There are plenty of hoodlums to choose from, and a lot of them are tougher than you.”
The leader held my gaze for a few seconds, then he held out a three-fingered hand. One of his henchmen produced a stolen emergency flare and passed it to him. “How about we torch the place now?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Oh, really?” The leader twisted the flare’s base, igniting it. For a moment, the only sound in the bar was the roar of the red flame.
I sighed. The flare was designed to be seen through rain and fog by search helicopters. It probably contained a mix of strontium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, and an energetic fuel such as aluminium or magnesium. Which meant it had a burn temperature of at least a thousand degrees centigrade—certainly hot enough to set fire to anything in this place. I couldn’t let that happen, so I reached out and snuffed it with my hand.
The reptiles looked at me aghast. The leader said, “How did you do that?”
I smirked and held up my hand. In the overhead light, my palm glistened with an iridescent rainbow sheen.
“Alien nano-virus,” I said. “I picked it up on an archaeological dig, a long way from here.” I slapped the extinguished flare from his hand. “It makes me very, very hard to kill.” I hauled back an
Scattered applause broke from the tables around the room. The locals always appreciated a show. I ignored them, turning instead to where Siegfried hovered like a rotund Swiss Army knife. “Drag that outside, would you?”
“My pleasure, guv.”
* * *
As the conversation among the drinkers turned back to the latest reports from the front line, I stepped out to the small concrete yard at the back of the ramshackle bar. Leaning there against the corrugated iron wall, nostrils filled with garbage fire smoke from the surrounding refugee encampment, I gazed up at the vast foam ships being constructed in orbit and wished I had the guts to book a berth.
Beyond the lamps and circles of firelight, the night was very dark, and a cold breeze ruffled up from the salt marshes to the southwest to flutter tent walls and fluster laundry. Like everyone else, I had come here fleeing the war; but unlike the majority in the camp, this was where I had stopped, too scared and too stubborn to cash in my chips and leave altogether.
From the campfires, I caught snatches of competing songs; the crackle of burning plastic; children crying; food cooking. From further afield, the brine stink of the marshes and the occasional echoing thunder of a shuttle lifting from the civilian port. I kicked aside a tin can. Once, a lush grass analogue had covered the ground here; now, the passage of thousands of refugees had worn it to a bare, hard-packed dirt, strewn with the detritus of their half-abandoned, makeshift lives. Beyond the sea of tents, barbed wire gates marked the camp’s entrance. The wire wasn’t there to keep the refugees from leaving; it was there to deter the local wildlife, especially the nocturnal Komodo-jackals that prowled the edges of the salt marsh and picked off the occasional incautious security guard.
Whenever a completed foam ship broke orbit, which happened about once a week, the entire encampment looked up. Some of them muttered blessings and good wishes, kissed prayer beads or raised their hands to the skies in the knowledge that another ten thousand sleeping souls had cast themselves into the abyss in the hope of finding sanctuary among the uncharted stars on the far side of the gap. Others shook their heads and cursed at the sight, lamenting a missed opportunity. They knew there would only ever be a finite number of foam ships, and never enough to take every refugee. Eventually, the Cutters would find their way here along the tramline network.
The tramlines were a web of furrows in the undervoid, which a correctly positioned ship could use to glide from one star system to the next, expending very little energy. Every known species employed them. They had been arteries for colonisation, conflict, and commerce, the roads of empire; but now the enemy were using them against us.
That was the part I didn’t want to think about.
I pulled a joint from behind my ear. Smoking wasn’t one of my customary vices, but one of my regular customers had slipped the little hand-rolled cylinder to me in lieu of payment and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste. I cupped my hands and lit the end with a borrowed lighter. The first drag made my head feel light. The second brought a surge of nausea. I managed two further inhales before coughing, giving up, and flicking the butt over the fence. If I wanted to feel sick, I could huff the toxic smoke from the garbage fires. I stood for a moment, letting the wooziness subside. The bar was a familiar presence at my back, its conversational weight sensed rather than heard. It had been mine since I’d taken over from its former owner when he shipped out. He had left it a stripped-out derelict mess and I’d been the only one interested in fixing it up and reopening. It didn’t really have a name, but under my stewardship, it had become one of the few places on the planet where people said the beer came cold, and the gin didn’t taste like a reactor leak.
Sparing a final, rueful glance at the orbital construction platforms, I turned back through the door into the storeroom where, between the stacked kegs and cases of spirits, I kept a small bed made from pallets.
The one thing I had in common with every other lifeform in this stinking camp was that I’d left somebody behind. The trouble was, I didn’t know how to move on. At first, owning a bar had seemed like a good survival strategy. If I was going to be stuck in a place where everybody else was just passing through, it made sense to have something permanent. But now, after two years of waiting, the novelty of it all had worn thinner than a twice-used tissue. I sat down and regarded my palm. Closing my hand over the flare had been momentarily agonising, but now there wasn’t even so much as a scorch mark. My knuckles, which should have been torn to shreds where they’d impacted the rough hide covering the kid’s jawbone, were similarly unscathed.
I should get out of here, I thought. I should just throw my clothes into a bag without bothering to fold them and apply to be on the next foam ship out. It didn’t matter what waited on the other side of the gulf, it would be preferable to a life spent rotting here.
“Guv?” Siegfried drifted into the storeroom like a spiky balloon.
“Don’t tell me those lizards are back?”
“No, but someone’s asking for you.”
“Who is it?”
“I didn’t catch his name.” The barman moved two of his tool-tipped metal limbs in an approximation of a shrug. “But he says he’s your ex-husband.”
CHAPTER TWO
ON THE BEACH
I stepped through the connecting door and immediately clocked Jack. He was sitting at a table, leaning on one elbow and watching the front door as if expecting someone. He’d shaved the nearest side of his head, and a silver earring gleamed from the exposed lobe. His long black coat hung loosely from his shoulders. He hadn’t noticed me yet, so I picked a bottle of gin from the shelf and sidled up behind him.
“Freshen your drink, sir?”
His shoulders stiffened. “Ursula?”
“Who else were you looking for?”
He swivelled on his barstool, and I caught my breath. I’d forgotten how striking he was, in a hard, square-jawed kind of way. A dancer’s body with a sword-fighter’s poise. He said, “Charming place you have here.”
I wanted to tell him it was a shithole, but my regulars were within earshot, so I just nodded, and said, “Coldest beer in the whole camp.”
He tapped a fingernail against his glass. “And roughest gin?”
“I’m told it does the job. The first one numbs your taste buds, and after that, you’re golden.”
He laughed. “Oh, Ursula, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“They told me you were still here,” he said. “But I couldn’t believe you really would be.”
“I told you I’d wait.”
“I’d hoped you wouldn’t. I wanted you safe.”
“I’m as safe as anyone here.”
He looked up at the corrugated iron ceiling and exhaled.
“What?”
“Nobody’s safe.” He leant across the bar and seized my free wrist. “Nobody here’s even remotely safe. You know that.”
I thumped the bottle down on the counter. “Keep your voice down.”
He pursed his lips. “You could try to be civil.”
“You could just tell me where the fuck you’ve been.”
Jack shook his head. “Trust me, you really don’t want to know.”
“The hell I don’t. You left me—”
“I told you.” He rubbed his forehead. “I told you why I had to go.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“Then why are you angry?”
I leant my hands on the bar and took a long breath. “Why on earth do you think?”
“Less than a minute, and we’re back to this?”
“What do you expect? You got us berths on the last freighter out. I abandoned everything and everyone. And you never showed.”
“I had my duty.”
“I thought you had my back.”
“And I thought you understood. My comrades were counting on me. Our world was counting on me.”
“Yeah, and how did that turn out?”
He scowled. “You know what happened.”
“Everyone died. Earth fell, and you being there made no difference.”
