Also by Brenda Cooper
Edge of Dark
The Creative Fire
The Diamond Deep
Published 2016 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books
Spear of Light. Copyright © 2016 by Brenda Cooper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
Cover illustration © Stephan Martiniere
Cover design © Prometheus Books
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Inquiries should be addressed to
Pyr
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cooper, Brenda, 1960- author.
Title: Spear of light / by Brenda Cooper.
Description: Amhest, NY : Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books, 2016. |
Series: The glittering edge ; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007380 (print) | LCCN 2016016738 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781633881341 (paperback) | ISBN 9781633881358 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Interplanetary voyages—Fiction. | Life on other planets—Fiction. |
BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera. | GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3603.O5825 S67 2016 (print) | LCC PS3603.O5825 (ebook) |
DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007380
Printed in the United States of America
To all of the other women writing science fiction,
many of whom are guiding lights for me.
Specifically to Nancy Kress,
whom I met through her writing long before I met her in person.
She and her writing are both brilliant.
Contents
PART ONE NEXITY RISES
CHAPTER ONE CHARLIE
CHAPTER TWO NONA
CHAPTER THREE NAYLI
CHAPTER FOUR YI
CHAPTER FIVE SATYANA
CHAPTER SIX CHARLIE
CHAPTER SEVEN NONA
CHAPTER EIGHT NAYLI
CHAPTER NINE CHARLIE
CHAPTER TEN NONA
CHAPTER ELEVEN YI
CHAPTER TWELVE NONA
CHAPTER THIRTEEN YI
CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHARLIE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN YI
CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHARLIE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN NONA
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN SATYANA
CHAPTER NINETEEN NAYLI
CHAPTER TWENTY CHARLIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE NAYLI
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO YI
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE NONA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHARLIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE NAYLI
PART TWO THE FOLLY OF BEING HUMAN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX SATYANA
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHARLIE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT YI
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHARLIE
CHAPTER THIRTY YI
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE NAYLI
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO SATYANA
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE YI
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR SATYANA
PART THREE SMALL FIGHTS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE CHARLIE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX NONA
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN YI
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT CHARLIE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE NONA
CHAPTER FORTY CHARLIE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE NONA
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO NAYLI
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE NONA
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR SATYANA
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE CHARLIE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX NONA
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN YI
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT CHARLIE
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE NAYLI
CHAPTER FIFTY NONA
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE CHARLIE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO NONA
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE CHARLIE
PART FOUR THE BATTLE OF THE HUMANS
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR YI
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE NAYLI
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX CHARLIE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN NONA
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT SATYANA
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE CHARLIE
CHAPTER SIXTY YI
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE NAYLI
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO CHARLIE
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE NAYLI
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR CHARLIE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE SATYANA
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX NONA
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN CHARLIE
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT NONA
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE CHARLIE
CHAPTER SEVENTY CHARLIE
PART FIVE THE SPEAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE YI
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO CHARLIE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PART ONE
NEXITY RISES
CHAPTER ONE
CHARLIE
Charlie watched the grassy plains below the skimmer thin into sand and then gather and rise into steep-faced dunes. Lym’s unrelenting sunlight washed the surfaces out, but from time to time he spotted shadows of hopping tharps and, once, the sinuous form of a sandcat as it slithered away from the skimmer’s shadow. “Did you see that?” he asked Jean Paul.
His friend grinned at him, a flash of bright smile under unruly brown hair. “Did you see the first one?”
“Huh?”
Jean Paul adjusted the controls with a few swipes of his fingers, bringing the skimmer lower. “A bit distracted, maybe?”
“Probably. But only a little of it’s about Nona.”
“You’re lying through your teeth.”
“I’m not.” A low, conversational growl from the skimmer’s back seat suggested that Cricket agreed with Jean Paul. Not that the big predator could possibly comprehend, regardless of how many individual words she clearly understood. She might have recognized Nona’s name. After Nona left to go back home to the space station the Diamond Deep, Cricket had performed an elaborate three-legged hop through the station, muscles rippling under her dark coat, clearly scenting for something she couldn’t find. She took up most of the back seat, her broad nose resting on her one front paw, and her white-tipped tail curled around her muscular haunches.
A ragged line of sea ate away at the dunes below, then they were over water. Charlie fretted. They’d be at the spaceport soon. At this rate, he’d be a wreck by the time Nona arrived. “I want to see the Wall,” he said.
Jean Paul gave him a careful glance. “It’s not like you knew the Next would do this.”
Charlie’s shoulders tensed even more. “Who knows what they’ll do next?”
“No pun intended?”
Charlie didn’t bother to answer, preferring to brood silently. He forgot everything else as they flew over a pod of Dali’s whales. He counted slender backs and tall gray-green fins rising and falling almost in unison. Sun diamonds on the water made him blink, forcing him to count twice. Twenty-two whales, including three babies. The skimmer’s computer confirmed that this was Arceson’s Pod and that they had only lost one adult. A success.
He felt slightly better until they got close enough to Gyr
Island to notice that the silhouette looked too sharp and too flat. The Wall. “I didn’t think it would be that tall yet,” he muttered.
He’d heard about it, but the news stories hadn’t prepared him for the way it changed the contours of the land. A scar, an intrusion of nanotechnology on a place that only allowed for the simple and the ecologically balanced. A blight, he thought. A blight that he had relinquished all control over. Anger, always simmering inside him these days, coiled even tighter around a guilt he couldn’t banish.
Damn it.
He reached over the back seat, running his fingers through the coarse fur on Cricket’s shoulder and murmuring words of endearment, as if his animal could absorb his pain.
As they flew in to the spaceport, the Wall bulked over them in spite of the fact that it was at least three klicks away. He knew that much. He’d negotiated the place, chosen which fields to sacrifice and which to hold onto, forced the invaders away from the spaceport.
He hadn’t thought to manage the vertical space the Next could take. The nearby crops would die with no direct sun. He’d be lamenting things he hadn’t thought of for years.
He banked over the spaceport, looking for evidence of another impossible thing he’d heard. “They’re doing it.”
Jean Paul leaned forward, squinting toward the Wall. “What?”
“Melting their ships to build the Wall.”
“It’s not melting. It’s disassembly.”
“No shit. But they’re really doing it. Damned Next. Destroying ships for a wall.” The first few ships that Charlie had seen land were nowhere to be seen. None had taken off, but they weren’t on the spaceport pad where they’d landed weeks ago. Another of the big boxy ships was no better than a silver puddle on the ground, its base material sliding in a line toward the Wall as if it were water. A second ship seemed to be just beginning the same process, the sharp edges of its top softening as thin lines of silver fell onto the ground in a bad caricature of a waterfall. The uncanniness of it chilled him.
Jean Paul glanced at him. “Don’t let it get to you.”
“Nag.”
“I’m right.”
“Always.” Charlie banked for the skimmer parking area, landing them fast and forcing the skimmer to brake hard enough that Cricket almost slid from the seat. She let out a disgruntled little yip.
A sturdy man with dark hair and eyes and a deep outdoorsman’s tan started toward them. Kyle Glass. His square jaw was tight and his walk slow and controlled, as if he were holding back.
Charlie climbed out, followed by Jean Paul. Cricket hopped out and stood beside him, her head at his waist, her balance perfect in spite of the missing leg. She nosed the air, her wide, dark eyes watchful. He stared at the tongat long enough to give her a forceful stay command before he headed toward Kyle. While Charlie didn’t prime his own weapon, he heard Jean Paul slide his stunner open. His best friend, his defender.
If it came to a fight, Charlie and Jean Paul would protect each other. Far better not to fight.
They’d all three been rangers together just a few years before, defenders of the wild plants and animals on the planet Lym, protectors and watchers who planted, purged, and recorded the great re-wilding, who kept poachers away from this one natural place in the whole solar system. Charlie had risen into a command position at Wilding Station, Jean Paul had stayed with him like glue, and Kyle had moved to a station near the farms.
A year ago, Charlie had been forced out into space, ripped from Lym and sent out to be its ambassador. When he came home, he’d had two soulbots with him: humans turned to Next against their will, but now—undeniably—part of the invading force. Kyle had ferried Charlie and the two robots home from the stars. They had unnerved him, and he had kept his distance ever since.
Charlie tried to pull nuance from Kyle’s expression, but all he read was raw anger.
“Kyle!” He held a hand out in greeting. “What can I do for you?”
Kyle leaned back and brought his arm up.
Charlie bobbed to miss Kyle’s open palm as it came at his face.
At least it was open. He’d have had to react to a fist. Charlie kept both of his arms at his side, struggling to control the heat rising in him.
Cricket barked, telling him she wanted to be out near him. Hopefully she would stay put. She’d never seen him fight, and he couldn’t have her involved.
Jean Paul held his stunner up, pointing it at Kyle. “What’s this about?”
Kyle didn’t take his eyes from Charlie’s. “You gave away our farm. That was mine. My dad’s and mine. You negotiated away way too much, and you didn’t ask us for the right.” His voice was loud and shaky, edged with anger. “No one asked us anything. Not even Manny.”
Calm had always been the key to Kyle, who ran hot. Charlie let a beat of time pass. “And you came out here to slap me?”
Kyle shifted on his feet, looking down and then back at Charlie. “I didn’t believe you’d betrayed us. But everyone said it was you, and Manny wouldn’t answer any of us. What happened?”
“I kept what I could.” Charlie glanced toward the Wall, noting that it was uneven and thus probably not finished. “They were coming. They were coming no matter what. We traded. They agreed to stay contained in a few places. This is one of them. They agreed to let us keep most of Goland.” He winced at how weak that sounded, and he pointed up, toward the black of space. “They have a whole fleet out there. They could have taken it all.”
Kyle’s eyes were still narrow, the anger not yet banked. “So you picked my farm?”
Charlie was glad he had worn his uniform. “I did what I had to do. Surely Manny will give you more land.”
“Dad might take it, but not me. I want our land back. I was born there.”
Charlie said nothing. Surely Kyle knew he couldn’t have the past returned to him. “I understand. I’m sorry.”
“I’m fighting, Charlie. I want you to fight beside us. We’re going to make them leave.”
Charlie arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“We’ll find a way.”
Charlie stopped for a deep breath. “You can’t fight them. We can’t fight them. They destroyed a whole space station. Look what they’re doing to their ships! Melting them. They can melt themselves, copy themselves, restore anything you kill.”
Jean Paul spoke up, calm and reasonable. “How do you fight software?”
“That Wall’s not software!” Kyle shouted, his face darkening.
Jean Paul spoke softly. “Sure it is.”
Trust Jean Paul to have words for the heart of something Charlie had never thought of, not in that way. He was right. The emotion drained out of him, leaving emptiness touched with faint despair. “You can’t fight them. Neither can I.” His eyes flicked toward the Wall and then back at Kyle. “I don’t even know if we can contain them. I tried to save as much as I could. There’s more rangering to do. Come out to the station, to Goland.”
“I’m not coming back.”
“Too bad. We could use you. I’m sorry.” He was stuttering. Pointless. “We need more hands now, not fewer. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry for you. I knew you’d fallen for the robots. I saw it. I saw it firsthand.” He fell silent, staring, his jaw trembling with some emotion he wouldn’t let escape him. “You’d best be careful. Most of the town knows you’ve lost track of which side you’re on. I won’t hurt you. I promise never to hurt you. But I can’t keep everyone off you.”
Charlie looked away from Kyle for a moment, back toward the huge silver wall. “Come back and work with us. You’re big enough to get past this, and so is your dad. You’ll be okay.”
Kyle paused, swallowed, and met Charlie’s gaze with a very earnest look. Even for Kyle. “Go back to Wilding Station. It’s best. For now.”
Charlie took a deep breath. Keeping his voice low, he asked Kyle, “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning.”
It sounded like a threat. “I c
an’t take orders from you.” He stopped for a moment, staring at the damned wall. “Maybe it will be okay if we give it a little time. Maybe we’ll get something better than heartbreak out of the Next.”
Kyle’s face had closed down again. “Nothing will ever be okay again.”
“That’s a path to madness,” Charlie said.
Kyle’s face hardened. “Talk to me when you’re ready to fight. In the meantime, be careful.” With that, he turned and walked away.
Charlie stood silently, watching his friend walk away. He couldn’t let this lie, but he also couldn’t fix it, at least not right now.
Cricket leaned into him. He ruffled the fur on her neck before he turned toward Jean Paul. “If I hadn’t gone away to space, I’d be as angry as Kyle.”
“You’re still the same as you always were.”
“That’s a lie. With great knowledge comes great confusion.”
Jean Paul laughed. “Nona will be coming soon. I’ll take Cricket and we’ll walk around. She needs a stretch.”
“Stay away from Kyle.”
“He’s gone.” Jean Paul pointed. Sure enough, a single skimmer rose up toward the sky, the afternoon sun glinting on its silver skin. “Go. Clean up. You’ve only got twenty minutes until Nona shows up.”
Charlie leaned over and gave Jean Paul a quick, tight hug. “Thanks for being here.”
Jean Paul nodded, quick and perfunctory. “Always. Go meet your girl.”
“She’s not my girl.”
“Right.” Jean Paul gave Cricket a hand signal and the two of them left, walking toward the edge of the spaceport. Even with one front leg missing, Cricket kept up just fine. They headed toward a large expanse of grass between empty landing pads.
Charlie couldn’t keep his eyes off the Wall. Software. He wouldn’t have thought of it that way. His skimmer was metal, but it had no smarts. It wouldn’t become anything else unless someone made it something else.
The Wall that blotted out part of the sky had made itself out of starships, and he had to presume it would become starships again someday.
The Next were software. But they all started as people. Thinking about that fuzzy question of soul was as hard as thinking about an individual raindrop in a storm, or a single droplet of fog.
He started toward the waiting area, still feeling in every way like he wasn’t ready to see Nona. Maybe he’d never be ready to see her. She must be on her way already, in a shuttle that had left one of the stations orbiting overhead. What was she thinking? Was she possibly as nervous as he was, as conflicted? As hopeful?
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