Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2)
Page 39
“It could be,” Urban said. There was a rising excitement in his voice. “Do you think they’re still out there? Nikko?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jupiter said the war was over,” Lot added.
“But somebody modified the cult virus to work on us.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe!” Urban snorted. “You believe it.”
“Sooth,” Lot admitted. A gift from the void. “But we don’t know the direction, or how far.”
“Far,” Nikko whispered.
Lot turned again to peer at him, feeling a chill of anticipation on his spine. Nikko hovered above the plane of the ship, a black, almost human shape marked by random blue highlights. “You’ve been to look?” Lot asked.
“I set out once.” By the way he said it, Lot knew he had not gotten far.
“We’re a frontier people,” Urban said. “It doesn’t matter how far we go, because we don’t ever come back. Once we cross the void, we’re gone.”
“That’s true,” Clemantine said softly. She settled on the hull near Lot. “Nikko? What do you say? You’re not looking to return again to the Hallowed Vasties?”
Nikko laughed softly. “I think not. Not this time.”
Lot gazed once again at the clouds of dust and the luminous stars that lay ahead of them. A thousand years down the Orion Arm, the Hallowed Vasties would fade to less than a legend. “Do you suppose anybody’s still ahead of us?” he asked.
“I hope not,” Urban said, with a feral note to his voice that set Lot’s heart beating faster. “More than anything, fury, I hope we’re the first ones standing on this shore.”
Continue the voyage of Null Boundary with VAST, the last book in THE NANOTECH SUCCESSION.
Books by Linda Nagata
Published by Saga Press/Simon & Schuster, Inc.:
The Red Trilogy
The Red: First Light (nominated for the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards)
The Trials
Going Dark
Published by Mythic Island Press LLC:
Stories of the Puzzle Lands (gritty dark fantasy)
The Dread Hammer - Book 1: a tale of love, war, murder, marriage, and fate
Hepen the Watcher - Book 2: a tale of exile, rebellion, fidelity, and fire
The Nanotech Succession - a collection of four stand-alone novels set in a shared science-fiction story world, beginning in the present day and reaching into the far future. Following the timeline of the story world the books are:
Tech-Heaven
The Bohr Maker (winner of the 1996 Locus Award for Best First Novel)
Deception Well
Vast
Other Story Worlds
Goddesses & Other Stories (a short-fiction collection including the 2000 Nebula Award winner for best novella)
Limit of Vision
Memory
Skye-Object 3270a (young adult/middle grade)
Additional information on all of Linda Nagata’s books, including sample chapters and links to print and ebook versions, can be found at the author’s website: MythicIsland.com.
Featured Book
Vast
Book 3 of the Nanotech Succession
by Linda Nagata
In pursuit of vengeance across time and space…
Aboard Null Boundary, a giant starship thousands of years old, four survivors of an ancient alien war are making a desperate journey: Lot, son of a fiery prophet and carrier of an insidious virus that spreads a cult-like religious mania among those it infects; Urban, Lot’s boyhood friend from the city of Silk, and a man in search of challenge and adventure; Clemantine, cast adrift when her world was destroyed and yearning for revenge; and Nikko, sometimes a living man, but always, the ship’s disembodied mind.
They are bound into unknown territory. Ahead of them loom vast, lightless clouds of dust and gas where stars are born, and where the alien Chenzeme are believed to live. The Chenzeme are an enigmatic race, whose automated warships have ravaged the living worlds of the galaxy’s Orion arm for millions of years… but why? Null Boundary’s crew is driven to find out — though in their quest to discover the source of the Chenzeme, they must also explore the terrible truth of their own past, the meaning of revenge, and the price each one of them is willing to pay for survival.
“…one of the most enjoyable SF books I’ve read in the last 12 years…I can safely say that it is one of the very novels that has literally haunted my dreams, in that the book exerted such a powerful hold on my waking imagination that come nighttime I found my sleeping brain racing ahead with the story. It’s awesome!” —Alastair Reynolds
Read a sample chapter and find links to print and ebook versions at the author’s website: MythicIsland.com.
The Nanotech Succession is a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology. “Vast” is the culmination of the strange and fascinating future that follows.
About the Author
Linda Nagata is the author of many novels and short stories including The Bohr Maker, winner of the Locus Award for best first novel, and the novella “Goddesses,” the first online publication to receive a Nebula award. Her 2013 near-future military thriller The Red: First Light was the first self-published novel to be nominated for a Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial award, and later sold to Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press to be released in a new edition. Though Linda is best known for her science fiction, she writes fantasy too, exemplified by her darkly humorous “scoundrel lit” series Stories of the Puzzle Lands.
Linda lives in Hawaii, where she grew up in a rented beach house on the north shore of Oahu. After graduating from the University of Hawaii with a degree in zoology, she worked for a time at Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. She has been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and lately a publisher and book designer. She lives with her husband in their longtime Maui home.
If you enjoyed Deception Well please consider reviewing it on a blog or at an online bookseller, or mention it on your favorite social media. To be notified of new books and stories by Linda Nagata, visit the author’s website at MythicIsland.com and sign up to receive an occasional newsletter.
Find Linda online at:
MythicIsland.com
twitter.com/LindaNagata
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part II
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part III
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Books by Linda Nagata
Featured Book: VAST by Linda Nagata
About the Author
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