Category:

PROLOGUE

The Galaxy was already ancient a billion years ago when the Authority established itself as the dominant voice of some millions of high-technic civilizations. A true empire in all but a few quibbling details, the Authority had no emperor and only rarely intervened in any individual species' governance. Those civilizations within its ancient folds gave their allegiance, in myriad forms, to the Authority's principal Mind deep within the hellish depths of the Galactic Core. In theory, at least, that Mind was aware of all its teeming quadrillions of dependents.

In fact, and of course, it took time—often a great deal of time—for information to pass through the tangled network of interstellar gates from the Galaxy's outer spiral arms into its shining heart, and just as long for the Mind's judgments and commands to make the journey back. The Galactic Empire was very powerful... but it was also very slow.

The Authority did establish rules, demand compliance, and pass judgment. Subject races obeyed, or they passed into extinction. Any given species could send their ships through the ancient gate rings, or they could use relativistic intersystem travel in order to establish colonies within uninhabited systems, but engaging in wars of conquest or extermination was forbidden.

These were privileges reserved for the Authority.

And now the Minds of the Galactic Authority deep within the fastness of the Core might have to exercise that privilege once again with the noisily upstart inhabitants of a minor star system twenty-six thousand light-years away.

Human civilization, so-called, would obey the Authority, or it would very soon now pass into extinction.

CHAPTER ONE

"That's it, Dek," Alexandra Morrigan said, shaking her head. "No more! I'm sick of it. I just want to die and get it over with."

Her massive companion seated in the flier's cabin regarded her through glittering lenses. "Get 'what' over with?" it asked. "Life?"

"Life," she agreed. "Endless interactions with idiots. Round after round of the same political nonsense. Self-serving narcissists playing games I simply don't want to play. Having to attend vapid social functions...like this one." She snorted. "Homo superioris! What bullshit!"

"True. A better taxonomic classification would be Homo sapiens superioris. Do you intend to kill yourself?"

Was there a hint of concern behind the robot's words? Type 40s weren't supposed to develop emotions, but AI minds did change and they did evolve. More than aide, valet, and bodyguard, Dek had been her companion for the better part of this lifetime.

"No, Dek," she said. "Don't worry. I'll live this one out. But no more new lives. No more rejuvenations..."

"It seems a waste, Alex."

She actually laughed. "Dek, there's no law that says I have to live forever!"

"I don't understand your desire for...oblivion, presumably. Do I understand that you simply dislike your fellow humans?"

"Not all of them, Dek. I suppose there are a few of them out there with both brains and common sense." She considered the question for a moment as the flier cruised north through a darkening late-evening sky.

Morrigan was 398 years old and bore the physical features and bearing of someone in her sixties. In what amounted to a series of eight lifetimes—with seven rejuvenations—she had picked her way through dozens of careers. At one time or another, she'd been an artist, an amortality consultant, a software engineer, a network memegineer, a genegineer, and an AI designer. For twelve years around 2300, a century and a half ago, she'd been in the U.S. Marines, rising to the exalted rank of gunnery sergeant but resigning her commission. Then ninety years ago she'd signed on again.

She was a Navy captain now. She'd tried hard to make a long-term go of this one, but...

She closed her eyes. Almost four hundred years old, she thought, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!