Ian Douglas - Dark Matter

Copyright

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Copyright © Ian Douglas 2014

Cover Art © Gregory Bridges

Ian Douglas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007483778

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007483785

Version: 2016-11-17

Praise for IAN DOUGLAS

and his thrilling

STAR CARRIER SERIES!

“The action is full-­blooded and almost nonstop, yet the well-­developed background is surprisingly rich and logical. . . . As immersive as it is impressive.”

Kirkus, starred review for Deep Space

“Douglas knows his SF.”

Publishers Weekly

“Well researched and quite imaginative.”

CNN Online

DEEP SPACE was voted one of the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Books of 2013 by Kirkus.

Dedication

As always,

throughout the multiverse,

worlds without end,

for Brea

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014 Copyright © Ian Douglas 2014 Cover Art © Gregory Bridges Ian Douglas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007483778 Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007483785 Version: 2016-11-17

Praise for Ian Douglas Praise for IAN DOUGLAS and his thrilling STAR CARRIER SERIES! “The action is full-­blooded and almost nonstop, yet the well-­developed background is surprisingly rich and logical. . . . As immersive as it is impressive.” Kirkus, starred review for Deep Space “Douglas knows his SF.” Publishers Weekly “Well researched and quite imaginative.” CNN Online DEEP SPACE was voted one of the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Books of 2013 by Kirkus.

Dedication Dedication As always, throughout the multiverse, worlds without end, for Brea

Prologue Prologue They called themselves the Consciousness. Following the faint but telltale leakage of gravity from one universe to another, they’d detected the circle of whirling masses as they opened a passageway between the ’branes, emerging in a four-­dimensional space subtly different from other, known realities. They were working now to create a permanent gateway between universes, creating girders and connectors spanning light years, coaxing solid light from the vacuum energy itself, anchoring suns, mining starcores, imbedding the structural components within the fabric of spacetime itself. At this point, the scope of the Consciousness spanned a number of universes. A metamind, a hive mentality, it was an emergent epiphenomenon arising from the interplay of some hundreds of quadrillions of individual minds, extending across separate realities and billions of years of time. The oldest individuals among them had outlived the universes of their birth, existing now in a kind of nomadic existence as they moved from reality to parallel reality. The Consciousness was powerful to the point of truly godlike creativity, omnipotence, and omniscience. It was aware of events across vast scales in size and time, from quantum fluctuations in the vacuum energies that formed the base state of reality up to the gravitational interactions within galactic clusters. Their senses extended across multiple dimensions, allowing them to peer inside the cores of stars as they mined them, and they could manipulate time in subtle and surprising ways. Unfortunately, some phenomena simply were . . . not too small, exactly, since they could perceive the dance of individual atoms, but too inconsequential, too unimportant to register clearly within the metamind’s awareness without a special act of focus. Phenomena such as the squadron of USNA naval vessels now entering the construction field . . .

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

About the Author

By Ian Douglas

About the Publisher

Prologue

They called themselves the Consciousness.

Following the faint but telltale leakage of gravity from one universe to another, they’d detected the circle of whirling masses as they opened a passageway between the ’branes, emerging in a four-­dimensional space subtly different from other, known realities. They were working now to create a permanent gateway between universes, creating girders and connectors spanning light years, coaxing solid light from the vacuum energy itself, anchoring suns, mining starcores, imbedding the structural components within the fabric of spacetime itself.

At this point, the scope of the Consciousness spanned a number of universes. A metamind, a hive mentality, it was an emergent epiphenomenon arising from the interplay of some hundreds of quadrillions of individual minds, extending across separate realities and billions of years of time. The oldest individuals among them had outlived the universes of their birth, existing now in a kind of nomadic existence as they moved from reality to parallel reality.

The Consciousness was powerful to the point of truly godlike creativity, omnipotence, and omniscience. It was aware of events across vast scales in size and time, from quantum fluctuations in the vacuum energies that formed the base state of reality up to the gravitational interactions within galactic clusters. Their senses extended across multiple dimensions, allowing them to peer inside the cores of stars as they mined them, and they could manipulate time in subtle and surprising ways.