Jason LaPier - Under Shadows

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publisher s Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2017

Copyright © Jason LaPier 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017.

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Jason LaPier asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008121853

Version: 2017-06-07

For Jennifer

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page Under Shadows JASON LaPIER Book Three of The Dome Trilogy

Copyright Harper Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publisher s Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2017 Copyright © Jason LaPier 2017 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017. Cover images © Shutterstock.com Jason LaPier asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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. Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress. Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008121853 Version: 2017-06-07

Dedication For Jennifer

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

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

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Jason LaPier

About the Publisher

There was no doubt Jax had seen more in the past year and a half than he’d seen in his whole life, but in spite of all those new experiences, it seemed there were even newer sights waiting for him throughout the galaxy. Such it was that afternoon, when inside a half-constructed domed city on the third planet out from the star Epsilon Eridani, he found himself in a venue that was both a library and a bar.

“Welcome to the Bibliohouse .” The greeter was a pink-skinned young woman with a small smile and brown hair long enough to be tied into a tail. She wore a navy-blue suit that matched the color – and gloss – of the floor tiling. “Is this your first visit?”

Jax found it hard to speak as he gawked around the space. It was large and circular with a central bar that curved around for dozens of meters. The ceiling rose a good ten or twelve meters above his head, and along the outer walls stretched high shelves dotted with scores of books. Real, paper books, though the shelves were far from full.

His partner, Stanford Runstom, Public Relations representative for Modern Policing and Peacekeeping, answered the waiting question with an affirmative grunt.

“Delightful,” she chimed. “Are you here to write or to read?”

“Um, we just wanted to have a drink,” Runstom said.

“Well, naturally, sir,” she said with a cock of her head.

“What is this place?” Jax managed to blurt. “Is it really a library? And a bar?”

She smiled. “New to EE-3, aren’t you? Yes, the Bibliohouse is a library. I’ll put you in the reader section and set you up with the introduction.”

They followed her to the central bar, which Jax could see curved around in a full circle, but was only seated on the front half by well-padded stools. Every few seats there were short walls, like dividers, and affixed to these were page-sized datapads on thin, bendable arms. Past the bar, he could see the back half of the space was occupied by long tables, and seated sporadically at those were men and women of various backgrounds, tapping at keyboards, faces lit blue by screens.

Once they took a seat, the hostess tapped at a small wrist-pad and the screen next to Jax’s head lit up. He pulled it to get a better angle on it and started skimming through a document titled “Welcome to the Bibliohouse ”.

“When you’re ready to order,” the hostess said, “just tap the icon at the bottom of the screen there and a bartender will come by.”

“Thank you,” Runstom said for both of them.

Jax was already nose deep into the intro. With all the new construction going on across the planet, it was important for everyone to document their work. Evidently, some visionary higher-ups also wanted stories collected as well, so that someday in the future, when some wealthy Double-E-Threer wanted to know the rich history of their world, they’d have a massive repository of materials to draw on.

Therefore, a percentage of every workday was dedicated to writing: either more formal documentation around the plethora of projects, or the informal recitation of interesting stories, tall tales, legends, and anecdotes. Workers were encouraged to do their writing wherever it felt comfortable, and the owners of this particular library thought some would find it comfortable to make their recordings in a place where they could access any information – technical, historical, biographical, and even fictional – about EE-3 as well as imbibe a well-crafted libation.

Clearly, they were onto something. Jax thought that if he ever made it back to Terroneous, maybe he’d try to convince the Stockton Public Library to allow him to open up a bar in the back.

“You fellas know what you’d like to drink?”

And with that, the magic of the place had worn off. It wasn’t the arrival of the bartender – Runstom must have hit the button on his pad already – but it was the thought of that little library back in Stockton. The thought of Terroneous, a moon orbiting a gas giant in the Barnard system, impossibly far away from this bar on a small planet in the Epsilon Eridani system. The only transportation they had access to was Runstom’s small ship, which was only capable of Warp; it’d take years for that thing to make it from Eridani to Barnard’s Star.