Spear of Light Read online

  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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  Amherst, New York 14228

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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?