Galactic Empires Read online

  ALSO EDITED BY NEIL CLARKE

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  ANTHOLOGIES

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  GALACTIC

  EMPIRES

  EDITED BY

  NEIL CLARKE

  Night Shade Books

  Copyright © 2017 by Neil Clarke

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Start Publishing LLC, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

  Night Shade Books is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.nightshade.start-publishing.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Clarke, Neil, 1966- editor.

  Title: Galactic empires / edited by Neil Clarke.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Night Shade Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016030371 | ISBN 9781597808842 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction, American. | Imperialism—Fiction. | BISAC:

  FICTION / Science Fiction / Short Stories. | FICTION / Science Fiction /

  Adventure. | FICTION / Science Fiction / General.

  Classification: LCC PS648.S3 G25 2017 | DDC 813/.0876208--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016030371

  Print ISBN: 978-1-59780-884-2

  eISBN: 978-1-59780-617-6

  Cover illustration by Toni Justamante Jacobs

  Cover design by Jason Snair

  Please see page 622 for an extension of this copyright page.

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: What’s Going on Out There?

  Winning Peace

  Night’s Slow Poison

  All the Painted Stars

  Firstborn

  Riding the Crocodile

  The Lost Princess Man

  The Waiting Stars

  Alien Archeology

  The Muse of Empires Lost

  Ghostweight

  A Cold Heart

  The Colonel Returns to the Stars

  The Impossibles

  Utriusque Cosmi

  Section Seven

  Invisible Empire of Ascending Light

  The Man with the Golden Balloon

  Looking Through Lace

  A Letter from the Emperor

  The Wayfarer’s Advice

  Seven Years from Home

  Verthandi’s Ring

  Publication History

  About the Editor

  For my parents,

  Eamonn and Joan Clarke.

  INTRODUCTION:

  WHAT’S GOING ON OUT THERE?

  Neil Clarke

  When I think back on my life as a science fiction fan, there are various moments that I cherish. One of those occurred at age eleven in 1977, when my dad took us to see Star Wars. By then, I had had a long history with Lost in Space, Godzilla movies, and the occasional episode of Star Trek, but this was something different. We left the theater stunned and amazed. While walking to our car that night, my dad pointed to the sky and made some comment about what could be going on out there. I don’t recall the words, but that sentiment has always stuck with me.

  Since then, through film and television, the galactic empire has further reached beyond the science fiction community and into our broader culture. Star Wars wasn’t the first, mind you, but it has become a touchstone across several generations. For many people, the mere mention of “empire” conjures “The Imperial March” and visions of Darth Vader. That inimitable franchise’s propaganda wing has kept that particular link alive and kicking ever since. However, one arguable side effect of the success of Star Wars was the resurrection of Star Trek as a series of movies starting in the late seventies. The Federation also saw a return to television through several spin-off series that introduced new civilizations and, unlike Star Wars, an empire portrayed as a force of good. Today, we have a modernized reboot of the original series in theaters and a promised return to television next year.

  Galactic empires also play a significant role in shows like Stargate, Doctor Who, Farscape, and several others. However, the one that had the greatest impact on me was Babylon 5. While I enjoyed the rest, writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski approached B5 differently. He believed that while science fiction literature had matured, its representation on TV had become stuck in the past: bad science; clear-cut good vs. evil; simplistic plots; and stories that wrapped up all too neatly, often without impact on future episodes. Straczynski’s modern galactic empire story was complex, mysterious, gritty, and fun. It was a series of novels for TV and I was hooked for its entire five-year run.

  Additionally, you can’t look back at the recent history of the entertainment industry without noting the rise of the video game. There’s a rich history of the galactic empire theme in this medium, but in the last fifteen years, it’s become a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps one of the most successful of these is the Halo series, which launched in 2001. Focused primarily on the character Master Chief, the mechanized armored protagonist battles an array of enemies set against the backdrop of the remains of the Forerunner empire. Big dumb objects, fancy toys, and memorable characters have made Halo the much-emulated king of the hill. Not only popular on gaming consoles, it has spun off best-selling novels, graphic novels, a wide array of merchandise, and videos.

  Another notable game series is Mass Effect. Much like Babylon 5, the game has an overall arc spread out over three installments. Featuring a complete and well-conceived story, the tale is set in a galaxy controlled by several empires that must inevitably come together to avoid extinction. For many, it sets the bar for character development, plot, and storytelling in video games. The decisions the player makes as Commander Shepard, the main protagonist, have direct consequences on the trajectory of the game’s story, leading to multiple possible endings. Like Halo, Mass Effect has also crossed over into a number of successful novels and comics.

  All that said, the galactic empire has had a much longer life in written form. By age twelve, I had discovered science fiction novels and stories and it would soon become an outlet for the seed my dad planted that day. What is going on out there? I turned to my local library and discovered Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and later, Brian Aldiss’ two-volume anthology, Galactic Empires. For that time, this was probably the best possible introduction I could have had. Brian’s anthologies introduced me to new authors and variations on the theme that I could spend years exploring. That journey took me through the works of E. E. “Doc” Smith, A. E. van Vogt, Clifford Simak, and many more.

  As I grew older, my interests broadened, but I remained fascinated. I still encountered the occasional empire story, but my options were limited. It wasn’t until I started meeting like-minded individuals in college that I started to pay clos
er attention to what was going on elsewhere in the world. Over time, it became clear that the really interesting works featuring galactic empires were coming from the UK. If your tastes lay a bit more to the modern side of things, it can be argued that Iain M. Banks was one of the most influential contributors to the galactic empire in recent times. Starting in 1987, Banks revitalized the empire theme with his much-beloved Culture stories and novels until his death from cancer in 2013. His work opened doors for even more innovation and experimentation across the field. In the extensive reading I did for this anthology, I could certainly feel the ripples of his influence even in works quite different from his.

  Despite this loss, the current state of the galactic empire is strong and healthy in the hands of many, including Alastair Reynolds, Ann Leckie, Lois McMaster Bujold, Ian McDonald, and others. They are the ones influencing the future in all media through their writing, and even as direct participants in the development process of movies, books, comics, and television programs. And so the empire continues to be one of the most visible motifs in science fiction today and, if anything, we’re experiencing a small period of expansion as its popularity across all media peaks. The stories in this anthology represent some of the best and the brightest from the empire as it exists in this century. So cue the music . . . and long live the galactic empire!

  Neil Clarke

  June, 2016

  Paul McAuley is the author of more than twenty novels, several collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novella, and a BFI Film Classic monograph on Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. His fiction has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Sidewise Award, the British Fantasy Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. After working as a research biologist and university lecturer, he is now a full-time writer, lives in London, and can be found at unlikelyworlds.blogspot.co.uk. His latest novel, Into Everywhere, was published by Gollancz in April 2016.

  WINNING PEACE

  Paul J. McAuley

  One day, almost exactly a year after Carver White started working for Mr. E. Z. Kanza’s transport company, Mr. Kanza told him that they were going on a little trip—down the pipe to Ganesh Five. This was the company’s one and only interstellar route, an ass-and-trash run to an abandoned-in-place forward facility, bringing in supplies, hauling out pods packed with scrap and dismantled machinery, moving salvage workers to and fro. Carver believed that Mr. Kanza was thinking of promoting him from routine maintenance to shipboard work, and wanted to see if he had the right stuff. He was wrong.

  The Ganesh Five system was a binary, an ordinary K1 star and a brown dwarf orbiting each other at a mean distance of six billion kilometers, roughly equivalent to the semimajor axis of Pluto’s orbit around the Sun. The K1 star, Ganesh Five A, had a minor asteroid belt in its life zone, the largest rocks planoformed thousands of years ago by Boxbuild-ers, and just one planet, a methane gas giant named Sheffield by the Brit who’d first mapped the system, with glorious water-ice rings, the usual assortment of small moons, and, this was why a forward facility had been established there during the war between the Alliance and the Collective, no less than four wormhole throats.

  The system had been captured by the Collective early in the war, and because one of its wormholes was part of a chain that included the Collective’s New Babylon system, and another exited deep in Alliance territory, it had become an important staging and resupply area, with a big dock facility in orbit around Sheffield, and silos and tunnel networks buried in several of the moons. Now, two years after the defeat of the Alliance, the only people living there were employees of the salvage company that was stripping the docks and silos, and a small Navy garrison.

  Carver White and Mr. Kanza flew there on the company’s biggest scow, hauling eight passengers, a small tug, and an assortment of cutting and demolition equipment. After they docked, Carver was left to kick his heels in the scow for six hours, until at last Mr. Kanza buzzed him and told him to get his ass over to the garrison. A marine escorted Carver to an office with a picture window overlooking the spine of the docks, which stretched away in raw sunlight toward Sheffield’s green crescent and the bright points of three moons strung in a line beyond the great arch of its rings. This fabulous view was the first thing Carver saw when he swam into the room; the second was Mr. Kanza and a Navy officer lounging in sling seats next to it.

  The officer was Lieutenant Rider Jackson, adjutant to the garrison commander. In his mid-twenties, maybe a year older than Carver, he had a pale, thin face, bright blue eyes, and a calm expression that didn’t give anything away. He asked Carver about the ships he’d flown and the hours he’d logged serving in the Alliance Navy, questioned him closely about what had happened after Collective marines had boarded his crippled transport, the hand-to-hand fighting in the corridors and holds, how Carver had passed out from loss of blood during a last stand among the cold sleep coffins, how he’d woken up in a Collective hospital ship, a prisoner of war. The Alliance had requested terms of surrender sixty-two days later, having lost two battle fleets and more than fifty systems. By then, Carver had been patched up and sold as indentured labor to the pharm factories on New Babylon.

  Rider Jackson said, “You didn’t tell the prize officer you were a flight engineer.”

  “I gave him my name and rank and number. It was all he deserved to know.”

  Carver was too proud to ask what this was all about, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with Mr. Kanza’s financial difficulties. Everyone who worked for Mr. Kanza knew he was in trouble. He’d borrowed to expand his little fleet, but he hadn’t found enough new business to service the loan, and his creditors were bearing down on him.

  Rider Jackson said, “I guess you think you should have been sent home.”

  “That’s what we did with our prisoners of war.”

  “Because your side lost the war.”

  “We’d have sent them back even if we’d won. The Alliance doesn’t treat people like property.”

  Carver was beginning to like Rider Jackson. He seemed like the kind of man who preferred straight talk to evasion and exaggeration, who would stick to the truth even if it was uncomfortable or inconvenient. Which was probably why he’d been sent to this backwater, Carver thought; forthright officers have a tendency to damage their careers by talking back to their superiors.

  Mr. Kanza said, “If my data miner hadn’t uncovered his service record and traced him, he’d still be working in the pharm factories.”

  Rider Jackson ignored this, saying to Carver, “You have a brother. He served in the Alliance Navy too.”

  “That’s none of your business,” Carver said.

  “Oh, but I think you’ll find it’s very much my business,” Mr. Kanza said.

  Mr. E. Z. Kanza was a burly man with a shaved head and a short beard trimmed to a sharp point. He liked to think that he was a fair-minded, easygoing fellow, but exhibited most of the usual vices of people given too much power over others: he was arrogant and quick-tempered, and his smile masked a cruel and capricious sense of humor. On the whole, he didn’t treat his pilots and engineers too badly—they had their own quarters, access to good medical treatment, and were even given small allowances they could spend as they chose—but they were still indentured workers, with Judas bridges implanted in their spinal cords and no civil rights whatsoever, and Mr. Kanza was always ready to use his shock stick on anyone who didn’t jump to obey him.

  Smiling his untrustworthy smile, Mr. Kanza said to Carver, “Jarred is two years younger than you, yes? He served on a frigate during the war, yes? Well, I happen to have some news about him.”

  Carver didn’t say anything. He knew what had happened to Jarred, was wondering if this was one of Mr. Kanza’s nasty little jokes.

  Mr. Kanza appealed to Rider Jackson. “Do you know how long they last in those pharm factories before they cop an overdose or their immune systems collapse? No more than a year or two, three at the
most. I saved this one from certain death, and has he ever thanked me? And do you want to bet he’ll thank me when he learns about his brother?”

  Rider Jackson said, “Don’t make a game out of it. If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Mr. Kanza smiled and said, “I do believe you like him. I knew you would.” “Do what needs to be done.”

  Mr. Kanza conjured video from the air with a quick gesture. Here was Jarred White in a steel cell, wearing the same kind of black pajamas Carver had worn in the prison hospital, before he’d been sold into what the Collective called indentured labor and the Alliance called slavery. Here was Jarred standing in gray coveralls against a red marble wall in the atrium of Mr. Kanza’s house.

  Mr. Kanza told Carver, “Your brother was taken prisoner, just like you. One of my data miners traced him, and I bought out his contract. What do you think of that?”

  Carver thought that the videos were pretty good fakes, probably dis-neyed up from his brother’s military record. In both of the brief sequences, Jarred sported the same severe crew cut that was regulation for cadets in the Alliance Navy, not serving officers; when Carver had last seen him, his brother had grown his crew cut out into a flattop. That had been on Persopolis, the City of Our Lady of Flowers. Some twenty days later, Carver’s drop ship had been crippled, and he’d been taken prisoner. Three days later, Jarred had been killed in action.

  The Collective didn’t allow its POWs any contact with their families or anyone else in the Alliance; Carver had found out about his brother’s death from one of the other prisoners of war working in the pharm factories. Jarred’s frigate, the Croatian, had been shepherding ships loaded with evacuees from Eve’s Halo when a Collective battleship traveling at a tenth the speed of light had smashed through the convoy. The Croatian had been shredded by kinetic weapons and a collapsium bomblet had cooked off what was left: the ship had been lost with all hands. Carver had been hit badly by the news. Possessed by moments of unreasoning anger, he’d started to pick fights with other workers; finally, he attacked one of the guards. The woman paralyzed him with her shock stick, gave him a clinically methodical beating, and put him on punishment detail, shoveling cell protein from extraction pits. Carver would have died there if one of Mr. Kanza’s data miners hadn’t tracked him down.