Read Cenotaxis for Free Online Page A

the companion, following its orbit around the larger star and soaking up energy like a sponge. The system is alive with radio noise, both random and directed.
    "New Esperance," Bergamasc says. "I was born here."
    "Really." I keep my tone carefully disinterested.
    "Yes. Look." We zoom closer to the habitat. Line relays carry signals out of the system via dozens of powerful maser beams. Its dock is extensive and filled with every possible variation of spaceship. There are thousands of them. "Pilgrims, for the most part. There's a shrine here, I'm told. Never been to it myself. Probably cause a riot if I did."
    We are on our way again, swooping along the galaxy's Local Arm to where it joins the larger Sagittarius Arm. We are moving so quickly now that I feel giddy. Stars whiz by too fast to take in. Humanity's machines cling to these tiny lights like moths, sustaining their wards in unaccountable ways. I am left with an impression of life everywhere, in every possible form. I see no overt sign of the catastrophe Bergamasc trumpets as the reason for his invasion of Earth—no destroyed habitats, no tumbling corpses—but there is a militarized edge visible everywhere. Vast fleets gather on the borders of civilized spaces; strange weapons acquire targets and prepare to fire.
    We slow down in a system comprised of eight stars orbiting a truly enormous supergiant. Here the sense of industry is at fever pitch. Every world in our crowded vicinity is overflowing with people. The vacuum hums with information.
    "This is Hyperabad, where it all started," Bergamasc tells me. "Here's where I found my calling, as it were. It's not my home, but it's probably the closest thing I have to one now. Emotions run very high here. I've been shot at more times than I can count—and the gifts are sometimes more than I can bear."
    "Why are you showing me all this?"
    He glances over his shoulder at me, disappointed, as though his motives should be obvious. "So you know what you're fighting."
    "I'm not fighting this place, or any of the others you've shown me. The people who live here are not my enemies. I'm just defending my own."
    "The difference is academic, Jasper. If you're not fighting us, then we should be on the same side. Why aren't we, exactly?"
    I don't dignify the question with an answer.
    He persists. "I mean that quite seriously. It'd be much easier for both of us if we weren't enemies. The Earth wouldn't be a battleground and I'd be able to direct my attention elsewhere. You could go back to doing your thing without me getting in the way. Nothing would have to change, not really."
    His easy, overly familiar superiority vexes me in ways I cannot properly express. "Take me back to my cell. There's no mystery there."
    "You don't have to be my prisoner," he says. "I'm offering you a way out."
    "You want more than I can give."
    "I'm not asking for the world," he snaps, infuriated himself now. "Just its name."
    "Everything we have, in other words."
    "Don't be overdramatic."
    "Is that what I'm being? Let's see how calm you are, when you have nothing left to call your own."
    "I've been there," he says.
    The virtual view jolts into motion. Were I in a real space vessel, I would have crossed half the galaxy in less than a minute. The dusty core swings by us, ablaze in all frequencies. We swing through its outermost edge, and then back out into the fringes.
    "There's one more thing I want you to see." Bergamasc is pacing again.
    I fold my arms and wait out the illusion. When we stop, we appear to be hanging over a cold cinder of a world, sole companion of a flare-wracked star. The surface of the planet is clearly sterile, but I make out geometric shapes that might once have been transport grids, and burned patches where cities could have rested. We are far out on the edge of the Milky Way. One side of the sky is glorious with the spiral of the galaxy, seen at an angle so it gashes blazingly across the firmament. The other side is dark and empty,