Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture, #2)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“There is a proclamation,” the lead cultist said reverently. “I’ll bet there is.”

Her people had no idea, honestly, just how much invention necessity could be mother of.

They crossed to the docking field just as the planet was coming into view, a veiny gas giant like an infected testicle crawling up the horizon of Hismin’s Moon and leaving precious little of the sky free of its malign radiance.

More than a few Hegemony types were brought in as talking points—robed men and women trying to interpret the intentions of their alien god-overlords in much the same way as people had once tried to divine the future from the flight of birds.

“Let us say we are at least allowing your preference to influence our decision.”

Olli felt she’d seen enough shit for one day, but then the abiding lesson of the universe was there was always more shit.

He was technically stronger, but that strength was limited by his inability to just wreck his human bones and muscles, while she didn’t need to care about that. She hit him with the gun so hard that gun and skull and one of her shoulders shattered. Only one of those things came back together again a moment later.

She’d been angry and frustrated about a number of things for quite some time, ever since losing Idris on Arc Pallator. Or ever since she’d ended up in bed with the fucking Partheni, for that matter. Or possibly ever since she’d been born. Despite the alleged rough and tumble of a spacer’s life, it wasn’t often she got to express to the universe just how pissed off she was at how shit most of it was.

Bring it, she thought. Things were about to get litigious.