Meru (The Alloy Era, #1)

by S.B. Divya

“There’s no such thing as a bad gene,” she recited. “Only one that’s ill-suited to its environment.”

Accept any fear as natural. Let it sit with you as a companion. Do not resist its presence.

Before them floated the double helix of Ayonika’s design, a three-dimensional sculpture that stretched across fifty meters of a chamber spanning three times that length. One half of the spiral was tipped by a rainbow of spheres, lit from within, to represent the optical storage of data. The other half was made up of models of life-forms, ranging from bacteria to elephants, each one scaled to the size of Jayanthi’s hand. Strands of banded metal linked the two helixes. They represented a section of the DNA from the life-form they attached to. “By the Nivid,” Jayanthi whispered as she exhaled. She understood for the first time why people swore by the archive.

Ambition and materialism lead to greed and exploitation.

The bulk of our history belongs to humankind. Getting us into space and on Meru is only a start. We need to participate in the expansion of knowledge once again.