Salvation

Salvation is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Peter F. Hamilton

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Published in the United Kingdom by Pan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, London.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Hamilton, Peter F., author.

Title: Salvation / Peter F. Hamilton.

Description: New York : Del Rey, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2018009573 | ISBN 9780399178764 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780399178771 (Ebook)

Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | GSAFD: Science fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6058.A5536 S25 2018 | DDC 823/.914—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009573

Ebook ISBN 9780399178771

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Jo Anne Metsch, adapted for ebook

Cover design and illustration: Anna Kochman, based on an image © agsandrew/Shutterstock

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Earth Calling

The Assessment Team

Juloss

The Assessment Team

Callum and Yuri

Juloss

The Assessment Team

Yuri’s Race Against Time

Juloss

The Assessment Team

The Case of Alik’s Favor

Juloss

The Assessment Team

The Death of Cancer

Juloss

The Assessment Team

Feriton Kayne’s Spy Mission

The Assessment Team

Juloss

The Assessment Team

Jio-Feriton Quint

Cast of Characters

Timeline

Dedication

By Peter F. Hamilton

About the Author

EARTH CALLING

Drifting through interstellar space, three light-years out from the star 31 Aquilae, the Neána abode cluster picked up a series of short, faint electromagnetic pulses that lasted intermittently for eighteen years. The early signatures were familiar to the Neána, and faintly worrying: nuclear fission detonations, followed seven years later by fusion explosions. The technological progress of whoever was detonating them was exceptionally swift by the usual metric of emerging civilizations.

Metaviral spawn chewed into the cometry chunks that anchored the vast cluster, spinning out a string of flimsy receiver webs twenty kilometers across. They aligned themselves on the G-class star fifty light-years away, where the savage weapons were being deployed.

Sure enough, a torrent of weak electromagnetic signals was pouring out from the star’s third planet. A sentient species was entering into its early scientific industrial state.

The Neána were concerned that so many nuclear weapons were being used. Clearly, the new species was disturbingly aggressive. Some of the cluster’s minds welcomed that.

Analysis of the radio signals, now becoming analogue audiovisual broadcasts, revealed a bipedal race organized along geo-tribal lines, and constantly in conflict. Their specific biochemical composition was one that, from the Neána perspective, gave them sadly short lives. That was posited as the probable reason behind their faster than usual technological progression.

That there would be an expedition was never in doubt; the Neána saw that as their duty no matter what kind of life evolved on distant worlds. The only question now concerned the level of assistance to be offered. Those who welcomed the new species’ aggressive qualities wanted to make the full spectrum of Neána technology available. They almost prevailed.

The spherical insertion ship that left the cluster—it didn’t know if it was one of many being dispatched, or alone—measured a hundred meters in diameter, a mass comprised of active molecule blocks. It spent three months accelerating up to thirty percent of light speed along a course to Altair—a trip that took just over a hundred years. During the lonely voyage the ship’s controlling sentience continued to monitor the electromagnetic signals coming from the young civilization that was its ultimate goal. It built up an impressive knowledge base of human biology, as well as a comprehensive understanding of their constantly evolving tribal political and economic structures.

When the ship reached Altair, it performed a complex flyby maneuver, which aligned it perfectly on Sol. After that, the physical section of the sentience’s memory that contained all the astrogation data of the flight from the cluster to Altair was jettisoned and the constituent blocks deactivated. Its weakened atomic structure broke apart into an expanding cloud of dust, which was quickly dispersed by Altair’s solar wind. Now, if it was ever intercepted, the insertion ship could never betray the position of the Neána abode cluster—for it no longer knew where it was.