The Dystopia Chronicles

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For Julie, and the memory of Ash House, where much of this was written. And for the boys and girls at the White Horse. You know who you are.

Seeing his dead mother making tea in microgravity, a hundred million miles from where he’d buried her in Idaho, was the first thing that ever struck fear into Commander Stockard during his thirty-year career as a space jockey. Even seeing the world flicker like a candle just moments before—the lights of the entire night side of the Earth winking on and off as if someone was flicking a switch—hadn’t fazed him.

Startled perhaps, but not scared.

Not like this.

It’s just a hallucination, he tried telling himself, cabin fever from being stuck in this tin can for two months. It’s not real. Keep calm. Panic is the enemy. His dead mother smiled, wagging a teapot in the air—did he want some? He shook his head. No, thank you.

It had to be the stress. Parking a hundred billion tons of comet ice in Earth orbit was a project of destiny. Seven years ago, when the deep space monitoring network picked up comet Wormwood-P/2058D12, it was heralded as humanity’s opportunity to finally—really—begin colonization of near-Earth space.

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