Prophets

Dr. Sharon Dorner—Xenobiologist from Acheron.

Dr. Samson Brody—Cultural anthropologist from Bulawayo.

Dr. Leon Pak—Linguist from Terra.

Rebecca Tsoravitch—Data analyst from Jokul.

Earth

Cardinal Jacob Anderson—Bishop of Ostia, Dean of the College of Cardinals, Vatican Secretary of State.

Yousef Al-Hamadi—Eridani Caliphate Minister-at-Large in Charge of External Relations.

Khamsin

Admiral Muhammad Hussein al Khamsiti—Commander of the Prophet’s Voice and battlegroup.

Admiral Naji Bitar—Commander of the Prophet’s Sword and battlegroup.

Salmagundi

Flynn Jorgenson—Forestry surveyor.

Alexander Shane—Senior member of the Grand Triad.

FIRST PROLOGUE

Signs

The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things.

—SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA BUDDHA (563-483 Bce)

CHAPTER ONE

The Music of the Spheres

Blaming Fate, God, or Destiny is an admission that you don’t have a clue what’s going on.

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.

—SOCRATES (470-390 Bce)

Date: 2502.12.09 (Standard) 5.48 ly from Xi Virginis

The egg moves at half light speed through the vacuum, its surface a deep blackness absorbing every stray photon, emitting nothing. Particles with small masses—from stray protons up to grains of interstellar dust—slide around it, nanometers from its surface, following the ovoid perimeter until they find their original track on the opposite side, where they resume their motion as if the egg had not crossed their path. The only sign that something exists beneath its event-horizon skin is the resonance in the fabric of space-time as it ripples gravity in its wake.

The egg has traveled for over two centuries, 228.326 years standard to be exact. Viewed from the perspective of those who built it, its journey has barely begun. The Protean outpost on the lawless planet Bakunin, the origin of the egg, had secluded itself from the persecution of the rest of human civilization and looked far beyond the limits of that civilization to propagate itself. The egg’s destination is removed from its builders by thousands of light-years in space, and a million years in time. Packed within it is the combined resources and knowledge of the entire Protean civilization.

Within the egg sleep the minds of a quarter million people.

One mind is awake. An artificial mind devoid of boredom or emotion. A mind that can observe the egg’s travels over the course of an aeon and not go insane.

A mind that sees with an almost omniscient eye.