The Empire of the Stars by Alison Baird

Author:Alison Baird [BAIRD, ALISON]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446506915
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

AILIA WOKE TO THE SIGHT of a window filled with stars.

It might have been the night sky as she had seen it so often before, from windows in houses, dormitories, and palaces. But as she gazed at it a blazing blue star rose before her eyes, larger than any star save a sun ever looks from a planet’s surface; and after it there came another that was smaller and yellow in color. Many stars, Auron had told her, were partnered in their cosmic dance as these two were: Meraur and Merilia, the suns of Nemorah. Her craft was suspended in the void not far from that world, and she was suspended within it. For the planet was not near enough to draw upon Ailia with its binding force: she hung in midair as though levitating, her limbs afloat and her hair billowing about her like a cloud, along with the star charts and various small objects she had not thought to store away in the ship’s cabinets. It had been rather pleasant to fall asleep in that position, and every muscle in her body was utterly relaxed. But now that she was awake, she was once more uneasily aware of her situation. She had fled those whose duty it was to protect her from harm. Her star-ship was adrift within the domain of the alien suns: beyond her little vessel stretched black unimaginable abysses that she shared with no other creature, not the merest mote of living matter. A pale moon shone high above: she stared at its gray face, at the nameless mountains and night-filled valleys, the arid airless wastes. Nothing lived there—had ever lived there, and nothing ever would. There was no atmosphere, no body of water, no green and growing thing in its sphere. No mortal had ever walked the slopes of those barren vales, climbed those stony peaks, sat and contemplated the luminous beauty of the dust-gray deserts. She gave a little shiver. She was alone as no Arainian or Meran had ever been in living memory. Like the stars and planets themselves—for they were lonelier by far than islands, which were rooted at least in the same seabed, and joined together in chains. There was nothing at all to connect these flying spheres, these fragile havens of life and warmth, with one another: each spun and circled in absolute solitude, surrounded only by emptiness. The thought filled her with a kind of dread.

But she had a mission to fulfill, and she must follow it through. She must meet with Mandrake, accept his offer of parley, and attempt to reason with him. And if she failed, if she were lost—“The others can carry on without me,” she said to herself. “I am not that important, whatever they say.” And she forced down her fear.

Beating her limbs as though she were swimming, Ailia made her way to the window and gazed in silence at the world below: a world green as an emerald, robed with seas and sprawling continents.

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