A Night Without Stars

A book set in the Commonwealth Universe, sequel to The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Bienvenido has been ejected from the Void into inter-galactic space (hence the title?). This event is referred to by the inhabitants of Bienvenido as "The Great Transition", or just "the Transition". Because Bienvenido is no longer in the Void, life is very different. No-one has psychic powers any more, but on the flip side electricity now works, allowing technological progress. However, Bienvenido is now part of a solar system of nine planets, one of which is home to a Prime colony, who almost immediately launch an invasion fleet.

The rest of this article summarises plot developments in the book. If you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now!

Prologue

Nigel Sheldon has established his new civilisation in the Andromeda Galaxy. One day he is visited by Paula Myo, and it is revealed that he suffers deep feelings of guilt and shame over his actions (in reality, the actions of his clone) during his mission to the Void. He realises that he acted with unreasonable hubris, believing he could destroy the Void where the Raiel had failed. But he also believes that he destroyed Bienvenido, and more specifically killed Kysandra, because he had access to his ANAdroid's consciousness up until Bienvenido was ejected. He does not know that the planet was re-located; rather, he believes that it was destroyed.

"After my clone died in the blast, I was still dreaming my ANAdrioids' life. I watched through their eyes as Uracus opened up and devoured the whole crudding world. They were standing beside her when it happened. I heard her screams." He shook his head in frustration. "I still hear them. The whole fucking plant, Paula—obliterated. It's been two and a half centuries now, and I still hear her. There is no punishment—no suffering—great enough to fit my crime."

Book One: Another death for Laura Brandt

The main action opens shortly after Bienvenido's expulsion from the Void at the conclusion of The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Bienvenido has been placed in star system so far from any galaxy that no individual star is visible. Freed from the Void, the trees have shifted orbit, increasing the drop rate of Faller eggs tenfold and threatening human life, and providing the justification for a totalitarian state headed by Slvasta.

Protected by her Commonwealth technology, Laura Brandt has brought Bienvenido society to approximately a 1950s level of technology, including nuclear weapons, activated a wormhole generator in remains of the colony ship stranded on the planet and discovered that the other planets in the star system were also apparently expelled from the void for noncooperation. One aquatic planet contains the Vatni, a friendly amphibious species that Laura brings in part to Bienvenido to assist in protecting the coasts from Fallers, and a number of planets appear barren. The last, Uracus, contains Prime aliens, who send ships to invade Bienvenido.

The Prime approaching Bienvenido are ultimately defeated by the combined operation of Slivasta's air force and nuclear weapons, Laura's wormhole, and the Commonwealth technology wielded by Kysandra and the surviving Nigel Sheldon ANAdroids. Laura then eliminates the Prime threat by using two mobile wormhole generators ("floaters") to set up a stable wormhole between the atmosphere of the system's gas giant and Uracus, genociding the Primes. However, in order to set up the link, she is forced to travel to Uracus and create a distraction, uploading her memory store to the floaters only moments before the Primes successfully overcome her Commonwealth force field with their own nuclear weapons, causing her latest death.

Book Two: Defence of the State

More than 250 years later, the government is a totalitarian police state in which the People's Defense Force acts to keep order, expose Faller nests, and protect the state. Society is reminiscent of Stalinist Russia. Laura Brandt is remembered as "Mother Laura" and her heroic self-sacrifice is celebrated annually on "Fireyear Day". Kysandra has also passed into mythological status as "The Warrior Angel", a guardian angel who watches over Bienvenido and protects it against Fallers, albeit one who does not support the State. Some people believe she is real, others think she is a story told to children, or propaganda promulgated by the Eliters, who are the Bienvenido equivalent of Highers and are oppressed by the government, which believes that unless restricted, Eliters could use their biological abilities to do computational processing and storage and to communicate and network wirelessly to dominate the other humans of Bienvenido.

This book presents the viewpoint of Chaing, a PSR officer who believes that as a child, he met and was saved by Warrior Angel, and who believes he sees her again, in the bustle of Fireyear Day celebrations. Later, he is alerted to Faller activity by two sources: Corilla, a young eliter woman serving as an informant in return for being permitted to take university classes; and Jennifa,a PSR corporal acting undercover. Based on those tips, Chaing is able to identify a Faller nest, but during the investigation, his partner is captured, killed and eaten by the Fallers. Enraged, Chaing successfully kills several Fallers, and meets the monstrous "breeder Faller" variety that he had thought to be Eliter myth.

Chaing is outnumbered and about to be killed when the Warrior Angel arrives, demolishing the Fallers with Commonwealth technology. Kysandra reveals that Chaing has dormant Advancer genes that activated in the emergency, calling for help and alerting her to his location. She asks Chaing to conceal that he is technically an Eliter and attempt to rise in the PSR where he can do some good against Fallers. Kysandra also warns that there are many Faller nests active, breeding more Fallers and working toward the day when there will be enough of them to directly assault the human population of Bienvenido.

Book Three: Running from a Fall

The story takes the perspective of Florian, an eliter who lives in relative isolation as a forest ranger, and who supplements his income by harvesting local flora for Bienvenido's drug distributors and by going on poaching expeditions with a friend of his from the Vatni, an aquatic species from a neighboring planet. While poaching, Florian encounters an escape pod from the ill-fated expedition to the Forest, which houses the memories of Joey Stein. The pod's mission is to enact Plan B, the fallback option that Paula Myo and Nigel Sheldon concocted should Nigel's mission to the Void fail. The plan involves getting Paula into the void by growing a clone from an embryo. The pod gestates the embryo, and upon meeting Florian,gives a newborn baby to him, with instructions to raise her and keep her from harm for one month. The baby grows at an alarming rate, and Florian quickly realises that she will be fully grown, or at least a teenager, in a month. The government is desperate to acquire both the pod and the baby, and later even the local criminal gangs seem intent on locating the (by now) young girl travelling with Florian. Florian manages to elude the pursuers but at last his luck runs out and he is captured by the boss of the criminal gangs, who turns out to be a Faller. The boss is determined to either possess or kill the girl. In the ensuing crisis Paula's consciousness is transformed as her memory returns, her biononics reactivate and she frees herself and Florian. However they are pursued by the government forces, ledby Chaing and appear to be cornered with no hope of escape, when they are rescued by the Warrior Angel.

Book Six: Going Nuclear

The Faller Apocalypse, long predicted by the Eliters and denied by the Government and most of the non-Eliter population, begins. Precipitated by the arrival of Paula Myo, the Fallers steal nuclear weapons from the government, detonating one of them at the reactor and manufacturing site they were stolen from. Paula, Kysandra and the ANAdroids realise they have very limited time, and that there is a good chance they will not be able to defeat the Fallers, even with their advanced technology. Paula conceives a plan after deducing that one of the nine planets in the system is probably a Dark Fortress type prison for the Raiel expedition fleet that entered the Void a million years ago; and further deducing that at least one other Brandt Dynasty expedition ship, the Viscount, has almost certainly crash-landed in one of the polar regions of the planet. They mount an expedition to recover the technological artefacts from the Viscount in order to build a vessel to travel to the Raiel planet and free them, to ask for their help in defeating the Fallers. The expedition members include Paula, Kysandra, the four remaining ANAdroids, Florian and Ry Ervine.

Book Eight: Commonwealth

The novel ends with a series of vignettes showing where many of the Bienvenido characters end up, as well as a number of characters from prior novels.

• Most of the human population of Bienvenido has been relocated to Earth, and numerous Commonwealth citizens have volunteered to assist their integration into the Commonwealth. The Raiel have found new planets for the Vatni and the Macule units to settle.

• Chaing is introduced to Edeard and Salrana, who have formed a family in a low tech community on Earth.

• Ry and Anala interview for positions as starship pilots working for Oscar Monroe.

• Joey Stein and Roxwolf wake up in relifed human bodies and reintroduce themselves.

• Corilla is a physics student at Oxford University.

• Florian is a minor celebrity, has met Timothy Baker and is the subject of apparent romantic interest from Corilla, a relifed Laura Brant, Justine Burnelli and Mellanie Rescorai.

• Paula Myo integrates her duplicate's memories into her primary body and plans to put the duplicate into storage, but not before it completes a final mission.

• The duplicate Paula borrows the Deterrence Fleet to fly Kysandra to Zoreia, where Nigel Sheldon has largely completed a post-human habitat composed of a multitude of interlocking rings seeded with different habitats, in which his citizens explore diverse post-human modifications, art forms, etc. Nigel reflects that he is largely directionless, recalling a recent interaction with Ozzie Fernandez Isaacs where Ozzie accused him of stagnating. However, once reunited with Kysandra and made aware that Bienvenido survived his prior actions, Nigel is delighted and they declare their love for one another.