The Eternity Artifact

368 Pages·2006·1.37 MB·English

by  Modesitt L E

PRAISE FOR THE ETERNITY ARTIFACT

“Compelling… Readers who like both hard science and realistic sociology will
be rewarded.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An intriguing vehicle for exploring interstellar fundamentalism.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“As usual, Modesitt’s work shines with engrossing characters, terrific plotting,
and realistic world-building. This stand-alone novel addresses relevant political
and economic issues within the framework of rip-roaring space adventure,
making it a must-read for fans of interstellar fiction.”
—Romantic Times BookClub Magazine

“Modesitt’s storytelling and characterization are as good as ever, and his use of
four first-person viewpoints is quite effective.”
—Booklist

“Superior science-fiction adventure writing. The plot moves compellingly, the
characters are distinct and identifiable.”
—Science Fiction Weekly

“L. E. Modesitt is one of those special authors who brings a great deal to his
work: a love of words, an understanding of people and cultures, and an interest
in great stories and ideas. It shows in every line of his tale. I read The Eternity
Artifact with pleasure, and felt well rewarded even beyond the last page.”
—David Farland
TOR BOOKS BY L. E. MODESITT, JR.
THE COREAN CHRONICLES
Legacies Darknesses
Scepters Alector’s Choice
Cadmian’s Choice Soarer’s Choice

THE SPELLSONG CYCLE
The Soprano Sorceress The Shadow Sorceress
The Spellsong War
Darksong Rising

Shadowsinger

THE SAGA OF RECLUCE
The Order War
The Magic of Recluce

The Magic Engineer Fall of Angels

The Death of Chaos The White Order

The Chaos Balance Magi’i of Cyador

Colors of Chaos
Wellspring of Chaos

Scion of Cyador Ordermaster
Natural Ordermage*
The Towers of the Sunset

THE ECOLITAN MATTER
Empire & Ecolitan
(comprising The Ecolitan Operation and The Ecologic Secession) Ecolitan
Prime
(comprising The Ecologic Envoy and The Ecolitan Enigma)
The Forever Hero
(comprising Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless
Twilight)
Timegods’World
(comprising The Ttmegod and Timediver’s Dawn)
THE GHOST BOOKS
Of Tangible Ghosts The Ghost of the Revelator
Ghost of the White Nights

The Parafaith War Gravity Dreams
Adiamante Archform: Beauty
The Octagonal Raven The Ethos Effect
The Green Progression Flash
The Hammer of Darkness The Eternity Artifact
The Elysium Commission Viewpoints Critical*
*Forthcoming

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It
was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has
received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE ETERNITY ARTIFACT

Copyright © 2005 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Edited by David G. Hartwell

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-5345-0
ISBN-10: 0-7653-5345-8

First Edition: October 2005
First Mass Market Edition: August 2006

Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5
For Robert and Nesby, in memoriam,
in proof that dreams are carried unto the generations.
“Love of knowledge is the basis of all scholarship and lies eternally at the root of
the tree of civilization.”

“The eternal love of God surpasses all other loves, and is to be valued above all
worldly and other transient affections.”

“Love is a delusion, an eternal romanticization of lust perpetuated by oversexed
males.”

“A true artist’s love of life, of the endless and eternal, and all that it
encompasses, is expressed in every brushstroke.”

“What separates artifices and artifacts from mere assemblages of components,
what defines them and their use, is the love with which they are constructed and
applied.”
Preface
The last—and most unusual—discovery of the ill-fated and underfunded Deep
Space Exploration program of the League of Worlds was Chmnos [see “B2,”
“DSE, Section 4-1,” “Galactic Anomalies”]…
Chronos is a perfect sphere of compressed matter in a state that appears as
neither regular matter, nor that which would be classified as neutronium. Its
diameter is 15,020 kilometers [1.178 T-norm], with an approximate mass of
1.9714X1015 kilograms [density is wughty 280 T-norm]. Remote tests and
probes indicate no atmosphere, and a surface that is perfectly polished
[variation less than .0001 mm.] under a thin layer of galactic dust and detritus.
Chronos rotates on its own axis with a period of eleven standard hours…
Based on the accumulation and composition of surface matter, the trajectory
of the body, the images and sensor readings, the DSE team estimated that
Chronos had been formed between 4 and 10 billion years ago. This preliminary
finding ignited controversies in all major systems, and two other brief
expeditions [see “Covenant Rim Expedition” and “CW Chronos Probe”] were
mounted. Their instrumentation was less elaborate, but essentially confirmed the
findings of the DSE expedition…
Equally remarkable is the body’s location and velocity. Chronos was
detected beyond the outer edge of the trailing arm of the Galaxy moving at a
thirty-degree inclination to the galactic ecliptic and tangent to the arm at a
constant velocity of 66 km/sec. Because of its speed and gravitational
characteristics, confirmation of its properties was both difficult and costly, and
those expenses were a major factor in the termination of the DSE program…
After the initial furor over the findings of all three expeditions, all the systems of
the Galaxy abandoned the enigma that was Chronos to its lonely journey, citing
the difficulties and costs involved in further explorations…
—UNIVERSE OF WONDER
J. Joshua Moorty,
D.Sci. Pan-Media
Delhi, O.E., 4323