SERIAL NOVEL

Sidereal Dawn, Ch. 2

Silicakeratin

New to Sidereal Dawn? Start with Chapter 1: Mote of Dust

We’ve missed it, Jaxen thought as he finished another drink. Glasses, empty except for remnants of melting ice, cluttered their stretch of the bar. Nice place though.

It has the best view. Daemian stayed focused on one empty berth through the bar’s floor-to-ceiling window. Rows of berths and their robotic docking arms lined the main spire of the spaceport, jutting out from the sunward end of Helios into the black of space.

The entire spaceport appeared to spin above them. Jaxen knew it was just a trick of the eye. He was, in fact, the one spinning. He marvelled at the brain’s uncanny ability to perceive a stationary frame of reference. He spun around Helios, which orbited Earth, which orbited the Sun, which orbited a supermassive blackhole, which orbited some point between them and Andromeda, which was itself hurtling through the universe. The thought actually made him a bit nauseous.

“Another one,” Jaxen said to the unmanned bar. Its robotic arms danced, tossing a ball of ice into an etched lowball with a clink. Brown liquor and aromatic bitters began to pour from a height.

As he waited, Jaxen queried the AI about the berth that they had been watching so…