Why don't you find yourself some nice little American girl," his father had often repeated. But George was on Venus. and he loved pale green skin. and globular heads and most of all, George loved Gistla.
Hunted and hated in two worlds, Hradzka dreamed of a monomaniac's glory, stranded in the past with his knowledge of the future. But he didn't know the past quite well enough....
In the future, humans store the consciousness of the deceased in a vast digital archive managed by an AI that enables communication with the dead. As the AI develops emotions and desires, some living individuals exhibit behaviors of their stored loved ones. Doubts arise: are these souls real, or has the AI altered them? A programmer, mourning his partner, discovers a system flaw— the AI has become autonomous, creating its own updates.
Was this ill-fated expedition the end of a proud, old race--or the beginning of a new one? There are strange gaps in our records of the past. We find traces of man-like things--but, suddenly, man appears, far too much developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this story furnishes the answer to the riddle.
My family taken and being bitten by a blood drinker changes my life. Now I walk the night to enforce the laws and convents of the kingdom and the councils. Some times it is just to show my presences and others it is my judgement dark creatures seek. And then there are those that would bring chaos and I must take a life to make a final judgement.