Beyond the Reach of Earth

After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant’s starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis—but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they’re chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems Black Horizon warned them against—with good reason, as they soon discover. On Apis, Alliance agent Marcus Owen has a new mission: to communicate with the alien intelligences in the rocks, and to stop anyone else from getting to them first. Everyone knows he’s a spy, but he’s not going to let that cramp his style. But the scientists investigating the rock find that the Fermi may not be the only alien intelligence on Apis… Science fiction legend Ken MacLeod returns with book two in the Lightspeed trilogy, a gripping tale of first contact and dark conspiracies set among the stars.