One woman and her pilot are about to change the future of the species in an epic space opera about aspiration, compassion, and redemption by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist S. B. Divya.

For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.

For Jayanthi, the adopted human child of alloy parents, it’s an opportunity to rectify the ancient reputation of her species as avaricious and destructive, and to give humanity a new place in the universe. For Vaha, Jayanthi’s alloy pilot, it’s a daunting yet irresistible adventure to find success as an individual.

As the journey challenges their resolve in unexpected ways, the two form a bond that only deepens with their time alone on Meru. But how can Jayanthi succeed at freeing humanity from its past when she and Vaha have been set up to fail?

Against all odds, hope is human, too.

S. B. Divya is a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated author whose work includes Machinehood, Runtime, and the short-story collection Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse and Other Possible Situations. Her stories have been published in various magazines, such as Analog and Uncanny; on Tor.com; and in several anthologies, including Seasons Between Us and Rebuilding Tomorrow. She holds degrees in computational neuroscience and signal processing, and she worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before becoming an author. A lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma, she enjoys subverting expectations and breaking stereotypes whenever she can. For more information visit www.sbdivya.com.