The End of All Things (45 page)
Read The End of All Things Online
Authors: John Scalzi
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Marine
Daquin looked over to Schmidt and to Egan, and then turned back to Rigney. “Four weeks,” he said, and then stood up and walked out of the room.
“You know this is going to end badly for him,” Egan said to Schmidt after he’d gone.
“If all that happens is that it ends badly for him, I will be profoundly grateful,” Schmidt said, and stood himself. “My problem is that I don’t see any way that it doesn’t end badly for all the rest of us.” He turned to Rigney. “At least you’ve given me a little more time to prepare. I should thank you for that, but I don’t think it’s going to matter.” Schmidt excused himself and left.
“Well, this was a fun little meeting,” Rigney said to Egan, when they were alone.
“You going to be able to find this ship in four weeks?” Egan asked.
“I’m going to try,” Rigney said.
“Don’t try,” Egan said. “Do it. Otherwise in a month we’ll all be eating each other alive.”
“Literally,” Rigney said.
“Having that happen literally would be the worst-case scenario,” Egan said.
It’s been my custom in my book acknowledgments to give a shout-out to the people at Tor who have worked on the book in order to bring it to you, my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, first among them. This time, I want to even more directly acknowledge them, because this time I was a particularly troublesome author—I blew deadlines that I should not have and thus made them go into high-speed mode on their end to get the book out on time. Note I said “high-speed” mode and not “panic” mode—they’re too good at their jobs to panic.
So: to Patrick, to Miriam Weinberg, to Christina MacDonald (copy editor), Rafal Gibek (production editor), Karl Gold (production manager), Heather Saunders (designer), Nathan Weaver (managing editor), Megan Hein (assistant to the managing editor), Caitlin Buckley (digital managing editor), and Natalie Eilbert (senior QA associate), thank you, thank you, and again, thank you. I’m sorry you had to deal with me being a problem. I will try very hard not to be a problem to you in the future. And if I am, you can punch me (uh, like, on the arm. Not too hard, please). A shout-out to Tor UK and the folks there for their work on this as well, to Steve Feldberg and everyone at Audible, and, heck, to everyone at all of my publishers, everywhere.
Seriously: Thank you, everyone, who worked on this book with me. People like to rant about getting “the middleman” out of book production, and I wonder if they realize just how much the “middlemen”—the folks who do
everything else
but write the words in the book—add to their enjoyment of the work they read. I know, and I am grateful for the work and care.
Additional thanks to John Harris for his continuing and amazing artistic representations of the Old Man’s War universe, and to Irene Gallo, Tor’s art director, for her care and appreciation of the visual side of these books, and Peter Lutjen for his design. And to Alexis Saarela and Patty Garcia, who handle my publicity.
Many thanks to my literary agents, Ethan Ellenberg and Bibi Lewis, for selling me in this and many other languages. Thanks also to Joel Gotler, my film/TV agent, with whom I always enjoy taking a meeting.
My wife, Kristine, is the first reader of everything I do and is the person I most trust in the world to call me on my crap as a writer. If you enjoy the book, the credit goes to her (if you don’t, it’s my fault). I give her thanks and as always my everlasting love.
My wife is my first reader, but I am deeply fortunate that she is not the only one. This is the sixth book in the Old Man’s War universe; as I write this it’s been ten years since
Old Man’s War
was first released. The reason we have gotten this far into it is that so many of you, all over the world, started with it and kept reading. When I think about it, I am amazed. There is so much I owe to each of you, personally and professionally. Thank you so much.
April 6, 2015
JOHN SCALZI
is one of the most popular and acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His debut,
Old Man’s War,
won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His
New York Times
bestsellers include
The Last Colony; Fuzzy Nation;
his most recent novel,
Lock In;
and also
Redshirts,
which won 2013’s Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog,
Whatever
(
whatever.scalzi.com
), has earned him two other Hugo Awards as well. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
OTHER TOR BOOKS BY
JOHN SCALZI
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998–2008
The Old Man’s War Novels
Edited by
John Scalzi
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Contents
An Alternate “The Life of the Mind”
Other Tor Books by John Scalzi
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE END OF ALL THINGS
Copyright © 2015 by John Scalzi
All rights reserved.
The novellas in this book were previously published as individual e-books.
The End of All Things #1: The Life of the Mind
copyright © 2015 by John Scalzi
The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union
copyright © 2015 by John Scalzi
The End of All Things #3: Can Long Endure
copyright © 2015 by John Scalzi
The End of All Things #4: To Stand or Fall
copyright © 2015 by John Scalzi
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Cover art by John Harris
Cover design by Peter Lutjen
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
Tor
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is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7607-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4942-6 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466849426
First Edition: August 2015