He looked at his hands. They were beginning to glow faintly, the code of the waterfall threading through his veins like liquid starlight.
And on the surface, mission control watched in horror as Remembrance ’s final transmission painted the sky above Europa with a single, impossible phrase, burning in letters of auroral fire: Katya Y111 Waterfall30
Before he could ask, the waterfall surged. The Remembrance lurched, and Aris felt a prickling warmth at his temples—not painful, but profound. Words and images flooded his mind: the birth of Europa, the slow evolution of silicon-based consciousness, the loneliness of a world without a voice. He looked at his hands