Teranesia

Prabir said, ‘How? How did you do it, Maddy?’

She sat back and looked at him. He was grinning with amazement beneath the soggy mask, as if she was the one who’d risen from the dead.

‘It was something you taught me. Something you learnt from them.’ She reached down to stroke his forehead, then smiled.

‘Life is meaningless.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Of the many sources I’ve drawn upon in writing this novel, I am particularly indebted to The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace (Oxford University Press), The Spice Islands Voyage by Tim Severin (Little, Brown), and the documentary Guru Busters (Channel 4), a portrait of the Indian Rationalists Association.

Thanks to Caroline Oakley, Anthony Cheetham, Juliet Ewers, John Douglas, Peter Robinson, Kate Messenger, Diana Mackay, Philip Patterson, Ben Hall, Russell Galen, David Pringle, Lee Montgomerie, Gardner Dozois, Sheila Williams, Francis Lustman, Ellen Herzfeld, Dominique Martel, Wolf-gang Jeschke, Bernhard Kempen, Pedro Jorge Romero, Ivan Adamovic and Carlos Pavón.

COPYRIGHT

A Gollancz eBook

Copyright © Greg Egan 1999

All rights reserved.

The right of Greg Egan to be identified as the author

of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 1999 by

Gollancz

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Orion House

5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

London, WC2H 9EA

An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2010 by Gollancz.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 575 10546 1

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or

dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.gregegan.net

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Table of Contents

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR GREG EGAN

ALSO BY GREG EGAN FROM GOLLANCZ

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

PART TWO

CHAPTER 5

PART THREE

CHAPTER 6

PART FOUR

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

PART FIVE

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

PART SIX

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT