The Chronicles of Riddick Read Online Free PDF

and a sufficient number of AUs out, he entered the coordinates for Helion Prime and prepared for the long haul. There was no reason for him to remain awake and every reason to enter cryosleep. Without artificial aids, humans didn’t last long under the stresses of supralight travel. When a ship went into That Other Place, any long-term passengers needed to be properly prepped.
    Soon-to-be-unnecessary lights dimmed. The special malleable substance of which the vessel’s outer skin was fashioned warped slightly, actually altering its molecular structure. Cryosleep tubing latched onto its single occupant like so many benign snakes, adjusting his internal chemistry, taking over functions, preparing him to cope with the stresses of extended deepspace travel. His eyelids fluttered, closed.
    It was good to sleep. He had not been able to do so comfortably and without concern for a long time. Safe in the cocoon of the pilot’s chair, nurtured and looked after by the ship’s life support systems, he could at last relax. Meanwhile, the small but sturdy vessel went about its business.
    As part of the latter, notation of inhabited systems within a certain range automatically appeared on a monitor even though no organic eyes were active to observe them. When one identified a passing system as Furya, the unconscious man in the pilot’s chair stirred slightly.
    “They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the animal side.”
    With an effort, he dragged his eyes open. A glance showed that he was as alone as before. Screens and telltales working silently did not supply the information he expected to see there. Something was wrong. Or if not wrong, at least not right.
He had heard a
voice.
He did not mistake such things.
    There was a reflection in one screen. A suggestion of movement. Nothing on the ship ought to be moving. At a touch, the pilot’s chair spun around.
    A lesser individual might have screamed at what he saw. Or started babbling uncontrollably. Riddick did neither. Just sat there, tubes and connectors still leeched to his body, staring, studying, trying to make sense of the sight before him. He was having a hard time doing so.
    He was, after all, no longer alone.
    Though slender and attractive, the woman conveyed an inner hardness that was more sensed than seen. He felt he ought to know her even though he had never seen her before. The impossibility of her presence registered strongly. It was negated by the fact that he knew he was not insane. Dreaming perhaps, but not insane.
    Behind her, the ship was gone. It had been replaced by a world of trees that were utterly alien yet somehow oddly familiar. Small skittering things darted furtively through the undergrowth while lightning-fast fliers zipped between the peculiar branches. The ground was littered with objects whose purpose and shape had changed little in thousands of years: gravestones. He had no time to study wildlife or monuments: the woman was talking to him.
    “I am Shirah. Think of this as a dream, if you need to.”
    His mind fought violently against what he was seeing even as his senses accepted it. As he struggled, more and more of the ship vanished, to be replaced by additional forest and more gravestones. There were a lot of the latter. Too many. Where ship met specter, perception blurred.
    “But some know better. Some know it isn’t a dream. Some of us know the true crime that happened here, on Furya.” Drifting dreamily, one hand indicated the nearest of the gravestones. “We’ll never have them back. But we can have this world again. Someday.”
    Riddick’s brain had been tuned to coping with the unlikely, the unreasonable, the unacceptable. It refused to dismiss the information his eyes and ears insisted on conveying.
    “Once you remember, you will never forget.” Placing one hand over her chest, the woman waited until it began to glow softly. Riddick thought he could catch glimpses of the bones of her fingers. Approaching, she