Subject myself to a personal hell, she wondered, or the people of Bentota to a collective hell?
Nadika Weligama, daughter of the deceased Governor of Bentota World, heir to a smoldering ruin, her crystal eyes condemning her to a lifetime of seeing unavoidable disasters as she wandered a planet whose crumbling infrastructure condemned its people to a slow slide into barbarism, put her face into her hands and wept.
* * *
A flashing red light and insistent buzz awoke her.
Stiff from having slept where she'd lain, her sorrow on the threshold of spilling down her face again, Nadika looked toward the orb in its socket.
Its bright red flash and muted buzz beckoned insistently.
She stood, seeing that the runes had rearranged themselves. At the top of a list were the words “Bentota World,” wi
