A Dream of Sun and Roses

The scientists who'd migrated there, intending to establish a research colony had called the place "Songzi" but the Double Fortune Company had simply given it an alpha-numeric designation. They didn't bother to name the places under their dominion unless they proved profitable. And Songzi had not panned out for them, so they'd stripped it of its resources and moved on. The scientists had abandoned their colony soon after, leaving nothing behind but a legend.

Except that behind the legend there was ... something else.

The Prince could have sent an underling to Songzi, could have delegated the task to an associate. He was, after all, a busy entrepreneur with interests all over the galaxy and beyond. But a dodgy deal with a rival trader had put a price on his head so he deemed it prudent to disappear for a while.

And besides, the Prince was something of a romantic, and he liked the idea of exploring the secrets of a world that had been wild for half a thousand years.

To avoid the interest of those who might be watching for him, the Prince traveled in an indirect manner, which added days to his trp. He used the extra travel time to research what was known about the scientists who had briefly made the place their home. He found it fascinating reading.

He learned the colonists were led by a geneticist named Xu Gan, like the poet, and his wife Ana, an artisan who painted with light. Soon after they arrived, Ana had given birth to a child she named Soleil, a little girl with hair like spun silk and eyes the color of wet moss agates.

Overjoyed by the child's birth, the colonists had adopted the baby as if she were their own daughter and given her wonderful gifts, crafted with skill and knowledge and intended to help her thrive.

All that is, except for Qirui, a geneticist whose skills rivaled those of Xu Gan and who harbored resentment for being passed over as the leader of the colony in the other man's favor.

His gift to Soleil was a poison linked to her DNA, a genetic time bomb that would explode on her 20th birthday.

He might have kept the knowledge of what he'd done a secret but that was not his way. (Impatience and a vainglorious desire for recognition were, in fact, the reasons the Double Fortune Company had chosen his rival to lead their colony in the first place.)

Qirui wanted Xu Gan and Ana to know that their beloved child was doomed to die and he'd relished the anguish that consumed them when they learned her fate.

He hadn't had much time to gloat, however, because Xu Gan had killed him and then himself in a frenzy of rage and grief, leaving Ana to raise the child alone.

Qirui had been the greatest intellect among the colonists and though the scientists turned their best efforts to the task of finding a cure, as Soleil approached her 20th year, they had made no progress.

And in all that time no one told Soleil about her fate for everyone loved her for her sweet and gentle disposition and her rare beauty.

The day before Soleil's 20th birthday, Ana gave her daughter a cup of sweet wine that had been dosed with a drug that sent her into a death-like sleep. Ana mourned as if her child were truly dead and grieved until she was nearly sick with it.

Under Ana's direction, Soleil was taken to a special room inside a tower made of blue stone and there encased in a shroud of nanites that would keep her in stasis until a cure could be found for her condition.

And so time passed. Soleil grew older but she never aged. And though she did not wake, her life was filled with dreams so vivid that life paled beside them.

Eventually, the colony was given the order to vacate Songzi, for it held no more resources for the Double Fortune Trading Company to plunder and so they were withdrawing their financial support.