Reliquary of the Dead

Pierre Gulet, an eccentric and uniquely intuitive French archaeologist, is living in 25th century Egypt but is fixated on the past. After centuries, Egypt is still Egypt-the pyramids, the donkey carts, the unfinished high rises, the rancid stench of garbage, the systemic corruption. Pierre was excavating the find of a lifetime, a pre-dynastic temple beneath an Old Kingdom fortress, until he was called into the office of the Director of Antiquities who takes away his life’s work, blacklists him, and drives him into exile onto a distant world, a small colony struggling for survival on the edge of outer space.

Pierre must now solve a mystery that has baffled traditional scientists for decades, an agricultural blight that has decimated the food supply of a colony on Gliese 832 c. Driven by a desire to make a discovery no one can take away from him, he must use his unique skills to save the future of a planet that is on the precipice of disaster. But as he seeks to uncover the truth, he is opposed by intransigent colonists, jealous predecessors, and an ancient power lurking deep in the earth. The more he discovers, the more he is vilified, and the more determined he becomes to discover what is at the heart of the blight. Should he fail, everyone in the colony dies.