They had a name for what they were leaving behind, but no single word was adequate. Madness. Greed. Stupidity. The slow, grinding cruelty of a civilization that had forgotten what it was supposed to be for. A hundred people, and a handful of artificial lifeforms who had chosen to throw their lot in with them, decided they had seen enough. Finding a new home was never going to be easy. Almost every inhabitable planet they reached had already been colonized, already reshaped in the image of the world they were fleeing: the same noise, the same hunger, the same indifference dressed up in different architecture. The galaxy, it turned out, was very good at exporting its worst habits. All they could do was keep moving. Keep hoping. Somewhere out there, untouched and waiting, their paradise had to exist...
