Mistaken forthe Light
Enrico Fasoli
A literary science fiction novella about robots and faith, tender towards its machines.
They gifted him their essence to make him whole. The Father gifted him thought. The sage gifted him clarity. The wise tree, standing eternal, gifted knowledge. The severed martyr, frozen in time, warned him of arrogance. Under the vigil of the faithful maiden he rose as the dawn of the new age.
Thousands of years in the future, on a dying world at the edge of colonized space, a scrap-built robot named Kit installs the stolen mental scan of a long-dead man into a body of salvaged parts. Her fellow Seers herald him as the messiah they have prayed for, while the Mandate sends a ship to recover what they believe is theirs.
Kit has spent a thousand years under a broken dome, growing pale plants and half-formed organs, keeping one dead woman from decay. Now she teaches him to walk, to speak, to drink the light, certain that his mind is the last truly human thing left.
He cannot remember dying, and he can barely steer the body she built him. Something in his head keeps taking his feelings away before he can finish having them, and that too is hers. She tends him the way she tends everything in her garden: patiently, fiercely, and without asking. The Seers are certain. The Mandate is certain. Kit is certain most of all. He is certain of nothing.
I was not that man. I was a map of that man: I was a painting of a sunset, mistaken for the light itself.
- Length
- A novella of about 20,000 words. An evening's read.
- Genre
- Literary science fiction. Robots, faith, and what is left of a person.
- Formats
- Ebook on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. Paperback to follow.
- Release
- TBA
- Cover
- Designed and illustrated by the author.
- AI
- The prose was written and edited by the author. AI tools were used for editorial assistance, critique, and structural feedback.