Tepondicon

On the frozen moons of Jupiter, seven cities rot in the grip of an ancient plague, and one man will walk their empty streets in search of a legend. George Dulfay is a prospector, a drifter, a man with nothing left to lose when he takes on the impossible task: crossing the dead zones of Ganymede to find the Jupiter Stone, a treasure of alien origin rumored to hold power beyond human comprehension. The plague has already killed millions. The cities are husks. The radiation storms sweep across the ice in killer waves. But the Stone calls to him, and in the ruins of the third moon, Dulfay will discover that some treasures come with prices measured in more than money. Carl Jacobi builds a world of haunting desolation in this pulse-quickening novella, where every empty corner hides a corpse and every horizon promises either salvation or death. This is space adventure at its purest: lean, dangerous, and utterly compelling.