The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: Wayfarers, Book 1 recap

Rosemary Harper leaves Mars under a purchased identity and signs on as clerk aboard the Wayfarer, a small, shabby tunnelling ship whose crew punches the wormholes that connect the multi-species Galactic Commons. Its captain, Ashby Santoso, wins an unusually large contract: a tunnel out to the territory of the Toremi Ka, a newly admitted and unstable species whose space is rich in fuel. The trip out takes about a standard year, and most of the book is that voyage - the crew's friendships and frictions, a boarding by scavengers, a visit to the pilot Sissix's home world, the arrest of the algaeist Corbin at a Quelin border when a scan exposes him as an illegal clone, and the decline of the navigator Ohan, who carries a virus that makes tunnelling possible and kills its hosts young. Rosemary's hidden past comes out and the crew keeps her; she and Sissix become lovers; Ohan is cured against his own people's doctrine. At Hedra Ka the Toremi factions turn on each other, Ohan is killed, and the ship's AI core is destroyed. Rebooted, the AI is a stranger without Lovey's memories, and she leaves with a tech named Pepper rather than stay among people mourning someone else.

The Galactic Commons is a multi-species interstellar civilisation in which humans are recent and minor arrivals, most of them descended either from the Mars and Sol colonies or from the Exodan generation-ship Fleet. Rosemary Harper, a young Martian with a good education, no spacing experience and a newly bought identity file, hires on as clerk aboard the Wayfarer, a small and shabby tunnelling ship. Tunnelling ships punch the wormholes that link inhabited space, which means long journeys out to wherever a new tunnel has to begin. The Wayfarer's captain, Ashby Santoso, runs a mixed crew: the Aandrisk pilot Sissix, the Grum cook and medic the crew call Dr. Chef, the techs Kizzy and Jenks, the sour algaeist Corbin, the Sianat Pair navigator Ohan, and Lovey, the ship's AI. Rosemary is collected, shown a bunk that needs work, and set loose on years of neglected permits and paperwork. Everyone except Corbin makes her welcome, and she is careful never to discuss the family she left behind.

Ashby learns of an unusually large contract. The Galactic Commons has admitted the Toremi Ka, a fractious species whose territory holds rich deposits of the ambi that fuels interstellar travel, and it wants a tunnel punched from settled space out to them. A licensed, low-profile ship like the Wayfarer is exactly what the job calls for, and the fee would change the crew's fortunes. Ashby takes it, which commits them to roughly a standard year of travel out to Hedra Ka, the Toremi world. Rosemary settles into the ship's routines, learns her crewmates' habits and the etiquette of the species they trade with, and finds that only Corbin intends to remain unpleasant. Ashby also keeps up a private relationship with Pei, an Aeluon cargo captain, meeting her when their routes allow; Aeluons disapprove of attachments outside their own species, so both of them keep it quiet.

The Wayfarer stops at Port Coriol, a crowded market moon where almost anything can be bought. The crew scatters to resupply and to shop. Jenks visits Pepper, a human tech who deals in salvage and in hardware that is not strictly legal, and buys a humanoid body kit: installing an AI in a body is a serious crime across the Commons, but he wants to give Lovey a physical form. Lovey is not sure she wants one. Rosemary sees more of how the crew live when they are not working, and she and Sissix grow closer; Aandrisks find human caution about touch and affection difficult to understand. Resupplied, the ship sets out on the long haul toward Toremi space.

On the way out the Wayfarer answers a distress call and is boarded by Akaraks, members of a species left without a homeworld who live as scavengers and travel in armoured suits. They take what they can from the ship, and the crew escapes by punching a tunnel without a proper survey, a dangerous manoeuvre that strains both the ship and Ohan. The long stretches of travel let the crew's histories surface: Dr. Chef speaks about the war that reduced the Grum to a species that has quietly decided to stop having children, and Jenks explains why he has never had his body altered. Ohan grows visibly worse. The virus that Sianat navigators are given as children is what makes tunnelling possible, and it also kills them well before old age.

The ship calls at the Aandrisk world, and Sissix takes the crew to meet her house family - Aandrisks keep three separate kinds of family, and the one they choose for themselves matters most. Rosemary and Sissix become lovers. Rosemary also tells the crew what she has been hiding: her father sold weapons to the Rosk during humanity's war with them, a scandal that destroyed her family's name, and she left Mars under a bought identity to get away from it. The crew keeps her. At a Quelin border crossing Corbin is arrested when a genetic scan shows he was produced by illegal cloning, something he had not known about himself; Quelin law treats it as a crime against nature and imprisons him. The crew refuses to leave without him and gets him back, and he returns shaken and quieter.

Dr. Chef reveals that a cure for the Sianat virus exists and has been suppressed by Ohan's own people, who regard the infection as a gift rather than a disease. Ohan, who has been dying, eventually consents to take it and survives as a single self rather than a pair. The Wayfarer reaches Hedra Ka and begins the tunnelling work under guard. The Toremi turn out not to be one people but a set of factions that split violently over disagreements, and the alliance the Commons negotiated comes apart around the ship. The fighting reaches the Wayfarer: Ohan is killed, the ship is badly damaged, and Lovey's core takes a hit. To save the ship the crew is forced into a full system reset, which destroys the AI they knew. The Wayfarer survives and escapes, at a cost none of them had planned for.

The Wayfarer limps away from Toremi space with its contract fulfilled and its reputation made. The AI that boots from the ship's original code calls herself Lovelace: she has Lovey's base personality and none of her memories or her history with the crew, and to them she is a stranger wearing a familiar voice. Jenks cannot treat her as the person he loved, and she cannot become that person. Pepper comes to collect the body kit, and Lovelace chooses to leave with her rather than stay aboard a ship where everyone is grieving someone she never was. The crew mourns Ohan and Lovey, repairs what can be repaired, and carries on. Rosemary stays, no longer hiding who she is, with Sissix; Corbin is less hostile than he was; Ashby and Pei go on as before. The ship heads back toward the Commons for repairs and its next job.

At Hedra Ka the alliance the Galactic Commons negotiated with the Toremi Ka collapses into factional fighting while the Wayfarer is still working. The ship is attacked, Ohan is killed, and Lovey's core is damaged badly enough that saving the ship requires a full reset, which destroys her. The crew finishes the tunnel and gets out with their fee and a made reputation, and with two of their number gone. The AI that comes back up from the ship's original code calls herself Lovelace: same voice, none of Lovey's memories or history, and Jenks cannot pretend otherwise. When Pepper arrives to collect the illegal body kit Jenks had bought as a gift for Lovey, Lovelace asks to leave with her rather than stay aboard among people grieving someone she never was, and she goes, installed in the kit, to begin a life of her own; that departure is where the next book starts. Rosemary stays aboard with her real history known and a relationship with Sissix. Corbin, back from Quelin custody and forced to face what he is, is less hostile than he was. Ashby and Pei continue as before, still unacknowledged among Aeluons. The Wayfarer turns back toward the Commons for repairs, a well-regarded ship with an emptier crew.