"Orphans of the Helix" is a 46-page short story by Dan Simmons set in his Hyperion Cantos fictional universe (one of three, the others being "Remembering Siri", a story which is also a chapter of Hyperion, and "The Death of a Centaur", which deals...
The Polity Collective is the pinnacle of space-faring civilization. Academic and insightful, its dominion stretches from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. But when the Polity finally encounters alien life in the form...