Cousin Entropy — Michele Laframboise

...a far-flung space opera reminiscent of Liu Cixin's book.  -- Alex Shvartsman, Future SF True to the laws of thermodynamics, the expanding universe keeps cooling down. Now, the last transformed humans linger near the black hole at the center of our Galaxy.The UnAttached, who count their age in billions of years, feed on the powerful X-ray emissions and rail against Entropy, that selfish cousin who sucks leftover energy. The Attached, recently forced to leave their ruined worlds, live too fast.As the stars around them wink off one by one like in a dying city, what can they hope for ? A short and crunchy hard-SF story that goes far, far in the future, told by multi-award winning author Michèle Laframboise, translated from the French by N. R. M. Roshak.