The Iron Garden Sutra

Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the Starlit Order, performing funeral rites for the dead across the galaxy, guiding souls back into the Infinite Light. Despite the meaning he finds in his work and the comfort of AI companionship, his relationships with the living leave him longing for deeper connection. The spaceship Counsel of Nicaea has been lost for more than a thousand years, its passengers reduced to dust and bone. A relic of Earth's dying past, its sudden appearance has attracted a team of academics eager to investigate its archeological history. And Iris has been assigned to bring peace to the crew's long departed souls. Carpeted in moss and intertwined with vines, Nicaea is more forest than ship. Iris's religious rituals are met with bemusement by the scientists - and outright hostility by engineer Yan Fukui. But the plant life isn't the only sentience to have survived in the past millennia. Something onboard is stalking the explorers one by one. And Iris with his AI enhancement may be their only hope for survival...