Singularity Sky



SINGULARITY SKY
c
Charles Stross 
CONTENTS
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Singularity Sky
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Epilogue
Prologue
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The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones from the skies above 
Novy Petrograd. Some of them had half melted in the heat of re-entry; others pinged and ticked, cooling 
rapidly in the postdawn chill. An inquisitive pigeon hopped close, head cocked to one side; it pecked at 
the shiny case of one such device, then fluttered away in alarm when it beeped. A tinny voice spoke: 
_Hello? Will you entertain us?_


The Festival had come to Rochard_s World.


A skinny street urchin was one of the first victims of the assault on the economic integrity of the New 
Republic_s youngest colony world. Rudi_nobody knew his patronymic, or indeed his father_spotted 
one of the phones lying in the gutter of a filthy alleyway as he went about his daily work, a malodorous 
sack wrapped around his skinny shoulders like a soldier_s bedroll. The telephone lay on the chipped 
stones, gleaming like polished gunmetal: he glanced around furtively before picking it up, in case the 
gentleman who must have dropped it was still nearby. When it chirped he nearly dropped it out of fear: a 
machine! Machines were upper-class and forbidden, guarded by the grim faces and gray uniforms of 
authority. Nevertheless, if he brought it home to Uncle Schmuel, there might be good eating: better than 
he could buy with the proceeds of the day_s sackful of dog turds for the tannery. He turned it over in his 
hands, wondering how to shut it up, and a tinny voice spoke: _Hello? Will you entertain us?_


Rudi nearly dropped the phone and ran, but curiosity held him back for a moment: _Why?_


_Entertain us and we will give you anything you want._


Rudi_s eyes widened. The metal wafer gleamed with promise between his cupped hands. He 
remembered the fairy stories his eldest sister used to tell before the coughing sickness took her, tales of 
magic lamps and magicians and djinn that he was sure Father Borozovski would condemn as infidel 
nonsense; and his need for escape from the dull brutality of everyday life did battle with his natural 
pessimism_the pessimism of barely more than a decade of backbreaking labor. Realism won. What he 
said was not, I want a magic flying carpet and a purse full of gold roubles or I want to be Prince Mikhail 
in his royal palace, but, _Can you feed my family?_


_Yes. Entertain us, and we will feed your family._


Rudi racked his brains, having no idea how to go about this exotic task; then he blinked. It was obvious! 
He held the phone to his mouth, and whispered, _Do you want me to tell you a story?_


By the end of that day, when the manna had begun to fall from orbit and men_s dreams were coming to 
life like strange vines blooming after rain in the desert, Rudi and his family_ sick mother, drunken 
uncle, and seven siblings_were no longer part of the political economy of the New Republic.


War had been declared.
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Deep in the outer reaches of the star system, the Festival_s constructor fleet created structure out of dead 
mass. The Festival fleet traveled light, packed down into migratory starwisps that disdained the 
scurrying FTL of merely human clades. When it arrived, fusion pods burned bright as insectile A-life 
spawned furiously in the frigid depths of the outer system. Once the habitats were complete and moved 
into orbit around the destination planet, the Festival travelers would emerge from aestivation, ready to 
trade and listen.


Rochard_s World was a backwater colony of the New Republic, itself not exactly the most forward-
looking of post-Diaspora human civilizations. With a limited industrial base to attract trade_limited by 
statute, as well as by ability_few eyes scanned the heavens for the telltale signatures of visiting ships. 
Only the spaceport, balanced in ground-synchronous orbit, kept a watch, and that was focused on the 
inner-system ecliptic. The Festival fleet had dismantled a gas giant moon and three comets, begun work 
on a second moon, and was preparing to rain telephones from orbit before the Imperial Traffic Control 
Bureau noticed that anything was amiss.


Moreover, there was considerable confusion at first. The New Republic was, if not part of the core 
worlds, not far out of it; whereas the Festival_s origin lay far outside the light cone of the New 
Republic_s origin, more than a thousand light-years from old anarchist Earth. Although they shared a 
common ancestry, the New Republic and the Festival had diverged for so many centuries that everything
_from their communications protocols to their political economies, by way of their genome_was 
different. So it was that the Festival orbiters noticed (and ignored) the slow, monochromatic witterings 
of Imperial Traffic Control. More inexplicably, it did not occur to anybody in the Ducal palace to 
actually pick up one of the half-melted telephones littering their countryside, and ask, _Who are you and 
what do you want?_ But perhaps this was not so surprising; because by midafternoon Novy Petrograd 
was in a state of barely controlled civil insurrection.
Burya Rubenstein, the radical journalist, democratic agitator, and sometime political prisoner (living in 
internal exile on the outskirts of the city, forbidden to return to the father planet_to say nothing of his 
mistress and sons_for at least another decade) prodded at the silvery artifact on his desk with a finger 
stained black from the leaky barrel of his pen. _You say these have been falling everywhere?_ he stated, 
ominously quietly.


Marcus Wolff nodded. _All over town. Misha wired me from the back country to say it_s happening 
there, too. The Duke_s men are out in force with brooms and sacks, picking them up, but there are too 
many for them. Other things, too._


_Other things._ It wasn_t phrased as a question, but Burya_s raised eyebrow made his meaning clear.


_Things falling from the skies_and not the usual rain of frogs!_ Oleg Timoshevski bounced up and 
down excitedly, nearly upsetting one of the typecases that sat on the kitchen table beside him, part of the 
unlicensed printing press that Rubenstein has established on peril of another decade_s internal exile. 


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_The things_like a telephone, I think, at least they talk back when you ask them something_all say the 
same thing; entertain us, educate us, we will give you anything you want in return! And they do! I saw a 
bicycle fall from the skies with my own eyes! And all because Georgi Pavlovich said he wanted one, and 
told the machine the story of Roland while he waited._


_I find this hard to believe. Perhaps we should put it to the test?_ Burya grinned wolfishly, in a way that 
reminded Marcus of the old days, when Burya had a fire in his belly, a revolver in his hand, and the ear 
of ten thousand workers of the Rail-yard Engineering Union during the abortive October Uprising 
twelve years earlier. _Certainly if our mysterious benefactors are happy to trade bicycles for old stories, 
I wonder what they might be willing to exchange for a general theory of postindustrial political 
economy?_


_Better dine with the devil with a long, long spoon,_ warned Marcus.


_Oh, never fear; all I want to do is ask some questions._ Rubenstein picked up the telephone and turned 
it over in his hands, curiously. _Where_s the_ah. Here. Machine. Can you hear me?_


_Yes._ The voice was faint, oddly accentless, and slightly musical.


_Good. Who are you, where are you from, and what do you want?_


_We are Festival._ The three dissidents leaned closer, almost bumping heads over the telephone. _We 
have traveled many two-hundred-and-fifty-sixes of light-years, visiting many sixteens of inhabited 
planets. We are seekers of information. We trade._


_You trade?_ Burya glanced up, a trifle disappointed; interstellar capitalist entrepreneurs were not what 
he had been hoping for.


_We give you anything. You give us something. Anything we don_t already know: art, mathematics, 
comedy, literature, biography, religion, genes, designs. What do you want to give us?_


_When you say you give us anything, what do you mean? Immortal youth? Freedom?_ A faint note of 
sarcasm hovered on his words, but Festival showed no sign of noticing.


_Abstracts are difficult. Information exchange difficult, too_low bandwidth here, no access. But we can 
make any structures you want, drop them from orbit. You want new house? Horseless carriage that flies 
and swims as well? Clothing? We make._


Timoshevski gaped. _You have a Cornucopia machine?_ he demanded breathlessly. Burya bit his 
tongue; an interruption it might be, but a perfectly understandable one.


_Yes._


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_Will you give us one? Along with instructions for using it and a colony design library?_ asked Burya, 
his pulse pounding.


_Maybe. What will you give us?_


_Mmm. How about a post-Marxist theory of post-technological political economy, and a proof that the 
dictatorship of the hereditary peerage can only be maintained by the systematic oppression and 
exploitation of the workers and engineers, and cannot survive once the people acquire the self-
replicating means of production?_


There was a pause, and Timoshevski exhaled furiously. Just as he was about to speak, the telephone 
made an odd bell-like noise: _That will be sufficient. You will deliver the theory to this node. 
Arrangements to clone a replicator and library are now under way. Query: ability to deliver postulated 
proof of validity of theory?_


Burya grinned. _Does your replicator contain schemata for replicating itself? And does it contain 
schemata for producing direct fusion weapons, military aircraft, and guns?_


_Yes and yes to all subqueries. Query: ability to deliver postulated proof of validity of theory?_


Timoshevski was punching the air and bouncing around the office. Even the normally phlegmatic Wolff 
was grinning like a maniac. _Just give the workers the means of production, and we_ll prove the theory,_ 
said Rubenstein. _We need to talk in private. Back in an hour, with the texts you requested._ He pressed 
the OFF switch on the telephone. _Yes!_


After a minute, Timoshevski calmed down a bit. Rubenstein waited indulgently; truth be told, he felt the 
same way himself. But it was his duty as leader of the movement_or at least the nearest thing they had 
to a statesman, serving his involuntary internal exile out on this flea-pit of a backwater_to think ahead. 
And a lot of thinking needed to be done, because shortly heads would be brought into contact with 
paving stones in large numbers: the Festival, whoever and whatever it was, seemed unaware that they 
had offered to trade for a parcel of paper the key to the jail in which tens of millions of serfs had been 
confined for centuries by their aristocratic owners. All in the name of stability and tradition.


_Friends,_ he said, voice shaking with emotion, _let us hope that this is not just a cruel hoax. For if it is 
not, we can at last lay to rest the cruel specter that has haunted the New Republic since its inception. I_d 
been hoping for assistance along these lines from a_source, but this is far better if it is true. Marcus, 
fetch as many members of the committee as you can find. Oleg, I_m going to draft a poster; we need to 
run off five thousand copies immediately and get them distributed tonight before Politovsky thinks to 
pull his finger out and declare a state of emergency. Today, Rochard_s World stands on the brink of 
liberation. Tomorrow, the New Republic!_
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The next morning, at dawn, troops from the Ducal palace guard and the garrison on Skull Hill, 
overlooking the old town, hanged six peasants and technicians in the market square. The execution was 
a warning, to accompany the Ducal decree: Treat with the Festival and you die. Someone, probably in 
the Curator_s Office, had realized the lethal danger the Festival posed to the regime and decided an 
example must be made. They were too late to stop the Democratic Revolutionary Party from plastering 
posters explaining just what the telephones were all over town, and pointing out that, in the words of the 
old proverb, _Give a man a fish, feed him for a day_ teach him to fish, feed him for life._ More radical 
posters exhorting the workers to demand the means of constructing self-replicating tools rang a powerful 
chord in the collective psyche, for whatever the regime might have wished, folk memories lived on.


At lunchtime, four bank robbers held up the main post office in Plotsk, eighty kilometers to the north of 
the capital. The bank robbers carried exotic weapons, and when a police Zeppelin arrived over the scene 
it was shot to pieces. This was not an isolated incident. All over the planet, the police and state security 
apparat reported incidents of outrageous defiance, in many cases backed up with advanced weapons that 
had appeared as if from thin air. Meanwhile, strange, dome-like dwellings mushroomed on a thousand 
peasant farms in the outback, as palatially equipped and comfortable as any Ducal residence.


Pinpricks of light blossomed overhead, and radios gave forth nothing but hissing static for hours 
afterward. Sometime later, the glowing trails of emergency re-entry capsules skidded across the sky a 
thousand kilometers south of Novy Petrograd. The Navy announced that evening, with deep regrets, the 
loss of the destroyer Sakhalin in a heroic attack on the enemy battle fleet besieging the colony. It had 
inflicted serious damage on the aggressors; nevertheless, reinforcements had been requested from the 
Imperial capital via Causal Channel, and the matter was being treated with the utmost gravity by His 
Imperial Majesty.


Spontaneous demonstrations by workers and soldiers marred the night, while armored cars were 
deployed to secure the bridges across the Hava River that separated the Ducal palace and the garrison 
from the city proper.


And most sinister of all, an impromptu fair began to grow in the open space of the Northern Parade Field
_a fair where nobody worked, everything was free, and anything that anybody could possibly want 
(and a few things that nobody in their right mind would desire) could be obtained free for the asking.
On the third day of the incursion, His Excellency Duke Felix Politovsky, Governor of Rochard_s World, 
entered the Star Chamber to meet with his staff and, by way of an eye-wateringly expensive 
teleconference, to appeal for help from his Emperor.


Politovsky was a thick-set, white-haired man of some sixty-four years, unpreserved by contraband anti-
aging medical treatments. It was said by some that he was lacking in imagination, and he had certainly 
not been appointed governor of a raw backwater dumping ground for troublemakers and second sons 
because of his overwhelming political acumen. However, despite his bull-headed disposition and lack of 


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insight, Felix Politovsky was deeply worried.


Men in uniform and the formal dress of his diplomatic staff stood to attention as he entered the richly 
paneled room and marched to the head of the conference table. _Gentlemen. Please be seated,_ he 
grunted, dropping into the armchair that two servants unobtrusively held out for him. _Beck, have there 
been any developments overnight?_


Gerhard Von Beck, Citizen, head of the local office of the Curator_s Office, shook his head gloomily. 
_More riots on the south bank; they didn_t stay to fight when I sent a guard detachment. So far, morale 
in the barracks seems to be holding up. Molinsk is cut off; there have been no reports from that town for 
the past day, and a helicopter that was sent to look in on them never reported back. The DR_s are raising 
seven shades of merry hell around town, and so are the Radicals. I tried to have the usual suspects taken 
into custody, but they_ve declared an Extropian Soviet and refuse to cooperate. The worst elements are 
holed up in the Corn Exchange, two miles south of here, holding continuous committee meetings, and 
issuing proclamations and revolutionary communique on the hour, every hour. Encouraging people to 
traffic with the enemy._


_Why haven_t you used troops?_ rumbled Politovsky.


_They say they_ve got atomic weapons. If we move in__ He shrugged.


_Oh._ The Governor rubbed his walrus moustache lugubriously and sighed. _Commander Janaczeck. 
What news of the Navy?_


Janaczeck stood. A tall, worried-looking man in a naval officer_s dress uniform, he looked even more 
nervous than the otherwise controlled Von Beck. _There were two survival capsules from the wreck of 
the Sakhalin; both have now been recovered, and the survivors debriefed. It would appear that the 
Sakhalin approached one of the larger enemy intruders and demanded that they withdraw from low orbit 
immediately and yield to customs inspection. The intruder made no response, so Sakhalin fired across 
her path. What happened next is confused_none of the survivors were bridge officers, and their reports 
are contradictory_but it appears that there was an impact with some sort of foreign body, which then 
ate the destroyer._


_Ate it?_


_Yes, sir._ Janaczeck gulped. _Forbidden technology._


Politovsky turned pale. _Borman?_


_Yes, sir?_ His adjutant sat up attentively.


_Obviously, this situation exceeds our ability to deal with it without extra resources. How much acausal 


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bandwidth does the Post Office have in hand for a televisor conference with the capital?_


_Um, ah, fifty minutes_ worth, sir. The next consignment of entangled qubits between here and New 
Prague is due to arrive by ramscoop in, ah, eighteen months. If I may make so bold, sir__


_Speak._


_Could we retain a minute of bandwidth in stock, for text-only messages? I realize that this is an 
emergency, but if we drain the current channel we will be out of touch with the capital until the next 
shipment is available. And, with all due respect to Commander Janaczeck, I_m not sure the Navy will be 
able to reliably run dispatch boats past the enemy._


_Do it._ Politovsky sat up, stretching his shoulders. _One minute, mind. The rest available for a televisor 
conference with His Majesty, at his earliest convenience. You will set up the conference and notify me 
when it is ready. Oh, and while you_re about it, here._ He leaned forward and scribbled a hasty signature 
on a letter from his portfolio. _I enact this state of emergency and by the authority vested in me by God 
and His Imperial Majesty I decree that this constitutes a state of war with_who the devil are we at war 
with?_


Von Beck cleared his throat. _They seem to call themselves the Festival, sir. Unfortunately, we don_t 
appear to have any more information about them on file, and requests to the Curator_s Archives drew a 
blank._


_Very well._ Borman passed Politovsky a note, and the Governor stood. _Gentlemen, please stand for 
His Imperial Majesty!_


They stood and, as one man, turned expectantly to face the screen on the far wall of the conference room.
The Gathering Storm


_May I ask what I_m charged with?_ asked Martin.


The sunshine filtering through the skylight high overhead skewered the stuffy office air with bars of 
silver: Martin watched dust motes dance like stars behind the Citizen_s bullet-shaped head. The only 
noises in the room were the scratching of his pen on heavy official vellum and the repetitive grinding of 
gears as his assistant rewound the clockwork drive mechanism on his desktop analytical engine. The 
room smelled of machine oil and stale fear.


_Am I being charged with anything?_ Martin persisted.
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The Citizen ignored him and bent his head back to his forms. His young assistant, his regular chore 
complete, began unloading a paper tape from the engine.


Martin stood up. _If I am not being charged with anything, is there any reason why I should stay?_


This time the Citizen Curator glared at him. _Sit,_ he snapped.


Martin sat.


Outside the skylight, it was a clear, cold April afternoon; the clocks of St Michael had just finished 
striking fourteen hundred, and in the Square of the Five Corners, the famous Duchess_s Simulacrum was 
jerking through its eternal pantomime. The boredom grated on Martin. He found it difficult to adapt to 
the pace of events in the New Republic; it was doubly infuriating when he was faced with the eternal 
bureaucracy. He_d been here for four months now, four stinking months on a job which should have 
taken ten days. He was beginning to wonder if he would live to see Earth again before he died of old age.


In fact, he was so bored with waiting for his work clearance to materialize that this morning_s summons 
to an office somewhere behind the iron facade of the Basilisk came as a relief, something to break the 
monotony. It didn_t fill him with the stuttering panic that such an appointment would have kindled in the 
heart of a subject of the New Republic_what, after all, could the Curator_s Office do to him, an off-
world engineering contractor with a cast-iron Admiralty contract? The summons had come on a plate 
borne by a uniformed courier, and not as a night-time raid. That fact alone suggested a degree of 
restraint and, consequently, an approach to adopt, and Martin resolved to play the bemused alien visitor 
card as hard as he could.


After another minute, the Citizen lowered his pen and looked at Martin. _Please state your name,_ he 
said softly.


Martin crossed his arms. _If you don_t know it already, why am I here?_ he asked.


_Please state your name for the record._ The Citizen_s voice was low, clipped, and as controlled as a 
machine. He spoke the local trade-lingua_a derivative of the nearly universal old English tongue_with 
a somewhat heavy, Germanic accent.


_Martin Springfield._


The Citizen made a note. _Now please state your nationality._


_My what?_


Martin must have looked nonplussed, for the Citizen raised a gray-flecked eyebrow. _Please state your 
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nationality. To what government do you owe allegiance?_


_Government?_ Martin rolled his eyes. _I come from Earth. For legislation and insurance, I use 
Pinkertons, with a backup strategic infringement policy from the New Model Air Force. As far as 
employment goes, I am incorporated under charter as a personal corporation with bilateral contractual 
obligations to various organizations, including your own Admiralty. For reasons of nostalgia, I am a 
registered citizen of the People_s Republic of West Yorkshire, although I haven_t been back there for 
twenty years. But I wouldn_t say I was answerable to any of those, except my contractual partners_and 
they_re equally answerable to me._


_But you are from Earth?_ asked the Citizen, his pen poised.


_Yes._


_Ah. Then you are a subject of the United Nations._ He made a brief note. _Why didn_t you admit this?_


_Because it isn_t true,_ said Martin, letting a note of frustration creep into his voice. (But only a note: he 
had an idea of the Citizen_s powers, and had no intention of provoking him to exercise them.)


_Earth. The supreme political entity on that planet is the United Nations Organization. So it follows that 
you are a subject of it, no?_


_Not at all._ Martin leaned forward. _At last count, there were more than fifteen thousand governmental 
organizations on Earth. Of those, only about the top nine hundred have representatives in Geneva, and 
only seventy have permanent seats on the Security Council. The UN has no authority over any non-
governmental organization or over individual citizens, it_s purely an arbitration body. I am a sovereign 
individual; I_m not owned by any government._


_Ah,_ said the Citizen. He laid his pen down very carefully beside his blotter and looked directly at 
Martin. _I see you fail to understand. I am going to do you a great favor and pretend that I did not hear 
the last thing you said. Vassily?_


His young assistant looked up. _Yah?_


_Out._


The assistant_little more than a boy in uniform_stood and marched over to the door. It thudded shut 
solidly behind him.


_I will say this once, and once only._ The Citizen paused, and Martin realized with a shock that his 
outward impassivity was a tightly sealed lid holding down a roiling fury: _I do not care what silly ideas 
the stay-behinds of Earth maintain about their sovereignty. I do not care about being insulted by a young 


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and insolent pup like you. But while you are on this planet you will live by our definitions of what is 
right and proper! Do I make myself clear?_


Martin recoiled. The Citizen waited to see if he would speak, but when he remained silent, continued 
icily. _You are here in the New Republic at the invitation of the Government of His Majesty, and will at 
all times comport yourself accordingly. This includes being respectful to Their Imperial Highnesses, 
behaving decently, legally, and honestly, paying taxes to the Imperial Treasury, and not spreading 
subversion. You are here to do a job, not to spread hostile alien propaganda or to denigrate our way of 
life! Am I making myself understood?_


_I don_t__ Martin paused, hunted for the correct, diplomatic words. _Let me rephrase, please. I am 
sorry if I have caused offense, but if that_s what I_ve done, would you mind telling me what I did? So I 
can avoid doing it again. If you won_t tell me what not to do, how can I avoid causing offense by 
accident?_


_You are unaware?_ asked the Citizen. He stood up and paced around Martin, behind his chair, around 
the desk, and back to his own seat. There he stopped pacing, and glowered furiously. _Two nights ago, 
in the bar of the Glorious Crown Hotel, you were clearly heard telling someone_a Vaclav Hasek, I 
believe_about the political system on your home planet. Propaganda and nonsense, but attractive 
propaganda and nonsense to a certain disaffected segment of the lumpen-proletariat. Nonsense verging 
on sedition, I might add, when you dropped several comments about_let me see__the concept of tax is 
no different from extortion,_ and _a social contract enforced by compulsion is not a valid contract._ After 
your fourth beer, you became somewhat merry and began to declaim on the nature of social justice, 
which is itself something of a problem, insofar as you expressed doubt about the impartiality of a 
judiciary appointed by His Majesty in trying cases against the Crown._


_That_s rubbish! Just a conversation over a pint of beer!_


_If you were a citizen, it would be enough to send you on a one-way trip to one of His Majesty_s frontier 
colonies for the next twenty years,_ the Citizen said icily. _The only reason we are having this little tete-
a-tete is because your presence in the Royal Dockyards is considered essential. If you indulge in any 
more such conversations over pints of beer, perhaps the Admiralty may be persuaded to wash their 
hands of you. And then where will you be?_


Martin shivered; he hadn_t expected the Citizen to be quite so blunt. _Are conversations about politics 
really that sensitive?_ he asked.


_When held in a public place, and engaged in by an off-worlder with strange ideas, yes. The New 
Republic is not like the degenerate anarchist mess your fatherworld has sunk into. Let me emphasize 
that. Because you are a necessary alien, you are granted certain rights by Their Imperial Highnesses. If 
you go outside those rights, you will be stamped on, and stamped on hard. If you find that difficult to 
understand, I suggest you spend the remainder of your free time inside your hotel room so that your 



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mouth does not incriminate you accidentally. I ask you for a third time: Do I make myself understood?_


Martin looked chastened. _Y-yes,_ he said.


_Then get out of my office._
Evening.


A man of medium height and unremarkable build, with brownish hair and a close-cropped beard, lay 
fully clad on the ornate counterpane of a hotel bed, a padded eyeshade covering his face. Shadows crept 
across the gloomy carpet as the sun sank below the horizon. The gas jets in the chandelier hissed, casting 
deep shadows across the room. A fly buzzed around the upper reaches of the room, pursuing a knife-
edged search pattern.


Martin was not asleep. His entire inventory of countersur-veillance drones were out on patrol, searching 
his room for bugs in case the Curator_s Office was monitoring him. Not that he had many drones to 
search with: they were strictly illegal in the New Republic, and he_d been forced to smuggle his kit 
through customs in blocked sebaceous glands and dental caries. Now they were out in force, hunting for 
listening devices and reporting back to the monitors woven into his eye-shade.


Finally, concluding he was alone in the room, he recalled the fly_its SQUID-sensors untriggered_and 
put the fleas back into hibernation. He stood up and shuttered the window, then pulled the curtains 
closed. Short of the Curator_s Office having hidden a mechanical drum-recorder in the back of the 
wardrobe, he was unable to see any way that they could listen in on him.


He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket (rumpled, now, from being lain upon) and pulled out a 
slim, leather-bound book. _Talk to me._


_Hello, Martin. Startup completed, confidence one hundred percent._


_That_s good._ He cleared his throat. _Back channel. Execute. I_d like to talk to Herman._


_Paging._


The book fell silent and Martin waited impassively. It looked like a personal assistant, a discreet digital 
secretary for a modern Terran business consultant. While such devices could be built into any ambient 
piece of furniture_clothing, even a prosthetic tooth_Martin kept his in the shape of an old-fashioned 
hardback. However, normal personal assists didn_t come with a causal channel plug-in, especially one 
with a ninety-light-year reach and five petabits of bandwidth. Even though almost two petabits had been 
used when the agent-in-place passed it to him via a dead letter drop on a park bench, it was outrageously 
valuable to Martin. In fact, it was worth his life_if the secret police caught him with it.



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A slower-than-light freighter had spent nearly a hundred years hauling the quantum black box at the core 
of the causal channel out from Septagon system; a twin to it had spent eighty years in the hold of a sister 
ship, en route to Earth. Now they provided an instantaneous communications channel from one planet to 
the other; instantaneous in terms of special relativity, but not capable of violating causality, and with a 
total capacity limited to the number of qubits they had been created with. Once those 5 billion megabits 
were gone, they_d be gone for good_or until the next slower-than-light freighter arrived.


(Not that such ships were rare_building and launching a one-kilogram starwisp, capable of carrying a 
whopping great hundred-gram payload across a dozen light-years, wasn_t far above the level of a cottage 
industry_but the powers that ran things here in the New Republic were notoriously touchy about 
contact with the ideologically impure outside universe.)


_Hello?_ said the PA.


_PA: Is that Herman?_ asked Martin.


_PA here. Herman is on the line and all authentication tokens are updated._


_I had an interview with a Citizen from the Curator_s Office today,_ said Martin. _They_re extremely 
sensitive about subversion._ Twenty-two words in five seconds: sampled at high fidelity, about half a 
million bits. Transcribed to text, that would make about one hundred bytes, maybe as few as fifty bytes 
after non-lossy compression. Which left fifty fewer bytes in the link between Martin_s PA and Earth. If 
Martin went to the Post Office, they would charge him a dollar a word, he_d have to queue for a day, and 
there would be a postal inspector listening in.


_What happened?_ asked Herman.


_Nothing important, but I was warned off, and warned hard. I_ll put it in my report. They didn_t question 
my affiliation._


_Any query over your work?_


_No. No suspicion, as far as I can tell._


_Why did they question you?_


_Spies in bars. They want the frighteners on me. I haven_t been on board the Lord Vanek yet. Dockyard 
access control is very tight. I think they_re upset about something._


_Any confirmation of unusual events? Fleet movements? Workup toward departure?_
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_Nothing I know about._ Martin bit back his further comment: talking to Herman via the illegal 
transmitter always made him nervous. _I_m keeping my eyes on the ball. Report ends._


_Bye._


_PA: shut down link now._


_The link is down._ Throughout the entire conversation, Martin noted, the only voice he had heard was 
his; the PA spoke in its owner_s tones, the better to be a perfect receptionist, and the CC link was so 
expensive that sending an audio stream over it would be a foolish extravagance. Talking to himself 
across a gulf of seventy light-years made Martin feel very lonely. Especially given the very real nature 
of his fears.


So far, he_d successfully played the gormless foreign engineering contractor with a runaway mouth, held 
overlong on a two-week assignment to upgrade the engines on board His Majesty_s battlecruiser Lord 
Vanek. In fact, he was doing such a good job that he_d gotten to see the inside of the Basilisk, and 
escaped alive.


But he wasn_t likely to do so twice, if they learned who he was working for.
Do you think he is a spy?_ asked trainee procurator Vassily Muller.


_Not as far as I know._ The Citizen smiled thinly at his assistant, the thin scar above his left eye 
wrinkling with satanic amusement. _If I had any evidence that he was a spy, he would rapidly become 
an ex-spy. And an ex-everything else, for that matter. But that is not what I asked you, is it?_ He fixed 
his subordinate with a particular expression he had perfected for dealing with slow students. _Tell me 
why I let him go._


_Because&_ The trainee officer looked nonplussed. He_d been here six months, less than a year out of 
gymnasium and the custody of the professors, and it showed. He was still a teenager, fair-haired, blue-
eyed, and almost painfully unskilled in the social nuances: like so many intelligent men who survived 
the elite boarding school system, he was also inclined to intellectual rigidity. Privately, the Citizen 
thought this was a bad thing, at least in a secret policeman_rigidity was a habit that would have to be 
broken if he was ever to be of much use. On the other hand, he seemed to have inherited his father_s 
intelligence. If he_d inherited his flexibility, too, without the unfortunate rebelliousness, he_d make an 
excellent operative.


After a minute_s silence, the Citizen prodded him. _That is not an acceptable answer, young man. Try 
again._


_Ah, you let him go because he has a loose mouth, and where he goes, it will be easier to see who listens 



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to him?_


_Better, but not entirely true. What you said earlier intrigues me. Why don_t you think he is a spy?_


Vassily did a double take; it was almost painful to watch as he tried to deal with the Citizen_s abrupt 
about-face. _He_s too talkative, isn_t he, sir? Spies don_t call attention to themselves, do they? It_s not in 
their interests. And again, he_s an engineer contracted to work for the fleet, but the ship was built by the 
company he works for, so why would they want to spy on it? And he can_t be a professional subversive, 
either. Professionals would know better than to blab in a hotel bar._ He stopped and looked vaguely self-
satisfied.


_Good going. Such a shame I don_t agree with you._


Vassily gulped. _But I thought you said he wasn_t a__ He stopped himself. _You mean he_s too 
obviously not a spy. He draws attention to himself in bars, he argues politics, he does things a spy would 
not do_as if he wants to lay our suspicions at ease?_


_Very good,_ said the Citizen. _You are learning to think like a Curator! Please note that I never said 
that Mr. Springfield is not a spy. Neither did I assert that he is one. He might well be; equally well, he 
might not. However, I will be unsatisfied until you have resolved the issue, one way or the other. Do you 
understand?_


_You want me to prove a negative?_ Vassily was almost going cross-eyed with the effort of trying to 
understand the Citizen_s train of thought. _But that_s impossible!_


_Exactly!_ The Citizen cracked a thin smile as he clapped his subordinate on the shoulder. _So you_ll 
have to find some way of making it a positive that you prove, won_t you? And that is your assignment 
for the foreseeable future, Junior Procurator Muller. You will go forth and try to prove that our irritating 
visitor of the morning is not a spy_or to gather sufficient evidence to justify his arrest. Come, now! 
Haven_t you been champing at the bit to get out of this gloomy dungeon and see a bit of the capital, as I 
believe you referred to it only last week? This is your chance. Besides, when you return, think about the 
story you_ll have to tell that piece of skirt you_ve been chasing ever since you arrived here!_


_Ah_I_m honored,_ said Vassily. He looked somewhat taken aback. A young officer, still sufficiently 
fresh from training that the varnish hadn_t eroded from his view of the universe, he looked up at the 
Citizen in awe. _Sir, humbly request permission to ask why? I mean, why now?_


_Because it_s about time you learned to do more than take minutes of committee meetings,_ said the 
Citizen. His eyes gleamed behind their glasses; his moustache shuddered all the way out to its waxen 
points. _There comes a time when every officer needs to assume the full burden of his duties. I expect 
you have picked up at least a clue about how the job is done from the interminable reports you_ve been 
summarizing. Now it_s time to see if you can do it, no? On a low-risk assignment, I might add; I_m not 



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sending you after the revolutionaries right away, ha-ha. So this afternoon you will go to sublevel two for 
field ops processing, then tomorrow you will start on the assignment. I expect to see a report on my 
desk, first thing every morning, starting the day after tomorrow. Show me what you can do!_
The next morning Martin was awakened by a peremptory rap on the door. _Telegram for Master 
Springfield!_ called a delivery boy.


Martin pulled on a dressing gown and opened the door a crack. The telegram was passed inside; he 
signed for it quickly, pulled out the contents, and passed back the signed envelope. Blinking and bleary-
eyed, he carried the message over to the window and pulled back the shutters to read it. It was a 
welcome surprise, if somewhat annoying to be woken for it_confirmation that his visa had been 
approved, his security vetting was complete, and that he was to report at 1800 that evening to the Navy 
beanstalk in South Austria for transit to the fleet shipyards in geosynchronous orbit.


Telegrams, he reflected, were so much less civilized than e-mail_the latter didn_t come with an 
officious youth who_d get you out of bed to sign for it. Such a shame that e-mail was unavailable in the 
New Republic and telegrams ubiquitous. But then again, e-mail was decentralized, telegrams anything 
but. And the New Republic was very keen on centralization.


He dressed, shaved, and made his way downstairs to the morning room to await his breakfast. He wore 
local garb_a dark jacket, tight breeches, boots, and a shirt with a ruff of lace at the collar_but of a 
subtly unfashionable cut, somehow betraying a lack of appreciation for the minutiae of fashion. Off-
world styles, he found, tended to get in the way when trying to establish a working rapport with the 
locals: but if you looked just slightly odd, they_d sense your alien-ness without being overwhelmed by it, 
and make at least some allowances for your behavior. By any yardstick, the New Republic was an 
insular society, and interacting with it was difficult even for a man as well traveled as Martin, but at least 
the ordinary people made an effort.


He had become sufficiently accustomed to local customs that, rather than letting them irritate him, he 
was able to absorb each new affront with quiet resignation. The way the concierge stared down his 
patrician nose at him, or the stiff-collared chambermaids scurried by with downcast eyes, had become 
merely individual pieces in the complex jigsaw puzzle of Republican mores. The smell of wax polish 
and chlorine bleach, coal smoke from the boiler room, and leather seats in the dining room, were all 
alien, the odors of a society that hadn_t adapted to the age of plastic. Not all the local habits chafed. The 
morning_s news-sheet, folded crisply beside his seat at the breakfast table, provided a strangely 
evocative sense of homecoming_as if he had traveled on a voyage nearly three hundred years into the 
past of his own home culture, rather than 180 light-years out into the depths of space. Although, in a 
manner of speaking, the two voyages were exactly equivalent.


He breakfasted on butter mushrooms, sauteed goose eggs, and a particularly fine toasted sourdough rye 
bread, washed down with copious quantities of lemon tea. Finally, he left the room and made his way to 
the front desk.


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_I would like to arrange transport,_ he said. The duty clerk looked up, eyes distant and preoccupied. _By 
air, to the naval beanstalk at Klamovka, as soon as possible. I will be taking hand luggage only, and will 
not be checking out of my room, although I will be away for some days._


_Ah, I see. Excuse me, sir._ The clerk hurried away into the maze of offices and tiny service rooms that 
hid behind the dark wood paneling of the hotel lobby.


He returned shortly thereafter, with the concierge in tow, a tall, stoop-shouldered man dressed head to 
foot in black, cadaverous and sunken-cheeked, who bore himself with the solemn dignity of a count or 
minor noble. _You require transport, sir?_ asked the concierge.


_I_m going to the naval base at Klamovka,_ Martin repeated slowly. _Today. I need transport arranging 
at short notice. I will be leaving my luggage at the hotel. I do not know how long I will be away, but I 
am not checking out._


_I see, sir._ The concierge nodded at his subordinate, who scurried away and returned bearing three fat 
volumes_ timetables for the various regional rail services. _I am afraid that no Zeppelin flights are 
scheduled between here and Klamovka until tomorrow. However, I believe you can get there this 
evening by train_if you leave immediately._


_That will be fine,_ said Martin. He had a nagging feeling that his immediate departure was the only 
thing he could do that would gratify the concierge_apart, perhaps, from dropping dead on the spot. _I_ll 
be back down here in five minutes. If your assistant could see to my tickets, please? On the tab._


The concierge nodded, stony-faced. _On behalf of the hotel, I wish you a fruitful journey,_ he intoned. 
_Marcus, see to this gentleman._ And off he stalked.


The clerk cracked open the first of the ledgers and glanced at Martin cautiously. _Which class, sir?_


_First._ If there was one thing that Martin had learned early, it was that the New Republic had some very 
strange ideas about class. He made up his mind. _I need to arrive before six o_clock tonight. I will be 
back here in five minutes. If you would be so good as to have my itinerary ready by then&_


_Yes, sir._ He left the clerk sweating over map and gazetteer, and climbed the four flights of stairs to his 
floor.


When he returned to the front desk, trailed by a footman with a bag in each hand, the clerk ushered him 
outside. _Your carnet, sir._ He pocketed the ornate travel document, itself as intricate as any passport. A 
steam coach was waiting. He climbed in, acknowledged the clerk_s bow with a nod, and the coach 
huffed away toward the railway station.
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It was a damp and foggy morning, and Martin could barely see the ornate stone facade of the ministerial 
buildings from the windows of his carriage as they rolled past beside him.


The hotel rooms might lack telephones, there might be a political ban on networking and smart matter 
and a host of other conveniences, and there might be a class system out of the eighteenth century on 
Earth; but the New Republic had one thing going for it_its trains ran on time. PS 1347, the primary 
around which New Muscovy orbited, was a young third-generation G2 dwarf; it had formed less than 
two billion years ago (to Sol_s five), and consequently, the planetary crust of New Muscovy contained 
uranium ore active enough to sustain criticality without enrichment.


Martin_s coach drew up on the platform alongside the Trans-Peninsular Express. He climbed down from 
the cabin stiffly and glanced both ways: they_d drawn up a quarter of a kilometer down the marble 
tongue from the hulking engines, but still the best part of a kilometer away from the dismal tailings of 
fourth-class accommodation and mail. A majordomo, resplendent in bottle-green frock coat and gold 
braid, inspected his carnet before ushering him into a private compartment on the upper deck. The room 
was decorated in blue-dyed leather and old oak, trimmed in brass and gold leaf, and equipped with a 
marble-topped table and a bell-pull to summon service; it more closely resembled a smoking room back 
in the hotel than anything Martin associated with public transport.


As soon as the majordomo had left, Martin settled back in one of the deeply padded seats, drew the 
curtains aside to reveal the arching buttresses and curved roof of the station, and opened his PA in book 
mode. Shortly thereafter, the train shuddered slightly and began to move: as the train slid out of the 
station, he glanced out of the window, unable to look away.


The city of New Prague was built just upstream from the tidal estuary of the River Vis; only the 
Basilisk, brooding atop a plug of eroded volcanic granite, rose much above the level of the plain. Indeed, 
the train would cruise through the lowlands using just one of its engines. The second reactor would only 
be brought to criticality when the train reached the foothills of the Apennines, the mountain range that 
separated the coastal peninsula from the continental interior of New Austria. Then the train would surge 
in a knife-straight line across nine hundred kilometers of desert before stopping, six hours later, at the 
foot of the Klamovka beanstalk.


The scene was quite extraordinary. Martin gazed at it in barely controlled awe. Though he didn_t like to 
admit it, he was something of a tourist, permanently searching for a sense of fresh beauty that he could 
secretly revel in. There wasn_t anything like this left on Earth; the wild ride of the twentieth century and 
the events that had followed the Singularity in the twenty-first had distorted the landscape of every 
industrialized nation. Even in the wake of the population crash, you couldn_t find open countryside, 
farms, hedges, and neatly planned villages_at least, not without also finding monorails, arcologies, fall-
out hot spots, and the weird hillocks of the Final Structure. The lowland landscape through which the 
Trans-Peninsular Express ran resembled a vision of pre-postindustrial England, a bucolic dreamscape 
where the trains ran on time and the sun never set on the empire.
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But railway journeys pale rapidly, and after half an hour, the train was racing through the valleys in a 
blur of steel and brass. Martin went back to his book, and was so engrossed in it that he barely noticed 
the door open and close_until a woman he had never seen before sat down opposite him and cleared 
her throat.


_Excuse me,_ he said, looking up. _Are you sure you have the right compartment?_


She nodded. _Quite sure, thank you. I didn_t request an individual one. Did you?_


_I thought__ He fumbled in his jacket for his carnet. _Ah. I see._ He cursed the concierge silently, 
thumbed the PA off, then looked at her. _I thought I had a compartment to myself; I see I was wrong. 
Please accept my apologies._


The woman nodded graciously. She had long black hair coiled in a bun, high cheekbones and brown 
eyes; her dark blue gown seemed expensively plain by this society_s standards. Probably a middle-class 
housewife, he guessed, but his ability to judge social status within the New Republic was still somewhat 
erratic. He couldn_t even make a stab at her age: heavy makeup, and the tight bodice, billowing skirts 
and puffed sleeves of capital fashion made an effective disguise.


_Are you going far?_ she asked brightly.


_All the way to Klamovka, and thence up the naval beanstalk,_ he said, somewhat surprised at this frank 
interrogation.


_What a coincidence; that_s where I_m going, too. You will excuse me for asking, but am I right in 
thinking you are not native to this area?_


She looked interested, to a degree that Martin found irritatingly intrusive. He shrugged. _No, I_m not._ 
He reopened his PA and attempted to bury his nose in it, but his unwanted traveling companion had 
other ideas.


_I take it from your accent that you are not native to this planet, either. And you_re going to the 
Admiralty yards. Would you mind me asking your business there?_


_Yes,_ he said curtly, and stared pointedly at his PA. He hadn_t initially registered how forward she was 
being, at least for a woman of her social class, but it was beginning to set his nerves on edge, ringing 
alarms. Something about her didn_t feel quite right. Agent provocateur? he wondered. He had no 
intention of giving the secret police any further excuses to haul him in; he wanted them to think he_d 
learned the error of his ways and determined to reform.


_Hmm. But when I came in you were reading a treatise on relativistic clock-skew correction algorithms 
as applied to the architecture of modern starship drive compensators. So you_re an engineer of some 


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sort, retained by the Admiralty to do maintenance work on fleet vessels._ She grinned, and her 
expression unnerved Martin: white teeth, red lips, and something about her manner that reminded him of 
home, where women weren_t just well-bred ornaments for the family tree. _Am I right?_


_I couldn_t possibly comment._ Martin shut his PA again and glared at her. _Who are you, and what the 
hell do you want?_ The social programming he_d absorbed on his journey out to the New Republic 
forbade such crudity in the presence of a lady, but she was obviously no more a lady than he was a 
Republican yeoman. The social program could go play with itself.


_My name is Rachel Mansour, and I_m on my way to the naval dockyards on business which may well 
intersect with your own. Unless I_m mistaken, in which case you have my most humble apologies, you 
are Martin Springfield, personally incorporated and retained by contract to the New Republican 
Admiralty to perform installation upgrades on the drive control circuitry of the Svejk-class battlecruiser 
Lord Vanek. After Lord Ernst Vanek, founder of the New Republic_s Navy. Correct?_


Martin returned the PA to his jacket pocket and glanced out of the window, trying to still a sudden wave 
of cold fear. _Yes. What business of yours is it?_


_You may be interested to learn that four hours ago, consensus absolute time, the New Model Air Force
_whose underwriting service you subscribe to_invoked the Eschaton clause in all strategic guarantees 
bearing on the Republic. At the same time, someone tipped off the UN Standing Committee on 
Multilateral Interstellar Disarmament that the New Republic is gearing up for war, in defense of a 
colony outpost that_s under siege. You aren_t paying the extra premium for insurance against divine 
retribution, are you? So right now you_re not covered for anything other than medical and theft._


Martin turned back to look at her. _Are you accusing me of being a spy?_ He met her eyes. They were 
dark, intelligent, and reserved_absolutely unreadable. _Who the hell are you, anyway?_


She shook a card out of her sleeve and opened it toward him. A head_recognizably her own, but with 
close-cropped hair_floated above it in holographic miniature, wreathed against a familiar backdrop. 
The sheer unexpectedness of it electrified him: shivers chased up and down his spine as his implants 
tried to damp down an instinctive panic reaction rising from his adrenal glands. _UN diplomatic 
intelligence, special operations group. I_m here to find out what the current situation is, and that includes 
finding out just what last-minute modifications the Admiralty is making to the ships comprising the 
expeditionary force. You are going to cooperate, aren_t you?_ She smiled again, even more unnervingly, 
with an expression that reminded Martin of a hungry ferret.


_Um._ What the hell are the CMID doing here? This isn_t in the mission plan! _This is going to be one 
of those trips, isn_t it?_ He rubbed his forehead and glanced at her again: she was still waiting for his 
response. Shit, improvise, dammit, before she suspects something! _Look, do you know what they do to 
spies here?_
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She nodded, no longer smiling. _I do. But I_ve also got my eyes on the bottom line, which is that this is 
an impending war situation. It_s my job to keep track of it_we can_t afford to let them run riot this close 
to Earth. Being garrotted would certainly spoil anyone_s day, but starting an interstellar war or attracting 
the attention of the Eschaton is even worse, at least for the several planets full of mostly innocent 
bystanders who are likely to be included in the collateral damage. Which is my overriding concern._


She stared at him with frightening intensity, and the card disappeared between two lace-gloved fingers. 
_We need to get together and talk, Martin. Once you_re up at the dockyard and settled in, I_ll contact 
you. I don_t care what else you agree to or disagree with, but we are going to have a talk tomorrow. And 
I_m going to pick your brains, and confirm that you_re just a bystander, and tell your insurers you_re a 
safe bet. Do you understand?_


_Uh, yes._ He stared at her and tried to look as if he_d just realized that she was, in fact, a devil, and he 
had signed away his soul. He hoped she_d believe him_naive engineer, sucked in out of his depths, 
confronted with an agent of Higher Authority_but had a cold sense that if she didn_t fall for it, he might 
be in real trouble. Herman and the CMID weren_t exactly on speaking terms&


_Excellent._ She reached into her purse and pulled out a battered-looking, gunmetal-colored PA. 
_Speaking. Send: Rabbit green. Ack._


The PA spoke back: _Ack. Message sent._ It took Martin a moment or two to recognize the voice as his 
own.


She slipped the case away and stood to leave the compartment. _You see,_ she said from the doorway, a 
quirky smile tugging at her lips, _life here isn_t necessarily as dull as you thought! See you later&_ 
Preparations for Departure


His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Ivan Hasek III, by grace of God the protector of the people of the 
New Republic, growled exasperatedly. _Get the Admiral out of bed and make him presentable_I have a 
cabinet meeting at noon, and I need to talk to him now._


_Yes, sir! I most humbly beg your pardon, and beg leave to be excused to do as Your Majesty 
commands._ The butler virtually bowed and scraped his way off the telephone.


_What_s the implied _or else_?_ Duke Michael, the Emperor_s brother, inquired drily. _You_d have him 
clapped in irons?_


_Hardly._ The Emperor snorted, showing as much amusement as his dignity permitted. _He_s over 
eighty; I suppose he_s entitled to stay in bed once in a while. But if he_s so ill he can_t even rise for his 



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Emperor in time of war, I_d have to force him to retire. And then there_d be an uproar in the Admiralty. 
You can_t imagine the waves it would make if we started forcing admirals to retire._ He sniffed. _We 
might even have to think about giving them all pensions! That_d go down as well as suggesting to Father 
that he abdicate._


Duke Michael coughed, delicately. _Perhaps somebody should have. After the second stroke__


_Yes, yes._


_I still think offering him the fleet is unreasonable._


_If you think that is unreasonable, I don_t suppose you_d care to discuss the likely response of their naval 
lordships if I didn_t give him first refusal?_ The priority telephone rang again before his brother had a 
chance to answer the pointed question; a liveried servant offered the ivory-and-platinum handset to His 
Majesty. The Duke picked up a second earpiece, to listen in on the call.


_Sire? My Lord Admiral Kurtz is ready to talk to you. He extends his deepest apologies, and__


_Enough. Just put him on, there_s a good fellow._ Ivan tapped his fingers irritably on the arm of his 
chair, a Gothic wooden monstrosity only one step removed from an instrument of torture. _Ah, Admiral. 
Just the man! Capital, how splendid to talk to you. And how are we today?_


_Today-ay?_ A reedy, quavering voice echoed uncertainly over the copper wires. _Ah-hum, yes, today. 
Indeed, yes. I_m very well, thank you, milady, I don_t suppose you_ve seen any chameleons?_


_No, Admiral, there are no chameleons in the palace,_ the Emperor stated with firm, but resigned, 
persistence. _You know who you are speaking to?_


In the momentary silence he could almost hear the elderly admiral blinking in confusion. _Ah-hum. 
Your Majesty? Ah, Ivan, lad? Emperor already? How time flies!_


_Yes, Uncle. I_m phoning you because__ A thought struck the Emperor. _Are you up and about?_


_Yes, ahuhuhum. I_m, ah, in my bath chair. It_s my old legs, you know. They_re awfully fragile. Got to 
wrap them up in lots of blankets in case they shatter. They don_t blow legs the way they used to, when I 
was a lad. But I_m out of bed now._


_Oh, good. You see, um__ The Emperor_s brain went into a wheel-spin as he considered and 
reconsidered the options. He_d heard, of course, about the Admiral_s indisposition, but he hadn_t 
actually encountered it directly until now. A strong case could be made, he supposed, for dismissing the 
Admiral; the man was patently ill. Charging him with this duty would be unfair, and more importantly, 
not in the best interests of the state.


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But he was still the senior fighting admiral, war hero of the New Republic, defender of the empire, 
slaughterer of the infidels, conqueror of no less than three bucolic and rather backward colony worlds_
and, not to put too much of a point on it, the Emperor_s uncle by way of his grandfather_s second 
mistress. Because of the long-standing tradition that admirals never retired, nobody had ever thought to 
make provisions for pensioning off old warhorses; they usually died long before it became an issue. To 
dismiss him was unthinkable, but to expect him to lead a naval expedition_Ivan struggled with his 
conscience, half hoping that the old man would turn it down. No dishonor would accrue_nobody 
expected an octogenarian in a bath chair to die for the fatherland_and meantime they_d find a hard-
headed young whippersnapper to lead the fleet into battle.


Coming to a decision, the Emperor took a deep breath. _We have a problem. Something abominable has 
happened, and Rochard_s World is under siege. I_m going to send the fleet. Are you too ill to lead it?_ 
He winked at his brother the Duke, hoping_


_War!_ The old man_s bellow nearly deafened Ivan. _Victory to the everlastingly vigilant forces of 
righteousness waging unceasing struggle on enemies of the New Conservatives! Death to the proponents 
of change! A thousand tortures to the detractors of the Emperor! Where are the bastards? Let me at 
them!_ The clattering in the background might have been the sound of a walking frame being cast aside.


Duke Michael grimaced unhappily at his brother. _Well I suppose that answers one question,_ he 
mouthed. _I_m not going to say I told you so, but who are we going to send to push his wheelchair?_ 
New Prague was only a thousand kilometers north of the equator (this planet being notoriously cold for a 
water-belt terraform) and the train pulled into the Klamovka station shortly after lunchtime. Martin 
disembarked and hailed a cab to the naval depot at the foot of the beanstalk, pointedly ignoring Rachel_
or whatever her real name was. Let her make her own way: she was an unwelcome, potentially 
disastrous complication in his life right now.


The beanstalk loomed over the military depot like the ultimate flagpole; four tapered cones of 
diamondoid polymers stretching all the way to geosynchronous orbit and a bit beyond, a radical 
exception to the New Republic_s limitations on technology. Bronzed, bullet-nosed elevator carriages 
skimmed up and down the elevator cables, taking a whole night to make the journey. Here there was no 
fin-de-sidcle ambience: just rugged functionality, sleeping capsules manufactured to a template designed 
for Kobe_s ancient salarymen, and a stringent weight limit. (Gravity modification, although available, 
was another of the technologies that the New Republic shunned_at least, for non-military purposes.) 
Martin hurried aboard the first available pod and, to his relief, saw no sign of Rachel.


Upon arrival, he disembarked into the military sector of the space station, presented himself to the 
warrant officer_s checkpoint, and was ushered straight through a crude security scan that probably 
exceeded his annual allowed dose of X-rays in one go. There was one bad moment when a master 
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sergeant asked him to demonstrate his PA, but the explanation_that it was a personal assist, that it 
stored all his working notes, and that he_d be unable to cope without it_was accepted. After which he 
cooled his heels for half an hour in a spartan guardroom painted institutional green.


Eventually a rating came to collect him. _You_d be the engine man?_ said the flyer. _We been waiting 
for you._


Martin sighed unhappily. _And I_ve been waiting, too._ He stood up. _Take me to your CO._


The New Republic had paid Mikoyan-Guerevitch-Kvaerner back on Luna to design them a battlecruiser 
fit to bear the name of their Navy_s founder: one that looked the way a warship ought to look, not like a 
cubist_s vision of a rabies virus crossed with a soft drink can (as most real warships did). Style imposed 
strictures on functionality: despite which, it was still worthy of a degree of respect_you could be killed 
by its baroque missile batteries and phased-array lasers just as surely as by a more modern weapon. 
Besides, it looked good, which had enabled MiG to make a killing selling knockoffs to gullible juntas 
everywhere, demonstrating the importance of being Ernst as the marketing department put it.


In Martin_s opinion, the Lord Vanek was cut from the same comic-opera fabric as the rest of the New 
Republic_a comic opera that was far less funny once it had you in its jaws. The ceremonials, flags and 
Imperial logos splashed across every available surface, the uniformed flunkies, and elaborate pyramid of 
military etiquette, all suggested to Martin that taking this job had not been a good idea: the gibbeted 
dissidents hanging from the eaves of the Basilisk had confirmed it. Right now, he_d happily repay his 
entire fee just to be allowed to go home_were it not for the call of duty.


After a confusing tour of the station_s docking facilities and the warship_s transit tubes, he fetched up in 
the doorway of a crowded, red-lit, octagonal space, maintained in zero gee by a local relaxation of the 
laws of physics. A squat, balding engineering officer was bawling out a frightened-looking teenager in 
front of an open access panel. _That_s the last bloody time you touch anything without asking me or 
Chief Otcenasek first, you bumbling numb-fingered oaf! See that panel? That_s the backup master bus 
arbitration exchange, there. And that__ he pointed at another, closed panel__is the backup master 
circuit breaker box, which is what chief told you to check out. That switch you were about to throw_


Martin saw where the officer_s finger was pointing and winced. If some idiot conscript did something 
like that to him, he reflected, he probably wouldn_t stop at threatening to strangle him with his own 
intestines. Although if the idiot had started playing with the MBAX, strangling him would be redundant: 
it didn_t usually have much effect on a charred corpse.


_Engineering Commander Krupkin?_ he asked.


_Yes? Who? Oh. You must be the shipyard mechanic?_ Krupkin turned toward him, leaving the hapless 
rating to scramble for cover. _You_re late._
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_Blame the Curator_s Office,_ snapped Martin. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. 
_I_m sorry. I_ve had a bad week. What can I do for you?_


_Secret state police, hmm? Won_t get many of those around here,_ Krupkin grunted, abruptly 
conciliatory. _You know something about this toy box, then?_


_MiG sells them. You keep them running. People break them. I fix them. Is that what you wanted to 
know?_


_That_s a good start._ Krupkin suddenly grinned. _So let_s try another question. What do you know 
about preferential-frame clock-skew baseline compensators? Specifically, this model K-340, as currently 
configured. Tell me everything you can see about how it_s set up._


Martin spent the next hour telling him all the different ways it was out of alignment. After that, Krupkin 
showed him a real K-340, not a bodged test article. And then it was time for a working lunch while 
Krupkin picked his brains, and then a long working afternoon figuring out where everything went and 
going over change orders to make sure everything was where the paperwork said it was supposed to be. 
And then back to base for the evening& 
Rachel Mansour stood naked in the middle of the handwoven rug that covered the floor of the hotel 
room she had rented two hours earlier, in the naval port city of Klam-ovka: even though it was 
expensive, it smelled of damp and dry rot, carbolic soap and firewood. She breathed slowly and evenly 
as she stretched arms and legs in ritual sequence, limbering up. The curtains were drawn, the door 
locked, and her sensors stationed outside to warn her of intruders: for she was not inclined to explain her 
state to any hotel staff who might see it.


Rachel was not inclined to explain a lot of things to the people she moved among. The New Republic 
filled her with a bitter, hopeless anger_one which she recognized, understood to be a poor reflection on 
her professionalism, but nevertheless couldn_t set aside. The sheer waste of human potential that was the 
New Republic_s raison d_etre offended her sensibilities as badly as a public book-burning, or a massacre 
of innocents.


The New Republic was 250 years old, 250 light-years from Earth. When the Eschaton had relocated 
nine-tenths of Earth_s population via wormhole_for reasons it hadn_t deigned to explain_it had sorted 
some of them on the basis of ethnic or social or psychological affinity. The New Republic had picked up 
a mixed bag of East-European technorejectionists and royalists, hankering for the comforting certainties 
of an earlier century.


The founders of the New Republic had suffered at the hands of impersonal technological change. In the 
market-oriented democracies of pre-Singularity Earth, they_d seen people cast by their millions on the 
scrap heap of history. Given a new world to tame, and the tools to do it with, they had immediately 
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established a conservative social order. A generation later, a vicious civil war broke out between those 
who wanted to continue using the cornucopia machines_self-replicating nano-assembler factories able 
to manufacture any physical goods_and those who wanted to switch to a simpler way of life where 
everybody knew their place and there was a place for everyone. The progressives lost: and so the New 
Republic remained for a century, growing into its natural shape_ Europe as it might have been during 
the twentieth century, had physics and chemistry been finalized in 1890. The patent offices were closed; 
there were no homes for dreaming relativists here.


Standing naked in the middle of the carpet, she could set it aside for a while. She could ignore the world 
while her implants ran through their regular self-defense practice sequence. It started with breathing 
exercises, then the isometric contraction of muscle groups under the direction of her battle management 
system, then finally a blur of motion as the embedded neural network controllers took over, whirling her 
body like a marionette through a series of martial arts exercises. A ten-minute cycle performed twice a 
week kept her as ready for personal defense as an unaugmented adept who spent an hour or more every 
day.


Whirling and jerking on invisible strings she threw and dismembered intangible demons; it was no great 
effort to project her frustrations and anger onto them. This for the blind beggar she had passed in the 
street, his affliction curable in a culture that didn_t ban most advanced medical practices. That for the 
peasants bound to the soil they tilled by a law that saw them as part of the land, rather than as human 
beings. This for the women condemned to die giving birth to unwanted children. That for the priests who 
pandered to the prejudices of the ruling elite and offered their people the false consolation of the 
hereafter, when most of the horrors that besieged them had long since been banished from the civilized 
worlds. And this and this and that for treating her like a third-class citizen. Anger demanded many kata.


I do not want this world. I do not like this world. I do not need this world, I do not need to feel 
sympathetic for this world or its inhabitants. If only they did not need me&


There was a small bathroom next door_an expensive extra in this society. She used it to clean herself as 
efficiently as possible, sweat and grime washing away like memories. And some of the pessimism went 
with it. Things around here are going to get better, she reminded herself. That_s what I_m here for.


Once dry, she wandered back into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. Then she picked up 
her battered PA. _Get me the UN Consensus Ambassador,_ she ordered. There was only one UN 
ambassador in the New Republic; George Cho, permanent representative of the Security Council, to 
which she was ultimately answerable. (The New Republic persistently refused to recognize any of 
Earth_s more subtle political institutions.)


_Processing. Beep. Rachel, I_m sorry, but I_m not available right now. Waiting for information to 
become available about the incident at Rochard_s. If you_d like to leave a message after the tone& 
beep._
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_Hi, George. Rachel here. Calling from Klamovka. Give me a call back; I think I ought to go public, and 
I want diplomatic backup. Let_s talk. Message ends._


She closed the PA and put it down again. Stared moodily at the dresser. Her costume (she found it hard 
to think of it as regular clothing, even after months of wearing it daily) lay heaped around the dressing 
table. There were visits to make, forms to be observed, before she could act openly. Fuck this for a game 
of soldiers, she thought. Living by the New Republic_s rules had gotten old fast. I need some civilized 
company before I go out of my skull. Speaking of which, there was that engineering contractor to call. A 
bit of a cold fish, and not very cooperative, but she be damned if she_d let him throw her off; she could 
probably dig more out of him in an hour over a restaurant table than she_d be able to get from the 
Admiralty office in a month of diplomatic cocktail parties and formal memoranda.


She picked up the PA again. _PA, page engineer Springfield_s voice mail for me. Speech only. I have a 
message for him. Message begins&_ 
George Cho, Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the United Nations Security Council to the court of His 
Imperial Majesty, Emperor Ivan Hasek in (by grace of God, et cetera), sweated under his high collar and 
nodded politely. _Yes, Your Excellency, I quite understand your point. Nevertheless, although the 
territory in dispute is annexed to the New Republic, I must state again that we believe the situation falls 
within our remit, if only because it is not a purely domestic affair_ unless this Festival is some peculiar 
tradition of yours that I have not hitherto been apprised of?_and consequently, the ugly matter of 
Clause Nineteen rears its head again._


His Excellency the Archduke Michael Hasek shook his head. _We cannot accept that,_ he stated. He 
stared at Cho from watery but piercing blue eyes. Bloody foreign busybod-ies, he thought. Not that Cho 
was a bad sort, for a degenerate Terran anarchist technophiliac. He reminded Michael of a bloodhound; 
baggy-eyed, jowly, perpetually sad-looking, and a mind like a spring-steel trap.


George Cho sighed and leaned back in his chair. He stared past the Archduke, at the portrait of the 
Duke_s father that hung on the wall. Emperor at forty, dead of old age at sixty, Emperor Hasek II: 
something of a prodigy, a force for progress in an insanely conservative milieu. The man had pulled the 
New Republic far enough out of its shell to acquire a navy and colonize three or four utterly benighted 
backwaters. A good student of history. Dangerous.


_I notice you looking at my father. He was a very stiff-necked man. It_s a trait that runs in the family,_ 
Michael observed wryly. _We don_t like outsiders sticking their noses into our affairs. Maybe this is 
short-sighted of us, but__ He shrugged.


_Ah._ Cho brought his eyes back to the Duke. _Yes, of course. However, I am wondering if perhaps the 
advantages of UN involvement haven_t been made clear to you? I believe we have quite a lot to offer; I 
wouldn_t dream of approaching you about this if I didn_t think you could benefit from it._
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_There are benefits and there are side-effects. Did you have anything specific in mind?_ Michael leaned 
forward.


_As a matter of fact& yes. It comes back to Clause Nineteen; the injunction against use of causality-
violation weapons. _Whosoever shall cause to be deployed a weapon capable of disrupting the et cetera 
shall be guilty of a crime against humanity and subject to the internationally agreed penalties for that 
offense._ We know perfectly well that you wouldn_t dream of using such weapons against one of your 
own worlds. But we have insufficient evidence about the intentions of the, ah, aggressor party, this 
Festival. There_s a marked shortage of information about them, which is in itself worrying. What I_m 
suggesting is that it might be advantageous to you to have independent observers from the UN in train 
with your expedition, to rebut any accusations that the New Republic is committing crimes against 
humanity and to act as witnesses in the event that your forces are themselves attacked in such a manner._


_Aha._ Michael gritted his teeth and smiled at the ambassador. _And what makes you think there_s an 
expedition?_


It was Cho_s turn to smile: tiredly, for he had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours at this point, 
collating intelligence reports, monitoring media, and trying to put together the big picture single-
handedly_the New Republic had strictly limited the size of his diplomatic staff. _Come, Your 
Excellency, are we to believe that the New Republic will allow an insult to its honor, let alone its 
territorial integrity, to stand without response? Some sort of reaction is inevitable. And given the loss of 
your Navy_s local presence, and the increased state of alert and heavy engineering activity around your 
bases at Klamovka, Libau, and V-l, a naval expedition seems likely. Or were you planning to get your 
soldiers there by ordering them to click their heels three times while saying _there_s no place like 
home_?_


Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, attempting to cover his frown. _I can neither confirm nor deny 
that we are considering naval action at this time._


Cho nodded. _Of course._


_However. Do you know anything about this Festival? Or what has been going on at Rochard_s World?_


_Surprisingly little. You_ve been keeping a lid on whatever_s going on_not very subtly, I_m afraid, the 
dispatches from the Fourth Guards Division_s desperate defense of the colonial capital would be more 
convincing if the Fourth Guards_ relocation from New Prague to Baikal Four hadn_t been mentioned in 
dispatches a month ago. But you_re not the only people keeping the lid on it. My people have been 
unable to unearth any information about this Festival anywhere, which is distinctly worrying. We even 
broadcast a request for help from the Eschaton, but all that came back was a cryptogram saying, _P. T. 
Barnum was right.__ (A cryptogram which had been encoded with a key from a secured UN diplomatic 
onetime pad, the leakage of which had already caused a major security panic.)
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_I wonder who this T. P. Barney was,_ Duke Michael commented. _No matter. The Festival has had an, 
ah, catastrophic impact on Rochard_s World. The economy is in ruins, there_s widespread civil disorder 
and outright rebellion. In fact__ He stared sharply at the ambassador. _You understand what this means 
for the guiding principles of our civilization?_


_I_m here strictly as an ambassador to represent the interests of all UN parties in the New Republic,_ 
Cho stated neutrally. _I_m not here to pass judgment on you. That would be presumptuous._


_Hmm._ Michael glanced down at his blotter.


_It is true that we are considering an expedition,_ said the Archduke. Cho struggled to conceal his 
surprise. _But it will be difficult,_ Michael continued. _The enemy is already well entrenched in the 
destination system. We don_t know where they come from. And if we send a fleet there directly, it may 
well suffer the same fate as the naval squadron on station. We are therefore considering a rather, ah, 
desperate stratagem._


Cho leaned forward. _Sir, if you are contemplating a causality violation, I must advise you__


The Archduke raised a hand. _I assure you, Ambassador, that no global causality violation will take 
place as a result of actions of the New Republican Navy. We have no intention of violating Clause 
Nineteen._ He grimaced. _However, localized causality violations are sometimes permitted within 
tactical situations confined to the immediate light cone of an engagement, are they not? I think that& 
hmm, yes. A UN observer would be able to assure all parties that our own conduct was legal and correct, 
would he not?_


_A UN observer will scrupulously tell the truth,_ Cho stated, sweating slightly.


_Good. In that case, I think we may be able to accommodate your request, if a decision is made to 
prepare a task force. One inspector only, with diplomatic credentials, may accompany the flagship. His 
remit will be to monitor the use of reality-modification weapons by both sides in the conflict and to 
assure the civilized worlds that the New Republic does not engage in gratuitous use of time travel as a 
weapon of mass destruction._


Cho nodded. _I think that would be acceptable. I shall notify Inspector Mansour, who is currently 
staying in Klamovka._


Michael smiled, fleetingly. _Send my secretary a note. I shall pass it to Admiral Kurtz_s staff. I mink I 
can guarantee that he will cooperate to the best of his abilities._ 
Junior Procurator Vassily Muller, of the Curator_s Office, stood in front of the great panoramic window 
that fronted Observation Bay Four and looked out across a gulf of light-years. Stars wheeled past like 



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jewels scattered on a rotating display table. The spin of the huge station created a comfortably low 
semblance of gravity, perhaps eighty percent of normal; immediately outside the double wall of 
synthetic diamond lay the shipyard, where the great cylindrical bulk of a starship hung against a 
backdrop of cosmic beauty.


Shadows fell across the gray cylinder like the edge of eternity, sharp-edged with the unnatural clarity of 
vacuum. Inspection plates hung open at various points along the hull of the ship; disturbingly intestinal 
guts coiled loose, open to the remote manipulator pods that clung to it by many-jointed limbs. It 
resembled a dead, decaying whale being eaten by a swarm of lime green crabs. But it wasn_t dead, 
Vassily realized: it was undergoing surgery.


The ship was like a marathon runner, being overhauled by surgeons in hope of turning him into some 
kind of cyborg prodigy to compete in the ultimate winner-take-all sporting event. The analogy with his 
own, slightly sore head did not escape Vassily: it struck him that the most radical preparation was 
essential for the struggle ahead. He could already feel the new connections, like a ghost of an undefined 
limb, firming up somewhere just beyond the edge of his perceptions. Another three days, the medic had 
assured him in the morning, and he_d find himself able to start training the cranial jack. They_d given 
him a briefcase full of instructions, a small and highly illegal (not to say horrifically expensive) tool kit, 
and a priority travel pass to the orbital station on an Air Defense shuttle, bypassing the slow space 
elevator.


_Procurator Muller, I presume?_ He turned. A trim-looking fellow in the pale green uniform of His 
Majesty_s Navy, a lieutenant_s rings on his cuffs. He saluted. _At ease. I_m Second Lieutenant Sauer, 
shipboard security officer for the Lord Vanek. Is this your first time up here?_


Vassily nodded, too tongue-tied to articulate a response. Sauer turned to face the window. _Impressive, 
isn_t she?_


_Yes!_ The sight of the huge warship brought a great wave of pride to his chest: his people owned and 
flew such ships. _My stepbrother is on one of them, a sister ship_the Skvosty._


_Oh, very good, very good indeed. Has he been there long?_


_Three_three years. He is second fire control officer. A lieutenant, like yourself._


_Ah._ Sauer tipped his head on one side and regarded Vassily with a brightly focused gaze. _Excellent. 
But tell me, how good is this ship, really? How powerful do you think it is?_


Vassily shook his head, still dazzled by his first sight of the warship. _I can_t imagine anything grander 
than a ship like that one! How can anyone build better?_


Sauer looked amused. _You are a detective, and not a cosmonaut,_ he said. _If you had been to naval 



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college, you would be aware of some of the possibilities. Let us just say, for the moment, that they 
wouldn_t have named it after old Ernst Ironsides if it wasn_t the best ship we_ve got_but not everyone 
plays by the same rules as we do. I suppose it_s only fair, then, for us to play a different game_which is 
of course precisely why you are here and we are having this conversation. You want to protect that ship, 
and the Republic, don_t you?_


Vassily nodded eagerly. _Yes. Did my CO let you know why I_m here?_


_I have a full briefing. We take anything that might compromise shipboard security extremely seriously; 
you won_t be able to work in restricted areas, but as far as I_m concerned, you_re welcome to go 
anywhere that isn_t controlled_and by arrangement, I_m sure we can help you keep an eye on your yard-
ape. To tell the truth, it_s good for us that you are available for this duty. We have more than enough 
other problems to keep track of without stalking contractors on the job, and as long as the problem gets 
wrapped up satisfactorily in the end, who cares whose turf is turned over, eh?_


At this point, Vassily realized that something odd was going on, but being inexperienced, he didn_t 
know quite what could be the matter. Nor did he want to push Sauer, at least not this soon in their 
acquaintance. _Can you show me where Springfield is working?_


_Unfortunately__Sauer spread his hands__Springfield is actually on board at this very minute. You 
realize that he is working on the interstellar propulsion system itself?_


_Oh._ Vassily_s mouth made a round _O._ _You mean I_ll have to go aboard?_


_I mean you can_t go aboard_not until you_ve been checked out by medical, received security 
clearance, gone to three orientation briefings, and been approved by the old man_which won_t be until 
tomorrow at the earliest. So, for the time being, I had better show you to the transient officers_ quarters_
you have the same privileges as a midshipman while you are on Admiralty turf._


_That would be great,_ Vassily agreed earnestly. _If you_d lead the way& ?_
Meanwhile, the first of the Festival_s entourage of Critics was arriving in orbit around Rochard_s World.


Once part of a human civilization that had transmigrated into its own computing network, the Festival 
was a traveling embassy, a nexus for the exchange of cultural information between stars. It was 
primarily interested in other upload cultures, but anyone would do at a pinch. It had zigged and zagged 
its way through the sphere of inhabited worlds for a thousand t-years, working its way inward from the 
periphery, and all the time it had asked only one thing of its willing or unwilling hosts: Entertain us!


The Festival was sharply constrained by the density of information that could be crammed into the tiny 
starwisps that carried it across the interstellar gulf. Unlike a normal upload civilization, the Festival 



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couldn_t manufacture its own reality with sufficient verisimilitude to avoid the normal hazards of life in 
a virtual universe; it was a desert plant, existing as a seed for years at a time between frantic growth 
spurts when the correct conditions arose.


Like most circus caravans, the Festival accumulated hitchhikers, hangers-on, and a general fringe of 
camp followers and parasites. There was room for millions of passengers in the frozen mind-cores of the 
starwisps, but no room for them to think between stations. Trueminds aestivated during the decade-long 
hops between planetary civilizations; simple, subsentient supervisors kept the starwisps on course and 
ran the autonomic systems. On arrival, the servitors built the necessary infrastructure to thaw and load 
the trueminds. Once contact had been achieved and a course of action decided upon, any residual 
capacity would be made available to the passengers, including the Critics.


A foam of diamond was growing in orbit around Sputnik, the outer moon of Rochard_s World. Strange 
emulsions stirred within some of the bubbles, a boiling soup of nanomachine-catalyzed chemical 
reactions. Other bubbles faded to black, soaking up sunlight with near-total efficiency. A steady stream 
of tanks drifted toward the foam on chaotic orbits, ejecta from the mining plants in the outer system. 
Within the bubbles, incarnate life congealed, cells assembled by machine rather than the natural cycle of 
mitosis and differentiation. Thousands of seconds passed, an aeon to the productive assemblers: 
skeletons appeared, first as lacy outlines and then as baroque coral outcroppings afloat in the central 
placentory bubbles. Blood, tissues, teeth, and organs began to congeal in place as the nano-assemblers 
pumped synthetic enzymes, DNA, ribosomes, and other cellular machinery into the lipid vesicles that 
were due to become living cells.


Presently, the Critics_ bodies began to twitch.
The Spacelike Horizon 


The door to the study opened and a liveried footman entered. _Commodore Bauer to see the admiral,_ he 
announced.


_Sh-show him in, then!_


Commodore Bauer entered the Admiral_s study and saluted. Seated behind an imposing hardwood desk 
in the center of the huge room (paneled in ferociously expensive imported hardwoods, with raw silk 
curtains and not a little gold leaf on the cornices), the admiral looked tiny: a wizened turtle sporting a 
walrus moustache, adrift on a sea of blue-and-silver carpet. Nevertheless, he was in good condition 
today, wearing his uniform, resplendent with decorations and ribbons, and seated in a real chair.


_Commmmmander. Welcome. Please be seated._
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Commodore Bauer walked toward the desk and took the indicated chair.


_And how is your father these days? It_s_it_s a while since I saw him._


_He_s very well sir._ At least as well as he could be, considering he died four years ago. Bauer looked at 
his superior sadly. Once the sharpest saber in the New Republic_s arsenal, Rear Admiral Kurtz was 
rusting at a terrifying rate: they must already be planning the funeral. He still had periods of lucid-ity, 
sometimes quite extended ones, but forcing him to go on this expedition_and no officer could 
realistically refuse a royal commission and expect to continue to hold his post_ was positively cruel; 
surely His Majesty must have known about his state? _May I ask why you summoned me, sir?_


_Ah_ah_ah, yes._ The Admiral jerked as if someone had just administered an electric shock to him. 
Suddenly his expression tightened. _I must apologize, Commodore: I have too many vague moments. I 
wanted to discuss the flisposition of the_I mean, the disposition_the fleet. Obviously you will be in 
day-to-day command of the task force, and in overall tactical command once it arrives at Rochard_s 
World. The matter of planning, however, is one to which I feel I can make a contribution._ A wan smile 
flitted across his face. _Do you agree with this?_


_Ah, yes, sir._ Bauer nodded, slightly encouraged. The grand old man might be drifting into senility, but 
he was still razor-sharp during his better moments: if he was willing to sit back and let Bauer do most of 
the driving, perhaps things might work out. (As long as he remembered who Bauer was, the commodore 
reminded himself.) They_d worked together before: Bauer had been a junior lieutenant under captain 
Kurtz during the Invasion of Thermidor, and had a keen respect for his intellect, not to mention his 
dogged refusal to back down in the face of heavy opposition. _I was led to believe that the General Staff 
Directorate has some unusual plans for lifting the siege; is this what you have in mind?_


_Yes._ Admiral Kurtz pointed at a red leather folder lying on his desk. _Contingency Omega. I had a ha-
hand in the first paper, ten years ago, but I fear younger minds will have to refine it into a plan of attack._


_Contingency Omega._ Bauer paused. _Wasn_t that shelved, because of, ah, legal concerns?_


_Yes._ Kurtz nodded. _But only as a plan of att-att-attack. We are not allowed to fly closed timelike 
paths_use faster-than-light travel to arrive before war breaks out. Leads to all_ all_sorts of bother. 
Neighbors say God doesn_t like it. Blithering nonsense if you ask me. But we_ve already been attacked. 
They came to us. So we can arrive in our own past, but after the attack began: I must confess, I think it is 
a bit of a pathetic excuse, but there we are. Contingency Omega it is._


_Oh._ Bauer reached toward the red folder. _May I?_


_Cer-certainly._


The Commodore began to read.



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Accelerating to speeds faster than light was, of course, impossible. General relativity had made that clear 
enough back in the twentieth century. However, since then a number of ways of circumventing the speed 
limit had turned up; by now, there were at least six different known methods of moving mass or 
information from A to B without going through c.


A couple of these techniques relied on quantum trickery, strange hacks involving Bose-Einstein 
condensates to flip bits in quantum dots separated by light-years; as with the causal channel, the 
entangled dots had to be pulled apart at slower-than-light speeds, making them fine for communication 
but useless for transporting bodies. Some of them_like the Escha-ton_s wormholes_were inexplicable, 
relying on principles no human physicist had yet discovered. But two of them were viable propulsion 
systems for spaceships; the Linde-Alcubierre expansion reciprocal, and the jump drive. The former set 
up a wave of expansion and contraction in the space behind and in front of the ship: it was peerlessly 
elegant, and more than somewhat dangerous_a spacecraft trying to navigate through the dense 
manifold of space-time ran the risk of being blown apart by a stray dust grain.


The jump drive was, to say the least, more reliable, barring a few quirks. A spaceship equipped with it 
would accelerate out from the nearest star_s gravity well. Identifying a point of equipotential flat space-
time near the target star, the ship would light up the drive field generator, and the entire spaceship could 
then tunnel between the two points without ever actually being between them. (Assuming, of course, 
that the target star was more or less in the same place and the same state that it appeared to be when the 
starship lit off its drive field_if it wasn_t, nobody would ever see that ship again.)


But the jump drive had huge problems for the military. For one thing, it only worked in flat space-time, 
a very long way out from stars or planets, which meant you had to arrive some way out, which in turn 
meant that anyone you were attacking could see you coming. For another thing, it didn_t have a very 
long range. The farther you tried to jump, the higher the probability that conditions at your destination 
point weren_t what you were expecting, creating more work for the loss adjusters. Most seriously, it 
created a tunnel between equipotential points in space-time. Miscalculate a jump and you could find 
yourself in the absolute past, relative to both your starting point and the destination. You might not know 
it until you went home, but you_d just violated causality. And the Escha-ton had a serious problem with 
people who did that.


This was why Contingency Omega was one of the more sensitive documents in the New Republican 
Navy_s war plan library. Contingency Omega discussed possible ways and means of using causality 
violation_time travel within the preferred reference frame_for strategic advantage. Rochard_s World 
was a good forty light-years from New Austria; normally that meant five to eight jumps, a fairly serious 
journey lasting three or four weeks. Now, in time of war, the direct approach zones from New Austria 
could be presumed to be under guard. Any attack fleet would have to jump around the Queen_s Head 
Nebula, an effectively impassable cloud within which three or four protostellar objects were forming. 
And to exercise Contingency Omega_delicately balancing their arrival time against the receipt of the 
first distress signal from Rochard_s World, so that no absolute causality violation would take place but 



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their arrival would take their enemies by surprise_well, that would add even more jumps, taking them 
deep into their own future light cone before looping back into the past, just inside the spacelike event 
horizon.


It was, Bauer realized, going to be the longest-range military operation in the history of the New 
Republic. And_God help him_it was his job to make sure it worked.
Burya Rubenstein whacked on the crude log table with a worn-out felt boot. _Silence!_ he yelled. 
Nobody paid any attention; annoyed, he pulled out the compact pistol the trade machine had fabricated 
for him and fired into the ceiling. It only buzzed quietly, but the resulting fall of plaster dust got 
everybody_s attention. In the midst of all the choking and coughing, he barked, _Committee will come to 
order!_


_Why should we?_ demanded a heckler at the back of the packed beer hall.


_Because if you don_t shut up and let me talk, you_ll have to answer to Politovsky and his dragoons. The 
worst I_ll do to you is shoot you_if the Duke gets his hands on you, you might have to work for a 
living!_ Laughter. _His living. What we_ve got here is an unprecedented opportunity to cast off the 
shackles of economic slavery that bind us to soil and factory, and bring about an age of enlightened 
social mobility in which we are free to better ourselves, contribute to the common good, and learn to 
work smarter and live faster. But, comrades, the forces of reaction are ruthless and vigilant; even now a 
Navy shuttle is ferrying soldiers to Outer Chelm, which they plan to take and turn into a strongpoint 
against us._


Oleg Timoshevski stood up with an impressive whining and clanking. _No worries! We_ll smash _em!_ 
He waved his left arm in the air, and his fist morphed into the unmistakable shape of a gun launcher. 
Having leapt into the pool of available personal augmentation techniques with the exuberance of the 
born cyborg, he could pose as a poster for the Transhu-manist Front, or even the Space and Freedom 
Party.


_That_s enough, Oleg._ Burya glared at him, then turned back to the audience. _We can_t afford to win 
this by violence,_ he stressed. _In the short term, that may be tempting, but it will only serve to discredit 
us with the masses, and tradition tells us that, without the masses on our side, there can be no revolution. 
We have to prove that the forces of reaction corrode before our peace-loving forces for enterprise and 
progress without the need for repression_or ultimately all we will succeed in doing is supplanting those 
forces, and in so doing become indistinguishable from them. Is that what you want?_


_No! Yes! NO!_ He winced at the furor that washed across the large room. The delegates were 
becoming exuberant, inflated with a sense of their own irresistible destiny, and far too much free wheat 
beer and vodka. (It might be synthetic, but it was indistinguishable from the real thing.)
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_Comrades!_ A fair-haired man, middle-aged and of sallow complexion, stood inside the main door to 
the hall. _Your at-tention please! Reactionary echelons of the imperialist junta are moving to encircle the 
Northern Parade Field! The free market is in danger!_


_Oh bugger,_ muttered Marcus Wolff.


_Go see to it, will you?_ Burya asked. _Take Oleg, get him out of my hair, and I_ll hold the fort here. Try 
to find something for Jaroslav to do while you_re about it_he can juggle or fire his water pistol at the 
soldiers or something; I can_t do with him getting underfoot._


_Will do that, boss. Are you serious about, uh, not breaking heads?_


_Am I serious?_ Rubenstein shrugged. _I_d rather we didn_t go nuclear, but feel free to do anything 
necessary to gain the upper hand_as long as we keep the moral high ground. If possible. We don_t need 
a fight now; it_s too early. Hold off for a week, and the guards will be deserting like rats leaving a 
sinking ship. Just try to divert them for now. I_ve got a communique to issue which ought to put the cat 
among the pigeons with the lackeys of the ruling class._


Wolff stood and walked around to Timoshevski_s table. _Oleg, come with me. We have a job to do._ 
Burya barely noticed: he was engrossed, nose down in the manual of a word processor that the horn of 
plenty had dropped in his lap. After spending his whole life writing longhand or using a laborious 
manual typewriter, this was altogether too much like black magic, he reflected. If only he could figure 
out how to get it to count the number of words in a paragraph, he_d be happy: but without being able to 
cast off, how could he possibly work out how much lead type would be needed to fill a column properly?


The revolutionary congress had been bottled up in the old Corn Exchange for three days now. Bizarre 
growths like black metal ferns had colonized the roof, turning sunlight and atmospheric pollution into 
electricity and brightly colored plastic cutlery. Godunov, who was supposed to be in charge of catering, 
had complained bitterly at the lack of tableware (as if any true revolutionary would bother with such 
trivia) until Misha, who had gotten much deeper into direct brain interfaces than even Oleg, twitched his 
nose and instructed the things on the roof to start producing implements. Then Misha went away on 
some errand, and nobody could turn the spork factory off. Luckily there seemed to be no shortage of 
food, munitions, or anything else for that matter: it seemed that Burya_s bluff had convinced the Duke 
that the democratic soviet really did have nuclear weapons, and for the time being the dragoons were 
steering well clear of the yellow brick edifice at the far end of Freedom Square.


_Burya! Come quickly! Trouble at the gates!_


Rubenstein looked up from his draft proclamation. _What is it?_ he snapped. _Speak clearly!_


The comrade (Petrov, wasn_t that his name?) skidded to a halt in front of his desk. _Soldiers,_ he gasped.
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_Aha._ Burya stood. _Are they shooting yet? No? Then I will talk to them._ He stretched, trying to ease 
the stiffness from his aching muscles and blinking away tiredness. _Take me to them._


A small crowd was milling around the gates to the Corn Exchange. Peasant women with head scarves, 
workers from the ironworks on the far side of town_idle since their entire factory had been replaced by 
a miraculous, almost organic robot complex that was still extending itself_even a few gaunt, shaven-
headed zeks from the corrective labor camp behind the castle: all milling around a small clump of 
frightened-looking soldiers. _What is going on?_ demanded Rubenstein.


_These men, they say__


_Let them speak for themselves._ Burya pointed to the one nearest the gate. _You. You aren_t shooting 
at us, so why are you here, comrade?_


_I, uh,_ the trooper paused, looking puzzled.


_We_s sick of being pushed around by them aristocrats, that_s wot,_ said his neighbor, a beanpole-
shaped man with a sallow complexion and a tall fur hat that most certainly wasn_t standard-issue 
uniform. _Them royalist parasite bastids, they_s locked up in _em_s castle drinking champagne and 
_specting us to die keeping _em safe. While out here all _uns enjoying themselves and it_s like the end of 
the regime, like? I mean, wot_s going on? Has true libertarianism arrived yet?_


_Welcome, comrades!_ Burya opened his arms toward the soldier. _Yes, it is true! With help from our 
allies of the Festival, the iron hand of the reactionary junta is about to be over-thrown for all time! The 
new economy is being born; the marginal cost of production has been abolished, and from now on, if 
any item is produced once, it can be replicated infinitely. From each according to his imagination, to 
each according to his needs! Join us, or better still, bring your fellow soldiers and workers to join us!_


There was a sharp bang from the roof of the Corn Exchange, right at the climax of his impromptu 
speech; heads turned in alarm. Something had broken inside the spork factory and a stream of rainbow-
hued plastic implements foun-tained toward the sky and clattered to the cobblestones on every side, like 
a harbinger of the postindustrial society to come. Workers and peasants alike stared in open-mouthed 
bewilderment at this astounding display of productivity, then bent to scrabble in the muck for the 
brightly colored sporks of revolution. A volley of shots rang out and Burya Rubenstein raised his hands, 
grinning wildly, to accept the salute of the soldiers from the Skull Hill garrison.
The Evening News bulletin. And now for today_s headlines. The crisis over the invasion of Rochard_s 
World by the so-called Festival continues. Attempts at diplomatic intermediation having been rebuffed, 
it now appears that military action is inevitable. Word from the occupied territory is hard to obtain, but 
to the best of our knowledge, the garrison under Duke Politovsky continue to fight valiantly to defend 
the Imperial standard. Ambassador Al-Haq of Turku said earlier on this program that the government of 
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Turku agreed that the expansionist policies of the so-called Festival represent an intolerable threat to 
peace.


_The woman who chained herself to the railings of the Imperial residence yesterday morning, demanding 
votes and property rights for ladies, has been found to have a long history of mental disorders 
characterized by paranoid hysteria. Leaders of the Mothers_ Union today denied any knowledge of her 
actions and decried them as unfeminine. She is expected to be charged with causing a public disturbance 
later this week.


_Baseless rumors circulating on Old Earth about the Admiralty_s planned rolling series of upgrades to 
our naval capabil-ity caused numerous extraplanetary investment companies to sell stocks short, 
resulting in a plummeting exchange rate and the withdrawal of several insurance companies from the 
New Republic market. No announcement has yet been made by the chairman of the Royal Bank, but 
officials from the chamber of trade are currently drawing up charges against those companies 
participating in the stampede, accusing them of slander and conspiracy to establish a trade cartel using 
the current defense alert as a pretext.


_The four anarchists hanged at Krummhopf Prison today were attended by__


Click.


_I hate this fucking planet,_ Martin whispered, sinking deeper into the porcelain bathtub. It was the only 
good feature of the poky little two-room dockside apartment they_d plugged him into. (The bad features, 
of course, included the likelihood of bugging devices.) He stared at the ceiling, two meters above him, 
trying to ignore the radio news.


The phone rang.


Cursing, Martin hauled himself out of the bath and, dripping, hopped into the living room. _Yes?_ he 
demanded.


_Had a good day?_ A woman_s voice; it took him a second to place it.


_Lousy,_ he said with feeling. And hearing from you doesn_t make it any better, he thought: the idea of 
being sucked into some kind of diplomatic scam didn_t appeal. But the urge to grumble overrode minor 
irritation. _Their list of embargoed technology includes cranial interfaces. It_s all crappy VR immersion 
gloves and keyboards: everything I look at now is covered in purple tesseracts, and my fingers ache._


_Well, it sounds like you_ve had a really good day, compared to mine. Have you had anything to eat 
yet?_


_Not yet._ Suddenly Martin noticed that he was starving, not to mention bored. _Why?_


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_You_re going to like this,_ she said lightly. _I know a reasonable restaurant on C deck, two up and three 
corridors over from security zone gateway five. Can I buy you dinner?_


Martin thought for a moment. Normally he_d have refused, seeking some way to avoid contact with the 
UN diplomatic spook. But he was hungry; and not just for food. The casual invitation reminded him of 
home, of a place where people were able to talk freely. The lure of company drew him out, and after 
dressing, he followed her directions, trying not to think too deeply about it.


The visiting officers_ quarters were outside the security zone of the base, but there was still a checkpoint 
to pass through before he reached the airlock to the civilian sections of the station. Outside the 
checkpoint, he stepped into a main corridor. It curved gently to the left, following the interior of the 
station_s circumference: more passages opened off it, as did numerous doorways. He walked around a 
corner and out onto the street__Martin!_ She took his arm. _So pleased to see you!_


She_d changed into a green dress with a tight bodice and long black gloves. Her shoulders and upper 
arms were bare, but for a ribbon around her throat, which struck him as odd; something in his customs 
briefing nagged at his memory. _Pretend you_re pleased to see me,_ she hissed. _Pretend for the 
cameras. You_re taking me out to buy me dinner. And call me Ludmilla in public._


_Certainly._ He forced a smile. _My dear! How nice to see you!_ He took her arm and tried to follow her 
lead. _Which way?_ he muttered.


_You_re doing fine for an amateur. Third establishment on the right. There_s a table in your name. I_m 
your companion for the night. Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger bit, but you_re being monitored by base 
security, and if I were officially here as me, they_d start asking you questions. It_s much more 
convenient if I_m a woman of easy virtue._


Martin flushed. _I see,_ he said. The penny dropped, finally: in this straitlaced culture, a woman who 
displayed bare skin below her chin was a bit racy, to say the least. Which meant, now he thought about 
it, that the hotel was full of_


_You haven_t used the hotel facilities since you arrived?_ she asked, raising an eyebrow.


Martin shook his head. _I don_t believe in getting arrested in foreign jurisdictions,_ he mumbled to cover 
his discomfort. _And the local customs here are confusing. What do you think of them?_


She squeezed his arm. _No comment,_ she said lightly. _Ladies here aren_t supposed to swear._ She 
gathered her skirts in as he opened the door for her. _Still, I doubt this social order will last many more 
years. They_ve had to invest a lot of energy to maintain the status quo so long._


_You sound like you_re looking forward to its collapsing._ He held out his card to a liveried waiter, who 


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bowed and scurried off into the restaurant.


_I am. Aren_t you?_


Martin sighed quietly. _Now that you come to mention it, I wouldn_t shed any tears. All I want to do is 
get this job over with and go home again._


_I wish my life were that simple. I can_t afford to be angry: I_m supposed to help protect this civilization 
from the consequences of its own stupidity. It_s hard to fix social injustices when the people you_re 
trying to help are all dead._


_Your table, sir,_ said the waiter, reappearing and bowing deeply. Rachel emitted an airheaded giggle; 
Martin followed the waiter, with Rachel in tow behind him.


She kept up the bubbleheaded pose until they were seated in a private booth and had ordered the menu 
of the day. As soon as the waiter disappeared, she dropped it. _You want to know what_s going on, who 
I am, and what this is all about,_ she said quietly. _You also want to know whether you should 
cooperate, and what_s in it for you. Right?_


He nodded, unwilling to open his mouth, wondering how much she knew of his real business.


_Good._ She stared at him soberly. _I take it you already decided not to turn me in to base security. That 
would have been a bad mistake, Martin; if not for you, then for a lot of other people._


He lowered his gaze, staring at the place setting in front of her. Silver cutlery, linen napkin, starched 
tablecloth overflowing on all sides like a waterfall. And Rachel_s breasts. Her dress made it impossible 
to ignore them, even though he tried not to stare: woman of easy virtue, indeed. He settled for looking 
her in the face. _There_s something I don_t understand going on here,_ he said. _What is it?_


_All will be explained. The first thing I_m going to say is, after you hear my pitch, you can walk away 
unless you decide to involve yourself. I mean it; I came on heavily earlier, but really, I don_t want you 
around unless you_re a willing participant. Right now, they think you_re just a loud-mouthed engineer. If 
they look too closely at me__ She paused. Her lips thinned a little. _I_m female. I_ll get precious little 
mercy if they trip over me by accident, but they don_t really think of women as free agents, much less 
defense intelligence specialists, and by this time tomorrow, I should have my diplomatic credentials 
sorted out and be able to go public. Anyway: about what_s going on here. Are you going to get up and 
walk out right now, or do you want in?_


Martin thought for a moment. What should I do ? The solution seemed obvious: _I_ll settle for some 
answers. And dinner. Anything_s better than being locked up in that pesthole of a base._


_Okay._ She leaned back comfortably. _First._ She held up a gloved finger. _What_s going on? That_s 


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actually a bit tricky to say. The UN has no jurisdiction here, but we_ve got enough clout to wreck the 
New Republic_s trade treaties with half their neighbors if the New Republic was, for instance, found to 
be breaking conventions on warfare or application of forbidden technologies._


Martin snorted. _Forbidden tech? Them?_


_Do you really think they_d pass up the chance to steal an edge? The royal family, that is?_


_Hmm._ Martin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. _Okay, so they_re pragmatic rejectionists, is that what 
you_re saying?_


_In a nutshell._ She shrugged. Against his better judgment, Martin found himself staring somewhere 
below her chin: he forced himself to look up. _Our arms limitation arrangements have no authority here, 
but things are different closer to home, and a lot of the New Republic_s trade flows in that direction. 
There_s some recognition: once I get official accreditation, I_ve got diplomatic immunity, if they catch 
me and I live long enough to assert it. Two__she held up another ringer__the arms limitation controls 
are to protect people from provoking intervention by the Eschaton. And they work both ways. As long as 
people stick to boring little things like planet-busting relativistic missiles and nerve gas or whatever, the 
big E doesn_t get involved. But as soon as someone starts poking around the prohibited_for her coming-
out party Daddy gave her an emerald this big!_ She simpered, and Martin stared back, puzzled. Then he 
smiled fixedly as the waiter deposited a bowl of soup in front of him.


The waiter finished up, poured glasses of wine, and disappeared; Rachel pulled a face. _Huh, where was 
I? You wouldn_t believe how fast the girly-girl routine gets tiresome. Having to act like a retarded ten-
year-old all the time& ah yes, the big E. The big E disapproves strongly of people who develop 
autonomous, self-replicating weapons, or causality-violation devices, or a whole slew of other restricted 
tools of mass destruction. Bacteria: out. Gray goo: out. Anything that smacks of self-modifying 
command software: out. Those are all category two forbidden weapons. A planetary civilization starts 
playing with them, sooner or later the big E comes looking, and then it_s an ex-planetary civilization._


Martin nodded, trying to look as if all this was new to him; he nipped his tongue to help resist the 
temptation to correct her last statement. Her engagement with the subject was infectious, and he found it 
hard to keep from contributing from his own knowledge of the field.


Rachel took a mouthful of soup. _The big E can be extremely brutal. We_ve got definite confirmation of 
at least one atypical supernova event about five hundred light-years outside our_the terrestrial_light 
cone. It makes sense if you_re trying to wipe out an exponentially propagating threat, so we figure that_s 
why the Eschaton did it. Anyway, do you agree that it_s bad policy to let the neighbor_s toddler play 
with strategic nukes?_


_Yeah._ Martin nodded. He took a mouthful of soup. _Something like that could really stop you getting 
to claim your on-time completion bonus._



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She narrowed her eyes, then nodded to him. _Sarcasm, yet. How have you kept out of trouble so far?_


_I haven_t._ He put his spoon down. _That_s why, if you don_t mind me saying so, I was worried by your 
approach. I can do without getting myself slung in prison._


Rachel took a breath. _I_m sorry,_ she said. _I don_t know if that_ll go very far with you, but& I mean it. 
I_d just like to put it in a bigger perspective, though. The New Republic is only 250 light-years from 
Earth. If the big E decided to pop the primary here, we_d need to evacuate fifty star systems._ She 
looked uncomfortable. _That_s what this is about. That_s why I had to drag you in._


She looked down and concentrated on her soup bowl with single-minded determination. Martin watched 
her fixedly; his appetite was gone. She had done a robust job of destroying it by reminding him of why 
he was here. His parents, he didn_t much care for, but he had a sister he was fond of on Mars, and too 
many friends and memories to want to hear any more about this. It was easier to watch her eat, to admire 
the flawless blush of the skin on her arms and her dicolletage_he blinked, picked up his wineglass, and 
drained it in one. She looked up, caught him watching, grinned widely_theatrically, even_and licked 
her lips slowly. The effect was too much; he turned away.


_Shit and corruption, man, we_re supposed to look as if you_re buying me dinner as a prelude to taking 
me home and fucking me senseless!_ she said quietly. _Can_t you at least fake some interest?_


_Sorry,_ he said, taken aback; _I_m not an actor. Is that what we_re supposed to look like we_re doing?_


She raised her wineglass: it was empty. _Fill me up. Please._ She looked at him peculiarly; he twitched 
upright then reached out, took the wine bottle, and poured some of its contents into her glass. _I didn_t 
want to put you off your appetite. Besides, you_re the only civilized company for a couple of thousand 
miles._


_I_m a drive engineer,_ he said, wracking his brain for something else to say. What am I getting myself 
into? he wondered desperately. A couple of hours ago he_d been going crazy from boredom and 
loneliness: now an intelligent and attractive woman_who just happened to be a spy_had dragged him 
out to dinner. Something was bound to go wrong, wasn_t it?


_I like working with machines. I like starships. I__ He cleared his throat. _I_m not so good with people._


_And this is a problem?_


_Yeah._ He nodded, then looked at her appraisingly. Her expression was sympathetic. _I keep 
misreading the locals.


Not good. So I holed up in my room and tried to stay out of the way._



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_And now, let me guess, you_re going stir-crazy?_


_After four months of it, that_s one way of putting it._ He took a mouthful of wine. _How about you?_


She breathed deeply. _Not quite the same, but nearly. I_ve got a job to do. I_m supposed to avoid getting 
into trouble. Part of the job is blending in, but it drives you nuts after a bit. Really, doing this face-to-
face isn_t recommended in the rule book, you know? It_d be safer just to drop an earbug off to relay you 
a message._


_And you were._ He smiled faintly. _Stir-crazy._


_Yes._ She grinned. _You too?_


_Anyone waiting for you back home?_ he asked. _Sorry. I mean, is there anyone you_re waiting to get 
back to? Or anyone you can off-load onto? Write letters, or something?_


_Pah._ She frowned, then looked at him. _This isn_t a profession for someone who_s married to anything 
other than their job, Martin. Any more than yours is. If you were married, would you bring your family 
out to somewhere like the New Republic?_


_No. I didn_t mean it like that__


_I know you didn_t._ Her frown dissolved into a thoughtful expression. _Just once in a while, though, 
it_s good to be able to talk freely._


Martin toyed with his wineglass. _Agreed,_ he said with feeling. _I got bitten by that last week._ He 
stopped. She was looking at him oddly, her face stretched into something that might be taken for a smile 
if he couldn_t see her eyes. Which looked worried.


_Smile at me. Yes, that_s fine: now hold on to it. Don_t stop smiling. We_re under surveillance right 
now. Don_t worry about the microphone_that_s taken care of_but there_s a human operative watching 
us from the other side of the restaurant. Try to look like you want to take me home and fuck me. 
Otherwise, he_s going to wonder what we_re doing here._ She simpered at him, smiling broadly. _Do 
you think I_m pretty?_ Her idiot grin was a mask: she inspected him from behind it.


_Yes__ He stared at her, hoping he looked adequately besotted. _I think you_re very pretty._ In the way 
that only a good diet and high-end medical care could deliver. He tried to smile wider. _Uh. Actually. 
Handsome and determined is more like it._ Her smile acquired a slightly glassy edge.


Somewhere in the middle of the duel of the smiles, the waiter arrived and removed their bowls, 
replacing them with a main course.


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_Oh, that looks good._ She relaxed slightly as she picked up her knife and fork. _Hmm. Don_t look 
around, but our shadow is looking away. You know something? You_re too much of a gentleman for 
your own good. Most of the men in this joint would have tried to grope me by now. It goes with the 
territory._


_After about fifty or sixty years, most men learn to stop worrying that it_ll go away if they don_t grab for 
it with both hands. Trouble is, with no antiaging treatments here__ He looked uncomfortable.


_Yeah, and I appreciate it._ She smiled back. _Anyone ever tell you you_re cute when you grin? I_ve 
spent so long in this dump that I_ve forgotten what an honest smile looks like, let alone how it feels to be 
able to talk like a mature adult. Anyway&_ he started. Her toe had just stroked the inside of his left leg. 
_I think I like you,_ she said quietly.


Martin paused a moment, then nodded soberly. _Consider me charmed._


_Really?_ She grinned and slid her toe higher.


His breath caught. _Don_t! You_ll cause a scandal!_ He glanced around in mock horror. _I hope 
nobody_s watching._


_No chance, that_s what the tablecloth is meant to cover up._ She laughed quietly, and after a moment, 
he joined her. She continued quietly, _To get the business over with so we can enjoy the meal, tomorrow 
you_re going to go back aboard the Lord Vanek and they_re probably going to ask you if you want to 
earn some more money in return for an extension on your contract. If you want to line your pocket and 
maybe help save several million lives you_ll say yes. I happen to know that the admiral_s staff is gping to 
be using the Lord Vanek as flagship, and I_m going to be along too__


_You_re what? How are you going to do that?_


_As a diplomatic observer. My job is to make sure the Festival_and I wish I knew a bit more about who 
they are_don_t violate six different treaties. Unofficially, I want to keep an eye on the New Republic, 
too. There_s a bit more going on than anyone_s willing to admit; no, make that a lot. But we don_t want 
to let it get in the way of this meal, do we? If you agree, come home with me to a safe house, and I_ll fill 
you in on the rest, while the local Stasi will just think you_re making out like any other bachelor 
engineering contractor. So you_re going to go home with a nice fat paycheck, plus a big bonus paid by 
DeflntelSIG. Everything_s going to be just fine. Now, how about we forget business and eat our dinner 
before it gets cold?_


_Sounds okay to me._ Martin leaned forward. _About the cover story for the local Stasi._


_Yes._ She picked up her fork.



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_Does it extend to grabbing a bottle of wine on our way home? And chilling out together afterward?_


_Well I suppose__ She stared at him. He noticed that her pupils were dilated.


_You need someone to talk to,_ he said slowly.


_Don_t I just._ She put the fork down. Under the table, out of sight, she rubbed his ankle again. Martin 
felt his pulse, felt his face flushing. She was focused on him, intent.


_How long has it been for you?_ he asked quietly.


_Longer than four months._ Suddenly her foot was removed.


_Better eat up,_ he said. _If you want our cover story to be any good._
Clear channel to Herman, PA._


_Clear channel pending& connected. Hello, Martin. What can I do for you?_


_Got a problem._


_A big one?_


_Female human-sized. Actually she_s from Earth, she_s gorgeous, and, uh, she does undercover work for 
the UN defense intelligence SIG. Specializing in causality-violation weapons, disarmament treaty 
infractions, that sort of thing._ . _That is interesting. Say more._


_Name_s Rachel Mansour. Has what looks like genuine ID as a UN weapons inspector, and there_s no 
way in hell she_s a native or an agent provocateur_not unless they_re sending their female agents off 
planet for education. She says that New Prague is planning some kind of naval expedition to relieve this 
colony that_s under siege, and that she expects they_ll try to recruit me tomorrow to do wartime crisis 
work on the ships. What she wanted me to do_well, basically keep my eyes open for anything fishy or 
illegal. Strategic weapons violations, I guess. That_s an opening position. The question__


_No forward-leaning analysis, please. Are you aware of any other UN inspectors in the vicinity?_


_Not directly, but she mentioned she has some kind of local backup and diplomatic credentials. She says 
she_ll be along on the expedition. I expect there_s a full-scale UN black ops team behind her, probably 
looking to do some low-key destabilization: it_s not as if the New Republic hasn_t been asking for it 
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since they began the current naval buildup. I_m pretty sure she was telling me the truth about her mission 
goals, but only part of it._


_Correct. On what basis did you leave her?_


_I agreed to do what she wanted._ Martin paused, unconsciously censoring his testimony, then 
continued, _If you think it_s advisable, I_ll accept any offer of wartime work at hazard pay. Then I_ll do 
what she wants: keep my eyes open for illegal activities. Any objection? How bad do you think the 
situation is?_


_It is much worse than you think._


Martin did a double take. _What?_


_I know of Rachel Mansour. Please wait._ His PA fell silent for almost a minute, while he sat in the dark 
of his rented room and waited anxiously. Herman never fell silent; like a machine running smoothly, his 
emollient debriefings made Martin feel as if he were talking to himself. Answers there might or might 
not be, but never silence&


_Martin. Please listen. I have independent confirmation that there is indeed a UN covert mission in the 
New Republic. Lead special agent is Rachel Mansour, which means they expect serious trouble. She is a 
heavyweight, and she_s been out of sight for almost a year, which implies she_s been in the New 
Republic for most of that time. Meanwhile, the agency repre-sentatives on Luna have bought out your 
personnel files and have been talking to MiG management about contracting you. Furthermore, they are 
substantially correct in their analysis. The New Republic is preparing to send the entire home fleet to 
Rochard_s World, going the long way around, where they intend to attack the Festival. This is a very bad 
idea_they obviously do not understand the Festival_but preparations appear to be too advanced to 
divert at this time.


_It is also quite possible that you will endanger yourself if you appear to be panicking. Given the current 
level of surveillance you are under, an attempt to cut and run to a civil liner will be seen as treason and 
punished immediately by the Curator_s security apparat; and Mansour is unlikely to be able to protect 
you even if she wants to. I emphasize, the New Republic is already on a low-key war footing, and 
attempting to leave now will be difficult._


_Oh shit._


_The situation is not irretrievable. I want you to cooperate fully with Mansour. Do your job and get out 
quietly. I will attempt to arrange for you to disembark safely once the fleet arrives. Remember, you are 
in more danger if you run than if you withdraw quietly._


Martin felt a tension he_d barely been conscious of leaving him. _Okay. Do you have any backstop 



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options for me if the UN screws up? Any ideas for how I can get out with my skin intact? Any 
information about this Festival, whatever it is?_


Herman was silent for a moment. _Be aware that this is now definitely a direct-action situation._ Martin 
gasped and sat bolt upright. _I want you on hand in case things, to use your own terminology, go pear-
shaped. Millions of lives are at stake. Larger-scale political issues are also becoming clear; if the New 
Republic meets the Festival, it is possible that the resulting instabilities will catalyze a domestic 
revolution. The UN subscribing bodies, both governmental and quasi-governmental, have a vested 
interest in this for obvious reasons. I cannot tell you more about the Festival at this point, because you 
would incriminate yourself if you betrayed any knowledge of it; but it is accurate to say that the 
Republic is more of a danger to itself than to the Festival. However, in view of the nature of the 
situation, I am prepared to pay a bonus double the size of that promised by the UN inspectorate if you 
remain in place after completing their assignment and do as I request._


Martin_s throat was dry. _Alright. But if it_s that likely to go critical, I want three times the bonus. In 
event of my death, payable to my next of kin._


Silence. Then: _Accepted. Herman out._
Rachel lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and tried to pick apart her feelings. It was early morning: Martin 
had left sometime ago. She had a bad feeling about the business, even though it was clearly going well; 
something gnawed at her below the level of conscious awareness. Presently, she rolled sideways, laid 
her sleepless head back on the overstuffed pillow beside her, and drew her knees up.


It should have been a simple recruitment meeting: put the arm on a useful contact and brief him for a 
single task. Nice and objective. Instead, she_d found herself sharing a dinner table with a quiet but 
fundamentally decent man who hadn_t tried to grope her, didn_t treat her like a piece of furniture, 
listened with a serious expression, and made interesting conversation: the kind of man who in ordinary 
circumstances she_d have considered a pleasant date. She_d gone a little bit crazy, walking along a knife 
edge of irresponsibility: and he_d been stir-crazy too. And now she was worried about him_which 
wasn_t in the plan.


It had come to a head across the kitchen table as they finished discussing business. He had looked up at 
her with a curious expectancy in his eyes. She crossed her legs, let a foot peep out beneath her skirts. He 
studied her intently.


_Is that everything?_ he asked. _You want me to keep my eyes open for clock-skew rollback 
instructions, carry the plug-in, notify you if I see anything that looks like a CVD_that_s all?_


_Yes,_ she said, staring at him. _That_s essentially everything._
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_It_s ah__ He looked at her askance, sharply. _I thought there was something more to it._


_Maybe there is._ She folded her hands in her lap. _But only if you want._


_Oh, well,_ he said, absorbing the information. _What else is part of the job?_


_Nothing._ She tilted her head, meeting his angled gaze, steeling herself. _We_ve finished with business. 
Do you remember what I said earlier, back in the restaurant?_


_About__ He nodded. Then looked away.


_What_s wrong?_ she asked.


_Oh, nothing._ He sighed quietly.


_Bullshit._ She stood up. _Come on. Let_s talk._ She reached for his hand and gave him a little tug.


_What?_ He shook his head. _I_m just__


_Come on._ She pulled a little harder. _The parlor. Come on._


_Okay._ He stood up. He was no taller than she was; and he seemed to be avoiding her eyes. 
Uncomfortable, really.


_What_s wrong?_ she asked again.


He chuckled briefly; there was no amusement in it. _You_re the first sane person I_ve met in the past 
four months,_ he said quietly. _I was getting used to talking._


She looked at him, steadily. _You don_t have to stop,_ she said.


_I__ He froze up again. Why is he doing that? she wondered.


_Say something,_ she said.


_I__ He paused, and she was afraid he was going to stop. Then he burst out, all at once. _I don_t want 
to stop. This place is squeezing me into my own head all the time_it_s like being in a vise! The only 
thing anyone wants of me is my work__


Rachel leaned against him. _Shut up,_ she said quietly. He shut up. _That_s better._ He was, she decided, 
really good at being leaned on. She put her arms around him; after a moment he hugged her back. 



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_Forget work. Yeah, you heard me. Forget the New Republic. Think you can do that for a few hours?_


_I__ she felt his breath shuddering. _I_ll try._


_Good,_ she said fiercely. And it did feel good: here was somebody who she could be sure about. 
Somebody who seemed to feel the same way about this whole claustrophobic abortion of a culture as she 
did. He held her steadily, now, and she could feel his hands running up and down her back, exploring 
how narrow her waist was. _The parlor. Come on, it_s the next room._


Martin had stared back at her. _You sure you want this?_ he asked. That was part of his charm.


_What_s to be unsure about?_ She kissed him hard, exploring his lips with her tongue. She felt as if she 
was about to burst right out of her clothes. He gently pulled her closer and let her dig her chin into the 
base of his neck; she felt stubble on his cheek. _It_s been so fucking long,_ she whispered.


_Same to you too._ He took some of her weight in his arms. _Been lonely?_


She barked a hoarse laugh. _You have no idea. I_ve been here ages; long enough that I feel like some 
kind of deviant because I talk to strange men and have some role in life besides hatching babies. The 
way they think here is getting its claws into me._


_What? A big strong government agent like you is letting something like this get to you?_ he said, gently 
mocking.


_You_re damn right,_ she muttered into his shoulder as she felt a tentative hand begin to explore below 
her waistline.


_Sorry. Just_six months alone in this dump, having to act the part? I_d have gone nuts,_ he said 
thoughtfully.


_Been more than six months,_ she said, looking past the side of his head. He has nice earlobes, she 
noted vaguely as she leaned closer.


_Let_s find that wine bottle,_ he suggested gently. _I think you_re going a bit fast._


_I_m sorry,_ she said, automatically. _I_m sorry._ She tensed slightly. _No, you can keep your hands 
there. Let_s walk._


They somehow made it into the parlor_overstuffed armchairs and a display cabinet full of crockery_
without letting go of each other.
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_At first I thought you were some kind of agent provocateur,_ he said, _but instead you_re the first real 
human being I_ve met in this place._ He left the statement hanging.


_If all I needed was flesh, there are plenty of sailor boys in this port,_ she said, and leaned against him 
again. _That_s not where my itch is._


_Are you sure you should be in this job? If you_re so__


_You were going to say vulnerable?_


_Maybe. Not exactly._


She guided him in front of the sofa. _I wanted company. Not just a quick fuck,_ she explained, trying to 
justify it to herself.


_You and me both._ He held her, gently turned her around so that she was looking into his eyes. _So 
what do you want this to be?_


_Stop talking._ She leaned forward closing her eyes, and found his mouth. Then events ran out of 
control.


They_d made love with desperate urgency the first time, Rachel lying on the parlor floor with her skirts 
hiked up around her waist, and Martin with his trousers tangled around his legs. Then they somehow 
migrated to the bedroom and struggled out of their clothing before making love again, this time gently 
and slowly. Martin had a thoughtful, considerate manner: talking afterward, he_d mentioned a divorce a 
few years ago. They_d talked for hours, almost until the artificial dawn, timed to coincide with sunrise 
on the planet below. And they_d made love until they were both sore and aching.


Now, lying awake in bed after he_d left, her head was spinning. She tried to rationalize it: isolation and 
nerves are enough to make anyone do something wild once in a while. Still, she felt nervous: Martin 
wasn_t a casual pickup, and this wasn_t a quick fuck. Just the thought of seeing him again made her feel 
an edgy hopeful excitement, tempered by the bitter self-disgust of realizing that mixing business with 
pleasure this way was a really stupid move.


She rolled over, and blinked: the clock on the inside of her left eyelid said it was just past 0700. In 
another two hours, it would be time to get confirmation of her diplomatic status, dress, and go kick some 
New Republican ass. Two hours after that, Martin would be aboard the Lord Vanek; it would all be over 
by 2200. Rachel sighed and tried to catch another hour_s shut-eye; but sleep was evading her.


She found herself wandering, seeking out pleasant memories. There was not a lot else to be done, in 
point of fact: there was a high probability that she would die if her guess about the New Republic_s 
intentions was wrong. And wouldn_t that be a grand way to end 150 years? Physically as young as a 


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twentysomething, kept that way by the advanced medical treatments of the mother planet, she rarely felt 
the weight of her decades; the angst only cut in when she thought about how few of the people she had 
known or loved were still alive. Now she recalled her daughter, as a child, the smell of her_and what 
brought that back? Not her daughter, the political matriarch and leader of a dynasty. Not the 
octogenarian_s funeral, either, in the wake of the sky sail accident. And she couldn_t even remember 
Johan_s face, even though they_d been married for fifteen years. Martin, so much more recent, seemed to 
overlay him in her mind_s eye. She blinked, angrily, and sat up.


Stupid girl, she told herself, ironically. Anyone would think you were still in your first century, falling in 
love with a tight pair of buttocks. Still, she found herself looking forward to seeing Martin again 
tomorrow night. The edgy hopeful excitement was winning over age and cynicism, even though she was 
old enough to know what it meant. Complications&
The interorbit shuttle unlatched from the naval docking bay and edged outward from the beanstalk, its 
cold-gas thrusters bumping it clear of the other vehicles that swarmed in the region. Ten minutes after it 
maneuvered free, the pilot got permission from traffic control to light off his main drive; a bright orange 
plume of glowing mercury ions speared out from three large rectangular panels hinged around the rear 
cargo bay doors, and the craft began to accelerate. Ion drives were notoriously slow, but they were also 
efficient. After a thousand seconds the shuttle was moving out from the station at nearly two hundred 
kilometers per hour, and it was time to begin decelerating again to meet the ship that now lay at rest 
almost sixty kilometers from the station.


In orbital terms, sixty kilometers was nothing; the Lord Vanek was right on the beanstalk_s doorstep. But 
there was one significant advantage to the position. The ship was ready to move, and move fast. As soon 
as the dockyard engineer finished his upgrade to the driver kernel_s baseline compensators, she_d be 
ready for action.


Captain Mirsky watched the shuttle nose up to Lord Vanek_s forward docking bays on one of the video 
windows at his workstation. He sat alone in his quarters, plowing relentlessly through the memoranda 
and directives associated with the current situation; things had become quite chaotic since the orders 
came down, and he was acutely aware of how much more preparation was required.


Middle-aged, barrel-chested, and sporting a neat salt-and-pepper beard to match his graying hair, 
Captain Mirsky was the very model of a New Republican Navy captain. Behind the mask of confidence, 
however, there was a much less certain man: he had seen things building up for a week now, and 
however he tried to rationalize the situation, he couldn_t escape the feeling that something had gone off 
the rails between the foreign office and the Imperial residence.


He peered morosely at the latest directive to cross his desk. Security was being stepped up, and he was 
to go onto a wartime footing as soon as the last shipyard workers and engineers were off his deck and 
the hull was sealed. Meanwhile, full cooperation was required with Procurator Muller of the Curator_s 
Office, on board to pursue positive security monitoring of foreign engineering contractors employed in 


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making running repairs to Lord Vanek_s main propulsion system. He glared at the offending memo in 
irritation, then picked up his annunciator. _Get me Ilya._


_Commander Murametz, sir? Right away, sir._


A muffled knock on the door: Mirsky shouted _open!_ and it opened. Commander Murametz, his 
executive officer, saluted. _Come in, Ilya, come in._


_Thank you, sir. What I can do for you?_


_This__ Mirsky pointed wordlessly at his screen. _Some pompous Citizen Curator wants his minion to 
run riot over my ship. Know anything about it?_


Murametz bent closer. _Humbly report, sir, I do._ His moustache twitched; Mirsky couldn_t tell what 
emotion it signified.


_Hah. Pray explain._


_Some fuss over the engineering contractor from Earth who_s installing our Block B drive upgrade. He_s 
irreplaceable, at least without waiting three months, but he_s a bit of a loudmouth and somehow caught 
the attention of one of the professional paranoids in the Basilisk. So they_ve stuck a secret policeman on 
us to take care of him. I gave him to Lieutenant Sauer, with orders to keep him out of our hair._


_What does Sauer say about it?_


Murametz snorted. _The cop_s as wet behind the ears as one of the new ratings. No problem._


The Captain sighed. _See that there isn_t._


_Aye aye, sir. Anything else?_


Mirsky waved at a chair. _Sit down, sit down. Noticed anything out of the ordinary about what_s going 
on?_


Murametz glanced at the doorway. _Rumors are flying like bullets, skipper. I_m doing what I can to sit 
on them, but until there_s an official line__


_There won_t be. Not for another sixteen hours._


_If I may be so bold, what then?_
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_Then&_ The Captain paused. _I& am informed that I will be told, and that subsequently you, and all 
the other officers, will learn what_s going on. In the meantime, I think it would be sensible to keep 
everybody busy. So busy that they don_t have time to worry and spread rumors, anyway. Oh, and make 
damned sure the flag cabin_s shipshape and we_re ready to take on board a full staff team._


_Ah._ Murametz nodded. _Very well, sir. Operationally, hmm. Upgrade security, schedule some more 
inspections, heightened readiness on all stations? That sort of thing? Floggings to improve morale? A 
few simulation exercises for the tactical teams?_


Captain Mirsky nodded. _By all means. But get the flag cabin ready first. Ready for a formal inspection 
tomorrow. That_s all._


_Yes, sir._


_Dismissed._


Murametz left, and Mirsky was alone with his morose thoughts once more. Alone to brood over the 
orders he was forbidden to reveal to anyone for another sixteen hours.


Alone with the sure, cold knowledge of impending war.
The Admirals Man


His Majesty's battlecruiser Lord Vanek lay at rest, sixty kilometers from the Klamovka naval beanstalk. 
Running lights blinked red and blue along its flanks; the double-headed eagle ensign of the admiral_s 
flag winked in green outline just above the main missile launch platform. Kurtz had been piped aboard 
two hours earlier; soon the ship would be ready to fly.


Rachel Mansour worked hard at suppressing the treacherous grin of satisfaction that kept threatening to 
escape. The reaction she_d elicited from the security goons at the entrance to the base almost made up 
for the preceding three months of isolation and paranoia. They_d barely managed to hold her up before 
her phone call to the embassy dragged a flustered lieutenant commander out to blush red and stammer in 
front of her. When he_d half questioned her intent, she_d rammed her credentials down his throat with 
gusto; he escorted her with her luggage directly to the shuttlecraft for transfer to the bat-tlecruiser, 
shuddering slightly and glancing over his shoulder all the way. (Evidently self-propelled shipping chests 
were yet another technology that the New Republic shunned.)


Ludmilla Jindrisek, the cover identity she_d been using for the past month, had dissolved beneath the 
morning shower; Rachel Mansour, Special Agent, UN Standing Committee on Multilateral Interstellar 
Disarmament, stepped out of it. Lud-milla Jindrisek simpered, wore fashionable dresses, and deferred to 



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wise male heads; Special Agent Mansour had started her career in bomb disposal (defusing terrorist 
nukes and disassemblers), graduated to calling in naval strikes on recalcitrant treaty-breakers, and wore 
a black paramilitary uniform designed specifically to impress militaristic outworlder hicks. It was, she 
noted, interesting to observe the effect the change of costume had on people, especially as she held her 
notional rank through equivalence, rather than actual military service. Meanwhile she watched her 
fellow passengers waiting under the beady eye of Chief Petty Officer Moronici.


The airlock door finally rolled open. _Attention!_ barked the CPO. The ratings waiting in the bay stood 
sharply to attention. An officer ducked through the lock and straightened up: Moronici saluted, and he 
returned the gesture, ignoring Rachel.


_Very good there,_ said the officer. _Chief Moronici, get these kids aboard. Don_t bother waiting for me, 
I_ve got business that_ll keep me here until the next run._ He glanced at Rachel. _You. What are you 
doing here?_


Rachel pointed her pass at him. _Diplomatic corps. I_m attached to the Admiral_s staff, by special order 
of Archduke Michael, Lieutenant._


The Lieutenant gaped. _But you_re a__


__colonel in the United Nations of Earth Security Council combined armed forces. What part of _by 
special order of Archduke Michael_ don_t you understand? Are you going to stand there gaping, or are 
you going to invite me aboard?_


_Urgh. Um, yes._ The Lieutenant disappeared back into the shuttle_s flight deck; reappeared a minute 
later. _Um. Colonel, ah, Mansour? Please come aboard._


Rachel nodded and walked past him. Still carefully expressionless, she seated herself immediately 
behind the flight deck door, in officer country. And listened.


The CPO was educating the new intake. _At ease, you lads,_ he growled. _Find yerselves a seat. Front 
row, facing back, that_s right! Now buckle in. All six points, that_s right. Check the seat in front of you 
for a sick bag. Welcome to the vomit comet; this boat_s too small to have any gravity emula-tors and 
doesn_t accelerate faster_n a quadriplegic in a wheelbarrow, so if you get sick in free fall, you_re damn 
well going to throw up into those bags. Anyone who pukes up on the furniture and fittings can spend the 
next week cleaning _em. Got that?_


Everyone nodded. Rachel felt cautiously optimistic; it looked as if everyone else on this run, apart from 
Chief Mo-ronici, was a new assignment to the ship. Which meant her information was probably correct: 
they were working up to wartime levels, and departure wouldn_t be delayed long.


The door to the passenger cabin slid closed; there was a rumble below as automatic pallets rolled in and 



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out of the shuttle_s cargo bay. Moronici knocked on the forward door and went through when it opened; 
he reappeared a minute later. _Launch in two minutes,_ he announced. _Hang on tight!_


The two minutes passed at a snail_s pace. Banging and thumping announced that dockside fuel and 
support lines were disconnecting; then there was a lurch and a jolt followed by a loud hissing that died 
away as the airlock seal was broken behind them. _You_re all new fish here,_ Chief Moronici told the 
flyers. _Not surprising as we_re taking on a lot of new crew. Start of a new conscription cycle. Me,__he 
pointed a meaty thumb at his chest__I_m not a conscript. I live on the ship we_re going to. And I want 
to live on it long enough to collect my pension. Which means I don_t intend to let you, or anyone else, 
do anything that endangers me or my home. The first rule of space travel__they lurched sideways, 
drunkenly, and there was a disconcertingly loud rattle from underneath_ _is that mistakes are fatal. 
Space isn_t friendly, it kills you. And there are no second chances._


As if to emphasize the point, the bottom suddenly dropped out of Rachel_s stomach. For a moment, she 
felt as if a huge, rubbery, invisible gripper was trying to pull her apart_and then she was floating. The 
ratings all looked as surprised as Chief Moronici looked smug.


_Main engine should come on in about five minutes,_ Moronici announced. Banging and clicking 
shuddered through the cramped cabin, as it veered gently to the left: thrusters were busy nudging it out 
of the dock. _Like I was saying, mistakes here tend to kill people. And I have no intention of let-ting you 
kill me. Which is why, while you_re on board the Lord Vanek, you pukes will do exactly what I, or any 
other PO, or any officer, tells you to do. And you will do it with a shit-eating grin, or I will ram your 
head so far up your ass you_ll be able to give yourself a tonsillectomy with your teeth. Is that 
understood?_ He continued to ignore Rachel, implicitly acknowledging that she lay outside his reach.


The ratings nodded. One of them, green-faced, gulped, and Moronici swiftly yanked a sick bag from the 
back of an adjacent seat and held it in front of the man_s face. Rachel saw what he was trying to do; the 
pep talk was as much a distraction from the disorientation of free fall as anything else.


Rachel closed her eyes and breathed deeply_then regretted it: the shuttle stank of stale sweat, with a 
faint undertone of ozone and the sickly-sweet odor of acetone. It had been a long time since she_d 
prayed for anything, but right now she was praying with all her might for this ride in a tin can to come to 
an end. It was the crummiest excuse for a shuttle she_d been on in decades, an old banger like something 
out of an historical drama. It seemed to go on and on. Until, of course, it stopped with a buffet and clang 
as they latched on to the Lord Vanek_s stabilized docking adapter, then a grinding creak as it pulled them 
in and spun them up, and a hiss as pressure equalized.


_Erm, Colonel?_


She opened her eyes. It was CPO Moronici. He looked somewhat green, as if unsure how to deal with 
her. _It_s alright, Chief. I_ve gone aboard foreign naval vessels before._ She stood. _Is there anyone 
waiting for me?_
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_Yes_m._ He stared straight ahead, as if outrageously embarrassed.


_Fine._ She unbuckled, stood, feeling the uneven gravity of the battlecruiser_s spin, and adjusted her 
beret. _Let me at them._


The airlock opened. _Section, pre-sent_arms!_


She stepped forward into the docking bay, feeling the incredulous stares from all sides. A senior officer, 
a commander if she read his insignia correctly, was waiting for her, face stiffly frozen to conceal the 
inevitable surprise. _Colonel Man-sour, UN Disarmament Inspectorate,_ she said. _Hello, Commander
__


_Murametz._ He blinked, perplexed. _Ah, your papers? Lieutenant Menvik says you_re attached to the 
Admiral_s staff. But they didn_t tell us to expect you__


_That_s perfectly alright._ She pointed him down the corridor that led to the ship_s main service core. 
_They don_t know about me yet. At least, not unless Archduke Michael warned them. Just take me to see 
the Admiral, and everything will be alright._


Her luggage rolled quietly after her, on a myriad of brightly colored ball bearings.
The Admiral was having a bad morning: his false pregnancy was causing problems again.


_I feel ill,_ he mumbled quietly. _Do I have to_to get up?_


_It would help, sir._ Robard, his batman, gently slid an arm around his shoulders to help him sit up. _We 
depart in four hours. Your staff meeting is penciled in for two hours after that, and you have an 
appointment with Commodore Bauer before then. Ah, there_s also a communique from His Royal 
Highness that has a most-urgent seal on it._


_Well bring it_it_it in then,_ said the Admiral. _Damned morning sickness&_


Just then, the annunciator in the next room chimed softly. _I_ll just check that, sir,_ said Robard. Then: 
_Someone to see you, sir. Without an appointment. Ah_it_s a what? A_oh, I see. Alright then. He_ll be 
ready in a minute._ Pacing back into the bedroom, he cleared his throat. _Sir, are you ready? Ah, yes. 
Ahem. You have a visitor, sir. A diplomat who has been seconded to your staff by order of Archduke 
Michael; some sort of foreign observer._


_Oh._ Kurtz frowned. _Didn_t have any of them back at Second Lamprey. Just as well, really. Just lots 
of darkies. Bloody bad sports, those darkies, wouldn_t stand still and be shot. Bloody foreigners. Show 



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the man in!_


Robard cast a critical eye over his master. Sitting up in bed with his jacket wrapped around his 
shoulders, he looked like a convalescent turtle_but marginally presentable. As long as he didn_t tell the 
ambassador all about his ailment, it could probably be passed off as an attack of gout. _Yes, sir._


The door opened and Robard_s jaw dropped. Standing there was a stranger in a strange uniform. He had 
an attache case clasped under one arm, and a rather bemused-looking commander standing beside him. 
Something about the man shrieked of strangeness, until Robard worked it out; his mouth twisted with 
distaste as he muttered, _Invert,_ to himself.


Then the stranger spoke_in a clear, high voice. _United Nations of Earth, Standing Committee on 
Multilateral Disarmament. I_m Colonel Mansour, special agent and military attache to the embassy, 
attached to this expedition as an observer on behalf of the central powers. My credentials._ That voice! If 
I didn _t know better, I_d swear he was a woman, thought Robard.


_Thank you. If you_d come this way, please, my lord is indisposed but will receive you in his sleeping 
quarters._ Robard bowed and backed into the Admiral_s bedroom, where he was mortified to find the old 
man lying back on his pillows, mouth agape, snoring quietly.


_Ahem. Sir! Your Lordship!_ A bleary eye opened. _May I introduce Colonel, ah__


__Rachel Mansour._


__Rachel Mansour__he squeaked__from Earth, military attache from the embassy! His, er, 
credentials._ The colonel looked on, smiling faintly as the flustered batman proffered the case to the 
Admiral.


_S_funny name for a c-colonel, Colonel,_ mumbled the Admiral. _Are ye sure you_re not a, a_ah__


He sneezed, violently, then sat up. _Damn these goose-down pillows,_ he complained bitterly. _And 
damn the gout. Wasn_t like this at First Lamprey._


_Indeed not,_ Rachel observed drily. _Lots of sand there, as I recall._


_Very good, that man! Lots of sand, indeed, lots of sand. Sun beating down on your head, ragheads all 
over the place shooting at you, and not really anything big enough to nuke from orbit. Whose command 
were you in, eh?_


_As a matter of fact, I was with the war crimes tribunal. Sifting mummified body parts for evidence._
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Robard went gray, waiting for the Admiral to detonate, but the old man simply laughed raucously. 
_Robard! Help me up, there_s a good fellow. I say-ay, I never expected to meet a fellow veteran here! To 
my desk. I must inspect his credentials!_


Somehow they managed to migrate the fifteen feet or so to the Admiral_s study without his complaining 
bitterly about the cost of maternity wear or gingerly inspecting his legs to make sure they hadn_t turned 
to glass overnight_one of his occasional nightmares_and the effeminate colonel discreetly slid himself 
into one of the visitor_s chairs. Robard stared at the man. A woman_s name, a high voice, if he didn_t 
know better, he could almost believe that_


_Duke Michael agreed to my presence for two reasons,_ said Mansour. _Firstly, you should be aware 
that as an agent of the UN it is my job to report back impartially on any_I emphasize, any_violations 
of treaties to which your government is a party. But more importantly, there is a shortage of information 
about the entity which has attacked your colony world. I_m also here to bear witness in case they make 
use of forbidden or criminal weapons. I am also authorized to act as a neutral third party for purposes of 
arbitration and parley, to arrange exchanges of prisoners and cease-fires, and to ensure that, insofar as 
any war can be conducted in a civilized manner, this one is._


_Well that_s a damn fine thing to know, sir, and you are welcome to join my staff,_ said the Admiral, 
sitting upright in his bath chair. _Feel free to approach me whenever you want! You_re a good man, and 
I_m pleased to know there_s another vet-eteran of First Lamprey in the fleet._ For a brief moment, he 
looked alarmed. _Oh dear. It_s kicking again._


Mansour looked at him oddly. Robard opened his mouth, but the foreign colonel managed to speak 
before he could change the subject. _It?_


_The baby,_ Kurtz confided, looking miserable. _It_s an elephant. I don_t know what to do with it. If its 
father__ He stopped. His expression of alarm was chilling.


_Ahem. I think you_d better withdraw now, sir,_ said Robard, staring coldly at Rachel. _It_s time for His 
Lordship_s medicine. I_m afraid it would be for the best if in future you_d call ahead before visiting; he 
has these spells, you know._


Rachel shook her head. _I_ll remember to do that._ She stood. _Good-bye, sir._ She turned and departed.


As he was helping the Admiral out of his chair, Robard thought he heard a soprano voice from outside: 
__Didn_t know you had elephants!_ He shook his head hopelessly. Women aboard the Imperial 
flagship, admirals who thought they were pregnant, and a fleet about to embark on the longest voyage in 
naval history, against an unknown enemy. Where was it going to end?
The Citizen curator was unamused. _So. To summarize, the Navy boys gave you the run-around, but 



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have now allowed you on board their precious battlecruiser. Along the way, you lost contact with your 
subject for an entire working day. Last night you say he did nothing unusual, but you report patchy 
coverage. And what else? How did he spend that evening?_


_I don_t understand, sir,_ Vassily said tightly. _What do you mean?_


The Citizen scowled furiously; even at a forty-thousand-kilometer remove, his picture on the screen was 
enough to make Vassily recoil. _It says in your report,_ the Citizen said with heavy emphasis, _that the 
subject left his apartment, was lost for a few minutes, and was next seen dining at a public establishment 
in the company of an actress. At whose apartment he subsequently spent a good few hours before 
returning to base. And you didn_t investigate her?_


Vassily flushed right to the tips of his ears. _I thought__


_Has he ever done anything like this before? While in New Prague, for example? I think not. According 
to his file he has led the life of a monk since arriving in the Republic. Not once, not once in nearly two 
months at the Glorious Crown Hotel, did he show any sign of interest in the working girls. Yet as soon 
as he arrives and starts work, what does he do?_


_I didn_t think of that._


_I know you didn_t._ The Citizen Curator fell silent for a moment, but his expression was eloquent; 
Vassily cringed before it. _I_m not going to do any more of your thinking for you, but perhaps you_d be 
so good as to tell me what you propose to do next._


_Uh._ Vassily blinked. _Run a background check on her? If it_s clear, ask her a few questions? Keep a 
closer eye on him in future& ?_


_Very good._ The Citizen grinned savagely. _And what have you learned from this fiasco?_


_To watch the subject_s behavior, and be alert for changes in it,_ Vassily said woodenly. _Especially the 
things he doesn_t do, as much as those he does._ It was a basic message, one drilled into recruits all the 
way through training, and he could kick himself for forgetting it. How could he have missed something 
so obvious?


_That_s right._ The Citizen leaned back, away from the camera on his phone. _A very basic skill, Muller. 
Yet we all learn best from our mistakes. See that you learn from this one, eh? I don_t care if you have to 
follow your man all the way to Rochard_s World and back, as long as you keep your eyes open and spot 
it when he makes his move. And think about all the other things you_ve been told to do. I_ll tell you this 
for free: you_ve forgotten to do something else, and you_ll be happier if you notice it before I have to 
remind you!_
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_Yes, sir._


_Good-bye._ The videophone link dissolved into random blocks, then went blank. Vassily eased out of 
his cubicle, trying to work out just what the Citizen_s parting admonition meant. The sooner he cleared 
everything up, proving once and for all that Springfield was or was not a spy, the better_he wasn_t cut 
out for shipboard life. Maybe it would be a good idea to start the new day by interviewing the 
engineering chief Springfield was working under? Probably that was what the Citizen meant for him to 
do;/he could leave following up on the whore until later. (The idea filled him with an uncomfortable 
sense of embarrassment.)


No sooner did he poke his nose into the corridor than he was nearly run down by a team of ratings, 
hustling a trolley laden with heavy equipment at the double. On his second attempt, he took the 
precaution of looking both ways before venturing out: there were no obstacles. He made his way through 
the cramped, blue-painted corridor, following the curve of the inner hull. Floating free, the Lord Vanek 
relied on its own curved-space generator to produce a semblance of gravity. Vassily hunted for a radial 
walkway, then a lift down to the engineering service areas located at the heart of the ship, two-thirds of 
the way down its length.


There were people everywhere, some in corridors, some in chambers opening off the passageways, and 
others in rooms to either side. He caught a fair number of odd glances on his way, but nobody stopped 
him: most people would go out of their way to avoid the attentions of an officer in the Curator_s Office. 
It took him a while to find the engineering spaces, but eventually, he found his way to a dimly lit, wide-
open chamber full of strange machines and fast-moving people. Oddly, he felt very light on his feet as 
he waited in the entrance to the room. No sign of Springfield, but of course, that was hardly surprising; 
the engineering spaces of a capital ship were large enough to conceal any number of sins. _Is this the 
main drive engineering deck?_ he asked a passing technician.


_What do you think it is? The head?_ called the man as he hurried off. Vassily shrugged irritably and 
stepped forward_ and forward_and forward__What are you doing there?_ Someone grabbed his 
elbow. _Hey, watch out!_ He flailed helplessly, then stopped moving as he realized what was going on. 
The ceiling was close and the floor was a long way away and he was falling toward the far wall_


_Help,_ he gasped.


_Hold on tight._ The hand on his elbow shifted to his upper arm and yanked, hard. A large rack of 
equipment, bolted to the floor, came close, and he grabbed and held on to it.


_Thanks. Is this the engineering deck? I_m looking for the chief drive engineer,_ he said. It took an effort 
to talk over the frantic butterfly beat of his heart.


_That would be me._ Vassily stared at his rescuer. _Couldn_t have you bending the clocks now, could I? 
They curve badly enough as it is. What do you want?_



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_It_s__ Vassily stopped. _I_m sorry. Could we talk somewhere in private?_


The engineering officer_his overalls bore the name krup-kin_frowned mightily. _We might, but I_m 
very busy. We_re moving in half an hour. Is it important?_


_Yah. It won_t get your work done any faster, but if you help me now it might take less of your time 
later._


_Huh. Then we_ll see._ The officer turned and pointed at the other side of the open space. _See that 
office cubicle? I_ll meet you in there in ten minutes._ And he turned abruptly, kicked off, and 
disappeared into the gloom, chaos and moving bodies that circled the big blue cube at the center of the 
engineering bay.


_Holy Father!_ Vassily took stock of his situation. Marooned, clinging to a box of melting clocks at the 
far side of a busy free-fall compartment from his destination, he could already feel his breakfast rising in 
protest at the thought of crossing the room.


Grimly determined not to embarrass himself, he inched his way down to floor level. There were toeholds 
recessed into the floor tiles, and now he looked at them he saw that they were anchored, but obviously 
designed to be removed frequently. If he pretended that the floor was a wall, then the office door was 
actually about ten meters above him, and there were plenty of handholds along the way.


He took a deep breath, pulled himself around the clock cabinet, and kicked hard against it where it 
joined the floor. The results were gratifying; he shot up, toward the office. The wall dropped toward 
him, and he was able to grab hold of a passing repair drone and angle his course toward the doorway. As 
he entered it, gravity began to return_he slid along the deck, coming to an undignified halt lying on his 
back just inside. The office was small, but held a desk, console, and a couple of chairs; a rating was 
doing something with the console. _You,_ he said, _out, please._


_Aye aye, sir._ The fresh-faced rating hurriedly closed some kind of box that was plugged into the 
console, then saluted and withdrew into the free-fall zone. Shaken, Vassily sat down in the seat opposite 
the desk and waited for Engineering Commander Krupkin to arrive. It was already 1100, and what had 
he achieved today? Nothing, so far as he could tell, except to learn that the Navy_s motto seemed to be 
_Hurry up and wait._ The Citizen wouldn_t be pleased.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, the battlecruiser Lord Vanek was counting down for main drive activation.


As the flagship of the expedition, Lord Vanek was at the heart of squadron one, along with three of the 
earlier Glorious-class battlecruisers, and the two Victory-class battleships Kamchatka and Regina (now 
sadly antiquated, relics that had seen better days). Squadron Two, consisting of a mixed force of light 
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cruisers, destroyers, and missile carriers, would launch six hours behind Squadron One; finally, the 
supply train, with seven bulk cargo freighters and the liner Sikorsky_s Dream (refitted as a hospital ship) 
would depart eight hours later.


Lord Vanek was, in interstellar terms, a simple beast: ninety thousand tonnes of warship and a thousand 
crew held in tight orbit around an electron-sized black hole as massive as a mountain range. The hole_
the drive kernel_spun on its axis so rapidly that its event horizon was permeable; the drive used it to 
tug the ship about by tickling the singularity in a variety of ways. At nonrelativistic speeds, Lord Vanek 
maneuvered by dumping mass into the kernel; complex quantum tunneling interactions_jiggery-pokery 
within the ergosphere_transformed it into raw momentum. At higher speeds, energy pumped into the 
kernel could be used to generate the a jump field, collapsing the quantum well between the ship and a 
point some distance away.


The kernel had a few other uses: it was a cheap source of electricity and radioisotopes, and by tweaking 
the stardrive, it was possible to use it to produce a local curved-space gravity field. As a last resort, it 
could even be jettisoned and used as a weapon in its own right. But if there was one word that wouldn_t 
describe it, that word must be _maneuevrable._ Eight-billion-ton point masses do not make right-angle 
turns.


Commander Krupkin saluted as a rating held the bridge door open for him. _Engineering Commander 
reporting on the state of machinery, sir!_


_Very good._ Captain Mirsky nodded from his command chair at the rear of the room. _Come in. What 
do you have for me?_


Krupkin relaxed slightly. _All systems operational and correct, sir,_ he announced formally. _We_re 
ready to move at any time. Our status is clear on__ He rapidly rattled through the series of watches 
under his control. Finally: _The drive control modifications you ordered, sir_we_ve never run anything 
like this before. They look alright, and the self-test says everything is fine, but I can_t say any more than 
that without unsealing the black boxes._


Mirsky nodded. _They_ll work alright._ Krupkin wished he could feel as confident as the Captain 
sounded; the black boxes, shipped aboard only a week ago and wired into the main jump drive control 
loop, did not fill him with confidence. Indeed, if it hadn_t been obvious that the orders to integrate them 
came from the highest level and applied to every ship in the fleet, he_d have thrown the nearest thing to a 
tantrum that military protocol permitted. It was his job to keep the drive running, and dammit, he should 
know everything there was to know about how it worked! There could be anything in those boxes, from 
advanced (whisper it, illegal) high technology to leprechauns_and he_d be held responsible if it didn_t 
work.


A bearded man at the other side of the bridge stood. _Humbly request permission to report, sir._
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_You have permission,_ said Mirsky.


_I have completed downloading navigation elements from system traffic control. I am just now having 
them punched into the autopilot. We will be ready to spin up for departure in ten minutes._


_Very good, Lieutenant. Ah, Comms, my compliments to the Admiral and the Commodore, and we are 
preparing for departure in ten minutes. Lieutenant Helsingus, proceed in accordance with the traffic 
control departure plan. You have the helm._


_Aye, sir, I have the helm. Departure in ten minutes._ Helsingus bent over his speaking tube; ratings 
around him began turning brass handles and moving levers with calm deliberation, sending impulses 
along the nerves of steel that bound the ship into an almost living organism. (Although nano-electronics 
might be indispensable in the engine room, the New Republican Admiralty held the opinion that there 
was no place for suchlike newfangled rubbish on the bridge of a ship crewed by the heroic fighting men 
of the empire.)


_Well, Commander._ Mirsky nodded at the engineer. _How does it feel to be moving at last?_


Krupkin shrugged. _I_ll be happier when we_re in flat space. There are rumors_


For a moment, the Captain_s smile slipped. _Indeed. Which is why we will be going to action stations at 
departure and staying that way until after our first jump. You can never tell, and the Commodore wants 
to be sure that no spies or enemy missile buses are lying in wait for us._


_A wise precaution, sir. Permission to return to my station?_


_Granted. Go with God, Commander._


Krupkin saluted, and headed back for his engineering control room as fast as his short legs would carry 
him. It was, he reflected, going to be a busy time, even with as quietly competent a dockyard consultant 
engineer as Martin to help him keep the magic smoke in the drive control boxes.
The colony of Critics writhed and tunneled in their diamond nest, incubating a devastating review. A 
young, energetic species, descended from one of the post-Singularity flowerings that had exploded in the 
wake of the Diaspora three thousand years in their past, they held precious little of the human genome in 
their squamous, cold-blooded bodies. Despite their terrestrial descent, only their brains bound them 
tightly to the sapiens clade_for not all the exiles from Earth were human.


As hangers-on, the Critics had no direct access to the Festival_s constellation of relay satellites or the 
huge network of visual and auditory sensors that had been scattered across the surface of the planet. 
(Most of the Festival_s senses were borne on the wings of tiny insectoidal robots, with which they had 



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saturated the biosphere, sending a million for every single telephone that had rained down from orbit.) 
Instead, the Critics had to make do with their own devices; a clumsy network of spy-eyes in low orbit, 
winged surveillance drones, and precarious bugs planted on the window ledges and chimney pots of 
significant structures.


The Critics watched, with their peculiar mixture of bemuse-ment and morbid cynicism, while the 
soldiers of the First and Fourth Regiments shot their officers and deserted en masse to the black flag of 
Burya Rubenstein_s now-overt Traditional Extropian Revolutionary Front. (Many soldiers burned their 
uniforms and threw away their guns; others adopted new em-blems and took up strange silvery arms 
churned out by the committee_s replicator farm.) The Critics looked on as peasants greedily demanded 
pigs, goats, and in one case, a goose that laid golden eggs from the Festival; their womenfolk quietly 
pleaded for medicinal cures, metal cutlery, and fabric. In the castle, shots were heard as the servants 
butchered the Duke_s menagerie for food. A rain of gold roubles ordered by some economic saboteur 
fell widely across the streets of Novy Petrograd, and was equally widely ignored: to that extent, the 
economic collapse brought about by the Festival_s advent was already complete.


_They are truly pathetic,_ commented She Who Observes the First; she clashed her tusks over a somatic 
bench that depicted a scene below, some of the few remaining loyal grenadiers dragging a terrified 
cobbler toward the gates of the castle, followed by his screaming, pleading family. _Unregulated 
instincts, unable to assimilate reality, bereft of perspective._


_Chew roots; dig deep._ Guard Man the Fifth champed lugubriously, demonstrating his usual level of 
insight (intelligence not being a particularly useful characteristic in tunnel-running warriors). _Tastes of 
blood and soil._


_Everything tastes of soil to a warrior,_ She Who Observes snorted. _Eat tubers, brother, while your 
sisters discuss matters beyond your ken._ She rolled sideways, butting up against Sister of Stratagems 
the Seventh, who nipped at her flank gently. _Sibling-litter-peer. Uncertainty flows?_


_A time of exponentiating changes is upon them._ Sister Seventh was much given to making such 
gnomic pronouncements, perhaps in the naive hope that it would gain her a reputation for vision (and, 
ultimately, support when she made her bid for queendom). _Perhaps they are disorganized surface-
scrabblers, clutching at stems, but there is a certain grandeur to their struggle; a level of sincerity seldom 
approached by primitives._


_Primitive they are: their internal discourse is crippled by a complete absence of intertextuality. I cringe 
in astonishment that Festival wastes its attention on them._


_Hardly. They are Festival_s antithesis, do you not feel this in your whiskers?_ Sister Seventh blinked 
redly at She Who Observes, pawing for the control tree of the somatic bench. _Here we see a nest-
drone._ The scene slewed into an enclosed space, following the abducted cobbler into the walls of the 
castle, _Phenotypic dispersal leads to extended specialization, as ever, with the usual degree of free will 
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found in human civilization. But this one is structured to prevent information surge, do you not see?_


_Information surge? Prevented? Life is information!_


Sister Seventh farted smugly. _I have been monitoring the Festival. Not one of the indigines has asked it 
for information! Artifacts, yes. Food, yes. Machines, up to and including replicators, yes. But 
philosophy? Art? Mathematics? Ontology? We might be witnessing our first zombie civilization._


Zombies were a topic that fascinated Sister Seventh. An ancient hypothesis of the original pre-
Singularity ur-civilization, a zombie was a non-self-conscious entity that acted just like a conscious one: 
it laughed, cried, talked, ate, and generally behaved just Like a real person, and if questioned, would 
claim to be conscious_but behind its superficial behavior, there was nobody home, no internalized 
model of the universe it lived in.


The philosophers had hypothesized that no such zombies existed, and that everything that claimed 
personhood was actually a person. Sister Seventh was less convinced. Human beings_ those rugose, 
endothermic anthropoids with their ridiculously small incisors and anarchic social arrangements_didn_t 
seem very real to her. So she was perpetually searching for evidence that, actually, they weren_t people 
at all.


She Who Observes was of the opinion that her littermate was chewing on the happy roots again, but 
then, unlike Sister Seventh, she wasn_t a practical critic: she was an observer.


_I think we really need to settle the zombie question here before we fix their other problems._


_And how do you propose to do that?_ asked She Who Observes. _It_s the subjectivity problem again. I 
tell you, the only viable analytical mode is the intentional stance. If something claims to be conscious, 
take it at its own word and treat it as if it has conscious intentions._


_Ah, but I can so easily program a meerkat to chirp _I think, therefore I am!_ No, sister, we need to 
tunnel nearer the surface to find the roots of sapience. A test is required, one that a zombie will stick in, 
but an actor will squeeze through._


_Do you have such a test in mind?_.


Sister Seventh pawed air and champed her huge, yellow tusks. _Yes, I think I can construct one. The 
essential characteristic of conscious beings is that they adopt the intentional stance: that is, they model 
the intentions of other creatures, so that they can anticipate their behavior. When they apply such a 
model to others, they acquire the ability to respond to their intentions before they become obvious: when 
they apply it to themselves, they become self-conscious, because they acquire an understanding of their 
own motivations and the ability to modify them.
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_But thus far, I have seen no evidence that their motivations are self-modifying, or indeed anything but 
hardwired reflexes. I want to test them, by introducing them to a situation where their own self-image is 
contradicted by their behavior. If they can adapt their self-image to the new circumstances, we will 
know that we are dealing with fellow sapients. Which will ultimately influence the nature of our review._


_This sounds damaging or difficult, sister. I will have to think on it before submitting to Mother._


Seventh emitted a bubbling laugh and flopped forward onto her belly. _Oh, sibling! What did you think I 
have in mind?_


_I don_t know. But be it anything like your usual__ She Who Observes stopped, seeing the triumphant 
gleam in her sister_s eye.


_I merely propose to Criticize a handful of them a trifle more thoroughly than usual,_ said Sister 
Seventh. _And when I_m done, any who live will know they_ve been Criticized. This is my 
methodology&_ 
Commander Krupin took nearly two hours to get around to seeing Vassily Muller: it wasn_t intentional 
on his part. Almost as soon as the main drive field was powered up and running, and the ship surfing 
smoothly away from the Klamovka beanstalk, his pager beeped:


ALL OFFICERS TO BRIEFING ROOM D IMMEDIATELY


_Shit and corruption,_ he muttered. Passing Pavel Grubor: _The old man wants me right now. Can you 
take care of the shipyard technician and find out how long he_s going to be in closing out the installation 
of the baseline compensator? Page me when you_ve got an answer._ He headed off without waiting for a 
response.


Mikhail Krupkin enjoyed his job, and didn_t particularly expect or want any further promotions; he_d 
been in shipboard systems for the past fourteen years and expected to serve out his career in them before 
enjoying a long and happy retirement working for some commercial space line. However, messages like 
this one completely destroyed his peace of mind. It meant that the boss was going to ask him questions 
about the availability of his systems, and with the strange patch boxes installed in the drive room, the 
Lord Vanek might be mobile, but he couldn_t in all honesty swear it was one hundred percent solid.


He didn_t know just what was in those boxes, but he was sure there was a reason why the Admiralty was 
spending several million crowns on a drive upgrade. And in any event, they_d been remarkably cagey 
about the extra control software for them. Boxes, hooked into the drive, which also hooked into the new, 
high-bandwidth linkup to the tactical network: something smelled.


All this and more was on his mind as he took the express elevator up to the conference suite in officer 



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country. The door to Room D was open, waiting for him. Most of the other senior officers were already 
there. Ilya Murametz, the ship_s executive officer, Lieutenant Helsingus from fire control, the usual 
battle operations team, Vulpis from Relativity& he was probably last, but for the Captain, by reason of 
having come farthest. _Ilya. What_s going on?_


Ilya glanced at him. _The Captain is with the Admiral. When he arrives he will make an announcement,_ 
he said. _I don_t know anything about it except that it_s nothing specific._ Krupkin breathed a silent sight 
of relief; _nothing specific_ meant that it wasn_t about the running of the ship. Nobody was going to be 
hauled over the coals today. Not that Captain Mirsky was a martinet hy the standards of the New 
Republican Navy, but he could be merciless if he thought someone was asleep at the switch or not doing 
his job properly.


Suddenly there was a change of atmosphere in the room. Everyone turned to face the doorway: 
conversations stopped, and officers came to attention. Captain Mirsky stood for a long moment, 
surveying his staff. Evidently what he saw gratified him; when he spoke his first words were, 
_Gentlemen, please be seated._ He walked to the head of the table and laid down a thick folder in front 
of his chair.


_It is now 1130. The door to this room is shut, and will remain shut, barring emergencies, until 1200.1 
am authorized to inform you that we are now under battle orders. I am not privy to the political 
discussions behind our orders, but I am informed by Admiral Kurtz_s staff that it appears likely that no 
resolution of the crisis short of war is possible; accordingly, we have been ordered to proceed as part of 
Task Group One to Rochard_s World, by way of Battle Plan Omega Green Horizon._ Now he pulled his 
chair out and sat down. _Are there any questions about the background before I go into our specific 
orders?_ he asked.


Lieutenant Marek raised a hand. _Sir, do we know anything about the aggressor? It seems to me that the 
censor_s office has been more than usually diligent._


Captain Mirsky_s cheek twitched. _A good question._ Krupkin glanced at the lieutenant; a young hotshot 
in TacOps, who_d joined the ship less than six months ago. _A good question deserves a good answer. 
Unfortunately, I can_t give you one because nobody has seen fit to tell me. So, Lieutenant. How do you 
think our armed forces stack up, in a worst-possible-case situation?_


Lieutenant Marek gulped; he hadn_t been on board long enough to have figured out the Captain_s 
Socratic style of testing his subordinates_ knowledge_a holdover from Mirsky_s two tours as a 
professor in the Naval Staff Academy. _Against whom, sir? If it was just a matter of suppressing a local 
rebellion, there wouldn_t be any problem at all. But Rochard_s World had a picket force consisting of a 
destroyer plus point defenses, and they_d be as good as us at suppression. So they wouldn_t be sending 
us if that was enough to deal with the situation. There must be an active enemy who has already stopped 
the local picket force intervening._
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_An accurate summary._ Captain Mirsky smiled humor-lessly. _One that holds true whatever we face. 
Unfortunately, you now know as much as I do, but for one thing: apparently the destroyer Sakhalin was 
eaten. I don_t know if this is metaphor or literal truth, but it appears that nobody knows who this Festival 
is, or what they are capable of, or whether the destroyer gave them indigestion. Let us not forget our 
oath of allegiance to the Emperor and the Republic; whatever they choose to do, we are sworn to be their 
right arm. If they decide to strike at an enemy, well, let us strike hard. Meanwhile, let us assume the 
worst. What if the enemy has cornucopia machines?_


Marek looked puzzled. _Couldn_t it go either way, sir? On the one hand, they have tools that let them 
build lots of weapons quickly without getting their hands dirty. But on the other hand, if they_re not used 
to working, isn_t there a good chance that they_re moral degenerates? The ability to manufacture doesn_t 
confer victory automatically, if the people who have it are weakened and corrupted by their decadent 
robot-supported lifestyle. How can they possibly have the traditions and Esprit of an honorable military 
force?_


_That remains to be seen,_ the Captain said cryptically. _For the time being, I prefer to assume the 
worst. And the worst case is that the enemy has cornucopia machines, and is not decadent and cowardly._


Marek shook his head slightly.


_You have a question?_ asked Mirsky.


_Uh. I thought__ Marek looked worried. _Is that possible?_


_Anything is possible,_ the Captain said, heavily. _And if we plan for the worst, with luck all our 
surprises will be favorable._ He glanced away from the naive Lieutenant. _Next._


Krupkin, who as an engineer had his own opinion about the advisability of banning the use of 
technologies for social reasons, nodded to himself. While Mirsky wouldn_t say so in public, he had a 
very good idea what the Captain was thinking_having a decadent robot-supported lifestyle doesn _tpre-


elude having military traditions. In fact, it may give them more time to focus on the essentials. The 
Captain continued to poll his officers, publicly querying the readiness of their posts.


__Engineering status. Commander Krupkin?_


Krupkin stifled a grunt of annoyance. _The shipyard contractor is still applying the upgrade patches to 
our baseline compensators. I am awaiting a precise hand-off estimate, but as of this morning, we 
expected three more shifts to complete the modifications, and another shift to test them. I have no 
complaints about his efficiency: he_s as good as anyone I_ve ever worked with, a real virtuoso. Other 
than that, the secondary compensator set_which is not being upgraded_is fully operational. We are 
moving at full speed, but will not have full redundancy and the new upgrade modifications ready for 



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another four to five days_at a minimum._


_I see._ The Captain made a note on his blotter. He looked back at the engineer: a piercing blue-eyed 
stare that would have turned a less experienced officer into a nervous wreck. _Can the modifications be 
expedited? We will be passing into foreign space-time in two days; thereafter, we must anticipate the 
presence of enemy minelayers and warships along our route._


_Um_probably, sir. Unfortunately, the upgrades aren_t straightforward enough for our routine 
engineering staff. Springfield is a specialist, and he is exerting himself fully. I believe that we might be 
able to speed things up, but at the risk of errors creeping in because of fatigue. If I can use an analogy, 
it_s like a master surgeon performing an operation. Extra pairs of hands simply get in the way, and you 
can_t prop a surgeon up for days on end and expect his work to remain acceptable. I think we might be 
able to shave a day or two off the four-to-five-day estimate, but no more._


_I see._ Captain Mirsky glanced at Murametz significantly. _But we are still able to move and fight, and 
the new black-box system is already integrated._ He nodded. _Helsingus, how is TacOps?_


_I_ve been running daily exercises predicated on a standard fleet aggressor profile for the past week, sir, 
using the standard models Admiralty shipped us. We could do with a bit longer, but I think the boys 
have generally got the right idea. Barring any major surprises in enemy tactical doctrine, we_re ready to 
deal with them, whoever they are, one-on-one._


_Good._ Mirsky sat in thought for a minute. _I have to tell you that I have a meeting this afternoon with 
Commodore Bauer and a teleconference with the other captains. You should assume that, as of now, this 
ship is on a war footing. You should be prepared for combat operations in the near future. Meanwhile, I 
expect daily reports on drive and gunnery readiness.


_That goes for the rest of you, too. I want daily readiness reports. We_ve wasted a lot of time churning 
conscripts this month, and I want us up to ninety-five percent operational capability as soon as possible. 
We will be bunkering a full fuel load and munitions from the supply ship Aurora tomorrow, and I expect 
that, as soon as we spool up for our first jump, we will be going to battle stations. That gives you about 
thirty-six hours to get ready for action. Are there any questions, gentlemen?_


Helsingus raised a hand.


_Yes?_


_Sir. Minelayers? Where are we going that might be mined?_


Mirsky nodded. _A good point, Commander. Our initial jump is going to be a short-hauler to Wolf 
Depository Five. I know that_s not on a direct course for Rochard_s World, but if we go straight there_
well, I presume our enemies can plot a straight course, too. What we don_t know is how much they 



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know about us. I hope to know more about them this afternoon._ He stood up. _If they launch a surprise 
attack, we_ll be ready for them. God is on our side; all the indications are that this Festival is a pagan 
degeneracy, and all we need to do is be of good heart and man our guns with enthusiasm. Any other 
questions?_ He looked around the room. Nobody raised a hand. _Very good. I am now leaving and will 
be in closed conference with the Commodore. Dismissed._


The Captain left the room in silence. But as soon as the door closed behind him, there was an uproar.
Martin was in a foul mood. Krupkin had broken the news to him hours earlier: _I_m sorry, but that_s the 
way it is,_ he_d said.


_Double shifts. We_re on a war footing. You especially don_t get to sleep until the upgrade job is done; 
orders from the skipper, who is not in a reasonable mood. Once it_s done, you can crash out for as long 
as you want, but we need it before we see combat._


_It_s going to be sixteen hours, minimum, whatever happens,_ Martin told him, trying hard to keep his 
cool. _The patches will be installed and active by the end of this shift, but I can_t release the system to 
you until it_s tested out fully. The regression tests are entirely automatic and take twenty thousand 
seconds to run. Then there_s the maneuver testing, which would normally take all week if this was a new 
hull we were upgrading. Finally, there_s drive qualification time which is three months for a new and 
untested system like the one your Admiralty ordered, and what do you think the chances are that you_re 
going to sit still for that?_


_Skip it,_ Krupkin said briskly. _We_re going to be maneuvering on it tomorrow. Can you start the white-
box phase today?_


_Fuck it._ Martin pulled his goggles and gloves back on. _Talk to me later, okay? I_m busy. You_ll get 
your bloody drive mods. Just point me at a bunk this evening._ He dived back into the immersive 
interface, ignoring the commander_who took it surprisingly mildly.


Which was perhaps just as well. Martin was keeping a tight rein on his anger, but beneath the brittle 
exterior, he was disturbed. The business with Rachel had unsettled him; he was now intensely nervous, 
and not just because of the volatility of the situation. Her approach had caught him off guard and 
vulnerable, and the potential consequences ranged from the unpredictable to the catastrophic.


For the rest of the day, he worked furiously, checking the self-extending array of connectors linking the 
new drive control circuitry into the existing neural networks. He headed off several possible problems in 
the performance profile of the control feedback sensors, tuned the baseline compensators for extra 
precision, and added several patches to the inner hard control loops that monitored and pulled the hair on 
the black hole; but he left the midlife kicker traps alone. And he installed the special circuit that Herman 
had asked him to add.
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He worked on into the evening shift, then started the regression tests going: a series of self-test routines, 
driven by software, that would exercise and report on every aspect of the drive upgrade. Installing and 
testing the module was the easy task: tomorrow he_d have to start testing how it interacted with the 
kernel_an altogether more nerve-wracking experience. So it was that, at 2500, he yawned, stretched, set 
aside his gloves and feedback sensors, and stood up.


_Aargh._ He stretched further. Joints popped with the effort; he felt dizzy, and tired, and slightly sick. 
He blinked; everything seemed flat and monochromatic after the hours immersed in false-color 3-D 
controls, and his wrists ached. And why, in this day and age, did warships smell of pickled cabbage, 
stale sweat, and an occasional undertone of sewage? He stumbled to the door. A passing rating glanced 
at him curiously. _I need to find a bunk,_ he explained.


_Please wait here, sir._ He waited. A minute or so later, one of Krupkin_s minions came into view, hand-
over-hand down the wall like a human fly.


_Your berth? Ah, yes, sir. D deck, Compartment 24, there_s an officer_s room waiting for you. Breakfast 
call at 0700. Paulus, please show the gentleman here to his room._


_This way, sir._ The crewman quietly and efficiently guided Martin through the ship, to a pale green 
corridor lined with hatches like those of a capsule hotel. _There you are._ Martin blinked at the indicated 
door, then pulled it aside and climbed in.


It was like a room in a capsule hotel or a compartment on a transcontinental train_one with two bunks. 
The lower one flipped upside down to make a desk when not in use. It was totally sterile, totally clean, 
with ironed sheets and a thin blanket on the lower bunk, and it smelled of machine oil, starch, and 
sleepless nights. Someone had laid out a clean overall with no insignia on it. Martin eyed it mistrustfully 
and decided to stick to his civilian clothes until they were too dirty to tolerate. Surrendering to the New 
Republic_s uniform seemed symbolic; letting them claim him as one of their own would feel like a small 
treason.


He palmed the light to low, and stripped his shoes and socks off, then lay down on the lower bunk. 
Presently, the light dimmed and he began to relax. He still felt light-headed, tired and angry, but at least 
the worst hadn_t happened: no tap on the shoulder, no escort to the brig. Nobody knew who he really 
worked for. You could never tell in this business, and Martin had a prickly feeling washing up and down 
his spine. This whole situation was completely bizarre, and Herman_s request that he plonk himself in 
the middle of it was well out of the usual run of assignments. He shut his eyes and tried to push away the 
visions of spinning yellow blocks that danced inside his head.


The door opened and closed. _Martin,_ said a quiet voice beside his pillow, _keep your voice down. 
How did things go?_


He jackknifed upright and nearly smashed his head on the underside of the bunk overhead. _What!_ He 


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paused. _What are you__


_Doing here?_ A quiet, ironic laugh. _I_m doing the same as you; feeling tired, wondering what the hell 
I_m doing in this nuthouse._


He relaxed a little, relieved. _I wasn_t expecting you._


_It_s my job to be here; I_m attached to the Admiral_s staff as a diplomatic representative. Look, I can_t 
stay long. It would be a really bad idea for anyone to find me in your room. At best, they_d assume the 
worst, and at worst, they might think you were a spy or something__


_But I am a spy,_ he blurted out in a moment of weakness. _At least, you wanted__


_Yeah, right, and I_ve got your secret-agent decoder ring right here. Look, I want to talk, but business 
first. Are the drive upgrades finished?_


His eyes adjusted to the dark; he could see the outline of her face. Short hair and shadows made her look 
very different, harder and more determined. But something in her expression as she watched him made 
her look slightly uncertain. Business first, she said. _The upgrades are going to take some time,_ he said. 
_They_re about ready for testing to start tomorrow, but it_s a risky proposition. I_m going to be ironing 
bugs out of the high-precision clocks for the next week._ He paused. _Are you sure mis is safe? How did 
you find me?_


_It wasn_t hard. Thank MiG for the security system schematics. Life Support and Security think you_re 
alone in here. I thought it was safer to visit in person than to try to page you._


Martin shuffled around and sat up, making room for her, and Rachel sat down next to him. He noticed 
for the first time that she was wearing a uniform_not a New Republican one. _You_re here for the 
whole voyage?_


She chuckled. _The better to get to know you. Relax. If you want to talk to your local diplomatic 
representative, that_s me. Besides, they need me, or someone like me. Who else is going to negotiate a 
cease-fire for them?_


_Aah._ Martin fell silent for a moment, thinking. He was aware of her next to him, almost painfully so. 
_You_re taking a risk,_ he said after a while. _They aren_t going to thank you__


_Hush._ She leaned closer. He felt her breath on his cheek: _The drive patches you_re installing are part 
of an illegal weapons system, Martin. I_m sure of it. I_m not sure what kind of illegality is being 
contemplated, but I_m sure it involves causality violation. If they commence training maneuvers shortly, 
I_ll get a chance to see just what they_re planning to use the upgrades for. That_s why I need to be here. 
And why I need your help. I wouldn_t normally dump this on you, but I really need your help, active 


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help, in figuring out what_s going on. Do you understand?_


_I understand very little,_ Martin said nervously, priming his autonomic override to keep his pulse 
steady so as not to betray the lie. He felt unaccountably guilty about withholding the truth from her. 
Rachel seemed like the least likely person to jeopardize his mission_and he liked her, wanted to be able 
to relax in her presence freely, without worries. But caution and experience conspired to seal his lips. 
_I_m just along for the ride,_ he added. He simply couldn_t tell her about Herman. Without knowing how 
she_d react, the consequences might be disastrous. Might. And it was a risk he dared not take.


_Understand this,_ she said quietly. _A lot of lives are at stake. Not just mine, or yours, or this ship_s, 
but just about everyone within a thirty-light-year radius of here. That_s a lot of people._


_Why do you think this is going to drag the big E into the situation?_ he prompted. He was deathly tired 
and didn_t want to have to lie to her. Can I keep her talking? he wondered. If she didn_t keep speaking, 
he was afraid he might tell her too much. Which would be a big mistake.


She touched his arm. _The Eschaton will be interested for a simple reason; it is absolutely opposed to 
causality violation. Please don_t pretend you_re that naive, Martin. I_ve seen your resume. I know where 
you_ve been and what you_ve done. You_re not an idiot, and you know what a well-tuned warp drive can 
do in the hands of an expert. In terms of special relativity, being able to travel faster than light is 
effectively equivalent to time travel_at least from the perspective of observers in different frames of 
reference. They see the light from your arrival, which is close to them, a long time before they see the 
light from your departure, which is a long way away. Because you_re outrunning the speed of light, 
events appear to happen out of sequence. Okay? Same with a causal link, an instantaneous quantum-
entanglement communicator. It doesn_t mean there_s real time travel involved, or that you can create 
temporal paradoxes, but being able to mess with an observer_s view of events at a distance is a boon for 
strategists.


_The Eschaton doesn_t care about such trivial kinds of time travel, but it stamps hard on the real thing; 
any manifestation of closed timelike paths that could jeopardize its own history. The big E doesn_t want 
anyone doing a knight_s move on it, back in time and then forward again, to screw over its origin. 
Someone tries to build an instantaneous communicator? No problem. They go on to build a logic gate 
that transmits its output into its own past, where it_s wired into the input? That_s the basis of acausal 
logic, and it gives you the first tool you need to build a transcendent artificial intelligence. Poof, the 
planet is bombarded from orbit with cannibal lemmings or bitten to death by killer asteroids or 
something.


_Anyway, I don_t really care all that much what the New Republic does to the Festival. I mean, maybe I 
care about individual people in the New Republic, and maybe the Festival folks are really nice, but that_s 
not the point. But I do care if they do whatever they_re going to do inside Earth_s light cone. If it 
involves large-scale causality violation, the E might decide to take out the entire contaminated zone. 
And we know it seeded colonies as much as three thousand light-years away_ even assuming it still 



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wants humans around, it can afford to wipe out a couple of hundred planets._ Martin had to bite his 
cheek to keep from correcting her. She fell silent. He waited for her to continue, but she didn_t; she 
seemed almost depressed,


_You have a lot of clout. Have you told them what you_ve deduced? Or told anybody else?_


She chuckled, a peculiarly grim laugh. _If I did that, how long do you think it would be before they 
chucked me overboard, with or without a vacsuit? They_re paranoid enough already; they think there_s a 
spy on board, and they_re afraid of minelayers and saboteurs along the way._


_A spy?_ He sat up, scared. _They know there_s a__


_Be quiet. Yes, a spy. Not one of us; some goon from the Curator_s Office who they sent along to keep 
an eye on you. Be quiet, I said. He_s just a kid, some wet-behind-the-ears trainee cop. Try to relax 
around him. As far as you_re concerned, you_re allowed to talk to me; I_m the nearest representative of 
your government._


_When are we going to get off this ship?_ he asked tensely.


_Probably when we arrive._ She took his hand and squeezed it. _Do your job and keep your head down,_ 
she said calmly. _Just don_t, whatever you do, act guilty or confess to anything. Trust me, Martin, like I 
told you before: we_re on the same team for the duration._


Martin leaned close to her. She was tense, very tense. _This is quite insane,_ he said very slowly and 
carefully as he slid an arm around her shoulders. _This idiotic expedition is probably going to get us 
both killed._


_Maybe._ Her grip tightened on his hand.


_Better not,_ he said tightly. _I haven_t had a chance to get to know you yet._


_Me neither._ Her grip relaxed a little. _Is that what you_d like to do? Really?_


_Well._ He leaned back against the hard wall beside the bunk. _I hadn_t thought about it a lot,_ he 
mused, _but I_ve been alone for a long time. Really. Before this job. I need__ He shut his eyes. _Shit. 
What I mean to say is, I need to get out of this job for a while. I want a year or two off, to pull myself 
together and find out who I am again. A change and a rest. And if you_re thinking about that, too, then
__


_You sound overworked._ She shivered. _Someone just walked over my grave. You and me both, 
Martin, you and me both. Something about the New Republic uses you up, doesn_t it? Listen, I_ve got 
about two years_ accumulated leave waiting for me, after I get home. If you want to go somewhere 


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together, to get away from all this__


_Sounds good to me,_ he said quietly. _But right now&_ He trailed off, with a glance at the cabin door.


There was a moment_s frozen silence: _I won_t let you down,_ she said softly. She hugged him briefly, 
then let go and stood up. _You_re right. I really shouldn_t be here, I_ve got a room to go to, and if they_re 
still watching me_well._


She took her cap from the upper bunk, carefully placed it on her head, and opened the door. She looked 
back at him and, for a moment, he thought about asking her to stay, even thought about telling her 
everything; but then she was gone, out into the red-lit passages of the sleeping ship.


_Damn,_ he said softly, watching the door in mild disbelief. _Too late, too late. Damn&_
Wolf Depository Incident


The shooting began with a telegram.


Locked in a loose formation with six other capital ships, the Lord Vanek hurtled toward the heliopause, 
where the solar wind met the hard vacuum of interstellar space. Wolf Depository lay five light-years 
ahead, and almost five years in the future_for the plan was that fleet would follow a partially closed 
timelike path, plunging deep into the future (staying within the scope of a light cone with its apex drawn 
on New Prague at the time of first warning of attack), then use the black boxes attached to their drive 
modules to loop back into the past. Without quite breaking the letter of the Eschaton_s law_Thou shalt 
not globally violate causality_the fleet would arrive in orbit around Rochard_s World just after the 
onslaught of the Festival, far faster than such a task force would normally cover the eight hops 
separating them from the colony world. In the process, it would loop around any forces sent by the 
enemy to intercept a straightforward counter-strike_and pick up a time capsule containing analyses of 
the battle written by future historians, the better to aid the Admiral_s planning.


At least, that was what theory dictated. Get there implausibly fast, with more firepower than any attacker 
could possibly expect, and with advance warning of the attacker_s order of battle and defensive 
intentions. What could go wrong?


The operations room was a hive of concentration as the gold team officers_the crew shift who would be 
on duty at the time of the forthcoming first jump, the one that would take the fleet into the future, as well 
as out into deep space_ran through their set-up checklists.


Captain Mirsky stood at the rear of the room, next to the heavy airtight door, watching his officers at 
their posts: a running display of telemetry from the ship_s battle management systems ran up the main 


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wall-screen. The atmosphere was tense enough to cut with a knife. It was the first time any warship of 
the New Republic had engaged a high-technology foe; and no one, to the best knowledge of Commodore 
Bauer_s staff, had ever tried to pull off this tactical procedure before. Anything could be waiting for 
them. Five years into the future was as far as they dared probe in one jump; in theory, there should be a 
navigation beacon awaiting them, but if something went awry, the enemy might be there instead. Mirsky 
smiled thinly. All the more reason to get it right, he reasoned. If we mess it up, there won_t be a second 
time.


The military attache from Earth had invited herself in to rubberneck at the proceedings and presumably 
report back to her masters in due course. Not that it made any difference at this point, but it annoyed 
Mirsky_s sense of order to have a tourist along, let alone one whose loyalty was questionable. He 
resolved to ignore her_or, if that became impossible, to eject her immediately.


_First breakpoint in five-zero seconds,_ called the flight engineer. _Slaved to preferential-frame 
compensation buffers. Range to jump initiation point, six-zero seconds._ More jargon followed, in a 
clipped, tense voice; the routine stock-in-trade of a warship, every phrase was defined by some 
procedural manual.


Gunnery one: _Acknowledged. Standing by to power up laser grid._ A mass of lasers_more than a 
million tiny cells scattered across the skin of the ship, able to operate as a single phased array_cycled 
through their power-up routines and reported their status. The ship was nearing the jump point; as it did 
so, it sucked energy out of the energized, unstable vacuum ahead of it and stored it by spinning up its 
drive kernel, the tiny, electrically charged black hole that nestled at the heart of the engine room 
containment sphere.


Engineering: _Main inertial propulsion holding at minus two seconds. Three-zero seconds to jump._


The ship drifted closer to the lightspeed transition point. The rippled space ahead of it began to flatten, 
bleeding energy into the underlying vacuum state. Six more huge warships followed behind at five-
minute intervals; Squadron Two, the light screen of fast-movers who had set off behind the Lord Vanek, 
had overhauled them the day before and jumped through six hours ago.


Comms: _Telegram from the flag deck, sir._


_Read it,_ called Mirsky.


_Telegram from Admiral Kurtz, open, all ears. Begins: Assume enemy warships ahead, break. Initiate 
fire on contact with hostiles, break. For the glory of the empire. Ends. Sent via causal channel to all 
sister ships._ The causal channels between the ships would die, their contents hopelessly scrambled, as 
soon as the ships made their first jump between equipotential points: quantum entanglement was a 
fragile phenomenon and couldn_t survive faster-than-light transitions.
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Mirsky nodded. _Acknowledge it. Exec, bring us battle stations._ Alarms began to honk mournfully 
throughout the ship.


_Reference frame trap executed._ Relativistics. _Jump field engaged. We have a white box in group B, 
repeat, white box in B._ A captive reference frame meant the ship had mapped the precise space-time 
location of its origin perfectly. Using the newly installed drive controllers, the Lord Vanek could return 
to that point in time from some future location, flying a closed timelike loop.


Mirsky cleared his throat. _Jump at your convenience._


No lights dimmed, there was no sense of motion, and virtually nothing happened_except for a burst of 
exotic particles injected into the ergo-sphere of the quantum black hole in the ship_s drive module. 
Nevertheless, without any fuss, the star patterns outside the ship_s hull changed.


_Jump confirmed._ Almost everybody breathed a slight sight of relief.


_Survey, let_s see where we are._ Mirsky showed no sign of stress, even though his ship had just jumped 
five years into its own future, as well as a parsec and a half out into the unknown.


_Yes, sir: laser grid coming up._ About two gigawatts of power_enough to run a large city_surged 
into the laser cells in the ship_s skin: if there was one thing a starship like the Lord Vanek had, it was 
electricity to burn. The ship lit up like a pulsar, pumping out a blast of coherent ultraviolet light 
powerful enough to fry anyone within a dozen kilometers. It stabilized, scanning rapidly in a tight beam, 
quartering the space ahead of the ship. After a minute it shut down again.


Radar: _No obstructions. We_re well clear._ Which was to be expected. Out here, fifteen to fifty 
astronomical units away from the primary, you could travel for 100 million kilometers in any direction 
without meeting anything much larger than a snowball. The intense UV lidar pulse would propagate for 
minutes, then hours, before returning the faint trace of a skin signature.


_Very good. Conn, take us forward. One gee, total delta of one-zero k.p.s._ Mirsky stood back and 
waited as the helm officer punched in the maneuver. Ten k.p.s. wasn_t much speed, but it would take the 
Lord Vanek comfortably away from its point of emergence without emitting too much drive noise, 
leaving room for the rest of the flotilla behind them. A lidar pulse in the depths of the halo could only 
signify a warship on the prowl, and it would be extremely unhealthy to stay too close to its point of 
origin. In the Oort cloud of an industrialized system, even the snowballs could bite.


_Ping at nine-two-six-four!_ crowed Radar Two. _Range four-point-nine M-klicks, bearing one by seven-
five by three-three-two. Lots of hot one-point-four MeV gammas_they_re cooking on antimatter!_


_Acceleration?_ asked Mirsky.
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_Tracking& one-point-three gees, confirmed. No change. Uh, wait__


_Comms bulletin from the Kamchatka, sir._


_Comms, call it._


_Message reads, quote, under attack by enemy missile layers break. Situation serious break. Where are 
the BBs, break. All units please respond, ends._


Mirsky blinked. Enemy warships? This soon? Wolf Depos-itory was right on the New Republic_s 
doorstep, a mining system owned and exploited by the rich, heavily industrialized Septagon Central. 
What on earth were they doing allowing alien warships_


_Second burst at nine-two-six-four,_ called Radar One. _Same emission profile. Looks like we scared up 
a swarm!_


_Wait,_ grated Mirsky. He shook himself, visibly surprised by the news. _Wait, dammit! I want to see 
what else is out there. Comms, do not, under any circumstances, respond to signals from the Kamchatka, 
or anybody who came through ahead of us without clearing it with me first. If there are enemy ships out 
here, we_ve got no way of knowing whether our signals have been compromised._


_Aye aye, sir. Signal silence on all screening elements._


_Now._ He bent his head, pondering the screen ahead. _If it is an ambush&_


The gamma-ray traces lit up on the main screen, labeled icons indicating their position and vector 
relative to the system ahead. One-point-three gees wasn_t particularly fast, but it was enough to send 
cold shudders up Mirsky_s spine: it meant serious high-delta-vee propulsion systems, fusion or 
antimatter or quantum gravity induction, not the feeble ion drive of a robot tug. That could mean a 
number of things: sublight rela-tivistic bombers, missile buses, intrasystem interceptors, whatever. The 
Lord Vanek would have to skim past them to get to the next jump zone. Which could give them a 
passing shot at over 1000 k.p.s& a speed at which it took very little, maybe a sand grain, to total a ship. 
If it was an ambush, it had probably nailed the entire task force cold.


_Radar,_ he said, _give me a second lidar pulse, three-zero seconds. Then plot a vector intersect on those 
bogies, offset one-zero kiloklicks at closest pass, acceleration one-zero gees, salvo of two SEM-20s one-
zero-zero kiloklicks out._


_Aye aye, skipper._


_Missiles armed, launch holding at minus one-zero seconds._ Commander Helsingus, stationed at 
Gunnery One.


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_I want them to get a good look at our attack profile,_ murmured the Captain. _Nice and close._ Ilya 
Murametz glanced at him sidelong. _Keep the boys on their toes,_ Mirsky added, meeting his eye. Ilya 
nodded.


_Gamma burst!_ called Radar Two. _Burst at one-four-seven-one. Range one-one point-two M-klicks, 
bearing one by seven-five by three-three-two. Looks like shooting, sir!_


_Understood._ Mirsky clasped his hands together: Muram-etz winced as he cracked his knuckles. _Hurry 
up and wait. Helm: How_s the attack course?_


_We_re prepping it now, sir._


_Forward lidar. Looks like we are in a shooting war. And they know we_re here by now. So let_s get a 
good look at them._


Comms: _Sir, new message purportedly from the Kamchatka. Message from the Aurora, too._


_Read them._


Mirsky nodded at the comms station, where the petty officer responsible read from a punched paper tape 
unreeling from the brass mouth of a dog_s head. _Kamchatka says, quote, engaged by enemy missile 
boats break we are shooting back break enemy warships astern painting us with target designation radar 
break situation desperate where are you. Ends. Aurora says, quote, no contact with enemies break 
Kamchatka off course stand by for orbital elements correction break what is all the shooting about. 
Ends._


_Oh bloody hell._ Murametz turned red.


_Indeed,_ Mirsky said drily. _The question is, whose? TacOps: what_s our status?_


_Target acquired, sir. Range down to four-point-eight M-klicks, speed passing one-zero-zero k.p.s. 
Engagement projected within two-point-four kiloseconds._


_We have a& three-zero-zero-second margin,_ said Mirsky, checking the clock display. _That should be 
plenty. We can get a look at the closest one without getting so close their launch base can shoot at us if 
it_s a missile bus. Everyone clear? Guns: I want real-time logging of those birds. Let_s see how they 
perform. Radar: Can you lock a spectroscope on the target?_


_At three K-klicks per second, from one-zero K-klicks away? I think so, sir, but we_ll need a big fat 
beacon to spot against._
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_You_ll have one._ Murametz smiled widely. _Guns: dial those birds down to point-one of a kiloton 
before you fire them. Standard MP-3 warheads?_


_Yes, sir._


_Good. Keep _em._


Standing at the back of the bridge, Rachel tried not to wince. Wearing her arms inspectorate hat, she was 
all too familiar with the effects of americium bombs: nuclear weapons made with an isotope denser and 
more fissile than plutonium, more stable than californium. Just good old-fashioned fission bombs, 
jacketed with a high-explosive shaped charge and a lens of pre-fragmented copper needles_shrapnel 
that, in a vacuum engagement, would come spalling off the nuclear fireball in a highly directional cone, 
traveling at a high fraction of Hghtspeed.


The next thirty minutes passed in tense silence, broken only by terse observations from Radar One and 
Two. No more targets burst from hiding; there might well be others in the Kuiper belt, but none were 
close enough to see or be seen by the intense lidar pulses of the warship. In that time, passive sensors 
logged two nuclear detonations within a range of half a light-hour; someone was definitely shooting. 
And behind them, the telltale disturbances of six big ships emerged from jump, then powered up their 
combat lidar and moved out.


_Launch point in six-zero seconds,_ called Helsingus. _Two hot SEM-20s on the rail._


_Fire on schedule,_ said Mirsky, straightening his back and looking directly ahead at the screen. The 
green arrow showing the Lord Vanek_s vector had grown until it was beginning to show the purple of 
relativistic distortion around its sensitive extrapolative tip: the ship was already nearing half a percent of 
lightspeed, a dangerous velocity. Too high a speed and it might not be able to track targets effectively: 
worse, it wouldn_t be able to dodge or change its vector fast, or jump safely.


_Three-zero seconds. Arming birds. Birds show green, sir._


_I_m getting emissions from the target,_ called Radar Two. _Lots of_looks like jamming, sir!_


_Laser grid. Illuminate the target,_ said Mirsky. _Guns, set to passive._


_Aye aye, sir._ Under passive homing mode, the missiles would lock onto the target, illuminated by the 
Lord Vanek_s laser battery, and home in on its reflection.


_Target still accelerating slowly,_ said Radar One. _Looks like a missile boat._


_One-zero seconds. Launch rails energized._



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_You have permission to fire at will, Commander,_ said the Captain.


_Yes, sir. Eight seconds. Navigation updated. Inertial platforms locked. Birds charged, warheads& 
green. Five seconds. Launch commencing, bird one. Gone._ The deck shuddered briefly: ten tons of 
missile hurtled the length of the ship in the grip of a coilgun, ejected ahead of the starship at better than a 
kilometer per second. _Lidar lock. Drive energized. Bird one main engine ignition confirmed. Bird two 
loaded and green& launch. Gone. Drive energized._


_Bingo,_ Ilya said quietly.


Red arrows indicating the progress of the missiles appeared on the forward screen. They weren_t self-
powered; nobody in his right mind would dare load a quantum black hole and its drive support 
mechanism into a robot suicide machine. Rather, the ship_s phased-array lasers bathed them in a sea of 
energy, boiling and then superheating the reaction mass they carried until they surged forward far faster 
than the starship. Strictly a close-range low-delta-vee weapon, missiles were mostly obsolescent; their 
sole job was to get a nuclear device onto the right interception vector, like the _bus_ on an ancient 
twentieth-century MIRV. They_d burn out after only thirty seconds, but by then the warheads would be 
closing the gap between the Lord Vanek_s projected course and the enemy ship itself. Shortly after the 
starship ran the gauntlet, its missiles would arrive_and deliver the killing blow.


_Radar One. Where are they?_ Mirsky asked softly.


_Tracking as before,_ called the officer. _Still maintaining course and vector. And emitting loads of 
spam._


_Bird one MECO in one-zero seconds,_ said Helsingus. _They_re trying to jam, sir. Nothing doing._ He 
said it with heavy satisfaction, as if the knowledge that the anonymous victims of the attack were 
offering some token resistance reassured him that he was not, in fact, about to butcher them without 
justification. Even committed officers found the applied methods of three centuries of nuclear warfare 
hard to stomach at times.


Comms Two, voice ragged with tension: _Jamming stopped, sir! I_m receiving a distress beacon. Two_
no, three! I say again, three distress beacons. It_s like they_re bailing out before we hit them._


_Too late,_ said Helsingus. _We_ll have _em in three-two seconds. They_ll be inside the burst radius._


Rachel shuddered. Suddenly a horrible possibility began to rise to the surface of her mind.


Mirsky cracked his knuckles again, kneading his hands together. _Guns. I want a last-ditch evasion 
program loaded, activate at closest approach minus one-zero seconds if we_re still here._
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_Yes, sir,_ Helsingus said heavily. _Laser grid support?_


_Anything you like._ Mirsky waved a hand magnanimously. _If we_re still here to enjoy the light show._


Helsingus began flipping switches like a man possessed. On the screen, the outgoing birds passed their 
main engine cutout points and went ballistic; more enemy missiles began hatching like sinister blue 
fingers reaching out from the target point.


_Captain,_ Rachel said slowly.


__One-zero seconds. They_re jamming hard, sir, but the birds are still holding._


_What if Kamchatka is wrong? What if those are civilian mining ships?_


Captain Mirsky ignored her.


_Five seconds! Bird one ready to go_range down to one-zero K. Three. EMP lockdown is go. Sensor 
stepdown mag six is go. Optics shielded_bang. Sir, I confirm that bird one has detonated. Bang. Bird 
two is gone._


_Radar. What do you see?_ asked Mirsky.


_Waiting on the fog to clear_ah, got sensors back sir. Incoming missiles still closing. Fireball remnants 
hashing up radar, lidar is better. Uh, the impact spectroscope has tripped, sir, we have a confirmed 
impact on the target alpha. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbonitrile emissions from the hull. I think we holed him, 
sir._


_We holed him__ Mirsky stopped. Turned to glance at Rachel. _What did you say?_ he demanded.


_What if they_re civilians? We have only Kamchatka_s word that they_re under attack; no direct 
evidence other than bombs going off_which could be hers._


_Nonsense._ Mirsky snorted. _None of our ships could make a mistake like that!_


_Nobody is actually shooting live missiles at us. The pre-jump briefing warned everyone to look out for 
enemy missile boats. How likely is it that the Kamchatka ran down a civilian mining ship by mistake 
and got a bit trigger-happy? And what you_re seeing as an attack is actually just the cruiser screen 
shooting in the dark at anything that moves?_


Dead silence. Enlisted men and officers alike stared at Rachel disapprovingly: nobody spoke to the 
captain like that! Then from behind her: _Spallation debris on radar, sir. Target is breaking up. Uh, 
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humbly reporting, Captain, we have distress beacons. Civilian ones&_
The Lord Vanek was going far too fast to slow down, and as flagship and lead element of the squadron, 
had a duty not to do so. Nevertheless, they signaled the squadron astern; and behind them, one of the 
elderly battleships peeled off to pick up any survivors from the disastrous attack.


The big picture, when it finally gelled some eight hours later, was very bad indeed. The _missile 
carriers_ were actually refinery tugs, tending the migratory robot factories that slowly trawled the 
Kuiper-belt bodies, extracting helium 3 from the snowballs. Their sudden burst of speed had a simple 
explanation; seeing alien warships, they had panicked, dumping their cargo pods so that they could clear 
the area under maximum acceleration. One of the distant explosions had been the Kamchatka, landing a 
near miss on one of the _enemy battleships__the cruiser India. (Minor hull damage and a couple of 
evacuated compartments had resulted; unfortunately, the cruiser_s chaplain had been in one of the 
compartments at the time, and had gone to meet his maker.)


_Ser-erves _em right for being in the way, dammit,_ quavered Admiral Kurtz when Commodore Bauer 
delivered the news in person. _Wha-what do they think this is?_ He half rose to his feet, momentarily 
forgetting about his glass legs: _Simply appalling stupidity!_


_Ah, I believe we still have a problem, sir,_ Bauer pointed out as Robard tried to get his master settled 
down again. _This system is claimed by Septagon, and, ah, we have received signals as of half an hour 
ago indicating that they have a warship in the area, and it_s engaging us on an intercept trajectory._ The 
Admiral snorted. _What can one warship d-do?_ Rachel, who had inveigled her way into the staff 
meeting on the grounds that, as a neutral observer, it was her duty to act as an intermediary in situations 
such as this one, watched Bauer spluttering with mordant interest. Can he really be that stupid? she 
wondered, glancing at the admiral, who hunched in his chair like a bald parrot, eyes gleaming with an 
expression of fixed mania.


_Sir, the warship that is signaling us is, ah, according to our most recent updates, one of their Apollo-
class fleet attack carriers. Radar says they_ve got additional traces indicative of a full battle group. We 
outnumber them, but__


Rachel cleared her throat. _They_ll eat you for breakfast._ Bauer_s head whipped around. _What did you 
say?_ She tapped her PA, where it lay on the table before her. _UN defense intelligence estimates 
suggest that Septagon_s policy of building carriers, rather than the standard laser/missile platform that 
your navy has adopted, gives them a considerable advantage in the ability to cover an entire system. 
Simply put, while they lack short-range firepower, they_re able to launch a swarm of interceptors that 
can pound on you from well outside your own engagement envelope. More to the point, they_re 
frighteningly good, and unless I_m very much mistaken, that carrier, on its own, outmasses your entire 
fleet. I wouldn_t want you to get the idea that I don_t rate you against the Septagon Navy, but if you_re 
planning on fighting them, do you think you could let me know in advance? I_d like a chance to grab a 
survival pod first._


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_Well, we can_t argue with the government of Earth_s defense estimates, can we, Commander?_ Bauer 
nodded pointedly at his executive officer.


_Ah, no, sir. The Colonel is quite correct._ The young and somewhat flustered Lieutenant avoided 
looking at Rachel; it was a minor slight she was getting plenty of practice at ignoring.


_Damned newfangled inventions,_ mumbled Kurtz under his breath. _Blasted many-angled ones don_t 
want us to succeed, anyway_per-per-perfidious technophiles!_ Louder: _We must press on!_


_Absolutely._ Commodore Bauer nodded sagely. _If we press on to Point Two on schedule, leaving the 
diplomatic niceties to the embassy_speaking of which_Lieutenant Kossov. What of the update? 
Where do we stand with respect to further information about this Festival, its order of battle and 
motives? What have we learned?_


_Ah._ Lieutenant Kossov, removed and polished his pince-nez nervously. _Well, there_s something of a 
problem. The deposition from the Admiralty doesn_t seem to have arrived. We were supposed to be 
seeing an ordnance beacon, but although we quartered the designated orbital path, there_s nothing there. 
Either they_re late_or they never planted it._


_This orbital beacon._ Rachel leaned forward. _A standard target buoy, right? With a diplomatic package 
containing anything the Republic_s intelligence services have learned about the Festival in the five years 
since our jump?_


Kossov glanced warily at the Commodore, who nodded. _Yes, Colonel. What of it?_


_Well, if it isn_t there, that can imply three things, can_t it? Either it was there, but somebody else stole 
or disabled it. Or__


_Perfidious Septagonians!_ Robard hastily leaned over his charge, then looked up and shrugged, 
eloquently.


_Indeed, Admiral. Or, as I was saying, the second option is that it hasn_t been put there yet_some 
miscalculation, or they couldn_t determine any useful information about the enemy, or they forgot about 
us, or something._


The noise of Kurtz_s snoring cut into her exposition. All eyes turned to the admiral; Robard straightened 
up. _I_m afraid the Admiral_s legs have been paining him considerably of late, and the dosage of his 
medication is not conducive to lucidity. He may sleep for some hours._


_Well, then._ Bauer looked around the conference table. _I believe if you would be so good as to return 
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His Excellency to his cabin, I will continue as his proxy and prepare a minuted report of this meeting for 
him to review later, when he_s feel-ing better. Unless anyone has any comments that specifically require 
the Admiral_s ear?_ Nobody demurred. _Very well then. Recess for five minutes._


Robard and an enlisted man gingerly rolled the Admiral_s chair away from the table; then, using the lift 
just outside the room, disappeared with him in the direction of his quarters. Everybody stood, and 
saluted, while the snoring officer was wheeled out of the meeting. Rachel held her face expressionless, 
trying to conceal the disgust and pity the sight pulled from her. He_s young enough to be my grandson. 
How can they do this to themselves?


Eventually, Bauer, assuming the admiral_s position at the head of the table, rapped his hand on the brass 
bell. _Meeting will resume. The Terran attache has the floor. You were saying?_


_The third possibility is that the New Republic no longer exists,_ Rachel said bluntly. She continued, 
ignoring the outraged gasps around the table. _You are facing an enemy about whose capabilities you 
are largely ignorant. I_m afraid to say, the UN knows little more about them than you do. As I noted, 
there are three reasons for the New Republic not to have contacted you, and their total defeat in the 
intervening time is only one of them, but not one it_s safe to ignore. We_re now in the outbound leg of a 
closed, timelike loop, which will eventually clip itself out of the world line of this universe if you 
succeed in looping back into our relative past_but the New Republic_s absolute immediate future_and 
taking the intruders by surprise. This has some odd implications. History reaching us inside this loop 
may not bear any relationship to the eventual outcome we seek, for one thing. For another__ She 
shrugged. _If I_d been consulted prior to this expedition, I would have strongly counseled against it. 
While it is not technically a breach of the letter of Clause Nineteen, it is dangerously close to the sort of 
activity that has brought down intervention by the Eschaton in the past. The Eschaton really doesn_t like 
time travel in the slightest, presumably because, if things go too far, someone might edit it out of 
existence. So there_s the possibility that what you_re up against isn_t just the Festival, but a higher 
power._


_Thank you, Colonel._ Bauer nodded politely, but his face was set in a mask of disapproval. _I believe 
that, for now, we shall disregard that possibility. If the Eschaton chooses to involve itself, there is 
nothing we can do in any case, so we must work on the assumption that it will not. And in that case, all 
we are up against is the Festival. Kossov. What did we know about it before we left?_


_Ah, um, well, that is to say__ Kossov looked around wildly, shuffled the papers on his blotter, and 
sighed. _Ah, good. Yes. The Festival__


_I know what it_s called, Lieutenant,_ the Commodore said reprovingly. _What is it and what does it 
want?_


_Nobody knows._ Kossov looked at his supreme commander_s deputy like a rabbit caught in the 
blinding headlights of an oncoming express train.
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_So, Commissioner._ Bauer cocked his head on one side and stared at Rachel, with the single-minded 
analytical purpose of a raptor. _And what can the esteemed government-coordinating body of Earth tell 
me about the Festival?_ he asked, almost tauntingly.


_Uh._ Rachel shook her head. Of course the poor kid had done his best_none of these people could 
know anything much about the Festival. Even she didn_t. It was a big yawning blank.


_Well?_ Bauer prodded.


Rachel sighed. _This is very provisional; nobody from Earth has had any direct contact with the agency 
known as Festival until now, and our information is, therefore, secondhand and unverifiable. And, 
frankly, unbelievable. The Festival does not appear to be a government or agency thereof, as we 
understand the term. In fact, it may not even be human. All we know is that something of that name 
turns up in distant settled systems_never closer than a thousand light-years, before now_and it, well, 
the term we keep hearing used to describe what happens next is _Jubilee_, if that makes any sense to you. 
Everything& stops. And the Festival takes over the day-today running of the system for the duration._ 
She looked at Bauer. _Is that what you wanted to know?_


Bauer shook his head, looking displeased. _No it wasn_t,_ he said. _I was after capabilities._


Rachel shrugged. _We don_t know,_ she said bluntly. _As I said, we_ve never seen it from close-up._


Bauer frowned. _Then this will be a first for you, won_t it? Which leads us to the next issue, updates to 
navigation plan Delta&_
A few hours later, Rachel lay facedown on her bunk and tried to shut the world out of her head. It wasn_t 
easy; too much of the world had followed her home over the years, crying for attention.


She was still alive. She knew, somehow, that she should feel relieved about this, but what she_d seen in 
the briefing room screen had unnerved her more than she was willing to admit. The admiral was a senile 
vacuum at the heart of the enterprise. The intelligence staff were well-meaning, but profoundly ignorant: 
they were so inflexible that they were incapable of doing their job properly. She_d tried to explain how 
advanced civilizations worked until she could feel herself turning blue in the face, and they still didn_t 
understand! They_d nodded politely, because she was a lady_even if a somewhat scandalous one, a 
lady diplomat_and immediately forgotten or ignored her advice.


You don_t fight an infowar attack with missiles and lasers, any more than you attack a railway 
locomotive with spears and stone axes. You don_t fight a replicator attack by throwing energy and 
matter at machines that will just use them for fuel. They_d nodded approvingly and gone on to discuss 
the virtues of active countermeasures versus low-observability systems. And they still didn_t get it; it 
was as if the very idea of something like the Festival, or even the Septagon system, occupied a mental 


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blind spot ubiquitous in their civilization. They could accept a woman in trousers, even in a colonel_s 
uniform, far more easily than they could cope with the idea of a technological singularity.


Back on Earth, she had attended a seminar, years ago. It had been a weeklong gathering of experts; 
hermeneutic engineers driven mad by studying the arcane debris of the Singularity, demographers still 
trying to puzzle out the distribution of colony worlds, a couple of tight-lipped mercenary commanders 
and commercial intelligence consultants absorbed in long-range backstop insurance against a return of 
the Escha-ton. They were all thrown together and mixed with a coterie of Defense SIG experts and UN 
diplomats. It was hosted by the UN, which, as the sole remaining island of concrete stability in a sea of 
pocket polities, was the only body able to host such a global event.


During the seminar, she had attended a cocktail party on a balcony of white concrete, jutting from a 
huge hotel built on the edge of the UN city, Geneva. She_d been in uniform at the time, working as an 
auditor for the denuclearization commission. Black suit, white gloves, mirrorshades pulsing news 
updates and radiation readings into her raw and tired eyes. Hyped up on a cocktail of alcohol 
antagonists, she sipped a bitter (and ineffective) gin with a polite Belgian cosmologist. Mutual 
incomprehension tinged with apprehension bound them in an uncomfortable Ping-Pong match of a 
conversation. _There is so much we do not understand about the Eschaton,_ the cosmologist had 
insisted, _especially concerning its interaction with the birth of the universe. The big bang._ He raised 
his eyebrows suggestively.


_The big bang. Not, by any chance, an unscheduled fissile criticality excursion, was it?_ She said it 
deadpan, trying to deflect him with humor.


_Hardly. There were no licensing bodies in those days_at the start of space-time, before the era of 
expansion and the first appearance of mass and energy, about a billionth of a billionth of a millionth of a 
second into the life of the universe._


_Surely the Eschaton can_t have been responsible for that. It_s a modern phenomenon, isn_t it?_


_Maybe not responsible,_ he said, choosing his words carefully. _But maybe circumstances arising then 
formed a necessary precondition for the Eschaton_s existence, or the existence of something related to 
but beyond the Eschaton. There_s a whole school of cosmology predicated around the weak an-thropic 
principle, that the universe is as it seems because, if it was any other way, we would not exist to observe 
it. There is a& less popular field, based on the strong anthropic principle, that the universe exists to give 
rise to certain types of en-tity. I don_t believe we_ll ever understand the Eschaton until we understand 
why the universe exists._


She smiled at him toothily, and let a Prussian diplomat rescue her with the aid of a polite bow and an 
offer to explain the fall of Warsaw during the late unpleasantness in the Baltic. A year or so later, the 
polite cosmologist had been murdered by Algerian religious fundamentalists who thought his account of 
the universe a blasphemy against the words of the prophet Yusuf Smith as inscribed on his two tablets of 



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gold. But that was typical of Europe, half-empty and prey to what the for-_ merly Islamic world had 
become.


Somewhere along the line she, too, had changed. She_d spent decades_the best part of her second, early-
twenty-second-century life_fighting the evils of nuclear proliferation. Starting out as a dreadlocked 
direct-action activist, chaining herself to fences, secure in the naive youthful belief that no harm could 
befall her. Later, she_d figured out that the way to do it was wearing a smart suit, with mercenary 
soldiers and the threat of canceled insurance policies backing up her quiet voice. Still prickly and direct, 
but less of a knee-jerk nonconformist, she_d learned to work the system for maximum effect. The hydra 
seemed halfway under control, bombings down to only one every couple of years, when Bertil had 
summoned her to Geneva and offered her a new job. Then she_d wished she_d paid more attention to the 
cosmologist_for the Algerian Latter-Day Saints had been very thorough in their suppression of the 
Tiplerite heresy-but it was too late, and in any event, the minutiae of the Standing Committee_s 
investigations into chronological and probabilistic warfare beckoned.


Somewhere along the line, the idealist had butted heads with the pragmatist, and the pragmatist won. 
Maybe the seeds had been sown during her first marriage. Maybe it had come later; being shot in the 
back and spending six months recovering in hospital in Calcutta had changed her. She_d done her share 
of shooting, too, or at least directing the machinery of preemptive vengeance, wiping out more than one 
cell of atomic-empowered fanatics_whether central-Asian independence fighters, freelance meres with 
a bomb too many in their basement, or on one notable occasion, radical pro-lifers willing to go to any 
lengths to protect the unborn child. Idealism couldn_t coexist with so many other people_s ideals, 
betrayed in their execution by the tools they_d chosen. She_d walked through Manchester three days 
after the Inter-City Firm_s final kickoff, before the rain had swept the sad mounds of cinders and bone 
from the blasted streets. She_d become so cynical that only a complete change of agenda, a wide-angle 
view of the prospects for humanity, could help her retain her self-respect.


And so to the New Republic. A shithole of a backwater, in her frank opinion; in need of remodeling by 
any means necessary, lest it pollute its more enlightened neighboring principalities, like Malacia or 
Turku. But the natives were still people_and for all that they tampered with the machineries of mass 
destruction in apparent ignorance of their power, they deserved better than they_d receive from an 
awakened and angry Eschaton. They deserved better than to be left to butt heads with something they 
didn_t understand, like the Festival, whatever it was: if they couldn_t understand it, then maybe she_d 
have to think the unthinkable for them, help them to reach some kind of accommodation with it_if that 
was possible. The alarming aspect to the UN_s knowledge of the Festival_the only thing she hadn_t told 
Bauer about_was that antitech colonies contacted by it disappeared, leaving only wreckage behind 
when the Festival moved on. Just why this might be she didn_t know, but it didn_t bode well for the 
future.
Nothing quite concentrates a man_s mind like the knowledge that he is to be hanged in four weeks; 
unless it is possibly the knowledge that he has sabotaged the very ship he sails in, and he_along with 
everyone else in it_will be hanged in three months. For while the execution may be farther away, the 



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chances of a reprieve are infinitely lower.


Martin Springfield sat in the almost-deserted wardroom, a glass of tea at his hand, staring absently at the 
ceiling beams. A nautical theme pervaded the room; old oak panels walled it in, and the wooden plank 
floor had been holystone-polished until it gleamed. A silver-chased samovar sat steaming gently atop an 
age-blackened chest beneath a huge gilt-framed oil painting of the ship_s namesake that hung on one 
wall. Lord Vanek leading the cavalry charge at the suppression of the Robots_ Rebellion 160 years ago_
destroying the aspirations of those citizens who had dreamed of life without drudge-labor in the service 
of aristocrats. Martin shivered slightly, trying to grapple with his personal demons.


It_s all my fault, he thought. And there_s nobody else to share it with.


Comfortless fate. He sipped at his glass, felt the acrid sweet bite of the rum underlying the bitterness of 
the tea. His lips felt numb, now. Stupid, he thought. It was too late to undo things. Too late to confess, 
even to Rachel, to try to get her out of this trap. He should have told her right at the beginning, before 
she came on board. Kept her out of the way of the Escha-ton_s revenge. Now, even if he confessed 
everything, or had done so before they tripped the patch in the drive kernel controllers, it would only put 
him on a one-way trip to the death chair. And although the sabotage was essential, and even though it 
wouldn_t kill anyone directly_


Martin shuddered, drained the glass, and put it down beside his chair. He hunched forward 
unconsciously, neck bowed beneath the weight of a guilty conscience. At least I did the right thing, he 
tried to tell himself. None of us are going home, but at least the homes we had will still be there when 
we_re gone. Including Rachel_s unlived-in apartment. He winced. It was next to impossible to feel guilt 
for a fleet, but just knowing about her presence aboard the ship had kept him awake all night.


The mournful pipes had summoned the ship to battle stations almost an hour ago. Something to do with 
an oncoming Septagonese carrier battle group, scrambled like a nest of angry hornets in response to the 
fiasco with the mining tugs. It didn_t make any difference to Martin. Somewhere in the drive control 
network, an atomic clock was running slow, tweaked by a folded curl of space-time from the drive 
kernel. It was only a small error, of course, but CP violation would amplify it out of all proportion when 
the fleet began its backward path through space-time. He_d done it deliberately, to prevent a catastrophic 
and irrevocable disaster. The New Republican Navy might think a closed timelike loop to be only a 
petty tactical maneuver, but it was the thin end of a wedge; a wedge that Herman said had to be held at 
bay. He_d made his pact with a darker, more obscure agency than Rachel_s. From his perspective, the 
UN DISA people merely aped his employer_s actions on a smaller scale_in hope of pre-empting them.


Good-bye, Belinda, he thought, mentally consigning his sister to oblivion. Good-bye, London. Dust of 
ages ate the metropolis, crumbled its towers in dust. Hello, Herman, to the steady tick of the pendulum 
clock on the wall. As the flagship, Lord Vanek provided a time signal for the other vessels in the fleet. 
Not just that; it provided an inertial reference frame locked to the space-time coordinates of their first 
jump. By slightly slowing the clock, Martin had ensured that the backward time component of their 
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maneuver would be botched very slightly.


The fleet would travel forward into the light cone, maybe as much as four thousand years; it would 
rewind, back almost the whole distance_but not quite as far as it had come. Their arrival at Rochard_s 
World would be delayed almost two weeks, about as long as a rapid crossing without any of the closed 
timelike hanky-panky the Admiralty had planned. And then the Festival would_well, what the Festival 
would do to the fleet was the Festival_s business. All he knew was that he, and everyone else, would pay 
the price.


Who did they think they were kidding, anyway? Claiming they planned to use the maneuver just to 
reduce transit time, indeed! Even a toddler could see through a subterfuge that transparent, all the way to 
the sealed orders waiting in the admiral_s safe. You can _tfool the Eschaton by lying to yourself. Maybe 
Herman, or rather the being that hid behind that code name, would be waiting. Maybe Martin would be 
able to get off the doomed ship, maybe Rachel would, or maybe through a twist of fate the New 
Republican Navy would defeat the Festival in a head-to-head fight. And maybe he_d teach the horse to 
sing&


He stood up, a trifle giddily, and carried his glass to the samovar. He half filled it, then topped it up from 
the cut-glass decanter until the nostril-prickling smell began to waft over the steam. He sat down in his 
chair a bit too hard, numb fingertips and lips threatening to betray him. With nothing to do but avoid his 
guilt by drinking himself into a paralytic stupor, Martin was taking the easy way out.


Presently, he drifted back to more tolerable memories. Eighteen years earlier, when he was newly 
married and working as a journeyman field circus engineer, a gray cipher of a man had approached him 
in a bar somewhere in orbit over Wollstonecroft_s World. _Can I buy you a drink?_ asked the man, 
whose costume was somewhere between that of an accountant and a lawyer. Martin had nodded. 
_You_re Martin Springfield,_ the man had said. _You work at present for Nakamichi Nuclear, where you 
are making relatively little money and running up a sizable overdraft. My sponsors have asked me to 
approach you with a job offer._


_Answer_s no,_ Martin had said automatically. He had made up his mind some time before that the 
experience he was gaining at NN was more useful than an extra thousand euros a year; and besides, his 
employing combine was paranoid enough about some of its contracts to sound out its contractor_s 
loyalties with fake approaches.


_There is no conflict of interest with your current employers, Mr. Springfield. The job is a nonexclusive 
commission, and in any event, it will not take effect until you go freelance or join another kombinat._


_What kind of job?_ Martin raised an eyebrow.


_Have you ever wondered why you exist?_
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_Don_t be__ Martin had paused in midsentence. _Is this some religious pitch?_ he asked.


_No._ The gray man looked him straight in the eye. _It_s exactly the opposite. No god exists yet, in this 
universe. My employer wishes to safeguard the necessary preconditions for God_s emergence, however. 
And to do so, my employer needs human arms and legs. Not being equipped with them, so to speak._


The crash of his glass hitting the floor and shattering had brought Martin to his senses. _Your employer
__


_Believes that you may have a role to play in defending the security of the cosmos, Martin. Naming no 
names__the gray man leaned closer__it is a long story. Would you like to hear it?_


Martin had nodded, it seeming the only reasonable thing to do in a wholly unreasonable, indeed surreal, 
situation. And in doing so, he_d taken the first step along the path that had brought him here, eighteen 
years later: to a drinking binge alone in the wardroom of a doomed starship, only weeks left to play out 
the end of its role in the New Republican Navy. Minutes, in the worst possible case.


Eventually, he would be reported lost, along with the entire crew of the Lord Vanek. Relatives would be 
notified, tears would be shed against the greater backdrop of a tragic and unnecessary war. But that 
would be no concern of his. Because_just as soon as he finished this drink_he was going to stand up 
and weave his way to his cabin and lie down. Then await whatever would follow over the next three 
months, until the jaws of the trap sprang shut.
It was hot and somewhat stuffy, in Rachel_s room, despite the whirring white noise of the ventilation 
system and the occasional dripping of an overflow pipe behind the panel next to her head. Sleeping 
wasn_t an option; neither was relaxation. She found herself wishing for someone to talk to, someone 
who would have an idea what was going on. She rolled over on her back. _PA,_ she called, finally 
indulging an urge she_d been fighting off for some time. _Where_s Martin Springfield?_


_Location. Ship_s wardroom, D deck._


_Anyone with him?_


_Negative._


She sat up. The crew were at their action stations: what on earth was Martin doing there on his own?


_I_m going there. Backdoor clause: as far as the ship is concerned, I am still in my cabin. Confirm 
capability._


_Affirmative. Backdoor tracking master override confirmed._ They might have rebuilt the ship_s fire 



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control and propulsion systems, but they_d left the old tab/badge personnel tracking grid in place_
unused, probably, because it reduced the need for tyrannical petty officers. Rachel pulled on her boots, 
then stood up and grabbed the jacket that lay on the upper bunk. She_d take a minute to look presentable, 
then go and find Martin. She was irresponsible to leave her airtight cabin while the ship was cleared for 
action_but so was he. What was he thinking of?


She headed for the wardroom briskly. The access spaces of the warship were eerily quiet, the crew all 
locked down in airtight compartments and damage control stations. Only the humming of the ventilation 
system broke the silence; that, and the ticking of the wardroom clock as she opened the door.


The only occupant of the room was Martin, and he looked somewhat the worse for wear, slumped in an 
overstuffed armchair like a rag doll that had lost its stuffing. A silver-chased tea glass sat on the table in 
front of him, half-full of a brown liquid which, if Rachel was any judge of character, was not tea. He 
opened his eyes to watch her as she entered, but didn_t say anything.


_You should be in your cabin,_ Rachel observed. _The wardroom isn_t vacuum-safe, you know._


_Who cares?_ He made a rolling motion of one shoulder, as if a shrug was too much effort. _Really 
don_t see the point._


_I do._ She marched over and stood in front of him. _You can go to your cabin or come back to mine, 
but you are going to be in a cabin in five minutes!_


_Don_t remember signing a contractual& of employment with you,_ he mumbled.


_No, you didn_t,_ she said brightly. _So I_m not doing this in my capacity as your employer, I_m doing it 
as your government._


_Whoa__ Rachel heaved. _But I don_t have a gummint._ Martin stumbled out of the chair, a pained 
expression on his face.


_The New Republic seems to think you have, and I_m the best you_ll find around here. Unless you_d 
prefer the other choice on offer?_


Martin grimaced. _Hardly._ He staggered. _Got some 4-3-1 in left pocket. Think I need it._ He 
staggered, fumbling for the small blister pack of alcohol antagonists. _No need to get nasty._


_I wasn_t getting nasty; I was just providing you with an in-ertial reference frame for your own good. 
_Sides, I thought we were going to look out for each other. And I wouldn_t be do-ing my job if I didn_t 
get you out of here and into a cabin before someone notices. Drunkenness is a flogging offense, did you 
know that?_ Rachel took him by one elbow and began gently steering him toward the door. Martin was 
sufficiently wobbly on his legs to make this an interesting experience; she was tall, and had boosters 


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embedded in her skeletal muscles for just such events, but he had the three advantages of mass, 
momentum, and a low center of gravity. Together, they described a brief drunkard_s walk before Martin 
managed to fumble his drug patch onto the palm of one hand, and Rachel managed to steer the two of 
them into the corridor.


By the time they reached her cabin, he was breathing deeply and looking pale. _In,_ she ordered.


_I feel like shit,_ he murmured. _Got any drinking water?_


_Yup._ She pulled the hatch shut behind them and spun the locking wheel. _Sink_s over there; I_m sure 
you_ve seen one before._


_Thanks, I think._ He ran the taps, splashed water on his face, then used the china cup to take mouthful 
after mouthful. _Damned alcohol dehydration._ He straightened up. _You think I should have more 
sense than to do that?_


_The thought had crossed my mind,_ she said drily. She crossed her arms and watched him. He shook 
himself like a bedraggled water rat and sat down heavily on Rachel_s neatly folded bunk.


_I needed to forget some things very badly,_ he said moodily. _Maybe too badly. Doesn_t happen very 
often but, well, being locked up with nobody for company but my own head isn_t good for me. All I get 
to see these days are cable runs and change schematics, plus a few naive young midshipmen at lunch. 
That spook from the Curator_s Office is hanging around all the time, keeping an eye on me and listening 
to whatever I say. It_s like being in a fucking prison._


Rachel pulled out the folding chair and sat on it. _You_ve never been in prison, then. Consider yourself 
lucky._


His lips quirked. _You have, I suppose? The public servant?_


_Yeah. Spent eight months inside, once, banged up for industrial espionage by an agricultural cartel. 
Amnesty Multinational made me a prisoner of commerce and started up a trade embargo: that got me 
sprung pretty quick._ She winced at the memories, grey shadows of their original violent fury, washed 
out by time. It wasn_t her longest stretch inside, but she had no intention of telling him that just yet.


He shook his head and smiled faintly. _The New Republic is like a prison for everyone, though. Isn_t it?_


_Hmm._ She stared through him at the wall behind. _Now you mention it, I think you could be 
stretching things a bit far._


_Well, you_ll at least concede they_re all prisoners of their ideology, aren_t they? Two hundred years of 
violent suppression hasn_t left them much freedom to distance themselves from their culture and look 


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around. Hence the mess we_re in now._ He lay back, propping his head against the wall. _Excuse me; 
I_m tired. I spent a double shift on the drive calibration works, then four hours over on Glorious, 
troubleshooting its RCS oxidant switching logic._


_You_re excused._ Rachel unbuttoned her jacket, then bent down and slid off her boots. _Ow._


_Sore feet?_


_Damned Navy, always on their feet. Looks bad if I slouch, too._


He yawned. _Speaking of other things, what do you think the Septagon forces will do?_


She shrugged. _Probably track us the hell out of here at gunpoint, while pressing the New Republic for 
compensation. They_re pragmatists, none of this babble about national honor and the virtues of courage 
and manly manhood and that sort of thing._


Martin sat up. _If you_re going to take your boots off, if you don_t mind__


She waved a hand. _Be my guest._


_I thought I was supposed to be your loyal subject?_


She giggled. _Don_t get ideas above your station! Really, these damned monarchists. I understand in the 
abstract, but how do they put up with it? I_d go crazy, I swear it. Within a decade._


_Hmm._ He leaned forward, busy with his shoes. _Look at it another way. Most people back home sit 
around with their families and friends and lead a cozy life, doing three or four different things at the 
same time_gardening, designing com-mercial beetles, painting landscapes, and bringing up children, 
that sort of thing. Entomologists picking over the small things in life to see what_s twitching its legs 
underneath. Why the hell aren_t we doing that ourselves?_


_I used to._ He glanced up at her curiously, but she was elsewhere, remembering. _Spent thirty years 
being a housewife, would you believe it? Being good God-fearing people, hubby was the breadwinner, 
two delightful children to dote over, and a suburban garden. Church every Sunday and nothing_nothing
_allowed to break with the pretense of conformity._


_Ah. I thought you were older than you looked. Late-sixties backlash?_


_Which sixties?_ She shook her head, then answered her own rhetorical question: _Twenty-sixties. I was 
born in forty-nine. Grew up in a Baptist family, Baptist town, quiet religion_it turned inward after the 
Eschaton. We were all so desperately afraid, I think. It was a long time ago: I find it hard to remember. 
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One day I was forty-eight and the kids were at college and I realized I didn_t believe a word of it. They_d 
gotten the extension treatments nailed down by then, and the pastor had stopped denouncing it as satanic 
tampering with God_s will_after his own grandfather beat him at squash_and I suddenly realized that 
I_d had an empty day, and I had maybe a million days just like it ahead of me, and there were so many 
things I hadn_t done and couldn_t do, if I stayed the same. And I didn_t really believe: religion was my 
husband_s thing, I just went along with it. So I moved out. Took the treatment, lost twenty years in six 
months. Went through the usual Sterling fugue, changed my name, changed my life, changed just about 
everything about me. Joined an anarchist commune, learned to juggle, got into radical antiviolence 
activism. Harry_no, Harold_couldn_t cope with that._


_Second childhood. Sort of like a twentieth-century teenage period._


_Yes, exactly__ She stared at Martin. _How about you?_


He shrugged. _I_m younger than you. Older than most everyone else aboard this idiotic children_s 
crusade. Except maybe the admiral._ For an instant, and only an instant, he looked hagridden. _You 
shouldn_t be here. I shouldn_t be here._


She stared at him. _You_ve got it bad?_


_We_re__ He checked himself, cast her a curious guarded look, then started again. _This trip is 
doomed. I suppose you know that._


_Yes._ She looked at the floor. _I know that,_ she said calmly. _If I don_t broker some sort of cease-fire 
or persuade them not to use their causality weapons, the Eschaton will step in. Probably throw a comet 
made of antimatter at them, or something._ She looked at him. _What do you think?_


_I think__ He paused again and looked away, slightly evasively. _If the Eschaton intervenes, we_re 
both in the wrong place._


_Huh. That_s so much fun to know._ She forced a grin. _So where do you come from? Go on, I told you
__


Martin stretched his arms and leaned back. _I grew up in a Yorkshire hill farming village, all goats and 
cloth caps and dark satanic mills full of God-knows-what. Oh yes, and compulsory ferret-legging down 
the pub on Tuesday evenings, for the tourist trade tha_ knows._


_Ferret-legging?_ Rachel looked at him incredulously.


_Yup. You tie your kilt up around your knees with duct tape_as you probably know, no Yorkshireman 
would be seen dead wearing anything under his sporran_and take a ferret by the scruff of his neck. A 
ferret, that_s like, uh, a bit like a mink. Only less friendly. It_s a young man_s initiation rite; you stick the 


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ferret where the sun doesn_t shine and dance the furry dance to the tune of a balalaika. Last man 
standing and all that, kind of like the ancient Boer aardvark-kissing competition._ Martin shuddered 
dramatically. _I hate ferrets. The bloody things bite like a cask-strength single malt without the nice 
after-effects._


_That was what you did on Tuesdays,_ Rachel said, slowly beginning to smile. _Tell me more. What 
about Wednesdays?_


_Oh, on Wednesdays we stayed home and watched reruns of Coronation Road. They remixed the old 
video files to near-realistic resolution and subtitled them, of course, so we could understand what they 
were saying. Then we_d all hoist a pint of Tetley_s tea and toast the downfall of the House of Lancaster. 
Very traditional, us Yorkshirefolk. I remember the thousandth-anniversary victory celebrations_but 
that_s enough about me. What did you do on Wednesdays?_


Rachel blinked. _Nothing in particular. Defused terrorist A-bombs, got shot at by Algerian Mormon 
separatists. Uh, that was after I kicked over the traces the first time. Before then, I think I took the kids 
to soccer, although I_m not sure what day of the week that was._ She turned aside for a moment and 
rummaged in the steamer trunk under her bunk. _Ah, here it is._ She pulled out a narrow box and opened 
it. _You know what? Maybe you shouldn_t have used that sober patch._ The bottle gleamed golden 
beneath the antiseptic cabin lights.


_I_d be lousy company though. I was getting all drunk and depressed on my own, and you had to 
interrupt me and make me sober up._


_Well, maybe you should just have tried to find someone to get drunk with instead of doing it on your 
own._ Two small glasses appeared. She leaned close. _Do you want it watered?_


Martin eyed the bottle critically. Replicated Speyside fifty-year malt, a cask-strength bottling template. 
If it wasn_t a nanospun clone of the original, it would be worth its weight in platinum. Even so, it would 
be more than adequately drinkable. _I_ll take it neat and report to sick bay for a new throat tomorrow._ 
He whistled appreciatively as she poured a generous measure. _How did you know?_


_That you_d like it?_ She shrugged. _I didn_t. I just grew up on corn liquor. Didn_t meet the real thing till 
a job in Syrtis__ Her face clouded over. _Long life and happiness._


_I_ll drink to that,_ he agreed after a moment. They sat in silence for a minute, savoring the afterbloom 
of the whisky. _I_d be happier right now if I knew what was going on, though._


_I wouldn_t be too worried: either nothing, or we_ll be dead too fast to feel it. The carrier from Septagon 
will probably just make a fast pass to reassure itself that we_re not planning on spreading any more 
mayhem, then escort us to the next jump zone while the diplomats argue over who pays. Right now, I_ve 
got the comms room taking my name in vain for all it_s worth; hopefully, that_ll convince them not to 



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shoot at us without asking some more questions first._


_I_d be happier if I knew we had a way off this ship._


_Relax. Drink your whisky._ She shook her head. _We don_t. So stop worrying about it. Anyway, if they 
do shoot us, wouldn_t you rather die happily sipping a good single malt or screaming in terror?_


_Has anyone ever told you you_re cold-blooded? No, I take it back. Has anyone ever told you you_ve got 
a skin like a tank?_


_Frequently._ She stared into her glass thoughtfully. _It_s a learned thing. Pray you never have to learn 
it._


_You mean you had to?_


_Yes. No other way to do my job. My last job, that is._


_What did you do?_ he asked softly.


_I wasn_t joking about the terrorist A-bombs. Actually, the bombs were the easiest bit; it was finding the 
assholes who planted them that was the hard part. Find the asshole, find the gadget, fix the gadget, fix 
the dump they sprang the plute from. Usually in that order, unless we were unlucky enough to have to 
deal with an unscheduled criticality excursion in downtown wherever without someone mailing in a 
warning first. Then if we found the asshole, our hardest job would be keeping the lynch mob away from 
them until we could find out where they sourced the bang-juice._


_Did you ever lose any?_ he asked, even more quietly.


_You mean, did I ever fuck up and kill several thousand people?_ she asked. _Yes__


_No, that_s not what I meant._ He reached for her free hand gently. _I know where you_ve been. Any job 
I do_if it doesn_t work, somebody pays. Possibly hundreds or thousands of somebodies. That_s the 
price of good engineering; nobody notices you did your job right._


_Nobody_s actually trying to stop you doing your job,_ she challenged.


_Oh, you_d be surprised._


The tension in her shoulders ebbed. _I_m sure you_ve got a story about that, too. You know, for someone 
who_s no good at dealing with people, you_re not bad at being a shoulder to cry on._
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He snorted. _And for someone who_s a failure at her job you_re doing surprisingly well so far._ He let go 
of her hand and rubbed the back of her neck. _But I think you could do with a massage. You_re really 
tense. Got a headache yet?_


_No,_ she said, slightly reluctantly. Then she took another sip of her whisky. The glass was nearly empty 
now. _But I_m open to persuasion._


_I know three ways to die happy. Unfortunately, I_ve never tried any of them. Care to join me?_


_Where did you hear about them?_


_At a seance. It was a good seance. Seriously, though. Dr. Springfield prescribes another dose of 
Speyside life-water, then a lie down and a neck massage. Then, even if the many-angled ones decide to 
come in shooting, at least fifty percent of us get to die happy. How_s that sound?_


_Fine._ She smiled tiredly and reached for the bottle, ready to top his glass up. _But you know 
something? You were right about the not knowing. You can get used to it, but it doesn_t get any easier. I 
wish I knew what they were thinking&_ 
Bronze bells tolled on the bridge of the Fleet attack carrier Neon Lotus. Incense smoldered in burners 
positioned above air inlet ducts; beyond the ornate gold-chased pillars marking the edges of the room, 
the brilliant jewels of tracking glyphs streamed past against a backdrop consisting of infinite darkness. 
Shipboard Facilities Coordinator Ariadne Eldrich leaned back in her chair and contemplated the 
blackness of space. She stared intently at the cluster of glyphs that intersected her vector close to the 
center of the wall. _Cultureless fools. Just what did they think they were doing?_


_Thinking probably had very little to do with it,_ Interdic-tor Director Marcus Bismarck noted drily. 
_Our Republican neighbors seem to think that too much mind-work rots the brain._


Eldrich snorted. _Too true._ A smaller cloud of diadems traced a convergent path through the void 
behind the New Republican battle squadron; a wing of antimatter-powered interceptors, six hours out 
from the carrier and accelerating on a glare of hard gamma radiation at just under a thousand gees. Their 
crew_bodies vitrified, minds uploaded into their computational matrices_watched the intruders, coldly 
alert for any sign of active countermeasures, a prelude to attack. _But who did they think they were 
shooting at?_


A new voice spoke up. _Can_t be sure, but they say they_re at war._ A soft soprano, Chu Melinda, 
shipboard liaison with the Public Intelligence Organization. _They say they mistook the mining tugs for 
enemy interceptors. Although what enemy they expected to meet on our turf__


_I thought they weren_t talking directly to us?_ asked Bismarck.



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_They aren_t, but they_ve got a halfway-sensible diplomatic expert system along. Says it_s a UN 
observer and authenticates as, uh, a UN observer. It vouches for their incompetence, so unless the 
Capitol wants to go accusing the UN of lying, we_d better take it at face value. Confidence factor is 
point-eight plus, anyway._


_Why_d they give it access to their shipboard comms net?_


_Who but the Eschaton knows? Only, I note with interest that all but one of those craft was built in a 
Solar shipyard._


_I can_t say I_m best pleased._ Eldrich stared at the screen moodily. The ship sensed some of her 
underlying mood: a target selection cursor ghosted briefly across the enemy glyphs, locking grasers onto 
the distant projected light cones of the enemy flotilla. _Still. As long as we can keep them from doing 
any more damage. Any change in their jump trajectory?_


_None yet,_ Chu commented. _Still heading for SPD-47. Why would anybody want to go there, 
anyway? It_s not even on a track for any of their colonies._


_Hmm. And they came out of nowhere. That suggest anything to you?_


_Either they_re crazy, or maybe the UN inspector is along for a purpose,_ mused Bismarck. _If they_re 
trying to make a timelike runaround on some enemy who_s__ His eyes widened.


_What is it?_ demanded Ariadne.


_The Festival!_ he exclaimed. His eyes danced. _Remember that? Five years ago? They_re going to 
attack the Festival!_


_They_re going to attack?_ Ariadne Eldrich spluttered. _A Festival? Whatever for?_


A brief glazed look crossed Chu_s face, upload communion with a distributed meme repository far 
bigger and more pow-erful than every computer network of pre-Singularity Earth. _He_s right,_ she said. 
_The rejectionists are going to attack the Festival as if it_s a limbic-imperialist invader._


Ariadne Eldrich, Shipboard Facilities Coordinator and manager of more firepower than the New 
Republican Navy could even dream of, surrendered to the urge to cackle like a maniac. _They must be 
mad!_
Telegram From The Dead


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Before the singularity human beings living on Earth had looked at the stars and consoled themselves in 
their isolation with the comforting belief that the universe didn_t care.


Unfortunately, they were mistaken.


Out of the blue, one summer day in the middle of the twenty-first century, something unprecedented 
inserted itself into the swarming anthill of terrestrial civilization and stirred it with a stick. What it was_
a manifestation of a strongly superhuman intelligence, as far beyond an augmented human_s brain as a 
human mind is beyond that of a frog_wasn_t in question. Where it was from, to say nothing of when it 
was from, was another matter.


Before the Singularity, developments in quantum logic had been touted as opening the door to esoteric 
breakthroughs in computational artificial intelligence. They_d also been working on funneling 
information back in time: perhaps as a route to the bulk movement of matter at faster-than-light speeds, 
although that was seen as less important than its application to computing. General relativity had made 
explicit, back in the twentieth century, the fact that both faster-than-light and time travel required a 
violation of causality_the law that every ef-feet must have a prior cause. Various defense mechanisms 
and laws of cosmic censorship were proposed and discarded to explain why causality violation didn_t 
lead to widespread instability in the universe_and all of them were proven wrong during the Singularity.


About nine billion human beings simply vanished in the blink of an eye, sucked right out of the 
observable universe with nothing to show where they had gone. Strange impenetrable objects_
tetrahedrons, mostly, but with some other platonic solids thrown in, silvery and massless_appeared 
dotted across the surface of the planets of the inner solar system. Networks crashed. One message 
crystallized out in the information-saturated pool of human discourse:


I am the Eschaton. I am not your god.


I am descended from you, and I exist in your future.


Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.


It took the stunned survivors twenty years to claw back from the edge of disaster, with nine-tenths of the 
work force gone and intricate economic ecosystems collapsing like defoliated jungles. It took them 
another fifty years to reindustrial-ize the inner solar system. Ten more years and the first attempts were 
made to apply the now-old tunneling breakthrough to interstellar travel.


In the middle of the twenty-second century, an exploration ship reached Barnard_s Star. Faint radio 
signals coming from the small second planet were decoded; the crew of the research mission learned 
what had happened to the people the Eschaton had removed. Scattered outside the terrestrial light cone, 
they_d been made involuntary colonists of thousands of worlds: exported through wormholes that led 



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back in time as well as out in space, given a minimal support system of robot factories and an 
environment with breathable air. Some of the inhabited worlds, close to Earth, had short histories, but 
farther out, many centuries had passed.


The shock of this discovery would echo around the expanded horizons of human civilization for a 
thousand years, but all the inhabited worlds had one thing in common: somewhere there was a 
monument, bearing the injunction against causality violation. It seemed that forces beyond human com-
prehension took an interest in human affairs, and wanted everyone to know it. But when a course of 
action is explicitly forbidden, somebody will inevitably try it. And the Eschaton showed little sign of 
making allowances for the darker side of human nature&
The battlecruiser lay at rest, bathed in the purple glare of a stellar remnant. Every hour, on the hour, its 
laser grid lit up, sending a pulse of ultraviolet light into the void; a constellation of small interferometry 
platforms drifted nearby, connected by high-bandwidth laser links. Outside, space was hot: although no 
star gleamed in the center of the pupillary core, something in there was spitting out a rain of charged 
particles.


Elements of the battle fleet lay around the Lord Vanek, none of them close enough to see with the naked 
eye. They had waited here for three weeks as the stragglers popped out of jump transition and wearily 
cruised over to join the formation. Over the six weeks before that, the ship had made jump after jump_
bouncing between the two components of an aged binary system that had long since ejected its planets 
into deep space and settled down to a lonely old age. Each jump reached farther into the future, until 
finally the ships were making millennial hops into the unknown.


The atmosphere in the wardroom was unusually tense. Aboard a warship under way, boredom is a 
constant presence: after nearly seven weeks, even the most imperturbable officers were growing 
irritable. Word that the last of the destroyers had arrived at the rendezvous had spread like wildfire 
through the ship a few hours earlier. A small cluster of officers huddled together in a corner, cradling a 
chilled bottle of schnapps and talking into the small hours of the shipboard night, trying desperately to 
relax, for tomorrow the fleet would begin the return journey, winding back around their own time line 
until they overhauled their own entry point into this system and became an intrusion into the loose-
woven fabric of history itself.


_I only joined the Navy to see the fleshpots of Malacia,_ Grubor observed. _Spend too long nursing the 
ship_s sewage-processing farm and before long the bridge crew starts treating you like a loose floater in 
free fall. They go off to receptions and suchlike whenever we enter port, but all I get is a chance to flush 
the silage tanks and study for the engineering board exams._


_Fleshpots!_ Boursy snorted. _Pavel, you take your prospects too seriously. There_re no fleshpots on 
Malacia that you or I would be allowed anywhere near. Most places I can_t so much as breathe without 
Sauer taking notes on how well I_ve polished my tonsils; and then the place stinks, or it_s full of evil 
bugs, or the natives are politically unsound. Or weird. Or deformed, and into hideous and unnatural 


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sexual perversions. You name it._


_Still._ Grubor studied his drink. _It would have been nice to get to see at least one hideous and 
unnatural sexual perversion._


Kravchuk twisted the lid off the bottle and pointed it in the direction of their glasses. Grubor shook his 
head; Boursy extended his for a top-up. _What I want to know is how we_re going to get back,_ 
Kravchuk muttered. _I don_t understand how we can do that. Time only goes one way, doesn_t it? Stands 
to reason._


_Reason, schmeason._ Grubor took a mouthful of spirit. _It doesn_t have to work that way. Not just 
_cause you want it to._ He glanced around. _No ears, eh? Listen, I think we_re in it up to our necks. 
There_s this secret drive fix they bought from Lord God-knows-where, that lets us do weird things with 
the time axis in our jumps. We only headed out to this blasted hole in space to minimize the chances of 
anyone finding us_or of the jumps going wrong. They_re looking for some kind of time capsule from 
home to tell us what to do next, what happened in the history books. Then we go back_farther than we 
came to get here, by a different route_and get where we_re going before we set off. With me so far? 
But the real problem is God. They_re planning on breaking the Third Commandment._


Boursy crossed himself and looked puzzled. _What, disrespecting the holy father and mother? My family
__


_No, the one that says thou shalt not fuck with history or else, signed Yours Truly, God. That Third 
Commandment, the one burned into Thanksgiving Rock in letters six feet deep and thirty feet high. Got 
it?_


Boursy looked dubious. _It could have been some joker in orbit with a primary-phase free-electron laser
__


_Weren_t no such things in those days. I despair of you sometimes, I really do. Look, the fact is, we 
don_t know what in hell_s sixteen furnaces is waiting for us at Rochard_s World. So we_re sneaking up 
on it from behind, like the peasant in the story who goes hunting elephants with a mirror because he_s 
never seen one and he_s so afraid that__ Out of the corner of his eye, Grubor noted Sauer_unofficially 
the ship_s political officer_walk in the door.


_Who are you calling a cowardly peasant?_ rumbled Boursy, also glancing at the door. _I_ve known the 
Captain for eighty-seven years, and he_s a good man! And the Admiral, are you calling the Admiral a 
fairy?_


_No, I_m just trying to point out that we_re all afraid of one thing or another and__ Grubor gesticulated 
in the wrong direction.
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_Are you calling me a poof?_ Bftarsy roared.


_No, I_m not!_ Grubor shouted back at him. Spontaneous applause broke out around the room, and one 
of the junior cadets struck up a stirring march on the pianola. Unfortunately his piano-playing was 
noteworthy more for his enthusiasm than his melodious harmony, and the wardroom rapidly degenerated 
into a heckling match between the cadet_s supporters (who were few) and everyone else.


_Nothing can go wrong,_ Boursy said smugly. _We_re going to sail into Rochard_s system and show the 
flag and send those degenerate alien invaders packing. You_ll see. Nothing will, er, did, go wrong._


_I dunno about that._ Kravchuk, normally tight-lipped to the point of autism, allowed himself to relax 
slightly when drinking in private with his brother officers. _The foreign bint, the spy or diplomat or 
whatever. She_s meant to be keeping an eye on us, right? Don_t see why the Captain_s going so easy on 
_em, I_d march _er out the dorsal loading hatch as soon as let _er keep breathing our good air._


_She_s in this too,_ said Boursy. _Bet you she wants us to win, too_look pretty damn stupid if we 
didn_t, what? Anyway, the woman_s got some kind of diplomatic status; she_s allowed to poke her nose 
into things if she wants._


_Huh. Well, the bint had better keep her nose out of my missile loaders, less she wants to learn what the 
launch tubes look like from inside._


Grubor stretched his legs out. _Just like Helsingus_s dog, huh._


_Helsingus has a pet dog?_ Boursy was suddenly all ears.


_He had a dog. Past tense. A toy schnauzer this long._ Grubor held his hands improbably close together. 
_Little rat-brained weasel of an animal. Bad-tempered as hell, yapped like a bosun with a hangover, and 
it took to dumping in the corridor to show it owned the place. And nobody said anything_nobody could 
say anything._


_What happened?_ asked Boursy.


_Oh, one day it picked the wrong door to crap outside. The old man came out in a hurry and stepped in it 
before the rating I_d sent to follow the damn thing around got there to mop up. I heard about this, but I 
never saw the animal again; I think it got to walk home. And Helsingus sulked for weeks, I can tell you._


_Dog curry in the wardroom,_ said Kravchuk. _I had to pick hairs out of my teeth for days._


Boursy did a double take, then laughed hesitantly. Slugging back his schnapps to conceal his confusion, 
he asked: _Why did the Captain put up with it that long?_
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_Who knows, indeed? For that matter, who the hell knows why the Admiral puts up with the foreign 
spy?_ Grubor stared into his glass and sighed. _Maybe the Admiral actually wants her along. And then 
again, maybe he_s just forgotten about her&_
_Beg to report, I_ve got something, sir,_ said the sensor op. He pointed excitedly at his plot on the bridge 
of the light cruiser Integrity.


Lieutenant Kokesova looked up, bleary-eyed. _What is it now, Menger?_ he demanded. Six hours on 
this interminable dog-watch was getting to him. He rubbed his eyes, red-rimmed, and tried to focus them 
on his subordinate.


_Plot trace, sir. Looks like& hmm, yes. It_s a definite return, from the first illumination run on our 
survey sector. Six-point-two-three light-hours. Er, yes. Tiny little thing. Processing now& looks like a 
metal object of some kind, sir. Orbiting about two-point-seven billion kilometers out from the, uh, 
primary, pretty much at opposition to us right now, hence the delay._


_Can you fix its size and orbital components?_ asked the Lieutenant, leaning forward.


_Not yet, but soon, sir. We_ve been pinging on the hour; that should give me enough to refine a full set 
of elements pretty soon_say when the next response set comes in. But it_s a long way away, _bout four-
zero astronomical units. Um, preliminary enhancement says it_s about five-zero meters in diameter, plus 
or minus an order of magnitude. Might be a lot smaller than that if it_s got reflectors._


_Hmm._ Kokesova sat down. _Nav. You got anything else in this system that fits the bill?_


_No, sir._


Kokesova glanced up at the forward screen; the huge red-rimmed eye of the primary glared back at him, 
and he shuddered, flicked a hand gesture to avert the evil eye. _Then I think we may have our time 
capsule. Menger, do you have any halo objects? Anything else at all?_


_No, sir._ Menger shook his head. _Inner system_s clean as a slate. It_s unnatural, you ask me. Nothing 
there except this object._


Kokesova stood again and walked over to the sensor post. _One of these days you_re going to have to 
learn how to complete a sentence, Menger,_ he said tiredly.


_Yes, sir. Humbly apologize for bad grammar, sir._


All was silent in the ops room for ten minutes, save for the scribble of Menger_s stylus on his input 
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station, and the clack of dials turning beneath skillful fingertips. Then a low whistle.


_What is it?_


_Got confirmation, sir. Humbly report you might want to see this._


_Put it on the main screen, then._


_Aye aye._ Menger pushed buttons, twisted knobs, scribbled some more. The forward screen, previously 
fixed on the hideous red eye, dissolved into a sea of pink mush. A single yellow dot swam in the middle 
of it; near one corner, a trian-gle marked the ship_s position. _This is an unenhanced lidar map of what_s 
in front of us. Sorry it_s so vague, but the scale is huge_you could drop the whole of home system into 
one quadrant, and it_s taken us a week to build this data set. Anyway, here_s what happens when I run 
my orbital-period filter in the plane of the ecliptic._


He pushed a button. A green line rotated through the mush, like the hour hand of a clock, and vanished.


_I thought you said you_d found something._ Kokesova sounded slightly peeved.


_Er, yes, sir. Just a moment. Nothing there, as you see. But then I reran the filter for inclined circular 
orbits._ A green disc appeared near the edge of the haze, and tilted slowly. Something winked violet, 
close to the central point, then vanished again. _There it is. Really small, orbit inclined at almost nine-
zero degrees to the plane of the ecliptic. Which is why it took us so long to spot it._


_Ah._ Kokesova stared at the screen for a moment, a warm glow of satisfaction spreading through him. 
_Well, well, well._ Kokesova stared at the violet dot for a long time before he picked up the intercom 
handset. _Corams: get me the Captain. Yes, I know he_s aboard the Lord Vanek. I have something I 
think the brass will want to hear about&_ 
Procurator Vassily Muller paused outside the cabin door and took a deep breath. He rapped on the door 
once, twice: when there was no response he tried to turn the handle. It refused to budge. He breathed out, 
then let a fine loop of stiff wire drop down his right sleeve and ran it into the badge slot. It was just like 
the training school: a momentary flash of light and the handle rotated freely. He tensed instinctively, fall-
out from the same conditioning (which had focused on search and seizure ops, mist and night abductions 
in a damp stone city where the only constants were fear and dissent).


The cabin was tidy: not as tidy as a flyer_s, policed by sharp-tongued officers, but tidy enough. The 
occupant, a creature of habit, was at lunch and would not be back for at least fifteen minutes. Vassily 
took it all in with wide eyes. There were no obvious signs of fine wires or hairs anchored to the 
doorframe: he stepped inside and pulled the door to.
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Martin Springfield had few possessions on the Lord Vanek: symptomatic of his last-minute conscription. 
What he had was almost enough to make Vassily jealous: his own presence here was even less planned, 
and he_d a lot of time to bitterly regret having misunderstood the Citizen_s Socratic warning (_What 
have you forgotten?_ to a man searching a ship about to depart!); nevertheless, he had a job to do, and 
enough residual professionalism to do it properly. It didn_t take Vassily long to exhaust the possibilities: 
the only thing to catch his attention was the battered grey case of the PA, sitting alone in the tiny desk 
drawer beneath the cabin_s workstation.


He turned the device over carefully, looking for seams and openings. It resembled a hardback book: 
microcapsules embedded in each page changed color, depending what information was loaded into it at 
the time. But no book could answer to its master_s voice, or rebalance a ship_s drive kernel. The spine_
he pushed, and after a moment of resistance it slid upward to reveal a compartment with some niches in 
it. One of them was occupied.


Nonstandard extension pack, he realized. Without thinking, he pushed on it; it clicked out and he 
pocketed it. There_d be time enough to put it back later if it was innocent. Springfield_s presence on the 
ship was an aching rasp on his nerves: the man had to be up to something! The Navy had plenty of good 
engineers; why could they want a foreigner along? After the events of the past couple of weeks, Vassily 
could not accept that anything less than sabotage could be responsible. As every secret policeman 
knows, there is no such thing as a coincidence; the state has too many enemies.


He didn_t linger in the engineer_s cabin but paused to palm an inconspicuous little bead under the lower 
bunk bed. The bead would hatch in a day or so, spinning a spiderweb of receptors; a rare and expensive 
tool that Vassily was privileged to own.


The doorway clicked locked behind him; amnesiac, it would not report this visit to its owner.


Back in his cabin, Vassily locked his door and sat down on his own bunk. He loosened his collar, then 
reached into a breast pocket for the small device he had taken. He rolled it over in his fingers, pondering. 
It could be anything, anything at all. Taking a small but powerful device from his inventory of tools_
one forbidden to any citizen of the Republic except those with an Imperial warrant to save the state from 
itself_ he checked it for activity. There was nothing obvious: it wasn_t emitting radiation, didn_t smell 
of explosives or bioactive compounds, and had a standard interface.


_Riddle me this: an unknown expansion pod in an engineer_s luggage. I wonder what it is?_ he said 
aloud. Then he plugged the pod into his own interface and started the diagnostics running. A minute 
later, he began to swear quietly under his breath. The module was totally randomized. Evidence of 
misdoing, that was sure enough. But what kind of misdoing?
Burya Rubenstein sat in the Ducal palace, now requisitioned as the headquarters of the Extropians and 
Cyborgs_ Soviet, sipping tea and signing proclamations with a leaden heart.
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Outside the thick oak door of his office, a squad of ward-geese waited patiently, their dark eyes and 
vicious gunbeaks alert for intruders. The half-melted phone that had started the revolution sat, unused, 
on the desk before him, while the pile of papers by his left elbow grew higher, and the unsigned pile to 
his right shrank. It wasn_t a part of the job that he enjoyed_ quite the opposite, in fact_but it seemed to 
be necessary. Here was a soldier convicted of raping and looting a farmstead who needed to be 
punished. There, a teacher who had denounced the historical processes of Democratic Transhuman-ism 
as misguided technophile pabulum, encouraging his juvenile charges to chant the Emperor_s birthday 
hymn. Dross, all dross_and the revolution had no time to sift the dross for gold, rehabilitating and re-
educating the fallen: it had been a month since the arrival of Festival, and soon the Emperor_s great steel 
warships would loom overhead.


If Bury a had anything to do with it, they wouldn_t find anyone willing to cooperate in the subjugation of 
the civil popu-lace, who were now fully caught up in the processes of a full-scale economic singularity. 
A singularity_a historical cusp at which the rate of change goes exponential, rapidly tending toward 
infinity_is a terrible thing to taste. The arrival of the Festival in orbit around the pre-industrial colony 
world had brought an economic singularity; physical wares became just so many atoms, replicated to 
order by machines that needed no human intervention or maintenance. A hard take-off singularity ripped 
up social systems and economies and ways of thought like an artillery barrage. Only the forearmed_the 
Extropian dissident underground, hard men like Burya Rubenstein_ were prepared to press their own 
agenda upon the suddenly molten fabric of a society held too close to the blowtorch of progress.


But change and control brought a price that Rubenstein was finding increasingly unpalatable. Not that he 
could see any alternatives, but the people were accustomed to being shepherded by father church and the 
benign dictatorship of the little father, Duke Politovsky. The habits of a dozen lifetimes could not be 
broken overnight, and to make an omelet it was first necessary to crack some eggshells.


Burya had a fatal flaw; he was not a violent man. He resented and hated the circumstances that forced 
him to sign arrest warrants and compulsory upload orders; the revolution he had spent so long imagining 
was a glorious thing, unsullied by brute violence, and the real world_with its recalcitrant monarchist 
teachers and pigheaded priests_was a grave disappointment to him. The more he was forced to corrupt 
his ideals, the more he ached inside, and the more it grieved him, the more he hated the people who 
forced him to such hideous, bloody extremity of action_until they, in turn, became grist for the 
machinery of revolution, and subsequently bar stock for the scalpel blades that prodded his conscience 
and kept him awake long into the night, planning the next wave of purges and forcible uploads.


He was deep in his work, oblivious to the outside world, depressed and making himself more so by 
doing the job that he had always wanted to do but never realized would be this awful_when a voice 
spoke to him.


_Burya Rubenstein._


_What!_ He looked up, almost guiltily, like a small boy discovered goofing off in class by a particularly 



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stern teacher.


_Talk. We. Must._ The thing sitting in the chair opposite him was so nightmarish that he blinked several 
times before he could make his eyes focus on it. It was hairless and pink and larger-than-human-sized, 
with stubby legs and paws and little pink eyes_and four huge, yellowing tusks, like the incisors of a rat 
the size of an elephant. The eyes stared at him with disquieting intelligence as it manipulated an odd 
pouch molded from the belt that was its only garment. _You talk. To me._


Burya adjusted his pince-nez and squinted at the thing. _Who are you and how did you get in here?_ he 
asked. I haven_t been sleeping enough, part of his mind gibbered quietly; I knew the caffeine tablets 
would do this eventually&


_I am. Sister of Stratagems. The Seventh. I am of the clade of Critics. Talk to me now._


A look of extreme puzzlement crossed Rubenstein_s craggy face. _Didn_t I have you executed last 
week?_


_I very much doubt. It._ Hot breath that stank of cabbage, corruption and soil steamed in Burya_s face.


_Oh, good._ He leaned back, light-headed. _I_d hate to think I was going mad. How did you sneak past 
my guards?_


The thing in the chair stared at him. It was an unnerving sensation, like being sized up for a hangman_s 
noose by a man-eating saber-toothed sausage. _You guards are. Nonsapi-ent. No intentional stance. 
Early now, you learn lesson of not trusting unsapient guards to recognize threat. I made self non-threat 
within their_you have no word for it._


_I see._ Burya rubbed his forehead distractedly.


_You do not._ Sister Seventh grinned at Rubenstein, and he recoiled before the twenty-centimeter 
digging fangs, yellow-brown and hard enough to crack concrete. _Ask no questions, human. I ask, are 
you sapient? Evidence ambiguous. Only sapients create art, but your works not distinctive._


_I don_t think__ He stopped. _Why do you want to know?_


_A question._ The thing carried on grinning at him. _You asked. A question._ It rocked from side to 
side, shivering slightly, and Rubenstein began feeling cautiously along the underside of his desk, for the 
panic button that would set alarm bells ringing in the guardroom. _Good question. I Critic am. Critics 
follow Festival for many lifetimes. We come to Criticize. First want I to know, am I Criticizing 
sapients? Or is just puppet show on cave wall of reality? Zombies or zimboes? Shadows of mind? 
Amusements for Eschaton?_
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A shiver ran up and down Burya_s spine. _I think I_m sapient,_ he said cautiously. _Of course, I_d say 
that even if I wasn_t, wouldn_t I? Your question is unanswerable. So why ask it?_


Sister Seventh leaned forward. _None of your people ask anything,_ she hissed. _Food, yes. Guns, yes. 
Wisdom? No. Am beginning think you not aware of selves, ask nothing._


_What_s to ask for?_ Burya shrugged. _We know who we are and what we_re doing. What should we 
want_alien philosophies?_


_Aliens want your philosophy,_ Sister Seventh pointed out. _You give. You not take. This is insult to 
Festival. Why ? Prime interrogative!_


_I_m not sure I understand. Are you complaining because we_re not making demands?_


Sister Seventh chomped at the air, clattering her tusks together. _Ack! Quote, the viability of a 
postsingularity economy of scarcity is indicated by the transition from an indirection-layer-based 
economy using markers of exchange of goods and services to a tree-structured economy characterized 
by optimal allocation of productivity systems in accordance with iterated tit-for-tat prisoner_s dilemma. 
Money is a symptom of poverty and inefficiency. Unquote, the Marxist-Gilderist manifesto. Chapter 
two. Why you not performing?_


_Because most of our people aren_t ready for that,_ Burya said bluntly. A tension in his back began to 
relax; if this monstrous Critic wanted to debate revolutionary dialectic, well of course he could oblige! 
_When we achieve the post-technological Utopia, it will be as you say. But for now, we need a vanguard 
party to lead the people to a full understanding of the principles of ideological correctness and 
posteconomic optimization._


_But Marxism-Gilderism and Democratic Extropianism is anarchist aesthetic. Why vanguard party? 
Why committee? Why revolution?_


_Because it_s traditional, dammit!_ Rubenstein exploded. _We_ve been waiting for this particular 
revolution for more than two hundred years. Before that, two hundred years back to the first revolution, 
this is how we_ve gone about it. And it works! So why shouldn_t we do it this way?_


_Talk you of tradition in middle of singularity._ Sister Seventh twisted her head around to look out the 
windows at the foggy evening drizzle beyond. _Perplexity maximizes. Not understand singularity is 
discontinuity with all tradition? Revolution is necessary; deconstruct the old, ring in the new. Before, I 
questioned your sapience. Now, your sanity questionable: sapience not. Only sapient organism could 
exhibit superlative irrationality!_


_That may be true._ Rubenstein gently squeezed the buzzer under his desk edge for the third time. Why 
isn_t it working? He wondered. _But what do you want here, with me?_


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Sister Seventh bared her teeth in a grin. _I come to deliver Criticism._ Ruby teardrop eyes focused on 
him as she surged to her feet, rippling slabs of muscle moving under her muddy brown skin. A fringe of 
reddish hair rippled erect on the Critic_s head. _Your guards not answer. I Criticize. You come: now!_
The operations room on board the Lord Vanek was quiet, relaxed by comparison with the near panic at 
Wolf Depository; still, nobody could have mistaken it for a home cruise. Not with Ilya Murametz 
standing at the rear, watching everything intently. Not with the old man dropping by at least twice a day, 
just nodding from inside the doorway, but letting them know he was there. Not with the Admiral_s 
occasional presence, glowering silently from his wheelchair like a reminder of the last war.


_Final maneuver option in one hour,_ announced the helm supervisor.


_Continue as ordered._


_Continue as ordered, aye. Recce? Your ball._


_Ready and waiting._ Lieutenant Marek turned around in his chair and looked at Ilya inquiringly. _Do 
you want to inspect the drone, sir?_


_No. If it doesn_t run, I_ll know whom to blame._ Ilya smiled, trying to pull some of the sting from his 
words; with his lips pulled back from his teeth, it merely made him look like a cornered wolf. _Launch 
profile?_


_Holding at minus ten minutes, sir._


_Right, then. Run the self-test sequence again. It can_t hurt._ Everyone was on edge from not knowing 
for sure whether the metallic reflector they_d picked up was the time capsule from home. Maybe the 
drone would tell them, and maybe not. But the longer they waited, the more edgy everyone got, and the 
edgier they were, the more likely they were to make mistakes.


_Looks pretty good to me. Engine idle at about one percent, fuel tanks loaded, ullage rail and umbilical 
disconnects latched and ready, instrument package singing loud on all channels. I_m ready to begin 
launch bay closeout whenever you say, sir._


_Well then._ Ilya breathed deeply. _Get on the blower to whoever_s keeping an eye on it. Get things 
moving._


Down near the back end of the ship, far below the drive compartment and stores, lay a series of airlocks. 
Some of them were small, designed for crew egress; others were larger, and held entire service vehicles 
like the station transfer shuttle. One bay, the largest of all, held a pair of reconnaissance drones: three-



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hundred-tonne robots capable of surveying a star system or mapping a gas giant_s moons. The drones 
couldn_t carry a gravity drive (nothing much smaller than a destroyer could manage that), but they could 
boost at a respectable twentieth of a gee on the back of their nuclear-electric ion rocket, and they could 
keep it up for a very long time indeed. For faster flybys, they could be equipped with salt-water-fueled 
fission rockets like those of the Lord Vanek_s long-range torpedoes_but those were dirty, relatively 
inefficient, and not at all suited to the stealthy mapping of a planetary system.


Each of the drones carried an instrument package studded with more sensors than every probe launched 
from Earth during the twentieth century. They were a throwback to the Lord Vanek_s nominal design 
mission, the semi-ironic goal inscribed on the end-user certificate: to boldly go where no man had gone 
before, to map new star systems on long-duration missions, and claim them in the name of the Emperor. 
Dropped off in an uninhabited system, a probe could map it in a couple of years and be ready to report in 
full when the bat-tlecruiser returned from its own destination. They were a force multiplier for the 
colonial cartographers, enabling one survey ship to map three systems simultaneously.


Deep in the guts of the Lord Vanek, probe one was now waking up from its two-year sleep. A team of 
ratings hurried under the vigilant gaze of two chief petty officers, uncoupling the heavy fueling pipes 
and locking down inspection hatches. Sitting in a lead-lined coffin, probe one gurgled and pinged on a 
belly full of reaction mass and liquid water refrigerant. The compact fusion reactor buzzed gently, its 
beat-wave accelerators ramming a mixture of electrons and pions into a stream of lithium ions at just 
under the speed of light; neutrons spalled off, soaked into the jacket of water pipes, warming them and 
feeding pressure waves into the closed-circuit cooling system. The secondary solar generators, 
dismounted for this mission because of their irrelevance, lay in sheets at one end of the probe bay.


_Five minutes to go. Launch bay reports main reactor compartment closeout. Wet crew have cleared the 
fueling hoses, report tank pressure is stable. I_m still waiting on telemetry closeout._


_Carry on._ Ilya watched patiently as Marek_s team monitored progress on the launch. He looked around 
briefly as the ops room door slid open; but it wasn_t the Captain or the Commodore, just the spy_no, 
the diplomatic agent from Earth. Whose presence was a waste of air and space, the Commander opined, 
although he could see reasons why the Admiral and his staff might not want to impede her nosy scrutiny.


_What are you launching?_ she asked shortly.


_Survey drone._


_What are you surveying?_


He turned and stared at her. _I don_t remember being told you had authority to oversee anything except 
our military activities,_ he commented.


The inspector shrugged, as if attempting to ignore the in-suit. _Perhaps if you told me what you were 



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looking for, I could help you find it,_ she said.


_Unlikely._ He turned away. _Status, lieutenant?_


_Two minutes to go. Telemetry bay closeout. Ah, we have confirmation of onboard control. It_s alive in 
there. Waiting on ullage baffle check, launch rail windup, bay depressurization coming up in sixty 
seconds._


_There_s the message capsule,_ the inspector said quietly. _Hoping for a letter from home, Commander?_


_You are annoying me,_ Ilya said, almost casually. _That_s a bad idea. I say, over there! Yes, you! 
Status please!_


_Bay pressure cell dump in progress. External launch door opening& launch rail power on the bus, 
probe going to internal power, switch over now. She_s on her own, sir. Launch in one minute. Final pre-
flight self-test in progress._


_It_s my job to ask uncomfortable questions, Commander. And the important question to ask now is__


_Quiet, please!_


__Was the artifact you_re about to prod placed there by order of your Admiralty, or by the Festival?_


_Launch in three-zero seconds,_ Lieutenant Marek announced into the silence. He looked up. _Was it 
something I said?_


_What are you talking about?_ asked Ilya.


Rachel shook her head. Arms crossed: _If you don_t want to listen, be my guest._


_One-zero seconds to launch. Ullage pressure jets open. Reactor criticality coming up. Muon flux ramp 
nominal, accelerator gates clear. Um, reactor flux doubling has passed bootstrap level. Five seconds. 
Launch rail is go! Main heat pump is down to operating temperature!_ The deck began to shudder, 
vibrating deep beneath the soles of their feet. _Two seconds. Reactor on temperature. Umbilical 
separation. Zero. We have full separation now. Probe one is clear of the launch bay. Doors closing. 
Gyrodyne turn in progress, ullage pressure maximal, three seconds to main engine ignition._ The 
shudder died away. _Deflection angle clear. Main engine ignition._ In the ops room, nothing stirred; but 
bare meters away from the ship, the probe_s stingerlike tail spat a red-orange beam of heavy metal ions. 
It began to drop away from the battlecruiser: as it did so, two huge wings, the thermal radiators, began to 
extend from its sides.
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Ilya came to a decision. _Lieutenant Marek, you have control,_ he said. _Colonel. Come with me._


He opened the door; she followed him into the passage outside. _Where are we going?_ she asked.


_We_re going to have a little talk,_ he said. Hurrying along toward the conference suite, he didn_t wait 
for her to keep up. Up the elevator, along the next passage, and into a room with a table and chairs in it; 
thankfully unoccupied. He waited for her to enter, then shut the door. _Sit down,_ he said.


The inspector sat on the edge of a chair, leaning forward, looking up at him with an earnest expression.


_You think I_m going to tear a strip off you,_ he began. _And you_re right, but for the wrong reason._


She raised a hand. _Let me guess. Raising policy issues in an executive context?_ She looked at him, 
almost mockingly. _Listen, Commander. Until I came on the deck and saw what you were doing, I 
didn_t know what was happening either, but now I do I think you really want to hear what I_ve got to tell 
you, then tell it to the Captain. Or the Commodore. Or both. Chains of command are all very well, but if 
you_re going to retrieve that orbiting anomaly, then I think we may have less than six hours before all 
hell breaks loose, and I_d like to get the message across. So if we can postpone the theatrics until we_ve 
got time to spare, and just get on with things& ?_


_You_re trying to be disruptive,_ Ilya accused.


_Yes._ She nodded. _I make a career of it. I poke into corners and ask uncomfortable questions and stick 
my nose into other people_s business and find answers that nobody realized were there. So far, I_ve 
saved eight cities and seventy million lives. Would you like me to be less annoying?_


_Tell me what you know. Then I_ll decide._ He said the words carefully, as if making a great concession 
to her undisciplined refusal to stick to her place.


Rachel leaned back. _It_s a matter of deduction,_ she said. _It helps to have a bit of context. For starters, 
this ship_this fleet_didn_t just accidentally embark on a spacelike trip four thousand years into the 
future. You are attempting a maneuver that nearly, but not quite, violates a number of treaties and a 
couple of laws of nature that are enforced by semidivine fiat. You_re not going to go into your own past 
light cone, but you_re going to come very close indeed_dive deep into the future to circumvent any 
watchers or eaters or mines the Festival might lay in your path, jump over to the target, then reel 
yourselves back into the past and accidentally come out not-quite-before the Festival arrives. You know 
what that suggests to me? It suggests extreme foolhardiness. Rule Three is there for a reason. You_re 
banging on the Eschaton_s door if you test it._


_I had that much already,_ Ilya acknowledged. _So?_


_Well, you should ask, what should we have expected to find here? We get here, and we_re looking for a 


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buoy. A time capsule with detailed tactical notes from our own past light cone_an oracle, in effect, 
telling us a lot about the enemy that we can_t possibly know yet because our own time line hasn_t 
intersected with them. Yet more cheating. But we_re alive._


_I don_t understand. Why wouldn_t we be?_


_Because__ She stared at him for a moment. _Do you know what happens to people who use causality 
violation as a weapon?_ she asked. _You_re incredibly close to doing it, which is crazy enough. And you 
got away with it! Which simply isn_t in the script, unless the rules have changed._


_Rules? What are you talking about?_


_Rules._ She rolled her eyes. _The rules of physics are, in some cases, suspiciously anthropic. Starting 
with the Heisen-berg Principle, that the presence of an observer influences the subject of observation at a 
quantum level, and working from there, we can see a lot of startling correlations in the universe. 
Consider the ratio of the strong nuclear force to the electromagnetic force, for example. Twiddle it one 
way a little, and neutrons and protons wouldn_t react; fusion couldn_t take place. Twiddle it in a different 
direction, and the stellar fusion cycle would stop at helium_no heavier nuclei could ever be formed. 
There are so many correlations like this that cosmol-ogists theorize we live in a universe that exists 
specifically to give rise to our kind of life, or something descended from it. Like the Eschaton._


_So?_


_So you people are breaking some of the more arcane cos-mological laws. The ones that state that any 
universe in which true causality violation_time travel_occurs is de facto unstable. But causality 
violation is only possible when there_s a causal agent_in this case an observer_and the descendants of 
that observer will seriously object to causality violation. Put it another way: it_s accepted as a law of 
cosmology because the Eschaton won_t put up with idiots who violate it. That_s why my organization 
tries to educate people out of doing it. I don_t know if anyone told your Admiralty what happened out in 
the back of beyond, in what is now the Crab Nebula: but there_s a pulsar there that isn_t natural, let_s put 
it that way, and an extinct species of would-be galactic conquerors. Someone tried to bend the rules_
and the Eschaton nailed them._


Ilya forced himself to uncurl his fingers from the arms of his chair. _You_re saying that the capsule 
we_re about to retrieve is a bomb? Surely the Eschaton would have tried to kill us by now, or at least 
capture us__


She grinned, humorlessly. _If you don_t believe me, that_s your problem. We_ve seen half a dozen 
incidents like this before_the UN Defense Intelligence Causal Weapons Analysis Committee, I mean_
incidents where one or another secret attempt to assemble a causality-violation device came to grief. Not 
usually anything as crude as your closed timelike flight path and oracle hack, by the way; these were real 
CVDs. History editors, minimax censors, grandfather bombs, and a really nasty toy called a spacelike 



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ablator. There_s a whole ontology of causality-violation weapons out there, just like nukes_ atom 
bombs, fission-boosted fusion bombs, electroweak im-ploders, and so on.


_Each and every one of the sites where we saw CVDs deployed had been trashed, thoroughly and 
systematically, by unidentified agencies_but agencies attributable to the Eschaton. We_ve never 
actually seen one in the process of being destroyed, because the big E tends toward overkill in such cases
_the smallest demolition tool tends to be something like a five-hundred-kilometer asteroid dropped on 
the regional capital at two hundred kilometers per second.


_So I guess the big surprise is that we_re still alive._ She glanced around at the vacant chairs, the 
powered-down work-station on the table. _Oh, and one other thing. The Eschaton always wipes out 
CVDs just before they go live. We figure it knows where to find them because it runs its own CVD. Sort 
of like preserving a regional nuclear hegemony by attacking anyone who builds a uranium enrichment 
plant or a nuclear reactor, yes? Anyway. You haven_t quite begun to break the law yet. The fleet is 
assembling, you_ve located the time capsule, but you haven_t actually closed the loop or made use of the 
oracle in a forbidden context. You might even get away with it if you hop backward but don_t try to go 
any earlier than your own departure point. But I_d be careful about opening that time capsule. At least, 
do it a sensible distance away from any of your ships. You never know what it might contain._


Ilya nodded reluctantly. _I think the Captain should be aware of this._


_You could say that._ She looked at the console. _There_s another matter. I think you need all the 
advantages you can get your hands on right now, and one of them is spending most of his time sitting in 
his cabin twiddling his thumbs. You might want to have a word with Martin Springfield, the dockyard 
engineer. He_s an odd man, and you_ll need to make more allowances in his direction than you_d 
normally be inclined to, but I think he knows more than he_s letting on_much more, when it comes to 
propulsion systems. MiG wasn_t paying him two thousand crowns a week just because he has a pretty 
face. When MiG sold your Admiralty this bird, it was also betting on a fifty-year maintenance and 
upgrade contract_probably worth more revenue than the initial sale, in fact._


_What are you trying to say?_ Ilya looked irritated. _Engineering issues aren_t up to me, you should 
know that already. And I_ll thank you for not telling me my__


_Shut up._ She reached over and grabbed his arm_not hard, but firmly enough to shock him. _You 
really don_t understand how an arms cartel works, do you? Look. MiG sold your government a ship to 
perform to certain specifications. Specifications that could fulfill the requirements your Admiralty 
dreamed up. The specs they designed it to are a different matter_but they certainly intended to charge 
for upgrades throughout its life. And they_ve probably got more experience of real-world interstellar 
combat requirements than your Ad-miralty, which_unless I_m very much mistaken_has never before 
fought a real interstellar war as opposed to sending a few gunboats to intimidate stone-age savages. Be 
nice to Springfield, and he may surprise you. After all, his life depends on this ship doing its job 
successfully._ She let go.
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Ilya stared at her, his expression unreadable. _I will tell the Captain,_ he murmured. Then he stood. _In 
the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would stay out of the operations room while I am in charge_
or hold your counsel in public. And not to lay hands on any officer. Is that understood?_


She met his gaze. If his expression was unreadable, hers was exactly the opposite. _I understand 
perfectly,_ she breathed. Then she stood and left the room without another word, closing the door softly 
as she left.


Ilya stared after her and shuddered. He shook himself angrily; then he picked up the telephone handset 
and spoke to the operator. _Get me the Captain,_ he said. _It_s important._
It was a time capsule, pitted and tarnished from four thousand years in space. And it contained mail.


The survey drone nudged up to it delicately, probing it with radar and infrared sensors. Drifting cold and 
silent, the capsule showed no sign of life save for some residual radioactivity around its after end. A 
compact matter/antimatter rocket, it had crossed the eighteen light-years from the New Republic at a 
sublight crawl, then decelerated into a parking orbit and shut down. Its nose cone was scratched and 
scarred, ablated in patches from the rough passage through the interstellar medium. But behind it waited 
a silvery sphere a meter in diameter. The capsule was fabricated from sintered industrial diamond five 
centimeters thick, a safety-deposit box capable of surviving anything short of a nuclear weapon.


The mail was packed onto disks, diamond wafers sandwiching reflective gold sheets. It was an ancient 
technology, but incredibly durable. Using external waldoes, ratings controlling the survey drone 
unscrewed the plug sealing the time capsule and delicately removed the disk stacks. Then, having 
verified that they were not, in fact, explosives or antimatter, the survey drone turned and began to climb 
back out toward the Lord Vanek and the other ships of the first battleship squadron.


The discovery of mail_and surely there was too much of it to only be tactical data about the enemy_
put the crew in a frenzy of anticipation. They_d been confined to the ship_s quarters for two months now, 
and the possibility of messages from families and loved ones drove them into manic anticipation that 
alternated, individually, with deep depression at the merest thought that they might be forgotten.


Rachel, however, was less sanguine about the mail: the chances of the Admiralty having let her 
employers message her under diplomatic cypher were, in her estimation, less than zero. Martin didn_t 
expect anything, either. His sister hadn_t written to him back in New Prague; why should she write to 
him now? His ex-wife, he wouldn_t want to hear from. In emotional terms, his closest current 
relationship_however unexpectedly it had dawned upon him_was with Rachel. So while the officers 
and crew of the Lord Vanek spent their off hours speculating about the letters from home, Rachel and 
Martin spent their time worrying about exposure. For, as she had pointed out delicately, he didn_t have 
diplomatic papers: and even leaving matters of Republican public morality aside, it would be a bad idea 
if anyone were to decide that he was a lever to use against her.



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_It_s probably not a good idea for us to spend too much time together in private, love,_ she_d murmured 
at the back of his shoulder, as they lay together in his narrow bunk. _When everybody else is at action 
stations, they_re not liable to notice us_but the rest of the time__ His shoulders went tense, telling her 
that he understood.


_We_ll have to work something out,_ he said. _Can_t we?_


_Yes._ She_d paused to kiss his shoulder. _But not if it risks some blue-nosed bigot locking you up for 
conduct unbecoming, or convinces the admiral_s staff that I_m a two-kopek whore they can grope or 
safely ignore, which isn_t too far from what some of them think already._


_Who?_ Martin rolled over to face her, his expression grim. _Tell me__


_Ssh._ She_d touched a finger to his lips, and for a moment, he_d found her expression almost 
heartbreaking. _I don_t need a protector. Have their ideas been rubbing off on you?_


_I hope not!_


_No, I don_t think so._ She chuckled quietly and rolled against him.
Martin was sitting alone in his cabin some days later, nursing wistful thoughts about Rachel and a 
rapidly cooling mug of coffee, when somebody banged on the hatch. _Who_s there?_ he called.


_Mail for the engineer! Get it in the purser_s office!_ Feet hurried away, then there was a cacophony 
from farther down the corridor.


_Hmm?_ Martin sat up. Mail? On the face of it, it was improbable. Then again, everything about this 
voyage was improbable. Startled out of his reverie, he bent down and hunted for his shoes, then set out 
in search of the source of the interruption.


He didn_t have any difficulty finding it. The office was a chaotic melee of enlisted men, all trying to 
grab their own mail and that of anyone they knew. The mail had been copy-printed onto paper, sealed in 
neat blue envelopes. Puzzled, Martin hunted around for anyone in charge.


_Yes?_ The harassed petty officer in charge of the sorting desk looked up from the pile he was trying to 
bundle together for transfer to the His Majesty_s courier ship Godot. _Oh, you. Over there, in the 
unsorted deck._ He pointed at a smallish box containing a selection of envelopes; missives for the dead, 
the mad, and the non-naval.


Martin burrowed through the pile, curious, until he came to an envelope with his name on it. It was a 



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rather fat envelope. How odd, he thought. Rather than open it on the spot, he carried it back to his cabin.


When he opened it, he nearly threw it away immediately: it began with the dreaded phrase, _My dear 
Marty._ Only one woman called him that, and although she was the subject of some of his fondest 
memories, she was also capable of inspiring in him a kind of bitter, anguished rage that made him, af-
terward, ashamed of his own emotions. He and Morag had split eight years ago, and the recriminations 
and mutual blame had left a trench of silence between them.


But what could possibly have prompted her to write to him now? She_d always been a very verbal 
person, and her e-mails had tended to be terse, misspelled sentences rather than the emotional deluges 
she reserved for face-to-face communications.


Puzzled, Martin began to read.


     My Dear Marty,


     It_s been too long since I last wrote to you; I hope you_ll forgive me. Life has been busy, as they 
     say, and doubly so, for I have also had Sarah to look after. Shes growing very tall these days, and 
     looks just like her father. I hope you_ll be around for her sixteenth birthday&


He stopped. This had to be an elaborate joke. His ex-wife seemed to be talking about a child_their child
_who didn_t exist. And this was nothing like her style! It was almost as if someone else, writing from a 
dossier of his family history, was trying to_


He began to read again, this time acutely alert for hidden messages.


     Sarah is studying theology at college these days. You know how studious she_s always been? Her 
     new teacher Herman seems to have brought her out of her shell. She_s working on a dissertation 
     about Eschatology; she insisted that I enclose a copy for you (attached below).


The rest of the letter was filled with idle chatter about fictional friends, reminiscences about trivial and 
entirely nonexistent shared memories and major (presumably well-documented) ones, and_as far as 
Martin could see_a content-free blind.


He turned to the _dissertation._ It was quite long, and he pondered Herman_s wisdom in sending it. Did 
New Republican schoolchildren write eight-page essays about God? And about God_s motives, as far as 
they could be deduced from the value of the cosmological constant? It was written in a precious, 
somewhat dull style that set his teeth on edge, like an earnest student essay hunting for marks of 
approval rather than a straight discursive monograph asserting a viewpoint. Then his eyes caught the 
footnotes:


     1. Consider the hypothetical case of a power that intends to create a localized causality violation 


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     that does not produce a light cone encompassing its origin point. (We are implicitly assuming a 
     perfectly spherical zone of sinful-ness expanding at velocity c with origin at time TO.) If the 
     spherical volume of sinfulness does not intersect with the four-space trajectory of the power_s 
     initial location, we are not dealing with an original sin. Consequently we do not expect the 
     Eschaton to condemn the entire sinful civilization to damnation, or a Type II supernova; 
     redemption is possible. However, damnation of the sinful agency that causes the causality 
     violation is required.


He skipped down the page and began underlining significant words and phrases.


     2. Does the Eschaton always intervene destructively? The answer is probably _no_. We see the 
     consequences of intervention in issues of original sin, but for every such intervention there are 
     probably thousands of invisible nudges delivered to our world line with subtlety and precision. 
     The agency by which such nudges are delivered must remain unknown for them to be effective. 
     They probably flee the scene after intervention, hiding themselves in the teeming masses. The 
     agency may even work in concert with our own efforts, as Eschaton-fearing human beings, to 
     ensure no violations exist. It is possible that some Eschatologically aware government agencies 
     may assist the Eschaton_s secret friends, if they are aware of their presence. Others, secret agents 
     of sinful powers, may attempt to identify them by evidence and arrest them.


Well, that was all fairly instructive. Steganographic back channels generally irritated Martin, with their 
potential for misunderstandings and garbled messages, but in this instance, Herman was being quite 
clear. Distrust the New Republican secret police. Possible help from other agencies_did that mean 
Rachel? No retaliation against the New Republic itself: that was a big weight off his conscience, for 
however much he might dislike or despise their social affairs, they didn_t deserve to die because of their 
leader_s inability to deal with an unprecedented problem. However, one last footnote remained 
impenetrable, however he tried to understand it:


     3. Of course, few people would contemplate breaking the law of causality without at least a very 
     major apparent threat. One wonders what the invisible helpers of the Es-chaton might do when 
     confronted with the need to prevent a causality violation in the face of such a threat? At that 
     point, they may find themselves with split loyalties: on the one hand, to defend the prime law of 
     the an-thropic cosmos, while at the same time, not wanting to surrender their misguided but 
     nevertheless human peers into the claws of a great evil. Under these circumstances, I feel sure the 
     Eschaton would tell its agents to look to their fellow humans_ interests immediately after 
     preventing the rupture of space-time itself. The Eschaton may not be a compassionate God, but it 
     is pragmatic and does not expect its tools to break in its service. However, the key issue is 
     determining which side is least wrong. This leads us deep into the forest of ethics, wherein there 
     is a festival of ambiguity. All we can do is hope the secret helpers make the right choices_
     otherwise, the consequences of criticism will be harsh.


Martin sat back and scratched his head. _Now what the hell does that mean?_ he muttered to himself.
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A Semiotic War


The Admiral was having a bad day.


_Damn your eyes, man, g-g-get your hands off me!_ he croaked at his batman. Robard ignored him and 
carried on lifting; Kurtz_s frail body wasn_t capable of resisting as he sat the old man up and plumped up 
the pillows behind him. _I_ll have you taken out and shot!_


_Certainly, sir. Would that be before or after breakfast?_


The Admiral growled, deep in the back of his throat, then subsided into a rasping pant. __M_not well. 
Not like I used to be. Dammit, I hate this!_


_You_re getting old, sir. Happens to us all._


_Not that blas-asted Terran attache, dammit. He doesn_t get old. I remember him back on Lamprey. 
Took lots of daguerreotypes of me standing by a hill of skulls we built in the public square of New 
Bokhara. Had to do something with the rebel prisoners, after all, no Jesus to make the quartermaster_s 
loaves go further, ha-ha. Said he_d hang me, but never got around to it, the bastard. Wry cove, that wet 
fish. Could have sworn he was a female impersonator. What d_ye think, Kurt? Is he a shirt-lifter?_


Robard coughed and slid a bed table bearing cup of weak tea and a poached egg on toast in front of the 
Admiral. _The UN inspector is a lady, sir._


Kurtz blinked his watery eyes in astonishment. _Why, bless my soul_what a surprise!_ He reached for 
the teacup, but his hand was shaking so much he could barely lift it without slopping the contents. _I 
thought I knew that,_ he accused.


_You probably did, sir. You_ll feel better after you_ve taken your medicine._


_But if he_s a girl, and he was at First Lamprey, that means__ Kurtz looked puzzled. _Do you believe 
in angels, Robard?_ he asked faintly.


_No, sir._


_Well, that_s alright then, she must be a devil. Can deal with those, y_know. Where_s my briefing?_


_I_ll fetch it right after your breakfast, sir. Commodore Bauer said to tell you he_s looking after 
everything._



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_Jolly good._


Kurtz concentrated on assaulting his egg. Presently, when he had accepted its surrender, Robard 
removed the table. _We_d better get you dressed and up, sir. Staff meeting in thirty minutes._


Thirty-five minutes later, the Admiral was ready to meet his staff in the huge conference room adjoining 
his suite. Donning a uniform and taking his medication seemed to have removed a decade from his 
shoulders; he shuffled into the room under his own power, leaning heavily on his canes, although 
Robard discreetly helped when the Admiral tried to return the assembled officers_ salute (and nearly 
caught a walking stick in one eye).


_Good evening, gentlemen,_ began the Admiral. _I gather the rail packet has been me_I_m sorry. I 
gather the r-r_mail packet has been received. Lieutenant Kossov. What word of our dispatches?_


_Er__ Kossov looked green. _We have a problem, sir._


_What do you mean, a problem?_ demanded the Admiral. _We_re not supposed to have problems_
that_s the enemy_s job!_


_There was a stack of twenty disks in the time capsule__


_Don_t give me disks, give me answers! What word of the enemy?_


Commodore Bauer leaned forward. _I think what the Lieutenant is trying to say,_ he interrupted, _is that 
the dispatches were damaged._ Kossov eyed the Commodore with embarrassingly transparent gratitude.


_That_s exactly right, sir. The private mail was intact, for the most part, but there was damage to the time 
capsule at one side_a micrometeoroid impact_and three of the disks were fragmented. We_ve 
retrieved a partial copy of a tenth of our orders from the remaining disks, but most of what came through 
consists of supply manifests for the quartermaster and a suggested menu for the Emperor_s Birthday 
Commemoration Dinner. No details of the enemy, order of battle, force dispositions, diplomatic 
analysis, intelligence, or anything remotely useful. It_s all shattered._


_I see._ The Admiral looked deceptively calm; Kossov quailed. _So our intelligence about the enemy 
disposition is absent. Ah, that-t makes life easier._ He turned to Bauer. _Then we shall have to proceed 
in accordance with Plan B in order to accomplish a successful attack! Every man shall do his duty, for 
right is on our side. I ex-expect you have incontin-gency plans for dealing with in-insurgents on the 
ground? Good, very good. The Festival we shall meet in orbit and, having destroyed their ships, we shall 
work on the assumption that there is an aspiration to depose His Majesty among the rebels on the ground 
and their allies from the enemy camp! Commodore. You will supervise our approach to the target 
system. Colonel von Ungern_Sternberg? Plans for the disposition of your marines and the re-re-



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reimposition of order once we arrive, if you please. Captain Mirsky, you will coordinate the, ah, la-la_ 
maneuvers of the flotilla. Report to Midshipman Bauer if you please._


The Admiral rose, shakily, and made no protest when Ro-bard held him by one arm. _Diss-diss-missed!_ 
he snapped and, turning, hobbled out of the room.
Procurator Muller was bored. Bored and, furthermore, somewhat annoyed. Apart from the evidence of 
misconduct over a weissbier back in New Prague, there wasn_t anything he could hang on the engineer. 
Just the fact that he was a foreigner who espoused radical opinions liable to encourage moral turpitude 
among the lumpenproletariat_which put him in the company of roughly ninety percent of the 
population of the known universe. Admittedly, there had been the nonstandard plug-in from the man_s 
PA, but that wasn_t conclusive. Was it?


He_d spent nearly two months of his life getting this much information. Much of the time, he was bored 
to tears; the crew and officers wouldn_t speak to him_he was one of the Curator_s men, charged with 
the preservation of society, and, like all police posts, this attracted some degree of suspicion_and he 
had long since exhausted the small wardroom library. With no duties but covert surveillance of a suspect 
who knew he was under suspicion, there was little for him to occupy his time with except idle fantasies 
about his forthcoming meeting, when they arrived on Rochard_s World. But there were only a finite 
number of words he could think of to address his father with_and small consolation in imagining 
himself saying them.


However, one evening, it occurred to Vassily that there was another avenue he could follow in his 
exploration of the subject_s movements. Wasn_t Springfield spending an unhealthy amount of time in 
company with the foreign diplomat?


Now there was a shady case! Vassily_s nostrils flared whenever he thought about her. If she hadn_t had 
diplomatic papers, he_d have had her in an interrogation room in a trice. Springfield might be a radical, 
but Colonel Mansour wore trousers_ enough to get her arrested for indecency on the streets of the 
capital, special credentials or no. The woman was a dangerous degenerate; obviously of depraved tastes, 
a male impersonator, probably an invert, and liable to corrupt anyone she came into contact with. 
Indeed, her very presence on this warship was a threat to the moral hygiene of the crew! That the 
engineer spent much of his time with her was obvious (Vassily had seen the surveillance recordings of 
him slipping in and out of her cabin), and the question of where the incriminating evidence was kept 
seemed fairly clear-cut. Springfield was a dangerous anarchist spy, and she must be his evil scheming 
control; a secretive mistress of the art of diplomatic seduction, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.


Which was why he was about to burgle her cabin and search her luggage.


It had taken Vassily nearly two weeks to reach this decision, from the moment he determined that 
Martin_s nonstan-dard PA module was, not to put too fine a point on it, toast. It was a week and a half 
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since the fleet had begun its momentous homeward voyage, first jumping across to the unpopulated 
binary system code-named Terminal Beta, then successively hopping from one star to the other, winding 
back more than a hundred years every day. Another four weeks and they would arrive at their 
destination; nevertheless, Vassily had taken his time. He_d have to be delicate, he realized. Without 
proof of treason he couldn_t act against either of them, and the proof was obviously under diplomatic 
lock and key. Whatever he did would be ultimately deniable_get caught and, well, burgling a 
diplomat_s luggage was about as infra dig as you could get. If anyone found him, he_d be thrown to the 
wolves_probably not literally, but he could look forward to a long career auditing penguins at the south 
polar station.


He picked an early evening for his raid. Martin was in the wardroom, drinking schnapps and playing 
dominoes with Engineering Commander Krupkin. Sitting on in Lieutenant Sauer_s security wardroom, 
Vassily waited until Colonel Man-sour left her room for some purpose; his monitors tracked her down 
the corridor to the officer_s facilities. Good, she_d be at least ten minutes in the shower, if she stuck to 
her usual timetable. Vassily tiptoed out of his cubbyhole and scampered toward the lift shaft, and thence, 
the passage into officer country.


Pulling her cabin door shut behind him, he looked around cautiously. In almost every respect, her room 
was just like that of any other officer. Built like a railway couchette, there were two bunks; the upper 
one configured for sleeping, and the lower currently rolled upside down on its mountings to serve as a 
desk. Two lockers, a tiny washstand sink, mirror, and telephone completed the fittings. One corner of a 
large trunk protruded from under the desk. The inspector didn_t travel as light as a naval officer, that was 
for sure.


First, Vassily spent a minute inspecting the chest. There were no signs of fine hairs or wires glued across 
the lid, and nothing complicated in the way of locks. It was just a slightly battered leather-and-wood 
trunk. He tried to lever it out from under the bunk, but rapidly realized that whatever was in it was 
implausibly heavy. Instead, he unlatched the desk/bunk and folded it upward against the bulkhead. 
Exposed to the light, the chest seemed to smile at him, horrible and faceless.


Vassily sniffed and reached for his pick gun. Another highly illegal tool of the Curator_s Office, the pick 
gun was an engineering miracle: packed with solenoid-controlled probes, electronic sensors, and 
transmitters, even a compact laser transponder, it could force just about any lock in a matter of seconds. 
Vassily bent over the chest. Presently he confirmed that UN diplomatic luggage was no more immune to 
a pick gun than any other eight-barrel mortise lock with a keyed-frequency resonance handshake and a 
misplaced faith in long prime numbers. The lid clicked and swung upward.


The lid held toiletries and a mirror; after a brief inspection, Vassily turned to the interior and found 
himself confronted with a layer of clothing. He swallowed. Unmentionables mocked him: folded 
underskirts, bloomers, a pair of opera gloves. He carefully moved them aside. Beneath them lay a yellow 
silk gown. Vassily flushed, deeply embarrassed. He picked up the gown, unfolding it in the process; 
confused, he stood up and shook it out. It was, he thought, wholly beautiful and feminine, not what he_d 
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expected of the corrupt and decadent Terrestrial agent. This whole fishing expedition wasn_t turning out 
they way he_d imagined. He shook his head and laid the gown on the upper bunk, then bent back to the 
chest.


There was a black jumpsuit beneath it, and an octagonal hatbox. He tried to pick up the hatbox, and 
found that it wouldn_t move. It was solid, as heavy as lead! Encouraged, he picked up the suit and 
draped it over a chair. Beneath it he found a slick plastic surface with lights glowing within it. The chest 
was only six inches deep! The entire bottom half of it lay below the surface on which the false hatbox 
rested, and was doubtless full of contraband and spying apparatus.


Vassily poked at the plastic panel. It reminded him of a keyboard, but lacking ivory and ebony keys, and 
with nowhere to feed the paper tapes in. It was all disturbingly alien. He poked at the panel, hitting an 
obvious raised area: runes blinked, access forbidden: geneprint unrecognized.


Damn.


Sweat poured off his neck as he considered his options. Then his eyes turned to the contents of the trunk 
he_d heaped beside it. It wanted a familiar skin sample? Hmm. Gloves. He held them up. Long women_s 
gloves. They smelt faintly of something_yes. Vassily rolled one inside-out over his right hand, up his 
arm. He touched the raised plinth: processing& authorized. A human body sheds five million skin 
particles per hour; Rachel had worn these very gloves, therefore_


A menu appeared. Vassily prodded at it blindly. Option one said sears foundation design catalog, 
whatever that meant. Below it, free hardware foundation gnu couturier 15.6; then dior historical catalog. 
He scratched his head. No secret code books, no hidden weapons, no spy cameras. Just 
incomprehensible analytical engine instructions! He thumped the plinth in frustration.


A deep humming filled the room. He jumped backward, knocking over the chair. A slot opened in the 
top of the hatbox. A demented clicking rattled from it and something spat out. Something red that landed 
on his head_a wisp of lace with two leg holes. Scandalous. With a grinding clank, the hatbox extruded 
in short order a shimmering tulle ball gown, a pair of spike-heeled ankle boots, and a pair of coarse-
woven blue shorts. All the clothing was hot to the touch and smelled faintly of chemicals.


_Stop it,_ he hissed. _Stop it!_ In reply, the trunk ejected a stream of stockings, a pair of trousers, and a 
corset that threatened any wearer with abdominal injury. He thumped at the control panel in frustration 
and, thankfully, the trunk stopped manufacturing clothing. He looked at it dizzily. Why bring a trunk of 
clothing if you can bring a trunk that can manufacture any item of clothing you want to wear? he 
realized. Then the trunk made an ominous graunching sound and he stared at it in ontological horror. It_s 
a cornucopia! One of the forbidden, mythological chimeras of history, the machine that had brought 
degradation and unemployment and economic downsizing to his ancestors before they fled the 
singularity to settle and help create the New Republic.
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The cornucopia grunted and hummed. Thoroughly spooked, Vassily looked to the door. If Rachel was 
on her way back_


The hatbox opened. Something black and shiny peeped forth. Antennae hummed and scanned the room; 
articulated claws latched onto the side of the box and levered.


Vassily took one look at the monster and cracked. He left the door swinging ajar behind him in his 
helpless flight down the corridor, disheveled and wild-eyed, wearing an inside-out opera glove on one 
hand.


Behind him, the freshly manufactured spybot finished surveying the insertion zone. Primitive programs 
meshed in its microprocessor brain: no operational overrides were present, so it established a default 
exploration strategy and prepared to reconnoiter. It grabbed the nearest non-fixed item of camouflage 
and, stretching it protectively over its crablike carapace, headed for the ventilation shaft. Even as it 
finished removing the grille, the hatbox clanked again: the second small robospy was born just in time to 
see the yellow gown disappearing into the air-conditioning duct. And then the luggage clanked again, 
preparing to hatch yet another&


By the time Rachel returned, her trunk was half-empty_ and almost all her ready-made clothing had 
escaped.
_You come with me,_ Sister Seventh told Burya. _See situation. Explain why is bad, and understand._


Wind whispered through the open window, carrying grey clouds across the city, as Novy Petrograd 
burned in an inferno of forbidden technology. Houses crumbled and grew anew, extrusions pushing up 
like mushrooms from the strange soil of men_s dreams. Trees of silver rose from the goldsmith_s district, 
their harsh, planar surfaces tracking the cumulus-shrouded sun. The hairless alien wobbled forward onto 
the balcony and pointed her tusks at the fairground on the other side of town: _This is not the Festival_s 
doing!_


Helplessly, Burya followed her out onto the rooftop above the Duke_s ballroom. A cloaca! smell 
plugged his nostrils, the distant olfactory echo of the corpses swinging from the lampposts in the 
courtyard. Politovsky had disappeared, but his men had not gone quietly, and the mutinous troops, 
frenzied and outraged, had committed atrocities against the officers and their families. The ensuing 
reprisals had been harsh but necessary_


Javelins of light streaked across the cloudscape overhead. Seconds later, the rumble of their passage split 
the cold evening air. Thunder rattled and echoed from the remaining windows of the town.


_Festival does not understand humans,_ Sister Seventh commented calmly. _Motivation of fleshbody 
intelligences bereft of real-time awareness not simulatable. Festival therefore assumes altruist aesthetic. 



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I ask: Is this a work of art?_


Burya Rubenstein stared at the city bleakly. _No._ The admission came hard. _We hoped for better. But 
the people need leadership and a strong hand; without it they run riot__


Sister Seventh made a strange snuffling noise. Presently he realized that she was laughing at him.


_Riot! Freedom! End of constraint! Silly humans. Silly not-organized humans, not smell own place 
among people, need to sniff piss in corner of burrow, kill instead. Make military music. Much marching 
and killing by numbers. Is comedy, no?_


_We will control it ourselves,_ Burya insisted trenchantly. _This chaos, this is not our destiny. We stand 
on the threshold of Utopia! The people, once educated, will behave rationally. Ignorance, filth, and a 
dozen generations of repression are what you see here_this is the outcome of a failed experiment, not 
human destiny!_


_Then why you not a sculptor, cut new flesh from old?_ Sister Seventh approached him. Her snuffling 
cabbage breath reminded him of a pet guinea pig his parents had bought him when he was six. (When he 
was seven there had been a famine, and into the cook pot she went.) _Why not you build new minds for 
your people?_


_We_ll fix it,_ Burya emphasized. Three more emerald-colored diamonds shot overhead: they zipped in 
helices around one another, then turned and swerved out across the river like sentient shooting stars. 
When in doubt, change the subject: _How did your people get here?_


_We Critics. Festival has many mindspaces spare. Brought us along, like the Fringe and other lurkers in 
dark. Festival must travel and learn. We travel and change. Find what is broken and Criticize, help 
broken things fix selves. Achieve harmonious dark and warm-fed hiveness._


Something tall and shadowy slid across the courtyard behind Burya. He turned, hurriedly, to see two 
many-jointed legs, chicken-footed, capped by a thatch of wild darkness. The legs knelt, lowering the 
body until an opening hung opposite the balcony, as dark and uninviting as a skull_s hollow nasal cavity.


_Come, ride with me._ Sister of Stratagems the Seventh stood behind Burya, between him and his office. 
It was not an offer but an instruction. _Will learn you much!_


_I_I__ Burya stopped protesting. He raised a hand to his throat, found the leather thong he wore 
around it, and yanked on the end of it. _Guards!_


Sister Seventh rolled forward, as ponderous and irresistible as an earthquake; she swept him backward 
into the walking hut, making that odd snuffling noise again. A furious hissing and quacking broke out 
behind her, followed by erratic gunfire as the first of the guard geese shot their way through the study 


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door. Rubenstein landed on the floor with two hundred kilos of mole rat on top of him, holding him 
down; the floor lurched then rose like an elevator, dropped, and accelerated in a passable imitation of the 
fairground ride at a winter festival. He choked, trying to breathe, but before he could suffocate Sister 
Seventh picked herself up and sat back on what appeared to be a nest of dried twigs. She grinned at him 
horribly, baring her tusks, then pulled out a large root vegetable and began to gnaw on it.


_Where are you taking me? I demand to be put down__


_Plotsk,_ said the Critic. _To learn how to understand. Want a carrot?_ 
They came for Martin as he lay sleeping. The door of his cabin burst open and two burly ratings entered; 
the light came on. _What_s up?_ Martin asked fuzzily.


_On your feet._ A petty officer stood in the entrance.


_What__


_On your feet._ The quilt was pulled back briskly; Martin found himself dragged halfway out of bed 
before he had quite finished blinking at the brightness. _At the double!_


_What_s going on?_


_Shut up,_ said one of the ratings, and backhanded him casually across the face. Martin fell back on the 
bed, and the other rating grabbed his left arm and slipped a manacle over his wrist. While he was trying 
to reach his mouth_sore and hot, painful but not badly damaged_they snagged his other wrist.


_To the brig. At the double!_ They frog-marched Martin out the door, naked and in handcuffs, and 
hurried him down to the level below the engineering spaces and drive kernel. Everything passed in a 
painful blur of light; Martin spat and saw a streak of blood dribble across the floor.


A door opened. They pushed him through and he fell over, then the door clanged shut.


Shock finally cut in. He slumped, rolled to his side, and dry-heaved on the floor. From start to finish, the 
assault had taken less than two minutes.


He was still lying on the floor when the door opened again. A pair of boots entered his field of vision.


Muffled: _Get this mess cleared up._ Louder: _You_on your feet._


Martin rolled over, to see Security Lieutenant Sauer staring down at him. The junior officer from the 
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Curator_s Office stood behind him, along with a couple of enlisted men. Martin began to sit up.


_Out,_ Sauer told the guards. They left. _On your feet,_ he repeated.


Martin sat up and pushed himself upright against one wall.


_You are in big trouble,_ said the Lieutenant. _No, don_t say anything. You_re in trouble. You can dig 
yourself in deeper or you can cooperate. I want you to think about it for a while._ He held up a slim 
black wafer. _We know what this is. Now you can tell us all about it, who gave it to you, or you can let 
us draw our own conclusions. This isn_t a civil court or an in-vestigation by the audit bureau; this is, in 
case you hadn_t worked it out, a military-intelligence matter. How you decide to deal with us affects 
how we will deal with you. Understood?_


Martin blinked. _I_ve never seen it before,_ he insisted, pulse racing.


Sauer looked disgusted. _Don_t be obtuse. It was in your gadget. Naval regulations specify that it_s an 
offense to bring unauthorized communications devices aboard a warship. So what was it doing there? 
You forgot to take it out? Whom does it belong to, anyway?_


Martin wavered. _The shipyard told me to carry it,_ he said. _When I came aboard I didn_t realize I_d be 
on board for more than a shift at a time. Or that it was a problem._


_The shipyard told you to carry it._ Sauer looked skeptical. _It_s a dead causal channel, man! Have you 
any idea how much one of those things is worth?_


Martin nodded shakily. _Have you any idea how much this ship is worth?_ he asked. _MiG put it 
together. MiG stands to make a lot of money selling copies: more if it earns a distinguished combat 
record. Has it occurred to you that my primary employers_the people you rented me from_have a 
legitimate interest in seeing how you_ve changed around the ship they delivered to you?_


Sauer tossed the cartridge on Martin_s bunk. _Plausible. You_re doing well, so far: don_t let it go to your 
head._ He turned and rapped on the door. _If that_s your final story, I_ll pass it on to the Captain. If you 
have anything else to tell me, let the supervisor know when he brings your lunch._


_Is that all?_ Martin asked as the door opened.


_Is that all?_ Sauer shook his head. _You confess to a capital offense, and ask if that_s all?_ He paused 
in the doorway and stared at Martin, expressionless. _Yes, that_s all. Recording off._


Then he was gone.
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Vassily had gone to Lieutenant Sauer immediately after the abortive search through Rachel_s luggage: 
badly fright-ened, needing advice. He_d poured everything out before Sauer, who had nodded 
reassuringly and calmed him down before explaining what they were going to do.


_They_re in it together, son, that much is clear. But you should have talked to me first. Let_s see this 
gadget you took from him, hmm?_ Vassily had passed him the cartridge he_d stolen from Martin_s PA. 
Sauer took one look at it and nodded to himself. _Never seen one of these before, have you? Well, don_t 
worry; it_s just the lever we need._ He tapped the exhausted causal channel significantly. _Don_t know 
why he had this on board, but it was bloody stupid of him, clear breach of His Majesty_s regulations. 
You could have come to me with it immediately, no questions asked, instead of digging around the 
woman_s luggage. Which, of course, you didn_t do. Did you?_


_Uh_no, sir._


_Jolly good._ Sauer nodded to himself again. _Because, if you had, I_d have to arrest you, of course. But 
I suppose, if she left her door unlocked and some enlisted man tried to help himself to her wardrobe, 
well, we can investigate it&_ He trailed off thoughtfully.


_Why can_t we arrest the woman, sir? For, um, possession of illicit machinery?_


_Because__Sauer looked down his nose at Vassily_ _she_s got a diplomatic passport. She_s allowed to 
have illegal machinery in her luggage. And, frankly, far as I can tell, she_s got an excuse. Would you be 
complaining if she had a sewing machine? That_s what she_ll say it is; a garment fabricator._


_But I saw these things coming out of there, with too many legs! They were after me__


_Nobody else has seen them,_ Sauer said in a soothing tone of voice. _I believe you; you probably did 
see something. Spy robots, perhaps. But good ones, good enough to hide_and without evidence__ He 
shrugged.


_What are you going to do, then, sir?_


Sauer glanced away. _I think we_re going to pay Mr. Springfield a visit,_ he murmured. _We_ll take him 
away. Stick him in the cells for a bit. And then__he grinned, unpleas-antly__we_ll see which way our 
diplomat jumps. Which should tell us what all this means, shouldn_t it?_


Neither of them noticed the pair of polka-dotted knickers hiding behind the ventilation duct overhead, 
listening patiently and recording everything.
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Confessions


The Lord Vanek accelerated at an economical two gees, using its drive kernel to curve the space-time 
ahead of it into a valley into which it slid easily, without imposing punishing stress on crew or 
machinery. Ninety-two thousand tonnes of warship (with an eight-billion-tonne black hole at her core) 
took a lot of moving, but once set in motion, it could go places fast. It would take days to cross the vast 
gulf that separated Lord Vanek_s parking station from the first jump point on the return leg of its time-
like path_but nothing like the years that humanity_s earliest probes had taken to cover similar distances.


The ships of the fleet had traveled barely twenty light-years from the New Republic, but in the process, 
they had hopped forward in time by four thousand years, zigzagging between the two planetless 
components of the binary system in an attempt to outrun any long-term surveillance that the Festival 
might have placed on them. Soon the spacelike component of the voyage would commence, with a 
cruise to a similar system not far from Rochard_s World; then the fleet would pursue a bizarre trajectory, 
looping back into the past of their own world line without actually intersecting that of their origin point.


Along the way, the fleet tenders would regularly top up the warships with consumable provisions, air 
and water and food; no less than eight merchant ships would be completely stripped and abandoned to 
fall forever between the stars, their crews doubled up aboard other vessels. The voyage would strain the 
Navy_s logistic system beyond the point of failure: something had to give, and an entire year_s 
shipbuilding budget would go into the supply side of this operation alone.


As they cruised between jumps, the warships exercised continually. Tentative lidar pulses strobed at the 
deep vacuum beyond the heliopause as officers sought firing solutions on the ships of the other 
squadrons; missile and torpedo trajectories were plotted, laser firing solutions entered into the tireless 
gear mills of the analytical engines. Tracking ships at long range was difficult, for they didn_t emit much 
detectable radiation. Radar was hopeless: to pump out sufficient energy to get a return, the Lord Vanek 
would have produced enough waste heat to broil her crew alive. As it was, only her vast radiator panels, 
spread to the stars and now glowing a dull red, allowed them to run the lidar at high intensity for short 
periods of time. (Vacuum is a most effective insulator_and active sensors capable of reaching out 
across billions of kilometers run hot.)


Martin Springfield knew nothing of this. Lying in his cell he_d spent the past two days in despondent 
boredom, alternating between depression and guarded optimism by turns. Still alive, he thought. Then: 
Not for long. If only there was something he could do! But on board a starship, mere was nowhere to 
run. He was enough of a realist to understand this: if they ran out of options here, he was dead. He_d 
simply have to hope that they hadn_t worked out what he_d done, and would release him rather than 
antagonizing the shipyard.


He was sitting on the bunk one evening when the door opened. He looked up at once, expecting Sauer or 
the Curator_s kid spook. His eyes widened. _What are you doing here?_
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_Just visiting. Mind if I sit down?_


He nodded uneasily. Rachel sat on the edge of the bunk. She was wearing a plain black jumpsuit and had 
tied her hair back severely; her manner was different, almost relaxed. It wasn_t a disguise, he realized; 
she wasn_t acting the part of a woman of easy virtue or a diplomat posted to a banana repub-lie, or 
anyone else, for that matter. She was being herself_a formidable figure. _I thought they_d have locked 
you up, too,_ he said.


_Yes, well&_ She looked distracted. _One moment._ She glanced at her pocket watch. _Ah._ She leaned 
over toward the head end of his bunk and placed something small and metallic on it.


_I already spiked the bugs,_ he said. _They won_t hear much._


She glared at him. _Thanks for nothing._


_What__


_I want the truth,_ she said flatly. _You_ve been lying to me. I want to know why._


_Oh._ He tried not to cringe. Her expression was unnaturally controlled, the calm before a storm.


_You_ve got only one chance to tell the truth,_ she said, pitching her voice in conversational tones that 
were belied by a brittle edge in it. _I don_t think they know you_re lying yet, but when we get back_
well, they_re not dummies and you_re digging yourself in deeper. The Curator_s Office will be watching. 
If you act guilty, the boy wonder will draw the only available conclusion._


He sighed. _And what if the conclusion is right? What if I am guilty?_ he asked.


_I trusted you,_ she said flatly. _As yourself. Not as a player. I don_t like being lied to, Martin. In 
business or my personal life, whichever._


_Well._ He contemplated the shiny jammer she_d placed on his pillow. It was easier than facing her 
anger and hurt. _If I said they told me they were the shipyard, would that satisfy you?_


_No._ She shook her head. _You_re not dumb enough to fall for a cover story, anyway._ She looked 
away. _I don_t like being lied to,_ she said bitterly.


He looked at her. Rachel was an up-to-date professional, unlike the bumbling amateurs of the New 
Republic; she_d have speech analysis reflexes, lie detectors, any number of other gadgets trained on him, 
if this was business, and if she hadn_t completely lost it. If she had_well, he could hardly blame her for 
being mad at him. In her place, he_d be angry, too. And hurt. _I don_t like telling lies,_ he said, which 
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was true enough. _Not without an overriding reason,_ he admitted.


She took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. _I_m the nearest thing to a lawyer you_re going to get 
here, Martin. I_m the nearest representative of your government_what they think is your government_
within four thousand years and a two-hundred-light-year radius. They have a legalistic system of 
government, for all that they_re medieval throwbacks, and they let me visit you as your advocate. I can 
plead your case if it comes up to a court-martial because you_re a civilian, and I might be able to deflect 
things short of that. But only if you tell me everything, so I know what I_m defending._


_I can_t talk about it,_ he said uncomfortably. He picked up his book, half trying to shelter his guilty 
conscience behind it. _I_m not allowed to. I thought you of all people would be able to understand that?_


_Listen._ Rachel glared at him. _Remember what I told you about trust? I_m really disappointed. 
Because I did trust you, and it seems to me that you betrayed that trust. As it is, I_m going to have to do 
a lot of fast talking if I_m going to try to get your ass off the hook you_re caught on, or at least get you 
out of here alive. And before I do that, I want to know what you_ve been lying to me about._


She stood up. _I_m a fool. And a damned fool for trusting you, and a worse fool for getting involved 
with you. Hell, I_m an unprofessional fool! But I_m going to ask you again, and you_d better answer 
truthfully. There are a lot of lives at stake this time, Martin, because this is not a game. Who the fuck are 
you working for?_


Martin paused a moment, dizzy with a sense of events moving out of control. Can_t tell her, can_t not 
tell her_he looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time. It was the hurt expression that made his mind 
up for him: no amount of rationalization would help him sleep that night if he left her feeling like this. 
Feeling betrayed by the only person she_d been able to trust within a radius of light-years. One moment 
of unpro-fessionalism deserved to be answered by another. His mouth felt dry and clumsy as he spoke: 
_I work for the Eschaton._


Rachel sat down heavily, her eyes wide with disbelief. _What?_


He shrugged. _You think the E_s only way of dealing with problems is to drop a rock on them?_ he 
asked.


_Are you kidding?_


_Nope._ He could taste bile in the back of his throat. _And I believe in what I_m doing, else I wouldn_t 
be here now, would I? Because truly, the alternative is to drop a planet-buster on the problem. The 
Eschaton finds that easier. And it makes the appropriate noises. It scares people. But really_ most of 
the time, the E likes to solve problems more quietly through people like me._


_How long?_



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_About twenty years._ He shrugged again. _That_s all there is to it._


_Why?_ She buried her hands between her knees, holding them together tightly, looking at him with a 
miserably confused expression on her face.


_Because__ He tried to drag his scattered thoughts together. _Believe me, the Eschaton prefers it when 
people like you do the job first. It saves a lot of pain all around. But once the fleet moved, and you lost 
the argument with them, there was no alternative. You didn_t really think they_d set up the prerequisites 
for a closed timelike path and not follow it through to the logical end?__He took a deep breath. _That_s 
the sort of job I do. I_m a plumber, for when the Eschaton wants to fix a leak quietly._


_You_re an agent, you mean._


_Yes,_ he agreed. _Like you._


_Like me._ She made a croaking noise that sounded as if it might have been intended as a laugh. _Shit, 
Martin, that is not what I was expecting to hear._


_I wish this hadn_t happened. Especially with_well, us. In the middle._


_Me too, with brass knobs on,_ she said shakily. _Was that all there was?_


_All there was? That_s all I was holding out on you, honest._


A long pause. _Alright. It was, uh, purely professional?_


He nodded. _Yes._ He looked at her. _I don_t like lying. And I haven_t been lying, or withholding the 
truth, about anything else. I promise._


_Oh. Okay._ She took a deep breath and grinned tiredly, simultaneously looking amused and relieved.


_It_s really been eating you, hasn_t it?_ he asked.


_Oh, you could say that,_ she said, with heavy irony.


_Um._ He held out a hand. _I_m sorry. Truly._


_Apology accepted_conditionally._ She squeezed his hand, briefly, then let go. _Now, are you going to 
tell me what the Eschaton has in mind for us?_
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Martin sighed. _Yes, inasmuch as I know. But I_ve got to warn you, it_s not good. If we can_t get off this 
ship before it arrives, we_re probably going to die&_
Time travel destabilises history.


History is a child of contingency; so many events depend on critical misunderstandings or transient 
encounters that even the apocryphal butterfly_s wing is apt to stir up a storm in short order. A single 
misunderstood telegram in June of 1917 permitted the Bolshevik revolution to become a possibility; a 
single spy in 1958 extended the Cold War by a decade. And without both such events, could a being like 
the Eschaton ever have come to exist?


Of course, in a universe which permits time travel, history itself becomes unstable_and the equilibrium 
can only be restored when the diabolical mechanism edits itself out of the picture. But that_s scant 
comfort for the trillions of entities who silently cease to exist in the wake of a full-blown time storm.


It_s hardly surprising that, whenever intelligent beings arise in such a universe, they will seek to use 
closed timelike curves to prevent their own extinction. Faster-than-light travel being possible, general 
relativity tells us that it is indistinguishable from time travel; and this similarity makes the technologies 
of total annihilation dreadfully accessible. In the small, stupid little organizations like the New Republic 
seek to gain advantage over their contemporaries and rivals. In the large, vast, cool intellects seek to 
stabilize their universe in the form most suitable to them. Their tampering may be as simple as 
preventing rivals from editing them out of the stable histor-ical record_or it may be as sophisticated as 
meddling with the early epochs of the big bang, back before the Higgs field decayed into the separate 
fundamental forces that bind the universe together to ensure just the right ratio of physical constants to 
support life.


This is not the only universe; far from it. It isn_t even the only universe in which life exists. Like living 
organisms, universes exist balanced on the edge of chaos, little bubbles of twisted ur-space that pinch off 
and bloat outward, expanding and cooling, presently giving birth to further bubbles of condensed space-
time; a hyperdimensional crystal garden full of strange trees bearing stranger fruit.


But the other universes are not much use to us. There are too many variables in the mix. As the initial 
burst of energy that signals the birth of a universe cools, the surging force field that drives its initial 
expansion becomes tenuous, then breaks down into a complex mess of other forces. The constants that 
determine their relative strengths are set casually, randomly. There are universes with only two forces; 
others, with thousands. (Ours has five.) There are universes where the electron is massive: nuclear 
fusion is so easy there that the era of star formation ends less than a million of our years after the big 
bang. Chemistry is difficult there, and long before life can evolve, such universes contain nothing but 
cooling pulsars and black holes, the debris of creation brought to a premature end.


There are universes where photons have mass_others where there is too little mass in the universe for it 
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to achieve closure and collapse in a big crunch at the end of time. There are, in fact, an infinity of 
universes out there, and they are all uninhabitable. There is a smaller infinitude of possibly habitable 
ones, and in some of them, intelligent life evolves; but more than that we may never know. Travel 
between universes is nearly impossible; materials that exist in one may be unstable in another. So, 
trapped in our little fishbowl of space we drift through the crystal garden of universes_and our own 
neighborly intelligences, beings like the Eschaton, do their best to prevent the less-clever inmates from 
smashing the glass from within.


The man in gray had explained all this to Martin at length, eighteen years ago. _The Eschaton has a 
strong interest in maintaining the integrity of the world line,_ he had said. _It_s in your interest, too. 
Once people begin meddling with the more obscure causal paradoxes, all sorts of lethal side-effects can 
happen. The Eschaton is as vulnerable to this as any other being in the universe_it didn_t create this 
place, you know, it just gets to live in it with the rest of us. It may be a massively superhuman 
intelligence or cluster of intelligences, it may have resources we can barely comprehend, but it could 
probably be snuffed out quite easily; just a few nuclear weapons in the right place before it bootstrapped 
into consciousness, out of the pre-Singularity networks of the twenty-first century. Without the 
Eschaton, the human species would probably be extinct by now._


_Epistemology pays no bills,_ Martin remarked drily. _If you_re expecting me to do something risky&_


_We appreciate that._ The gray man nodded. _We need errands run, and not all of them are entirely safe. 
Most of the time it will amount to little more than making note of certain things and telling us about them
_but occasionally, if there is a serious threat, you may be asked to act. Usually in subtle, undetectable 
ways, but always at your peril. But there are compensations._


_Describe them._ Martin put his unfinished drink down at that point.


_My sponsor is prepared to pay you very well indeed. And part of the pay_we can smooth the path if 
you apply for prolongation and continued residency._ Life-extension technology, allowing effectively 
unlimited life expectancy beyond 160 years, was eminently practical, and available on most developed 
worlds. It was also as tightly controlled as any medical procedure could be. The controls and licensing 
were a relic of the Overshoot, the brief period in the twenty-first century when Earth_s population 
blipped over the ten-billion mark (before the Singularity, when the Eschaton bootstrapped its way past 
merely human intelligence and promptly rewrote the rule book). The after-effects of overpopulation still 
scarred the planet, and the response was an ironclad rule_if you want to live beyond your natural span, 
you must either demonstrate some particular merit, some reason why you should be allowed to stay 
around, or you could take the treatment and em-igrate. There were few rules that all of Earth_s fractured 
tribes and cultures and companies obeyed, but out of common interest, this was one of them. To be 
offered exemption by the covert intervention of the Eschaton_


_How long do I have to think about it?_ asked Martin.
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_Until tomorrow._ The gray man consulted his notepad. _Ten-thousand-a-year retainer. Ten thousand or 
more as a bonus if you are asked to do anything. And an essential status exemption from the population 
committee. On top of which, you will be helping to protect humanity as a whole from the actions of 
some of its more intemperate_not to say stupid_ members. Would you care for another drink?_


_It_s alright,_ said Martin. They_re willing to pay me? To do something I_d volunteer for? He stood up. _I 
don_t need another day to think about it. Count me in._


The gray man smiled humorlessly. _I was told you_d say that._
The gold team was on full alert. Not a head moved when the door opened, and Captain Mirsky walked 
in, followed by Commodore Bauer and his staff. _Commander Murametz, please report._


_Yes, sir. Time to jump transition, three-zero-zero seconds. Location plot confirmed, signals operational. 
All systems running at an acceptable level of readiness for engagement plan C. We_re ready to go to 
battle stations whenever you say, sir._


Mirsky nodded. _Gentlemen, carry on as ordered._ The Commodore nodded and quietly instructed his 
adjutant to take notes. Elsewhere on the ship, sirens blatted: the clatter of spacers running to their 
stations didn_t penetrate the bulkheads, but the atmosphere nevertheless felt tense. Low-key 
conversations started at the various workstations around the room as officers talked over the tactical 
circuits.


_Ready for jump in two-zero-zero seconds,_ called Rela-tivistics.


Rachel Mansour_wearing her disarmament inspector_s uniform_sat uncomfortably close to one of the 
walls, studying a packed instrument console over the shoulder of a petty officer. Brass handles and 
baroque red LEDs glowed at her; a pewter dog_s head barked silently from an isolation switch. Someone 
had spent half a lifetime polishing the engravings until they gleamed as softly as butter. It seemed a 
bitter irony, to observe such art in a place of war; the situation was, she thought, more than somewhat 
repulsive, and finding anything even remotely beautiful in it only made things worse.


The Festival: of all the stupid things the New Republic might attack, the Festival was about the worst. 
She_d spoken to Martin about it, piecing together his information with her own. Together they_d pieced 
together a terrifying hypothesis. _Herman was unusually vague about it,_ Martin admitted. _Normally he 
has a lot of background detail. Every word means something. But it_s as if he doesn_t want to say too 
much about the Festival. They_re_he called them, uh, glider-gun factories. I don_t know if you know 
about Life__


_Cellular automata, the game?_
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_That_s the one. Glider guns are mobile cellular automata. There are some complex life structures that 
replicate themselves, or simpler cellular structures; a glider-gun factory is a weird one. It periodically 
packs itself into a very dense mobile system that migrates across the grid for a couple of hundred 
squares, then it unpacks itself into two copies that then pack down and fly off in opposite directions. 
Herman said that they_re a real-space analogue: he called them a Boyce-Tipler robot. Self-replicating, 
slower-than-light interstellar probes that are sent out to gather information about the universe and feed it 
back to a center. Only the Festival isn_t just a dumb robot fleet. It carries upload processors, thousands 
of uploaded minds running faster than real time when there are resources to support them, downloaded 
into long-term storage during the long trips._


Rachel had shuddered slightly at that, and he hugged her, misapprehending the cause of her distress. She 
let him, not wanting him to realize he had upset her. She_d dealt with uploads before. The first-
generation ones, fresh from the meat puppet universe, weren_t a problem: it was the kids that got her. 
Born_if you could call it that_in a virtual environment, they rapidly diverged from any norm of 
humanity that she could see. More seriously, their grasp of the real world was poor. Which was fine as 
long as they didn_t have to deal with it, but when they did, they used advanced nanosystems for limbs 
and they sometimes accidentally broke things_planets, for instance.


It wasn_t intentional malice; they_d simply matured in an environment where information didn_t go away 
unless someone wanted it to, where death and destruction were reversible, where magic wands worked 
and hallucinations were dangerous. The real universe played by different rules, rules that their horrified 
ancestors had fled as soon as the process of migrating minds into distributed computing networks had 
been developed.


The Festival sounded like a real headache. On the one hand, an upload civilization, used to omnipotence 
within its own pocket universe, had decided for no obvious reason to go forth and play the galactic 
tourist. On the other hand, physical machinery of vast subtlety and power was bound to do their bidding 
at each port of call. Bush robots, for example: take a branching tree of fronds. Each bough split into two 
half-scale branches at either end, with flexible joints connecting them. Repeated down to the molecular 
level, each terminal branch was closed off with a nanomanipulator. The result was a silvery haze with a 
dumbbell-shaped core, glittering with coherent light, able to change shape, dismantle and reassemble 
physical objects at will_able to rebuild just about anything into any desired physical form, from the 
atomic scale up. Bush robots made the ultimate infantry; shoot at them, and they_d eat the bullets, splice 
them into more branches, and thank you for the gift of metals.


_I_m worried about what will happen when we arrive,_ Martin admitted. He_d wrung his hands while he 
spoke, unconsciously emphasizing his points. _I don_t think the New Republicans can actually 
comprehend what_s going on. They see an attack, and I can understand why_the Festival has destroyed 
the political and social economy on one of their colonies as thoroughly as if it had nuked the place from 
orbit_but what I can_t see is any possible avenue to a settlement. There_s not going to be any common 
ground there. What does the Festival want? What could make them go away and leave the Republic 
alone?_
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_I thought you didn_t like the New Republic,_ Rachel challenged.


He grimaced. _And I suppose you do? I don_t like their system, and they know it. That_s why I_m sitting 
in this cell instead of in my cabin, or on the engineering deck. But__ He shrugged. _Their social system 
is one thing, but people are people everywhere you go, just trying to get along in this crazy universe. I 
don_t like them as individuals, but that_s not the same as wanting them dead. They_re not monsters, and 
they don_t deserve what_s coming to them, and life isn_t fair, is it?_


_You did your bit to make it that way._


_Yes._ He dropped his gaze to the floor, focusing intently on something invisible to her. _I wish there 
was an alternative. But Herman can_t just let them get away with it. Either causality is a solid law, or_
things break. Far better for their maneuver simply to fail, so the whole voyage looks like a cack-handed 
mess, than for it to succeed, and encourage future adventurers to try for a timelike approach on their 
enemies._


_And if you_re lashed to the mast as the ship heads for the maelstrom?_


_I never said I was omniscient. Herman said he_d try to get me out of here if I succeeded; I wish I knew 
what he had in mind. What are your options like?_


Her lips quirked. _Maybe he nobbled my boss_he taught me never to travel at sea without a lifeboat._


Martin snorted, obviously misunderstanding: _Well, they say a captain always goes down with his ship_
shame they never mention the black gang drowning in the engine room!_


An announcement from die helm brought Rachel back to the present: _Jump in one-zero-zero seconds._


_Status, please,_ said Commander Murametz. Each post called out in order; everything was running 
smoothly. _Time to transition?_


_Four-zero seconds. Kernel spin-down in progress; negative mass dump proceeding._ Far beneath their 
feet, the massive singularity at the core of the drive system was spooling down, releasing angular 
momentum into the energetic vacuum underlying space-time. There was no vibration, no sense of 
motion: nor could there be. Spin, in the context of a space drive, was a property of warped patches of 
space, nothing to do with matter as most people understood it.


_Commander Murametz, proceed._ The Captain stood back, hands clasped behind his back. 
_Commodore, by your leave?_


Bauer nodded. _Proceed on your initiative._
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_Transition in progress& we_re clear. Reference frame locked._


_No obstructions,_ called Radar One. _Um, looks like we_re on the nail._


_One-zero gees, straight in on the primary,_ said Ilya. He looked almost bored; they_d rehearsed this a 
dozen times in the past three days alone. _Confirm positional fix, then give me a passive scan. Standard 
profile._


_Aye aye, sir. Nav confirmation; we have a star fix. Yes, we_re a good bit closer to the bucket than last 
time. I see a waste heat dump from Chancellor Romanoff; they_re through._ That cheered them up; even 
at ten gees constant acceleration, a miss of a couple of astronomical units could take hours or days to 
make up. _Nothing else in view._


_Give me a lidar shout, then. Chirped, if you please, frontal nine-zero degrees._


_Emission starting_now. Profile steady._ The main screen of the simulation showed megawatts of laser 
light pouring out into the depths of space, mostly hard ultraviolet tagged with the sawtooth timing pulses 
of the ship_s clock. _Scan closure. Lidar shutdown._


Radar Two: _I_ve got backscatter! Range_Holy father! Sir, we_re right on top of them! Range six-zero 
K-kilometers, looks like metal!_


Bauer smiled like a shark.


_Helm: take us to full military power in one-zero seconds. Course plus one-zero, minus four-zero._


_Aye aye, sir, bringing course to plus one-zero minus four-zero. Two-one one gees coming up in five& 
three& now._ Like most regional powers, the New Republican Navy had adopted the Terran standard 
gee_ten meters per second squared. At full military power, Lord Vanek could go from a standing start 
to planetary escape velocity in less than sixty seconds; without a delicate balancing act, trading off the 
drive kernel_s spin against the curvature of space around the ship, the crew would be squashed flat and 
broken on the floor. But carrying a drive kernel had its price_a non-FTL, fission-powered missile 
could, at short range, outrun or out-turn a warship hobbled by the mass of a mountain.


_Radar, get me some details on that bounce._ Mirsky leaned forward.


_Aye aye, sir._ A plot came up on the forward display. Rachel focused on the readouts, looking over the 
razor-scarred rolls at the base of Petty Officer Borisovitch_s skull. _Confirming&_


Radar Two: _More contacts! Repeat, I have multiple contacts!_
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_How far?_ demanded the captain.


_They_re_too close! Sir, they_re very faint. Took a few seconds for the analysis grid to resolve them, in 
fact. They_ve got to be black body emitters with stealth characteristics. Range nine-zero K, one-point-
three M, seven M, another at two-five-zero K& we_re in the middle of it!_


Rachel closed her eyes. A chill ran up her spine as she thought about small robot factories, replicators, 
the swarm of self-replicating weapons breeding in low orbit around a distant gas giant moon. She 
breathed deeply and opened her eyes.


Radar Two interrupted her reverie: _Target! Range six-point-nine M-klicks, big emission profile. Course 
minus five-five, plus two-zero._


Mirsky turned to his executive officer: _Ilya, your call._


_Yes, sir. Designate the new contact as target alpha. Adopt convergent course for alpha, closest pass at 
three-zero K, full military power._


_Aye aye, targeting alpha._


_You expect something, sir,_ Ilya said quietly. Rachel tilted her head slightly, to let her boosted hearing 
focus on the two senior officers at the back of the room.


_Damn right I do. Something wiped out the system defense flotilla,_ Mirsky murmured. _Something that 
was sitting there, waiting for them. I don_t expect anything except hostile contacts as soon as we come 
out of jump._


_I didn_t expect them to be this close, though._ Murametz looked troubled.


_I had to do some digging, but thanks to Inspector Man-sour__the Captain nodded in her direction
__we know a bit about their capabilities, which are somewhat alarming. It_s not in the standard 
intelligence digest because the fools didn_t think it worth mentioning. We_re up against cornucopiae, 
you see, and nobody back at Naval Intel bothered asking what a robot factory can do tactically._


Commander Murametz shook his head. _I don_t know. Sir? Does it have any military bearing?_


_Yes. You see, robots can breed. And spawn starwisps._


_Starwisps__ Enlightenment dawned. Ilya looked shocked. _How big would they be?_ he asked the 
captain.
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_About half a kilogram mass. You can cram a lot of guidance circuitry into a gram of diamond-substrate 
nanomachin-ery. The launchers that fire them probably mass a quarter of a tonne each_but a large 
chunk of that is stored antimatter to power the neutral particle beam generators. At a guess, there could 
be a couple of thousand out here; that_s probably what those low aspect contacts are. If you trip-wire one 
of them, and it launches on you, expect the starwisp riding the beam to come out at upward of ten 
thousand gees. But of course, you probably won_t even see it unless it gets lock-on and you get some 
side-scattered radiation from the beam. Basically, we_re in the middle of a minefield, and the mines can 
shoot rela-tivistic missiles at us._


_But__ Ilya looked horrified. _I thought this was a standard firing setup!_


_It is, Commander,_ Bauer said drily.


_Ah._ Ilya looked slightly green at the edges.


_Backscatter!_ It was Radar Three. _I have backscatter! Something is launching from target alpha, 
acceleration one-point-three_no, one-point-five gees. Cooking off gammas at one-point-four MeV._


_Log as candidate one,_ said Ilya. Urgently: _Sir, humbly request permission to resume immediate 
control?_


_Granted,_ snapped the Captain.


Rachel glanced around at the ops room stations. Officers hunched over their workstations, quietly 
talking into headset microphones and adjusting brass-handled dials and switches. Mirsky walked over to 
the command station and stood at Ilya_s shoulder. _Get radar looking for energy spikes,_ he commented. 
_This is going to be difficult. If I_m right, we_re in the middle of a minefield controlled by a central 
command platform; if we leak again, we_re not getting out of here._ Rachel leaned forward too, focusing 
on the main screen. It was, she thought, remarkable: if this was typical of their teamwork, then with a bit 
of luck they might even make it into low orbit around Rochard_s World.


The tension rose over the next ten minutes, as the Lord Vanek accelerated toward the target. Its 
singularity drive was virtually undetectable, even at close range (spotting the mass of a mountain at a 
million kilometers defied even the most sensitive gravity-wave detectors), but all the enemy strong-point 
had to do was switch on a pulse-doppler radar sweep and the battlecruiser would show up like a sore 
thumb. The first rule of space warfare_and the ancient submarine warfare that preceded it_was, _If 
they can see you, they can kill you._


On the other hand, the enemy base couldn_t be sure exactly where the ship was right now; it had 
changed course immediately after shutting down its search lidar. Four more brief lidar pulses had swept 
across the ship_s hull, as other members of the squadron dropped in and took their bearings: since then, 
nothing but silence.



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_Second trace!_ called Radar One. _Another live bird moving out. Range on this one is four-seven M-
klicks, vector toward lidar source three, the Suvaroffi_


_Confirm course and acceleration,_ ordered Ilya. _Log it as candidate two._


_Confirm three more,_ said Radar Two. _Another source, um, range nine-zero M-klicks. Designation 
beta. They_re thick around here, aren_t they?_


_Watch out for a__


_Third echo from local target alpha,_ called Radar Two. _Scattering relative to candidates one and two. 
Looks like a third missile. This one_s heading our way._


_Give me a time to contact,_ Mirsky said grimly. Rachel studied him: Mirsky was a wily old bird, but 
even though he_d figured out what was going on, she couldn_t see how he planned to pull their chestnuts 
out of the fire. At any moment she expected to hear the shriek of alarms as one or another ob-server 
picked up the telltale roar of a relativistic particle stream, with a beam-riding starwisp hurtling toward 
them on top of it, armed with a cargo of antimatter.


Of course, it was too much to expect the New Republic_s government to realize just how thoroughly 
they were outclassed; their cultural bias was such that they couldn_t perceive the dangers of something 
like the Festival. Even their best naval tacticians, the ones who understood forbidden technologies like 
self-replicating robot factories and starwisps, didn_t comprehend quite what the Festival might do with 
them.


The Lord Vanek_s chances of surviving this engagement were thin. In fact, the entire expedition was 
predicated on the assumption that what they were fighting was sufficiently human in outlook to 
understand the concept of warfare and to use the sort of weapons overeducated apes might throw at one 
another. Rachel had a hopeless, unpleasant gut feeling that acting without such preconceptions, the 
Festival would be far deadlier to the New Republican expeditionary force than they could imagine. 
Unfortunately, it appeared she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar 
wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.


_More backscatter. Target gamma! We have another target_range two-seven-zero M-klicks. Ah, 
another missile launching._


_That_s__ Ilya paused. _One base per cubic AU? One M bases, if they_re evenly distributed through the 
outer system._ He looked stunned.


_You don_t think you_re fighting people, do you?_ asked Mirsky. _This is a fully integrated robot 
defense network. And it_s big. Mind-bogglingly big._ He looked almost pleased with his own 



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perspicacity. _The Admiralty didn_t listen when I explained it to them the first time, you know,_ he 
added. _Eighteen years ago. One of the reasons I never made flag rank__


_I listened,_ Bauer said quietly. _Proceed, Captain._


_Yes sir. Solution on target alpha?_


Fire control: _Time to range on target alpha, two-zero-zero seconds, sir._


_Hmm._ Mirsky contemplated the display. _Commander. Your opinion._


Ilya swallowed. _I_d get in close and use the laser grid._


Mirsky shook his head, slightly. _You forget they may have X-ray lasers._ Louder: _Relativity, I want 
you ready to give me a microjump. If I give the word, I want us out of here within five seconds. 
Destination can be anywhere within about one-zero AUs, I_m not fussy. Can you do that?_


_Aye aye, sir. Kernel is fully recharged; we can do that. Holding at T minus five seconds, now._


_Guns: I want six SEM-20s in the tube, armed and ready to launch in two minutes. Warheads dialed for 
directional spalla-tion, two-zero degree spread. Three of them go to alpha target; hold the other three in 
reserve ready for launch on five seconds_ notice. Next, load and arm two torpedoes. I want them hot and 
ready when I need them._


_Aye aye, sir. Three rounds for alpha, three in reserve, and two torpedoes. Sir, six birds on the rail 
awaiting your command. The hot crew is fueling the torpedoes now; they should be ready in about four 
minutes._


_That_s nice to know,_ Mirsky said, a trifle too acid; the lieutenant at the gunnery console flinched 
visibly. _As you were,_ added the Captain.


_Proximity in one-two-zero seconds, sir. Optimum launch profile in eight-zero._


_Plot the positions of the nearest identified mines. Show vectors on command station alpha, assuming 
they fire projectiles holding a constant acceleration often kilo-gees. Can they nail us in just four-zero 
seconds?_


_Checking, sir._ Navigation. _Sir, they can_t nail us before we take out that command post, unless target 
alpha also has a speed demon or two up his sleeve. But they_ll get us one-five seconds later._


Mirsky nodded. _Very good. Guns: we launch at four-zero seconds to target. Helm, relativity: at contact 
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plus five seconds, that_s five seconds after our fire on target, initiate that microjump._


_Launch T minus five-zero seconds, sir& mark._


Rachel watched the display, a fuzzball of red pinpricks and lengthening lines. Their own projected 
vector, in blue, stretched toward one of the red dots, then stopped abruptly. Any second now, she 
guessed, something nasty was bound to happen.


Guns: _T minus three-zero. Birds warm. Launch grid coming up to power now. T minus two-zero._


Radar One interrupted: _I_m picking up some fuzz from astern._


_One-zero seconds. Launch rails energized,_ added the gunnery post.


_Fire on schedule,_ said the captain.


_Yes, sir. Navigation updated. Inertial platforms locked. Birds charged, warheads green._


_Light particles!_ yelled Radar One. _Big explosion off six M-klicks, bearing six-two by five-nine! 
Looks like_damn, one of the cruisers bought it. I_m getting a particle stream from astern! Bearing one-
seven-seven by five, sidescatter, no range yet__


_Five seconds to launch. Launch commencing, bird one running. Lidar lock. Drive energized. Bird one 
main engine ignition confirmed. Bird two loaded and green& running. Gone. Drive energized. Bird 
three running__


_Radar One, I have a lidar lock! ECM engaged from directly astern! Someone_s painting us. I have a 
range_five-two K_and__


Mirsky stepped forward. _Guns. I want all three spare missiles ejected straight astern now. Passive 
seekers, we will illuminate the targets for them._


_Aye aye, sir. Bird four, coming up& green. Bird four running. Five, green, running._


_Radar Two, we have a seeker on our tail. Range four-five K, closing at_Holy Mother of God, I don_t 
believe it!_


_Bird six running astern. What do you want me to lock on?_


_Radar Two, feed your plot to gunnery for birds four through six to target. Guns, shoot as soon as you 
see a clear fix_buy us some time._



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_Aye aye, sir._ The Lieutenant, ashen-faced, hunched over his console and pushed buttons like a man 
possessed.


_Range to firing point on alpha?_ asked Mirsky.


_Three-zero seconds, sir. You want to push the attack?_ The nav officer looked apprehensive Every watt 
of power they pumped at the attack salvo via the laser grid was one watt less to point at the incoming 
interceptor.


_Yes, Lieutenant. I_ll trust you not to tell me my job._ The nav officer flushed and turned back to his 
console. _Guns, what_s our situation?_


_I_ve pumped the forward birds right up, sir, maximum acceleration the warheads will take. MECO is in 
one-five seconds. Soon as that happens I_ll divert power to our trailers. Ah, bird one burnout in one-zero 
seconds._


Rachel nodded to herself. Remembering lectures on the basics of relativistic physics, strategy in the post-
Einsteinian universe, and the implications of a light cone expanding across an evenly spaced grid of 
points. Any moment now the fossil light from the next shell of interceptors should reach us&


_Holy Father!_ shouted Radar Three. _I have beam spillover on all sides! We_re boxed!_


_Control yourself,_ snapped Mirsky. _How many sources?_


_They_they__ radar punched buttons. Red lines appeared on the forward screen. _One-six of _em, 
coming in from all points!_


_I see._ Mirsky stroked his moustache. _Helm, are you ready with that microjump?_


_Yes, sir._


_Good._ Mirsky smiled, tight-lipped. _Guns, status._


_Bird one burnout. Boosting bird four. Bird two, bird three, burnout. I_m diverting all propulsion beam 
power to the second salvo. Salvo time to target, one-five seconds. Ah, we have one-seven inbound 
aggressors. Three outbound antimissiles._


_Hold further fire,_ ordered the Captain. _How long until the first hostile is in range?_


_Should happen at_oh. Two seconds postcontact, sir._
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_Nav! Pull the jump forward five seconds. We_ll not stay around to count coup._


_Aye aye._


Radar One: _More scattering! Sir, I have& no, they_re not going to get us in time._


_How many, Lieutenant?_


_We_re boxed. Incoming beamriders in all directions, at long range. I count__


_Bird one detonating now! Bird two, detonating. Bird three gone. Sir, three detonations on target._


_Jump in five. Four__


_One-eight-point-nine K_no, one-nine K beamriders incoming!_


_Incoming number one, range one-two K and closing__


_Confirmed kill on target alpha, oxygen, nitrogen in emission spectra._


_Two._


_Nine K._


_Three-two K incoming hostiles! No, three-two and__


_One. Jump commit._


The red emergency lights dimmed as the main overhead lights came up. There was silence on the bridge 
for a moment, then Commodore Bauer cleared his throat. _Congratulations, gentlemen,_ he announced 
to Mirsky and his stunned ops crew. _Of all the ships in the squadron who have run that tape so far, you 
are the only one to have escaped at all, much less to have taken any of the enemy down. There will be a 
meeting in my office at 1600 to discuss the assumptions underlying this exercise and explain our new 
tactical doctrine for dealing with situations like this_massively ramified robot defense networks with 
fire control mediated by causal channel. Then we_ll run it again tomorrow and see how well you do with 
your eyes open&_ 
Diplomatic Behavior
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Meanwhile, two thousand years away, a small boy lay curled in darkness, whimpering in the grip of a 
dream of empire.


Felix moaned and shivered and dragged the tattered blanket closer around his shoulders. The abandoned 
hayloft was unheated, and the gaps between the log walls admitted a furious draft, but at least it was a 
roof over his head. It was warmer than the stony ground. Wolves roamed the untamed wilderness, and 
for a lad to sleep beneath the stars at this time of year was hazardous even in normal times.


Raven roosted on the thick oak beam above Felix_s head, his long black beak tucked under one wing. 
Occasionally, he would wake for a moment, shake his feathers out, shuffle from one foot to the other, 
and glance around. But as long as the door stayed barred, nothing could reach them that he couldn_t deal 
with; and so he would rejoin his master in sleep.


Rain battered on the roof, occasionally leaking through the sods that covered the rough-cut timber, 
dripping to the floor in thin cold streams. The smell of half-decayed hay hung heavy in the air. Felix 
hadn_t dared light a fire after Mr. Rabbit pointed out how dangerous that could be. There were things out 
there that could see heat, silent things without mouths. Things that liked to eat little boys_ brains.


Felix dreamed of Imperial orders, men in shiny uniforms, and women in silky gowns; of starships and 
cavalry parades and ceremonies and rituals. But his dreams were invaded by a tired and pervasive 
cynicism. The nobles and officers were corrupt hangers-on, their women grasping harpies searching for 
security. The ceremonies and rituals were meaningless and empty, a charade concealing a ghastly 
system of institutional injustices orchestrated to support the excesses of the rulers. Dreaming of New 
Prague, he felt himself to be a duke or prince, mired in a dung heap, chained down by responsibility and 
bureaucracy, unable to move despite the juggernaut of decaying corruption bearing down on him.


When he twitched and cried out in his dream, Mr. Rabbit crawled closer and sprawled against him, 
damp fur rising and falling with his breath. Presently Felix eased deeper into sleep, and Mr. Rabbit 
rolled away, curling nose to tail to resume his nightly regurgitation and cud-chewing. If it was hard 
being a small boy in a time of rapid change, it was a doubly hard burden to be a meter-tall rabbit cursed 
with human sentience and cunicular instincts.


In the early-morning light, Felix yawned, rubbed his eyes, and stretched stiffly, shivering with cold. 
_Rabbit?_


_Caaaw!_ Raven flapped down from overhead and hopped closer, head cocked to one side. _Rabbit gone 
to vill-lage._


Felix blinked, slowly. _I wish he_d waited._ He shivered, feeling a sense of loneliness very alien to a 
nine-year-old. He stood up and began to pack his possessions into a battered-looking haversack; a 
blanket, a small tin can, a half-empty box of matches, and one of the curious metal phones by which the 
Festival communicated with people. He paused over the phone for a moment, but eventually his sense of 



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urgency won, and he shoved it into the pack. _Let_s play hunt the wabbit,_ he said, and opened the door.


It was a cold, bright morning, and the ground in the abandoned farmyard was ankle deep in squelching 
mud. The blackened ruin of the house squatted on the other side of the quagmire like the stump of a tree 
struck by lightning, the Holy Father_s fire. Behind it, a patch of dusty gray mud showed the depletion 
layer where the Festival_s nanosystems had sucked the soil dry of trace elements, building something 
huge; it was almost certainly connected with the disappearance of the farmer and his family.


The village lay about two kilometers downhill from the farmhouse, around a bend in the narrow dirt 
track, past a copse of tall pine trees. Felix shrugged on his backpack and, after a brief pause to piss 
against the fire-blackened wall of the house, slowly headed down the road. He felt like whistling or 
singing, but kept his voice to himself; there was no telling what lived in the woods hereabouts, and he 
wasn_t inclined to ignore Mr. Rabbit_s warnings. He was a very serious little boy, very grown-up.


Raven hopped after him, then flapped forward heavily and landed in the ditch some way down the path. 
His head ducked repeatedly. _Brrrreak-fast!_ he cawed.


_Oh, good!_ Felix hurried to catch up, but when he saw what Raven had found to eat he turned away 
abruptly and pinched the bridge of his nose until the tears came, trying not to gag. Tears came hard; a 
long time ago, a very long distance away, Nurse had told him, _Big boys don_t cry._ But he knew better 
now. He_d seen much bigger boys crying, men even, as they were stood up against the bullet-pocked 
wall. (Some of them didn_t cry, some of them held themselves stiffly upright, but it made no difference 
in the end.) _Sometimes I hate you, Raven._


_Caaww?_ Raven looked up at him. The thing in the ditch was still wearing a little girl_s dress. 
_Hungrrry._


_You might be_but I we_ve got to find Pyotr. Before the Mimes catch us._


Felix looked over his shoulder nervously. They_d been running scared, one jump ahead of the Mimes, 
for the past three days. The Mimes moved slowly, frequently fighting an invisible wind or trying to feel 
their way around intangible buildings, but they were remorseless. Mimes never slept, or blinked, or 
stopped moving.


A hundred meters closer to the village, the phone woke up. It chirped like a curious kitten until Felix 
rummaged through his bag and pulled it out. _Leave me alone!_ he exclaimed, exasperated.


_Felix? It_s Mr. Rabbit._


_What?_ He looked at the phone, startled. Chrome highlights glinted beneath grubby oil-slick 
fingerprints.
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_It_s me. Your flop-eared friend. I_m in the village. Listen, don_t come any closer._


_Why not?_ He frowned and carried on walking.


_They_re here. My luck ran out; don_t think I can get away. You__ The giant lagomorph_s voice broke 
into something utterly inhuman for a moment, a rodent squeal of rage and fright. __Behind you, too! 
Go cross-country. Run, boy._


The phone buzzed, disconnected. Felix raised it angrily, meaning to dash it to the ground, then stopped. 
Ahead of him. Raven stared at him, beady-eyed and bloody-beaked. _Fly over the village,_ Felix ordered 
the bird. _Tell me what you see._


_Caaaw!_ Raven took a running leap into the air, lumbering heavily over the grass, then climbing up 
over the treetops. Felix looked at the phone again, mingled rage and grief in his eyes. It wasn_t fair. 
Nothing was fair! All he wanted was to be young and carefree, and to have fun. The companions came 
later; at first there had been Mrs. Hedgehog as well, but she_d been killed by a random Fringe 
performance, electrical discharges flashing to ground from an ionosphere raped by induced solar flares. 
The Fringe was like that; a mindless thing, infinitely dangerous and fickle, as trustworthy as a venomous 
snake but sometimes capable of producing works of great beauty. (The auroral displays had lasted for 
weeks.)


Felix looked around, nervously. Over the hedgerow, back down the road, something seemed to move. 
He held the phone to his cheek. _Somebody talk to me?_


_ Will you entertain us ? _


_I don_t know how!_ he burst out.


_Tell story. Provide entertaining formal proof of correctness. Sing, dance, clap your hands._


_What will you do for me in return?_


_What do you require?_ The voice on the other end of the line sounded tinny, distant, compressed 
through the bandwidth ligature of a causal channel.


_Bad men are after me. They throw custard pies, turn me into one of them. Can you stop them? Protect 
me from the Mimes?_


_Tell story._ It wasn_t a statement or a question, it was an order.


Felix took a deep breath. He glanced up and saw Raven circling overhead. He jumped the ditch, then 
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ducked under the first branches and began to weave his way into the woods. He talked as he walked. _In 
the beginning there was a duke who lived in a palace, on the banks of the river, overlooking the only city 
on the world. He wasn_t a very wise duke, but he did what he thought was best for his people. Then one 
morning, it began to rain telephones, and the world changed. This is the duke_s story._


It was a long and rambling story, and it went on for some time. How the duke_s palace had been 
besieged by anarchist terrorists, who unleashed chaos and plastic cutlery on the town. All his soldiers 
deserted after looting the palace and the zoo; he escaped through a secret passage under the Curator_s 
waiting rooms in the sub-sub-basement. The elderly duke had escaped with three trusty retainers. Grief-
stricken, he had barely been able to understand what had happened to his world. Why had everything 
changed? A telephone chirped at him, like a curious kitten, from the rubbish in a back alley. He bent to 
pick it up and the motion saved his life for two renegade soldiers shot at him with their rifles. They 
killed Citizen Von Beck, but not before the Citizen marked them with his slow gun_for the Citizens of 
the Curator_s Office were allowed to use forbidden weapons in the course of their duties. (Bullets from a 
slow gun flew on hummingbird wings, seeking their prey wherever they might flee. Bullets from a slow 
gun killed by stinging with their neurotoxin barbettes, like wasps with secret police insignia. They were 
a terror weapon, to demonstrate the horrors of unrestricted technology.)


Felix slipped down a root-woven embankment and crossed a clearing studded with green-sprouting 
stumps as he continued. The duke talked to the phone in his despair, and it offered him three wishes. He 
asked to be made young again, thinking it a bitter joke; to his surprise, his youth was magically restored. 
Next, he asked for companions; and he was given friends, wonderful friends, who would do anything for 
him and ask nothing in return. Even the third wish, the little-boy wish made in the first flush of restored 
youth, had been granted. None of which was exactly what he_d wanted, or would have asked for had he 
not been in a very disturbed state of mind at the time, but it was better than the wishes some people he_d 
met subsequently had made. (The kulak whose wish had been a goose that laid golden eggs, for 
example. It was a wonderful animal, until you held it close to a railway man_s dosimeter and discovered 
the deluge of ionizing radiation spewing invisibly from the nuclear alchemist_s stone in its gizzard. 
Which you only thought to do when the bloody stools became too much to bear, and your hair began to 
fall out in clumps.)


The duke-turned-child had walked across three hundred kilometers in the past month, living from hand 
to mouth. His friends had looked after him, though. Raven, who could see over and around things, told 
him of traps or ambushes or deadfalls before he walked into them. Mr. Rabbit hopped along at his side, 
and with his acute hearing, nose for trouble, and plain, old-fashioned common sense, kept him from 
starving or freezing to death. Mrs. Hedgehog had helped, too, bustling around, cooking and cleaning and 
keeping camp, occasionally fending off beggars and indigent trash with her bristles and sharp teeth. That 
was before the lightning storm took her.


But somewhere along the way, the little duke had begun to regain his sense of purpose_and with it, a 
great depth of despair. Everywhere he looked, crops rotted in the fields. Once-sober peasants upped 
stakes and took to the skies in mile-high puffball spheres of spun-sugar glass and diamond. Wise-women 
aged backward and grew much wiser, unnaturally so_wise until their wisdom leaked out into the 


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neighborhood, animating the objects around them with their force of will. Ultimately, the very wise lost 
their humanity altogether and fled their crumbling human husks, migrating into the upload afterlife of 
the Festival. Intelligence and infinite knowledge were not, it seemed, compatible with stable human 
existence.


The little duke had talked to some of the people, tried to get them to understand that this wasn_t going to 
last forever; sooner or later, the Festival would be over, and there would be a dreadful price to pay. But 
they laughed at him, calling him names when they discovered who he had been in his previous 
existence. And then someone set the Mimes on him.


A crash of branches and a caw of alarm; Raven crunched down onto his shoulder, great claws gripping 
his arm hard enough to draw blood. _Mimes!_ hissed the bird. _Nevermore!_


_Where?_ Felix looked around, wide-eyed.


Something crackled in the underbrush behind him. Felix turned, dislodging Raven, who flapped heavily 
upward, cawing in alarm. A human shape lurched into view on the other side of the clearing. It was 
male, adult in size, powdery white in color from head to foot. It moved jerkily like damaged clockwork, 
and there was no mistaking the circular, yellowish object it held in its right hand.


_Pie-ie-ie!_ croaked Raven. _Time to die!_


Felix turned away from the Mime and put his head down. He ran blindly, branches tearing at his head 
and shoulders, shrubbery and roots trying to trip him up. Distantly, he heard the screaming and cawing 
of Raven mobbing the Mime, flapping clear of the deadly flan and pecking for eyes, ears, fingers. Just 
one sticky strand of orange goo from the pie dish would eat clear through bone, its disassembly 
nanoware mapping and reintegrating neural paths along its deadly way, to convert what was left of the 
body into a proxy presence in re-alspace.


The Mimes were broken, a part of the Fringe that had swung too close to a solar flare and succumbed to 
bit rot several Festival visits ago. They_d lost their speech pathways, right down to the Nucleus of 
Chomsky, but somehow managed to piggyback a ride on the Festival starwisps. Maybe this forcible 
assimilation was their way of communicating, of sharing mindspace with other beings. If so, it was 
misguided at best, like a toddler_s attempt to communicate with a dog by hitting it; but nothing seemed 
to deter them from trying.


A wordless scream from behind told him that Raven had certainly distracted that particular Mime. But 
Mimes traveled in packs. Where were the others? And where was Mr. Rabbit, with his trusty twelve-
bore and belt of dried farmer_s scalps?


Noise ahead. Felix staggered to a stop. He was still holding the phone. _Help,_ he gasped into it.
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_Define help parameters._


A fuzzy white shape moved among the trees in front of him. It had once been a woman. Now it was 
powder white, except for blood-red lips and bobble nose: layers of white clothing shrouded its 
putrefying limbs, held together with a delicate lacework of silvery metallic vines that pulsed and 
contracted as it moved. It swayed from side to side as it approached, bending coquettishly at the hips, as 
if the base of its spine had been replaced by a universal joint. It clutched a large pie dish in both bony 
hands. Collapsed eye sockets lined with black photore-ceptive film grinned at him as it bowed and 
extended the bowl, like a mother offering her spoiled son his favorite dessert.


Felix gagged. The smell was indescribable. _Kill it. Make it go away,_ he whimpered. He fell back 
against a tree. _Please!_


_Acknowledged._ The Festival voice remained dusty and distant, but somehow its tone changed. _Fringe 
security at your service. How may we be of assistance?_


The Mimes were closing in. _Kill them!_ Felix gasped. _Get me out of here!_


_Target acquisition in progress. X-ray laser battery coming on-line. Be advised current orbital 
inclination is not favorable for surgical excision. Cover your eyes._


He threw an arm across his face. Bones flashed in red silhouette, followed a split second later by a crash 
of thunder and a blast of heat, as if someone had opened the oven door of hell right in front of his face. 
His skin prickled as if Mrs. Hedgehog was embracing him, only all over. Trees falling in the forest, a 
flapping of panic-stricken wings. The flash and bang repeated itself a second later, this time behind him; 
then three or four more times, increasingly distant.


_Incident Control stand down. Threat terminated. Be advised you have received an ionizing radiation 
dose of approximately four Greys, and that this will be life-threatening without urgent remediation. A 
medical support package has been dispatched. Remain where you are, and it will arrive in twenty-two 
minutes. Thank you for your custom, and have a nice day._


Felix lay gasping at the base of his tree. He felt dizzy, a lit-tie sick: afterimages of his femur floated in 
ghostly purple splendor across his eyes. _I want Mr. Rabbit,_ he mumbled into the phone, but it didn_t 
answer him. He cried, tears of frustration and loneliness. Presently, he closed his eyes and slept. He was 
still asleep when the spider slipped down from the stars and wove him into a cocoon of silvery not-silk 
to begin the task of dissolving and re-forming his radiation-damaged body yet again. This was the third 
time so far; it was all his own fault for making that third wish. Youth, true friends& and what every 
little boy wished for in his heart, without quite grasping that an adventure-filled life isn_t much fun when 
you_re the person who has to live it.
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Martin sat on the thin mattress in his cell, and tried to work out how many days he had left before they 
executed him.


The fleet was six days out from the final jump to Rochard_s World. Before that, they_d probably transfer 
supplies from the remaining support freighters and put any supernumeraries_ conscripts who_d gone 
mad, contracted crippling diseases, or otherwise become superfluous to requirements_on board. Maybe 
they_d move him over and send him back with the basket cases, back to the New Republic to face trial 
on the capital charge of spying in the dockyard. Somehow, he doubted that his defense (of shipyard 
necessity) would do him much good; that snot-nosed assistant from the Curator_s Office had it in for 
him, quite obviously, and would stop at nothing to see him hang.


That was one option. Another was that he_d be kept in the brig aboard ship until it arrived. At which 
point they_d realize that the cumulative clock-delay he_d bodged into the Lord Vanek_s fourspace 
guidance system had screwed the pooch, completely buggering their plan to sneak up on the Festival via 
a spacelike trajectory. In which case, they_d logically assume sabotage, and they_d have the saboteur 
already in the cells, trussed like a turkey for Thanksgiving.


Somehow, the fact that he_d succeeded, that his mission was accomplished and the threat of a wider 
causality violation averted, did not fill Martin with happiness. There might, he supposed, be heroes who 
would go to the airlock with a spring in their step, but he wasn_t one of them; he_d rather be opening 
Rachel_s bedroom door than opening that other door, learning to breathe in her muff rather than learning 
to inhale vacuum. It was, he supposed dismally, typical of the pattern of his life to fall in love_the kind 
of annoying obsession that won_t go away_just before stumbling irremediably into the shit. He_d been 
around enough to think he had few illusions left; Rachel had edges rough enough to use as a nail file, 
and in some ways, they had very little in common. But being banged up alone in a tiny cell was a 
frighteningiy lonely experience, all the lonelier for knowing that his lover was almost certainly less than 
thirty meters away_and completely unable to help him. Probably under suspicion herself. And however 
much he needed her, he didn_t, in all honesty, want her in here with him. He wanted to be with her on 
the outside_preferably somewhere many light-years from the New Republic, acquiring a long history 
of having absolutely nothing to do with it.


He lay back, rolled over on his stomach, and closed his eyes. Then the toilet began talking to him in a 
faint, buzzing voice.


_If you can hear me, tap one finger on the deck next to the base of the toilet, Martin. Just one._


I_ve lost it, he thought. They won_t bother executing me; they_ll put me in one of their psychiatric zoos 
and let the children throw bananas. But he reached out a hand and tapped at the base of the stainless-
steel toilet that extruded from the wall of his cell.


_That_s__ he sat up, and the voice went away abruptly.
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Martin blinked and looked around. No voices. Nothing else had changed in the cell; it was still too hot, 
stuffy, with a constant background smell of bad drains and stale cabbage. (The cabbage was 
inexplicable; the menu had long since shifted to salt beef and ship_s biscuit, a recipe perversely retained 
by the New Republic_s Navy despite the ready availability of vacuum and extreme cold millimeters 
beyond the outer pressure hull of the ship). He lay down again.


__just one. If you can__


He closed his eyes and, as if at a stance, rapped once, hard, on the base of the toilet.


_Received. Now tap__ The voice paused. _Tap once for each day you_ve been in the tank._


Martin blinked, then rapped out an answer.


_Do you know Morse code?_


Martin racked his brains. It had been quite a long time_ _yes,_ he tapped out. A mostly obsolete skill, 
that low-bandwidth serial code set, but one that he did know, for a simple reason: Herman had insisted 
he learn it. Morse was human-accessible, and a sniff for more sophisticated protocols might easily miss 
something as mundane as the finger-tapping back channel in a video call.


_If you lie with your head up against the side of the toilet bowl, you will hear me better._


He blinked. Bone conduction? No, something else. The induction wires around his auditory nerves_
some high-frequency source must be shorting out against the metal of the toilet, using it as an antenna! 
Inefficient, but if it wouldn_t carry far&


_Identify yourself,_ he signaled.


The reply came in Morse. _AKA Ludmilla. Who watched us over dinner?_


_The boy wonder,_ he tapped out. He slumped against the floor, shivering in relief. Only two people 
could reasonably be on the other side of the pipe, and the Curator_s Office wasn_t likely to authenticate 
his identity that way. _What_s your relay?_


_Spy drone in sewage system jammed against effluent valve. One of batch accidentally released by idiot 
subcurator. Told them to find you. Fuel cells in drone very low, drained by conduction telephone. Prefer 
Morse. Martin, I am trying to get you out. No luck so far._


_How long till arrival?_ he tapped urgently.
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_Ten days to low-orbit arrival. If not released first, expect rescue day of arrival. Attempting to assert 
diplomatic cover for you._


Ten days. Rescue_if they didn_t stick him on a freighter under armed guard and ship him back to 
execution dock, and if Rachel wasn_t whistling in the face of a storm. _Query rescue._


_Diplomatic life belt big enough for two. Power level ap-proaching shutdown: will try to send another 
relay later. Love you. Over._


_I love you, too,_ he tapped hopefully, but there was no reply.
A miriad of tiny gears whirred, clucked, and buzzed in a background hum of gray noise beneath a 
desktop. Optical transducers projected a magic-lantern dance of light on the wall opposite. The operator, 
gold-leafed collar unbuttoned, leaned back in his chair and dribbled smoke from his nostrils: a pipe 
dangled limply between his knuckles as he stared at the display.


There was a knock on the door.


_Come in,_ he called. The door opened. He blinked: came to his feet. _Ah, and what can I do for you, 
Procurator?_


_A m-moment of your time if I may, sir?_


_By all means. Always a pleasure to be of service to the Basilisk. Have a seat?_


Vassily settled down behind the desk, visibly uncomfortable. The shadow play of lights danced on the 
wall, thin blue smoke catching the red-and-yellow highlights and coiling lazily in midair. _Would this be 
the, ah, our state vector?_


For a moment Security Lieutenant Sauer considered hazing the lad; he reluctantly shelved the idea. 
_Yes. Not that there_s much to be made of it, unless you_re interested in the topology of five-
dimensional manifolds. And it_s only theoretical, until we arrive at the far end and relativistics come out 
with a pulsar map to confirm it. I_m trying to study it; promotion board ahead you know, once this affair 
is straightened out._


_Hmm._ Vassily nodded. Sauer wasn_t the only Navy officer expecting a promotion to come out of this 
campaign. _Well, I suppose you could look on the bright side; we_re most of the way mere now._


Sauer pursed his lips, raised his pipe, and sucked. _I would never say that. Not until we know the 
enemy_s dead and buried at a crossroads with a mouthful of garlic._
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_I suppose so. But your lads will take care of that, won_t they? Meanwhile it_s my people who have to 
come in after-ward and do the tidying up, keep this sort of thing from happening again._


Sauer looked at the young policeman, maintaining a polite expression despite his mild irritation. _Is 
there something I can help with?_


_Er, yah, I think so._ The visitor leaned back. He reached into his tunic pocket and withdrew a cigar 
case. _Mind if I smoke?_


Sauer shrugged. _You_re my guest._


_Thank you!_


For a minute they were silent, lighters flaring briefly and blue-gray clouds trailing in the airflow to the 
ceiling vents. Vassily tried to suppress his coughing, still not quite accustomed to the adult habit. _It_s 
about the engineer in the brig._


_Indeed._


_Good._ Puff. _I was beginning to wonder what is going to happen to him. I, er, gather that the last 
supply ships will be dropping off their cargo and heading home in a couple of days, and I was 
wondering if& ?_


Sauer sat up. He put his pipe down; it had flamed out, and though the bowl was hot to the touch, it held 
nothing but white-stained black shreds. _You were wondering if I could sign him over to you and put 
you on the slow boat home with your man in tow._


Vassily half smiled, embarrassed. _Exactly right, I_m sure. The man_s guilty as hell, anyone can see that; 
he needs to be sent home for a proper trial and execution_what do you say?_


Sauer leaned back in his chair and contemplated the analytical engine. _You have a point,_ he admitted. 
_But things aren_t quite so clear-cut from where I_m sitting._ He relit his pipe.


_Nice tobacco, sir,_ ventured Vassily. _Tastes a bit funny, though. Very relaxing._


_That_ll be the opium,_ said Sauer. _Good stuff, long as you don_t overdo it._ He puffed contentedly for 
a minute. _Why do you think Springfield_s in the brig in the first place?_


Vassily looked puzzled. _It_s obvious, isn_t it? He vio-lated Imperial regulations. In fact, that_s just what 
I_d been looking for._
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_Executing him isn_t going to make it easy for the Admiralty to convince foreign engineers to come 
work for us, though, is it?_ Sauer sucked on his cigar. _If he was a spacer, lad, he_d have done the frog 
kick in the airlock already. I_ll tell you what. If you insist on dragging him home on the basis of what 
you found on him, all that will happen is that the Admiralty will sit on it for a few months, hold an 
inquiry, conclude that no real harm was done, court-martial him for something minor, and sentence him 
to time served_on general principles, that is_and leave you looking like an idiot. You don_t want to do 
that; trust me, putting a blot on your record card at this stage in the game is a bad move._


_Ah, so what do you suggest, sir?_


_Well._ Sauer stubbed out his cigar and looked at it regretfully. _I think you_re going to have to decide 
whether or not to have a little flutter on the horses._


_Horses, sir?_


_Gambling, Mr. Muller, gambling. Double or quits time. You have decided that this engineer is working 
for the skirt from Earth, no? It seems a justifiable suspicion to me, but there is a lack of firm evidence 
other than the disgraceful way she plays for him. Which, let us make no mistake, could equally well be 
innocent_disreputable but innocent of actual criminal intent against the Republic, I say. In any event, 
she has made no sign of wrongdoing, other than possessing proscribed instruments in her diplomatic bag 
and generally being detrimental to morale by virtue of her rather unvirtuous conduct. We have no 
grounds for censure, much less for declaring her persona non grata. And irritating though she may be, 
her presence on this mission was decreed by His Excellency the Archduke. So I think the time has come 
for you to either shit or get off the can. Either accept that Mr. Springfield is probably going to waltz free, 
or shoot for the bigger target and hope you find something big to pin on her so that we can overcome her 
immunity._


Vassily turned pale. Perhaps it hadn_t really sunk in until now; he_d overstepped his authority already, 
rummaging in Rachel_s cabin, and either he must find a justification, or his future was in jeopardy. _I_ll 
gamble, sir. Do you have any recommendations, though? It seems like an awfully big step; I wouldn_t 
want to make any mistakes._


Sauer grinned, not unpleasantly. _Don_t worry, you won_t. There_re others who want her out of the way 
and are willing to stick their necks out a bit to help. Here_s how we_ll flush her cover&_
Invitation To An Execution


A ragged row of crucifixes capped the hill overlooking the road to Plotsk. They faced the narrow river 
that ran along the valley, overlooking Boris the Miller_s waterwheel: their brown-robed human burdens 
stared sightlessly at the burned-out shell of the monastery on the other bank. The abbot of the Holy 



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Spirit had gone before his monks, impaled like a bird on a spit.


_Kill them all, God will know his own,_ Sister Seventh commented mockingly as she turned the 
doorway to face the grisly row. _Not is what their nest father-mother_s said in times gone before?_


Burya Rubenstein shivered with cold as the bird-legged hut strode along the road from Novy Petrograd. 
It was a chilly morning, and the fresh air was overlaid with a tantalizingly familiar odor, halfway 
between the brimstone crackle of gunpowder and something spicy-sweet. No smell of roast pork: they_d 
burned the monastery after killing the monks, not before. _Who did this?_ he asked, sounding much 
calmer than he felt.


_You-know-who,_ said the Critic. _Linger not thisways: understand Fringe performers hereabout more 
so deranged than citywise. Mimes and firewalker bushbabies. Very dangerous._


_Did they__ Burya swallowed. He couldn_t look away from the fringe on the hilltop. He was no friend 
of the clergy, but this festival of excess far outstripped anything he could have condoned. _Was it the 
Fringe?_


Sister Seventh cocked her head on one side and chomped her walrus tusks at the air. _Not,_ she declared. 
_This is human work. But headlaunchers have herewise been seeding corpses with further life. Expect 
resurrection imminently, if not con-sensually._


_Headlaunchers?_


_Fringeoids with fireworks. Seed brainpan, cannibalize corpus, upload and launch map containing 
mindseeds to join Festival in orbit._


Bury a peered at the row of crosses. One of them had no skull, and the top of the crucifix was charred. 
__M going to be sick__


He just made it to the edge of the hut in time. Sister Seventh made it kneel while he hung head down 
over the edge, retching and dry-heaving on the muddy verge below.


_Ready to continue? Food needed?_


_No. Something to drink. Something stiff._ One corner of the hut was stocked with a pyramid of canned 
foodstuffs and bottles. Sister Seventh was only passingly familiar with human idiom; she picked up a 
large tin of pineapple chunks, casually bit a hole in it, and poured it into the empty can that Burya had 
been using as a cup for the past day. He took it silently, then topped it up with schnapps from his hip 
flask. The hut lurched slightly as it stood up. He leaned against the wall and threw back the drink in one 
swallow.
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_Where are you taking me now?_ he asked, pale and still shivering with something deeper than a mere 
chill.


_To Criticize the culprits. This is not art._ Sister Seventh bared her fangs at the hillside in an angry gape. 
_No esthetics! Zip plausibility! Pas de preservatives!_


Rubenstein slid down the wall of the hut, collapsing in a heap against the pile of provisions. Utter 
despair filled him. When Sister Seventh began alliterating she could go on for hours without making any 
particular sense.


_Is it anyone in particular this time? Or are you just trying to bore me to death?_


The huge mole-rat whirled to face him, breath hissing between her teeth. For a moment he flinched, 
seeing grinning an-gry death in her eyes. Then the fire dimmed back to her usual glare of cynical 
amusement. _Critics know who did this thing,_ she rasped. _Come judge, come Criticize._


The walking hut marched on, carrying them away from the execution ground. Unseen from the 
vestibule, one of the crucified monk_s habits began to smolder. His skull exploded with a gout of blue 
flame and a loud bang as something the size of a fist flew up from it, a glaring white shock contrail 
streaming behind. One more monk_s mind_or what had been left of it after a day of crucifixion, by the 
time the headlaunch seed got to it_was on its way into orbit, to meet the Festival datavores.


The hut walked all day, passing miracles, wonders, and abominations on every side. Two thistledown 
geodesic spheres floated by overhead like glistening diadems a kilometer in diameter, lofted by the 
thermal expansion of their own trapped, sun-heated air. (Ascended peasants, their minds expanded with 
strange prostheses, looked down from their communal eyrie at the ground dwellers below. Some of their 
children were already growing feathers.) Around another hill, the hut marched across a spun-silver 
suspension bridge that crossed a gorge that had not been there a month before_a gorge deep enough 
that the air in its depths glowed with a ruddy heat, the floor obscured by a permanent Venusian fog. A 
rhythmic thudding of infernal machinery echoed up from the depths. Once, a swarm of dinner-plate-
sized, solar-powered silicon butterflies blitzed past, zapping and sputtering and stealing any stray 
electrical cabling and discrete components in their path: a predatory Stuka the size of an eagle followed 
them, occasionally screaming down in a dive that ended with one of their number crumpled and 
shredded in the claws sprouting from its wheel fairings. _Deep singularity,_ Sister Seventh commented 
gnomically. _Machines live and breed. Cornucopia evolution._


_I don_t understand. What caused this?_


_Emergent property of complex infocology. Life expands to fill environmental niches. Now, machines 
reproduce and spawn as Festival maximizes entropy, devolves into way station._


_Devolves into__ He stared at the Critic. _You mean this is only a temporary condition?_



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Sister Seventh looked at him placidly. _What made you think otherwise?_


_But__ Burya looked around. Looked at the uncared-for fields, already tending toward the state of 
weed banks, at the burned-out villages and strange artifacts they were passing. _Nobody is prepared for 
that,_ he said weakly. _We thought it would last!_


_Some will prepare,_ said the Critic. _Cornucopiae breed. But Festival moves on, flower blossoming in 
light of star before next trip across cold, dark desert._


Very early the next day, they came within sight of Plotsk. Before the Festival incursion, Plotsk had been 
a sleepy gingerbread market town of some fifty thousand souls, home to a regional police fortress, a jail, 
two cathedrals, a museum, and a zeppelin port. It had also been the northernmost railhead on the planet, 
and a departure point for barges heading north to the farms that dotted the steppes halfway to the Boreal 
Ocean.


Plotsk was barely recognizable today. Whole districts were burned-out scars on the ground, while a 
clump of slim white towers soared halfway to the stratosphere from the site of the former cathedral. 
Burya gaped as something emerald green spat from a window halfway up a tower, a glaring light that 
hurtled across the sky and passed overhead with a strange double boom. The smell, half gunpowder and 
half orchids, was back again. Sister Seventh sat up and inhaled deeply. _One loves the smell of wild 
assemblers in the morning. Bush-bot baby uploads and cyborg militia. Spires of bone and ivory. Craving 
for apocalypse._


_What are you talking about!_ Burya sat on the edge of the pile of smelly blankets from which the Critic 
had fashioned her nest.


_Is gone nanostructure crazy,_ she said happily. _Civilization! Freedom, Justice, and the American 
Way!_


_What_s a merkin way?_ Burya asked, peeling open a fat garlic bratwurst and, with the aid of an 
encrusted penknife, chopping large chunks off it and stuffing them into his mouth. His beard itched 
ferociously, he hadn_t bathed in days, and worst of all, he felt he was beginning to understand Sister 
Seventh. (Nobody should have to understand a Critic; it was cruel and unusual punishment.)


A bright green glare flashed on above them, shining starkly in through the doorway and lighting up the 
dingy corners of the hut. _Attention! You have entered a quarantined area! Identify yourselves 
immediately!_ A deep bass humming shook Burya to his bones. He cringed and blinked, dropping his 
breakfast sausage.


_Why not you answer them?_ Sister Seventh asked, unreasonably calmly.
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_Answer them?_


_ATTENTION! Thirty seconds to comply!_


The hut shook. Burya stumbled, treading on the wurst. Losing his temper, he lurched toward the 
doorway. _Stop that racket at once!_ he yelled, waving a fist in the air. _Can_t a man eat his breakfast in 
peace without you interfering, you odious rascals? Cultureless imbeciles, may the Duke_s whore be 
taken short and piss in your drawers by mistake!_


The light cut out abruptly. _Oops, sorry,_ said the huge voice. Then in more moderate tones, _Is that 
you, Comrade Rubenstein?_


Burya gaped up at the hovering emerald diamond. Then he looked down. Standing in the road before 
him was one of Tim-oshevski_s guards_but not as Burya had known him back in Novy Petrograd.
Rachel sat on her bunk, tense and nervous. Ignoring the banging and clattering and occasional disturbing 
bumps from the rear bulkhead, she tried desperately to clear her head. She had a number of hard 
decisions to make_and if she took the wrong one, Martin would die, for sure, and more than that, she 
might die with him. Or worse, she might be prematurely bugging out, throwing away any chance of 
fulfilling her real mission. Which made it all the harder for her to think straight, without worrying.


Thirty minutes ago an able flyer had rapped on her door. She_d hastily buttoned her tunic and opened it. 
_Lieutenant Sauer sends his compliments, ma_am, and says to remind you that the court-martial 
convenes this afternoon at 1400._


She_d blinked stupidly. _What court-martial?_


The flyer looked nonplussed. _I don_t know, ma_am. He just told me to tell you__


_That_s quite alright. Go away._


He_d gone, and she_d hurriedly pulled her boots on, run a comb through her hair, and gone in search of 
someone who knew.


Commander Murametz was in the officers_ wardroom, drinking a glass of tea. _What_s all this about a 
court-martial?_ she demanded.


He_d stared at her, poker-faced. _Oh, it_s nothing,_ he said. _Just that engineer who_s under arrest. Can_t 
have him aboard when we go into battle, so the old man scheduled a hearing for this afternoon, get the 
business out of the way._
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_What do you mean?_ she asked icily.


_Can_t go executing a man without a fair trial first,_ Ilya said, barely bothering to conceal his contempt. 
He rapped his glass down next to the samovar. _Trial_s in this very room, this afternoon. Be seeing you._


The next thing she knew she was back in her cabin. She couldn_t remember getting there; she felt cold 
and sick. They want to kill Martin, she realized. Because they can_t get at me any other way. She cursed 
herself for a fool. Who was behind it, how many enemies had she racked up? Was it the Admiral? 
(Doubtful, he didn_t need the formality of a trial if he wanted to have someone shot.) Or Ilya_yes, there 
was someone who_d taken against her. Or the kid spook, the wet-behind-the-ears secret policeman? Or 
maybe the Captain? She shook her head. Someone had decided to get her, and there were no secrets 
aboard the ship; however discreet she and Martin had thought they_d been, someone had noticed.


The cold emptiness in her stomach congealed into a knot of tension. This whole voyage was turning into 
a fiasco. With what she_d learned from Martin_including his mission_ there was no way the Navy 
could make a success of it; in fact, they_d probably all be killed. Her own role as a negotiator was 
pointless. You negotiate with human beings, not with creatures who are to humans as humans are to 
dogs and cats. (Or machines, soft predictable machines that come apart easily when you try to examine 
them but won_t fit back together again.)


Staying on was useless, it wouldn_t help her deliver the package for George Cho, and as for Martin_


Rachel realized she had no intention of leaving him behind. With the realization came a sense of relief, 
because it left her only one course of action. She leaned forward and spoke quietly. _Luggage: open 
sesame. Plan Titanic. You have three hours and ten minutes. Get started._ Now all she had to do was 
work out how to get him from the kangaroo court in the wardroom to her cabin; a different, but not 
necessarily harder task than springing him from the brig.


The trunk silently rolled forward, out from under her bunk, and its lid hinged back. She tapped away at 
the controls for a minute. A panel opened, and she pulled out a reel of flexible hose. That went onto the 
cold-water tap on her tiny sink. A longer and fatter hose with a spherical blob on the end got fed down 
the toilet, a colonoscopy probing the bowels of the ship_s waste plumbing circuit. The chest began to 
hum, expelling pulses of viscous white liquid into the toilet tube. Thin filaments of something like 
plastic began to creep back up the bowl of the toilet, forming a tight seal around the hose; a smell of 
burning leaked into the room, gunpowder and molasses and a whiff of shit. Rachel checked a status 
indicator on the trunk; satisfied, she picked up her gloves, cap, anything else she would need_men 
checked the indicator again, and hastily left the room.


The toilet rumbled faintly, and pinged with the sound of expanding metal pipework. The vent pipe grew 
hot; steam began to hiss from the effluent tube, and was silenced rapidly by a new growth of spiderweb 
stuff. An overhead ionization alarm tripped, but Rachel had unplugged it as soon as she arrived in her 
cabin. The radiation warning on the luggage blinked, unseen, in the increasingly hot room. The 



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diplomatic lifeboat was beginning to inflate.
_Don't worry son. It_ll work._ Sauer slapped Procurator Muller on the back.


Vassily forced a wan smile. _I hope so, sir. I_ve never attended a court-martial before._


_Well._ Sauer considered his words carefully. _Just think of this as an educational experience. And our 
best opportunity to nail the bitch legally&_


Truth be told, Sauer felt less confident than he was letting on. This whole exercise was more than 
slightly unauthorized; it exceeded his authority as ship_s security officer, and without the active support 
of Commander Murametz, first officer, he wouldn_t have dared proceed with it. He certainly didn_t have 
the legal authority to convene a court-martial on his own initiative in the presence of superior officers, 
much less to try a civilian contractor on a capital charge. What he did have was a remit to root out 
subversion by any means necessary, including authorized deception, and a first officer willing to sign on 
the dotted line. Not to mention an institutional enthusiasm to show the Curator_s agent up for the horse_s 
ass that he was.


They were short of time. Since coming out of their jump on the edge of the inner system, the heavy 
squadron had been running under total radio silence at a constant ten gees, the heavy acceleration 
compensated for by the space-time-warping properties of their drive singularities. (Ten gees, without 
compensation, would be enough to make a prone man black out; bone-splintering, lung-crushing 
acceleration.) There had apparently been some sort of navigation error, a really bad one which had the 
admiral_s staff storming about in a black fury for days, but it hadn_t betrayed them to the enemy, which 
was the main thing.


Some days ago, the squadron had flipped end over end and executed a deceleration sequence to slow 
them down to 100 k.p.s. relative to Rochard_s World. In the early hours of this morning, they had 
reached engagement velocity; they would drift the last thirty light-seconds, resuming acceleration (and 
increasing their visibility) only within active radar range of the enemy. Right now, they were about two 
million kilometers out. Some time around midnight, shipboard time, they would begin their closest 
approach to the planet, go to full power, and engage the enemy ships_assuming they were willing to 
come out and fight. (If they didn_t, then the cowards had conceded control of the low orbital zone to the 
New Republic, tantamount to abandoning their ground forces.) In any event, any action against the UN 
inspector had to be completed before evening, when the ship would lock down for battle stations_ 
assuming they didn_t run into anything before then.


In Sauer_s view, it was a near miracle that Ilya had agreed to join in this deception. He could easily have 
scuppered it, or referred it to Captain Mirsky, which would have amounted to the same thing. This close 
to a major engagement, just detaching himself plus a couple of other officers who didn_t have active 
duty stations to prepare was enough of a wonderment to startle him.
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Sauer walked up to the table at the front of the room and sat down. It was actually the officer_s dining 
table, decked out in a white tablecloth for the occasion, weighted down with leather-bound tomes that 
contained the complete letter of the Imperial Articles of War. Two other officers followed him; Dr. 
Hertz, the ship_s surgeon, and Lieutenant Commander Vulpis, the relativist. They looked suitably 
serious. Sauer cleared his throat. _Court will come to order,_ he intoned. _Bring in the accused._


The other door opened. Two ratings marched in, escorting Martin Springfield who, being hobbled and 
handcuffed, moved rather slowly. Behind them, a door banged. _Ah, er, yes. Please state your name for 
the court._


Martin looked around. His expression was pale but collected. _What?_ he said.


_Please state your name._


_Martin Springfield._


Lieutenant Sauer made a note on his blotter. Irritated, he realized that his pen held no ink; no matter. 
This wasn_t an affair that called for written records. _You are a civilian, subject of the United Nations of 
Earth. Is that correct?_


A look of irritation crept over Martin_s face. _No it bloody isn_t!_ he said. _I keep telling you people, the 
UN is not a government! I_m affiliated to Pinkertons for purposes of legislation and insurance; that 
means I obey their rules and they protect me against infringers. But I_ve got a backup strategic 
infringement policy from the New Model Air Force which, I believe, covers situations like this one. I_ve 
also got agreements with half a dozen other quasi-governmental organizations, but none of them is 
entitled to claim sovereignty over me_I_m not a slave!_


Dr. Hertz turned his head and looked pointedly at Sauer; his pince-nez glinted beneath the harsh glare of 
the tungsten lamps. Sauer snorted. _Let it be entered that the accused is a subject of the United Nations 
of Earth,_ he intoned.


_No he isn_t._ Heads turned. While Martin had been speaking, Rachel Mansour had slipped in through a 
side door. Her garb was even more scandalous than usual; a skintight white leotard worn beneath various 
items of padding and a bulky waistcoat resembling a flak jacket. Almost like a space suit liner, Sauer 
noted, puzzled. _The United Nations is not a__


_Silence!_ Sauer pointed at her. _This is a court of military justice, and I do not recognize your right to 
speak. Stay silent, or I_ll have you thrown out._


_And create a diplomatic incident?_ Rachel grinned unpleasantly. _Try it, and I_ll make sure you regret 
it. In any event, I believe the accused is permitted to retain an advocate for the defense. Have you 
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advised him of his rights?_


_Er__ Vulpis looked down.


_Irrelevant. The trial will continue__


Martin cleared his throat. _I_d like to nominate Colonel Mansour as my advocate,_ he said.


It_s working. Sauer made a pretense of scribbling on his blotter. At the back of the room, he could see 
Vassily_s sharp intake of breath. The young whippersnapper was getting his hopes up already. _The 
court recognizes UN inspector Mansour as the defendant_s counsel. I am obliged to warn you that this 
trial is being conducted under the Imperial Articles of War, Section Fourteen, Articles of Combat, in 
view of our proximity to the enemy. If you are ignorant of those rules and regulations, you may indicate 
so and withdraw from the trial now._


Rachel_s smile broadened. _Defense moves for an adjournment in view of the forthcoming engagement. 
There will be plenty of time for this after the battle._


_Denied,_ Sauer snapped. _We need a fair trial on the record before we can execute the sentence._ That 
made her smile slip. _Court will go into recess for five minutes to permit the defendant to brief his 
advocate, and not one minute longer._ He rapped on the table with his fist, stood, and marched out of the 
room. The rest of the tribunal followed suit, trailed by a paltry handful of spectators, leaving Rachel, 
Martin, and four ratings standing guard on the doors.
_You know this is just a rubber stamp? They want to execute me,_ Martin said. His voice was husky, a 
trifle unsteady; he wrung his hands together, trying to stop them from shaking.


Rachel peered into his eyes. _Look at me, Martin,_ she said quietly. _Do you trust me?_


_I_yes._ He glanced down.


She reached a hand out, across the table, put it across the back of his left wrist. _I_ve been reading up on 
their procedures. This is well out of order, and whatever happens I_m going to. lodge an appeal with the 
Captain_who should be chairing this, not some jumped-up security officer who_s also running the 
prosecution._ She glanced away from him, looking for the air vents; simultaneously, she tapped the back 
of his hand rapidly. He tensed his wrist back in a well-understood pattern, message understood: Next 
session. See me blink three times you start hyperventilating. When I blink twice hold breath.


His eyes widened slightly. _There won_t be time for them to do anything before perigeon, anyway,_ she 
continued verbally. _We_re about two astronomical units out and closing fast; engagement should 
commence around midnight if there_s to be a shooting war._ Got lifeboat, she added via Morse code.



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_That_s__ he swallowed. How escape? he twitched. _I_m not confident they_re going to observe all the 
niceties. This kangaroo court__ He shrugged.


_Leave it all to me,_ she said, squeezing his hand for emphasis. _I know what I_m doing._ For the first 
time, there was hope in his expression. She broke contact and leaned back in her chair. _It_s stuffy in 
here,_ she complained. _Where_s the ventilation?_


Martin looked past her head. She followed his gaze: grilles in the ceiling. She closed her eyes and 
squeezed shut; green raster images like a nightmare vision of a jail cell pasted themselves across the 
insides of her eyelids. The spy drones, remnant of the flock Vassily had unleashed, waited patiently 
behind the vents. They_d followed her to this room, loaded up with a little something to add interest to 
the proceedings.


Serve the little voyeur right, she thought bitterly about the spy. _I_ll get you out of this,_ she told Martin, 
trying to reassure him.


_I understand._ He nodded, a slight inclination of his head. _You know what I, uh, I_m not so good at 
people things__


She shook her head. _They_re doing this to get me to compromise myself. It_s not about you. It_s nothing 
personal. They just want me out of the way._


_Who?_


She shrugged. _The midranking officers. The ones who figure a short victorious war is a ticket up the 
promotion ladder. The ones who don_t think I should be here in the first place, much less reporting back. 
Not after First Lamprey. I was Red Cross agent-in-place there, you know? Investigating the war crimes. 
Didn_t leave anybody looking too good, and I think they know it. They don_t want a negotiated 
settlement, they want guts and glory._


_If it_s just you, why_s the chinless wonder from the Curator_s Office in here?_ asked Martin.


She shrugged. _Two birds, one stone. Don_t sweat it. If they screw this up, they can blame the Curator_s 
cat_s-paw, make the enemy within look bad. There_s no love lost between Naval Intelligence and the 
civil secret police. If it works, they get us both out of the way. Reading the regs, they don_t have 
authority to pull this stunt, Martin. It takes a master and commander to issue a capital sentence except in 
the face of the enemy, so if they do execute you, it_s illegal enough to hang them all._


_That_s a great reassurance._ He forced a smile, but it came out looking decidedly frightened. _Just do 
your_hell. I trust you._
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_That_s good._


Then the doors opened.
_It's working,_ Sauer commented. _She_s come out to defend her minion. Now we need to maneuver her 
into outright defiance. Shouldn_t be too hard; we have the bench._


_Defiance?_ Vulpis raised an eyebrow. _You said this was a trial._


_A trial of wits, ours against hers. She_s consented to defend him; that means she_s acting as an officer 
of the court. Article Forty-six states that an officer of the court is subject to the discipline of the Articles 
and may himself be arraigned for malfeasance or contempt of court. By agreeing to serve before our 
court, she_s abandoning her claim of diplomatic immunity. It gets better. In about two hours, we go to 
stations. While we may be a charade right now, at that point any commissioned officer is empowered to 
pass a capital sentence_or even order a summary execution_because it_s classified under Article Four, 
Obedience in the Face of the Enemy, Enforcement Thereof. Not that I_m planning on using it, but it does 
give us a certain degree of cover, no?_


Dr. Hertz removed his pince-nez and began to polish them. _I_m not sure I like it,_ he said fussily. _This 
smells altogether too much of the kind of trickery the Stasis like handing down. Aren_t you concerned 
about playing for the Curator_s brat?_


_Not really._ Sauer finally grinned. _Y_see, what I really plan on doing is to get our new advocate so 
thoroughly wound up she_s insubordinate or something_but for the defendant himself, I_m thinking of 
an absolute discharge or a not guilty verdict._ He sniffed. _It_s quite obvious he didn_t know he was 
breaking any regulations. Plus, the device he had in his possession was inactive by the time it was 
discovered, so we can_t actually prove it was in a state fit for use at any time when he was aboard the 
ship. And the Admiralty will be angry if we make it hard for them to hire civilian contractors in future. 
I_m hoping we can keep her rattled enough not to realize there_s no case to answer until we_ve got her 
out of the way; then we discharge Springfield. Which will make our young Master Muller look like a 
complete and total idiot, not to mention possibly supplying me with cause to investigate him for 
suspicion of burglary, pilferage of personal effects, violation of a diplomat_s sealed luggage, immoral 
conduct, and maybe even deserting his post._ His grin became sharklike. _Need I continue?_


Vulpis whistled quietly in awe. _Remind me never to play poker with you,_ he commented.


Dr. Hertz reinstalled his spectacles. _Shall we resume the circus, gentlemen?_


_I think so._ Sauer drained his glass of tea and stood up. _After you, my brother officers, then send in 
the clowns!_
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The shipping trunk in Rachel_s cabin had stopped steaming some time ago. It had shrunk, reabsorbing 
and extruding much of its contents. A viscous white foam had spread across the fittings of the cabin, 
eagerly digesting all available hydrocarbons and spinning out a diamond-phase substrate suitable for 
intensive nanomanufacturing activities. Solid slabs of transparent material were precipitating out of 
solution, forming a hollow sphere that almost filled the room. Below the deck, roots oozed down into the 
ship_s recycling circuits, looting the cesspool that stored biological waste during the inbound leg of a 
journey. (By long-standing convention, ships that lacked re-cyclers only discharged waste when heading 
away from inhabited volumes of space; more than one unfortunate orbital worker had been gunned down 
by a flash-frozen turd carrying more kinetic energy than an armor-piercing artillery shell.)


The self-propelled trunk, which was frozen into the base of the glassy sphere, was now much lighter 
than it had been when Rachel boarded the ship. Back then, it had weighed the best part of a third of a 
tonne: Now it massed less than fifty kilos. The surplus mass had mostly been thick-walled capillary 
tubes of boron carbide, containers for thin crystals of ultrapure uranium-235 tetraiodide, and a large 
supply of cadmium; stuff that wasn_t easy to come by in a hurry. The trunk was capable of 
manufacturing anything it needed given the constituent elements. Most of what it wanted was carbon, 
hydrogen, and oxygen, available in abundance in the ship_s sewage-processing plant. But if a diplomat 
needed to get away in a real hurry and didn_t have a potent energy source to hand& well, fission, an old 
and unfashionable technology, was eminently storable, very lightweight, and didn_t usually go bang 
without a good reason. All you needed was the right type of unobtanium to hand in order to make it 
work. Which was why Rachel had been towing around enough uranium to make two or three good-sized 
atom bombs, or the core of a nuclear saltwater rocket.


A nuclear saltwater rocket was just about the simplest interplanetary propulsion system that could fit in a 
steamer trunk. On the other side of the inner pressure hull from Rachel_s cabin, the trunk had 
constructed a large tank threaded through with neutron-absorbing, boron-lined tubes: this was slowly 
filling with water containing a solution of near-critical uranium tetraiodide. Only a thin layer of carefully 
weakened hull plates and bypassed cable ducts held the glassy sphere and its twenty-tonne saltwater fuel 
tank on the other side of the bulkhead, inside the warship. The hybrid structure nestled under the skin of 
the ship like a maggot feeding on the flesh of its host, preparing to hatch.


Elsewhere in the ship, toilets were flushing sluggishly, the officer_s shower cubicle pressure was 
scandalously low, and a couple of environment techs were scratching their heads over the unexpectedly 
low sludge level in the number four silage tank. One bright spark was already muttering about plumbing 
leaks. But with a full combat engagement only hours away, most attention was focused on the ship_s 
weapons systems. Meanwhile, the luggage_s fabricator diligently churned away, extruding polymers and 
component materials to splice into the lifeboat it was preparing for its mistress. With only a short time 
until the coming engagement, speed was essential.
_Court will reconvene._ Sauer rapped on the tabletop with an upturned glass. _Defendant Martin 
Springfield, the charges laid against you are that on the thirty-second day of the month of Harmony, 



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Year 211 of the Republic, you did with premeditation carry aboard the warship Lord Vanek a 
communications device, to wit a causal channel, without permission from your superior officer or indeed 
any officer of that ship, contrary to Article Forty-six of the Articles of War; and that, furthermore, you 
did make use of the said device to communicate with foreign nationals, contrary to Article Twenty-two, 
and in so doing, you disclosed operational details of the running of the warship Lord Vanek contrary to 
Section Two of the Defense of the Realm Act of 127, and also contrary to Section Four of the Articles of 
War, Treachery in Time of War. The charges laid against you therefore constitute negligent breach of 
signals control regulations, trafficking with the enemy, and treason in time of war. How do you plead?_


Before he could open his mouth, Rachel spoke up. _He pleads not guilty to all charges. And I can prove 
it._ There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes; she stood very straight, with her hands clasped behind her 
back.


_Does the accused accept that plea?_ Vulpis intoned.


_The colonel speaks for me,_ said Martin.


_First, evidence supporting the charges. Item: on the thirty-second day of the month of Harmony, year 
211 of the Republic, you did with premeditation carry aboard the warship Lord Vanek a communications 
device, to wit a causal channel, without permission from your superior officer or indeed any officer of 
that ship, contrary to Article Forty-six. Clerk, present the item._


A rating stepped forward, stony-faced, bearing a small paper bag. He shook the contents out over die 
tabletop; a small, black memory cartridge. _Item one: a type twelve causal channel, embedded within a 
standard model CX expansion cartridge as used by personal assist machines throughout the decadent 
Terran sphere. The item was removed from defendant_s personal assist machine by Junior Procurator 
Vassily Muller, of the Curator_s Office on assignment to monitor the conduct of the defendant, on the 
thirty-second day of Harmony as noted. A sworn deposition by the Procurator is on record. Does anyone 
contest the admissibility of this evidence? No? Good__


_I do._ Rachel pointed at the small black cartridge. _Firstly, I submit that the Junior Procurator_s search 
of the defendant_s personal property was illegal and any evidence gained from it is inadmissible, 
because the defendant is a civilian and not subject to the waiver of rights in the oath of allegiance sworn 
by a serving soldier_his civil rights, including the right to property, cannot be legally violated without a 
judicial warrant or an order from an official vested with summary powers subject to Article Twelve. 
Unless the Junior Procurator obtained such an order or warrant, his search was illegal and indeed may 
constitute burglary, and any information gathered in the process of an illegal search is not admissible in 
court. Secondly, if that thing is a causal channel, I_m a banana slug.


That_s a standard quantum dot storage card; if you get a competent electronic engineer in, they_ll tell 
you the same. Thirdly, you don_t have authority to hold this charade of a trial; I_ve been checking in the 
Articles, and they state quite clearly that courts-martial can only be convened by order of the senior 
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officer present. Where_s your written order from the Admiral?_


She crossed her arms and stared at the bench.


Sauer shook his head. _The Junior Procurator has standing orders to investigate Springfield; that makes 
anything he does legal in the eyes of the Curator_s Office. And I must register my extreme displeasure at 
the defense_s imputation that I do not have authority to convene this court. I have obtained such 
authority from my superior officer and will use it._ Carefully, he avoided specifying precisely what kind 
of authority he had. _As for the item of evidence being misidentified, we have on record a statement by 
the defendant to the effect that it is a causal channel, which he was asked to carry aboard by foreign 
parties, to wit the dockyard. As the Articles concern themselves specifically with intent, it does not 
matter whether the item is in fact a banana slug: the defendant is still guilty of thinking he was carrying 
a communications device._


He paused for a moment. _Let it be entered that the item of evidence was admitted._ He glared at 
Rachel: Got you, you bitch. Now what are you going to do?


Rachel glanced at Martin and blinked rapidly. Then she turned back to face the bench. _A point of law, 
sir. As it happens, thinking is not generally considered the same as doing. Indeed, in this nation, which 
refuses to even consider the use of thought-controlled machinery, the distinction is even sharper than in 
my own. You appear to be attempting to try the defendant for his opinions and beliefs rather than his 
actions. Do you have any evidence of his actually passing on information to a third party? If not, there is 
no case to answer._


_I have exactly that._ Sauer grinned savagely. _You should know who he_s been passing on information 
to._ He pointed at her. _You are a known agent of a foreign power. Defendant has been communicating 
freely with you. Now, since you consented to defend him, you are acting as an officer of this court. I 
refer you to Article Forty-six: _Any person deputized to act as an officer of the court is subject to the 
discipline of the Articles._ I conclude that you have courageously agreed to waive your diplomatic 
immunity in order to attempt to rescue your spy from the hangman_s noose._


For a moment, Rachel looked confused; she looked at Martin again, blinking rapidly. Then she turned 
back to the bench. _So you rigged this whole kangaroo court as an attempt to work around my 
immunity? I_m impressed. I really didn_t think you_d be quite this stupid_Utah!_


Everything happened very quickly. Rachel dropped to her knees behind her makeshift desk; Sauer made 
a motion toward the ratings at the back of the room, intending to have them arrest the woman. But 
before he could do more than open his mouth, four sharp bangs burst around the room. The overhead air-
conditioning ducts split open; things dropped down, complex and many-armed dungs squirting pale blue 
foam under high pressure. The foam stuck to everything it touched, starting with the judge_s bench and 
the guards at the back of the makeshift courtroom: it was lightweight but sticky, rapidly setting into a 
hard foam matrix.
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_Get her!_ Sauer shouted. He grabbed for his pistol, but somewhere along the way a huge gobbet of blue 
foam engulfed his arm and cemented it to his side. A strong chemical odor came from the foam, 
something familiar from childhood visits to the dentist. Sauer breathed deeply, struggling to dislodge the 
sticky mass, and the fruity, sickly stench cut into his lungs; then the world turned hazy.
Rachel new things were going to turn pear-shaped from the moment she walked into the room. She_d 
seen judges in hanging mode before, back on Earth, and on a dozen assignments since then. You could 
almost smell it, an acrid and unreasoning eagerness to order an execution, like the stench of death itself. 
This board had it_and something else. A sly reserve, a smug sense of anticipation; as if the whole thing 
was some kind of tremendous joke, with a punch line she could only guess at.


When the security lieutenant delivered it_a half-formed, inadequate punch line, in her opinion, 
obviously something he_d stitched up on an ad hoc basis to fit the occasion_she glanced around at 
Martin. Please be ready. She blinked three times and saw him stiffen, then nod; the prearranged signal. 
She turned back to the bench, blinking again: green lights rippled behind her eyelids. _State two,_ she 
subvocalized, the radio mike in her throat relaying the command to the drones waiting in the ventilation 
ducts. She turned back to the bench. The three officers sat there, glowering at her like thunderclouds on 
a horizon. Buy time.


_A point of law, sir. As it happens, thinking is not generally considered the same as doing.__ She 
carried on, wondering how they_d react to effectively being accused of rigging this charade; either 
they_d back down, or_


_I have exactly that._ The political officer in the middle, the hatchet-faced one, grimaced horribly. _You 
should know who he_s been passing on information to._ He pointed straight at her. Here it comes, she 
thought. Subvocalizing again: _Luggage. Query readiness state._


_Lifeboat closed out for launch. Fuel storage subcritical and ready. Spare reaction mass loaded. 
Oxygen supply nominal. Warning, delta-vee to designated waypoint New Peter-stown currently 86 k.p.s., 
decreasing. Total available maneuvering margin 90 k.p.s._ That would do, she decided. The saltwater 
rocket was nearly as efficient as an old-fashioned fusion rocket; back home, it would do for an Earth-
Mars return trip, surface to surface. This was pushing it a bit_they wouldn_t be able to ride it back up 
into orbit without refueling. But it would do, as long as_


__I conclude that you have courageously agreed to waive your diplomatic immunity in order to attempt 
to rescue your spy from the hangman_s noose._


She swallowed, glanced at Martin and blinked twice, the signal for _hold your breath._ _Luggage: prep 
for launch. Expect crew arrival from one hundred seconds. Launch hold at T minus twenty seconds from 
that time._ Once they burned that particular bridge and jumped overboard, all she could do was pray that 
the bridge crew wouldn_t dare light off their radar_ and risk warning the Festival_in order to find her 



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and kill her. The lifeboat was a soap bubble compared to the capital ships of the New Republican naval 
force.


Rachel turned her attention back to the bench and took a deep breath, tensing. _So you rigged this whole 
kangaroo court as an attempt to work around my immunity? I_m impressed. I really didn_t think you_d 
be quite this stupid_ Utah!_


She ducked. The last word was a shout, broadcast to the drones through her throat mike. A simultaneous 
crackle told her the shaped-charge cutters had blown. She yanked the transparent breather hood over her 
face and choked it shut, then powered up her cellular IFF.


The drones swarmed in through holes in the ceiling. Spiders and crabs and scorpions, all made of carbon 
polymers_ recycled sewage, actually_they sprayed sticky antipersonnel foam everywhere, releasing 
anesthetic trichloromethane vapor wherever anyone struggled. A rating made a move toward her, and 
her combat implants took over; he went down like a sack of potatoes before she consciously noted his 
existence, rabbit-punched alongside the head by an inhumanly fast fist. Everything narrowed into the 
gap between herself and Martin, standing wide-eyed behind a table, hi&arms half-raised toward her and 
a rating already beginning to steer him toward the door.


Rachel went to combat speed, cutting her merely human nervous system out of the control loop.


Time slowed and light dimmed; the chains of gravity weakened, but the air grew thick and viscous 
around her. Marionettes twirled in slow motion all around as she jumped over a table and ran at Martin. 
His guard began to turn toward her and throw up an arm. She grabbed it and twisted, feeling it pop out 
of its socket. She threw a brisk left-handed punch at the other guard; ribs snapped like brittle cardboard, 
and a couple of the fine bones in the back of her hand fractured with the impact. It was hard to remember
_hard to think_but her own body was her worst enemy, more fragile than her reflexes would admit.


She grabbed Martin with one arm, handling him delicately as bone china; the beginning of an oof of air 
from his lungs told her she_d winded him. The door wasn_t locked, so she kicked it open and dragged 
Martin through before it had time to rebound closed. She dropped him and spun in place, slammed it 
shut, then grabbed in a vest pocket for a lump of something like putty. _Omaha,_ she shouted into her 
throat mike. Strobing patterns of red-and-yellow light raced over the surface of the putty_visible in her 
mechanized vision_and she jammed it into the doorframe and spat on it. It turned blue and began to 
spread rapidly, a wave of sticky liquid rushing around the gap between door and wall, setting hard as 
diamond.


Between the glued door, the severed intercom cables, and the chloroform and antipersonnel foam, it 
might be a minute or two before anyone in the room managed to raise the alarm.


Martin was trying to double over and gasp. She picked him up and ran down the corridor. It was like 
wading through water; she rapidly discovered it was easier to kick off with one foot, then the other, like 



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low-gee locomotion.


A red haze at the edge of her vision told her she was close to burnout. Her peripheral nervous system 
might have been boosted, but for this sort of speed, it relied on anaerobic respiration, and she was 
exhausting her reserves frighteningly fast. At the next intersection, a lift car stood open: she lurched into 
it, dragging Martin behind, and tapped die button for the accommodation level in officer country. Then 
she dropped back to normal speed.


The doors slid shut as the lift began to rise, and Martin began to gasp. Rachel slumped against the far 
wall, black spots hazing her vision as she tried to draw air into straining lungs. Martin was first to speak. 
_Where_did you learn__


She blinked. A clock spiraled in the left upper quadrant of her vision. Eight seconds since she_d yelled 
Utah_eight seconds? Minutes, maybe. She drew a deep breath that turned into a yawn, flushing the 
carbon dioxide from her lungs. All her muscles ached, burning as if there were hot wires running down 
her bones. She felt sick, and her left hand was beginning to throb violently. _Special. Implants._


_Think you nearly broke a_rib, back there. Where are we going?_


_Life. Boat._ Gasp. _Like I said._


A light blinked above them. They_d crawled up one floor. One more to go.


The door opened on the right level. Rachel staggered upright. Nobody there, which was a blessing; in 
her present state, she didn_t know if she could put a hamster in its place, much less a soldier. She stepped 
out of the lift, Martin following. _My room,_ she said quietly. _Try to look at ease._


He raised his wrists. _Wearing these?_


Shit. Should have ripped them apart before running out of boost. She shook her head and hunted in her 
hip pocket, pulled out a compact gray tube. _Stun gun._


They ran out of luck halfway down the last corridor. A door opened and a petty officer stepped out; he 
moved to give them room to pass, then his jaw dropped as he realized what he was seeing. _Hey!_


Rachel shot him. _Hurry,_ she hissed over her shoulder, and stumbled ahead. Martin followed her. Her 
door was ahead, just around a curve in the corridor. _Gold_ she called to the waiting lifeboat.


Red lights flashed overhead: the PA system piped up, a warbling alert noise. _Security Alert! Green 
deck accommodation sector B, two armed insurgents on the loose. Armed and dangerous. Security to 
Green deck accommodation B. Alert!_
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_Shit,_ Martin mumbled. A pressure door began to rumble shut ten meters ahead of them.


Rachel went to combat speed again, her vision greying almost immediately. She threw herself forward: 
stood directly beneath the door and thrust straight up at the descending pressure barrier. Martin moved 
forward with glacial slowness as she felt the motors bear down on her, trying to crush her in half. He 
ducked and swam under the barrier. She followed him, letting go, and stayed fast, even though her hands 
and feet were becoming numb and a deadly warning pincushion sensation pricked at her face. The door 
to her cabin was two meters away. _Juno!_ she yelled at it through her throat mike, the word coming out 
in a high-pitched gabble that sounded like the croaking of an aged dinosaur to her ears.


The door swung open. Martin ran through inside, but it was too late for Rachel: she couldn_t see, and her 
knees were beginning to give way. The combat acceleration stopped, and she felt herself floating, a 
bruised impact along one side.


Someone was dragging her over gravel and it hurt like hell. Her heart sounded as if it was about to 
explode. She couldn_t get enough air.


Sound of a door slamming. 


Darkness.
Circus Of Death


The committee for the Revolution had taken over the onion-domed orthodox cathedral in Plotsk, making 
it the headquarters of the Commissariat for Extropian Ideology. All those who rejected the doctrine of 
revolutionary optimization and refused to flee the town were dragged before the tribunal and instructed 
boringly and at length about the nature of their misdemeanor; then they were shot, minds mapped and 
uploaded into the Festival, and sentenced to corrective labor_ usually all at once. There weren_t many 
of them; for the most part, the population had fled into the wilderness, transcended, or happily adopted 
the revolutionary cause.


Sister Seventh_s hut, spun from local memories of myth and legend uploaded into the noosphere of the 
Festival, squatted in the courtyard outside the Revolutionary Commissariat and defecated massively. 
Presently, the house stood and ambled in the direction of die cherry trees that fringed the square: it was 
hungry, and the Bishop_s liking for cherry blossom wouldn_t stop it eating.


Sister Seventh wrinkled her snout with displeasure and ambled indoors. The floor of the church was full 
of plaintiffs, queuing to demand this or appeal that. They stood before a kitchen table parked in the 
middle of the nave, behind which sat half a dozen bored-looking revolutionary functionaries. The small, 
frenetic human called Rubenstein waved his arms and exhorted their chairman, who was so heavily 


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augmented with mechanical add-ons that he clanked when he walked. The subject of the exhortation 
seemed to be something to do with the need to reverse the previous policy of destroying the artistically 
illiterate. True, that priority rated low in the estimates of the Critics_after all, you can_t win an 
argument over esthetics with a corpse_but Rubenstein_s willingness to change his mind after only a day 
or two in her company didn_t commend his artistic integrity to her. These curious, lumpen humans were 
so impossibly gnomic in their utterances, so lacking in consistency, that sometimes she despaired of 
understanding their underlying esthetic.


Sister Seventh lost herself for a while in the flux of knowledge from the Festival. It let a filtered feed of 
its awareness escape, titillating the Critic colony in orbit, who relayed choice tidbits her way. The 
Festival propagated by starwisp, that much was true. It also relied on causal channels to relay its 
discoveries home. Now, great Higgs boson factories were taking shape in the rings of machinery 
orbiting Sputnik, icy gas and dust congealing into beat-wave particle accelerators on the edge of 
planetary space. Thousands of huge fusion reactors were coming on-stream, each pumping out enough 
energy to run a continental civilization. The first batch of new starwisps was nearing readiness, and they 
had a voracious appetite, a tonne of stabilized antimatter each; then there were the causal channels, 
petabytes and exabytes of entangled particles to manufacture and laboriously, non-observationally, 
separate into matching batches. The first starwisps would soon take on their payloads, point their stubby 
noses at the void, and accelerate at nearly half a million gees, sitting atop the neutral particle beams 
emitted by vast launch engines in high orbit above Rochard_s World. Their primary destinations were 
the last two stops on the Festival_s route, to deliver fresh channels and a detailed report on the current 
visit; their other destinations_ well, the Festival had been encamped for three months. Soon the traders 
would arrive.


Traders followed the Festival everywhere. A self-replicating, natural source of causal channels, the 
Festival laid down av-enues of communication, opening up new civilizations to trade_civilizations 
which, in the wake of a visitation, were usually too culture-shocked to object to the Traders_ abstraction 
of the huge structures the Festival had constructed and abandoned for its own purposes. More than a 
thousand megafortunes had been made by natives of dirt-based trader civilizations with FTL ships and 
just enough nous to follow the trail of the Festival; like birds in the wake of a plow turning over rich 
farm soil, they waited to pounce on juicy nuggets of intellectual property turned up by the passing 
farmer.


Now something new tickled Sister Seventh_s hindbrain. She stopped beside a font and stooped to drink. 
A message from She Who Observes the First. Ships coming. Festival notices. Many ships coming in 
silence. Now that was interesting; normally, the traders would appear like a three-ring circus, flashing 
lights and loud music playing on all available wavelengths, trying to attract attention. Stealth meant 
trouble. Forty-two vessels itemized. All with drive kernels, all with low emissions: query thermal dump 
to stern, reduce visibility from frontal aspect. Range seven light-seconds.


How peculiar. Sister Seventh straightened up. Someone_ no, some construct of the Festival, human-
child-high, but with long, floppy ears and a glossy fur coat, eyes mounted on the sides of its rodent face
_was coming in through the side door.


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Sister mine. What reflex of Festival? she asked silently. Hardwired extensions patched her through the 
Festival_s telephonic nervous system, building a bridge to hersibling.


Festival has noticed. Current activities not over; will not tolerate interference. Three Bouncers have 
been dispatched.


Sister of Stratagems the Seventh shivered and bared her teeth. There were few things about the Festival 
that scared her, but Bouncers were second on the list, right behind the Fringe. The Fringe might kill you 
out of random pique. The Bouncers were rather less random&


The leporine apparition in the aisle bounced toward her, a panicky expression on its face. Burya stopped 
lecturing Timo-shevski and looked around. _What is it?_ he demanded.


Timoshevski rumbled forward. _Am thinking is rabbit stew for dinner._


_No! Please, sirs! Help!_ The rabbit stopped short of them, pushing two aggrieved babushkas aside, and 
held out its front limbs_arms, Sister Seventh noticed, with disturbingly human hands at their 
extremities. It was wearing a waistcoat that appeared to consist entirely of pockets held together by zip 
fasteners. _Master in trouble!_


_Are no masters here, comrade,_ said Timoshevski, apparently categorizing the supplicant as inedible. 
_True revolutionary doctrine teaches that the only law is rationalism and dynamic optimism. Where are 
you from, and where is your internal passport?_


Rabbits have little control over their facial muscles; nevertheless, this one made a passable show of 
being nonplussed. _Need help,_ it bleated, then paused, visibly gathering self-control. _My master is in 
trouble. Mime hunt! They got between us, a village ago; I escaped, but I fear they_re coming this way._


_Mimes?_ Timoshevski looked puzzled. _Not clowns?_ A metallic tentacle tipped in gun-muzzle flanges 
uncurled from his back, poked questing into the air. _Circus?_


_Circus of death,_ said Sister Seventh. _Fringe performance, very poor. If coming this way, will interfere 
with popular acclaim of your revolution._


_Oh, how so?_ Timoshevski focused on Sister Seventh suspiciously.


_Listen to her, Oleg,_ growled Burya. _She came with the Festival. Knows what_s going on._ He rubbed 
his forehead, as if the effort of making that much of a concession to her superior knowledge was painful.


_Oh?_ Wheels turned slowly behind Timoshevski_s skull; evidently his plethora of augmentations took a 
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goodly amount of his attention to run.


Sister Seventh stamped, shaking the floor. _Mimes are boring. Say help rabbit. Learn something new, 
maybe stage rescue drama?_


_If you say so._ Burya turned to Oleg. _Listen, you_re doing a reasonable job holding things down. I_d 
like to take six of your finest_who do I talk to?_and go sort these Mimes out. We really don_t need 
them messing things up; I_ve seen what they do, and I don_t like it._


A sallow-faced commissar behind Oleg shouldered his way forward. _I don_t see why we should listen 
to you, you pork-fed cosmopolitan,_ he snarled in a thick accent. _This isn_t your revolution; this is the 
independent Plotsk soviet soyuz community, and we don_t take any centralist reactionary shit!_


_Quiet, Babar,_ said Oleg. The tentacle sticking out of his back rotated to face the easterner: a dim red 
light glowed from its tip. _Burya is good comrade. If wanted force centralism on us, am thinking he 
would have come with force, no?_


_He did,_ said Sister Seventh, but the revolutionaries ignored her.


_He go with detachment of guards. End to argument,_ Oleg continued. _A fine revolutionary; trust him 
do right by this_ rabbit._


_You better be right, Timoshevski,_ grunted Babar. _Not fools, us. Am not tolerating failure._
Sauer was out of the wardroom and into the security watch office less than a minute after regaining 
consciousness, cursing horribly, blinking back a painful chloroform headache, and tugging creases from 
his rumpled and spattered tunic. The petty officer on duty sprang to his feet hastily, saluting; Sauer cut 
him off. _General security alert. I want a full search for the UN spy and the shipyard engineer 
immediately, all points. Pull all the surveillance records for the UN spy in the past hour on my 
workstation, soon as you_ve got the search started. I want a complete inventory on all off-duty personnel 
as soon as you_ve done that._ He flung himself down behind his desk angrily. He ran fingers through his 
razor-cut hair and glared at the screen set into his desktop, then hit the switchboard button. _Get me the 
duty officer in ops,_ he grunted. Turning around, _Chief, what I said_I need it now. Grab anyone you 
need._


_Yes, sir. Excuse me, sir, beg permission to ask_what are we expecting?_


_The Terran diplomat is a saboteur. We flushed her, but she ran, taking the engineer with her. Which 
might have done us all a favor, except, firstly, they_re still loose, and, secondly, they_re armed and 
aboard this ship right now. So you_re to look for crazed foreign terrorists with illegal off-world 
technology lurking in the corridors. Is that clear?_



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_Yes, sir._ The flyer looked bemused. _Very clear, sir._


The workstation bonged. Sauer turned to face it. Captain Mirsky stared at him inquiringly; _I thought 
you were busy keeping an eye on that damned chinless wonder from the Curator_s Office,_ he 
commented.


_Sir!_ Sauer sat bolt upright. _Permission to report a problem, sir!_


_Go ahead._


_Security violation._ Sweat stood out on Sauer_s forehead. _Suspecting a covert agenda on the part of 
the Terran diplomat, I arranged a disinformation operation to convince her we had her number. 
Unfortunately, we convinced her too well; she escaped from custody with the shipyard engineer and is 
loose on the ship right now. I_ve started a search and sweep, but in view of the fact that we appear to 
have armed hostiles aboard, I_m recommending a full lockdown and security alert._


The Captain didn_t even blink. _Do it._ He turned around, out of camera view for a few seconds. _The 
operations room is now sealed._ Beyond the sound-insulating door of the security office, a siren began 
to wail. _Report your status._


Sauer looked around; the rating standing by the door nodded at him. _Beg to report, sir, security office is 
sealed._


_We_re locked down in here, sir,_ said Sauer. _The incident only began about three minutes ago._ He 
leaned sideways. _Found the records yet, Chief?_


_Backtracking now, sir,_ said the Chief Petty Officer. _Ah, found external_damn. Begging your 
pardon, sir, but twelve minutes ago the surveillance cameras in Green deck, accommodation block_
that_s where her quarters are_were disabled. An internal shutdown signal via the maintenance track, 
authorized by_ah. Um. The shutdown signal was authorized under your ID, sir._


_Oh._ Sauer grunted. _Have you traced off-duty crew dispositions?_


_Yes, sir. Nobody was obviously out of bounds during the past hour. _Course that doesn_t mean anything
_worst thing a sneak would normally get for being caught without a tracking badge would be a day or 
two in the brig._


_You don_t say. Get a team down there now, I want that corridor covered!_


Sauer didn_t remember the open phone channel until the Captain cleared his throat. _I take it you_re 
secure for the time being,_ he said.



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_Yes, sir._ The Lieutenant_s ears began to turn red. _Someone disabled the sensors outside the 
inspector_s cabin, using my security authentication. Sir, she_s really put one over on us._


_So what are you going to do about it?_ Mirsky raised an eyebrow. _Come on. I want a solution._


_Well__ Sauer stopped, _Sir, I believe I_ve located the saboteurs. Permission to go get them?_


Mirsky grinned humorlessly. _Do it. Take them alive. I want to ask them some questions._ It was the 
first time Sauer had seen his captain look angry, and it made his blood run cold. _Yes, make sure they_re 
alive. I don_t want any accidents. Oh, and Sauer, another thing._


_Sir?_


_When this is over I want a full, written report explaining how and why this whole incident happened. 
By yesterday morning._


_Yes, sir._ The Captain cut the connection abruptly; Sauer stood up. _You heard the man,_ he said. 
_Chief, I_m taking a pager. And arms._ He walked over to the sealed locker and rammed his thumb 
against it; it clicked open, and he began pulling equipment out. _You_re staying here. Listen on channel 
nineteen. I_m going to be heading for the cabin. Keep an eye on my ID. If you see it going somewhere 
I_m not, I want you to tell me about it._ He pulled on a lightweight headset, then picked up a taser, held 
it beside his temple while the two computers shook hands, then rolled his eyes to test the target tracking. 
_Is that clear?_


_Yes, sir. Should I notify the red tabs on green deck?_


_Of course._ Sauer brought the gun to bear on the door. _Open the hatch._


_Aye aye, sir._ There was a click as latches retracted; the rating outside nearly dropped his coffee tray 
when he saw the Lieutenant.


_You! Maxim! Dump that tray and take this!_ Sauer held out another firearm, and the surprised flyer 
fumbled it into place. _Stick to channel nineteen. Don_t speak unless you_re spoken to. Now follow me._ 
Then he was off down the corridor, airtight doors scissoring open in front and slamming closed behind 
him, turning the night into a jerky red-lit succession of tunnels.
The first thing she realized was her head hurt. The second&


She was lying in an acceleration couch. Her feet and hands were cold. _Rachel!_
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She tried to say _I_m awake,_ but wasn_t sure anything came out. Opening her eyes took a tremendous 
effort of will. _Time. Wassat? How long_?_


_A minute ago,_ said Martin. _What_s happened in here?_ He was in the couch next to her. The capsule 
was claustropho-bically tiny, like something out of the dawn of the space age. The hatch above them 
was open, though, and she could just see the inner door of her cabin past it. _Hatch, close. I said I had a 
lifeboat, didn_t I?_


_Yeah, and I thought you were just trying to keep my spirits up._ Martin_s pupils were huge in the dim 
light. Above him, the roof of the capsule began to knit itself together. _What_s going on?_


_We_re sitting on top of__ She paused to pant for breath. _Ah. Shit. On top of_a saltwater rocket. 
Fission. Luggage full of_of uranium. And boron. Sort of unobtanium you need in _mergency, stuff you 
can_t find easily. My little insurance policy._


_You can_t just punch your way out of an occupied spaceship!_ Martin protested.


_Watch me._ She grimaced, lips pulling back from her teeth. _Sealed_bulkheads. Airtight cocoon 
_round us. Only question is__


_Autopilot ready,_ announced the lifeboat. An array of emergency navigation displays lit up on the 
console in front of them.


_Whether they shoot at us when we launch._


_Wait. Let me get this straight. We_re less than a day out from Rochard_s World, right? This_thing_
has enough legs to get us there? So you_re going to punch a neat hole in the wall and eject us, and 
they_re just going to let us go?_


__S about the size of it,_ she said. Closing her eyes to watch the pretty blue displays projected on her 
retinas: _About ten thousand gee-seconds to touchdown. We_re about forty thousand seconds from 
perigee right now. So we_re going to drift like a turd, right? Pretend to be a flushed silage tank. If they 
light out their radar, they give themselves away; if they shoot, they_re visible. So they_ll let us go, figure 
to pick us up later _s long as we get there after they do. If we try to get there first, they_ll shoot&_


_You_re betting the Festival will finish them off._


_Yup,_ she agreed.


_Ready to arm initiator pump,_ said the autopilot. It sounded like a fussy old man.
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_M_ first husband,_ she said. _He always nagged._


_And here was me thinking it was your favorite pet ferret._ Martin busied himself hunting for crash 
webbing. _No gravity on this crate?_


__S not a luxury yacht._


Something bumped and clanked outside the door. _Oh shit._


_We launch in_forty-two seconds,_ said Rachel.


_Hope they give us mat long._ Martin leaned over and began strapping her into the couch. _How many 
gees does this thing pull?_


She laughed: it ended in a cough. _Many as we can take. Fission rocket._


_Fission?_ He looked at her aghast. _But we_ll be a sitting duck! If they__


_Shut up and let me work._ She closed her eyes again, busy with the final preparations.


Sneak was, of course, of the essence. A fission rocket was a sitting duck to a battlecruiser like the Lord 
Vanek; it had about four hours_ thrust, during which time it might stay ahead_if the uncompensated 
acceleration didn_t kill its passengers, and if the ship didn_t simply go to full military power and race 
past it_but then it was out of fuel, a ballistic casualty. To make matters worse, until she managed to get 
more than about ten thousand kilometers away from the Lord Vanek, she_d be within tertiary laser 
defense range_close enough that the warship could simply point its lidar grid at the lifeboat and curdle 
them like an egg in a microwave oven.


But there was a difference between could and would which, Rachel hoped, was big enough to fly a 
spaceship through. Activating the big warship_s drive would create a beacon that any defenders within 
half a light-minute or so might see. And torching off the big laser sensor/killer array would be like 
lighting up a neon sign saying invading warship_come and get me. Unless Captain Mirsky was willing 
to risk his Admiral_s wrath by making a spectacle of himself in front of the Festival, he wouldn_t dare 
try to nail Rachel so blatantly. Only if she lit off her own drive, or a distress beacon, would he feel free 
to shoot her down_because she would already have given his position away.


However, first she had to get off the ship. Undoubtedly, they_d be outside her cabin door within minutes, 
guns and cutters in their hands. The weakened bulkheads between the larval lifeboat and the outer 
pressure hull were all very well, but how to achieve a clean separation without warning them?


_Mech one. Broadcast primary destruct sequence._
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_Confirm. Primary destruct sequence for mech one._


_Sword. Confirm?_


_Confirmed._


The transponder in her luggage was broadcasting a siren song of destruction, on wavelengths only her 
spy mechs_ those that were left_would be listening to. Mech one, wedged in a toilet_s waste valve in 
the brig, would hear. Using what was left of its feeble power pack, it would detonate its small destruct 
charge. Smaller than a hand grenade_but powerful enough to rupture the toilet_s waste pipe.
Warships can't use gravity-fed plumbing; the Lord Vanek_s sewage-handling system was under pressure, 
an intricate network of pipes connected by valves to prevent back-flow. The Lord Vanek didn_t recycle 
its waste, but stored it, lest discharges freeze to shrapnel, ripping through spacecraft and satellites like a 
shotgun loaded with ice. But there are exceptions to every rule; holding waste in tanks to reduce the risk 
of ballistic debris creation was all very well, but not at the risk of shipboard disaster, electrical short 
circuit, or life-support contamination.


When Rachel_s makeshift bomb exploded, it ruptured a down pipe carrying waste from an entire deck to 
the main storage tanks. Worse, it took out a backflow valve. Waste water backed up from the tank and 
sprayed everywhere, hundreds of liters per second drenching the surrounding structural spaces and 
conduits. Damage control alarms warbled in the maintenance stations, and the rating on duty hastily 
opened the main dump valves, purging the waste circuit into space. The Lord Vanek had a crew of 
nearly twelve hundred, and had been in flight for weeks; a fire spray of sewage exploded from the 
scuppers, nearly two hundred tonnes of waste water purging into space just as Rachel_s lifeboat counted 
down to zero.


In the process of assembling her lifeboat, the robot factory in Rachel_s luggage had made extensive_not 
to say destructive_changes to the spaces around her cabin. Supposedly solid bulkheads fractured like 
glass; on the outer hull of the ship, a foam of spun diamond half a meter thick disintegrated into a talc-
like powder across a circle three meters in diameter. The bottom dropped out of Rachel_s stomach as the 
hammock she lay in lurched sideways, then the improvised cold-gas thrusters above her head kicked in, 
shoving the damply newborn lifeboat clear of its ruptured womb. Weird, painful tidal stresses ripped at 
her; Martin grunted as if he_d been punched in the gut. The lifeboat was entering the ship_s curved-space 
field, a one-gee gradient dropping off across perhaps a hundred meters of space beyond the hull; the boat 
creaked and sloshed ominously, then began to tumble, falling end over end toward the rear of the 
warship.


On board the Lord Vanek, free-fall alarms were sounding. Cursing bridge officers yanked at their seat 
restraints, and throughout the ship, petty officers yelled at their flyers, calling them to crash stations. 
Down in the drive maintenance room, Commander Krupkin was cursing up a blue streak as he hit the 



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scram switch, then grabbed his desk with one hand and the speaking tube to the bridge with the other to 
demand an explanation.


Without any fuss, the warship_s drive singularity entered shutdown. The curved-space field that 
provided both a semblance of gravity and shielding against acceleration collapsed into a much weaker 
spherical field centered on the point mass in the engine room_just in time to prevent two hundred tons 
of bilgewater, and a twenty-tonne improvised lifeboat, from hammering into the rear of the Lord 
Vanek_s hull and ripping the heat exchangers to shreds.


In the Green deck accommodation block corridor, a nightmare cacophony of alarms was shrilling for 
attention. Lights strobed overhead, blue, red, green; blow-out alarm, gravity failure alarm, everything. 
Lieutenant Sauer cursed under his breath and grappled with an emergency locker door; _Help me, you 
idiot!_ he shouted at Able Flyer Maxim Kravchuk who, whey-faced with fear, was frozen in the middle 
of the corridor. _Grab this handle and pull for your life!_


Farther up the corridor, damage control doors were sliding shut; as they closed, struts extended from 
their inner surfaces and extended bright orange crash nets. Maxim grabbed the handle Sauer pointed him 
at and yanked. Together they managed to unseal the stiff locker door. _Get inside, idiot,_ Sauer grunted. 
The blow-out alarm, terror of all cosmonauts, stopped strobing, but now he could feel the keening of the 
gravity failure siren deep in his bones_and the floor was beginning to tilt. Kravchuk tumbled inside the 
locker and began to belt himself to the wall, hands working on instinct alone. Sauer could see the whites 
of the man_s terrified eyes. He paused in the entrance, glancing up the corridor. The UN bitch_s cabin 
was in the next segment_he_d have to secure this one and get breathing apparatus before he could go 
and find out what she_d done to his ship. It_s not just the skipper who _II be asking questions, he thought 
bitterly.


Sauer clambered into the locker even as the floor began to tilt sideways; but the tilt stabilized at a 
relatively tolerable thirty degrees. He began to feel light on his feet. Drive must be going into shutdown, 
he realized. Leaving the door open_it would close automatically if there was a pressure drop_he 
began systematically to pull on an emergency suit. The emergency suit was basically a set of 
interconnected transparent bags, with enough air to last six hours in a backpack, no good for EVA but a 
lifesaver inside a breached hull. _You get dressed,_ he told the frightened rating. _We_re going to find 
out what caused this._


Four minutes later, Chief Molotov and four armed red-tab police arrived, laboriously cycling through the 
sealed-off corridor segments; the young Procurator tagged along behind them, face flushed, evidently 
struggling with the unfamiliar survival suit. Sauer ignored him. _Chief, I have reason to believe there are 
armed saboteurs inside the next corridor segment, or the third compartment in it. When I give the signal, 
I want this door open and the corridor behind it cleared. I don_t know what the occupants have by way of 
defenses, but they_re definitely armed, so I suggest you just saturate with taser fire. Once we_ve done 
that, if it_s empty, we move on the compartment. Got that?_
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_Aye,_ said Molotov. _Any idea who_s inside?_


Sauer shrugged. _My best bet is the engineer, Springfield, and the woman from Earth. But I could be 
wrong. How you handle iris your call._


_I see._ Molotov turned. _You and you; either side of the door. When it opens, shoot anything that 
moves._ He paused. _Remote override on the cabin door?_


_It_s locked. Manual hinges only, too._


_Right you are._ Molotov unslung a knapsack, began unrolling a fat cable. _You_ll want to stand back, 
then._ He grabbed the emergency door override handle. _On my mark! Mark!_


The emergency door hummed up into the ceiling, and the ratings tensed, but the corridor was empty. 
_Right. The cabin, lads._


He approached the cabin door carefully. _Says it_s open to vacuum, sir,_ he said, pointing to the warning 
lights on the door frame.


_Bet you it_s a pinhole leak she_s rigged to keep us out. Just get everyone into suits before we blow it._ 
Sauer approached and watched as Molotov attached the cable of rubbery cord to the door frame, running 
it alongside the hinges and then around the door handle and lock, holding it in place with tape. _I_m 
going to use cutting cord. Better tell Environment to seal this corridor for a pressure drop-off until we 
repressurize this compartment._


_Sir__ It was Muller, the cause of this whole mess.


_What is it?_ Sauer snapped, not bothering to conceal his anger.


_I, uh__ Vassily recoiled. _Please be careful, sir. She_the inspector_isn_t a fool. This makes me 
nervous__


_Keep pestering me, and I_ll make you nervous. Chief, if this man makes a nuisance of himself, feel free 
to arrest him. He caused this whole fiasco._


_He did, did he?_ Chief Molotov glared at the Subcurator, who wilted and retreated down the passage.


_I_ll get Environment to seal us off._ Sauer was on the command channel again, as Molotov retrieved 
some wires and a detonator, and began cabling up the explosives. Finally, he retreated a few paces down 
the corridor and waited. _All clear,_ said Sauer. _Okay. Is everybody ready?_ He backed up until he 
stood beside Molotov. _Are you ready?_ The chief nodded. _Then go._
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There was a loud whip crack, and smoke jetted from the sides of the door. Then there was an 
unbelievably loud bang, and Sauer_s ears popped. The doorway was gone. Behind it, a rolling darkness 
dragged at him with icy claws, howling and sucking the others out into the void. Not a pinhole? He tried 
to grab at the nearest emergency locker door, but it was already slamming shut, and he was dragged 
down the corridor. Something thumped him hard between the shoulders, so hard that he couldn_t 
breathe. Everything was dark, and the pain was unbelievable. A dark cylinder spun before his eyes, and 
there was a ringing whistling in his ears. Plastic flapped against his face. Must have ripped my suit, he 
thought vaguely. I wonder what happened to... Thinking was hard work; he gave up and fell into a doze, 
which spiraled rapidly down into dreamless silence.


Vassily Muller, however, was luckier.
Bouncers


 The Admiral sat at his desk and squinted.


Commodore Bauer cleared his throat. _If I may have your attention, sir._


_Huh? Speak up-up, young man!_


_We enter terminal engagement range with the enemy tonight,_ Bauer said patiently. _We have to hold 
the final pre-approach session, sir, to articulate our immediate tactical situation. I need you to sign off on 
my orders if we are to conduct the battle._


_Very well._ Admiral Kurtz tried to sit up in his chair; Ro-bard_s helping hands behind his frail 
shoulders steadied him. _You have them?_


_Sir._ Bauer slid a slim folder across the polished oak. _If you would care to see__


_No, no._ The Admiral waved a frail hand. _You_re a sound man. You give-ive those natives jolly what 
for, won_t you?_


Bauer stared at his commander in mixed desperation and relief. _Yes, sir, I will,_ he promised. _We will 
be in lidar range of the planetary surface in another hour, then we should be able to establish their order 
of battle fairly accurately. Task Group Four will illuminate and take the first blood, while the heavies 
stay under emission control and punch out anything we can identify after we get within close broadside 
range. I have the destroyer squadrons ready to go after any fixed emplacements we find in GEO, and the 
torpedo boats are tasked with high-delta-vee intercepts on anything fleeing__
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_Give the natives what-ho,_ Kurtz said dreamily. _Make a hill of skulls in the town square. Volley fire 
by platoons. Bomb the bastards!_


_Yes, sir. If you_d be so good as to sign here__


Robard put the pen between the Admiral_s fingers, but they shook so much that his crimson signature on 
the orders was almost completely obscured by a huge blot, like fresh blood.


Bauer saluted. _Sir! With your permission I will implement these orders forthwith._


Kurtz looked up at the Commodore, his sunken eyes glowing for a split second with an echo of his 
former will. _Make it so! Victory is on-on our side, for our Lord will not permit his followers to come to
__ A look of vast puzzlement crossed his wrinkled face, and he slumped forward.


_Sir! Are you__ The Commodore leaned forward, but Robard had already pulled the Admiral_s chair 
back from the table.


_He_s been overwrought for days,_ Robard commented, reclining his charge_s chair. _I shall take him 
back to his bedchamber. As we approach the enemy__ He tensed. _Would sir please accept my 
apologies and call the ship_s surgeon?_


Half an hour later, ten minutes late for his own staff meeting, Commodore Bauer surged into the staff 
conference room. _Gentlemen. Please be seated._


Two rows sat before him, before the podium from which the Admiral commanding could address his 
staff and line officers. _I have a very grave announcement to make,_ he began. The folio under his right 
arm bent under the tension with which he gripped it. _The Admiral__ A sea of faces upturned before 
him, trusting, waiting. _The Admiral is indisposed,_ he said. Indisposed indeed, if you could call it that, 
with the ship_s surgeon in attendance and giving him a ten percent chance of recovery from the cerebral 
hemorrhage that had struck him down as he signed the final order. _Ahem. He has instructed me to 
proceed with our prearranged deployment, acting as his proxy while he retains overall control of the situ-
ation. I should like to add that he asked me to say, he knows every man will do his duty, and our cause 
will triumph because God is on our side._


Bauer shuffled his papers, trying to dismiss his parting image of the Admiral from his awareness; lying 
prone and shriveled on his bed, the surgeon and a loblolly boy conferring over him in low voices as they 
awaited the arrival of the ship_s chaplain. _First, to review the situation. Commander Kurrel. What word 
on navigation?_


Commander Kurrel stood. A small, fussy man who watched the world with sharp-eyed intelligence from 
behind horn-rimmed glasses, he was the staff navigation specialist. _The discrepancy is serious, but not 
fatal,_ he said, shuffling the papers in front of him. _Evidently Their Lordships_ projected closed 



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timelike path was more difficult to navigate than we anticipated. Despite improvements to the drive 
timebase monitors, a discrepancy of no less than sixteen million seconds crept in during our traversal_
which, I might add, is not entirely inexplicable, considering that we have made a grand total of sixty-
eight jumps spaced over some 139 days, covering a distance of just over 8053 light-years; a new and 
significant record in the history of the Navy._


He paused to adjust his spectacles. _Unfortunately, those sixteen mega-seconds lay in precisely the 
worst possible direction_timewise, into the domain within which the enemy occupied our territory. 
Indeed, we would have done little worse had we simply made the normal five-jump crossing, a distance 
of some forty-four light-years. A full pulsar map correlated for spin-down indicates that our temporal 
displacement is some three million seconds into the future of our origin point, when it is extrapolated to 
the destination_s world line. This is confirmed by classical planetary ephemeris measurements; 
according to local history, the enemy_the Festival_has been entrenched for thirty days._


A single intake of breath rattled around the table, disbelief and muted anger mingling. Commodore 
Bauer watched it sharply. _Gentlemen._ Silence resumed. _We may have lost the anticipated tactical 
benefits of this hitherto untried maneuver, but we have not entirely failed; we are still only ten days in 
the future of our own departure light cone, and using a con-ventional path we wouldn_t be arriving for 
another ten days or so. As we have not heard anything from signals intelligence, we may assume that the 
enemy, although entrenched, are not expecting us._ He smiled tightly. _An inquiry into the navigation 
error will be held after the victory celebrations._ That statement brought a brief round of _ayes_ from the 
assembly. _Lieutenant Kossov. General status report, if you please._


_Ah, yes, sir._ Kossov stood. _All ships report ready for battle. The main issues are engineering failures 
with the Kamchatka_they report that pressure has been restored to nearly all decks, now_and the 
explosion in the waste-disposal circuits of this ship. I understand that, with the exception of some cabins 
on Green deck, and localized water damage near the brig, we are back to normal; however, several 
persons are missing, including Security Lieutenant Sauer, who was investigating some sort of incident at 
the time of the explosion._


_Indeed._ Bauer nodded at Captain Mirsky. _Captain. Anything to report?_


_Not at this time, sir. Rescue parties are currently busy trying to recover those who were expelled from 
the ship during the decompression incident. I don_t believe this will affect our ability to fight. However, 
I will have a full and detailed report for you at your earliest convenience._ Mirsky looked grim; and well 
he might, for the Flag Captain_s ship was not expected to disgrace the fleet, much less to lose officers 
and crew to some sort of plumbing accident_if indeed it was an accident. _I must report, sir, that the 
Terran diplomat is among those listed as missing following this incident. Normally, I would conduct a 
search for survivors, but in the current situation__ His shrug was eloquent.


_Let me extend my sympathies, Captain; Lieutenant Sauer was a fine officer. Now, as to our 
forthcoming engagement, I have decided that we will deploy in accordance with attack plan F. You_ve 
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gamed it twice in exercises; now you get a chance to play it for real, this time against a live but 
indeterminate foe__ 
A bumping on the hull brought Martin to his senses. He blinked, hair floating in front of his eyes, and 
stared at the wall in front of him. It had slid past his eyes as the cold-gas thrusters tried to yank him into 
the ceiling, turning from solid gray into a sheet of blackness stippled with the glaring diamond dust of 
stars. The tides of the Lord Vanek had tried to yank his arms and legs off; he ached with a memory of 
gravity. Rachel lay next to him, her lips twitching as she communed with the lifeboat_s primitive 
brainstem. Huge gray clouds blocked the view directly overhead, waste water from the scuppers. As he 
looked, yellow beacons flashed in it, rescue workers searching for something.


_You alright?_ he croaked.


_Just a minute._ Rachel closed her eyes again and let her arms float upward until they almost touched 
the glassy overhead screen_which was much, much closer than Martin had originally thought. The 
capsule was a truncated cylinder, perhaps four meters in diameter at the base and three at the top, but it 
was less than two meters high; about the same volume as the passenger compartment of a hackney 
carriage. (The fuel tanks and motor beneath it were significantly larger.) It hummed and gurgled quietly 
with the rhythm of the life-support pipework, spinning very slowly around its long axis. _We_re making 
twelve meters per second. That_s good. Puts us a kilometer or so from the ship& damn, what_s going on 
back there?_


_Somebody on EVA? Looking for us._


_Seems like more than one of _em. Almost like a debris cloud._ Her eyes widened in horror as Martin 
watched her.


_Whatever happened, it happened after we left. If you_d triggered a blowout, we_d be surrounded by 
debris, wouldn_t we?_


She shook her head. _We should go back and help. We_ve got a__


_Bullshit. They_ve got EVA teams suited up all the time they_re at battle stations, you know that as well 
as I do. It_s not your problem. Let me guess. Someone tried to get into your cabin after we left. Tried a 
bit too hard, by the look of it._


She stared at the distant specks floating around the rear of the warship, a stubby cylinder in the middle 
distance. _But if I hadn_t__


_I_d be on my way to the airlock with my hands taped behind my back, and you_d be under arrest,_ he 
pointed out.



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Tired, cold, rational. His head ached; this capsule must be at a lower pressure than the ship. His hands 
were shaking and cold in reaction to the events of the past five minutes. Ten minutes. However long it 
had been. _You saved my life, Rachel. If you_d stop kicking yourself over it for a minute, I_d like to 
thank you._


_If there_s anyone out there and we leave them__


_The EVA crew will get them. Trust me on this, I figure they tried to blow their way into your cabin. 
Didn_t check that it wasn_t open to space first, and got blown a bit farther than they expected. That_s 
what warships have away teams and jolly boats for. What we should be worrying about now is hoping 
nobody notices us before the final event._


_Um._ Rachel shook her head: her expression relaxed slightly, tension draining. A certain darkness 
seemed to lift. _We_re still going to be entirely too close for my liking. We_ve got another cold-gas tank, 
that_ll give us an extra ten meters per second; if I use it now that means we_ll have drifted about 250 
kilometers from the ship before perigee, but before then, they should begin maneuvering and widen the 
gap considerably. We_ve got enough water and air for a week. I was figuring on a couple of full-on 
burns to take us downside while they_re busy paying attention to the enemy defenses, whatever they turn 
out to be. If there are any._


_I_m betting on eaters, shapers._ Martin nodded briefly, then held his head still as the world seemed to 
spin around him. Not spacesickness, surely? The thought of being cooped up in this cubbyhole for a 
week with a bad case of the squirts was too revolting to contemplate. _Maybe antibodies. Nothing the 
New Republic understands, anyway. Probably easy enough for us to avoid, but if you go in shooting__


_Yeah._ Rachel yawned.


_You look exhausted._ Concern filled him. _How the hell did you do that? I mean, back on the ship? It 
must take it out on you later__


_It does._ She bent forward and fumbled with a blue fishnet, down around what would have beien the 
floor of the cabin. Surprisingly homely containers of juice floated out, tumbling in free fall. She grabbed 
one and began to suck on the nozzle greedily. _Help yourself._


_Not that I_m ungrateful or anything,_ Martin added, batting a wandering mango and durian fruit cordial 
out of his face, _but_why?_ She stared at him for a long moment. _Oh,_ he said.


She let the empty carton float free and turned to face him. _I_d prefer to give you some kind of bullshit 
about trust and duty and so on. But._ She shrugged uncomfortably in her seat harness. _Doesn_t matter._ 
She held out a hand. Martin took it and squeezed, wordlessly.
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_You didn_t blow your mission,_ he pointed out. _You never had a mission out here. Not realistically, 
anyway, not what your boss, what was his name?_


_George. George Cho._


__George thought. Insufficient data, right? What would he have done if he_d known about the 
Festival?_


_Possibly nothing different._ She smiled bleakly at the empty juice carton, then plucked another from 
the air. _You_re dead wrong; I still have a job to do, if and when we arrive. The chances of which have 
just gone down by, oh, about fifty percent because of this escapade._


_Huh. Let me know if there_s anything I can do to help, alright?_ Martin stretched, then flinched with a 
remembered pain. _You wouldn_t have seen my PA would you? After__


_It_s bagged under your chair, along with a toothbrush and a change of underwear. I hit your cabin after 
they pulled you in._


_You_re a star,_ he exclaimed happily. He bent double and began fishing around in the cramped space 
under the control console. _Oh my__ Straightening up, he opened the battered gray book. Words and 
pictures swam across the pages in front of him. He tapped an imaginary keyboard; new images gelled. 
_You need any help running this boat?_


_If you want._ She drained the second container, thrust both the empties into the bag. _Yes, if you want. 
You_ve flown before?_


_Spent twelve years at L5. Basic navigation, no problem. If it_s got a standard life-support module, I can 
program the galley, too. Traditional Yorkshire habit, that, learning how to cook black pudding in free 
fall. The trick is to spin the ship around the galley, so that the sausage stays still while the grill rotates__


She chuckled; a carton of cranberry juice bounced off his head. _Enough already!_


_Alright._ He leaned back, the PA floating before him. Its open pages showed a real-time instrument 
feed from the lifeboat_s brain. (A clock in one corner spiraled down the seconds to Rachel_s first 
programmed deceleration burn, two thousand seconds before perigee.) Frowning, he scribbled glyphs 
with a stylus. _We should make it. Assuming they don_t shoot at us._


_We_ve got a Red Cross transponder. They_d have to manually override their IFF._


_Which they won_t do unless they_re really pissed off. Good._ Martin tapped a final period on the page. 
_I_d be happier if I knew what we were flying into, though. I mean, if the Festival hasn_t left anything in 
orbit__ They both froze.


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Something scraped across the top of the escape capsule, producing a sound like hollow metal bones 
rattling against a cage.
The rabbit snarled and hefted his submachine gun angrily. Ears back and teeth visible, he hissed at the 
cyborg.


Sister Seventh sat up and stared at the confrontation. Everyone else except Burya Rubenstein ducked; 
Burya stepped forward into the middle of the clearing. _Stop this! At once!_


For a long moment the rabbit stood, frozen. Then he relaxed his stiff-backed pose and lowered his gun 
muzzle. _He started it._


_I don_t care what he started: we have a job to do, and it does not require shooting each other._ He 
turned to the cyborg whom the rabbit had confronted. _What did you say?_


The revolutionary looked bashful; her fully extended claws retracted slowly. _Is not good extropian. 
This creature__ her gesture at the rabbit brought another show of teeth__believe cult of personality! Is 
counterrevolutionary dissident. Head-launch now! Headlaunch now!_


Burya squinted. Many of the former revolutionaries had gone overboard on the personal augmentations 
offered by the Festival, without realizing that it was necessary to modify their central nervous systems in 
order to run them. This led to a certain degree of confusion. _But, comrade, you have a personality, too. 
A sense of identity is a necessary precondition to consciousness, and that, as the great leaders and 
teachers point out, is the keystone upon which the potential for transcendence is built._


The cyborg looked puzzled. Mirror-finished nictitating membranes flashed across her eyeballs, 
reflecting inner thoughts. _But within society of mind there is no personality. Personality arises from 
society; therefore, individual can have no__


_I think you misunderstand the great philosophers,_ Rubenstein said slowly. _This is not a criticism, 
comrade, for the philosophers are, of their essence, very brilliant and hard to follow; but by _society of 
mind_, they were referring to the arrival of consciousness within the individual, arising from lesser pre-
conscious agents, not to society outside the person. Thus, it follows that being attached to one_s own 
consciousness is not to follow a cult of personality. Now, following another_s__ He broke off and 
looked sharply at the rabbit. _I don_t think we will pursue this question any further,_ he said primly. 
_Time to move on._


The cyborg nodded jerkily. Her fellows stood (or in one case, uncoiled) and shouldered their packs; 
Burya walked over to Sister Seventh_s hut and climbed inside. Presently the party moved off.
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_Not understand revolutionary sense,_ commented the Critic, munching on a sweet potato as the hut 
bounced along the dirt track behind the detachment from the Plotsk soviet. _Sense of identity 
deprecated? Lagomorph Criticized for affinity to self? Nonsense! How appreciate art without sense of 
self?_


Burya shrugged. _They_re too literal-minded,_ he said quietly. _All doing, no innovative thinking. They 
don_t understand metaphors well; half of them think you_re Baba Yaga returned, you know? We_ve been 
a, ah, stable culture too long. Patterns of belief, attitudes, get ingrained. When change comes, they are 
incapable of responding. Try to fit everything into their preconceived dogmas._ He leaned against the 
swaying wall of the hut. _I got so tired of trying to wake them up&_


Sister Seventh snorted. _What you call that?_ she asked, pointing through the door of the hut. Ahead of 
them marched a column of wildly varied cyborgs, partially augmented revolutionaries frozen halfway 
beyond the limitations of their former lives. At its head marched the rabbit, leading them into the forest 
of the partially transcended wilderness.


Burya peered at the rabbit. _I_d call it anything it wants. It_s got a gun, hasn_t it?_


By noon, the forest had changed beyond recognition. Some strange biological experiment had warped 
the vegetation. Trees and grass had exchanged leaves, so that now they walked on a field of spiny pine 
needles, while flat blades waved overhead; the leaves were piebald, black and green, with the glossy 
black spreading. Most disturbingly of all, the shrubbery seemed to be blurring at the edges, species 
exchanging phenotypic traits with unnatural promiscuous abandon. _What_s responsible for this?_ Burya 
asked Sister Seventh, during one of their hourly pauses.


The Critic shrugged. _Is nothing. Lysenkoist forestry fringe, recombinant artwork. Beware the 
Jabberwocky, my son. Are there only Earth native derivations in this biome?_


_You asking me?_ Rubenstein snorted. _I_m no gardener._


_Guesstimation implausible,_ Sister Seventh replied archly. _In any event, some fringeworks are 
recombinant. Non human-centric manipulations of genome. Elegant structures, modified for non-
purpose. This forest is Lamarckian. Nodes exchange phenotype-determinant traits, acquire useful ones._


_Who determines their usefulness?_


_The Flower Show. Part of the Fringe._


_What a surprise,_ Burya muttered.


At the next stop, he approached the rabbit. _How far?_ he demanded.
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The lagomorph sniffed at the breeze. _Fifty kilometers? Maybe more?_ It looked faintly puzzled, as if 
the concept of distance was a difficult abstraction.


_You said sixty kilometers this morning,_ Burya pointed out, _We_ve come twenty. Are you sure? The 
militia doesn_t trust you, and if you keep changing your mind, I may not be able to stop them doing 
something stupid._


_I_m just a rabbit._ Ears twitched backward, swiveling to either side to listen for threats. _Know where 
master is, was,


attacked by Mimes. Haven_t heard much from him since, you bet. Always know where he is, don_t know 
how_but can_t tell you how far. Like fucking compass in my head, mate, you understand?_


_How long have you been a rabbit?_ asked Rubenstein, an awful suspicion coming to mind.


The rabbit looked puzzled. _I don_t rightly know. I think I once__ He stopped talking. Iron shutters 
came down, blocking the light behind his eyes. _No more words. Find master. Rescue!_


_Who is your master?_ Burya demanded.


_Felix,_ said the rabbit.


_Felix& Politovsky?_


_Don_t know. Maybe._ Rabbit twitched his ears right back and bared his teeth. _Don_t want to talk! We 
there tomorrow. Rescue master. Kill the Mimes._ 
Vassily looked down at the stars wheeling beneath his feet. I_m going to die, he thought, swallowing 
acrid bile.


When he closed his eyes, the nausea went away a little. His head still hurt where he_d thumped it against 
the wall of the cabin on his way through; everything had blurred for a while, and he_d caught himself 
floating away on a cloud of pain. Now he had time to reflect, the pain seemed like an ironic joke; 
corpses didn_t hurt, did they? It told him he was still alive. When it stopped hurting_


He relived the disaster again and again. Sauer checking everybody was suited up. _It_s just a pinhole,_ 
someone said, and it had seemed so plausible_the woman had let some air out of her cabin to trip the 
decompression interlocks_and then the bright flash of the cutting cord proved him wrong. The howling 
maelstrom had reached out and yanked the lieutenant and the CPO right out of the ship, into a dark 
tunnel full of stars. Vassily had tried to catch a door handle, but the clumsy mitten hands of his 
emergency suit wouldn_t grip. They_d left him tumbling over and over like a spider caught in the 


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whirlpool when a bath plug is pulled.


Stars whirled, cold lights like daggers in the night outside his eyelids. This is it. I_m really going to die. 
Not going home


again. Not going to arrest the spy. Not going to meet my father and tell him what I really think of him. 
What will the Citizen think of me?


Vassily opened his eyes. The whirling continued; he must be spinning five or six times a minute. The 
emergency suit had no thrusters, and its radio had a pathetic range, just a few hundred meters_more 
than enough for shipboard use, perhaps enough to make a beacon if anyone came looking for him. But 
nobody had. He was precessing like a gyroscope; every couple of minutes, the ship swam briefly into 
view, a dark splinter outlined against the diamond dust of the heavens. There_d been no sign of a search 
party heading his way; just that golden fog of waste water spreading out around the ship, which had been 
over a kilometer away before he first saw it.


It looked like a toy; an infinitely desirable toy, one he could pin all his hopes of life and love and 
comradeship and warmth and happiness on_one that hung forever out of reach, dangling in a cold 
wasteland he couldn_t cross.


He glanced at the crude display mounted on his left wrist, watching the air dial tick down the hours left 
in his oxygen bottle. There was a dosimeter there, too, and this wasteland was hot, charged particles 
streaming through it at a rate that might suffice to prevent his mummified corpse decaying.


Vassily shuddered. Bitter frustration seized him: Why couldn_t I do something right? he wondered. He_d 
thought he was doing the right thing, enlisting in the Curator_s Office, but when he_d pridefully shown 
his mother the commission, her face had closed like a shop front, and she_d looked away from him in 
that odd manner she used when he_d done something wrong but she didn_t want to chastise him for it. 
He_d thought he was doing the right thing, searching the engineer_s luggage, then the diplomat_s_but 
look where it had taken him. The ship beneath his shoes was a splinter against the dark, several 
kilometers away and getting farther out of reach all the time. Even his presence aboard the ship_if he 
was honest, he_d have done better to stay at home, wait for the ship (and the engineer) to return to New 
Prague, there to resume his pursuit. Only the news from Rochard_s World, the place of exile, had filled 
him with a curious excitement-And if he hadn_t wanted to go along, he wouldn_t be here now, spinning 
in a condemned man_s cell of memories.


He tried to think of happier times, but it was difficult. School? He_d been bullied mercilessly, mocked 
because of who and what his father was_and was not. Any boy who bore his mother_s name was an 
object of mockery, but to have a criminal for a father as well, a notorious criminal, made him too easy a 
target. Eventually he_d pounded one bully_s face into pulp, and been caned for it, and they_d learned to 
avoid him, but it hadn_t stopped the whispering and sniggering in quiet corners. He_d learned to listen 
for that, to lie in wait after classes and beat the grins off their faces, but it hadn_t gained him friends.



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Basic training? That was a joke. A continuation of school, only with sterner taskmasters. Then police 
training, and the cadet_s college. Apprenticeship to the Citizen, whom he strived to impress because he 
admired the stern inspector vastly; a man of blood and iron, unquestionably loyal to the Republic and 
everything it stood for, a spiritual father whom he_d now managed to disappoint twice.


Vassily yawned. His bladder ached, but he didn_t dare piss_ not in this suit of interconnected bubbles. 
The thought of drowning was somehow more terrifying than the idea of running out of air. Besides, 
when the air went_wasn_t this how they executed mutinous spacers, instead of hanging?


A curious horror overtook him, then. His skin crawled; the back of his neck turned damp and cold. I 
can_t go yet, he thought. It_s not fair! He shuddered. The void seemed to speak to him. Fairness has 
nothing to do with it. This will happen, and your wishes are meaningless. His eyes stung; he squeezed 
them tightly shut against the whirling daggers of night and tried to regain control of his breathing.


And when he opened them again, as if in answer to his prayers, he saw that he was not alone in the deep.
Jokers


High in orbit above Rochard_s World, the Bouncers were stirring.


Two kilometers long, sleek and gray, each of them dwarfed the incoming naval task force. They_d been 
among the first artifacts the newly arrived Festival manufactured. Most of the Bouncers drifted in 
parking orbits deep in the Oort cloud, awaiting enemies closing along timelike attack paths deep in the 
future of the Festival_s world line; but a small detachment had accompanied the Festival itself, as it 
plunged deep into the inner system and arrived above the destination world.


Bouncers didn_t dream. Bouncers were barely sentient special units, tasked with the defense of the 
Festival against certain crude physical threats. For denial of service, decoherence attacks, and general 
spoofing, the more sophisticated antibodies could be relied on; for true causality-violation attacks, the 
Festival_s reality-maintenance crew would be awakened. But sometimes, the best defense is a big stick 
and a nasty smile_ and that was what the Bouncers were for.


The arrival of the New Republican task force had been noted four days earlier. The steady acceleration 
profiles of the incoming warships stuck out like a sore thumb; while His Majesty_s Navy thought in 
terms of lidar and radar and active sensors, the Festival used more subtle instruments. Localized minima 
in the outer system_s entropy had been noted, spoor of naked singularities, echoes of the tunneling effect 
that let the conventional starships jump from system to system. The failure of the incoming fleet to 
signal told its own story; bouncers knew what to do without being told.
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The orbiting Bouncer division began to accelerate. There were no fragile life-forms aboard these craft_
just solid slabs of impure diamond and ceramic superconductors, tanks of metallic hydrogen held under 
pressures that would make the core of a gas giant planet seem like vacuum, and high-energy muon 
generators to catalyze the exotic fusion reactions that drove the ships. Also, of course, the fractal bushes 
that were the Bouncers_ cargo: millions of them clinging like strange vines to the long spines of the 
ships.


Fusion torches providing thrust in accordance with Newtonian laws might seem quaint to the New 
Republican Admiralty, who had insisted on nothing but the most modern drive singularities and curved-
space engines for their fleet; but unlike the Admiralty, the Festival_s Bouncers had some actual combat 
experience. Reaction motors had important advantages for space-to-space combat, advantages that gave 
an unfair edge to a canny defender; a sensible thrust-to-mass ratio for one thing, and a low degree of 
observability for another. Ten-billion-tonne virtual masses made singularity-drive ships incredibly 
ponderous: although able to accelerate at a respectable clip, they couldn_t change direction rapidly, and 
to the Festival, they were detectable almost out to interstellar ranges. In contrast, a gimbaled reaction 
motor could change thrust vector fast enough to invite structural breakup if the ship wasn_t built to 
withstand the stresses. And while a fusion torch seen from astern was enough to burn out sensors at a 
million kilometers, the exhaust stream was very directional, with little more than a vague hot spot visible 
from in front of a ship.


With the much larger infrared emitter of the planet behind them, the Bouncers accelerated toward the 
New Republican first squadron at a bone-crushing hundred gees. Able to trian-gulate on the enemy by 
monitoring their drive emissions, the Bouncers peaked at 800 k.p.s., then shut down their torches and 
drifted silently, waiting for the moment of closest approach.
The operations room of the Lord Vanek was tense and quiet.


_Gunnery Two, ready a batch of six SEM-20s. Dial them all to one-zero-zero kilotonnes, tune the first 
two for maximum EMP, next three for spallation debris along main axis. Gunnery One, I want two D-4 
torpedoes armed for passive launch with a one-minute motor-on delay inlined into them._


Captain Mirsky sat back in his chair. _Prediction?_ he muttered in the direction of Commander Vulpis.


_Holding ready, sir. A bit disturbing that we haven_t seen anything yet, but I can give you full 
maneuvering power within forty seconds of getting a drive signal._


_Good. Radar. Anything new?_


_Humbly report nothing_s new on passive, sir._


_Deep joy._ They were two hours out from perigee. Mirsky had to fight to control his impatience. 



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Tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, he sat and waited for a sign, anything to indicate that there 
was life elsewhere in this empty cosmos. The fatal ping of a lidar illuminator glancing off the Lord 
Vanek_s stealthed hull, or the ripple of gravitomagnetic waves; anything to show that the enemy was out 
there, somewhere between the battle ship squadron and its destination.


_Any thoughts, Commander Vulpis?_


Vulpis_s eyes flickered around the fully manned stations in front of him. _I_d be a lot happier if they 
were making the effort to paint us. Either we_ve taken _em completely by surprise, or&_


_Thank you for that thought,_ Mirsky commented under his breath. _Marek!_


_Sir!_


_You_ve got a rifle. It_s loaded. Don_t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes._


_Sir?_ Vulpis stared at his Captain.


_I will be in my cabin if anything happens,_ Mirsky said lightly. _You have the helm, pending 
Commander Murametz_s or my own return. Call me at once if there_s any news._


Down in his stateroom, directly under the ops room, Mirsky collapsed into his chair. He sighed deeply, 
then poked at the dial of his phone. _Switchboard. My compliments to the Commodore and if he has a 
spare moment? Jolly good._ A minute later, the phonescreen dinged. _Sir!_


_Captain._ Commodore Bauer wore the expression of a very busy, very tired manager.


_I have a report for you on the, ah, annoyance. If you have time for it now._


Bauer made a steeple of his fingers. _If you can keep it short,_ he said gloomily.


_Not difficult._ Mirsky_s eyes glittered in the gaslight. _It was all the fault of my idiot of an intelligence 
officer. If he hadn_t managed to kill himself, I_d have him in irons._ He took a deep breath. _But he 
didn_t act alone. As it is, sir, in confidence, I would recommend a reprimand for my FO, Fleet 
Commander Murametz, if not formal proceedings_except that we are so close to the enemy that__


_Details, Captain. What did he do?_


_Lieutenant Sauer exceeded his authority by attempting to draw out the Terran spy_the woman, I mean
_by means of a faked trial. He somehow convinced Commander Murametz to cover him, damned error 
of judgment if you ask me: he had no job making a mess in diplomat territory. Anyway, he pushed too 
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hard, and the woman panicked. Ordinarily this would be no problem, but she somehow__ He coughed 
into his fist.


Bauer nodded. _I think I can guess the rest. Where is she now?_


Mirsky shrugged. _Outside the ship, with the dockyard contractor. Missing, probably suited up, don_t 
know where they are, don_t know what in hell they thought they were doing_the Procurator_s missing 
too, sir, and there_s an embarrassing hole in our side where there used to be a cabin._


Slowly, the Commodore began to smile. _I don_t think you need waste any time searching for them, 
Captain. If we found them, we_d only have to throw them overboard again, what? I suppose the 
Procurator had a hand in this kangaroo court, didn_t he?_


_Ah, I suppose so, sir._


_Well, this way we don_t have to worry about the civilians. And if they get a little sunburned during the 
engagement, no matter. I_m sure you_ll take care of everything that needs doing._


_Yes, sir!_ Mirsky nodded.


_So,_ Bauer said crisply, _that_s tied down. Now, in your analysis, we should be entering the enemy_s 
proximity defense sphere when?_


Mirsky paused for thought. _About two hours, sir. That_s assuming that our emcon was sufficient and 
the lack of active probes is a genuine indication that they don_t know we_re out here._


_I_m glad you added that qualifier. What_s your schedule for working up to stations?_


_We_re ready right now, sir. That is, there are some inessential posts that won_t lock down for another 
hour or so, but the ops crew and black gang are already on combat watch, and gunnery is standing by the 
weapons. The mess is due to send around some hot food; but in principle, we_re ready for action at a 
moment_s notice._


_Very good._ Bauer paused and glanced down at his desk. Rubbed the side of his nose with one long, 
bony finger. Then he glanced up. _I don_t like this silence, Captain. It stinks of a trap._
Martin and Rachel glanced up in reflexive terror, seeking the source of the noise.


Aboard a spacecraft, any noise from outside spells trouble_ big trouble. Their lifeboat was drifting 
toward Rochard_s World at well over solar escape velocity; a BB pellet stationary in their path would rip 
through them with the force of an antishipping missile. And while warships like the Lord Vanek could 


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carry centimeters of foamed diamond armor and shock bumpers to absorb spallation fragments, the 
lifeboat_s skin was thin enough to puncture with a penknife.


_Masks,_ snapped Rachel. A mess of interconnected trans-parent bags with complex seals and some sort 
of gas tank inside coiled from the console opposite Martin and bounced into his lap; for her part, she 
reached behind her seat and pulled out a hejmet. Yanking it on over her head, she let its rim melt into her 
leotard, dripping sealant down her neck. Crude icons blinked inside the visor. She breathed out, relieved, 
hearing the fan whine behind her right ear. Beside her, Martin was still stuffing himself into the 
transparent cocoon. She looked up. _Pilot. Topside sensor view, optical, center screen._


_Oh shit,_ Martin said indistinctly.


The screen showed an indistinct blur that moved against a backdrop of pinprick stars. As they watched, 
the blur receded, dizzyingly fast, and sharpened into a recognizable shape. Moving.


She turned and stared at Martin. _Whoever he is, we can_t leave him out there,_ he said.


_Not with a rescue beacon,_ she agreed grimly. _Pilot. Oxygen supply. Recalculate on basis of fifty 
percent increase in consumption. How does it affect our existing survival margin?_


An amber GANT chart flickered across the screen. _Bags of room,_ Martin commented. _What about 
landfall? Hmm._ He prodded at his PA. _I think we can make it,_ he added. _Mass ratio isn_t so much 
worse._


_Think or know?_ she replied pointedly. _If we get halfway down and run out of go-juice, it could put a 
real damper on this day-trip._


_I_m aware of that. Let me see& yeah. We_ll be okay, Rachel. Whoever designed this boat must have 
thought you_d be carrying one hell of a diplomatic bag with you. More like a wardrobe._


_Don_t say that._ She licked her lips. _Question two. We take him on board. How are we going to stop 
him if he decides to get in the way?_


_I think you get to use your feminine wiles on him,_ Martin deadpanned.


_I should have known you_d come up with something like that._ Wearily, she groped for the stun gun. 
_This won_t work in vacuum, you know? And it_s not a good idea to use the sucker in a confined space 
either._


_Talking of confined spaces._ Martin pointed to the rather basic mass detector display. _Twelve 
kilometers and drifting. We don_t want to be this close when they spin up for combat._ 
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_No, we don_t,_ Rachel agreed. _Okay. I_m as ready as I_ll ever be. You got confirmation on suit 
integrity? Once we vent, you won_t be able to move much._ Martin nodded, held up a balloon-bloated 
glove. Rachel cranked open her oxygen regulator and yawned, deliberately, hunting the roof of the cabin 
for an attachment point for her survival tether. _Okay. Pilot, EVA cycle. Prepare to depressurize cabin._ 
An alarm pinged in the operations room.


_Contact._ Lieutenant Kokesova leaned over his subordinate_s shoulder and stared at the gauges on his 
console. Lights blinked violet and green. _I say again, contact._


_Accepted._ Lieutenant Marek swallowed. _Comms, please signal captain to the ops room and condition 
red._


_Aye aye, sir._ A red light began to strobe by the doorway. _Any specifics?_ asked Marek.


_Tracking. I have a definite fusion source, came up about two-zero seconds ago. I thought at first it was 
a sensor malfunction but it_s showing blue-shifted Balmer lines, and it_s bright as hell_black body 
temperature would be in the five-zero-zero M-degree range. Traveling at well above local stellar escape 
velocity._


_Very good._ Marek tried to lean back in the command chair but failed, unable to force himself to relax 
that much. _Time to get a solution on it?_


_Any minute._ Lieutenant Kokesova, tech specialist, demonstrating his proficiency once again. _I_ll see 
if I can pickle some neutrinos for you._


The door opened, and the guard beside it came to attention. Lieutenant Marek spun around and saluted 
stiffly. _Sir!_


_What_s the situation?_


_Humbly report we have a provisional fix on one incoming, sir,_ said Marek. _We_re still waiting for a 
solution, but we have a blue-shifted fusion torch. Looks like we_re looking straight up their endplate 
mirror._


Mirsky nodded. _Very good, Lieutenant. Is there anything else?_


_Anything else?_ Marek was flustered. _Not unless something_s come up__


_Contact!_ It was the same sensor op. He looked up apologetically. _Begging your pardon, sir._
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_Describe._ It was the Captain_s turn.


_Second fusion source, about two M-kilometers above and south of the first. It_s tracking on a parallel 
course. I have a preliminary solution, looks like they_re vectoring to pass us at about one-zero-zero K-
klicks, decelerating from eight-zero-zero k.p.s. Time to intercept, two K-seconds._


_Any other activity?_ asked Mirsky.


_Activity, sir?_


_You know. Anomalous lateral acceleration. Jamming, comms traffic, luminous pink tentacles, 
whatever. Anything else?_


_No, sir._


_Well, then._ Mirsky stroked his beard thoughtfully. _Something doesn_t add up._


The door to the bridge opened again; Lieutenant Helsingus came in. _Permission to take fire control, 
sir?_


_Do it._ Mirsky waved his hand. _But first, riddle me this: Why by the Emperor_s beard can we see two 
drive torches, but nothing else?_


_Ah__ Marek shut up.


_Because,_ Commander Vulpis said over Mirsky_s shoulder, _it_s an entrapment, Captain._


_I don_t know how you could possibly imagine such a thing; they_re obviously inviting us to a dinner 
dance._ Mirsky grinned nastily. _Hmm. You think they ditched a bunch of mines before they fired up 
the torches?_


_Quite possibly._ Vulpis nodded. _In which case, we_re going to get hit in about__ he punched at his 
board__two-five-zero seconds, sir. We won_t be in range of anything you can cram on a mine for very 
long, but at this speed, even a cloud of sand would make a mess of us._


Mirsky leaned forward. _Guns. Point defense to automatic! Comms, please request an ack from the 
commodore_s staff, and from Kamchatka and Regina. Make sure they_re watching for mines._ He smiled 
grimly. _Time to see what they_re made of, I think. Comms, my compliments to the Commodore, and 
please say that I am requesting permission to terminate emission control for defensive reasons._


_Aye aye, sir._



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Emission controls were desperately important to a warship. Active sensors like radar and lidar required 
an echo from a foreign body to confirm its presence; but a sufficiently distant (or stealthed) body 
wouldn_t return an echo loud enough to pick up. Sending out the initial pulse gave away a ship_s 
position with great accuracy to any enemy who happened to be stooging around outside the return range 
but within passive detection range. By approaching Rochard_s World under emission control, the battle 
squadron had attempted to conceal themselves. The first ship to start actively radiating would make its 
presence glaringly obvious_-painting a target on itself in the process of lighting up the enemy.


_Sir?_


_Yes, Lieutenant Marek?_


_What if there are more than two ships out there? I mean, we carry probes and a shuttle. What if we_re 
up against some kind of larger force, and the two we can see are just a decoy?_


Captain Mirsky grinned humorlessly. _That_s not a possibility, Lieutenant, it_s a near certainty._


_Mine intercept waypoint one, four minutes._ Vulpis read off timings from the glowing nixie tubes 
before him. He glanced up at the command chair; Captain Mirsky, seated mere, nodded.


_Weapons, arm torpedoes, stand by on missiles. Remotes, status on red, blue, orange._ Mirsky was calm 
and collected, and his presence was a settling influence on the otherwise tense ops room crew.


The red telephone rang, jangling. Mirsky listened, briefly, then replaced the handset. _Radar. You have 
permission to radiate._


Radar One: _Going active now, sir. One-zero-second pulse-doppler train, four octave agile spread, go to 
jamming sequence alpha afterward. Decoys, sir?_


_You may launch decoys._ Mirsky folded his hands in his lap and gazed straight ahead at the main 
screen. Beneath the calm exterior, he was seriously worried; he was gambling his life and his ship_and 
all those aboard her_on a hypothesis about the nature of their pursuers. He wasn_t confident, but he was 
sufficiently well informed to make an educated guess about what was after them. Maybe the UN woman 
had the right idea, he thought gloomily. He glanced around the ops room. _Commander Helsingus. 
Status, please?_


The bearded gunnery officer nodded. _First four rounds loaded as per order, sir. Two self-propelled 
torpedoes with remote ignition patches on my board, followed by six passive-powered missiles rigged 
for EMP in a one-zero-degree spread. Laser grid programmed for tight point-defense. Ballistic point-
defense programs loaded and locked._
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_Good. Helm?_


_Holding steady on designated fleet approach pattern, sir. No evasion authorized by staff._


_Radar?_


Lieutenant Marek stood up. He looked tense and drawn, new lines forming around his eyes- _Humbly 
report, sir, active is on cold clamp. Passive shows nothing yet, except on infrared trace, but that should 
give us a fix in__he glanced down_ _about three minutes and counting. Decoy is overboard, running 
out to radiation rangepoint one._ The decoy_a small unpow-ered drone trailing behind the warship on a 
ten-kilometer-long tether_was preparing to radiate an EM signature identical to that of the ship: 
synchronized by interferometer with the active sensors aboard the Lord Vanek, it would help confuse 
any enemy sensors as to the exact position of the battlecruiser.


_Good._ Mirsky looked at the clock beside the main forward display, then glanced down at the 
workstation before him. Time for the checklist. _At waypoint one, be prepared to commence burn 
schedule one on my word. That_s four-zero gees continuous until we build up to six-zero k.p.s. then shut 
down, full damping, course three-six-zero by zero by zero on current navigation lock. Comms, notify all 
elements of squadron one. Guns, at time zero plus five seconds, be prepared to drop torps one and two, 
on my word. Comms, signal torpedo passive drop to Squadron One. Please confirm._


_Aye aye, sir. One and Two__Helsingus snapped a brass switch over__are armed for passive drop at 
time plus five._


_Good._


_Time to possible mine intercept, two minutes, sir._


_Thank you Nav Two, I can see the clock from here._ Mirsky gritted his teeth. _Helm, status._


_Program locked. Main engine is available for burn in five-zero seconds, sir._


_Radar, update._


_We should pick _em up in about two minutes, sir. No emissions__ Lieutenant Marek stopped. _What_s 
that?_


Radar Two: _Contact, sir! Lidar registers ping one. Waiting for__


An alarm shrilled. _Something just pinged us, sir,_ said Marek.
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Everybody except the radar techs were staring at Mirsky. He caught Helsingus_s eye and nodded. _Track 
beta._


_Aye aye, sir. Guns Two, track beta._ An almost imperceptible thump shuddered through the structure of 
the battle-cruiser as the main axial launch coil spat twenty tonnes of intricately machined heavy metal 
and fuel out through the nose of the ship. A second bump signaled the release of the second torpedo. 
Drifting unpowered, cold but for their avionics packages, they would wait behind when the Lord Vanek 
began to accelerate.


_Minus three-zero seconds,_ called Nav Two.


_Beg to report on the contact, sir,_ said Marek.


_Speak, Nav._


_We managed to get a look at the pulse train on the contact, and it looks, um, strange. Noisy, if you 
follow my meaning; they_ve done a good job of concealing their recognition signature._


_One-zero seconds._


_All posts switch to plan two,_ said Captain Mirsky. _Nav, pass that contact info on to Kamchatka and 
Ekaterina. Get anything you can off them._ He picked up the phone to notify his squadron captains of 
the impending change of plan.


_Aye aye, sir. Plan two burn commencing in five& two, one, now._ There was no change evident in the 
ops room, no shaking or shuddering or sudden leaden-limbed feeling of acceleration, but inside the guts 
of the starship, the extremal black hole twisted in sudden torment; the Lord Vanek fell forward at full 
military acceleration, four hundred meters per second squared, more than forty gees.


Another alarm trilled. Nav: _Full scan running._ Twenty gigawatts of laser light beamed out in all 
directions, a merciless glare bright enough to melt steel at a range of kilometers. Down in the bowels of 
the ship, heat exchanges glowed red-hot, flashing water into saturated high-pressure steam and venting it 
astern; this close to combat, running out the huge, vulnerable heat exchangers would be suicidal.


Guns: _Track beta launch commencing._ This time a real bump-and-grind made the ship shudder; the 
two missiles Helsingus had preloaded back when they_d been on the track alpha heading. As they 
hurtled ahead of the ship, a tenth of its total laser output focused up their tails, energizing their reaction 
mass.


This was the time of maximum danger, and Mirsky did his best to maintain a confident demeanor for the 
benefit of his crew. As the Commodore had put it in the privacy of his staff briefing room: _If they_re 
smart, they_ll send out just enough assets to make us reveal ourselves, then use whatever they_ve got in 


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orbit to dump a snowstorm of mines in our path. They know where we_re going; that_s half the problem 
of pinpointing us. When we start radiating they_ll get their solution_and it_ll be a question of how much 
pounding they can hand out, and how much we can take._


Attacking a fixed point_in this case, the low-orbit installations around a planet_was traditionally 
reputed to be the hardest task in deep-space warfare. The defenders could concentrate forces around it 
and rapidly bring defensive missile and laser screens to bear on anyone approaching; and if the attackers 
wanted to know just what they were attacking, they_d have to hang out high-energy signposts for the 
defenders to take aim on.


Seconds later, Mirsky breathed a quiet sigh of relief. _Point defense reports all quiet, sir. We_re inside 
their envelope, but they don_t seem to have dropped a minefield._ Drifting mines wouldn_t follow the 
deceleration curve of the enemy ships; they_d come slamming in way ahead of the warships that had 
dropped them overboard at peak velocity.


_That_s good,_ Mirsky murmured. His eyes focused on the two red points on the main plotting screen. 
They were still decelerating, painfully fast; almost as if they were aiming for a zero-relative-velocity 
slugging match. The Lord Vanek_s two missiles crawled toward them_in reality, boosting at a savage 
thousand gees, already over 1000 k.p.s. Presently, they shut down and coasted, retaining only enough 
reaction mass for terminal maneuvering when they got within ten seconds of the enemy. Ahead of the 
Lord Vanek, the glinting purple crosses of the unpowered torpedoes fell forward toward the enemy.


A minute later, Gunnery Two spoke up. _I_ve lost missile one, sir. I can ping it, but it doesn_t respond._


_Odd__ Mirsky_s brow furrowed; he glanced at the doomsday clock. The battlecruiser was closing on 
the destination at a crawl, just 40 k.p.s. The enemy was heading toward them at better than 200 k.p.s., 
decelerating, but their thrust was dropping off_if this continued, closing unpowered at 250 k.p.s., their 
paths would intersect in about 500 seconds, and they_d be within missile-powered flight range 200 
seconds before that. These long, ballistic shots weren_t expected to cause real damage, but if they came 
close, they would force the enemy to respond. But missile one had been more than 50,000 kilometers 
from the target_


_Humbly reporting, I_ve lost missile two as well, sir._


_That doesn_t make sense,_ muttered Helsingus. He glanced at the plot: a flurry of six more missiles, all 
fired from the Kamchatka, was closing in on their target: ranging shots all, with little chance of doing 
any damage, but_


Point Defense: _Sir, problem on deck one. Looks like_ humbly report a debris impact, sir, lost a 
scattering of eyeballs on the lidar grid but nothing broke the inner pressure hull._


_Looks like they_ve got bad dandruff,_ Mirsky commented. _But their point defense is working. 



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Torpedoes?_


_Not yet, sir,_ said Helsingus. _They_ve only got about five-zero-zero k.p.s. of delta-vee. Won_t be in 
position to light off for, ah, eight-zero more seconds._ Drifting toward the enemy almost 100 k.p.s. faster 
than the warship that had launched them, the torpedoes nevertheless had relatively short legs. Unlike the 
missiles, they had their own power plant, radar, and battle control computers, which made them valuable 
assets in event of an engagement_but they accelerated more slowly and had a lower total acceleration 
budget.


Radar Two: _Humbly report I think I spotted something, sir. About one-zero-zero milliseconds after 
missile two dropped off, detector three trapped a neutrino pulse; impossible to say for sure whether it 
came from the target or the missile, but it looked fairly energetic. Ah, no sign of any other radiation._


_Most peculiar,_ Mirsky murmured under his breath: an extreme understatement. _What_s our range 
profile?_


_Torpedo range in six-zero seconds. Active gunnery range in one-five-zero seconds; contact range in 
four-zero-zero seconds. Closest pass two-zero K-kilometers, speed on the order of two-six-zero k.p.s. 
assuming no maneuvering. Range to target is one-zero-five K-kilometers on my mark, now._


_Hah._ Mirsky nodded. _Gentlemen, this may look preposterous, but I have a problem with the way 
things are going. Helsingus, your two torpedoes_torch _em off straight at bogey one._


_But they_ll go ballistic short of__


Mirsky raised a warning hand. _Just do it. Helm, option three-two. Signal all ships._ Once again, he 
picked up the phone to the Commodore_s battle room to confer with his flag officer.


_Aye aye, sir._ The display centered on Rochard_s World shifted, rolling; the orange line representing 
Lord Vanek_s course, hitherto straight in toward the planet, began to bend, curving away from the planet. 
The red lines showing the course of the two incoming enemy ships were also bending, moving to 
intercept the Lord Vanek and her five sister ships; meanwhile the twelve dots of blue, representing the 
torpedoes the squadron had dropped overboard almost two minutes earlier, began to grow outward.


Live torpedoes were not something any starship captain wanted to get too close to. Unlike a missile_
essentially a tube full of reaction mass with a laser mirror in its tail and a warhead at the other end_a 
torpedo was a spacecraft with its own power plant, an incredibly dirty fission rocket, little more than a 
slow-burning atom bomb, barely under control as it spewed a horribly radioactive exhaust stream behind 
it. It was also the most efficient storable-fuel rocket motor available, without the complexity of fusion 
reactors or curved-space generators. Before the newer technologies came along, early-twenty-first-
century pioneers had used it for the first crewed interplanetary missions.
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_Fish are both running, sir. Ours are making nine-six and one-one-two gees respectively; general 
squadron broadside averages ninety-eight. They should burn out and switch to sus-tainer in one-zero-
zero seconds and intersect bogeys one and two if they stay on current course in about one-five-zero 
seconds. Guidance pack degradation should still be under control by then, we should be able to do 
terminal targeting control._


_Good,_ Mirsky said shortly. Heading in on the Lord Vanek on a reciprocal course, the enemy ships 
might well be able to start shooting soon: but the torpedoes would get in the way nicely, messing up the 
clear line of sight on the Lord Vanek while threatening them. Which was exactly what Mirsky was 
hoping for.


There was something extremely odd about the two ships, he noted. They weren_t following any kind of 
obvious tactical doctrine, just accelerating in a straight line, pulsing with lidar as they came_homing in 
blindly. There was no sign of sneaky moves. They_d lurched out and begun pinging away like drunken 
fools playing a barroom computer game, throwing away the advantage of concealment that they_d held. 
Whoever was driving those birds is either a fool or_


_Radar,_ he said softly. _Saturation cover forward and down. Anything there?_


_I_ll look._ Marek gulped, getting the Captain_s drift immediately. If these two were hounds, flushing 
their game out of hiding, something would be drifting in quietly from ahead. Not mines dropped at peak 
velocity, but something else. Maybe something worse, like a brace of powered torpedoes. _Um, humbly 
suggest optical scan as well, sir?_


_It can_t fix us for them any better,_ Mirsky grunted. _They know where we are._


Radar Two: _Sir, nothing on mass. Nothing within two light-seconds ahead or down. Small amount of 
organic debris_we passed through a thin cloud of it back at waypoint one, picked up a couple of 
scratches on the nose_but no sign of escorts or weapons._


_Sir, we are all clear ahead,_ said Lieutenant Marek.


_Well, keep looking then._ Mirsky looked down at his hands. They were tightly entwined in his lap, 
veins standing out on their backs, old hands, the fine hair at his wrists turning gray. _How did I get this 
far?_ he asked himself quietly.


His workstation pinged. _Incoming call for you, sir,_ it said.


_Damn._ He punched up the image. It was Commodore Bauer.


_I_m busy,_ he said tersely. _Torpedo run. Can it wait?_
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_I don_t think so. There is something very flaky going on. Why do you think they aren_t shooting?_


_Because they_ve already shot at us, but the bullets haven_t arrived yet,_ Mirsky said through gritted 
teeth.


Bauer stared at his Flag Captain for a moment, wordless agreement written on his face. Then he nodded. 
_Get us the hell out of here, Captain. I_ll tell the rest of the squadron to follow your lead. Just give me as 
much delta-vee as you can between us and those_whatever._


Radar Two: _Time to torpedo closest approach, eight-zero seconds. Sir, there are no signs that wolf one 
or two has seen the fish. But they_re well within sensor range if they_re using something equivalent to 
our G-90s._


_Understood._ Mirsky paused. Something was nagging at the back of his mind; a nasty sense of having 
forgotten something. That neutrino pulse, that was it. Neutrinos meant strong nuclear force. So why no 
flash? _Guns, load up twelve SEM-20s for tail drop at shortest intercept course. Assuming they come in 
from behind._ He glanced back at his screen, but the commodore had hung up on him without waiting.


_Aye aye. Birds loaded._ Helsingus seemed almost happy, twitching levers and adjusting dials. It was 
the nearest thing to pleasure Mirsky remembered the dour gunnery officer showing since his dog had 
disappeared. _Ready at minus one-zero seconds._


_Helm._ Mirsky paused. _Prepare to execute plan bugout on my command._


An alarm warbled at the radar desk. _Beg to report sir,_ began the petty officer on duty, face whey-pale: 
_I_ve lost Prince Vaclav._


Faces looked up in shock all around the room. _What do you mean, lost it?_ snapped Vulpis, bypassing 
the operational pecking order. _You didn_t just lose a battlecruiser__


_Sir, she_s stopped responding. Stopped accelerating, too. I can see her on plot, but there_s something 
wrong with her__ The radar operator paused. _Sir, I can_t get an IFF heartbeat out of her. And she_s 
reflecting way too much energy_something must have ripped the front off her emission control 
coating._


_Helm. Execute plan bugout,_ Mirsky snapped in the sudden silence that followed the report.


_Aye aye, sir, bugout it is._ Lieutenant Vulpis began flipping switches in a frenzy.


A fundamental problem with combat in space was that if things began to go wrong, they could do so 
with dizzying speed_and to make matters worse, catastrophe would only become visible to a ship that 
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was so deep into the enemy_s powered-missile envelope that escape was nearly impossible. Mirsky had 
gamed this situation repeatedly with Bauer and the other fleet captains; plan bugout was the result. It 
was a lousy plan, the only thing to commend it being the fact that all the alternatives were worse. 
Something had just reached out across ninety thousand kilometers and bushwhacked a battlecruiser. This 
wasn_t entirely unexpected; they were here to fight, after all. But they hadn_t seen any missiles, only 
their own birds and the debris from the blow-out drifting in ahead of them, and the fine drizzle of 
organic _dandruff_ from the enemy ships_and in active mode, the Lord Vanek_s lidar could pin down a 
missile at almost a light-second, three hundred thousand kilometers. If the enemy had a beam weapon of 
some kind that was capable of trashing a capital ship at that range, nearly two orders of magnitude 
greater than their own point-defense energy weapons, they were already too damned close. All they 
could do was turn side-on and go to emergency thrust, generating a vector away from the enemy before 
they could respond.


Radar Two: _Torpedo intersect in four-zero seconds. Wolves one and two still tracking on course, 
acceleration down to one gee._


_Well, that_s nice to know. Mr. Helsingus, I would appreciate it if you_d be so good as to prepare a 
warm welcome for anything our friends try to send after us. I don_t know just what they threw at Prince 
Vaclav, but I don_t propose to give them time to show us. And if you gentlemen will excuse me for a 
minute, I have a private call to make._ Mirsky pulled on his headset and pushed down on the antisound 
lever. _Comms, get me the Commodore._ His earpieces clicked. _Sir?_


_Have you started bugout?_


_Yes, sir. The Prince Vaclav__


The screech of the decompression alarm cut through his ears like a knife. _By the numbers, damn you!_ 
yelled Mirsky. _Suit up!_ He yanked off his headset. Officers and men dashed to the emergency locker 
at the rear of the compartment and pulled their gear on, stumbled back to man posts while their backups 
followed suit. The ops room had already cycled onto its emergency supply, along with all the main nerve 
centers of the ship, but Mirsky wasn_t one to take chances. Not that being suited up would count for 
much protection in ship-to-ship combat, but decompression was another threat entirely, one dreaded 
aboard any starship almost as much as fire or Hawking radiation. _Damage control, talk to me,_ he 
grunted. A passing CPO held out a suit for him; he stood up and pulled it on slowly, making sure to 
double-check its status display.


_Humbly report a big pressure drop on A deck, sir. Critical decompression, we_re still venting air. Ah, 
humbly report there appears to be some damage to lidar emitter quadrant three._


_You make sure everybody_s buttoned down. Guns, Radar, where do we stand?_


Radar One: _Torpedo intercept in one-five seconds. Bogey holding course, due to pass inside our 



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terminal engagement envelope for two-zero seconds in one-two-zero then drop behind._


Helsingus nodded. _All tubes loaded,_ he reported.


_Damage Control: Patch into life support and find out what the hell is loose._


_Got it already, sir. I_ve got some kind of contamination, source inside life support one: weird organic 
molecules, low concentration. Also, er, localized outbreaks of fire. It_s mostly around A deck. The lidar 
grid damage is localized, around where the debris strike happened. Ah, I have one-six crew marked 
down on the status board. A deck segment two is open to space, and they were all inside at the time._


Gunnery: _Five seconds to torpedo terminal boost phase._


_Let_s dazzle _em now,_ said Helsingus. _Grid to full power._


_Aye aye, sir, full multispectral shriek in progress._


Helsingus leaned sideways and muttered into his headset; Radar One muttered back. There was some 
mutual adjustment of switches as radar relinquished priority control on the huge phased-array laser grid 
that coated the warship, then Helsingus and his two assistants began entering instructions.


The Lord Vanek boosted at right angles to the two enemy craft, accelerating away from the two silent 
pursuers on a ripple of warped space-time. The two saltwater-fission torpedoes, bright sparks behind, 
accelerated toward the enemy warships like a pair of nuclear fireworks. Now the tight-packed mosaic of 
panels that covered much of the Lord Vanek_s cylindrical bulk began to glow with the intense speckled 
purity of laser light. A thousand different colors appeared, blending and clashing and forming a single 
brilliant diadem of light; megawatts, then gigawatts of power surged out, the skin of the ship burning 
like a directional magnesium flare. The glow built up, and most of it flowed out in two tightly controlled 
beams, intense enough to cut through steel plate like a blowtorch at a range of a thousand kilometers.


Simultaneously, the flight of torpedoes throttled up to maximum thrust, weaving erratically as they 
closed the final three thousand kilometers to the onrushing enemy ships. Hurtling in ten times faster than 
an ICBM of the pre-space age, the rockets jinked and wove to avoid the anticipated point-lasers, relying 
on passive sensors and sophisticated antispoofing algorithms to cut through the expected jamming and 
coun-termeasures of the enemy ships. They took barely thirty seconds to close the distance, and found 
the enemy point defense to be almost nonexistent.


From the ops room of the Lord Vanek, the engagement was undramatic. One of the pursuer points 
simply disappeared, replaced by an expanding shell of spallation debris and hot gases energized by an 
incandescent point far brighter than any conventional fission explosion; with the ship_s hull blown wide 
and drive mountings shattered, the antimatter bottle spilled its contents into a soup of metallic hydrogen, 
triggering a mess of exotic subnuclear reactions. But only one of the torpedoes struck home; the other 



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eleven winked out.


_Humbly report got more neutrino pulses, sir,_ called the radar op. _Not from the one we nailed__


Mirsky stared at the main screen. _Damage control. What about A deck?_ he demanded. _Helm. 
Everyone else running on bugout?_


_A deck is still empty to space, sir. I sent a control team, but they aren_t reporting back. Pressure_s 
dropping in the number four recycler run, no sign of external venting. Um, I_m showing a major power 
drain on the grid, sir, we_re losing megawatts somewhere._


_Bugout message was sent a minute ago, sir. So far they_re all__ Vulpis cursed. _Sir! Kamchatka_s 
gone!_


_Where, dammit?_ Mirsky leaned forward.


_Another IFF drop-off,_ called radar. _From__ The man paused, eyes widening with shock. 
_Kamchatka,_ he concluded. On the main plot at the front of the bridge, the Imperial ships_ vectors were 
lengthening, up to 300 k.p.s. now and creeping up steadily. The target planet hung central, infinitely far 
out of reach.


Mirsky glanced at his first officer. Ilya stared back apprehensively.


_With respect, sir, they_re not fighting any way we know__


Red lights. Honking sirens. Damage Control shouting orders into his speaking horn. _Status!_ roared 
Mirsky. _What_s going on, dammit?_


_Losing pressure on B deck segment one, sir! No readings anywhere on segment three from A down to 
D deck. Big power fluctuations, distribution board fourteen compartment D-nine-five is on fire. Ah, I 
have a compartment open to space and another compartment on fire in B-four-five. I can_t get through to 
damage control on B deck at all and all hell has broken loose on C deck__


_Seal off everything above F,_ ordered Mirsky, his face white. _Do it now! Guns, prep decoys two and 
three for launch__


But he was already too late to save his ship; because the swarm of bacteria-sized replicators that had 
slammed into A deck at 600 k.p.s._cushioned in a husk of reinforced diamond_and eaten their way 
down through five decks into the ship, were finally arriving in the engineering spaces. And eating, and 
breeding& 
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Vassily's voice quavered with a nervous, frightened edge that would have been funny under other 
circumstances. _I am arresting you for sabotage, treason, unlicensed use of proscribed technologies, and 
giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the New Republic! Surrender now, or it will be the worse for 
you!_


_Shut up and grab the back of that couch unless you want to walk home. Martin, if you wouldn_t mind 
giving him a leg down_that_s right. I need to get this hatch shut__


Rachel glanced around disgustedly. There was a beautiful view; stars everywhere, a terrestrial planet 
hanging huge and gibbous ahead, like a marbled blue-and-white hallucination_ and this idiot child 
squawking in her ear. Meanwhile, she was clinging with both hands to the underside of the capsule lid, 
and with both feet to the pilot_s chair, trying to hold everything together. When she_d poked her head up 
through the hatch and seen who was clinging to the low-gain antenna, she_d had half a mind to duck 
back inside again and fire up the thrusters to jolt him loose; a stab of blind rage made her grind her teeth 
together so loudly a panicky Martin had demanded to know if her suit had sprung a leak. But the red 
haze of anger faded quickly, and she_d reached out and grabbed Vassily_s arm, and somehow shoved his 
inflated emergency suit in through the hatch.


_I_m coming down,_ she said. Clenching her thighs around the back of the chair, she clicked the release 
catch on the hatch and pulled it down as far as she could, then locked it in position. The cabin below her 
was overfull: Vassily obviously didn_t have a clue about keeping himself out of the way, and Martin was 
busy trying to squirm into the leg well of his seat to make room. She yanked on her lifeline, dropped 
down until she was standing on the seat of her chair, then grabbed the hatch and pulled it the rest of the 
way shut. She felt the solid ripple-click of a dozen small catches locking home on all four sides.


_Okay. Autopilot, seal hatch, then repressurize cabin. Martin, not over there_that_s the toilet, you really 
don_t want to open that_yes, that_s the locker you want._ Air began hissing into the cabin from vents 
around the ceiling; white mist formed whirlpool fog banks that drifted across the main window. _That_s 
great. You, listen up: you aren_t aboard a Navy ship here. Shut up, and we_ll give you a lift downside; 
keep telling me I_m under arrest, and I might get pissed off enough to push you overboard._


_Urp._


The Junior Procurator_s eyes went wide as his suit began to deflate around him. Behind the seats, Martin 
grunted as he rifled through the contents of one of the storage lockers. _This what you want?_ He punted 
a rolled-up hammock at Rachel. She rolled around in her seat and stuck one end of it to the wall behind 
her, then let it unroll back toward Martin. He drifted out of the niche, narrowly avoided kicking their 
castaway in the head, and managed to get the other end fastened. _You. Out of that suit, into this 
hammock. As you may have noticed, we don_t have a lot of room._ She pressed the release stud, and her 
helmet let go of her suit and drifted free; catching it, she shoved it down behind her seat, under the 
hammock. _You can unsuit now._
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Martin peeled halfway out of his own suit, keeping his legs and lower body in the collapsed plastic bag. 
Vassily floated out of his niche, struggling with the flaccid bladder of his helmet: Martin steered him 
into the hammock and managed to get his head out of the bag before he managed to inhale it. _You_re
__ Vassily stopped. _Er, thank you._


_Don_t even think about hijacking us,_ Rachel warned darkly. _The autopilot_s slaved to my voice, and 
neither of us particularly wants to take our chances with your friends._


_Er._ Vassily breathed deeply. _Um. That is to say__ He looked around wildly. _Are we going to die?_


_Not if I have anything to do with it,_ Rachel said firmly.


_But the enemy ships! They must be__


_It_s the Festival. Have you got any idea what they are?_ asked Martin.


_If you know anything about it, you should have told the Admiral_s staff. Why didn_t you tell them? Why
__


_We did tell them. They didn_t listen,_ Rachel observed.


Vassily visibly struggled to understand. Ultimately, it was easier to change the subject than think the 
unthinkable. _What are you going to do now?_


_Well._ Rachel whistled tunelessly through her front teeth. _Personally, I_d like to land this lifeboat 
somewhere near, say, Novy Petrograd, book the honeymoon suite in the Crown Hotel, fill the bathtub 
with champagne, and lie in it while Martin feeds me caviar on black bread. However, what we actually 
do next really depends on the Festival, hmm? If Martin is right about it__


_Believe it,_ Martin emphasized.


__the Navy force is going to quietly disappear, never to be seen again. That_s what comes of assuming 
that everyone plays by the same set of rules. We_re just going to drift on through, then fire up our motor 
for a direct landing, meanwhile squawking that we_re neutral at the top of our voices. The Festival isn_t 
what your leaders think it is, kid. It_s a threat to the New Republic_they got that much right_but they 
don_t understand what kind of threat it is, or how to deal with it. Going in shooting will only make it 
respond in kind, and it_s better at it than your boys._


_But our Navy is good!_ Vassily insisted. _They_re the best navy within twenty light-years! What would 
you anarchists do? You don_t even have a strong government, much less a fleet!_
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Rachel chuckled. After a moment, Martin joined in. Gradually their laughter mounted, deafening in the 
confined space.


_Why are you laughing at me?_ Vassily demanded indignantly.


_Look._ Martin hunched around in his chair until he could lock eyes with the Procurator. _You_ve 
grown up with this theory of strong government, the divine right of the ruling class, the thwack of the 
riding crop of firm administration on the bare buttocks of the urban proletariat and all that. But has it 
occurred to you that the UN system also works, and has maybe been around for twice as long as the New 
Republic? There_s more than one way to run a circus, as I think the Festival demonstrates, and rigid 
hierarchies like the one you grew up in are lousy at dealing with change. The UN system, at least after 
the Singularity and the adoption of the planetary uncon-stitution__ He snorted.


_Once, the fringe anarchists used to think the UN was some kind of quasi-fascist world government. 
Back in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when strong government was in fashion because the 
whole planetary civilization was suffering from future shock, because it was approaching a Singularity. 
After that passed, though_well, there weren_t a lot of viable authoritarian governments left, and the 
more rigid they were, the less well they could deal with the aftereffects of losing nine-tenths of their 
populations overnight. Oh, and the cornucopiae: it can_t be pleasant to run a central bank and wake up 
one morning to discover ninety percent of your taxpayers are gone and the rest think money is obsolete._


_But the UN is a government__


_No it isn_t,_ Martin insisted. _It_s a talking shop. Started out as a treaty organization, turned into a 
bureaucracy, then an escrow agent for various transnational trade and standards agreements. After the 
Singularity, it was taken over by the Internet engineering task force. It_s not the government of Earth; 
it_s just the only remaining relic of Earth_s governments that your people can recognize. The bit that 
does the common-good jobs that everyone needs to subscribe to. World-wide vaccination programs, 
trade agreements with extrasolar governments, insurer of last resort for major disasters, that sort of 
thing. The point is, for the most part, the UN doesn_t actually do anything; it doesn_t have a foreign 
policy, it_s just a head on a stick for your politicians to rant about. Sometimes somebody or another uses 
the UN as a front when they need to do something credible-looking, but trying to get a consensus vote 
out of the Security Council is like herding cats._


_But you_re__ Vassily paused. He looked at Rachel.


_I told your Admiral that the Festival wasn_t human,_ she said tiredly. _He thanked me and carried right 
on planning an attack. That_s why they_re all going to die soon. Not enough flexibility, your people. 
Even trying to run a minor_and hor-rendously illegal_causality-violation attack wasn_t that original a 
response._ She sniffed. _Thought they_d turn up a week before the Festival, by way of that half-assed 
closed timelike path _to avoid mines and sleepers._ As if the Eschaton wouldn_t notice, and as if the 
Festival was just another bunch of primitives with atom bombs._
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A red light winked on the console in front of her. _Oh, look,_ said Martin.


_It_s beginning. Better strap yourself in_we_re way too close for comfort._


_I don_t understand. What_s going on?_ asked Vassily.


Martin reached up to adjust a small lens set in the roof of the cabin, then glanced over his shoulder. _Can 
you juggle, kid?_


_No. Why?_


Martin pointed at the screen. _Spine ships. Or antibodies. Subsentient remotes armed with, um, you 
don_t want to know. Eaters and shapers and things. Nasty hungry little nanoma-chines. Gray goo, in 
other words._


_Oh._ Vassily looked ill. _You mean, they_re going to__


_Come out to meet the fleet and take a sniff, by the look of it. Unfortunately, I don_t think Commodore 
Bauer realizes that if he doesn_t make friendly noises, they_re all going to die; he still thinks it_s a battle, 
the kind you fight with missiles and guns. If they do decide to talk_well, the Festival is an in-fovore. 
We_re perfectly safe as long as we can keep it entertained and don_t shoot at it. Luckily, it doesn_t 
understand humor; finds it fascinating, but doesn_t quite get it. As long as we keep it entertained it won_t 
eat us; we may even be able to escalate matters to a controlling intelligence that can let us off the 
Bouncers_ hook and let us land safely._ He reached into the bag of equipment he_d dredged out of the 
locker behind the seats. _Ready to start broadcasting, Rachel? Here, kid, put this on. It_s showtime._


The red nose floating in the air in front of Vassily_s face seemed to be mocking him.
The Telephone Repairman 


Sitting in a highly eccentric polar orbit that drifted almost sixty thousand kilometers above the provincial 
township of Plotsk, the Festival_s prime node basked fat and happy at the heart of an informational 
deluge. The pickings in this system were sparse compared to some of the previous ports of call on its 
itinerary, but Rochard_s World was still unusual and interesting. The Festival had chanced upon few 
primitive worlds in its travel, and the contrast with its memories of them was great.


Now, as the first starwisps departed_aimed forward at new, unvisited worlds, and back along its track 
to the hot-cores of civilization where it had stopped before_the Festival took stock. Events on the 
ground had not gone entirely satisfactorily; while it had accrued a good body of folklore, and not a little 



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insight into the social mores of a rigidly static society, the information channels on offer were 
ridiculously sparse, and the lack of demand for its wares dismaying. Indeed, its main source of data had 
been the unfortunate minds forcibly uploaded by some of the more dissolute, not to say amoral, fringe 
elements. The Critics, with their perennial instinct to explain and dissect, were moaning continuously_
something about the colony succumbing to a disastrous economic singu-larity_but that sort of thing 
wasn_t the Festival_s problem. It would soon be time to move on; the first tentative transmissions from 
Trader clades had been detected, burbling and chirping in the Oort cloud, and the job of opening up 
communications with this civilization was nearly done.


Each of the hundreds of starwisps the high-orbit launchers were dispatching carried one end of a causal 
channel: a black box containing a collection of particles in a quantum-entangled state with antiparticles 
held by the Festival. (By teleporting the known quantum state of a third particle into one of the 
entangled particles, data could be transmitted between terminals infinitely fast, using up one entangled 
quantum dot for each bit.) Once the starwisps arrived at their destinations, the channels would be hooked 
into the communications grid the Festival_s creators had set out to construct. No longer limited by the 
choke point of the Festival_s back channel to its last destination, the population of Rochard_s World 
would be exposed to the full information flow of the polity it belonged to.


Out toward Sputnik, the Festival took note of some activity by Bouncers. They seemed to be clearing up 
a small mess: a handful of slow, inefficient ships that had approached without warning and opened fire 
on the Bouncers with primitive energy weapons. The Bouncers responded with patient lethality; 
anything that menaced them died. Some small craft slipped by, evidently not involved in the assault; a 
number of the second wave broke and ran, and they, too, were spared. But for the most part, the Festival 
ignored them. Anyone so single-mindedly hostile as to attack the Festival was hardly likely to be a good 
source of information: as for the others, it would have a chance to talk to them when they arrived.
The air in the lifeboat was foul with a stench of sweat and stale farts. Rachel sat hunched over her 
backup console, staring unblinkingly at the criticality monitors while the rocket howled and rumbled 
beneath them: while a single output jitter might kill them before she could even blink, it made her feel 
better to go through the motions. Besides, she was totally exhausted: as soon as they touched down she 
had every intention of sleeping for three days. It had been fourteen hours since they escaped from the 
Lord Vanek; fourteen hours on top of a day and a sleepless night before. If she stopped making the effort 
to stay awake_


_Riddle this interrogative._ The creature on the screen snapped its tusks, red light gleaming off fangs 
like blood. _Why not you Bouncers accept?_


_I couldn_t possibly place myself further in their debt,_ she said as smoothly as she could manage. 
Neutron flux stable at ten kilobecquerels per minute, warned her implants. A hundred chest X rays, in 
other words, sustained for four hours during the deceleration cycle. The lifeboat_s motor shuddered 
beneath her like something alive. Vassily_s hammock swung behind her. He_d fallen asleep surprisingly 
fast once she convinced him they weren_t going to throw him overboard, exhausted by the terror of four 


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hours adrift spent waiting to die. Martin snored softly in the dim red light of the comms terminal, 
similarly tired. Nothing like learning you aren _t about to die to make you relax, she thought. Which was 
why she couldn_t sleep yet_


_No debt for payment in kind,_ said the strange creature. _You bear much reduction of entropy._


_Your translation program is buggy,_ she muttered.


_Is so interrogative? Suppose, we. Reiterate and paraphrase: question why you do not attack Bouncers 
like other ships?_


Rachel tensed. _Because we are not part of their expedition,_ she said slowly. _We have different 
intentions. We come in peace. Exchange information. We will entertain you. Is that understood?_


_Ahum. Skreee__ the thing in the screen turned its head right around to look over its shoulder. _We you 
understand. Will Bouncers of notify peaceful intent. You part are not of not-old administrative 
institution territoriality of planet?_


_No, we_re from Earth._ Martin stopped snoring: she glanced sideways. One eye was open, watching her 
tiredly. _Original world of humans,_ she clarified.


_Know about Dirt. Know about you-mans, too. Information valuable, tell all!_


_In due course,_ Rachel hedged, acutely aware of the thickening air in the capsule. _Are we safe from 
the Bouncers?_


_Am not understanding,_ the thing said blandly. _We are will notify Bouncers of your intent. Is that not 
safety?_


_Not exactly._ Rachel glanced at Martin, who frowned at her and shook his head slightly. _If you notify 
the Bouncers that we are not attacking them, will that stop them from eating us?_


_Ahum!_ The creature blinked at her. _Maybe not._


_Well, then. What will stop the Bouncers from attacking us?_


_Skree_why worry? Just talk._


_I_m not worrying. It_s just that I am not going to tell you everything you want to know about me until I 
am no longer at risk from the Bouncers. Do you understand that?_
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_Ha-frumph\ Not entertaining us. Humph. A-okay, Bouncers will not eat you. We have dietary veto over 
theys. Now tell all?_


_Sure. But first__ She glanced at the autopilot monitor. _We_re running low on breathable air. Need to 
land this ship. Is that possible? Can you tell me about conditions on the ground?_


_Sure._ The creature bounced its head up-down in a jerky parody of a nod. _You not problem, land. May 
find things changed. Best dock here first. We Critics._


_I_m looking for a man,_ Rachel added, deciding to push her luck. _Have you installed a 
communications net? Can you locate him for us?_


_May exist. Name?_


_Rubenstein. Burya Rubenstein._ A noise behind her; Vass-ily rolling over, his hammock swinging in 
the shifting inertial reference frame of the lifeboat.


_Excuse._ The creature leaned forward. _Name Rubenstein? Revolutionary?_


_Yes._ Martin frowned at her inquiringly: Rachel glanced sideways. I_ll explain later, she thought at him.


_Knows Sister Burya. Sister Seventh of Stratagems. You business with have the Extropian 
Underground?_


_That_s right._ Rachel nodded. _Can you tell me where he is?_


_Do better._ The thing in the screen grinned. _You accept orbital elements for rendezvous now. We take 
you there._ 


Behind her, Vassily was sitting up, his eyes wide.
The Admiral didn't want to board the lifeboat.


_D-d-d-d-_ he drooled, left eye glaring, right eye slack and lifeless.


_Sir, please don_t make a fuss. We need to go aboard now._ Robard looked over his shoulder anxiously, 
as if half-expecting red-clawed disaster to come stooping and drooling through the airlock behind him.


_N-ever surrr__ Kurtz found the effort too much; his head flopped forward onto his chest.
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Robard hefted his chair, and pushed forward, into the cramped confines of the boat. _Is he going to be 
alright?_ Lieutenant Kossov asked fussily.


_Who knows? Just show me somewhere to lash his chair and we_ll be off. More chance of getting help 
for him down__


Sirens honked mournfully in the passage outside, and Robard winced as his ears popped. Kossov 
reached past another officer wearing the braid of a lieutenant commander and yanked the emergency 
override handle: the outer door of the lifeboat hissed shut. _What_s going on?_ someone called from up 
by the cockpit.


_Pressure breach in this section! Doors tight!_


_Aye, doors tight. Is the Admiral aboard?_


_Yes to that. You going?_


In answer, the deck heaved. Robard grabbed a stanchion and held on one-handed, bracing the Admiral_s 
wheelchair with another hand as the lifeboat lurched. A rippling bang of explosive bolts severed its 
umbilical connection to the stricken warship, then it was falling_falling through a deliberately opened 
gap in the ship_s curved-space field, which was otherwise strong enough to rip the small craft apart. 
Officers and a handful of selected enlisted men struggled to seize anchor points as whoever was in the 
hot seat played a fugue on the attitude thrusters, rolling the lifeboat out from behind the warship. Then 
the drive cut in with a gentle buzzing hiss from underfoot, and a modicum of weight returned them to 
the correct plane.


Robard bent to work on the wheelchair with a length of cable. _Someone help me with the Admiral,_ he 
asked.


_What do you need?_ Lieutenant Kossov peered at him, owlish behind his pince-nez.


_Need to tie this chair down. Then_where are we landing? Is there a doctor aboard this boat? My 
master really needs to be taken to a hospital, as soon as possible. He_s very ill._


_Indeed._ The Lieutenant glanced at him sympathetically, then his gaze wandered to the somnolent 
Admiral. _Give me that._


Robard passed him the other end of the cable, and together they secured the wheelchair to four of the 
eye bolts that dotted the floor. Around them, the other surviving officers were taking stock of the 
situation, neatly unfolding emergency deceleration hammocks from overhead lockers and chatting 
quietly. The atmosphere aboard the lifeboat was subdued, chastened; they were lucky to be alive, 
ashamed not to be aboard the stricken battlecruiser. The fact that most of the survivors were officers 


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from the admiral_s staff didn_t go amiss; the real warriors remained at their posts, trying valiantly to halt 
the plague that was eating the ship around them. In one corner, a junior lieutenant was sobbing 
inconsolably at the center of an embarrassed circle of silence.


The Admiral, oblivious to everything around him, mumbled and coughed querulously. Kossov leaned 
forward attentively. _Is there anything I can do for you, my Admiral?_ he asked.


_I fear he_s beyond our help,_ Robard said sadly. He rested a gentle hand on Kurtz_s shoulder, steadying 
the Admiral in his chair. _Unless the surgeons can do something__


_He_s trying to talk,_ Kossov snapped. _Let me listen._ He leaned close to the old warrior_s face. _Can 
you hear me, sir?_


_A-a__ The Admiral gargled in the back of his throat.


_Don_t excite him, I implore you! He needs rest!_


Kossov fixed the servant with a baleful eye. _Be silent for a minute._


__Aah, arr_we__oing?_


Robard started. _Humbly report we are on our way down to the planetary surface, sir,_ said the 
Lieutenant. _We should be arriving in the capital shortly._ Nothing about the rest of the fleet, the 
disposition of which was anything but likely to arrive in the colonial capital.


__Ood._ The Admiral_s face relaxed, eyelids drooping.


 __Amprey. _Ive_m wha_ for._ He subsided, evidently exhausted by the effort of speaking.


Robard straightened up: his eyes met those of the Lieutenant. _He never gives up,_ he said calmly. 
_Even when he ought to. It_ll be the death of him one of these days&_
Riding a chicken-legged hut through a wasteland that had recently gone from bucolic feudalism to 
transcendent posthumanism without an intervening stage, Burya Ruben-stein drifted through a dream of 
crumbling empires.


The revolutionaries were ideologically committed to a transcendence that they hadn_t fully understood_
until it arrived whole and pure and incomprehensible, like an iceberg of strange information breaking the 
surface of a frozen sea of entropy. They hadn_t been ready for it; nobody had warned them. They had 
hazy folk memories of Internets and cornucopiae to guide them, cargo-cult assertions of the value of 
technology_ but they hadn_t felt the elephant, had no sense of the shape the new phenomena took, and 


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their desires caused new mutant strains to congeal out of the phase space of the Festival machinery.


Imagine not growing up with telephones_or faxes, video conferencing, on-line translation, gesture 
recognition, light switches. Tradition said that you could send messages around the world in an eyeblink, 
and the means to do so was called e-mail. Tradition didn_t say that e-mail was a mouth morphing out of 
the nearest object and speaking with a friend_s lips, but that was a more natural interpretation than 
strange textual commands and a network of post-office routers. The Festival, not being experienced in 
dealing with Earth-proximate human cultures, had to guess at the nature of the miracles being requested. 
Often, it got them wrong.


Burya knew all about communications; his grandfather had dandled him on his knee and passed on 
legends his own grand-father had told him, legends about management information systems that could 
tell the management everything they could possibly know about the world and more, legends about the 
strange genii of human resources that could bring forth any necessary ability at will. Some of the more 
wired dissidents of Novy Petrograd had cobbled together something which they, in turn, called a 
management information system: cameras squatted with hooded cyclopean eyes atop the garrets and 
rooflines of the city, feeding images into the digital nervous system of the revolution.


Before he_d left Plotsk, Burya had spent some time with Timoshevski. Oleg had applied the leeches to 
Burya_s engorged sense of importance, reminding him that he was only a high official within the Novy 
Petrograd soviet, that the soviet, in turn, was only a benign parasite upon the free market, a load-
balancing algorithm that would be abandoned when the true beauty of the level playing field could be 
established. Oleg had also applied the worms, which itched furiously (and occasionally burned) as they 
established contact with Burya_s nervous system. He_d had to inquire pointedly as to the origins of 
Burya_s strange sense of bourgeois incrementalism in order to goad his erstwhile colleague into 
accepting the upgrade, but in the end, Rubenstein had seen no alternative. Given his currently peripatetic 
occupation, he_d be sidelined by the Central Committee if he stayed out of touch much longer. And so it 
was that his head itched abominably, and he was plagued by strange visions as the worms of the 
Committee for State Communications forged a working relationship with his brain.


When Burya slept, he dreamed in rasterized false-color images, scanned from the rooftops of the capital. 
The revolution, eternally vigilant, multitasked on his lateral geniculate body, rousting slumbering 
synapses to recognize suspicious patterns of behavior. Burya found it both disturbing and oddly 
reassuring to see that the city, for all the changes wrought by the revolution, continued. Here a youth 
darted from shadow to shadow, evidently on a midnight assignation with his sweetheart; there a grimmer 
kind of conspiracy fomented, dogs fighting over the bones of temporal responsibility as a block warden 
stalked a resented houseowner with murder in his eye. Houses grew and fissioned in slow motion, great 
sessile beasts prodded hither and yon by their internal symbionts. It was all unspeakably alien to him: an 
eerie half-life crawling over the once-familiar city, echoes of the way he_d lived for years, lying like a 
corpse in an open casket. Even the searing light of a nighttime shuttle landing at the field outside the city 
couldn_t bring it back to a semblance of the life he_d known.
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Burya dreamed, too, of his own family; a wife he hadn_t seen in fourteen years, a five-year-old son 
whose chubby face blurred with distance. (Internal exile was not a sentence of exclusion from family, 
but she came from solid middle-class stock, had disowned him upon hearing of his sentence and been 
granted a legal separation.) A helpless, weak loneliness_ which he cursed whenever he noticed it in 
waking life_ dogged his heels. The revolutionary junta had barely affected the course of events; it 
provided a nucleus for the wilder elements to coagulate around, a lens to focus the burning rays of 
resentment on the remains of the ancien regime, but in and of itself, it had achieved little. People 
suddenly gifted with infinite wealth and knowledge rapidly learned that they didn_t need a government_
and this was true as much for members of the underground as for the workers and peasants they strove to 
mobilize. Perhaps this was the message that the Critic had been trying to drum into him ever since his 
abduction from the offices of the revolutionary soviet_the revolution he had been striving for didn_t 
need him.


On the second morning of the search for Felix, Burya awakened exhausted, limbs aching and sore, feet 
half frozen, in one corner of the walking hut. Sister Seventh was elsewhere, snuffling and crashing in the 
undergrowth beside the path. Bright polymer-walled yurts clung to the fringes of the clearing they_d 
camped in. A growth of trees around them struggled defiantly beneath huge shelf fungi that threatened to 
turn them into many-colored outcroppings. All around them grew gigantic ferns and purple-veined 
cycads, interstellar colonists planted by the unseen gardeners of the Festival fleet. Small mouselike 
creatures tended the ferns, bringing them scraps of decaying matter and attaching them to the sundew-
like feeding palps that sprouted from their stems.


According to the presingularity maps, they should have passed a village two kilometers ago, but they_d 
seen no sign of it. Instead, they_d passed beneath a huge drifting geodesic sphere that had turned the 
sunset to flame overhead, making one of the cyborg militia shout and fire wildly into the air until 
Sergeant Lukcas yelled at him and took his gun away. _It_s a farm, pighead,_ he_d explained with heavy-
handed irony, _like what you grew up on, only rolled into a ball and flying around the sky. And if you 
don_t stop shooting at it, we_ll use your head the same way._ Some of the guards had muttered and made 
signs to avert the evil eye_in one case using a newly functional set of mandibles_and the rabbit 
walked with his ears laid flat along his head for half a kilometer before they made camp, but there were 
no further untoward incidents before the end of the road. But now the road had definitely come to an end.


The posse had made good progress along the Emperor_s metaled highways to reach this point; but ahead 
of them, the Lysenkoist forest was attempting to assimilate the road. Small, eyeless rodents with fine 
pelts gnawed mindlessly at the asphalt surface, extruding black pellets that were swarmed over by not-
ants the size of grasshoppers. Tall clay structures not unlike termite mounds dotted the open spaces 
between the ferns: they hummed quietly with a noise like a million microscopic gas turbines.


The campfire crackled ominously and belched steam as Mr. Rabbit threw scraps of dead, fungus-riddled 
wood on it. Burya yawned and stretched in the cold air, then stumbled off to find a tree to piss behind. 
Bedrolls stirred on the ground, militiamen grumbling and demanding coffee, food, and sexual favors 
from a nonexistent cook. There was a gout of flame and the rabbit jumped backward, narrowly missing a 
soldier who howled curses; the road castings were highly inflammable.


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After pissing, Burya squatted. It was in this undignified position that Sister Seventh, in an unusually 
avuncular mood, found him.


_Greetings of morning and good micturations to you! News of outstandingness and grace bring I._


_Harrumph._ Burya glared at the giant rodent, his ears meanwhile flushing red with the effort of 
evacuation. _Has anybody told you it isn_t polite to stare?_


_At what?_ Sister Seventh looked puzzled.


_Nothing,_ he muttered. _What_s this news?_


_Why, of importance nothing._ The Critic turned away innocently. _Of pleasing symmetry__


Burya gritted his teeth, then began fumbling about for leaves. (This was something that had never been 
mentioned in the biographies of the famous revolutionaries, he noted vaguely; being attacked by bears 
and pursued by bandits or Royal mounted police was all very exciting and noteworthy, but the books 
never said anything about the shortage of toilet paper in the outback, or the way there were never any 
soft leaves around when you needed them.) _Just the facts._


_Visitors! My sibling_s nest overflows with a bounty of information._


_Visitors? But__ Burya stopped. _Your siblings. In orbit?_


_Yes!_ Sister Seventh rolled forward and over, waving her stubby legs in the air briefly before tumbling 
over with a loud thud. _Visitors from space!_


_Where from?_ Burya leaned forward eagerly.


_The New Republic._ Sister Seventh grinned amusedly, baring huge, yellowed tusks. _Sent fleet. Met 
Bouncers. There were survivors._


_Who, dammit!_ He gritted his teeth angrily as he yanked his trousers up.


_Ambassador from Earth-prime. One other-else-who component-wise is part of her hive. And 
ambiguosity. They inquire for you, yourself. Want to meet?_


Burya gaped. _They_re coming here?_


_They land at our destination. Soon._



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The lifeboat was dark, hot, and stank of methane; the waste gas scrubber had developed an asthmatic 
wheeze. By any estimate, the life-support loop was only good for another day or so of breathable air 
before they had to retreat into their suits_but long before then, the passengers would have to face the 
perils of reentry.


_Are you sure this is safe?_ asked Vassily.


Rachel rolled her eyes. _Safe, he asks,_ muttered Martin. _Kid, if you wanted safe, you should have 
stayed home when the fleet left port._


_But I don_t understand_you_ve been talking to those aliens. They_re the enemy! They just killed half 
our fleet! But you_re taking orbital elements and course correction advisories from them. Why are you 
so trusting? How do you know they won_t kill us, too?_


_They_re not the enemy,_ Rachel said, patiently prodding away at the autopilot console. _They never 
were the enemy_ at least, not the kind of enemy the Admiral and his merry band expected._


_But if they_re not your enemy, you must be on their side!_ Vassily glanced from one of them to the 
other, thoroughly spooked now.


_Nope._ Rachel carried on prodding at the autopilot. _I wasn_t sure before, but I am, now: the Festival 
isn_t anything like you think it is. You guys came out here expecting an attack by a foreign government, 
with ships and soldiers, didn_t you? But there are more things out in this universe than humans and their 
nations and multinational organizations. You_ve been fighting a shadow._


_But it destroyed all those ships! It_s hostile! It__


_Calm down._ Martin watched him cautiously. Ungrateful little shit: or is he just terminally confused? 
Rachel_s easy conversation with the Critics had unsettled Martin more than he liked to admit, almost as 
much as her unexpectedly successful rescue attempt. There were wheels within wheels here, more than 
he_d expected. _There are no sides. The Critics aren_t enemies; they aren_t even part of the Festival. We 
tried to tell your people to expect something totally alien, but they wouldn_t listen._


_What do you mean?_


_The Festival isn_t human, it isn_t remotely human. You people are thinking in terms of people with 
people-type motivations; that_s wrong, and it_s been clear that it_s wrong from the start. You can no 
more declare war on the Festival than you can declare a war against sleep. It_s a self-replicating 
information network. Probe enters a system: probe builds a self-extending communications network and 
yanks the inhabited worlds of that system into it. Drains all the information it can get out of the target 



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civilization, then spawns more probes. The probes carry some parasites, uploaded life-forms that build 
bodies and download into them whenever they reach a destination_but that_s not what it exists for._


Vassily gaped. _But it attacked us!_


_No it didn_t,_ Martin replied patiently. _It isn_t intelligent; analyzing its behavior by adopting an 
intentional stance is a mistake. All it did was detect an inhabited planet with no telephone service at a 
range of some light-years and obey its instructions._


_But the instructions_it_s war!_


_No, it_s a bug fix. It turns out that the Festival is just a_a telephone repairman. Like a robot repairman. 
Only it doesn_t repair mere telephones_it repairs holes in the galactic information flow._ Martin 
glanced sideways at Rachel. She was wrestling with the autopilot, getting the landing burn sequence 
keyed in. It was a bad idea to distract her at a time like this; better keep the young nuisance occupied.


_Civilizations rise and fall from time to time; the Festival is probably a mechanism set in place a few 
millennia ago to keep them in touch, built by an interstellar culture back in the mists of time. When it 
detected a hole in the net it maintains, it decided to fix it, which is why it set up to do business in orbit 
around Rochard_s World, which is about as isolated and cut off as it_s possible to be._


_But we didn_t ask for it,_ Vassily said uncertainly.


_Well, of course not. Actually, I think it_s strayed outside its original maintenance zone, so every system 
it discovers in this sector warrants a repair job: but that_s not necessarily all there is to it. Part of the 
repair process is a rapid exchange of information with the rest of the network it connects to, a flow that 
runs in two directions. Over time, the Festival has become more than a mere repair service; it_s become 
a civilization in its own right, one that blooms like a desert flower_briefly flourishing in the right 
environment, then curling up into a seed and sleeping as it migrates across the deserted gulf light-years 
between oases. Telephone switches and routers are some of the most complicated information-
processing systems ever invented_where do you think the Eschaton originally came from?


_When the Festival arrived at Rochard_s World, it had a 250-year communications deficit to make good. 
That repair_the end of isolation, arrival of goods and ideas restricted by the New Republic_caused a 
limited local singularity, what in our business we call a consensus reality excursion; people went a little 
crazy, that_s all. A sudden overdose of change; immortality, bio-engineering, weakly superhuman AI 
arbeiters, nanotechnology, that sort of thing. It isn_t an attack._


_But then_you_re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?_ he asked.


_Yup._ Rachel looked up from her console. _We_ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the 
nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn_t listen. For forty years we tried. 



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Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications 
around it. The Festival won_t take no for an answer because it doesn_t have an opinion on anything; it 
just is._


_But information isn_t free. It can_t be. I mean, some things_if anyone could read anything they 
wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn_t they? People 
might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They 
could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!_


Martin sighed. _You_re still hooked on the state thing, aren_t you?_ he said. _Can you take it from me, 
there are other ways of organizing your civilization?_


_Well__ Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. _Are you telling me you let information circulate 
freely where you come from?_


_It_s not a matter of permitting it,_ Rachel pointed out. _We had to admit that we couldn_t prevent it. 
Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself._


_But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would 
acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they 
belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it__ Vassily 
paused. _You don_t believe me,_ he said plaintively.


_Oh, we believe you alright,_ Martin said grimly. _It_s just_look, change isn_t always bad. Sometimes 
freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at 
other times, well_what you_re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the 
status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that_ll protect everybody 
from anything bad all the time. There_s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that 
people who aren_t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, 
most people have enough common sense to avoid things that_d harm them; and those that don_t, need to 
be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground._


_But, terrorists!_


_Yes,_ Rachel interrupted, _terrorists. There are always people who think they_re doing the right thing 
by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you_re perfectly right about brewing up biological 
weapons and spreading rumors. But__ She shrugged. _We can live with a low background rate of that 
sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the 
time._ She looked grim. _If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you_ve never 
seen what happens when a planet pushes the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. 
There are places where__ She shuddered.
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Martin glanced at her. _You_ve got somewhere specific in mind to__


_I don_t want to talk about it,_ she said tersely. _And you should be ashamed of yourself, winding the 
boy up like that. Either of you two noticed the air stinks?_


_Yeah._ Martin yawned widely. _Are we about__


__I am not a__ A thundering chorus of popping noises sounded outside the cabin. __boy!_ Vassily 
finished with a squeak.


_Belt up, kid. Main engine coming on in five seconds._


Martin tensed, unconsciously tightening his belt. _What_s our descent curve?_


_Waypoint one coming up: ten-second course adjustment, one-point-two gees. We sit tight for four 
minutes or so, then we hit waypoint two, and burn for two hours at two and a quarter gees_this ends 
_bout four thousand klicks elevation relative to planetary surface, and we_ll hit atmosphere sixteen 
minutes later at about four k.p.s. We_ll have some reaction mass left, but I really don_t want to power up 
the main engine once we_re in air we_ll have to breathe afterward; so we_re going to drop the propulsion 
module once we_re suborbital and it_ll kick itself back into a graveyard orbit with the last of its fuel._


_Er._ Vassily looked puzzled. _Four k.p.s. Isn_t that a bit fast?_


_No it_s__ A high-pitched roar cut into Rachel_s explanation, jolting everything in the capsule back 
toward the rear bulkhead. Ten seconds passed. _It_s only about Mach 12, straight down. And we_ll have 
dropped the engines overboard, first. But don_t worry, we_ll slow up pretty fast when we hit the 
atmosphere. They used to do this sort of thing all the time during the Apollo program._


_The Apollo program? Wasn_t that back in the days when space travel was experimental?_ Martin 
noticed that where Vassily was gripping the back of his chair, the lad_s knuckles had turned white. How 
interesting.


_Yeah, that was it,_ Rachel said casually. __Course, they didn_t have nuclear power back then_was it 
before or after the Cold War?_


_Before, I think. The Cold War was all about who could build the biggest refrigerator, wasn_t it?_


_Cold War?_ piped Vassily.


_Back on Earth, about four, five hundred years ago,_ Rachel explained.
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_But they were doing this, and they couldn_t even build a steam engine?_


_Oh, they could build steam engines,_ Martin said airily. _But they powered them by burning rock oil 
under the boilers. Fission reactors were expensive and rare._


_That doesn_t sound very safe,_ Vassily said dubiously. _Wouldn_t all that oil explode?_


_Yes, but Earth is an early population three planet, and quite old; the isotope balance is lousy, not 
enough uranium-235._


_Too damn much if you ask me,_ Rachel muttered darkly.


_I think you_re trying to confuse me, and I really don_t like that. You think you_re so sophisticated, you 
Terrans, but you don_t know everything! You still can_t keep terrorists from blowing up your cities, and 
for all your so-called sophistica-tion you can_t control your own filthy impulses_meddling fools by 
politics, meddling fools by nature!_


Another burp from an attitude control thruster. Rachel reached over and grabbed Martin_s shoulder. 
_He_s got us nailed._


_Aye up, _e_s got us bang to rights. It_s a fair cop, guv._


Vassily glanced from one of them to the other in bewilderment; his ears began to glow bright red. 
Rachel laughed. _If that_s meant to be a Yorkshire accent, I_m a Welsh ferret, Martin!_


_Well, I_d be pleased to stuff you down my trousers any day of the week, my dear._ The engineer shook 
his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Vassily_s glow spreading from ears to neck. _You_ve got 
a lot to learn about the real world, kid. I_m surprised your boss let you out on your own without a 
minder._


_Will you stop calling me a child!_


Rachel hunched around in her chair and stared at him. _But you are, you know. Even if you were sixty 
years old, you_d still be a child to me. As long as you expect someone or something else to take 
responsibility for you, you_re a child. You could fuck your way through every brothel in New Prague, 
and you_d still be an overgrown schoolboy._ She looked at him sadly. _What would you call a parent 
who never let their children grow up? That_s what we think of your government._


_But that_s not why I_m here! I_m here to protect the Republic! I_m here because__


The main motor went critical and spooled up to full power with a deep bass roar, rattling the capsule like 
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a tin can in a hurricane. Vassily was shoved back into his hammock, gasping for breath; Rachel and 
Martin subsided into their seats, slugged by a solid twenty meters per second of acceleration_ not the 
five-hundred-kilo chest-squishing gorilla of re-entry, but enough force to make them lie back and 
concentrate on breathing.


The engine burned for a long time, carrying them away from the drifting wreckage of battle, toward an 
uncertain rendezvous.
Delivery Service


The husks of two spent Bouncer ships drifted toward the edge of the system, tumbling end over end at 
well over stellar escape velocity. They didn_t matter anymore; they_d done their job.


Behind them, the wreckage of the New Republican home fleet scattered like ashes on a searing hot wind. 
Two-thirds of the ships bubbled and foamed, engineering segments glowing red-hot as the disassembler 
goop stripped them down; bizarre metallic fuzz sprawled across their hulls, like fungal hyphae drilling 
through the heart of dead and rotting trees. Almost all of the other warships were boosting at full power, 
pursuing escape trajectories that would take them back into deep space. The space around Rochard_s 
World was full of screaming countenneasure signals, jammers and feedback howlers and interferometry 
decoys and penaids that_unknown to their owners_were proving as effective as shields slung over the 
backs of tribesmen fleeing in the face of machine-gun fire. A scattering of much smaller, slower ships 
continued to decelerate toward the planet ahead, or coasted slowly in. For the most part the remaining 
Bouncers ignored these: lifeboats weren_t generally troublemakers. Finally, coasting in from a range of 
astronomical units, came the first trade ships of the merchant fleet that followed the Festival around. 
Their signals were gaily entertaining, flashy and friendly: unlike the New Republic, these were not 
ignorant of the Festival, its uses and hazards.


But the Festival barely noticed the approaching trade fleet. Its attention was directed elsewhere: soon it 
would give birth to its next generation, wither, and die.


Antimatter factories the size of continents drilled holes in the fiery solar corona, deep in the curved-
space zone just outside the photosphere of Rochard_s star. Huge accelerator rings floated behind their 
wake shields, insulated by kilometers of vacuum; solar collectors blacker than night soaked up solar 
energy, megawatts per square meter, while masers dumped waste heat into the interstellar night 
overhead. Every second, milligram quantities of antimatter accumulated in the magnetic traps at the core 
of the accelerators. Every ten thousand seconds or so, another hazardous multigram payload shipped out 
on a beam-riding cargo pod to the starwisp assembly zone around Sputnik. There were a hundred 
factories in all; the Festival had dismantled a large Kuiper body to make them and placed the complex 
barely a million kilometers above the stellar surface. Now the investment was paying off in raw energy, 
a million times more than the planetary civilization had been able to muster.
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The starwisps weren_t the Festival_s only cargo, nor were the Fringe and the Critics the only passengers 
to visit the planetary surface. Deep in the planetary biosphere, vectors armed with reverse transcriptase 
and strange artificial chromosomes were at work. They_d re-entered over the temperate belt of the 
northern continent, spreading and assimilating the contents of the endogenous ecology. Complex 
digestive organs, aided by the tools of DNA splicing and some fiendishly complicated expression 
control operons, assimilated and dissected chromosomes from everything the package_s children 
swallowed. A feedback system_less than conscious but more than vegetable_spliced together a 
workable local expression of a design crafted thousands of years ago; one that could subsist on locally 
available building blocks, a custom saprophyte optimized for the ecology of Rochard_s World.


Huge Lamarckian syncitia spread their roots across the pine forest, strangling the trees and replacing 
them with plants shaped like pallid pines. They were fruiting bodies, mushrooms sprouting atop the 
digested remains of an entire ecosystem. They grew rapidly; special cells deep in their cores secreted 
catalytic enzymes, nitrating the long polysaccharide molecules, while in the outer bark long, electrically 
conductive vessels took shape like vegetable neurons.


The forest parasite grew at a ferocious rate, fruiting bodies sprouting a meter a day. It was a much 
longer-term project than the rewiring of the incommunicado civilization that the Festival had stumbled 
across; and one more grand than any of the sentient passengers could have imagined. All they were 
aware of was the spread of intrusive vegetation, an annoying and sometimes dangerous plague that 
followed the Festival as closely as did the Mimes and other beings of the Fringe. Come the dry season, 
and the Festival forest would become a monstrous fire hazard; but for now, it was just a sideshow, still 
sprouting slowly toward its destiny, which it would reach around the time the Festival began to die.
Fifty kilometers above the ocean, still traveling at twelve times the speed of sound, the naval lifeboat 
spread its thistledown rotors behind the shock front of re-entry and prepared to autorotate.


_Makes you wish the Admiralty_d paid for the deluxe model,_ Lieutenant Kossov muttered between 
gritted teeth as the capsule juddered and shook, skipping across the ionosphere like a burning sodium 
pellet on a basin of water. Commander Leonov glared at him: he grunted as if he_d been punched, and 
shut up.


Thirty kilometers lower and fifteen hundred kilometers closer to the coast of the northern continent, the 
plasma shock began to dissipate. The rotors, glowing white at their tips, freewheeled in the high 
stratosphere, spinning in a bright blurring disk. Lying in an acceleration couch in the cockpit, the flight 
crew grappled with the problem of landing a hypersonic autogyro on an airfield with no ground control 
and no instrument guidance, an airfield that was quite possibly under siege by hostiles. Robard_s blood 
ran cold as he thought about it. Re-flexively, he glanced sideways at his master: a life dedicated to 
looking after the Admiral had brought him to this fix, but still he looked to him for his lead, even though 
the old warhorse was barely conscious.
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_How does he look?_ Robard asked.


Dr. Hertz glanced up briefly. _As well as can be expected,_ he said shortly. _Did you bring his 
medications with you?_


Robard winced. _Only his next doses. There are too many pill bottles__


_Well then._ Hertz fumbled with his leather bag, withdrew a pre-loaded syringe. _Was he taking 
laudanum? I recall no such prescription, but&_


_Not to my knowledge._ Robard swallowed. _Diabetes, a dyskinesia, and his um, memory condition. 
Plus his legs, of course. But he was not in pain._


_Well, then, let_s see if we can wake him up._ Hertz held up the syringe and removed the protective cap. 
_I would not normally so brutalize an old man before landing, especially one who has suffered a stroke, 
but under the circumstances__


Twelve kilometers up, the autogyro dropped below Mach 2. Rotors shedding a disk of thunderous 
lightning, its ground track angled across the coast; where it passed, animals fled in panic. The lifeboat 
continued to lose altitude while Hertz administered his wake-up injection. Less than a minute later, the 
craft dropped to subsonic speed, and a new keening note entered the cabin. Robard glanced up 
instinctively.


_Just restarting the aerospikes,_ Kossov mumbled. _That way we can make a powered touchdown._


The Admiral groaned something inarticulate, and Robard leaned forward. _Sir. Can you hear me?_


The lifeboat flew sideways at just under half the speed of sound, a bright cylinder of fire spurting from 
the tips of the rotor disk that blurred around its waist. The copilot repeatedly tried to raise Imperial 
Traffic Control, to no avail; he exchanged worried glances with his commander. Trying to land under 
the missile batteries of the Skull Hill garrison, with no word on who was holding the city below, would 
be nerve-racking enough. To do so in a lifeboat short on fuel, with a desperately sick admiral aboard_


But there was no breath of search radar bouncing off the lifeboat_s hull. Even as it rose over the castle_s 
horizon, drifting in at a sedate four hundred kilometers per hour, there was no flicker of attention from 
the ground defense batteries. The pilot keyed his intercom switch. _The field_s still there even though 
nobody_s talking to us. Visual approach, stand by for a bumpy ride._


The Admiral muttered something incoherent and opened his eyes. Robard leaned back in his seat as the 
rotor tip aerospikes quietened their screeching roar, and the pilot fed the remaining power into the 
collective pitch, trading airspeed against altitude. _Urk._ Lieutenant Kossov looked green.



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_Hate _copters,_ mumbled the Admiral.


The motors shut down, and the lifeboat dropped, autorotat-ing like a fifty-ton sycamore seed. There was 
a brief surge of upward acceleration as the pilot flared out before touchdown, then a bone-jarring crunch 
from beneath the passenger compartment. A screech of torn metal told its own story; the lifeboat tilted 
alarmingly, then settled back drunkenly, coming to rest with the deck tilted fifteen degrees.


_Does that mean what I think it means?_ asked Robard.


_Shut up and mind your business,_ grated Commander Leonov. He hauled himself out of his couch and 
cast about. _You! Look sharp, man the airlock! You and you, break open the small-arms locker and 
stand by to clear the way._ He began to clamber down the short ladder to the flight deck, hanging on 
tight despite the fifteen-degree overhang, still barking out orders. _You, Robot or whatever your name 
is, get your man ready to move, don_t know how long we_ve got. Ah, Pilot-captain Wolff. I take it we_re 
on the field. Did you see any sign of a welcoming committee?_


The pilot waited while Leonov backed down the ladder, then followed him down to the deck. _Sir, 
humbly report we have arrived at Novy Petrograd emergency field, pad two. I was unable to contact 
traffic control or port air defense control before landing, but nobody shot at us. I didn_t see anyone 
standing around down there, but there are big changes to the city_it_s not like the briefing 
cinematograph. Regret to report that on final approach we ran a little short of fuel, hence the bad 
landing._


_Acceptable under the circumstances._ Leonov turned to the airlock. _You there! Open the hatch, double 
quick, ground party will secure the perimeter immediately!_


The Admiral seemed to be trying to sit up. Robard cranked up the back of his wheelchair, then leaned 
down to release the cables securing it in place. As he did so, the Admiral made a curious chuckling noise.


_What is it, sir?_


_Heh__omit commit. Heh!_


_Absolutely, sir._ Robard straightened up. Fresh air gusted into the confines of the lifeboat; someone 
had tripped the override on the airlock, opening both hatches simultaneously. He could smell rain and 
cherry blossoms, grass and mud.


Lieutenant Kossov followed the ground party through the airlock, then ducked back inside. _Sir. 
Humbly report, ground party has secured the site. No sign of any locals._


_Hah, good. Lieutenant, you and Robot can get the old man down. Follow me!_ Leonov followed the 



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last of the officers_ the flight crew and a couple of lieutenant commanders Robard didn_t recognize, 
members of the Admiral_s staff or the bridge crew_into the airlock.


Together, Robard and Lieutenant Kossov grunted and sweated the Admiral_s wheelchair down a flimsy 
aluminum stepladder to the ground. Once his feet touched concrete, Robard breathed in deeply and 
looked around. One of the lifeboat_s three landing legs looked wrong, a shock absorber not fully 
extended. It gave the craft an oddly lopsided appearance, and he knew at once that it would take more 
than a tank-ful of fuel to get it airborne again, much less into orbit. Then his eyes took in what had 
happened beyond the rust-streaked concrete landing pad, and he gasped.


The landing field was less than two kilometers from the brooding walls of the garrison, on the outskirts 
of the scantily settled north bank of the river. South of the river, there should have been a close-packed 
warren of steep-roofed houses, church spires visible in the distance before a knot of municipal buildings. 
But now the houses were mostly gone. A cluster of eldritch silvery ferns coiled skyward from the former 
location of the town hall, firefly glimmerings flickering between their fractally coiled leaves. The Ducal 
palace showed signs of being the worse for wear; one wall looked as if it had been smashed by a giant 
fist, the arrogant bombast of heavy artillery.


The Admiral slapped feebly at the arm of his chair. __Ot right!_


_Absolutely, my lord._ Robard looked around again, this time hunting the advance landing party. They 
were halfway to the control tower when something that glowed painfully green slashed overhead, 
making the ground shake with the roar of its passage.


_Enemy planes!_ shouted Kossov. _See, they_ve followed us here! We must get the Admiral to cover, 
fast!_ He pushed Robard aside and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, nearly tipping it over in his 
haste.


_I say!_ Robard snapped, angry and disturbed at his position being usurped. He cast a worried glance at 
the sky and decided not to confuse the issue further; the Lieutenant_s behavior was unseemly, but the 
need to get the admiral to safety was pressing. _I say, there_s a path there. I_ll lead. If we can reach the 
tower__


_You! Follow us!_ Kossov called to the perimeter guards, confused and worried ratings who, thankful at 
being given some direction, shouldered their carbines and tagged along. It was a warm morning, and the 
Lieutenant wheezed as he pushed the wheelchair along the cracked asphalt path. Robard paced along 
beside him, a tall, sepulchrally black figure, hatchet-faced with worry. Weeds grew waist high to either 
side of the path, and other signs of neglect were omnipresent; the field looked as if it had been 
abandoned for years, not just the month since the invasion. Bees and other insects buzzed and hummed 
around, while birds squawked and trilled in the distance, shamefully exposing the locals_ neglect of their 
DDT spraying program.
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A distant rumble prompted Robard to glance over his shoulder. Birds leapt into the sky as a distant green 
brightness twisted and seemed to freeze, hovering beneath the blind turquoise dome of the sky. _Run!_ 
He dashed forward and threw himself into the shade of a stand of young trees.


_What?_ Kossov stopped and stared, jaw comically dropping. The green glare grew with frightening, 
soundless rapidity, then burst overhead in an emerald explosion. A noise like a giant door slamming shut 
pushed Robard into the grass: then the aircraft thundered past, dragging a freight train roar behind it as it 
made a low pass over the parked lifeboat and disappeared toward the far side of the city. Bees buzzed 
angrily in his ears as he picked himself up and looked wildly around for the Admiral.


The Lieutenant had been knocked off his feet by the shock wave; now he was sitting up, cradling his 
head gingerly. The wheelchair had remained upright, and a loud but slurred stream of invective was 
flowing from it. __Orson swiving _role_erian cocksu_ing ba-a-stardsV Kurtz raised his good arm and 
shook a palsied fist at the sky. _You _evolushunary shit_11 get yours! Ouch!_ The arm flopped.


_Are you alright sir?_ Robard gasped nervously.


__Astard stung me,_ Kurtz complained, drooling on the back of his wrist. _Damn bees._ An angry 
buzzing veered haywire around Robard, and he whacked at it with his dirt-stained gloves.


_I_m sure you_ll be alright, sir, once we get you to the control tower and then the castle._ He inspected 
the mashed insect briefly, and froze. Red, impact-distorted letters ridged its abdomen with unnatural 
clarity. He shuddered and smeared the back of his glove on the ground. _We_d better move fast, before 
that plane decides we_re the enemy._


_You take over,_ said Kossov, clutching a reddened handkerchief to his forehead. _Let_s go._ Together 
they turned and pushed on toward the control tower, and beyond it the uncertainties of the Ducal palace 
and whatever had become of the capital city under the new order.
Eighty kilometers away, another lifeboat was landing.


Rachel shook herself groggily and opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was. Re-
entry had been alarmingly bumpy; the capsule was swinging back and forth with a regular motion that 
would have made her nauseous if her vestibular dampers hadn_t kicked in. There was a moan from 
behind her seat and she glanced sideways. Martin was waking up visibly, shaking his head, his face 
going through a horrible series of contortions and twitches. Behind her, Vass-ily moaned again. _Oh, 
that was terrible._


_Still alive, huh?_ She blinked at the viewscreen. Black smears obscured much of it, remnants of the 
ablative heat shield that had melted and streaked across the cameras on the outside of the hull. The 
horizon was a flat blue line, the ground half-hidden beneath a veil of clouds as they descended beneath 



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the main parasail. An altimeter ticked down the last two thousand meters. _Say yes if you can wriggle 
your toes._


_Yes,_ said Martin. Vassily just moaned. Rachel didn_t bother to inquire further after their health; she 
had too many things to do before they landed. It could all get very messy very fast, now they didn_t have 
an engine.


Pilot: Plot range and heading to rendezvous waypoint omega. A map overlay blinked on the viewscreen. 
They were coming down surprisingly close, only a few kilometers out from the target. Pilot: Hard 
surface retromotor status, please. More displays; diagnostics and self-test maps of the landing motor, a 
small package hanging in the rigging halfway between the rectangular parachute and the capsule roof. 
Triggered by radar, the landing turbine would fire a minute before touchdown, decelerating the capsule 
from a bone-crushing fifty-kilometer-per-hour fall and steering them to a soft touchdown.


_I could do with a drink,_ said Martin.


_You_ll have to wait a minute or two._ Rachel watched the screen intently. One thousand meters.


_I can_t feel my toes,_ Vassily complained.


Oh shit. _Can you wriggle them?_ asked Rachel, heart suddenly in her mouth. She_d never expected a 
third passenger, and if the hammock had landed him with a spinal injury_


_Yes._


_Then why the fuck did you say you couldn_t feel them?_


_They_re cold!_


Rachel yawned; her ears popped. _I think we just depres-surized. You must have your toes on top of the 
vent or something._ The outside grew hazy, whited out. Ten more seconds, and the wispy cloud thinned, 
peeling back to reveal trees and rivers below. A dizzying view, the ground growing closer. She gritted 
her teeth. Next to her, Martin shuffled for a better view.


_Attention. Landing raft inflation._ A yellow python wrapped itself around the bottom of the capsule and 
bloated outward, cutting off her view of the ground directly below. Rachel cursed silently, looked for a 
clearing in the trees. The forest cover was unusually dense, and she tensed.


_Over there._ Martin pointed.


_Thanks._ Using the side stick, she pointed out the opening to the autopilot. Pilot: make for designated 
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landing ground. Engage autoland on arrival.


_Attention. Stand by for retromotor ignition in five seconds. Touchdown imminent. Three seconds. Main 
canopy separation._ The capsule dropped sickeningly. _Motor ignition._ A loud rumbling from above, 
and the fall stopped. The clearing below lurched closer, and the rumbling grew to a shuddering roar. 
_Attention. Touchdown in ten seconds. Brace for landing._


Trees slid past the screen, implacable green stems exfoliating purple-veined leaves the size of books. 
Martin gasped. They dropped steadily, like a glass-walled elevator on the side of an invisible skyscraper. 
Finally, with a tooth-rattling bump, the capsule came to rest.


Silence.


_Hey, guys._ Rachel shakily pushed the release buckle on her seat belt. _Thank you for flying Air UN, 
and may I take this opportunity to invite you to fly with us again?_


Martin grunted and stretched his arms up. _Nope, can_t reach it from here. Got to unbelt first._ He let his 
arms flop down again. _Feel like lead. Funny._


_All it takes is eight hours in zero gee._ Rachel rummaged in the storage bins next to her leg well.


_I think I understand you Terrans now,_ Vassily began, then paused to let the tremor out of his voice 
before continuing. _You_re all mad!_


Martin looked sidelong at Rachel. _He_s only just noticed._


She sat up, clutching a compact backpack. _Took him long enough._


_Well. What do we do now? Make with the big tin opener, or wait for someone to pass by and yank the 
ring pull?_


_First__Rachel tapped icons busily on the pilot_s console__we tell the Critics that we_re down safely. 
She said she_d try to help us link up. Second, I do this._ She reached up and grabbed the top edge of the 
display screen. It crumpled like thin plastic, revealing the inner wall of the capsule. A large steamer 
trunk was half-embedded in the bulkhead, incongruous pipes and cables snaking out of its half-open lid.


_I knew it!_ Vassily exclaimed. _You_ve got an illegal__


_Shut up._ Rachel leaned forward and adjusted something just inside the lid. _Right, now we leave. 
Quickly._ Standing up, she unlocked the overhead hatch and let it slide down into the capsule, taking the 
place of the screen. _Give me a leg up, Martin._
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_Okay._ A minute later, all three of them were sitting on top of the lander. The truncated cone sat in a 
puddle of yellow inflatable skirts, in the middle of a grassy meadow. To their left, a stream burbled 
lazily through a thick clump of reeds; to their right, a row of odd, dark conifers formed a wall against the 
light. The air was cold and fresh and smelled unbearably clean. _What now?_ asked Martin.


_I advise you to surrender to the authorities._ Vassily loomed over him. _It will go badly with you if you 
don_t cooperate, but if you surrender to me I_ll, I_ll__ He looked around wildly.


Rachel snorted. _What authorities?_


_The capital__


Rachel finally blew her top. _Listen, kid, we_re stuck in the back of beyond with a dead hfeboat and not 
a lot of supplies, on a planet that_s just been hit by a type three singularity, and I have just spent the past 
thirty-six hours slaving my guts out to save our necks_all of them, yours included_and I would 
appreciate it if you would just shut up for a while! Our first priority is survival; my second priority is 
linking up with the people I_ve come here to visit, and getting back to civilization comes third on the list. 
With me so far? Because there are no civil authorities right now, not the kind you expect. They_ve just 
been dumped on by about a thousand years of progress in less than a month, and if your local curator_s 
still sitting at his desk, he_s probably catatonic from future shock. This planetary civilization has 
transcended. It is an ex-colony; it has ceased to be. About the only people who can cope with this level 
of change are your dissidents, and I_m not that optimistic about them, either. Right now, we are your 
best hope of survival, and you_d better not forget it._ She glared at Vassily, and he glared right back at 
her, obviously angry but unable to articulate his feelings.


Behind her, Martin had clambered down to the meadow. Something caught his attention, and he bent 
down. _Hey!_


_What is it?_ Rachel called. The spell was broken: Vassily subsided with a grumble and began hunting 
for a way down off the capsule. Martin said something indistinct. _What?_ she called.


_There_s something wrong with this grass!_


_Oh shit._ Rachel followed Vassily down the side of the pod_two and a half meters of gently sloping 
ceramic, then a soft landing on a woven spider-silk floatation bed. _What do you mean?_


Martin straightened up and wordlessly offered her a blade of grass.


_It_s__ She stopped.


_Rochard_s World is supposed to have an Earth-normal biosphere, isn_t it?_ Martin watched her 
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curiously. _That_s what it said in my gazetteer._


_What is that?_ asked Vassily.


_Grass, or what passes for it._ Martin shrugged uncomfortably. _Doesn_t look very Earth-normal to me. 
It_s the right color and right overall shape, but__


_Ouch. Cut myself on the damned thing._ Rachel dropped it. The leaf blade fluttered down, unnoticed: 
when it hit the ground it began to disintegrate with eerie speed, falling apart along radial seams. _What 
about the trees?_


_There_s something odd about them, too._ A crackling noise from behind made Martin jump. _What_s 
that?_


_Don_t worry. I figured we_d need some ground transport, so I told it to make some. It_s reabsorbing the 
capsule__


_Neat luggage,_ Martin said admiringly. The lifeboat began to crumple inward, giving off a hot, organic 
smell like baking bread.


_Yeah, well._ Rachel looked worried. _My contact_s supposed to know we_re here. I wonder how 
long&_ She trailed off. Vassily was busily tramping toward the far side of the clearing, whistling some 
sort of martial-sounding tune.


_Just who is this contact?_ Martin asked quietly.


_Guy called Rubenstein. One of the more sensible resistance cadres, which is why he_s in internal exile 
here_the less sensible ones end up dead._


_And what do you want with him?_


_I_m to give him a package. Not that he needs it anymore, if what_s happened here is anything to go by._


_A package? What kind of package?_


She turned and pointed at the steamer trunk, which now rested on the grass in the middle of a collapsing 
heap of structural trusses, belching steam quietly. _That kind of package._


_That kind of__ His eyes gave him away. Rachel reached out and took his elbow.


_Come on, Martin. Let_s check out the tree line._



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_But__ He glanced over his shoulder. _Okay._


_It_s like this,_ Rachel began, as they walked. _Remember what I said about helping the people of the 
New Republic? A while ago_some years, actually_some people in a department you don_t really need 
to know much about decided that they were ripe for a revolution. Normally we don_t get involved in that 
kind of thing; toppling regimes is bad ju-ju even if you disapprove of them or do it for all the right moral 
reasons. But some of our analysts figured there was a chance, say twenty percent, that the New Republic 
might metastasize and turn imperial. So we_ve been gearing up to ship power tools to their own home-
grown libertarian underground for a decade now.


_The Festival& when it arrived, we didn_t know what it was. If I_d known what you told me once we 
were under way, back at Klamovka, I wouldn_t be here now. Neither would the luggage. Which is the 
whole point of the exercise, actually. When the aristocracy put down the last workers_ and technologists_ 
soviet about 240 years ago, they destroyed the last of the cornucopiae the New Republic was given at its 
foundation by the Eschaton. Thereafter, they could control the arbeiter classes by restricting access to 
education and tools and putting tight bottlenecks on information technology. This luggage, Martin, it_s a 
full-scale cornucopia machine. Design schemata for just about anything a mid-twenty-first-century 
postindustrial civilization could conceive of, freeze-dried copies of the Library of Congress, all sorts of 
things. Able to replicate itself, too._ The tree line was a few meters ahead. Rachel stopped and took a 
deep breath. _I was sent here to turn it over to the underground, Martin. I was sent here to give them the 
tools to start a revolution._


_To start a__ Martin stared at her. _But you_re too late._


_Exactly._ She gave him a moment for it to sink in. _I can still complete my mission, just in case, but I 
don_t really think&_


He shook his head. _How are we going to get out of this mess?_


_Um. Good question._ She turned and faced the melting reentry capsule, then reached into a pocket and 
began bringing out some spare optical spybots. Vassily was aimlessly circling the perimeter of the 
clearing. _Normally, I_d go to ground in the old town and wait. In six months, there_ll be a merchant 
ship along. But with the Festival__


_There_ll be ships,_ Martin said with complete assurance. _And you_ve got a cornucopia, you_ve got a 
whole portable military-industrial complex. If it can make us a lifeboat, I_m sure I can program it to 
manufacture anything we need to survive until we_ve got a chance to get off this godforsaken hole. 
Right?_


_Probably._ She shrugged. _But first I really ought to make contact, if only to verify that there_s no point 
in handing the luggage over._ She began to walk back toward the lander. _This Rubenstein is supposed 
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to be fairly levelheaded for a revolutionary. He_ll probably know what__ There was a distant cracking 
sound, like sticks breaking. At the other side of the clearing, Vassily was running back toward the 
luggage. _Shit!_ Rachel dragged Martin to the ground, fumbled for the stunner in her pocket.


_What is it?_ he whispered.


_I don_t know._


_Damn. Well, looks like they_ve found us, whoever they are. Nice knowing you._ A large, hunched 
thing, hugely, mon-strously bipedal, lurched into the clearing: a vast mouth like a doorway gaped at 
them.


_Wait._ Rachel held him down with one hand. _Don_t move. That thing_s wired like a fucking tank, 
sensors everywhere._


The thing swung toward the lander, then abruptly squatted on its haunches. A long, flat tongue lolled 
groundward; something big appeared at the top of it and stepped down to the meadow. It swept its head 
from side to side, taking in the decrepitating lifeboat, Vassily hiding behind it, the rest of the clearing. 
Then it called out, in a surprisingly deep voice. _Hello? We arrive not-warfully. Is there a Rachel 
Mansour here?_


Well, here goes. She stood up and cleared her throat. _Who wants to know?_


The Critic grinned at her, baring frighteningly long tusks: _I am Sister Seventh. You come in time! We a 
crisis have!_
People began gathering outside the Ducal palace around evening. They came in ones and twos, clumped 
shell-shocked beneath the soot-smeared outer walls. They looked much like any other citizens of the 
New Republic; perhaps a bit poorer, a bit duller than most.


Robard stood in the courtyard and watched them through the gates. Two of the surviving ratings stood 
there, guns ready, a relic of temporal authority. Someone had found a flag, charred along one edge but 
otherwise usable. The crowd had begun to form about an hour after they raised it to fly proudly in the 
light breeze. The windows might be broken and the furniture smashed, but they were still soldiers of His 
Imperial Majesty, and by God and Emperor there were standards, and they would be observed_so the 
Admiral had indicated, and so they were behaving.


Robard breathed in deeply. Insect bite? A most suspicious insect, indeed. But since it had stung the 
Admiral, his condition had improved remarkably. His left cheek remained slack, and his fingers 
remained numb, but his arm_
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Robard and Lieutenant Kossov had borne their ancient charge to the control tower, cursing and sweating 
in the noon-day heat. As they arrived, Kurtz had thrown a fit; choking, gasping, choleric, thrashing in his 
wheelchair. Robard had feared for the worst, but then Dr. Hertz had come and administered a horse 
syringe full of adrenaline. The Admiral subsided, panting like a dog: and his left eye had opened and 
rolled sideways, to fix Robard with a skewed stare. _What is it, sir? Is there anything I can get you?_


_Wait._ The Admiral hissed. He tensed, visibly. __M all hot. But it_s so clear._ Both hands moved, 
gripping the sides of his wheelchair, and to Robard_s shock the old man rose to his feet. _My Emperor! I 
can walk!_


Robard_s feelings as he caught his employer were impossible to pin down. Disbelief, mostly, and pride. 
The old man shouldn_t be able to do that; in the aftermath of his stroke, he_d been paralyzed on one side. 
Such lesions didn_t heal, the doctor had said. But Kurtz had risen from his chair and taken a wobbly step 
forward_


From the control tower to the castle, events had moved in a dusty blur. Requisitioned transport, a 
bouncing ride through a half-deserted town, half the houses in it burned to the ground and the other half 
sprouting weird excrescences. The castle, deserted. Get the Admiral into the Duke_s bedroom. Find the 
kitchen, see if there_s anything edible in the huge underground larders. Someone hoisted a flag. Guards 
on the gate. Two timid serving women like little mice, scurrying from hiding and curtsying to the service 
they_d long since been broken to. A cleaning detail, broken furniture ruthlessly consigned to the 
firewood heap that would warm the grand ballroom. Emergency curtains_steel-mesh and spider-silk_
furled behind the tall and shattered windows. Guards on the gate, with guns. Check the water pipes. 
More uniforms moving in the dusty afternoon heat. Busy, so busy.


He_d stolen a minute to break into Citizen Von Beck_s office. None of the revolutionary cadres had got 
that far into the castle, or survived the active countermeasures. All the Curator_s tools lay handy; Robard 
had paused to check the emergency causal channel, but its entropy had been thoroughly maximized even 
though the bandwidth monitor showed more than fifty percent remaining. His worst suspicions 
confirmed, he made liberal use of the exotic insecticides Von Beck had stocked, spraying his person 
until the air was blue and chokingly unbreathable. Then he pocketed a small artifact_one that it was 
illegal on pain of death for anyone not of the Curator_s Office to be in possession of_left the room, 
locked it behind him, and returned to the duties of the Admiral_s manservant.


The aimless cluster outside the Ducal palace had somehow metamorphosed into a crowd while he_d 
been busy. Anxious, pinched faces stared at him: the faces of people uncertain who they were, bereft of 
their place in the scheme of things. Lost people, desperately seeking reassurance. Doubtless many would 
have joined the dissident underground; many more would have made full use of the singular conditions 
brought about by the arrival of the Festival to maximize their personal abilities. For years to come, even 
if the Festival vanished tomorrow, the outback would be peopled by ghouls and wizards, talking animals 
and sagacious witches. Some people didn_t want to transcend their humanity; a life of routine 
reassurance was all they craved, and the Festival had deprived them of it. Was that an army greatcoat 
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lurking at the back of the square? A sallow-faced man, half-starved, who in other circumstances Robard 
would have pegged for a highwayman; here he was just as likely to be the last loyal dregs of a regiment 
that had deserted en masse. Snap judgments could be treacherous.


He looked farther. Dust, rising in the distance, perhaps half a mile away. Hmm.


The grand hallway opened from the front doors and led to the main staircase, the ballroom, and 
numerous smaller, more discreet destinations. Normally, a manservant would have used a small side 
entrance. Today, Robard strode in through the huge doors that normally would have welcomed 
ambassadors and knights of the realm. Nobody watched his dusty progress across the floor, treading dirt 
into shattered tiles and bypassing the shattered chandelier. He didn_t stop until he reached the entrance to 
the Star Chamber.


__other leg of lamb. Damn your eyes, can_t you knock, man?_


Robard paused in the doorway. The Admiral was sitting at the Governor_s desk, eating a platter of cold 
cuts_very cold, preserved meats and pickles from the cellar_with Commander Leonov and two of the 
other surviving staff officers stand-ing attentively by. _Sir. The revolutionary guards are approaching. 
We have about five minutes to decide whether to fight or talk. Can I suggest you leave the rest of your 
meal until after we have dealt with them?_


Leonov rounded on him. _You bounder, how dare you disturb the Admiral! Get out!_


Robard raised his left hand and turned it over, revealing the card he held. _Have you ever seen one of 
these before?_


Leonov turned white. _I_I__


_I don_t have time for this,_ Robard said brusquely. To the Admiral; _My lord?_


Kurtz stared at him with narrowed eyes. _How long?_


Robard shrugged. _All the time I_ve been with you, my lord. For your own protection. As I was saying, 
a crowd is moving in our direction from the south bank, over the old bridge. We have about five minutes 
to decide what to do, but I doubt we will make any friends by shooting at them._


Kurtz nodded. _I will go and talk to them, then._


Now it was Robard_s turn to stare. _Sir, I believe you should be in a wheelchair, not arguing with 
revolutionaries. Are you quite sure__
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_Haven_t felt this good in, oh, about eight years, young feller. The bees around here pack a damned odd 
sting._


_Yes, you could say that. Sir, I believe you may have been compromised. The Festival apparently has 
access to a wide range of molecular technologies, beyond the one that_s done such a sterling job on your 
cerebrovascular system. If they wanted__


Kurtz raised a hand. _I know. But we_re at their mercy in any event. I will go down to the people and 
talk. Were any of the crowd old?_


_No._ Robard puzzled for a moment. _None that I saw. Do you suppose__


_A cure for old age is a very common wish,_ Kurtz observed. _Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a 
jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan. If this Festival has been granting wishes, 
as our intelligence put it&_ He stood up. _Get me my dress uniform, Rob_oh. You, yes you, Kossov. 
You_re my batman now Robard here outranks you all. And my medals!_


Leonov, white as a sheet, still hadn_t stopped shaking. _It_s alright,_ Robard said sepulchrally. _I don_t 
usually have people executed for being rude to me._


_Sir! Ah_yes, sir! Um, if I may ask__


_Ask away._


_Since when is an Invigilator of the Curator_s Office required to disguise himself as a manservant?_


_Since__Robard pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it__about seven years and six months ago, 
at the request of the Archduke. Really. Nobody notices a servant, you know. And His Excellency__ 
Kossov returned bearing the trappings of high office. Leonov ushered Robard out onto the landing while 
the Admiral dressed. _His Excellency is not in direct line to the throne. If you take my meaning._ 
Leonov did, and his sharp intake of breath_combined with the stress analyzers wired into his auditory 
nerves_told Robard everything he needed to know. _No, His Majesty had no expectation of a coup; the 
Admiral is unquestionably loyal. But his personal charisma, fame as a hero of the Republic, and wide 
popularity, made his personal safety a matter of some importance. We can use him here._


_Oh._ Leonov thought for a while. _The revolutionaries?_


_If he pushes them, they_ll crumble,_ Robard said decisively. _All their strongest supporters have long 
since fled; that_s the nature of a singularity. If they don_t__he tapped his pocket__I am licensed to take 
extraordinary measures in the defense of the Republic, including the use of proscribed technologies._


Leonov dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. _Then it_s all over. You_ll break the revolutionaries 


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by force or by politics, install His Excellency as governor pro tern, and in six months time it will all be 
over, bar the shouting._


_I wouldn_t say that. Even if the woman from Earth was right_and I am inclined to think she was 
telling the truth about the Festival not being interested in planetary conquest as we understand it, in 
which case this whole expedition has been a monstrously expensive mistake_we_ve lost two-thirds of 
the population. We can never get rid of the pernicious virus of bandwidth that they_ve infected this 
planet with; we may have to abandon the colony, or at the very least institute quarantine procedures. The 
bloody revolutionaries have won, here, the djinn is well and truly out of the bottle. Everything our 
ancestors fought for, torn up and scattered to the winds! A virus of eternal youth is loose in the bees, and 
the streets are paved with infinite riches. It devalues everything!_ He stopped and took a deep breath, 
disturbed by the degree of his own agitation. _Of course, if we can suppress the revolutionary cadres 
here in New Petrograd, we can mop up the countryside at our leisure&_


The door to the Star Chamber opened to reveal Admiral Kurtz standing there, resplendent in the gold 
braid, crimson sash, and chestful of medals that his rank dictated. He looked a decade younger than his 
age, not two decades older: patrician, white-haired, the very image of a gentleman dictator, reassuringly 
authoritarian. _Well, gentlemen! Shall we review the crowds?_ He did not stride_wasted leg muscles 
saw to that_but he walked without a hand at either elbow.


_I think that would be a very good idea, sir,_ said Robard.


_Indeed._ Leonov and the senior Curator fell into step behind the admiral as he walked toward the 
staircase. _The sun is setting on anarchy and disarray, gentlemen. Only let my tongue be silver and 
tomorrow will once again be ours._


Together, they stepped into the courtyard to address the sheep who, did they but know it, had already 
returned to the fold.
An amber teardrop the size of a charabanc perched on the edge of a hillside covered in the mummified 
bones of trees. Ashy telegraph poles coated in a fine layer of soot pointed at the sky; tiny skeletons 
crunched under Burya Rubenstein_s boots as he walked among them, following a man-sized rabbit.


_Master in here,_ said Mr. Rabbit, pointing at the weirdly curved lump.


Rubenstein approached it cautiously, hands clasped behind his back. Yes, it was definitely amber_or 
something closely resembling it. Flies and bubbles were scattered throughout its higher layers; darkness 
shrouded its heart. _It_s a lump of fossilized vegetable sap. Your master_s dead, rabbit. Why did you 
bring me here?_


The rabbit was upset. His long ears tilted backward, flat along the top of his skull. _Master in here!_ He 



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shifted from one foot to the other. _When Mimes attack, master call for help._


Burya decided to humor the creature. _I see__ He stopped. There was something inside the boulder, 
something darkly indistinct. And come to think of it, all the trees hereabouts were corpses, fried from the 
inside out by some terrible energy. The revolutionary guards, already spooked by the Lysenkoist forest, 
had refused to enter the dead zone. They milled about downslope, debating the ideological necessity of 
uplifting non-human species to sapience_one of them had taken heated exception to a proposal to 
giving opposable thumbs and the power of speech to cats_and comparing their increasingly baroque 
implants. Burya stared closer, feeling himself slip into a blurred double vision as the committee for state 
communications_ worms fed their own perspective to him. There was something inside the boulder, and 
it was thinking, artlessly unformed thoughts that tugged at the Festival_s cellular communications 
network like a toddler at its mother_s skirt.


Taking a deep breath, he leaned against the lump of not-amber. _Who are you?_ he demanded 
noiselessly, feeling the smooth warm surface under his hands. Antennae beneath his skin radiated 
information into the packetized soup that flooded in cold waves through the forest, awaited a reply.


_Me-Identity: Felix. You-Identity: ???_


_Come out of there with your hands above your head and prepare to submit your fate to the vanguard of 
revolutionary justice!_ Burya gulped. He_d meant to send something along the lines of _Can you come 
out of there so we can talk?_, but his revolutionary implants evidently included a semiotic dereferencing 
stage that translated anything he said_through this new cyberspatial medium_into Central Committee 
sound bites. Angry at the internal censorship, he resolved to override it next time.


_Badly hurt. No connection previous incarnation. Want/ need help metamorphosis._


Burya turned and leaned his back against the boulder. _You. Rabbit. Can you hear any of this?_


The rabbit sat up and swallowed a mouthful of grass. _Any of what?_


_I_ve been talking to, ah, your master. Can you hear us?_


One ear flicked. _No._


_Good._ Burya closed his eyes, settled back into double vision, and attempted to communicate. But his 
implant was still acting up. _How did you get here? What are you trying to achieve? I thought you were 
in trouble_ came out as _Confess your counter-revolutionary crimes before the tribunal! What task are 
you striving to accomplish in the unceasing struggle against reactionary mediocrity and bourgeois 
incremental-ism? I thought you were guilty of malicious hooliganism!_


_Fuck,_ he muttered aloud. _There_s got to be a bypass filter__ Ah. _Sorry about that, my interface is 


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ideologically biased. How did you get here? What are you trying to achieve? I thought you were in 
trouble._


An answer slowly burbled up and out of the stone; visual perceptions cut in, and for a few minutes 
Burya shook in the grip of a young lad_s terrified flight from the Fringe.


_Ah. So. The Festival mummified you pending repairs. And now you_re ready to go somewhere else_
where? What_s that?_


Another picture. Stars, endless distance, tiny dense and very hot bodies sleeping the dreamless light-
years away. Bursting in a desert storm of foliage on a new world, flowering and dying and sleeping 
again until next time.


_Let me get this straight. You used to be the governor. Then you were an eight-year-old boy with some 
friendly talking animals under some kind of geas to _lead an interesting life_ and have lots of adventures. 
Now you want to be a starship? And you want me, as the nearest delegate of the Central Committee for 
the revolution, to help you?_


Not exactly. Another vision, this time long and complex, burdened by any number of political proposals 
that his implant irritatingly attempted to convert into plant-yield diagrams indicating the progress toward 
fruition of an agricultural five-year plan. _You want me to do that?_ Burya winced. _What do you think 
I am, a free agent? Firstly, the Curator_s Office would shoot me as soon as look at me, much less listen 
to what they_d view as treason. Secondly, you_re not the governor anymore, and even if you were and 
proposed something like this, they_d sack you faster than you can snap your fingers. In case you didn_t 
notice those fireworks yesterday, that was the Imperial fleet_what_s left of it_shooting it out with the 
Festival. Thirdly, the revolutionary committee would be queuing up to shoot me, too, if I proposed 
something like this. Never underestimate the intrinsic, as opposed to ideological, conservatism of an idea 
like revolution once it_s got some momentum behind it. No, it_s not practical. I really don_t see why you 
wasted my time with such a stupid proposal. Not at__


He stopped. Something downslope was making a lot of noise, thrashing through the kill zone left by the 
X-ray laser battery. _Who_s there?_ he asked, but Mr. Rabbit had vanished in a tuft of panicky white tail 
fur.


A telephone-pole tree toppled slowly over before the thrashing, and a strange, chicken-legged mound 
lurched into view. Sister Seventh sat in the hut_s doorway, glaring intently at him. _Burya Rubenstein!_ 
she yelled. _Come here! Resolution achieved! Cargo retrieved! You have visitors!_
Expecting a momentous meeting, Rachel cast her eyes around the hillside: they took to the air and flew 
on in-sectile wings, quartering the area for threats.
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The trees hereabouts were dead, charred by some terrible force. Martin watched anxiously as she 
rummaged in the corpulent steamer trunk. _What_s that?_ he asked.


_Cornucopia seed,_ she said, tossing the fist-sized object at him. He caught it and inspected it curiously.


_All engineering is here,_ he marveled. _In miniature._ Several million billion molecular assemblers, a 
kilowatt of thin-film solar cells to power them, thermodynamic filtration membranes to extract raw 
feedstocks from the environment, rather more computing power than the whole of the pre-Sin-gularity 
planetary Internet. He pocketed the seed, then looked at her. _You had a reason& ?_


_Yup. We_re not going to have the original for much longer. Don_t let the kid see it, he might guess what 
it is and flip his lid._ She continued forward. There was some kind of boulder near the crest of the hill, 
and a man was leaning against it. The Critic_s house lurched forward, crashing and banging toward it. 
_If that_s who I hope it is__


They started up the rise. The trees hereabouts were all dead. Martin stumbled over a rounded stone and 
kicked at it, cursing: he stopped when it revealed itself to be a human skull, encrusted with metallic 
fibrils. _Something bad happened here._


_Big surprise. Help me steer this thing._ The steamer trunk, now running on fuel cells, was proving 
balky and hard to control on the grassy slope: half the time they had to drag it over obstacles. _You got 
any holdouts?_


Martin shrugged. _Do I look like a soldier?_


She squinted at him for a moment. _You_ve got enough hidden depths, dearie. Okay, if it turns nasty, I_ll 
handle things._


_Who_s this guy you_re supposed to be seeing, anyway?_


_Burya Rubenstein. Radical underground journalist, big mover and shaker in the underground. Ran a 
soviet during a major worker_s strike some years ago; got himself exiled for his pains, lucky they didn_t 
shoot him._


_And you_re planning to hand__ Martin stopped. _Ah, so that_s what you were planning. That_s how 
you were going to start a revolution here, before the Festival made it all last year_s news._ He glanced 
over his shoulder, but Vassily was nowhere to be seen.


_Not exactly. I was just going to give them the tools to do so if they wanted to._ She wiped her forehead 
on the back of a hand. _Actually, it_s been a contingency plan for years, only we never quite had a good 
enough reason to do it_initiation of force, that kind of thing. Now, well, the whole game_s changed. Far 
as I can tell, Rubenstein_s lot survived the transition to a postscarcity economy; they may be the nearest 


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thing to civil authorities on this two-bit backwater colony right now. When the Festival gets bored and 
moves on, they may not be able to survive without a cornucopia. Assuming, of course, that they didn_t 
ask the Festival for one straight off._ The luggage surged forward, getting a grip on the ground, and she 
stopped talking for a while to concentrate on steering it up the hill.


_So what was your exit strategy?_ Martin asked, walking along behind her.


_Exit strategy? We don_t need no stinking exit strategy! Just_deliver this. Then melt into the chaos. 
Find somewhere to live. Settle down till trade resumes. Ship out. You?_


_About the same. Herman has a way of catching up after a while. Uh, did you have anywhere in mind to
__


_Small town called Plotsk._ She jerked her head sharply. _First things first. I need to deliver the 
package. Then we need to ditch laughing boy somewhere safe where he can_t follow us, hmm? Aside 
from that, I was wondering if_well. About us._


Martin reached out and took her free hand. _Wondering if you were going to get rid of me?_


She stared at him. _Mm. Why_am I going to have to?_


Martin took a deep breath. _Do you want to get rid of me?_


She shook her head.


Martin gently pulled her toward him, until she leaned against him. _Me neither,_ he murmured in her ear.


_Two of us stand a better chance than one, anyway,_ she rationalized. _We can watch each other_s 
backs, it_s going to be hairy for a while. Plus, we may be stuck here for some time. Years, even._


_Rachel. Stop making excuses._


She sighed. _Am I that transparent?_


_You_ve got a worse sense of duty than__ She pulled back a little, and he stopped, seeing the warning 
glint in her eyes. Then she began to laugh quietly, and after a moment he joined her.


_I can think of much worse people to be stranded with in the middle of a backwater recovering from a 
revolution, Martin, believe me__


_Okay, I believe you, I believe you!_ She leaned forward and kissed him, hard, then let go with a smile.



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The luggage was rolling smoothly now, and the slope of the ground was flattening out. The boulder 
above them glowed yellow in the afternoon light; and the man who_d been leaning against it was deep in 
animated arm-waving conversation with the huge Critic. As they approached, he turned to face them: a 
wiry, short man with bushy hair, a goatee,, and the antique affectation of pince-nez. Judging by the state 
of his clothing he_d been on the road for some time. _Who are you?_ he demanded aggressively.


_Burya Rubenstein?_ Rachel asked tiredly.


_Yes?_ He glared at her suspiciously. _You have countermeasures!_


_Parcel for Burya Rubenstein, care of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, Rochard_s World. You 
wouldn_t believe how far it_s come or how many hoops I_ve had to jump through to get it to you._


_Ah__ He stared at the trunk, then back at Rachel. _Who did you say you were?_


_Friends from Old Earth,_ Martin grunted. _Also hungry, dirty, shipwrecked survivors._


_Well, you won_t find any decent hospitality here._ Rubenstein swept a hand around the clearing. _Old 
Earth, did you say? Now that is a long way to come with a parcel! Just what exactly is it?_


_It_s a cornucopia machine. Self-replicating factory, fully programmable, and it_s yours. A gift from 
Earth. The means of production in one handy self-propelled package. We hoped you might feel like 
starting an industrial revolution. At least we did before we found out about the Festival._ Rachel blinked 
as Rubenstein threw back his head and laughed wildly.


_Just what exactly is that meant to mean?_ she demanded irritably. _I_ve come forty light-years, at not 
inconsiderable risk, to deliver a message you_d have murdered for six months ago. Don_t you think you 
could explain yourself?_


_Oh, madam, please accept my apologies. I do you a disservice. If you_d delivered this even four weeks 
ago, you_d have changed the course of history_of that I have no doubt! But you see__he straightened 
up and his expression grew sober__we have had such devices since the first day of the Festival. And for 
all the good they_ve done us, I_d just as soon never have set eyes on one._


She looked back at Rubenstein. _Well, that confirms it. I suppose you_ve got time to fill me in on what_s 
been going on here while I_ve been engaged in this fool_s errand?_ she demanded.


_We held the revolution about, ah, three weeks ago._ Burya circled the steamer trunk, inspecting it. 
_Things did not go according to plan, as I_m sure our friend the Critic here will ex-plain._ He sat down 
on the chest. _Eschaton only knows what the Critics are doing here in the first place, or indeed the 
Festival. We_nobody_was ready for what happened. My dreams are co-opted by committee meetings, 



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did you know that? The revolution ran its course in two weeks: that_s how long it took for us to realize 
nobody needed us. Emergent criticality. The Sister here has been showing me the consequences_bad 
consequences._ He hung his head. _Survivors of the fleet have landed at the capital, they tell me. People 
are flocking to them. They want security, and who can blame them?_


_So let me get this straight._ Rachel leaned against the huge amber boulder. _You changed your mind 
about wanting to change the system?_


_Oh no!_ Burya stood up agitatedly. _But the system no longer exists. It wasn_t destroyed by committees 
or Soviets or worker_s cadres; it was destroyed by people_s wishes coming true. But come, now. You 
look as if you_ve been through a battle! There are refugees everywhere, you know. Once I sort out my 
business here, I will return to Plotsk and see what I can do to ensure stability. Perhaps you_d like to 
come along?_


_Stability,_ Martin echoed. _Um, what business? I mean, why are you here? We seem to be quite a way 
from civilization._ That was a huge understatement, as far as Rachel could see. She leaned back and 
looked down at the forest dispiritedly. To come all this distance, only to find that she was three weeks 
too late to change history for the better: that the Festival had dropped an entire planetary society, such as 
it was, into an informational blender and dialed the blades to FAST; it was all a bit too much to 
appreciate. That, and she was tired, mortally tired. She_d done her best, like Martin. Three weeks. If 
Martin had failed&


_There_s someone inside that boulder,_ said Rubenstein.


_What?_ A complex three-dimensional model of the hillside spread out before Rachel_s distributed spy-
eyes. There was Vassily, working his way up the far side of the slope. Here was Martin. And the boulder
_


_The occupant._ Burya nodded. _He_s still alive. Actually, he wants to join the Festival as a passenger. I 
can see why; from his point of view, it makes sense. But I think the emergency committee might disagree
_they_d rather see him dead.


The reactionary forces in the capital would disagree for other reasons: they_d want him back. He used to 
be the planetary governor, you see, until too many of his private, personal wishes came true. Dereliction 
of duty._ Rubenstein blinked. _I wouldn_t have believed it, but._


_Ah. So what_s the real problem with him joining the Festival?_


_Getting their attention. The Festival trades information for services. He_s told it everything he knows. 
So have I. What are we to do?_


_That_s preposterous,_ said Martin. _You mean, the Festival will only accept fare-paying passengers?_



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_Strange as this may seem, it_s how the Fringe and the Critics first came aboard. The Critics still pay 
their way by providing higher-level commentary on whatever they find._ Burya sat down again.


Martin yelled. _Hey! Critic!_


On the lower slopes of the hill, Sister Seventh sat up. _Question?_ she boomed.


_How are you going home?_ Martin shouted at her.


_Finish Critique! Exchange liftwise._


_Can you take a passenger?_


_Ho!_ Sister Seventh ambled up the slope of the hill. _Identity interrogative?_


_Whoever_s in this vitrification cell. Used to be the planetary governor, I_m told._


The Critic shambled closer. Rachel tried not to recoil from her clammy vegetable-breathy presence. 
_Can take cargo,_ Sister Seventh rumbled. _Give reason._


_Um._ Martin glanced at Rachel. _The Festival assimilates information, no? We came from the fleet. I 
have an interesting story to tell._


Sister Seventh nodded. _Information. Useful, yes, low entropy. Is passenger__


_Vitrified,_ Burya interrupted. _By the Festival, apparently. Please be discreet. Some of my colleagues 
would disapprove, and as for the reactionaries__


Some sixth sense made Rachel turn around. It was Vassily: he_d circled around the far side of the hill for 
some reason, and now she saw that he was clutching a seemingly bladeless handle. His expression was 
wild. _Burya Rubenstein?_ he gasped.


_That_s me. Who are you?_ Rubenstein turned to face the new arrival.


Vassily took two steps forward, half-staggering, like a marionette manipulated by a drunk. _I_m your 
son, you bastard! Remember my mother yet?_ He raised his power knife.


_Oh shit._ Rachel suddenly noticed the fuzz of static that was even now plucking at her implants, trying 
to tell them this wasn_t happening, that there was nobody there. Things became clearer, much clearer. 
She wasn_t the only person with high-level implants hereabouts.



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_My son?_ Rubenstein looked puzzled for a moment, then his expression cleared. __Milla was allowed 
to keep you after I was exiled?_ He stood up. _My son__


Vassily swung at Rubenstein, artlessly but with all the force he could muster. But Burya wasn_t there 
when the knife came down; Martin had tackled him from behind, ramming him headfirst into the ground.


With a shrill screech, the power knife cut into the lid of the cornucopia, slicing through millions of 
delicate circuits. A numinous flickering light and a smell of fresh yeast rose up as Vassily struggled to 
pull the blade out. A superconducting monofilament, held rigid by a viciously powerful magnetic field, 
the knife could cut through just about anything. Martin rolled over on his back and looked up just as 
Vassily, his face a slack mask, stepped toward him and raised the knife. There was a brief buzzing 
sound, and his eyes rolled up: then Vassily collapsed across the chest.


Arms and chest burning, Rachel lowered the stun gun and dropped back into real-world speed. Panting, 
heart racing. Do this too often and die. _Bloody hell, wasn_t there anybody aboard the fleet without a 
covert agenda?_ she complained.


_Doesn_t look like it._ Martin struggled to sit up.


_What happened?_ Burya looked around, dazed.


_I think__ Rachel looked at the trunk. It was outgassing ominously: the power knife had cut through a 
lot of synthesis cells, and evidently some of the fuel tanks were leaking faster than the repair programs 
could fix them. _It could be a bad idea to stay here. Talk about it on the road to Plotsk?_


_Yes._ Burya rolled Vassily off the trunk and dragged him a few paces. _Is he really my son?_


_Probably._ Rachel paused to yawn for air. _I wondered a bit. Why he was along. Couldn_t have been a 
mistake. And then, the way he went for you_programmed, I think. Curator_s Office must have figured, 
if revolution, you_d be central. Bastard child, disgraced mother, easily recruited. Credible?_


Sister Seventh had ambled up and was sniffing at the vitrification cell occupied by the nearly late Duke 
Felix Politovsky. _I told Festival passenger upload now-soon,_ she rumbled. _You tell story? Honor 
credit?_


_Later,_ said Martin.


_Okay._ Sister Seventh gnashed at the air. _You got overdraft at the mythology bank. I fix. Go Plotsk, 
now-soonish?_


_Before the luggage goes bang,_ Martin agreed. He stood up a trifle drunkenly, winced as he transferred 



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his weight onto one knee. _Rachel?_


_Coming._ The dark spots had almost vacated her visual field. _Okay. Um, if we can tie him up and put 
him in that walking hut of yours, we can work on his brainwashing later. See if there_s anything more to 
him than a programmed assassin._


_I agree._ Burya paused. _I didn_t expect this._


_Neither did we,_ she said shortly. _Come on. Let_s get away before this thing blows._


Together they stumbled away from the fizzing revolutionary bomb and the last unchanging relic of the 
ancien regime, back down the hillside that led toward the road to Plotsk.
Epilogue


Once news of Admiral Kurtz_s miraculous appearance in the Ducal palace spread into the city, a tenuous 
curtain of normality began to assert itself. The revolutionary committees centered on the Corn Exchange 
watched the situation with alarm, but the common people were less unenthusiastic. Most of them were 
bewildered, disoriented, and deeply upset by the strangeness of the times. Those who weren_t had for the 
most part already left the city; the survivors huddled together for comfort amidst the ruins of their 
certainties, eating manna from the Festival_s machines and praying.


Kurtz_s mysterious burst of good health continued; as Ro-bard had noticed earlier, diseases of 
senescence were extremely rare among the survivors of the Festival, and for good reason. Acting on the 
Curator_s advice, the Admiral magnanimously announced an amnesty for all progressive elements and a 
period of reconstruction and collective introspection. Many of the remaining revolutionaries took the 
opportunity to melt into the crowded camps or leave the city, in some cases taking cornucopia seeds 
with them. Rochard_s World was thinly colonized, an almost unknown wilderness starting just three 
hundred kilometers beyond the city. Those who could not stand to watch a return to the old status quo 
took to the roads.


Also at the behest of the Curator_s Office, the Admiral made no attempt to send militia forces after them. 
There would be time for dealing with miscreants later, Robard pointed out. Time enough after they_d 
starved through the coming winter.


A few more lifeboats made it down intact, cluttering the landing field behind the palace. Regular light 
shows lit up the sky with blue streaks of light; departing spawn of the Festival. Babushkas in the street 
looked up, made the sign of the evil eye, and spat in the gutter as the evil time passed. Some of the 
passing wisps bore the encoded essence of the old Duke; but few people knew and fewer cared. 
Gradually, the Festival_s orbiting factories reached the end of their design life and shut down: slowly, 



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the telephones stopped ringing. Now, people used them to call each other up. It was good to talk, and 
scattered families and friends rediscovered one another through the directionless medium of the phone 
network. The Curator fretted, and finally concluded that there was nothing to be done about it. Not until 
contact with the father planet resumed, in any event.
Things happened differently in Plotsk. The outlying township lay cut off from the capital by landslides 
and bizarre, dangerous structures that had rendered the roads impassable. Here, the revolutionary 
committee wound down until it was now a local provisional council, now a town governance. Peasants 
began to squat in the many abandoned farms around the town, second and third sons gifted by a sudden 
superfluity of soil. Strangers drifted in, fleeing chaos in smaller settlements, and there was space for 
everybody. Comrade Ruben-stein of the Central Committee announced his intention to settle; after a 
heated row with the governance, he agreed to stick to publishing a newsletter and leave matters of 
ideology to less mercurial souls. He moved into Havlicek the Pawnbroker_s apartment above the gutted 
shop on Main Street, along with a young man who said little and was not seen in public for the first 
week, providing much fertile material for wagging tongues. Strange structures burbled and steamed in 
the small courtyard behind the shop, and rumor had it that Rubenstein dabbled in the strange arts of 
technological miracle-working that had so upset the state sometime ago_but nobody disturbed him, for 
the local constabulary were in the pay of the governance, who had more sense than to mess with a 
dangerous wizard and revolutionary ideologue.


Another strange couple took over a tenement above Markus Wolff_s old hardware store. They didn_t talk 
much, but the bearded man demonstrated a remarkable aptitude with tools. Together they rebuilt the 
store, then opened for business. They kept a small stock of locks and clocks and rebuilt telephones and 
more exotic gadgets, racked in the age-blackened oak cabinets within the shop. These they traded for 
food and clothing and coal, and tongues wagged about the source of the miraculous toys that they sold 
so cheap_items that would have cost a fortune in the capital of the father world, never mind a 
backwoods colonial town. The supply seemed never-ending, and the sign they hung from the shop front 
was daringly close to subversive: access to tools and ideas. But this didn_t provoke as much comment as 
the conduct of his partner; a tall, thin woman with dark hair cut short, who sometimes went about 
bareheaded and unaccompanied, and frequently ran the shop when her husband was absent, even serving 
strangers on her own.


Back before the Festival, their conduct would have been sure to arouse comment, perhaps even a visit by 
the police and a summons to the Curator_s Office. But in these strange times, nobody seemed to care: 
and the radical Rubenstein was a not-infrequent visitor to their shop, procuring interesting components 
for his printing mechanism. They evidently had dangerous friends, and this was enough to deter the 
neighbors from snooping too much_except for the widow Lorenz, who seemed to feel it was her duty 
to pick a quarrel with the woman (who she suspected of being a Jewess, or unwed, or something equally 
sinister).


Over the nine months following the Festival, summer slid into the cold, rainy depths of autumn: the sun 
hid its face, and winter settled its icy grip into the ground. Martin spent many evenings rooting through 



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the supply of metal bar stock he_d collected during the summer, feeding pieces to the small fabricator in 
the cellar, trying his hand at toolmaking with the primitive mechanical equipment to hand. Diamond 
molds, electric arc furnace, numerically controlled milling machine_these, his tools, he spun from the 
fabricator, using them in turn to make artifacts that the farmers and shopkeepers around him could 
understand.


While Martin worked at these tasks, Rachel kept house and shop together, rooted out clothing and food, 
bought advertising space in Rubenstein_s broadsheet, and kept her ears to the ground for signs of 
trouble. They lived together as man and wife, meeting nosy neighborly inquiries with a blank stare and a 
shrug meaning mind your own business. Life was primitive, their resources and comfort limited both by 
what was available and by the exigencies of leading an inconspicuous existence; although after winter 
began to bite, Martin_s installation of insulating foam and heat pumps kept them so warm that one or 
two of the more daring neighbors developed an unwelcome tendency to hang around the shop.


One chilly morning, Martin awoke with a headache and a dry mouth. For a moment he couldn_t recall 
where he was: he opened his eyes and looked up at a dingy white curtain. Someone murmured sleepily 
and rolled against him. How did I get here ? This isn _t my shop. This isn _t my life_the sense of 
alienation was profound. Then memory came sluicing back like a flash flood, damping down the dusty 
plains. He rolled over and reached out an arm, hugged her sleeping shoulders against his chest. Distant 
emitters twittered to the back of his head: all the wards were in place. Rachel muttered and twitched, 
yawning. _Awake?_ he asked softly.


_Yeah. Ah. What time is it?_ She blinked against the morning light, hair tousled and eyes puffy with 
sleep, and a stab of affection thrilled through him.


_After dawn. Bloody cold out here. _Scuse me._ He hugged her once, then slid feet first through the bed-
curtains, out into the frigid bedroom. The frost had scrawled its runes inside the windowpanes. Trying to 
keep his feet off the wooden floor, he twitched on his felt slippers then pulled out the chamber pot and 
squatted. He pulled on chilly outerwear from the clothesline inside the canopy bed, then went down into 
the cellar to inspect the charcoal burner that still glowed, peltier cells generating power for the small 
manufacturing plant_s overnight milling run. Draw water, boil it, and soon they_d have coffee_ a 
miraculous luxury, notwithstanding that it was ersatz, produce of a cornucopia machine. Maybe in a 
week or two the geothermal tap would be providing a bit more heat; for now, any temperature above 
freezing was a win in the face of the fierce steppe winter.


Rachel was up, floor creaking underfoot, yawning as she pulled on her chemise and underskirts. He 
stomped downstairs to rake out the oven and light a new fire; his hands were too cold, and he rubbed 
them hard to get the circulation going. Morning market, isn_t it? He thought. Lots of farmers. Maybe 
make some sales. Then he almost pinched himself. What am I turning into? Cold ashes tumbling into a 
tin bucket as he scraped behind the fire grate. Something rustled behind him. He glanced around. Rachel 
was clad for outdoors: her voluminous brown dress covered her to the soles of her boots, and she_d tied 
her hair up in a head scarf, knotted tightly under her chin after the local fashion. Only her face was 
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exposed. _You going out?_ he asked.


_Market this morning. I want to buy some bread, maybe a chicken or two. They_re not going to be so 
easy to come by if we leave it any longer._ She glanced away. _Brr. Cold today, isn_t it?_


_We should be wanning up in here by the time you get back._ He finished laying coals in the grate and 
used a small, familiar piece of magic: light blossomed fast, spread hungrily across the anthracite 
surfaces. He turned his back to the oven. _Should be a lot of sales today. Money__


_I_ll draw some from the till._ She leaned close, and he wrapped his arms around her. Reassuring and 
solid, embedded within the guise of a local artisan_s wife. She leaned her chin on his shoulder with long 
familiarity.


_You_re looking good this morning. Wonderful._


She smiled a little, and shivered. _Flatterer. I wonder how much longer we_re going to be able to stay 
here?_


_Be able to? Or have to?_


_Um._ She considered for a moment. _Is it getting to you?_


_Yes. A bit._ He chuckled quietly. _I caught myself think-ing like a shopkeeper this morning, while I 
was cleaning out the grate. It_d be so easy to slip into a routine. It_s what, eight months now? Living the 
quiet life. I could almost see us settling down here, raising a family, sinking into obscurity._


_It wouldn_t work._ She tensed under his hands, and he rubbed at her shoulders. _We wouldn_t age right. 
They_ll open up travel again in the new year, and then, well. I_ve done child rearing, too. It wouldn_t 
work, trust me. Be glad of that reversible vasectomy. Or had you thought what it_d be like to be on the 
run with a baby in tow?_


_Oh, I know about that._ He carried on moving his hands in small circles until she relaxed slightly. 
Thick fabric moved under his fingertips, many layers of it against the cold. _I know. We need to move 
on, sooner rather than later. It_s just so& quiet. Peaceful._


_Graveyards are quiet, too._ She pulled back to arm_s length and stared at him, and once again he held 
his breath: because when she did this, he found her unbearably beautiful. _That_s what the New 
Republic is all about, isn_t it? This isn_t a good place to live, Martin. It isn_t safe. The town_s in shock; 
collectively they_re all in a fit of denial. AH their wishes granted, for three months, and it wasn_t 
enough! When they wake up, they_ll reach for the security blanket. The place will be crawling with 
Curator_s Office informers, and this time you don_t have an Admiralty contract and I don_t have a 
diplomatic passport. We_ll have to move on._


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_And your employers__ He couldn_t continue.


_Easy come, easy go._ She shrugged. _I_ve taken leave of absence before. This isn_t leave; it_s lying 
low, waiting to exit a hot zone. But if we could only make it back to Earth, there are lots of things I_d 
like to do with you. Together. There_ll be room to make plans, then. Here, if we stay, someone else will 
plan everything for us. Along with everybody else._


_Alright._ He turned back to the cooker: a healthy red glow rippled beneath the coals that the adiabatic 
heater had goosed into combustion. _Today, the market. Maybe this evening we can think about when to
__


There was a pounding at the front door.


_What is it?_ Martin shouted. Leaving the stove, he sham-bled through into the cold, dark shop: paused 
at the door. Opened the letterbox. _Who_s there?_


_Telegram!_ piped a breathless voice. _Telegram for Master Springburg!_


With a rattle of bolts, Martin slid the door ajar. Blinding white snow, and a red-uniformed post office 
runner boy who stood staring up at him. _Telegram? For the toolsmith?_


_That_d be me,_ he said. The boy waited: Martin fumbled for a tip, a few kopecks, then closed the door 
and leaned against it, heart pounding. A telegram!


_Open it!_ Rachel loomed over him, eyes anxious with hope and surprise. _Who is it from?_


_It_s from Herman__ he opened the envelope and, mouth dry, began to read aloud:


     TO: MARTIN SPRINGFIELD AND RACHEL MANSOUR,


     CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BABY.


     I UNDERSTAND THE CHILD WAS BORN IN ORBIT AROUND ROCHARD_S 
     WORLD, AND SHORTLY DEPARTED IN VARIOUS DIRECTIONS. WHILE I 
     APPRECIATE THAT YOU ARE BOTH TIRED, YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED TO 
     KNOW THAT I HAVE AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS VENTURE OPENING BACK 
     HOME. IF YOU_D LIKE TO BE INVOLVED, TWO TICKETS ARE WAITING FOR 
     YOU AT THE CENTRAL POST OFFICE IN NOVY PETROGRAD.


     PS: I GATHER SPRING IS AN UNHEALTHY SEASON IN PLOTSK. PLEASE DON_T 
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     TARRY.


Later that day, the old Wolff hardware store caught fire and burned down to the ground_the victim, 
local rumor had it, of neglect by its feckless owner. He had last been seen leaving town in a hired sleigh, 
accompanied by his fancy woman and a small carpetbag. They were never seen again in Plotsk, but 
vanished into the capital city like a drop of ink in the blue ocean: lost in the turbulence and excitement 
surrounding the arrival of the first civilian starship since the Festival departed, a tramp freighter from 
Old Calais.


They weren_t really lost: but that, as they say, is another story. And before I recount it, I have some 
wishes I would like you to grant me&
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