Sky.”
Bisesa snorted. “That’s ridiculous. How can you wage war on an abstraction?”
“I suspect that’s the point. It means whatever you want it to mean. And those who control the sky have a lot of power. Why do you think Thales is still stuck on the Moon?”
“Ah. Because nobody can get to him up there. And this is why you left?”
“Most of the gazillions they’re spending are simply wasted.
What’s worse, they’re not doing any serious research into what we do know of Firstborn technology. The Eyes. The manipulation of spacetime, the construction of pocket universes — all of that. Stuff that might actually be useful in the case of a renewed threat.”
“So that’s why you baled out.”
“Yes. I mean, it was fun, Mum. I got to go to the Moon! But I couldn’t swallow the lies. There are plenty on and off the planet who think the way I do.”
“Off the planet?”
“Mum, since the sunstorm a whole generation has been born offworld. Spacers, they call themselves.” She glanced at her mother, then looked away. “It was a Spacer who called me. And asked me to come fetch you.”
“Why?”
“Something’s coming.”
Those simple words chilled Bisesa.
A shifting light caught her eye. Looking up she saw that bright satellite cutting across the sky. “Myra — what’s that? It looks sort of old-fashioned, in among the space mirrors.”
“It’s
A remembrance of the lost times before the sunstorm.”
Conservation and memorials. Clinging to the past. It really was as if the whole world was still in shock. “All right. What do you want me to do?”
“If you’re fit, get packed up. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
Myra smiled, a bit forced. “Off Earth…”
7: The Tooke Medal
The motorcade drew up outside a property in a suburb called Chiswick.
Bella stepped out of her car, along with her two Council body-guards. They were a man and a woman, bulked up by body armor, like all their colleagues silent and anonymous. The woman carried a small package in a black leather case.
The car closed itself up.
Bella faced the Duflot home, gathering her courage. It was a faceless block of white concrete with rounded wind-deflecting corners, sunk into the ground as if it was too heavy for the London clay.
Its roof was a garden of wind turbines, solar cell panels, and antennae; its windows were small and deep. With subterranean rooms and independent power it was a house like a bunker. This was the domestic architecture of the fearful mid — twenty-first century.
Bella had to walk down a flight of steps to the front door. A slim woman in a sharp black suit was waiting.
“Ms. Duflot?”
“Doctor Fingal. Thank you for coming. Call me Phillippa…”
She extended a long-fingered hand.
Shadowed by her security people, Bella was brought through the house to the living room.
Phillippa Duflot must have been in her early sixties, a little older than Bella. Her silvered hair was cut short. Her face was not unattractive, but narrow, her mouth pursed. Phillippa looked capable of steely self-control, but this woman had lost a son, and the marks of that tragedy were in the lines around her eyes, Bella thought, and the tension in her neck.
Waiting for Bella in the living room were the generations of Phillippa’s family. They stood when Bella came into the room, lined up before a softwall showing an image of a pretty Scottish lake. Bella had carefully and nervously memorized all their names. Phillippa’s two surviving sons, Paul and Julian, were solid, awkward-looking thirty-something men. Their wives stood by their sides. This slim, pretty woman of twenty-six was Cassie, the widow of the missing son James, and his two children, boy and girl, six and five, Toby and Candida. They were all dressed for a funeral, in black and white, even the children. And they all had ident tattoos on their cheeks.
The little girl’s was a pretty pink flower.
Standing before this group, under the stares of the children, Bella suddenly had no idea what to say.
Phillippa came to her rescue. “It’s most awfully good of you to come.” Her accent was authentic British upper class, a throwback to another age, rich with composure and command. Phillippa said to her grandchildren, “Doctor Fingal is the head of the Space Council. She’s very important. And she flew from America, just to see us.”
“Well, that’s true. And to give you this.” Bella nodded to her guards, and the woman handed her the leather case. Bella opened this carefully, and set it up on a low coffee table. A disc of delicate, sparkling fabric sat on a bed of black velvet.
The children were wide-eyed. The boy asked, “Is it a medal?”
And Candida asked, “Is it for Daddy?”
“Yes. It’s for your father.” She pointed to the medal, but did not touch it; it looked like spiderweb embedded with tiny electronic components. “Do you know what it’s made of?”
“Space shield stuff,” Toby said promptly.
“Yes. The real thing. It’s called the Tooke Medal. There’s no higher honor you can earn, if you live and work in space, than this.
I knew Bud Tooke. I worked with him, up on the shield. I know how much he would have admired your daddy. And it’s not just a medal. Do you want to see what it can do?”
The boy was skeptical. “What?”
She pointed. “Just touch this stud and see.”
The boy obeyed.
A hologram shimmered into life over the tabletop, eclipsing the medal in its case. It showed a funeral scene, a flag-draped coffin on a caisson drawn by six tiny black horses. Figures in dark blue uniforms stood by. The sound was tinny but clear, and Bella could hear the creak of the horses’ harnesses, their soft hoofbeats.
The silent children loomed like giants over the scene. Cassie was weeping silently; her brother comforted her. Phillippa Duflot watched, composed.
The recording skipped forward. Three rifle volleys cracked, and a flight of tiny, glittering jet aircraft swept overhead, one peeling away from the formation.
“It’s Dad’s funeral,” Toby said.
“Yes.” Bella leaned down to face the children. “They buried him at Arlington. That’s in Virginia — America — where the U.S.
Navy has its cemetery.”
“Dad trained in America.”
“That’s right. I was there, at the funeral, and so was your mummy. This hologram is generated by the shield element itself—”
“Why did one plane fly away like that?”
“It’s called the Missing Man formation. Those planes, you know, Toby. They were T-38s. The first astronauts used them to train on. They’re over a hundred years old, imagine that.”
