‘If we can destroy the Olyix enclave before they return to Earth . . .’ Danuta trailed off. ‘Sorry. It’s just . . . losing is too big to accept.’
‘Short-term loss,’ Yuri said. ‘Long-term gain. A cold equation, but ultimately everyone that the Olyix cocoon will return home.’
‘I sincerely hope so,’ Emilja said. ‘General, how long will it take you to launch Strikeback?’
‘Three days to prepare; then it all depends on the position of Olyix transport ships.’
‘It only takes one to be in the right place,’ Eldlund said. ‘We’ll find it.’
‘And the five of you?’ Ainsley III said, in an unusually sober voice. ‘This is not a mission you can be asked or ordered to perform. Are you still willing to undertake it?’
‘Fucking A,’ Kandara said.
‘The greatest spy mission in the history of the universe.’ Alik chuckled. ‘Try and stop me.’
‘Exhortation, organization and reprisals,’ Yuri said. ‘I will enjoy implementing that last.’
Callum exaggerated a sigh. ‘Someone with a brain has to keep an eye on this lot.’
Everyone turned to stare at Jessika.
‘It will be an honour to fly with you,’ she said, then grinned at Kandara. ‘Who knows? It might finally qualify me as human.’
Interstellar Space
Year 2 AA (After Arrival)
It took the massive fabrication station seven months to extrude the Sisaket habitat: a hollow cylinder thirty-five kilometres long, and eight in diameter, with a sunlight spindle stretched along the axis. When it was powered up, the spindle’s radiance matched the spectrum of a G-class star, shining across an interior of sculpted hills and meandering valleys that idealized the rolling countryside of central Europe. Streams ran the length of the cylinder, slowly thickening as they wound between lakes of varying sizes, fed from twice-weekly night rains. Once germinated, the fledgling biosphere progressed fruitfully, greening the sandy soil and giving the atmosphere the warmth and humidity of late spring.
Dellian breathed it in as he stepped out of the portal just a couple of kilometres from the endcap. ‘Is this temperature correct?’
‘Yes.’ Yirella chuckled. ‘You’re just spoiled from living in tropical climates all the time.’
He shivered and made a show of zipping up his jacket as he surveyed the view. They’d emerged near the top of a small grassy hill, crowned by a cluster of elegant houses. The newness of the habitat’s biosphere was striking. There wasn’t a single plant taller than a metre, as if someone had given the green landscape a buzzcut. Different shades of green mottled the ground as far as he could see. Saplings of proto-forest on the slopes fashioned dark green wave lines undulating down into the emerald grasslands of the valley floors. Two kilometres away, the blank, near-vertical endcap rose upwards like a cliff at the end of the universe.
They walked along the track to Alexandre’s house: a building cut into the hill, with a broad shingle roof and walls that were mostly big windows separated by solid sections of wood plank. A long balcony ran across the front, giving a direct view of the domineering endcap.
‘Nice?’ he asked cautiously.
Yirella shrugged.
Plenty of people were gathering at the house, and Dellian knew most of them. All the binaries who’d grown up on the Immerle estate back on Juloss, or at least those who’d survived the fateful Strike at Vayan two years ago; how many they’d lost still took some getting used to. Mingling with them were omnia who’d been on the Calibar when it was ambushed by the Olyix.
They found Alexandre on the terrace, a tall glass of sparkling rosé in hir hand. Dellian couldn’t remember ever seeing hir drinking before and didn’t quite know how to react. Disapproval would seem like disrespect, and that was something he would never allow to happen. Alexandre’s apparent youth didn’t help his attitude, either. Sie now looked positively adolescent thanks to hir rebuilt body. In fact, Dellian had a sneaking suspicion he might now look the older of the two.
If Alexandre was as perturbed by the age-switch, sie didn’t show it. Sie gave them both a warm hug. ‘Thank you for coming. I need people who’ll ground me.’
‘Happy housewarming,’ Yirella said.
‘Sweet Saints, a housewarming.’ Sie shook hir head in bemusement. ‘I never imagined I’d have a housewarming. It seems so final, like: This is it. You’re never going to move on from this, it’s your peak in life.’
‘Nonsense,’ Dellian said. ‘This is the start of your new life. That’s why we’re celebrating it.’
‘Thank you, but I was quite happy with my old life.’
‘So was everyone on Earth before the Olyix came.’
‘Ouch! Who’s the teacher now?’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’
But Alexandre was chortling, so Dellian grinned weakly and used his databud to call a server remote over – one loaded with plenty of alcohol.
‘How are you coping?’ Yirella asked. ‘Physically, I mean?’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure,’ Alexandre admitted. ‘Most of this new body was grown inside a biologic initiator, which gives me a sense of . . . I don’t know. Imposter syndrome?’
‘But your brain is still a hundred per cent original,’ she insisted.
‘I know. One of the big original human fantasies, right? Having your time over. But there’s got to be a lot of senescent cells left up here.’ Sie tapped hir head. ‘I guess wisdom and caution rule over impetuosity after all. I know I can run up mountains, but despite the urging of fizzing hormones, I just don’t particularly want to.’
‘That’s psychology, not physiology. We’re all still in a state of shock and depression – you from when the Olyix intercepted the Calibar and cocooned the lot of you, us from being ambushed at Vayan when we thought we were the ones ambushing them. I can’t conceive of a greater, more humiliating failure than that.’
‘Oh, my dear, no,’ sie protested. ‘That’s so far from where we are. We have these splendid new habitats to live in safely, and all of us rescued from the Calibar have been
