‘I apologize for bringing you here right out of suspension,’ Kenelm said, ‘but we’ve encountered an unexpected development.’
Yirella turned her head to look at Matías and Rafa, who were standing behind her. ‘Is this to be an expanded council, Captain? If so, shouldn’t squad leader Matías be sitting with the rest of us?’
‘Matías is here to ensure order,’ Kenelm said levelly.
‘Order?’
‘Yirella, we’ve detected something odd at the neutron star,’ Alexandre said in a weary voice. ‘Actually, disturbing is more like it. We’re hoping you can help us understand what’s going on.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I came out of suspension nine months ago to assist Wim’s approach protocol team,’ Tilliana said. ‘Five fleet ships assembled remote sensor satellites to perform the observation.’
‘I remember the specifications,’ Yirella said. ‘The sensors were good, taken from the original Actaeon array design.’
‘Yeah. The sats decelerated at fifty gees, until they matched velocity with the neutron star. Then they stuck out their probes and sent the data back to us through portals.’
‘And?’
‘The neutron star’s rotation speed has changed.’
Yirella took a moment to absorb that monumental fact. ‘Well, that’s good. It should help call attention to the Olyix.’
‘Good?’ Wim said frostily. ‘That’s your take? Good? We have absolutely no idea how to do that.’
‘We do,’ Yirella countered. ‘There are several theories on how to accomplish it.’ She drank some more soup.
‘Yes, but we don’t have the technology actually to do it.’
‘Ainsley probably has. He was carrying some amazing systems.’
‘Ainsley didn’t know how they worked.’
‘No, but the team you led back at the habitats made astonishing progress on Ainsley’s neutronic functions, didn’t you? That was impressive. Put enough effort into a retro-engineering project, and you should ultimately be successful.’
Wim shot Kenelm an agitated glance.
‘You’re suggesting that Ainsley analysed his own composition?’ sie asked.
‘I don’t know. What are you asking me?’
‘We’re asking you about this,’ Kenelm said.
The screen at the end of the table came on, showing a starfield. Right at the centre was a small ring of faint red speckles.
‘And that is?’ Yirella asked, but she knew. She knew because it was beautiful and perfect. Everything she hoped it would be. Yet she still wanted – needed – confirmation.
‘The neutron star civilization,’ Wim said tightly. ‘The infrared emission of close on a quarter of a million individual objects orbiting three hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred kilometres from the star. Best our sensors can measure from here is that they vary from one kilometre to twenty-five in diameter. There are a small number that are even larger, though their infrared signature is lower.’
‘Wow!’
‘Three hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred kilometres is a very specific distance.’
‘The distance the moon orbited our lost Earth,’ Yirella said. ‘So Ainsley has a sense of humour, after all. Who knew?’
‘You’re saying Ainsley did this?’ Wim challenged.
‘I’m saying he enabled it.’ She sipped some more soup, keeping her gaze on Kenelm over the rim of the cup.
‘How did that happen?’ Kenelm asked. ‘The lure civilization you designed was supposed to consist of ten habitats and some neutronic weapons platforms. They were going to announce their existence to the Olyix by targeting the neutron star with chunks of mass to create an artificial pattern of super-high-energy X-ray emissions. Now we see this. How? How could this possibly happen?’
Yirella put the cup down. ‘It happened because I gave the humans full control of the seedship initiators.’
‘You did what?’
‘What humans?’ Wim asked. ‘The lure population was androids.’
‘No, that was the original idea. I changed it.’
‘On whose authority?’ Alexandre asked.
‘Mine. What you’re seeing around the neutron star is a natural space-based human civilization – one that has developed without limits or restrictions so that it can advance a long way beyond us.’
Kenelm closed hir eyes, hir body frozen. ‘Oh, sweet Saints; you didn’t.’
‘Oh, but I did – with Ainsley’s help. I did what I know we have to do to end this. I gave humans the most sophisticated technology we had, and set them free to build whatever they wanted.’
‘Those are real humans?’ sie demanded. ‘Do you even understand the danger you’ve exposed them to?’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic. They’re not in any danger, precisely because I took away your restrictions. All those over-cautious, play-by-the-rules Utopial orthodoxy limits your kind have been imposing on us for millennia. The limits that have stunted us and reduced us to helpless victims; limits that have condemned billions to imprisonment by the Olyix. The blind subservience that means I wouldn’t be far wrong to call you a traitor to our species.’
‘Enough!’ Kenelm shouted, hir fist slamming down on the table. ‘Matías, she is to be placed under cabin arrest until we can convene a full council.’
‘No,’ Yirella shouted, equally loud. ‘You don’t have that authority. Your captaincy is a lie.’
‘Yi,’ Tilliana said desperately. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I have a question for our captain,’ Yirella said. ‘One question, that’s all. You’re not afraid of that, Captain, are you?’
‘Get her out of here,’ Kenelm ordered Matías.
Yirella smiled viciously. ‘How old are you?’
‘What?’
Her neural interface ordered the screen to display a single image, one she’d copied from volume five of the Falkon terraforming books. Five tall omnia smiling at the camera as they stood on a large expanse of windswept marshland, with a grey sea in the background. Equipment cases were open around their feet.
‘Oh, shit,’ Kenelm whispered.
‘What is this?’ a confused Alexandre asked.
‘That,’ Yirella said, ‘is expedition team eighteen B-three of the Falkon Terraforming Office biosphere establishment division. They’re taking samples in a coastal marsh to measure the propagule density in the sediment. Important work, given Falkon was only just ending phase three of its terraforming process at the time, two thousand and twenty-eight years ago.’
Tilliana looked at the image, turned to look at Kenelm, turned back to the screen. ‘Fuck the Saints! It’s you.’
London
12th February 2231
‘I saw the sky yesterday afternoon,’ Horatio said wistfully. ‘We had a break in the clouds for about five minutes. I’d forgotten how strange that blue is –
