The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.]

gradually expanding waistline, the old-man grunt every time he heaved himself up from a chair. His memory not as sharp as it used to be, and now he was having his altme monitor his diet carefully, keeping the carb intake down to avoid full-blown type-two diabetes and the insulin gland that would entail – assuming he could even get on the implant list. If it wasn’t for his bicycle trips keeping him relatively fit, he knew he would have piled on weight and related problems. Visits to the gym had become more and more of an effort, and he didn’t know when he’d last been for a jog along London’s streets; he kept telling himself it was too difficult now everyone was on boardez and bikes and resurrected taxez and modified trollez. It was like the roads of the early twenty-first century out there, for heaven’s sake. No portals, of course; there never would be again. There wasn’t that much power to spare from the settled worlds. The hubs, loops and radials of Connexion’s London transport network were a legend of time past that they told the children about.

‘Utopials are good people,’ Gwendoline said. ‘I like it here. You will, too.’

‘Gwen—’

‘Horatio,’ she said firmly, ‘it really is time for you to leave London now.’

‘I can’t just abandon people. They depend on me.’

‘I depend on you.’

‘No. We have the memory of us. A beautiful memory – and a memory I’m so profoundly grateful I possess.’

‘Lacasta needs you.’

It was a blow so low, Horatio couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘Don’t.’

‘Sie’s nearly three now, and sie wants to meet hir grandfather, not just see him on a screen. Sie needs your arms around hir, for you to hug hir and love hir. Don’t deny hir that.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked, aghast. ‘I can’t leave. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘You “checking your birth benefit” isn’t fair to us, your family. All it’s going to do is get you cocooned.’

‘I’m not virtue-sacrificing. I can see what’s happening.’

‘You can’t, Horatio. Trust me, you don’t know anything.’

‘Yeah? The Londoners who are leaving? They’re chosen carefully.’

‘It’s random. A lottery.’

‘A lottery by area. It’s always evenly distributed, sure – always someone from the next street, someone either you know or a friend’s friend knows and talks about. It’s deliberate, tunnelling down into the personal, to give the illusion that you’re going to be leaving real soon now. To keep the hope alive.’

‘Without hope, Earth would have fallen into anarchy. You can’t afford that, not living under shields.’

‘I know. But you can’t save us all.’

‘I can save you.’

‘And if everyone like me leaves?’

‘Sorry, Horatio, my darling, but you’re not that unique.’

He hunched forwards, hating that their talks had come to this. At the start of Blitz2 he’d felt so empowered, staying and helping those who needed it – which was just about everyone. He had a purpose that would never have existed if he’d followed Gwendoline to Nashua. But that had faded as first years, then eventually decades, flowed past. People were coping now; the city was working again. It was a very different type of economics from what had come before – the ultimate closed-cycle manufacturing. If a printer needed raw material, it had to come from disassembling something – especially if you needed specialist compounds. That took organization and cooperation at a local level, which was the area Horatio excelled in. It had kept him busy for years.

‘I know,’ he said miserably.

‘Then here’s something you don’t know.’ She glanced around as if there were people in her home and drew a determined breath. ‘The G8 monitors might cut the link on me, but . . . Trappist 1 has gone.’

‘Gone? You mean the Chinese evacuated everyone, from every planet? That’s incredible.’

‘No, Horatio. Gone, as in fallen. The portal links failed last night, just after they detected wormholes opening. Resolution ships came through in force. The Olyix are back. It won’t be long now. Every settled world will go. Earth! Earth will fall. Probably in a few hours.’

‘Oh, shit.’

‘So tell me now what you can accomplish by staying. You have family here. Does that mean nothing to you?’

‘It means everything!’

‘Good. Then open the portal. I know it’s still working; the G8Turing runs checks on it every hour. Come through now. Right now.’

‘Every hour?’ he asked dumbly. Every hour for twenty-five years? Longer even than we were married.

‘Yes, Horatio,’ she said in a voice that finally gave her age away. ‘I’ve never given up hope.’

‘God, I don’t know what to say.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘All right,’ he said. And after two and a half decades it was so surprisingly easy. There wasn’t even any guilt.

‘You’ll come?’

‘Yeah. I’ve just got a couple of people I have to say goodbye to.’

Gwendoline’s lips lifted slyly. ‘You can bring her, if you want. Let’s face it, I haven’t been living in a nunnery for twenty-five years.’

‘Not that kind of goodbye,’ he said, just a little too quickly. ‘Give me a couple of hours.’

‘I’m going to call Loi. He’ll be here to welcome you.’

‘And Lacasta?’

‘Try and stop hir.’

FinalStrike Mission

Flight Year 15

It was Ellici who was standing over Dellian’s suspension chamber when his eyes opened. Her smile was indecently cheeky as her gaze lingered on fluid-beaded skin. He ignored it, and the arm she proffered, as he slowly clambered out. The spin gravity didn’t do his sensitive stomach any favours when he tried to stand. Spin gravity?

Icons and data tables expanded in his optik. ‘We’re not under deceleration?’ he asked in confusion. The last time he’d been awake was three years ago – the final duty tour before they were due to reach the neutron star. The data showed him they were point-nine of a lightyear out, which theoretically meant the fleet should have completed their survey of the neutron star.

Ellici offered him her arm again. ‘Wow, she really didn’t tell you, did she?’

‘Huh?’ Instinctively, he looked over at Yirella’s chamber. It was empty.

‘They used to call it plausible deniability back on old Earth,’