He spent a quiet twenty minutes walking among the crowds that boiled along the shopfronts. Every building sported a white and scarlet Celtic Crown national flag. Without exception they were at half mast. Two days earlier, Lothian’s team had been knocked out of the Cup. That had knocked the new Scottish nation hard, it was as if the planet had gone into mourning. Eventually he found the cafe he was looking for, a door at the side of a big electrical retailer, opening onto stairs that took him up to the first floor. The large room was some kind of converted gallery, with high ceilings and huge curving windows that looked down on Prince’s Circle. He found a slightly tatty sofa in front of one window, and ordered a hot chocolate with two choc-chip and hazelnut shortcakes from the teenage waitress. The view he had out toward Castle Mount was peerless. A few hundred meters to the south, one of the monorail tracks stretched out across the calm dark water; a single silver carriage streaked along it, shuttling late office workers over to their desks.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” a voice said at his shoulder.
Adam glanced up to see Bradley Johansson standing behind him, holding a large mug of tea. As always, the tall man gave the impression of being slightly disconnected from the world around him. There was something about his thin, elegant face that made him appear far more aristocratic than any Grand Family member.
“I enjoy it,” Adam said evenly.
“Of course, it looks even better at Mardi Gras,” Bradley said, sitting down on the sofa beside Adam. “They light up the castle with huge hologram projectors for the whole week, and during the closing ceremony they let off real fireworks overhead.”
“If you ever give me the time off, I’ll come and take a look.”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about.” Bradley stopped as the waitress brought Adam’s hot chocolate, and smiled winningly at her. She sneaked a smile back at him before hurrying off to the next table.
Adam tried not to show his annoyance at the little silent exchange, it was just one more reminder of his own age. “You’re going to give me more free time?” he asked.
“Quite the opposite, old chap. That’s why I wanted to see you in person, to impress upon you how important the next few years are going to be. After all, you’re not… a lifelong Guardian. Your commitment to the cause has always been more financially oriented. I want to know if you’re prepared to continue your role when things get a lot tougher.”
“Tougher? That Myo bitch almost caught me on Velaines.”
“Oh, come come, Adam, she was never even close. You outsmarted her beautifully. And continue to do so, the components are all arriving on schedule.”
“Save the flattery for the bourgeois. I can’t be motivated that way.”
“Very well. So will you continue to provide us with your assistance, and if so how much will it cost?”
“What exactly are you wanting from me?”
“This is the time which the Starflyer has worked for. The time for good men to draw a line in the sand and say: No more. ”
“No further,” Adam muttered.
Bradley sipped his tea and smiled. “In the past, maybe. But in the here and now, I know what must be done. Little of it will be pleasant.”
“Revolution never is for those who live through it.”
“This is not revolution, Adam, this is my crusade. I am going to fling the corrupter of humanity into the depths of night beyond hell, where even the devil fears to tread. And that will be the least it deserves. I will avenge myself and all the others who have been consumed by the Starflyer’s evil.”
“Bravo.”
“You have your beliefs and convictions, Adam, I have mine. Please don’t mock them, I find it unpleasant. What I am proposing is to extend our combat activities off Far Away. I want to directly confront the Starflyer’s agents and interests in the Commonwealth. And now would you care to tell me what your cooperation will cost, if that doesn’t make you too much of a capitalist?”
“Direct confrontation? You want me to lead your troops into battle?”
“Yes. You know more about covert operations and security procedures than any of us. That makes you invaluable to me, Adam. I need you for this. All I can say is that without a human race, there will not be any socialist society. So will you help me?”
It was a fair question, Adam admitted to himself. Not one he expected in a pleasant cafe overlooking a serene lake with a fairy-tale castle. But then where should such questions be delivered? Just what do I want out of life? Once again his resolve faltered. It had been a principle for so long not to seek rejuvenation, because it was a purchase of the bourgeois and their plutocrat masters. Society should be structured so that everyone received it regardless of circumstances. The ancient political dream of justice and equality for all, true socialism. For all his active involvement in the cause, the disruption and violence he’d unleashed against the establishment, nothing had changed. But that doesn’t make me wrong. When he thought of the others, ex-friends and comrades, who had betrayed the movement over the decades by abandoning them or worse, he knew what his course must be, despite the intensely human wish to live forever. If even someone as committed as him gave in at the end, what hope ultimately could there be?
“I’m tired, Bradley, really truly tired. I’ve seen my ideals crushed by the plutocrats for my whole life. I’m clinging to a lost cause because I don’t know anything else. Do you realize how pathetic that makes me? Well, I don’t want to save the Commonwealth anymore; I’ve tried to do that for fifty years and got nowhere. I can’t do it anymore. There’s no point. Capitalism or the Starflyer, I don’t care which of them finishes off this society. I’m through with it.”
“No you’re not; stop trying to talk up your bargaining position, Adam. You are not going to stand by and watch an alien commit genocide against your own species. You’re an idealist. It’s a magnificent flaw, one I quite envy. Now what can I offer you for your invaluable services?”
“I don’t know. Hope, maybe.”
“Fair enough.” Bradley nodded at the remarkable castle atop its pinnacle. Sunlight was striking the slender conical turrets, making their polished rock walls shine with a vivid bronze and emerald hue. “The original castle back in Edinburgh was the seat of Scottish nationalism. It symbolized everything to the diehard believers. Despite all the changes and defeats they endured, the castle stood solid at the center of their capital. They waited for generations for the Scottish nation to be properly reborn after their Bonnie Prince was lost. There were times when the cause seemed impossible, or even cursed; they regained their independence from the English only to lose it again right away with the formation of Federal Europe. But once people reached the stars, the true nation was reborn here, and on two other worlds. An ideal kept alive in the darkness can flourish if it has the chance, no matter how long the night lasts. Don’t give up on your ideals, Adam, not ever.”
“Very trite, I’m sure.”
“Then try this. I’ve seen what societies like ours progress into. I’ve walked on their worlds and admired them firsthand. This Commonwealth is only an interim stage for a species like ours; even your Socialism will be left behind in true evolution. We can become something wonderful, something special. We have that potential.”
Adam stared at him for a long time, wishing he could see through those enigmatic eyes into the mind beyond. Bradley’s faith in himself and his cause had always been extraordinary. There had been times over the last thirty years when Adam really wished he could write Bradley off in the same way the Commonwealth establishment dismissed him, as nothing more than a crackpot conspiracy theorist. But there were too many little details for him to be laughed off. His superb intelligence sources, for a start. The way little facets of Commonwealth policy were organized, seemingly out of kilter with the interests of the Grand Families and Intersolar Dynasties. Adam was so close to believing the whole Starflyer notion; at the very least he didn’t disbelieve it anymore. “There’s something I’d like to know, though I’m afraid it might be a personal weakness on my part.”
“I will be honest with you, Adam. I owe you that much.”
“Where do you go for your rejuvenation? Is there some secret underground clinic that I don’t know about which provides the treatment for people like us?”
“No, Adam, there’s nowhere like that. I use the Unstorn clinic on Jaruva. It’s very good.”
Adam paused as his e-butler called the CST Intersolar timetable up into his virtual vision. “Is Jaruva a town somewhere?”
“No, it’s a planet. CST shut down the gateway two hundred and eighty years ago, after a civil war between various nationalist culture factions and the radical evangelicals. The only thing they hated worse than each other was the Commonwealth—there were some unpleasant acts of terrorism committed before the Isolation. Things have calmed down considerably since then, thankfully. They have rebuilt their society, with each faction having its own homeland. The structure is similar to Earth in the mid-twentieth century. None of the mini-nations are Socialist, I’m afraid.”
“I see,” Adam said carefully. “And how do you get there?”
“There is a path which leads to Jaruva. The Silfen don’t really use it anymore.”
“Somehow I knew you’d give me an answer like that.”
“I will be happy to take you there and pay for a rejuvenation, if that’s what you want.”
“Let’s leave that possibility open, shall we?”
“As you wish. But the offer is sincere and remains.”
“I wish I believed as you do.”
“You are not far from it, Adam. Not really. I expect what is about to happen over the next few years will convince you. But then, I expect it to convince everyone.”
“All right,” Adam said. He had a sense of near relief now he’d made his decision. Many people spoke of the contentment that came from accepting defeat; he was mildly surprised to find it was true. “So what do you want the Guardians to do in the Commonwealth? And bear in mind, I won’t ever repeat Abadan station, I don’t do political statement violence anymore.”
“My dear chap, neither do I. And thank you for agreeing to this. I know how it conflicts with your own goals. Don’t give up on them. You will live to see a socially just world.”
“Like a priest will see heaven.”
Bradley’s soft smile was understanding and sympathetic.
“What are you going to hit first?” Adam asked.
“The Second Chance is my primary target right now. Part of your task is going to be assembling a crew to obliterate it.”
“Old folly; you can never destroy knowledge. Even if we were to succeed and blow the Second Chance to pieces, they’ll build another, and another, and another until one is finally completed. They know how to build them, therefore they will be built.”
“I expect you’re right, unfortunately. But destroying the Second Chance will be a severe blow to the Starflyer. It wanted the starship built, you know.”
“I know. I received the shotgun message.” Adam stared out at Castle Mount for some time. “You know, castles once had a purpose other than symbolism; they
