But it would come in time, Stillich knew. Already Earth was recovering, as people and machines laboured to repair the damage done, and the vast resources of space were reattached to the damaged planet. And likewise Sol system was making conciliatory gestures to the starborn. The Facula was en route back to Tau Ceti, taking the abducted colonists home. Stillich had made sure Pella was on that mission. She was a bright officer, but she needed to acquire the humanity that informed good judgement
"I saw your report on Shira's escape," Flood said now. "You were serious in your conclusions?"
"There's no real doubt about it." Shira had stashed many treasures from her lost future down in that bunker, and among them was what appeared to be a transdimensional transport system: Shira had disappeared from the bunker by stepping sideways into one of the universe's many extra compactified dimensions. "If that doesn't qualify as a 'hyperdrive' I don't know what does."
Flood shook his head. "She had a hyperdrive. And she kept it to herself all these centuries, while the rest of us limped across the Galaxy in sublight GUTships. Just so she had a last-resort escape hatch. How selfish."
"Maybe it's just as well. Anyhow I guess we are due to acquire the technology in a few centuries. Certainly it will transform the face of war." Stillich and Flood were both key witnesses at an inter-governmental inquiry into the course and conduct of the war, an experience Stillich suspected had increased both their understandings. "When you think about it, an interstellar war fought out with sublight drives is right at the limit of the possible. For a start you need a strong reason to do it; almost nothing is worth fighting such a campaign for."
Flood grunted. "You should read more history. Our fear of what Shira was up to was comparatively rational as a casus belli. Another global threat, experiments with vacuum energy, which could destabilise the entire universe, say, might be another. But horrific wars have been fought over splinter-fine differences in ideologies. look up the crusades some time."
"But when we get hyperdrive," Stillich said, "and as a consequence—perhaps—we get an authentic first alien contact, rather than these dark hints and glimpses from the future, we might soon see a transformation both of our means of fighting war, and of our choice of opponents. This might be remembered as mankind's last great conflict."
"The end of human war?" Flood laughed. "I knew you were imaginative, Stillich. I didn't have you down as a dreamer ... "
An alarm chimed, as the flitter prepared to dock with the Freestar. Stillich straightened his uniform, preparing for duty.
As it turned out, Flood was wrong.
It was only a few years later that Pella, en route to Tau Ceti, sent Stillich a packet message to announce contact with an alien species. He took the call in his apartment in the clouds over London.
"As far as we can tell they are aquatic group-mind multiple creatures. Fish-like. They have an interstellar network of trading colonies. Their name for themselves"—a thin squeal, heavily processed from the creatures' own sounds, 'Ss-chh-eemnh'—means something like the Wise Folk. Rather like Homo sapiens. Captain, here's the thing. They were heading for Sol system! They picked up some kind of signal from Shira's escape. The hyperdrive she used must have been one of their drives, or a human derivative. The question is, sir, how our descendants managed to take such a prize away from the Ss-chh-eemnh ... "
Everything was different, then, Stillich thought; this was a discontinuity in human history. He looked away from the busy bowl of the city, to the silent stars, wondering what came next.