Quantook-LOU had spent two days recovering from the effects of gravity he’d endured in Lalarin-MG. He remained immobile in his personal space, plugged into Anthi-CL’s dataweb, supervising the initial repair work. Conflicts between the diskcity dominions had ended, from surprise rather than agreement to start with. But he had mediated a new peace with the other distributors as they all examined and shared the images which came from sensors mounted on both sides of Tojolt-HI.
The bounty they revealed was almost beyond belief. Mastrit-PJ’s entire population of diskcities now orbited the tiny red star, packed together in equatorial orbit. And beyond them was a supply of raw cold matter that defied logic; a vast ring of particles over two hundred million kilometres in diameter. The Mosdva were suddenly drowning in resources.
They could leave the old worn-out diskcities, building new dominions independent from each other. As far as the distributors could tell, every Tyrathca enclave had been emptied at the same time the diskcities were taken from Mastrit-PJ. The conflicts which had cursed the Mosdva since the dominions were established would be over for all time.
Quantook-LOU also had the data from the humans, telling him how to build their faster-than-light ship engines. Other distributors were already mediating for favourable alliances with Anthi-CL, wanting to share the technology. This was a new part of space, strangely empty without the nebula which had dominated half of their old orbit. Billions of stars lay open to them. It would be interesting to find the humans again, and other races of which Joshua Calvert had spoken.
The Ly-cilph’s perception field expanded slowly outward as its active functions returned out of their dormancy within its macro-data lattice. At first it believed it had suffered memory loss. It was no longer in the jungle clearing where the human sacrifice was conducted, instead it appeared to be floating in clear space. The perception field could find nothing within range. No mass existed for a billion kilometres, not even a lone electron, which was extremely improbable. The energy waves washing through the field were of a strange composition, one it had no prior record of. An analysis of this continuum’s local quantum structure revealed it was no longer in the universe of its birth.
A dense mass point emerged beside it, emitting a variety of electromagnetic wave functions. It was impervious to the Ly-cilph’s probing.
“We understand you are on a voyage to comprehend the full nature of reality,” Tinkerbell said. “So are we. Would you like to join us?”
Oenone ’s crew appeared in Harkey’s Bar amid cheers and boisterous hugs, and the party looked like reaching truly epic proportions. Genevieve loved every minute of it. It was noisy, hot, and colourful; nothing like parties at Cricklade. People were nice to her, she’d managed to drink a couple of glasses of wine without Louise noticing, and cousin Gideon even partnered her on the dance floor. But nothing was funnier than watching the antics of Joshua’s brother, who spent the whole time trying to avoid a very beautiful and extremely determined blonde lady.
Louise stuck by Joshua’s side the whole time; smiling more from fright than delight as everyone crowded round him, wanting to hear the tale of the naked singularity from his own mouth. Eventually he led her through the door, swearing he’d be back in a second. They took a lift directly up to the lobby and walked out into the parkland.
“You looked unhappy in there,” he said.
“I didn’t realize you had so many friends. I never really thought about it. I only ever met you and Dahybi before.”
He led her down a path lined by orange wimwillows, towards a nearby lake. “I never met half of them before today.”
“It’s so pretty here,” Louise sighed as they reached the shore of the lake. The water-plants had balloon-like flowers that hung an inch below the surface; green fish nibbled at the tuft of stamen coming from their crowns. “This must have been a wonderful place to grow up in.”
“It was. But don’t tell Ione, all I ever wanted to do was fly away.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
He held her closer. “Not as beautiful as you.”
“Don’t,” she said, troubled.
“I can kiss my fiancée if I want. Even Norfolk permits that.”
“I’m not your fiancée, Joshua. I just kept saying that because of the baby. I was ashamed. Which is so stupid. Having a baby is a wonderful thing, the best thing any two people can do. Fancy being prejudiced against it. I’ll always love my home, but so much of it is wrong.”
He dropped down on one knee, and held her hand. “Marry me.”
From the expression on her face she could have been in agony. “That’s very kind, Joshua, and if you’d asked that day you left Cricklade I’d even have eloped with you. But, really, you don’t know anything about me. It wouldn’t work; you’re a starship captain and unutterably famous, I’m a landowner’s daughter. All we ever were was a beautiful dream I had once.”
“I know everything there is to know about you. Thanks to the singularity, I’ve lived every second of your life. And don’t you ever call yourself someone else’s daughter again. You’re Louise Kavanagh, nothing else. I had one exciting flight, which was the result of thousands of people backing me up behind the scenes. You walked right up to Quinn Dexter and tried to stop him. It is not possible to possess more courage than that, Louise. You were astonishing. Those drunken buffoons in Harkey’s Bar look up at me. I stand in awe at what you did.”
“You saw everything I did?” she enquired.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “Including last night.”
“Oh.”
He gently pulled at her hand, making her kneel beside him. “I don’t think I could marry a saint, Louise. And you already know I’ve never been one.”
“Do you really want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
“But we’d never be together.”
“Starship captains are a thing of the past now, just like landowner daughters. There’s so much we have to do in our lives.”
“You don’t mind living on Norfolk?”
“We’ll change it together, Louise. You and me.”
She kissed him, then smiled demurely. “Do we have to go back to the party?” she murmured.
“No.”
Her smile widened, and she stood up. Joshua stayed on one knee.
“I haven’t had my answer yet. And this classic routine is killing my leg muscle.”
“I was taught to always keep a man waiting,” she said imperiously. “But your answer is yes.”
“Anastasia, is that really you?”
“Hello, Dariat, of course it’s me. I waited for you. I knew you’d come eventually.”
“I very nearly didn’t. There was a spot of trouble back there.”
“Lady Chi-ri has always smiled upon you, Dariat. Right from the start.”
“You know, this isn’t what I expected to find on the other side of the beyond.”
“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Can we see it together?”
“I’d like that.”
It was the last time Joshua would use the ability, and strictly speaking it wasn’t necessary, but there was absolutely no way he was going to miss out on seeing the Kiint home system in person just for the sake of virtue and dignified restraint. He materialized on the white-sand beach not far from Tracy’s chalet. The coast was exquisite, of course. Then he looked up. Silvery planet crescents curved away through the deep-turquoise sky.
“Now I’ve seen it all,” he said quietly.
Five white spheres erupted in the air around him. The same size as providers, but with a very different function.
Joshua held his arms up. “I am unarmed. Take me to your leader.”
The spheres winked out of existence. Joshua laughed.
Jay and Haile were racing over the sands to him.
“Joshua!”
He managed to catch her as she jumped at him. Swung her round full circle.