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‘You mean the two families you raised on Footprint, to whom you lied all their lives? Forget them, Densel Bel. You are dead to them. They are dead to you. That part of your life is over.’

The shock of this abduction seemed to be hitting Densel; if not for the webbing he might have fallen. ‘For seventy years I have prepared for this moment. Still it is hard.’

‘You chose your own path. This always lay at the end of it.’

‘Who are you? An underground? A resistance movement against the Empire?’

There was no reply.

‘How long have you known about me?’

‘Ever since you came tumbling out of the wreckage of the last Poole wormhole.’

Once, Alpha and the other colonised star systems had been linked by faster-than-light wormholes, assembled in Jovian orbit, their interfaces laboriously hauled across interstellar distances by GUTships. Seventy years ago Shira XXXII, on ascending to the Construction Material Throne, had ordered the links to be cut. And Densel and others had been sent to do the cutting.

‘I was trained since I was a boy for the task,’ Densel said. ‘I knew nothing else but the purpose. I suppose you would say I was conditioned. I should have died when the wormhole collapsed. I was an agent of the Empire, sent to cut the wormhole—’

‘You are a suicide bomber who failed – in that you did not die.’

‘Yes. I should have been killed when we destroyed the wormhole. My survival was an accident. I was stranded on Footprint. Unexpectedly alive, it was as if I awoke. I have been cut off from my world for seven decades—’

‘Your world? Isn’t this your world now, a world you have helped build with your skills in exotic-matter engineering, skills developed for destruction put to better use?’

Densel shrugged. ‘I found myself alive. Earth thought I was dead. Nobody knew me here. I decided to develop an identity, to build a life. Why not? I sought meaning—’

We knew who you were. We always have.’

‘Why did you not deal with me before?’

‘Because we always thought you might be useful. You were doing no harm in the meantime.’

Densel frowned. ‘Who is “we”?’

‘We are a loosely bound, loosely defined group, but with a single clear goal.’

‘Which is?’

‘The liberation of the starborn from the tyranny of the Shiras. You were involved in the strengthening of the Empresses’ grip. The wormholes were cut so that Earth might be protected from us by a blanket of spacetime, while possessing a near-monopoly in GUTship construction technology. So we could be controlled, for ever.’

Densel took a breath. ‘Is the rule of the Shiras so bad? The Empire’s touch is light—’

‘An interstellar empire makes no sense, economically or politically. There is no possibility of meaningful trade save in information; fabrication will always be cheaper than any possible transport. The taxes we pay are punitive, and don’t even enrich the Shiras; they only serve to pay for the Imperial Navy ships and bases which enslave us. The purpose of the Empire is purely ideological, purely intended to make us bow down before the light of a star so dim and remote that most of us have trouble finding it. And the Empresses’ political control is destructive, even when it is not harsh. It hinders our own political development, our exploitation of this system and the colonisation of others. Even this, however, we might have tolerated, for all empires wither in time.’

‘But something has changed,’ Densel guessed.

‘Yes. We believe the latest Shira represents a grave danger to us all. Do you know anything of the court?’

‘I met her once,’ Densel said. ‘Shira XXXII. She touched my head; she blessed me in Sol’s light, before she sent me to die. I learned nothing of her.’

‘Then you’ve never heard of metamathematical spaces – of logic pools? Of a man called Highsmith Marsden?’

‘No . . .’

‘Marsden ran secretive experiments more than a thousand years ago. The result was the destruction of a moon of Sol VIII.’

‘Neptune.’

‘Now we fear that the Empress’s meddling with the same technology is liable to cause an even greater danger.’

‘Even for us, here in Alpha System?’

‘Even here,’ Flood said seriously. ‘I know of this because I was Ambassador to the court, remember.’

‘Ambassador and spy.’

‘Yes. Shira must be opposed.’

Densel felt cold, as if his heart were being stopped by nano-machines once more. ‘You’re going to invade the Solar System.’

‘Yes, we’re going to invade. We intend to defeat Sol’s navies and armies, to occupy the Earth, and to depose Shira herself. We call this programme the Starfall, the falling of the wrath of the stars upon the Earth.’

Densel laughed. ‘You can’t be serious. You can’t defeat Earth. The starborn number a few tens of thousands. Earth’s population is billions. And you are light years away.’

‘We have advantages – the principal one being that nobody has attempted a war on this scale before. And you are honoured, Densel Bel. Because you’re going along for the ride. Come to the window.’ He put an arm around Densel’s shoulders. ‘Can you walk?’

Densel took cautious steps. The smart webbing released and embraced him smoothly, holding him to the floor, so that it was as if he walked even in the absence of gravity.

Beyond the window GUTships hung in space like toys. Flitters moved between the great vessels, and bots and humans worked on scuffed lifedome bubbles and balky GUTdrive pods. This clumsy armada drifted over the nightside face of Footprint.

‘So this is how you’re going to defeat Shira XXXII,’ he said bitterly. ‘With these rusty scows.’

Flood was unfazed. ‘Our assault will proceed in four waves, which will arrive at the Solar System more or less simultaneously. The First Wave is a light-speed viral attack and will actually be the last to be launched. The Second Wave, a sublight stealth assault, was assembled and launched some decades ago. These GUTships constitute the Third and Fourth Waves. The Third Wave ships are weapons platforms and troop carriers. I myself will be embarking on the Freestar, the lead ship, very soon.

‘And you, my friend, will be aboard one of the Fourth Wave ships, which we call the Fists. You don’t need to be launched for another nine months. You’ll catch us up, you see.’

‘How? By accelerating at higher gravities?’

‘Oh, no. It’s just that you won’t be slowing down.’

Densel Bel stared at him. ‘Why put me on this ship of fools?’

‘I told you. We always thought you were useful. You’ll have plenty of time to think it over in flight – more than two years subjective, in fact. But I don’t have to tell you any more now. You see that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Densel said. He did see it. For effectively, as Flood had said, his life was over, his ability to make choices about his future already gone.

‘Now let’s get on with it. There’s only a few more hours before the Third Wave ships light up. My daughter, Beya’ – he indicated the young woman at his side – ‘will take you to the ship that is to be your home for the rest of your life . . .’

Densel gazed down on the planet’s sparse lights helplessly, wondering if even now Su-su and Fay were looking up at him.

AD 4815. Starfall minus 4 years 8 months. The Solar System.

Stillich’s orders were clear. As soon as the Facula docked at Port Sol, he was to make his way direct to Earth and report to the imperial court, to expand on the reports he had been narrowcasting from space.

But as he passed through Port Sol he could not help notice what had become of it during his twenty-seven-year absence.