'Species survival. Evolution requires progression or extinction.

'I thought you would be aiming for transcendence, Phelim said flatly.

Marius didn't even look in his direction, his eyes remained fixed on Ethan. 'And that isn't evolution?

'It's a very drastic evolution, Ethan said.

'Not unlike your hopes of Pilgrimage.

'So why not join us?

Marius answered with a mirthless smile. 'loin us, Conservator.

Ethan sighed. 'We've dreamed what awaits us.

'Ah, so it boils down to the old human problem. Risk the unknown, or go with the comfortable.

'I think the phrase you want is: better the devil you know.

'Whatever. Your Eminence, we still offer you the ultradrive.

'Which no one has ever really seen. You just hint at it.

'ANA tends to be somewhat protective towards its advanced technologies. However, I assure you it is real. Ultradrive is at least equal to the drive used by the Raiel, if not superior.

Ethan tried not to smile at the arrogance.

'Oh, I assure you, Conservator, Marius said. 'ANA does not make that boast lightly.

'I'm sure it doesn't. So when can you supply them?

'When your Pilgrimage ships are ready, the drives will be here.

'And the rest of ANA, the Factions which don't agree with you, they'll just stand by and quietly let you hand over this supertechnology?

'Effectively, yes. Do not concern yourself with our internal debates.

'Very well, I accept your most generous offer. Please don't be offended, but we will also be building our own more mundane drive units for the ships — just in case.

'We expected nothing else. Marius bowed again, and left the room.

Phelim let out a soft whistle of relief. 'So that's it, we're just a trigger factor in their political wars.

Ethan tried to sound blase. 'If it gets us what we want, I can live with it.

'I think you are wise not to rely on them exclusively. We must include our own drives in the construction program.

'Yes. The design teams have worked on that premise from the beginning. His secondary routines started to pull files from the storage lacunas in his macrocellular clusters. 'In the meantime, let us begin with some simple appointments, shall we?

Aaron walked across the red marble bridge that arched over Sisterhood Canal, linking Golden Park with the Low Moat district. A strip of simple paddock land which had no city buildings, only stockades for commercial animals, and a couple of archaic markets. He strode along the meandering paths illuminated by small oil lanterns hanging from posts and on into the Ogden district. This was also grassland, bill contained the majority of the city's wooden-built stables where the aristocracy kept their horses and carriages. It was where the main city gate had been cut into the wall.

The gates were open wide when he went through, mingling with little groups of stragglers heading back to the urban expanse outside. Makkathran2 was surrounded by a two-mile-wide strip of parkland separating it from the vast modern metropolis which had sprung up around it over the last two centuries. Greater Makkathran2 now sprawled over four hundred square miles, an urban grid that contained sixteen million people, ninety-nine per cent of whom were devout Living Dream followers. It was now the capital of Ellezelin, taking over from the original capital city of Riasi after the 3379 election returned a Living Dream majority to the planetary senate.

There was no powered transport across the park; no ground taxis or underground train, or even pedwalk strips. And, of course, no capsule was allowed into Makkathran2's airspace. Inigo's thinking was simple enough; the faithful would never mind walking the distance; that was what everyone did on Querencia. He wanted authenticity to be the governing factor in his movement's citadel. Riding across the park, however, was permissible, after all, Querencia had horses. Aaron smiled at that notion as he set off past the gates. Then an elusive memory flickered like a dying hologram. There was a time when he had clung to the neck of some giant horse as they galloped across an undulating terrain. The movement was powerful and rhythmic, yet strangely leisurely. It was as if the horse was gliding rather than galloping; bounding forward. He knew exactly how to flow with it, grinning wildly as they raced onwards. Air blasting against his face, hair wild. Astonishingly deep sapphire sky bright and warm above. The horse had a small, tough-looking horn at the top of its forehead. Tipped with the traditional black metal spike.

Aaron grunted dismissively. It must have been some sensory immersion drama he'd accessed on the Unisphere. Not real.

The midpoint of the park was a uniform ridge. When Aaron reached the crest it was as though he was stepping across a rift in time; behind him the quaintly archaic profile of Makkathran2 bathed in its alien orange glow; while in front were the modernistic block towers and neat district grids producing a multicoloured haze that stretched over the horizon. Regrav capsules slipped effortlessly through the air above it in strictly maintained traffic streams, long horizontals bands of fast motion winding up into cycloidal junctions that knitted the city together in a pulsing kinetic dance. In the south-eastern sky he could see the brighter lights of starships as they slipped in and out of the atmosphere directly above the spaceport. A never-ending procession of big cargo craft providing the city with economic bonds to planets outside the reach of the official Free Market Zone wormholes.

When he reached the outer rim of the park he told his u-shadow to call a taxi. A glossy jade-coloured regrav capsule dropped silently out of the traffic swarm above and dilated its door. Aaron settled on the front bench, where he had a good view through the one-way fuselage.

'Hotel Buckingham.

He frowned as the capsule dived back up into the broad stream circling round the dark expanse of park. Had that instruction come from him or his u-shadow?

At the first junction they whipped round and headed deeper into the urban grid. The tree-lined boulevards a regulation hundred metres below actually had a few ground cars driving along the concrete. People rode horses among them. Bicycles were popular. He shook his head in bemusement.

The Hotel Buckingham was a thirty storey pentagon ribbed with balconies, and sending sharp pinnacles soaring up out of each corner. It glowed a lambent pearl-white, except for its hundred of windows which were black recesses. The roof was a small strip of lush jungle. Tiny lights glimmered among the foliage as patrons dined and danced in the open air.

Aaron's taxi dropped him at the arrivals pad in the centre. He had a credit coin in his pocket, which activated to his DNA and paid for the ride. There was a credit code loaded in a macrocel-lular storage lacuna which he could have used, but the coin made the ride harder to trace. Not impossible by any means, just taking it out of reach of the ordinary citizen. As the taxi took off he glanced up at the tall monochromatic walls fencing him in, feeling unnervingly exposed.

'Am I registered here? he asked his u-shadow.

'Yes. Room 3088. A penthouse suite.

'I see. He turned and looked directly at the penthouse's balcony. He'd known its location automatically. 'And can I afford that?

'Yes. The penthouse costs 1500 Ellezelin pounds per night. Your credit coin has a limit of five million Ellezelin pounds a month.

'A month?

'Yes.

'Paid by whom?

'The coin is supported by a Central Augusta Bank account. The account details are secure.

'And my personal credit code?

'The same.

Aaron walked into the lobby. 'Nice to be rich, he told himself.