Aiden looked grim. He had an uncle sitting on the Council of Elders, and getting involved in this kind of speculation wasn’t going to help advance his career. Dakota’s next words came out in a rush, lest Aiden accuse Langley of deliberately courting heresy.

‘The supernovae have thrown everything we thought we knew about stellar mechanics out the window, but the Shoal won’t even discuss them, which makes everyone think they’re hiding something.’

For a moment, there was only silence, and the sound of the night wind blowing across the parapets.

‘All right, then,’ said Langley, unable to suppress a grin. ‘I brought this telescope out here for a reason. The Consortium expects a good return on its investment, so you have to understand just how much you’ll still need to learn after all your studies here are just distant memories-and by then, you won’t have to worry about the Elders telling you what you can or can’t think.’

He tapped the side of his head with one finger. ‘Nothing ever happens without a reason, and that includes a neighbouring galaxy lighting up like an explosion in a fireworks factory. So here’s a question to consider. Assuming some as yet unknown force has caused a considerable number of very distant stars to detonate, despite apparently lacking sufficient mass, does that suggest the same thing could eventually happen here?’

‘But that’s an unanswerable question,’ Aiden protested, a touch of defensiveness now apparent in his voice. ‘Even the Shoal’s ships would take centuries to get there and investigate, and whatever happened there, it happened when we were still swinging around in the trees back on Earth. There’s no point in speculating if we’ll never be in a position to find out the answer.’

Langley closed his eyes for a moment, and Dakota thought she heard him swear quietly under his breath. When he opened his eyes again he looked over at Dakota and motioned to her.

‘Dakota, would you like to be first to take a look?’

She stepped forward, bending over to peer through the telescope’s viewfinder. Clearly, Langley hadn’t responded to Aiden’s statement because what he had said was true. The only reason humans had ever reached the stars had been down to the help of the Shoal. Twenty-second century experiments in long-distance quantum entanglement had resulted in tach-transmission, a form of instantaneous communication already long put in use by the Shoal’s vast interstellar fleets of core-ships. Among all those millions of inhabited star systems, they claimed to be the only race who had developed a faster-than-light drive, and in return for a promise that humanity would never attempt to replicate this technology, mankind would be allowed to colonize other planets within a specified bubble of space approximately three hundred light years in diameter.

It was an offer that couldn’t be refused, but there had been stories and rumours of subsequent human attempts to replicate the transluminal drive, regardless of the Shoal’s original threats. But all those attempts had apparently ended in abject failure. Similarly, there was never any public admission that human governments used covert satellites and remote observation technologies to constantly observe Shoal coreships in those vital moments before they translated into transluminal space, yet it was widely believed to be the case.

Without the Shoal, therefore, there would now be no colonies, no interstellar trade, no carefully licensed alien technologies provided by the Shoal’s other client races, and certainly no original colonists to build Erkinning, the Free States, and all the other human cultures here on Bellhaven.

Without the magnanimity of the Shoal, none of this would ever have happened.

Dakota pressed closer against the telescope’s view-finder, feeling the cool circle of plastic against her eyebrow and cheek. Points of light then jumped into sharp contrast. Once again she was made very aware of details concerning the stars she now viewed that she couldn’t possibly have registered without the aid of her implants. But her Ghost was already learning to anticipate her desires, so the information evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.

It was true that orbital telescopes and distributed radio scanning networks were far more accurate for the business of stargazing, but there was still a visceral rush in the physical act of peering through a simple lens. It made her feel like Galileo looking at the moons of Jupiter for the first time.

‘Maybe somebody blew them up,’ Dakota muttered. ‘The Magellanic stars, I mean.’

Aiden laughed uproariously, and Dakota’s face grew hot with embarrassment.

‘If you’ve got any better ideas, feel free to share,’ she snapped. At that point, Marlie, clearly embarrassed by the sniping, stepped forward to take her turn in peering through the telescope.

Langley’s features had reverted to their usual granitelike impassivity, but he was doubtless taking in every word they said.

‘You know, Aiden,’ he said at last, ‘it’s entirely true that the Shoal have us over a barrel. There’s thousands of other species out there, we’re told, but we’ve so far only ever encountered the Bandati and one or two others. But you never know. Maybe it won’t always be that way.’

Aiden smirked, but Dakota could see he wasn’t so sure of himself anymore. ‘Tutor, those are dangerous words in some places,’ he said quietly.

Langley’s stony features didn’t even flicker. ‘Then let’s just say that once you, too, realize just how many restrictions the human race labours under, then you’ll know how it feels to dream of changing the status quo. Then you’ll know how frustrating it is to get only so far, and be told you can go no further.’

‘Well, it’s still far enough, isn’t it?’ Aiden replied, looking slightly bewildered. ‘I mean,’ he continued, a cocky grin now tugging up one corner of his mouth, ‘it’s still better than sticking around here for the rest of our lives.’

Dakota caught the look on Langley’s face, even if Aiden was oblivious to it.

‘You have,’ Langley muttered, each word rasping as it emerged from his throat, ‘a worrying lack of adventure.’

Shoal Homeworld, Perseus Arm

Consortium Standard Date: 01.02.2542

The creature’s name was Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals, and he fell from orbit, contained within a field-protected bubble of brackish fluid, towards an unending expanse of blue.

Far above him, only a very few stars shone down. During its long and lonely flight, the Shoal homeworld had been lost in a dense cloud of interstellar dust for almost ten millennia, and was not expected to emerge from the other side for another millennium at least.

The part of the homeworld towards which Trader descended was currently in day, the requisite heat and light providing life given not by the long-departed star under which Trader’s kind had first evolved, but instead by a myriad of field-suspended fusion globes arranged in a tight grid hanging a few thousand kilometres above the planet surface.

The homeworld moved alone through the vast expanse of the Milky Way, heading for the relatively empty spaces between its great spiral arms. There, at least, might be found safety from the war that would surely come one day.

Oh woe, thought Trader, as the watery surface of the homeworld approached at an alarming speed, that we should ever reach our fabled destination! His manipulator tentacles writhed under his body in an approximation of grim humour, snatching wriggling live-foods from his briny encasement and slipping them into his quivering jaws. Ten thousand years travelling and, with any luck, ten thousand years more, and another ten thousand years after that, and after that, and after…