“Oh, yes,” Nigel said. “Major crime incidents seem to be down lately, certainly those against CST anyway. Thank you for that.”

“I do what I can,” Rafael said. “It’s these new nationalist groups that keep springing up to harass planetary governments, they’re the main source of trouble; the more we frustrate them, the more aggressive their core supporters become. If we’re not careful, we’re going to see a nasty wave of anti-Commonwealth terrorist assaults again, just like 2222.”

“You really think it will come to that?”

“I hope not. Internal Diplomacy believes these current groups simply claim political status as a justification for their activities; they’re actually more criminal-based than anything else. If so, they should run a natural cycle and die out.”

“Thank Christ for that. I don’t want to withdraw gateways from any more planets, there are enough isolated worlds as it is. I thought the only planet left with any real trouble was Far Away. And it’s not as if that can ever be cured.”

Rafael Columbia nodded gravely. “I believe that in time even Far Away can be civilized. When CST begins opening phase four space it will become fully incorporated into the Commonwealth.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Nigel said dubiously. “But it’s going to be a long while before we start thinking about phase four.”

Commonwealth Vice President Elaine Doi walked into the conference room, talking to Thompson Burnelli, the Commonwealth Senator who chaired the science commission. Their respective aides trailed along behind, murmuring quietly among themselves. Elaine Doi greeted Nigel with polite neutrality, careful to maintain her professionalism. He returned the compliment, keeping an impassive face. She was a career politician, having devoted a hundred eighty years to clawing her way up to her present position. Even her rejuvenations were geared around promoting herself; her skin had progressively deepened its shading until it was the darkest ebony to emphasize her ethnicity. Over the same period, her face had actually abandoned her more attractive feminine traits in favor of a more handsome, sterner appearance. Nigel had to deal with her kind of politician on a near-constant basis, and he despised every one of them. In his distant idealistic youth when he’d built the first wormhole generator he had dreamed of leaving them all behind on Earth, allowing the new planets to develop in complete freedom, becoming havens of personal liberty. These days he accepted their dominance of all human government as the price of a civilized society—after all, someone had to maintain order. But that didn’t mean he had to like their endlessly self-serving narcissistic behavior. And he considered Doi to be one of the more reprehensible specimens, always ready to advance herself at the cost of others. With the next presidential selection due in three years’ time, she had begun the final stage of her century-long campaign. His support would ensure she reached the Presidential Palace on New Rio. As yet he hadn’t given it.

Thompson Burnelli was less effusive, a straight-talking man who was North America’s UFN delegate in the Commonwealth Senate, and as such the representative of a huge conglomeration of old and powerful interests made up from some of the wealthiest Grand Families on the planet. He looked the part, a handsome man, wearing an expensive gray silk suit, so obviously a former Ivy League college athlete. His air of confidence was something that could never be acquired through memory implants and bioneural tweaking; it was available only through breeding, and he was very definitely one of Earth’s premier aristocracy. Nigel had hated that kind of rich-kid arrogance while he was in college—as much as he did the politicians. But given a choice, he would prefer to deal with Burnelli’s kind any day.

“Nigel, this must be somewhat galling for you, I imagine,” Thompson Burnelli said with amusement shading close to mockery.

“How so?” Nigel asked.

“An alien contact that your exploratory division had nothing to do with. Some fifth-rate academic astronomer makes the most profound discovery in the last two hundred years, and his only piece of equipment is an equally decrepit telescope that you could probably pick up for a thousand bucks in any junk shop. How much does CST spend on astronomy every year?”

“Couple of billion at the last count,” Nigel replied wearily. He had to admit, the Senator had a point. And he wasn’t the only one making it. The unisphere media had adopted a kind of gleeful sarcasm toward CST since Dudley Bose announced his discovery.

“Never mind,” Thompson Burnelli said cheerfully. “Better luck next time, eh?”

“Thank you. How did your continent’s team do in the Cup?”

The Senator frowned. “Oh, you mean the soccer thing? I’m not sure.”

“Lost, didn’t they? Still, it was only the first round of eight, I don’t suppose you suffer quite so much getting knocked out at the bottom. Better luck next time.” Nigel produced a thin smile as the Senator turned away to greet Rafael Columbia.

More Council members were arriving, and Nigel busied himself welcoming them; at least they could swap football small talk. Crispin Goldreich, the senator chairing the Commonwealth budgetary commission; Brewster Kumar, the President’s science advisor; Gabrielle Else, the director of the Commonwealth Industry and Trade Commission; Senator Lee Ki, director of the phase two space economic policy board, and Eugene Cinzoul, Chief Attorney at the Commonwealth Law Commission.

Elaine Doi raised her voice above the burble of conversation. “I believe we can call this meeting to order now,” she said.

People looked around and nodded their agreement. They all started hunting for their respective seats. Nigel took the chair to the left of the Vice President, who was chairing the meeting. According to protocol, he was the ExoProtectorate Council’s deputy chair. Aides began to settle behind their chiefs.

The Vice President turned to her chief of staff, Patricia Kantil. “Could you ask the SI to come on-line, please?”

That was when Ozzie Fernandez Isaac chose to make his entrance. Nigel squashed the smile that was forming on his lips; everyone else around the table looked so surprised. They should have known better. Back when Nigel and Ozzie assembled the math that made wormhole generators possible, he’d been a genuine eccentric; moments of pure genius partied with surfer-boy dumbness to become the dominant personality trait throughout his undergrad years. A time that Nigel had spent alternately worrying himself sick about the days Ozzie spent out of his skull, and shaking his head in awe as his friend cracked the problems that he’d considered unsolvable. They’d made a great team, good enough to compress space in time for Nigel to step out on Mars to watch the NASA spaceplane landing. After that, taming the beast they’d created was always Nigel’s job, transforming that temperamental prototype of high-energy physics equipment into the ultimate transport method, and in doing so fashioning the largest single corporation the human race had ever known. Management and finance and political influence were of no interest to Ozzie. He just wanted to getout there and see what wonders the galaxy held.

It was the time spent in between his forays out amid the virgin stars that made him legend; the wildman of the Commonwealth, the ultimate alternative lifestyle guru. The stories ran the gamut: girls; the new narcotic stimulants, chemical and bioneural, that he pioneered; Ozzieworld, the H-congruous planet he was supposed to live on all by himself in a palace the size of a city; decades spent as a tramp poet worldwalking to witness the new planet cultures forming from the bottom end of society; the hundreds of naturally conceived children; outré rejuvenations so he could spend years in animal bodies: a lion, an eagle, a dolphin, a Karruk nobear; the attempted dinosaur DNA synthesis project that cost billions before it was hijacked by the Barsoomians; the secret network of wormholes linking the Commonwealth planets that only he could use; his thought routines taken as the basis of the SI. Everywhere you went in the Commonwealth, the locals would tell of the time when Ozzie passed through (an unknown in disguise at the time of course) and enriched their ancestors’ lives by some feat or other: organizing a bridge to be built over a treacherous river, rushing a sick child to a hospital through a storm, being the first to climb the tallest mountain on the planet, slaying—in single combat—the local crime boss.Turning water into wine, too, if the tabloid side of the unisphere was to be believed, Nigel thought. After all, Ozzie was certainly an expert on the opposite process.