“Bravo.”

“You have your beliefs and convictions, Adam, I have mine. Please don’t mock them, I find it unpleasant. What I am proposing is to extend our combat activities off Far Away. I want to directly confront the Starflyer’s agents and interests in the Commonwealth. And now would you care to tell me what your cooperation will cost, if that doesn’t make you too much of a capitalist?”

“Direct confrontation? You want me to lead your troops into battle?”

“Yes. You know more about covert operations and security procedures than any of us. That makes you invaluable to me, Adam. I need you for this. All I can say is that without a human race, there will not be any socialist society. So will you help me?”

It was a fair question, Adam admitted to himself. Not one he expected in a pleasant café overlooking a serene lake with a fairy-tale castle. But then where should such questions be delivered? Just what do I want out of life? Once again his resolve faltered. It had been a principle for so long not to seek rejuvenation, because it was a purchase of the bourgeois and their plutocrat masters. Society should be structured so that everyone received it regardless of circumstances. The ancient political dream of justice and equality for all, true socialism. For all his active involvement in the cause, the disruption and violence he’d unleashed against the establishment, nothing had changed. But that doesn’t make me wrong. When he thought of the others, ex-friends and comrades, who had betrayed the movement over the decades by abandoning them or worse, he knew what his course must be, despite the intensely human wish to live forever. If even someone as committed as him gave in at the end, what hope ultimately could there be?

“I’m tired, Bradley, really truly tired. I’ve seen my ideals crushed by the plutocrats for my whole life. I’m clinging to a lost cause because I don’t know anything else. Do you realize how pathetic that makes me? Well, I don’t want to save the Commonwealth anymore; I’ve tried to do that for fifty years and got nowhere. I can’t do it anymore. There’s no point. Capitalism or the Starflyer, I don’t care which of them finishes off this society. I’m through with it.”

“No you’re not; stop trying to talk up your bargaining position, Adam. You are not going to stand by and watch an alien commit genocide against your own species. You’re an idealist. It’s a magnificent flaw, one I quite envy. Now what can I offer you for your invaluable services?”

“I don’t know. Hope, maybe.”

“Fair enough.” Bradley nodded at the remarkable castle atop its pinnacle. Sunlight was striking the slender conical turrets, making their polished rock walls shine with a vivid bronze and emerald hue. “The original castle back in Edinburgh was the seat of Scottish nationalism. It symbolized everything to the diehard believers. Despite all the changes and defeats they endured, the castle stood solid at the center of their capital. They waited for generations for the Scottish nation to be properly reborn after their Bonnie Prince was lost. There were times when the cause seemed impossible, or even cursed; they regained their independence from the English only to lose it again right away with the formation of Federal Europe. But once people reached the stars, the true nation was reborn here, and on two other worlds. An ideal kept alive in the darkness can flourish if it has the chance, no matter how long the night lasts. Don’t give up on your ideals, Adam, not ever.”

“Very trite, I’m sure.”

“Then try this. I’ve seen what societies like ours progress into. I’ve walked on their worlds and admired them firsthand. This Commonwealth is only an interim stage for a species like ours; even your Socialism will be left behind in true evolution. We can become something wonderful, something special. We have that potential.”

Adam stared at him for a long time, wishing he could see through those enigmatic eyes into the mind beyond. Bradley’s faith in himself and his cause had always been extraordinary. There had been times over the last thirty years when Adam really wished he could write Bradley off in the same way the Commonwealth establishment dismissed him, as nothing more than a crackpot conspiracy theorist. But there were too many little details for him to be laughed off. His superb intelligence sources, for a start. The way little facets of Commonwealth policy were organized, seemingly out of kilter with the interests of the Grand Families and Intersolar Dynasties. Adam was so close to believing the whole Starflyer notion; at the very least he didn’t disbelieve it anymore. “There’s something I’d like to know, though I’m afraid it might be a personal weakness on my part.”

“I will be honest with you, Adam. I owe you that much.”

“Where do you go for your rejuvenation? Is there some secret underground clinic that I don’t know about which provides the treatment for people like us?”

“No, Adam, there’s nowhere like that. I use the Unstorn clinic on Jaruva. It’s very good.”

Adam paused as his e-butler called the CST Intersolar timetable up into his virtual vision. “Is Jaruva a town somewhere?”

“No, it’s a planet. CST shut down the gateway two hundred and eighty years ago, after a civil war between various nationalist culture factions and the radical evangelicals. The only thing they hated worse than each other was the Commonwealth—there were some unpleasant acts of terrorism committed before the Isolation. Things have calmed down considerably since then, thankfully. They have rebuilt their society, with each faction having its own homeland. The structure is similar to Earth in the mid-twentieth century. None of the mini-nations are Socialist, I’m afraid.”

“I see,” Adam said carefully. “And how do you get there?”

“There is a path which leads to Jaruva. The Silfen don’t really use it anymore.”

“Somehow I knew you’d give me an answer like that.”

“I will be happy to take you there and pay for a rejuvenation, if that’s what you want.”

“Let’s leave that possibility open, shall we?”

“As you wish. But the offer is sincere and remains.”

“I wish I believed as you do.”

“You are not far from it, Adam. Not really. I expect what is about to happen over the next few years will convince you. But then, I expect it to convince everyone.”

“All right,” Adam said. He had a sense of near relief now he’d made his decision. Many people spoke of the contentment that came from accepting defeat; he was mildly surprised to find it was true. “So what do you want the Guardians to do in the Commonwealth? And bear in mind, I won’t ever repeat Abadan station, I don’t do political statement violence anymore.”

“My dear chap, neither do I. And thank you for agreeing to this. I know how it conflicts with your own goals. Don’t give up on them. You will live to see a socially just world.”

“Like a priest will see heaven.”

Bradley’s soft smile was understanding and sympathetic.

“What are you going to hit first?” Adam asked.

“The Second Chance is my primary target right now. Part of your task is going to be assembling a crew to obliterate it.”

“Old folly; you can never destroy knowledge. Even if we were to succeed and blow the Second Chance to pieces, they’ll build another, and another, and another until one is finally completed. They know how to build them, therefore they will be built.”

“I expect you’re right, unfortunately. But destroying the Second Chance will be a severe blow to the Starflyer. It wanted the starship built, you know.”

“I know. I received the shotgun message.” Adam stared out at Castle Mount for some time. “You know, castles once had a purpose other than symbolism; they used to hold the invaders at bay and keep the kingdom safe. We don’t build them anymore.”

“We need them, though, now more than ever.”

“What a pair we make,” Adam said. “The optimist and the pessimist.”