“Sit yourself down,” LionWalker said. “I expect you could do with a drink. I’ll take you over to see the telescope in a minute. You can check it out then. I’m confident you’ll be satisfied.”

“Thanks.” Dudley lowered himself into one of the big sofas. He felt very drab and colorless in such surroundings. It wasn’t just the richness of the house and its setting, but the vivacity of the people who lived here as well.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” he admitted a few minutes later, when he’d drunk some of LionWalker’s very agreeable fifty-year-old scotch.

“You mean you thought I’d be somebody like you? No offense, my man.”

“None taken. So what are you doing here?”

“Well, I was born with a reasonable trust fund; then I went and made even more money for myself in the commodities market. That was a couple of rejuvenations ago. I’ve just been loafing ever since.”

“So why here? Why Tanyata?”

“This is the edge. This is as far out from our starting point as we’ve got—well, with the exception of Far Away. That’s a wonderful thing, even though everyone regards it as commonplace. I can sit here at night and look where we’re going. You look at the stars, Dudley, you know what marvels there are to be seen out here. And those cretins behind us, they never look. Where we are now, this was what our ancestors thought was heaven. Now I can look out from their heaven and see where our future lies. Do you not think that’s a thing of glory?”

“Certainly is.”

“There are stars out here that you cannot see from Earth with the naked eye. They shine down out of the sky at night, and I want to know them.”

“Me, too.” Dudley saluted him with the crystal tumbler that was a hundred years older than the scotch it held, and gulped it down in one.

The two youngsters returned after a couple of hours cooling off by themselves. LionWalker introduced them as Scott and Chi as they sheepishly greeted Dudley. As a penance, the two of them set about building a bonfire on the beach, using the local driftwood that had a curiously matted texture. They lit it as the sun sank down toward the ocean. Bright orange sparks blew out of the flame tips to swirl high above the sand. Potatoes were pushed into the heart of the fire, while a makeshift barbecue grill was prepared for when the flames died down.

“Can we see the Dyson Pair from here?” Scott asked as the stars began to appear in the darkening sky.

“No,” Dudley said. “Not with the naked eye, they’re too far away. You can barely see Earth’s star from here, and the Dyson Pair are almost a thousand light-years beyond that.”

“So when were they enveloped?”

“That’s a very good question—we’ve never been able to pin down the exact construction time of the shells—that’s what my observation project is going to help solve.” Even now Dudley wasn’t going to admit what he’d observed.

Astronomy post 2050 had effectively ceased to be a pure science. CST had long since taken over all major deep-space observation for purely commercial ends. In any case, when you could visit stars of every spectral type to observe them directly, there was little point in prioritizing astronomy. Few higher education institutions on Commonwealth worlds bothered building observatories; even Oxford’s telescope had been over a century old when it discovered the Dyson Pair.

An hour after sunset, Dudley and LionWalker walked through the dunes to the observatory. Inside, it was little different to the one on Gralmond: a big empty space with the fat tube of the telescope in the middle, resting on a complex cradle of metal beams and electromuscle bands. The sensor housings surrounding the focus looked a lot more sophisticated than anything the university could afford. A row of neat, modern display portals was lined up along the wall beside the door.

Dudley glanced around at the professional equipment, feeling a degree of tension ebbing away. There was no practical reason the observation shouldn’t occur. All he had to deal with was his own memory of the event. Could it really have happened like that? Five months after the fact, the moment seemed elusive somehow, the memory of a dream.

LionWalker stood close to the base of the telescope, and began what looked like a robot mime dance. Arms and legs jerked about in small precise movements. In response, the doors on the dome started to peel open. Electromuscle bands on the telescope cradle flexed silently, and the fat cylinder began to turn, aligning itself on the horizon where the Dyson Pair were due to rise. LionWalker’s body continued to twist and whirl, then he was snapping his fingers to some unheard beat. The portals came alive one by one, relaying the sensor images.

Dudley hurried over to them. The image quality was flawless. He gazed at the starfield, noting the minute variation from the patterns he was used to. “What sort of linkage have we got?” he asked his e-butler.

“The planetary cybersphere is negligible; however, there is a landline to the CST station. Available bandwidth is more than capable of meeting your stated requirements. I can open communication to the unisphere whenever you want.”

“Good. Begin a quarter of an hour before estimated enclosure time. I want full SI datavault storage, and a unisphere legal verification of the feed.”

“Acknowledged.”

LionWalker had stopped his gyrations, allowing the telescope to rest. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” A datavault store and legal verification were expensive. Along with his ticket, the cost had taken quite a chunk out of their carefully saved holiday money. Something else Dudley hadn’t told his wife. But it had to be done, with the telescope sensor feed authenticated the observation would be beyond dispute.

Dudley sat in a cheap plastic chair beside the telescope, his chin resting on his hands, watching the holographic light within the portals. He watched the dark sky obsessively as the Dyson Pair rose above the horizon. LionWalker made a few small adjustments and Dyson Alpha was centered in every portal. For eighty minutes it remained steady. A simple point of ordinary light, each spectrum band revealing an unwavering intensity.

LionWalker made a few attempts to talk to Dudley about what to expect. Each time he was waved silent. Dudley’s e-butler established a full wideband link to the unisphere, and confirmed that the SI datavault was recording.

It was almost an anticlimax when, right on time, Dyson Alpha vanished.

“Yes!” Dudley yelled. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair tumbling backward. “Yes, yes, yes. I was right.” He turned to LionWalker, his smile absurdly wide. “Did you see that?”

“Aye,” LionWalker grunted with false calm. “I saw that.”

“Yes!” Dudley froze. “Did we get it?” he asked his e-butler urgently.

“Unisphere confirms the recording. The event is logged in the SI datavault.”

Dudley’s smile returned.

“Do you realize what that was?” LionWalker asked.

“I realize.”

“It was impossible, man, that’s what. Completely bloody impossible. Nobody can switch off a star like that. Nobody.”

“I know. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

TWO

Adam Elvin walked out of the CST planetary station in Tokat, the capital of Velaines. He took his time as he passed the sensors that were built into the fluted marble pillars lining the concourse. If he was going to be arrested, he would rather it be now, before the rest of the mission was exposed.

The average Commonwealth citizen had no idea such surveillance systems existed. Adam had dealt with them for most of his adult life. Understandably paranoid about sabotage, CST used them to monitor everyone using their facilities. The sensor’s large processor arrays were loaded with visual characteristics recognition smartware that checked every passenger against a long long list of known and suspected recidivists.