In the interests of fairness and maintaining its own shaky command over individual state administrations, Govcentral agreed that everyone had the right to leave, without favouritism. It was that last worthy clause, included to pacify several vocal minorities, which in practice meant that colonists would have to be a multi-cultural, multi-racial mix fully representative of the planet’s population. No limits were placed on the numbers buying starship tickets, they just had to be balanced. For those states too poor to fill up their quota, Govcentral provided assisted placement schemes so the richer states couldn’t complain they were being unfairly limited. A typical political compromise.

By and large, it worked for Nyvan and the other terracompatible planets being sought out by the new ZTT drive ships. The first decades of interstellar colonization were heady times, when common achievement easily outweighed the old ethnic enmities. Nyvan and its early siblings played host to a unity of purpose rarely seen before.

It didn’t last. After the frontier had been tamed and the pioneering spirit flickered into extinction the ancient rivalries lumbered to the fore once again. Earth’s colonial governance gave way to local administrations on a dozen planets, and politicians began to adopt the worst jingoistic aspects of late twentieth-century nationalism, leading the mob behind them with absurd ease. This time there were no safeguards of seas and geographical borders between the diverse populations. Religions, cultures, skins, ideologies, and languages were all squeezed up tight in the pinch chamber of urban conglomeration. Civil unrest was the inevitable result, ruining lives and crippling economies.

Overall, the problem was solved in 2156 by the Govcentral state of California, who sponsored New California, the first ethnic-streaming colony, open only to native Californians. Although initially controversial, the trend was swiftly taken up by the other states. This second wave of colonies suffered none of the strife so prevalent among the first, clearing the way for the mass immigration of the Great Dispersal.

While the new ethnic-streaming worlds successfully absorbed Earth’s surplus population and flourished accordingly, the earlier colonies slowly lost ground both culturally and economically: a false dawn shading to a perpetual twilight.

“What happened to the asteroids?” Lawrence Dillon asked.

Quinn was gazing thoughtfully at the images which the Tantu ’s sensors were throwing onto the hemisphere of holoscreens at the foot of his acceleration couch. In total, eleven asteroids had been manoeuvred into orbit around Nyvan, their ores mined to provide raw material for the planet’s industries. Ordinarily, they would develop into healthy mercantile settlements with a flotilla of industrial stations.

The frigate’s sensors showed that eight of them were more-or-less standard knots of electromagnetic activity, giving off a strong infrared emission. The remaining three were cold and dark. Tantu ’s high-resolution optical sensors focused on the closest of the defunct rocks, revealing wrecked machinery clinging to the crumpled grey surface. One of them even had a counter-rotating spaceport disk, though it no longer revolved; the spindle was bent, and the gloomy structure punctured with holes.

“They had a lot of national wars here,” Quinn said.

Lawrence frowned at him, thoughts cloudy with incomprehension.

“There’s a lot of different people live here,” Quinn explained. “They don’t get on too good, so they fight a lot.”

“If they hate each other, why don’t they all leave?”

“I don’t know. Ask them.”

“Who?”

“Shut the fuck up, Lawrence, I’m trying to think. Dwyer, has anyone seen us yet?”

“Yes, the detector satellites picked us up straightaway. We’ve had three separate transponder interrogations so far; they were from different defence network command centres. Everyone seemed satisfied with our identification code this time.”

“Good. Graper, I want you to be our communications officer.”

“Yes, Quinn.” Graper let the eagerness show in his voice, anxious to prove his worth.

“Stick with the cover we decided. Call each of those military centres and tell the bastards we’ve been assigned a monitor mission in this system by the Confederation Navy. We’ll be staying in high orbit until further notice, and if any of them want fire support against possessed targets we’ll be happy to provide it.”

“I’m on it, Quinn.” He began issuing orders to the flight computer.

“Dwyer,” Quinn said. “Get me a channel into Nyvan’s communications net.” He floated away from his velvet acceleration couch and used a stikpad to steady himself in front of his big command console.

“Er, Quinn, this is weird, the sensors are showing me like fifty communications platforms in geosync,” Dwyer said nervously. He was using grab hoops to hold himself in front of his flight station, his face centimetres from a glowing holoscreen, as though the closer he could get the more understanding of its data he would have. “The computer says they’ve got nineteen separate nets on this world, some of them don’t even hook together.”

“Yeah, so? I told you, dickbrain, they got a shitload of different nations here.”

“Which one do you want?”

Quinn thought back, picturing the man, his mannerisms, voice, accent. “Is there a North American-ethnic nation?”

Dwyer consulted the information on the holoscreen. “I got five. There’s Tonala, New Dominica, New Georgia, Quebec, and the Islamic Texas Republic.”

“Gimmie the New Georgia one.” Information began to scroll up on his own holoscreen. He studied it for a minute, then requested a directory function and loaded in a search program.

“Who is this guy, Quinn?” Lawrence asked.

“Name’s Twelve-T. He’s one mean fucker, a gang lord, runs a big operation down there. Any badass shit you want, you go to him for it.”

The search program finished its run. Quinn loaded the eddress it had found for him.

“Yeah?” a voice asked.

“I want to talk to Twelve-T.”

“Crazy ass mother, ain’t no fucker got that handle living here.”

“Listen, shitbrain, this is his public eddress. He’s there.”

“Yeah, so you know him, datavise him.”

“Not possible.”

“Yeah? Then he don’t know you. Any mother he need to rap with knows his private code.”

“Okay, the magic word is Banneth. And if you don’t think that’s magic, trace where this call is coming from. Now tell the man, because if I come calling, you’re going out hurting.”

Dwyer gave another myopic squint at his displays. “He’s tracing the call. Back to the satellite already. Hot program.”

“I expect they use it a lot,” Quinn muttered.

“You got a problem up there, motherfucker?” a new voice asked. It was almost as Quinn remembered it, a low purr, too damaged to be smooth. Quinn had seen the throat scar which made it that way.

“No problem at all. What I got up here is a proposition.”

“Where you at, man? What is this monk shit? You ain’t Banneth.”

“No.” Quinn swayed forwards slowly towards the camera lens in the centre of the console and pulled his hood right back. “Run your visual file search program.”

“Oh, yeah. You used to be Banneth’s little rat runner; her whore, too. I remember. So what you want here, ratty?”

“A deal.”

“What you got to trade?”

“You know what I’m riding in?”

“Sure. Lucky Vin ran a trace, he’s pissin’ liquid nitrogen right now.”

“It could be yours.”

“No shit?”

“That’s right.”

“What’ve I gotta do for it, hump you?”

“No, I just want to trade it in. That’s all.”

The whisper lost its cool. “You want to trade in a fucking Confederation Navy frigate? What the fuck for?”

“I need to talk to you about that. But there’s some good quality hardware on board. You’ll come out ahead.”