Earth.

A planet whose ecology was ruined beyond repair: the price it paid for elevating itself to be the Confederation’s supreme industrial and economic superpower. Overpopulated, ancient, decadent, and utterly formidable. This was the undeniable imperial heart of the human dominion.

It was also home.

Quinn Dexter admired the images building up on the bridge’s holoscreens. This time he could savour them with unhurried joy. Their official Nyvan flight authority code had been accepted by Govcentral Strategic Defence Command. As far as anyone was concerned, they were a harmless ship sent by a tiny government to buy defence components.

“Traffic control has given us a vector,” Dwyer said. “We have permission to dock at the Supra-Brazil tower station.”

“That’s good. Can you fly it?”

“I think so. It’s tough, we have to go around the Halo, and they’ve given us a narrow flight path, but I can handle that.”

Quinn nodded his permission without saying anything. Dwyer had been a perfect pain in the arse for the whole voyage, making out how difficult everything was before the flight computer performed whatever was required with faultless efficiency. An extraordinarily transparent attempt to show how indispensable he was. But then Quinn knew the effect he had on people, it was part of the fun.

Dwyer was immediately busy talking to the flight computer. Icons flurried over the console displays. Eight minutes later they were under power, accelerating at a third of a gee to curve southwards around the O’Neill Halo.

“Are we going down to the planet first?” Dwyer asked. He was growing progressively twitchier in contrast to Quinn’s deadly calm. “I didn’t know if you wanted to take over an asteroid.”

“Take over?” Quinn asked faintly.

“Yeah. You know, bring them the gospel of God’s Brother. Like we did for Jesup and the other three.”

“No, I don’t think so. Earth isn’t so arse backwards as Nyvan, it would never be that simple to convene the Night here. It must be corrupted from within. The sects will help me do that. Once I show them what I’ve become they’ll welcome me back. And of course, my friend Banneth is down there. God’s Brother understands.”

“Sure, Quinn, that’s good. Whatever you say.” The communications console bleeped for attention, which Dwyer happily gave it. Script flowed down one of the screens, which only amplified his distress as he read it. “Hell, Quinn, have you seen this?”

“God’s Brother gave me a great many gifts, but being psychic isn’t one of them.”

“It’s the clearance procedures we have to comply with after we dock. Govcentral security wants to ensure no possessed are on board.”

“Fuck that.”

“Quinn!”

“I do hope, I really fucking do hope that you’re not questioning me, Dwyer.”

“Shit, no way, Quinn. You’re the man, you know that.” His voice was verging on hysteria.

“Glad to hear it.”

The Brazilian orbital tower sprouted from the very heart of the South American continent, extending fifty-five thousand kilometres out into space. When it was in Earth’s penumbra, as it was when the Mount’s Delta approached, it was invisible to every visual sensor. However, in other electromagnetic wavelengths, and particularly the magnetic spectrum, it gleamed. A slim golden strand of impossible length, with minute scarlet particles skimming along it at tremendous speed.

There were two asteroids attached to the tower. Supra-Brazil, the anchor, was in geostationary orbit thirty-six thousand kilometres above the ground, where it had been mined to extract the carbon and silicon used in the tower’s construction. The second asteroid sat right at the tip, acting as a mass counterbalance to ensure the anchor remained stable, and damp down any dangerous harmonic oscillations in the tower which built up from running the lift capsules.

Because Supra-Brazil was the only section of the tower that was actually in orbit, it was the one place where ships could dock. Unlike every settled asteroid it didn’t rotate, nor were there any internal biosphere caverns. The three-hundred-metre-diameter tower ran cleanly through the rock’s centre; its principal structure perfectly black and perfectly circular. Positioned around the lower segment that stretched down to Earth were twenty-five magnetic rails along which the lift capsules rode, delivering tens of thousands of passengers and up to a hundred thousand tonnes of cargo a day. The other segment, reaching up to the counterbalance, supported a single rail, which was used barely once a month to ferry inspection and maintenance mechanoids to the individual section platforms.

The surface of the asteroid was covered with docking bays and all the usual spaceport support equipment. After three hundred and eighty-six years of continual operation, and the tower’s steady capacity expansion, there wasn’t a square metre of rock left visible.

Even with the Confederation quarantine operating, over six thousand ships a day were still using it, the majority of them from the Halo. They approached by positioning themselves ahead of the port, a long ribbon of diverse craft dropping down from a higher orbit. Navigation strobes and secondary drives produced twinkling cataracts of light as they split into a complex braid of traffic lanes a kilometre above the surface to reach their allocated bays. Departing ships formed an equally intricate helical pattern as they rose away into a higher orbit.

Mount’s Delta slotted into its designated traffic lane, gliding around the vast stem of the tower to dock in the floor of a valley formed by pyramids of heat exchangers, tanks, and thermo-dump panels, three times the size of the Egyptian originals. When the docking cradle had drawn it down into the bottom of the bay, a necklace of lights around the rim came on, illuminating every centimetre of the hull. Figures in black space armour were secured around the bay walls, ready to deal with anyone trying to leave the ship by irregular means.

“Now what?” Quinn asked.

“We have to give the security service total access to our flight computer. They’re going to run a complete diagnostic to make sure there aren’t any unexplained glitches anywhere in the ship. They’ll also monitor us through the internal sensors at the same time. Once they’re satisfied there’s no glitch we’re allowed out into the bay. We have to undergo a whole series of tests, including datavises from our neural nanonics. Quinn , we haven’t got any bloody neural nanonics, and a starship’s crew always have them fitted. Always!”

“I told you,” Quinn’s hollow voice said from deep within his hood, “I will deal with it. What else?”

Dwyer gave the display a wretched stare. “Once we’ve been cleared, we’re put in a secure holding area while the ship is searched by an armed security team. After it’s cleared, we will be allowed out.”

“I’m impressed.”

Dwyer’s communications console was showing a demand from the port’s security service to access the flight computer. “What do we do?” he shrieked. “We can’t fly away, we can’t comply. We’re trapped. They’ll storm us. They’ll have projectile weapons we can’t beat. Or they’ll rip the capsule bulkhead open and decompress us. Or electrocute us with—”

“You’re trapped.” It was only a tiny whisper, but it stopped Dwyer’s rant dead.

“You can’t! Quinn, I did everything you asked. Everything! I’m loyal. I’ve always been fucking loyal to you.”

Quinn extended an arm, a single white finger emerging from the end of his black sleeve.

Dwyer threw out both hands. White fire screamed out of his palms to lash at the black-robed incarnation of Death. Bridge consoles flickered madly as corkscrews of pale flame bounced off Quinn, flashing through the air to bury themselves in bulkheads and equipment.