The revolution didn’t happen all at once, but rather over a thousand year period, starting ten thousand years earlier. The asteroid habitats initially formed a cohesive one-nation grouping after the expansion. But the scarcity of mass in the form of unused asteroids to mine forced the Tyrathca to revert to their original clannish state of competition. As the number of unused asteroids declined, wars were fought over the remainder. Each asteroid habitat reverted to complete autonomy.

After that, the rise of the Mosdva to supremacy was inevitable. They controlled the habitat machinery, and industrial facilities, a power they discovered which enabled them to dictate their terms to the Tyrathca.

Under this new order, the asteroid habitats gradually banded together politically and physically. As they did, new design concepts were enacted, bringing the old Mosdva dictum of sustainability to the fore, enabling them to maximise their use of dwindling mass resources. Life support sections outside the spun-gravity biospheres were constructed. First they were little more than adjuncts to the gridwork which held the clustered asteroid habitats together; transport and transfer tubes, eliminating the wasteful need for airlocks and vessels. But the Mosdva, with their climbing-adept limb arrangement and natural agility, found they adapted well to the freefall environment inside them. Only the Tyrathca needed gravity and the associated complex engineering to maintain the rotating biospheres. More freefall segments were constructed and added to the clusters, hydroponics and industrial sections first; which led to their technicians spending more and more time in freefall. Living sections followed quickly. The era of the diskcities began.

“And the Tyrathca?” Joshua asked. “Are they still here?”

“We do not keep them any more,” Quantook-LOU said. “They are no longer our masters.”

“I congratulate you on ridding yourselves of them. The Confederation has always found them difficult to deal with.”

“But we are not difficult, I hope. And the dominion of Anthi-CL is on the edge of Tojolt-HI. That makes us rich in mass, more than any other. We are good trading partners for you, Captain Joshua Calvert.”

“How does being on the edge of Tojolt-HI make you richer than other dominions?”

“Is that not obvious? All ships have to dock at the edge. All mass flows through us.”

“Oh, classic,” Ruben said. “The rim dominions are the diskcity harbourmasters, they can charge what they like to allow cargo through. They’ve probably got some kind of political alliance between themselves to put the squeeze on the central dominions.”

“A minimum fee?” Joshua asked.

“Most likely. It puts us in a good position. Everything travels through them; QED, they must have good communications with all the other dominions. They should be able to find us a copy of the almanac file if it still exists.”

“Okay.” Joshua checked his neural nanonics time function. They’d been in the diskcity for nine hours. “I thank you for your hospitality, Quantook-LOU. My crew and I would like to return to our ship now. We have gathered enough information to see where our respective interests lie, so we’ll start reviewing what items and information we’ve brought with us which will bring about the most beneficial exchange for both of us.”

“As you wish. How long will this review process take?”

“Only a few hours. I look forward to returning, and the start of true negotiations between us.”

“As do I. Our resources will be marshalled to cope with your demands. Perhaps then I could visit your ship?”

“You would be an honoured guest, Quantook-LOU.”

Ten Mosdva formed the entourage to see them back to the MSV. It had been left untouched, though Ashly and Sarha who’d been monitoring its status, reported it had been bombarded by every conceivable active sensor sweep.

As soon as they were back through Lady Mac ’s decontam procedure, Joshua ordered the SII suit to withdraw, giving a huge sigh as his skin was exposed to air again. “Jesus, I thought that Quantook character would go on forever about how wonderful his people are. Don’t they ever sleep?”

“Probably not,” Parker said. “As a general rule, sleep evolves from a planetary day-night cycle; they don’t have that here any more. I suspect they have slow periods, but no actual sleep.”

“Ah well, that’s one weakness we’ll have to concede to them. I need a meal, a gel wipe, and some time in the cocoon. It’s been a long day.”

“I concur,” Syrinx said. “The ELINT satellites are approaching operational range, which may or may not give us useful information on the dominions. We also need to evaluate what we’ve heard today, and I’d like us all fresh for that. We’ll reconvene in six hours to see what the satellites have found and discuss the next stage.”

Joshua managed three hours in the cocoon before he woke. He stared at the cabin wall for fifteen minutes before acknowledging he’d need to put a somnolence program into primary if he wanted to sleep again. He hated doing that.

Liol, Monica, Alkad, and Dahybi were already in the small galley when he air-swam through the hatch. They gave him varying sympathetic looks which he acknowledged ruefully.

“We’ve been talking to Syrinx and Cacus,” Monica said. She shrugged at Joshua; he’d paused in the act of filling his tea sachet from the water nozzle to raise an eyebrow. “Not just us that’s restless. Anyway, they’ve located another seven diskcities.”

Joshua datavised the flight computer for a general communication link and said good morning to the Oenone ’s crew.

“The Mosdva empire appears to be quite extensive,” Syrinx told him. “Judging by the distribution of diskcities we’ve seen so far, that early estimate needs to be revised upwards. Fair enough if we believe there were seven thousand asteroid habitats to begin with. Kempster and Renato have also been scanning further out from the photosphere. So far they haven’t located a single lump of rock within twenty degrees of the ecliptic. Quantook-LOU was telling the truth when he said there was a desperate struggle for mass after the stellar expansion. Every spare gram must have been incorporated into the diskcities.”

“Quantook-LOU didn’t say struggle,” Joshua said. “He said wars, plural.”

“Which he blamed squarely on the Tyrathca,” Alkad said.

Joshua gave the physicist a bleak look. She didn’t say much, but her comments were normally pretty valid. “You think the Mosdva took control earlier than that?”

“We can never know exactly what this star system’s history is, but I would think it likely that the Mosdva started their revolt right after the star’s expansion phase. That would be when the Tyrathca were most dependant on them. Everything else we’ve been told does tend to paint them in an unusually generous light. An oppressed people struggle to regain their long-lost freedom. Please. History is always written by the good guys.”

“I did gloss over some of our less endearing traits,” Joshua said. “That’s human nature.”

“You should have stung Quantook-LOU’s office space with some nanonic bugs,” Liol said. “I’d love to hear what’s being said in there right now.”

“Too big a risk,” Monica said. “If they found them, at worst they could interpret it as a hostile act; and even if they were diplomatic about it, we would have handed them a whole new technology.”

“I don’t think that leaves us much to worry about,” Liol said. “The Confederation isn’t about to be invaded by Mosdva, it’s the Tyrathca we have to worry about.”

“Enough,” Joshua said. He shifted round to make room for a sleepy unshaven Ashly who was drifting into the galley. “Look, we’ve just about got everyone up now anyway, we’d best convene and thrash out what we’re going to do next.”

There was one more discovery before the meeting started. Joshua was finishing his breakfast when Beaulieu datavised a curt message requesting him to access Lady Mac ’s sensor suite. “I’ve located a Mosdva ship,” the cosmonik said.