With the onset of the possession crisis, the skywatch enthusiasts gave the palace airspace the kind of coverage matched only by the city’s defence array sensors. Civilian craft such as those used by junior ministers and waggish royal cousins had vanished. Now it was only military vehicles darting in and out among the ornate rotundas and stone chimney stacks. Even so, their squadron insignias gave some clues away about their passengers and cargo. The gossip bulletins were well served by the skywatchers (with a few contributions of ISA disinformation).

This particular morning when the city was overcast with grey clouds sprinkling sleet across the boulevards and parks, they faithfully recorded the arrival of four flyers from the Royal Marine 585 Squadron in amongst the twenty other landings. 585’s dedicated role was logistics, a description broad enough to cover many sins. As a consequence their presence went unremarked.

Also unremarked was the arrival over the previous thirty-hour period of warships from (among other planets) Oshanko, New Washington, Petersburg, and Nanjing, which were now parked in low equatorial orbit. They had brought respectively, Prince Tokama, Vice-President Jim Sanderson, Prime Minister Korzhenev, and deputy speaker Ku Rongi. Such was the secrecy surrounding the high-power guests that not even the Kulu Foreign Ministry had been notified; certainly the embassies of the planets concerned knew nothing.

It was left to the Prime Minister, Lady Phillipa Oshin, to greet them as their flyers touched down in an inner quadrangle one after the other. She smiled with polite firmness as a Royal Marine tested each guest for static, which they accepted with equal aplomb. The palace cloisters were unusually empty as she escorted them to the King’s private study. Alaistair II rose from the deep chair behind his desk to give them a more cordial welcome. There was a fierce log fire burning in the grate, repelling the chill which washed off the frozen quadrangle outside the French windows. The chestnut trees around the prim lawn were denuded of leaves, leaving the branches glinting under encrustations of ice like clustered quartz.

Lady Phillipa sat at the side of the desk next to the Duke of Salion; while the guests were in green leather chairs facing Alaistair.

“Thank you all for coming,” the King said.

“Your ambassador said it was important,” Jim Sanderson said. “And our diplomatic relationship is old and valuable enough to get you my ass over here. Though I have to say I should be back home where I’m visible to the voters. This crisis is about appearing confident more than anything.”

“I understand,” Alaistair said. “If I might make an observation, the crisis is now developing outside the arena of public confidence.”

“Yeah, we heard Mortonridge is in trouble.”

“The rate of advance has slowed down after Ketton,” the Duke of Salion admitted. “But we are still gaining ground and de-possessing the inhabitants.”

“Good for you. What’s that got to do with us? You’ve already had as much help as we can reasonably provide.”

“We believe the time has come to make some positive decisions on the policies we adopt to defeat the possessed.”

Korzhenev grunted in amusement. “So you called us here in secret to discuss this action rather than take it to the Assembly? I feel as if I am a member of some old cabal plotting revolution.”

“You are,” the King said. Korzhenev’s smile faded.

“The Confederation is failing,” the Duke of Salion told the surprised guests. “The economies of the developed worlds like ours are suffering badly from the civil starflight quarantine. Stage two planets are paralysed. Capone has acted with singular brilliance with his infiltration flights and the strike against Trafalgar. Our populations are in a state of physical and emotional siege. Quarantine-busting flights continue to spread possession slowly but surely. And now Earth, the industrial and military core of the entire Confederation, has been infected. Without Earth on our side, the whole equation is changed. We must take its loss into account if we are to survive.”

“Just hold on there a minute,” Jim Sanderson said. “The possessed have got a toehold in a couple of arcologies, is all. You can’t sign Earth off that easily. GISD is one tough mother of an agency, they’ll crack whatever heads they have to in order to clear the possessed out.”

Alaistair looked at the Duke, and nodded permission.

“According to our GISD contact, there are now at least five arcologies host to the possessed.”

Prince Tokama raised an eyebrow. “You are well informed, sir. I had not been told of this development before I left Oshanko.”

“Half of the Royal Navy auxiliary vessels are doing nothing but running round on courier duty for us,” the Duke said. “We’re keeping as current as we can, but even that information is a couple of days old now. According to the report, the worst situation is in New York, but the other four arcologies will fall within weeks at the most. Govcentral has been commendably quick in closing down the vac-train routes, but we believe that ultimately the possessed will spread to the remaining arcologies as well. If anyone is capable of surviving Earth’s climate without technological protection, it is a possessed.”

“And that isn’t even the big problem,” Alaistair said. “Lalonde’s population was roughly twenty million, of which we can assume a minimum of eighty-five per cent were possessed. Between them, they had enough energistic power to snatch the planet from this universe. New York’s official population is three hundred million. By themselves they have more than enough power to remove Earth. They won’t even have to wait until the other arcologies are taken over.”

“A valid observation, however, the Halo will surely remain,” Ku Rongi said. “That is the main source of commerce with the Confederation. Trade with the Sol system will be diminished, not erased.”

“Hopefully, yes,” the Duke said. “Our GISD contact says they don’t yet understand how the possessed penetrated Earth’s defences. So the possibility exists that they may be able to spread among the Halo asteroids as well. The other problem facing the Halo is that when the Earth is removed to some other realm, its gravity field will go with it. The Halo asteroids will physically disperse.”

“Very well,” Prince Tokama said. “I am sure your analysists have produced a definitive report on the outcome of these events. So assuming we are deprived of Earth, and at least some of the Halo’s resources, what do you see as the most effective policy to proceed with?”

“Olton Haaker and the Polity Council have just ordered a full scale Confederation Navy attack against Capone’s fleet,” the Duke said. “It should close down the Organization’s rule, and allow the possessed on New California to do what comes naturally. They’ll shunt it away, thus eliminating the threat of any further infiltration flights and antimatter terrorism. What we propose is taking that policy to its conclusion.”

“The industrialized star systems should align themselves into a core-Confederation,” Lady Phillipa said. “At the moment we’re dangerously overstretched trying to enforce the quarantine and supporting actions like Mortonridge. The cost simply cannot be sustained, not with the economic slowdown we’re all suffering from. If we contract our spheres of influence, the cost is considerably reduced, and the effectiveness of our military forces in maintaining security over a smaller volume of space is correspondingly improved. Given that increased security, we could begin trading among ourselves again.”

“You mean no one else would be allowed to fly in?”

“Essentially, yes. We would extend the government authorization process we have in place today to cover commercial starships. Any vessel registered in one of the secured star systems would be allowed to resume flying between systems, subject to a reasonable security inspection. Ships which came from unsecured systems would not be permitted to dock. In other words, we stake out our perimeter and guard it very well indeed.”