ECOSYSTEM: Constrained.

In the lower strata, light and oxygen are provided by force-evolved fluorofungus, which is plentiful. The foundation of habitable-area ecology is imported autotrophic bacteria; in a real sense, the planet’s native lifeforms exist outside the human demesnes and realms, especially upon the surface.

ARCHITECTURE: Deliberate.

The aristocracy’s subterranean palaces in the upper strata are a far cry from the habitation tunnels of the lower strata. Note that various leitmotifs are global, cf. the use of simple hangings to form walls and doorways in dormitory tunnels, contrasted with the wall membranes of well-to-do dwellings; likewise the use of fluorofungus compared to soft-luminescence smartmarble.

EDUCATION: Encouraged.

Despite the deliberate creation of an aristocracy (justified by the Founding Lords with reference to the controversial emergent élites doctrine as being inevitable therefore requiring optimisation), education is available in the poorer (lower) strata, while educational content is monitored and censored. The use of logotropes as femtoscopic drug-like treatments form an approach in contrast to that of the Fulgor education system designed by LuxPrime, and may (among the aristocracy at least) surpass it.

ARISTOCRACY: Powerful.

While the power structures are amenable to normal sociological deconstruction, note that the soi-disant Logic Lords and Ladies almost invariably possess superior intellects by virtue of their intensive training in the all-purpose academic discipline of logosophy.

Ethico cognitive modelling by Admiralty analysts notes that the presence of repressive social elements, including slavery, occasional employment of cyborgs and a pitiless legal system, may be overlooked by future historians if the integration of all academic disciplines (including philosophy-as-science) in logosophy matures as promised.

There are three points of movement. The moment is now.

Ships.

What—?

Zajinet ships.

All briefing notes are forgotten as Rhianna slams downward into emergency trance, the kind that produces physical after-effects due to shocking suddenness, irrelevant unless the Pilot survives; but these vessels are closing fast, and ship-and-Rhianna experience a hull-tingling resonance of powered-up weapon systems: the attack is imminent and movement is necessary now.

They corkscrew away but something tears into their left wing – bastards! – as their own weapons come online, pulsing with build-up – there – and they cut loose with their beams, Rhianna-and-ship; and the first of the attackers explodes – die, you fucker – but the others are swerving and two more beams lance towards them, and the second hits – damn damn damn – as ship and Rhianna fling themselves through another evasion, firing at another of the Zajinets and hitting it – good – and then the last – all dead – but not before more pain blossoms in their hull and then they are—

I love you.

I’ve always loved you.

—falling.

Rhianna has killed the Zajinets, and they have killed her.

She screams as reality explodes and a fragment is flung away – the fragment that is her – tearing her mind so that the smartgel and extruding stubby wings mean nothing, because everything is over.

It happened so very, very fast . . .

Dying now.

But that is not the tragedy.

‘—be all right if we—’

Fragments impinge on the awareness that was human, that was Pilot once.

Man, bearded.

Images like shards.

Hurts . . .

Pain. Oceanic pain.

Beads of computation in sequences, in threads, in damaged processes.

Diagnostic: livelock-free – achieved.

Such agony, the negentropy of working things out, of logic activated.

Diagnostic: deadlock-free – achieved.

Reality flickers.

‘Activating you now.’

Steadies.

‘I am Duke Avernon.’ The bearded man produces acoustic vibration to be parsed and rendered into semantic-analytic components for matching. ‘You’re alive again.’

Tonal analysis estimates likelihood of irony at 27 per cent.

‘It’s been a standard year since the crash, Pilot.’

Self model indicates send-signal capacity is 30:70 vision:speech.

Ambulatory capacity equals zero.

Tracking facial analytic vectors now. Mood-model reference Avernon constructed.

Smile arc Δθ ≈ 11.7˚

Intent.Interpretation = tactic::rapport attempt.

‘I don’t know your name, Pilot,’ Duke Avernon continues. ‘What is it? You can speak, by the way.’

OutstreamConnection.status = 100 per cent confirmed

Internal.Ident.Label = Rhianna_Chiang

Internal.Ident.Label.status = unsatisfactory

‘I’ve had to reconstruct . . . Well, everything, Pilot. But this is life, trust me. Now tell me your name.’

The thing that was Rhianna Chiang tests its output channel.

‘Nnnname . . .’

‘All right, if you need time. Let me show you what you look like. Here’s a mirror holo.’

ImageField.hasAttribute(contains face) = true

Eye-like mouth-like components present OK.

Remainder is [Adjectival.Query(Topology.Similar) = splayed]; attitude is vertical.

‘Ah, so I won’t need to reinitialise you this time. Very good.’

It is no longer Rhianna; no longer Pilot; no longer human, the construct embedded in the wall.

Self.Status =

Self.Status =

Self.Status =

timeouttimeouttimeouttimeou—

ThreadEndInterrupt

Self.Status = pending

‘My.’

Let n:Name = Concept.heuristicMatch(‘one who knows’)

‘Name.’

Result n = null

Retry n = Concept.heuristicMatch(‘one who knows’, RadixContext.ancestor_languages)

‘Is . . .’

Internal.Ident.setLabel(n)

Self.Status = activated

‘ . . .Kenna.’

Two thousand eight hundred milliseconds pass.

‘Repeat that, please.’

SpeechBuffer.replay( )

‘My. Name. Is. Kenna.’

NINETEEN

LUNA, 601000 AD

Kenna sat between the empty high-backed seat reserved for Ulfr – unoccupied these past hundred millennia – and the one occupied by Sharp, his crystalline antlers shimmering with reflected light. Before them hung a many-dimensioned strategy model, which from time to time they altered, and returned to meditating on. Meanwhile, at the far end of the hall, Roger and Gavriela were wielding refined crystal blades, testing new designs, their cuts leaving glimmers of gamma radiation in the vacuum.

Only zero-point energy could affect the darkness directly, but there were many aspects to warfare, and more than one kind of enemy.

It was an ordinary lunar day, until the moment a sapphire blue glow began to manifest near the geometric centre of the hall. Kenna dismissed the model and strode forward, while Roger and Gavriela stood with blades ready. Sharp remained where he was.

A crystal humanoid stepped out of the light.

No one moved.

The newcomer’s face rippled in something like a smile.

—Fascinating. I’m so glad I returned to the old solar system. Nearly passed right by, you know.

Once upon a time, this base had been hidden. Now its great buttresses and many balconies glinted against the lunar landscape. Being open necessarily meant being defensible, and so their fortress was; but Kenna believed the stranger was no enemy.

—Greetings, sir. My name is Kenna.

—And greetings to yourself. How very interesting. You have modern forms, not too different from my own, yet you are individually very old, every one of you. Archaic, even.

Call it a form of first contact.

For so long, they had cast their plans and made their preparations without dealing with wider humanity and their descendants. Ragnarökkr could, if necessary, be fought in the future using only resources from the past and the things that Kenna and the others constructed; but what if they could find allies among the newer peoples?