‘Well, what’s he doing here?’

Michael beamed. ‘He is a gift, at the orders of Centurion Quintus Fabius. He has been delighted by the work of Collius in the colonia, the advice on soil preparation, crops, irrigation.’

The ColU, sitting on its tabletop, seemed to Stef to twinkle. ‘I’m Collius the oracle now.’

‘Shut up,’ said Yuri mildly.

‘Yes, Yuri Eden.’

‘So the centurion, you see, aware of the ColU’s cut-down state, has kindly donated him the legs of this boy here.’

Stef frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Michael said hastily, ‘Let me explain. I have adapted your backpack, Yuri Eden.’ He drew this out from under a bench; it looked much as it had before, save the straps had been shortened. He brought this to the boy who slipped it on. ‘The ColU itself will ride in the pack. And then your talking, all-seeing glass …’

Yuri’s slate had been set into a leather pouch, and Michael now hung this around Chu’s neck, fixing it with straps around his chest.

Stef said, ‘I don’t believe it. This boy is going to be your pack mule, ColU?’

‘We have been rehearsing,’ the ColU said. ‘Chu. Walk forward. Turn right. Turn left.’

The boy marched across the theatre floor, as passive and obedient as a puppet, head downturned. A slave’s walk.

‘This is obscene,’ Stef said.

Michael held up his hands. ‘Now, madam, Yuri warned me you might react like this—’

‘It could have been a lot worse, Stef,’ Yuri said. ‘Why do you think Michael here is involved at all?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Because the centurion’s first idea was to have the pack and slate stitched to Chu’s flesh, so they couldn’t be stolen.’

Titus Valerius raised a hand tentatively. ‘Can I speak? I’m part of the centurion’s plan also. I will accompany the boy wherever he goes, to ensure the safety of the oracle.’

Stef grinned sourly. ‘I know the military mind. A nice cushy job to buy you off after that business with the granary, Titus?’

Titus shrugged massively. ‘I follow orders.’

‘Well, it’s still obscene,’ Stef said.

Yuri said mildly, ‘Would you send Chu back where he came from?’

Chu turned his head at that, looking alarmed.

‘I will care for this boy,’ the ColU said firmly. ‘I will ensure his own needs are met, as he serves mine. We cannot save all the slaves in this Roman Empire of theirs, Stef Kalinski. But I can save this one, this boy.’

Stef bowed to the inevitable. ‘Fine. I suppose all other options are worse …’

She tried to tell Yuri and the ColU something of what she’d learned that day.

‘So these people, these Romans, send ships to the stars and build Hatches without any understanding of why. Purely as a ritual, a mechanism, as ants build a nest.’

‘Perhaps that’s a good analogy, Stef Kalinski,’ said the ColU. ‘The nest as a whole benefits from the actions of individuals. In the same way the Hatch network must benefit in some way.’

Michael had listened closely to their conversation. He offered, ‘Perhaps it fits the Romans’ character too. At least, these soldiers’. They are used to serving a larger entity without question – I mean, the Empire, the army. I, a Greek, can see this.’

‘I resent that,’ said Titus Valerius.

‘Oh, you do?’

‘Yes! Legionaries aren’t ants. We know precisely why we’re fighting. For our companions.’

Michael sighed. ‘Just as ants follow the lead of their neighbouring ants, and so the structure of the hive miraculously emerges. My point exactly.’

Titus growled, baffled.

Stef said, ‘Yuri, did you know that kernels have been used in war here? On Earth itself. For centuries, I think.’

‘Somehow I’m not surprised,’ Yuri said weakly. ‘Can you think of any way in which this new humanity is better than the old?’

‘Only one,’ said the ColU. ‘They’re better at building Hatches.’

CHAPTER 10

AD 2213; AUC 2966

The moon was different. That was the first thing Beth Eden Jones noticed as the Ukelwydd sailed towards the Earth, still decelerating, kernel drive burning bright.

It was a chance navigational alignment that brought the incoming ship close to the satellite, close enough for the kernel energies to cast a glow on the surface. On the dark side scattered lights burned, and domes reflected the ship’s fire like droplets of mercury. But when the day side opened up, with the moon receding behind the Earthbound ship, even Beth – a stranger to the solar system until she stepped through a Hatch from Per Ardua to Mercury at age twenty – could see how the ancient terrain was disfigured. The smooth greyness of the maria, the seas, was gouged and scarred with immense rectilinear workings, and the whole face was masked by rays from brilliant, sharply defined new craters. The maria land forms were obviously artificial, the result of centuries of human mining for resources, here on this version of the moon. It took a while for Beth to understand that the new craters, the bright rays, were human-made features too: the scars, not of industry, but of war.

Having passed the moon, the ship turned for Earth, a button of light in the sky. But again Beth could immediately see differences from the world she remembered, even from this distance. There was no gleam of ice, for one thing, at either pole. And whole swathes of the planet, in central America, central Africa, Australia, were bare of life, as if the green had worn away to expose the rocky bones of the world.

The Ukelwydd, with the ruin of the Tatania in tow and the hulk ship’s tenfold crew aboard, settled neatly into a high-inclination orbit around Earth, or Terra as the home world was called by the Brikanti. The crew of the ISF ship were restricted to their sparse quarters for a full day, as the Brikanti went through their arrival protocols.

After this brief confinement, Ari Guthfrithson, the ship’s leading druidh, invited Beth to join him to view the world, for soon the orbital pass would take the ship over Britain and north Europe, the home of the Brikanti and their allies, including Ari’s own people.

Beth was pleased to see Ari. She felt she had grown relatively close to this calm scholar in the days they had spent on this ship. He was younger than she was, but not by much. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but like all the Brikanti crew he seemed to be exceptionally well groomed, with neat hair and finely shaped sideburns – she had glimpsed him using a portable kit, scissors, a nail file. She was attracted to him, she thought, if only faintly.

And today the general mood was good. The Ukelwydd crew seemed relaxed as they switched over from flight mode to less demanding orbital operations.

‘Plus,’ said Lex McGregor as he joined Beth and Ari at a big observation window, ‘maybe they are looking forward to getting rid of us. I know the military. The sooner they can kick a problem upstairs the happier they will be.’

Ari’s voice, softly translated for Beth through Earthshine’s systems via her earpiece, was calm. ‘Actually ship’s crew are not used to dealing with people directly. In space conflicts, a personal encounter with the enemy is rare; the defeated rarely survive to become prisoners. And of course your Earthshine, whose nature we cannot understand, represents a double conceptual problem for us.’

‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ McGregor said drily. ‘But he is the reason we’re all here in the first place. The objective of the flight of the poor old Tatania was specifically to save Earthshine from the consequences of our own upcoming war.’ He glanced down at the world, over which the ship drifted silently. ‘Though whether by delivering Earthshine to your nation really counts as “saving” him – I suppose I’m relieved I’ll never have to justify that to my superiors, wherever they are  … I’m sorry, I’m maundering.’