The estate’s smartcore ran a final check on the capsule and its solitary passenger as it decelerated across the threshold. Enlightened he might be – relatively speaking – but Nigel was still quite assiduous about his privacy. Especially on this day.

His u-shadow directed the capsule to land outside the lake house. A lake three miles long and two wide, with islands of rock pinnacles whose crests were covered in a thatch of verdant vegetation. They’d taken years to craft and carve from local rock, and as far as cost was concerned, it was trivial compared to the sum his CST co-owner Ozzie had spent converting an asteroid into his habitat home. The only normal, flattish island was in the middle, with a semi-circular white marble pavilion structure above the shore. Most of the island was well-tended forest, but it had a lush verdant lawn stretching between the water and the building. That was where the capsule came down.

‘Who’s here?’ he asked the smartcore as he stepped out onto the lawn. Weeping willow leaves rustled softly in the warm El Iopi wind that blew out of the heart of the continent. The humidity was as strong as always. He started to perspire almost at once.

‘There are forty-two Dynasty members currently in residence, along with a hundred and seventeen associates and estate personnel. They are occupying twenty-six buildings. As requested, the lake house is empty, as are all buildings around the shore.’

‘Good.’ Nigel put on a pair of mirrorshades and squinted up into the sky. The glare point that was Regulus was poised above the rolling mountain crests and sinking slowly. It would be night in a couple of hours. ‘I will be having a visitor in three hours. Their starship will be diplomatic coded. Let them through the security screen on my authority. Do not inform anyone else of their arrival.’

‘Understood.’

Nigel hurried inside where the aircon would be on and he could get ready.

*

Five hours previously, Nigel had been on Nova Zealand, a Central world that just about qualified as H-congruous. Recella, one of his great-great-great-granddaughters, was getting married for the first time. As Nigel had two hundred and thirty-eight children (that he knew of), it wasn’t exactly a rare event. But her mother, Koloza, was on the Dynasty board and had also signed up for the latest colony project. Family obligation . . .

It wasn’t unknown to receive a call from the High Angel, just extremely rare. CST had discovered the alien arkship in orbit around the gas giant Icalanise back in 2163. It looked like an unusually regular asteroid, except for the twelve giant crystal-roofed domes on stalks sticking out from the rocky surface. Closer inspection of the transparent domes revealed that they contained cities. It was a Raiel ship, though there were other species living in the domes. At the time, the Raiel didn’t reveal what the High Angel’s purpose was; that only became clear four hundred years later, once the Endeavour was turned away from the Wall stars around the Void. The Raiel had built High Angel, and countless other arkships, to evacuate representative populations of sentient species from the galaxy should the Void begin its terminal expansion phase.

Ever since first contact, the Raiel had enjoyed excellent diplomatic relations with the Commonwealth, even propagating New Glasgow, a dome city on High Angel for humans to live in. Then, after the Endeavour encounter, the Navy had been invited to join their observation of the Void. The Raiel didn’t release any of their advanced technology, despite numerous requests, claiming they didn’t want to disrupt the Commonwealth’s natural sociotechnological development. Even with constant contact, they remained an enigma.

‘Accept the call,’ Nigel told his u-shadow. The wedding ceremony itself was over by then, and the relatively modest reception had just begun. Koloza had hired an entire resort village in the Fire Plain, a crater in the arctic surrounded by active volcanoes that heated the land to tropical levels.

‘Thank you for talking to me,’ the High Angel said courteously in a smooth male voice.

Nigel grinned as Recella and her new wife took to the open-air dance floor; both girls looked blissfully happy. Somewhere beyond the resort’s armed perimeter, the cries of mighty dinosaur-equivalent creatures rolled across the swamps. ‘You knew I would. Who refuses a call from you?’

‘Ozzie has been known to.’

‘Of course he has. What can I do for you?’

‘I would like you to meet a Raiel representative. She wishes to discuss an important topic with you.’

‘Interesting. Why didn’t she just call me direct?’

‘Your unisphere is relatively secure. However, I would expect the Commonwealth Navy Intelligence office to monitor all calls originating from me, especially one from a Raiel.’

‘Fair point. All right, I’ll meet her. Where?’

‘We would suggest somewhere that affords some privacy.’

‘I know just the place.’

*

After he’d taken a spore shower, Nigel got dressed in the lake house’s master bedroom, choosing a simple pale brown silk suit with a semiorganic lining that contracted snugly round him. Check the mirrors to see blond hair that was still pleasingly thick, though he could do with a cut. Jaw nicely flat, cheeks not too rounded. His one concession to cosmetic sequencing was green eyes; otherwise he’d kept his own features. Unlike everyone else these days, he didn’t hold his biological appearance in his twenties, preferring mid-thirties to give a touch of maturity. Even today people passed judgement on purely visual clues. It mattered not that his brain was genetically and biononically enhanced beyond anything nature could ever achieve, and the ancillary lacuna now stored every memory from his life; before such advances he’d had to edit entire decades from his mind each time he underwent rejuvenation to avoid the inevitable clutter confusion such an excessive accumulation of experience produced. But today, with secondary routines handling recollection, every day of those thirteen hundred years was instantly available – every mistake, triumph, love, heartbreak, political manoeuvre, discovery, disappointment, wonder and grubby deal that made his personality what it was.

‘The Raiel ship has entered Augusta’s atmosphere,’ the estate’s smartcore told him.

‘Thank you. Let it land, then shield and screen the estate. No exceptions.’

‘Understood.’

The interior of the marble lake house always made Nigel think of some Scandinavian church. It was all down to the high vaulting ceilings and plain lines, complemented by simple curving furniture in white and grey. It was as if the place wasn’t quite finished, but they’d started using it anyway. The principal lounge had a big arched window wall looking out across the dark water beyond the shore. The centre of the glass parted to allow Nigel out onto the lawn.

Trees from Illuminatus had been planted on the rock pinnacle islands; at night, after Regulus had departed the sky, their bioluminescence came alive, crowning the islands in a soft blue and purple phosphorescence. Long reflection ribbons shimmered across the water like icy flames, the only visual beacons guiding visitors down.

Nigel’s enriched vision showed him the Raiel craft while it was still fifteen miles high. He fed the estate’s sensor data into his sight, amplifying the image.

The craft was a twenty-metre sphere with a flat base. It was emitting gravitational distortions similar to a Commonwealth regrav drive.

Nigel watched it land in the centre of the lawn. His biononic fieldscan function caught a T-sphere expanding, and a Raiel was teleported onto the grass in front of him.

He arched an eyebrow. Very dramatic. Overuse of technology, though. What’s wrong with a simple malmetal hatch? ‘Welcome to Augusta,’ he said out loud.