She pulled her fingers from mine but touched my cheek. “Remember our discussion long, long ago about the Newtonian physics of love?”

“Love is an emotion, kiddo. Not a form of energy.”

“It’s both, Raul. It truly is. And it is the only key to unlocking the universe’s greatest supply of energy.”

“Are you talking about religion?” I said, half furious at either her opacity or my denseness or both.

“No,” she said, “I’m talking about quasars deliberately ignited, about pulsars tamed, about the exploding cores of galaxies tapped for energy like steam turbines. I’m talking about an engineering project two and a half billion years old and barely begun.”

I could only stare.

She shook her head. “Later, my love. For now understand that farcasting without a farcaster really works. There were never any real farcasters… never any magical doors opening onto different worlds… only the TechnoCore’s perversion of this form of the Void’s second most wonderful gift.”

I should have said, What is the Void’s first most wonderful gift? but I assumed then that it was the learning-the-language-of-the-dead recording of sentient races’ memories… my mother’s voice, to be more precise. But what I did say then was, “So this is how you moved Rachel and Theo and you from world to world without time-debt.”

“Yes.”

“And took the Consul’s ship from T’ien Shan System to Biosphere with no Hawking drive.”

“Yes.”

I was about to say, And traveled to whatever world where you met your lover, were married, and had a child, but the words would not form. “This is Mars,” she said next, filling the silence. “Colonel Kassad will leave us here.”

The tall warrior stepped to Aenea’s side.

Rachel came closer, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him.

“Someday you will be called Moneta,” Kassad said softly. “And we will be lovers.”

“Yes,” said Rachel and stepped back.

Aenea took the tall man’s hand. He was still in quaint battle garb, the assault rifle held comfortably in the crook of his arm. Smiling slightly, the Colonel looked up at the highest platform where the Shrike still stood, the blood light of Mars on his carapace.

“Raul,” said Aenea, “will you come as well?”

I took her other hand.

The wind was blowing sand into my eyes and I could not breathe. Aenea handed me an osmosis mask and I slipped mine on as she set hers in place.

The sand was red, the rocks were red, and the sky was a stormy pink. We were standing in a dry river valley bounded by rocky cliffs. The riverbed was strewn with boulders—some as big as the Consul’s ship. Colonel Kassad pulled on the helmet cowl of his combat suit and static rasped in our comthread pickups. “Where I started,” he said. “In the Tharsis Relocation Slums a few hundred klicks that direction.” He gestured toward where the sun hung low and small above the cliffs. The suited figure, ominous in its size and bulk, the heavy assault weapon looking anything but obsolete here on the plain of Mars, turned toward Aenea. “What would you have me do, woman?”

Aenea spoke in the crisp, quick, sure syllables of command. “The Pax has retreated from Mars and Old Earth System temporarily because of the Palestinian uprising here and the resurgence of the Martian War Machine in space. There is nothing strategic enough to hold them here now while their resources are stretched so thin.”

Kassad nodded.

“But they’ll be back,” said Aenea. “Back in force. Not just to pacify Mars, but to occupy the entire system.” She paused to look around. I followed her gaze and saw the dark human figures moving down the boulder field toward us.

They carried weapons.

“You must keep them out of the system, Colonel,” said my friend. “Do whatever you must… sacrifice whomever you must… but keep them out of Old Earth System for the next five standard years.”

I had never heard Aenea sound so adamant or ruthless.

“Five standard years,” said Colonel Kassad. I could see his thin smile behind the cowl visor. “No problem. If it was five Martian years, I might have to strain a bit.” Aenea smiled. The figures were moving closer through the blowing sand. “You’ll have to take the leadership of the Martian resistance movement,” she said, her voice deadly serious. “Take it any way you can.”

“I will,” said Kassad and the firmness in his voice matched Aenea’s.

“Consolidate the various tribes and warrior factions,” said Aenea.

“I will.”

“Form a more permanent alliance with the War Machine spacers.”

Kassad nodded. The figures were less than a hundred meters away now. I could see weapons raised.

“Protect Old Earth,” said Aenea. “Keep the Pax away at all costs.”

I was shocked. Colonel Kassad must have been surprised as well. “You mean Old Earth System,” he said.

Aenea shook her head. “Old Earth, Fedmahn. Keep the Pax away. You have approximately a year to consolidate control of the entire system. Good luck.”

The two shook hands.

“Your mother was a fine, brave woman,” said the Colonel. “I valued her friendship.”

“And she valued yours.”

The dark figures were moving closer, keeping to the cover of boulders and dunes. Colonel Kassad walked toward them, his right hand high, the assault weapon still easy in his arm.

Aenea came closer and took my hand again.

“It’s cold, isn’t it, Raul?”

It was. There was a flash of light like a painless blow to the back of one’s head and we were on the bridge platform of the Yggdrasill. Our friends backed away at the sight of our appearance; the fear of magic dies hard in a species.

Mars turned red and cold beyond our branches and containment field.

“What course, Revered One Who Teaches?” said Het Masteen.

“Just turn outward to where we can clearly see the stars,” said Aenea.

The Yggdrasill continued on. The Tree of Pain its captain, the Templar True Voice of the Tree Het Masteen, called it. I could not argue. Each jump took more energy from my Aenea, my love, my poor, tired Aenea, and each separation filled the depleting pool of energy with a growing reservoir of sadness. And through it all the Shrike stood useless and alone on its high platform, like a hideous bowsprit on a doomed ship or a macabre dark angel on the top of a mirthless Christmas tree.

After leaving Colonel Kassad on Mars, the treeship jumped to orbit around Maui-Covenant. The world was in rebellion but deep within Pax space and I expected hordes of Pax warships to rise up in challenge, but there was no attack during the few hours we were there.

“One of the benefits of the armada attack on the Biosphere Startree,” Aenea said with sad irony. “They’ve stripped the inner systems of fighting ships.” It was Theo whose hand Aenea took for the step down to Maui-Covenant. Again, I accompanied my friend and her friend. I blinked away the white light and we were on a motile isle, its treesails filling with warm tropical wind, the sky and sea a breathtaking blue. Other isles kept pace while dolphin outriders left white wakes on either side of the convoy.

There were people on the high platform and although they were mystified by our appearance, they were not alarmed. Theo hugged the tall blond man and his dark-haired wife who came forward to greet us.

“Aenea, Raul,” she said, “I am pleased to introduce Merin and Deneb Aspic-Coreau.”

“Merin?” I said, feeling the strength in the man’s handshake.

He smiled. “Ten generations removed from the Merin Aspic,” he said. “But a direct descendant. As Deneb is of our famed lady, Siri.” He put his hand on Aenea’s shoulder. “You have come back just as promised. And brought our fiercest fighter back with you.”

“I have,” said Aenea. “And you must keep her safe. For the next days and months, you must keep clear of contact with the Pax.”