Saloa: Plurality

By Toby Weston

In the 22nd Century, humanity has spread across the solar system. From the inner Golden Lands to the frozen Second Belt: klans, kults, and corporations live by a diverging set of laws and norms.

At the edge of the Saloa System the descendants of the distributed communities who fought the war of ReImagination follow the 'Self Evident Truths—a social pact and warrior's code.

Responding to a message from her dead husband, forsaking her Klan, compelled by an unassailable sense of what is right, Leimeiê, Tamura and their Zenolect companions must embark on an eleven billion kilometre rescue mission. A voyage from the remote cold of the Second Belt, through the Golden Lands, to ancient, decadent Saloa...

Hard Science Fiction, Space Opera, Action Adventure.

           

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lobster Books
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201848569

Book preview

Chapter 1 — 2184 CE, Sāmeru Mandala

[Hello! I am Woid Panoan Divigamana Anaikya Sāmeru—StarShaman. I am here, with you now, in your thoughts, honoured reader—or, perhaps, watcher or listener—in the capacity of Spirit Guide.

I have only a minor part in this story, itself a single pale thread in the vast, some say infinite, tapestry which is the Plurality of all things. I am here because I was provided an early copy of this manuscript when it became clear to the publisher that some footnotes might be required to help denizens of nonlocal Physical Planes parse the prose.

I am not from your World, this is important. I am a StarShaman; an Astral Traveller. You’ve likely not heard of the term, but can you imagine bones, blood, drums, psychedelics and the infinites above and below?

smoke from my herb

folds into the night

joins

the river of the sky

light from the dark

Metaphor and invocation. I sing ‘River of the Sky’, while you might say ‘Milky Way’. Here, we come to the purpose of my companionship. I have seen other Planes. I have journeyed countless Realms. As a traveller of the Plurality, I possess a perspective you lack—

It is said that the StarShamen like metaphor. This is true, we do. We like metaphor because, while truth is fragile and brittle, metaphor is robust. Truth rarely translates between the Realms and Planes; while metaphor, which captures meaning deeper than truth, holds its value. Terms and names morph as one traverses the Plurality of all things. Names are not important; they are a mask for the soul. Feel free to ignore them, or use a convenient dramatis personae if you must. Either way, you will not miss anything important by skimming over the strange syllables of my Plane. Look instead, for the familiar meaning beneath the words.

Our story starts in metaphor: Sāmeru Mandala. To me, it is a Realm above the Physical Plane. The Kin would call it a Consensus environment. You might think of it as ‘The Metaverse’, ‘Artificial Reality’, T.I.V.™ —or, if you are a true OG, Cyberspace…]

***

In a Realm above the Real, Êrak is reclining on a cushion within a salty canvas pagoda lashed improbably to the back of the gun-tug Aipal, which, here in the Mandala Consensus, is manifesting as a bull orca whale. The dark purple sky above the pagoda is streaked with highlights of emerald and violet. The water beneath is black and clear. While Êrak reclines in Mandala Consensus, enjoying the waves and the gentle motion of Aipal’s tail churning the foamy waters behind them, in the Real, one level down, sixteen aspirant Kin youths in Êrak’s charge are running the gun-tugs and their systems.

The young aspirants have been with him for a little over sixty watches—three standard weeks. When their training with him is over, he will deliver these precious charges home; back into the hands of his old friend Leimeiê Serval Sessrúmnir Kwon Silicium. Leimeiê is responsible for making Kin from this group of aspirants—and has been for the past three and a half standard years.

Êrak shakes his head sardonically; he couldn’t be modryb! Four years with the same group of aspirants! The emotional wear and tear from even his short stints as koro’woid are enough.

[Koro: warrior

Woid: teacher]

This group is at least competent; they are close to CulEx, the culmination exercise which delineates childhood from maturity. Even so, they still manage to span the full spectrum of irritations from ‘too eager to please’ to ‘way too confrontational’.

During training exercises, the Torches and the sub-sentient Sages which run the gun-tug’s automation are instructed to play dumb, allowing the aspirants to handle the logistics of deep-space astrogation. As much as possible, Êrak likes to avoid the physical acceleration deck and the Consensus spaces, where the operation of the ship is managed; instead, preferring to stay in his cabin, sending his locus of perception ghosting invisibly through the ship’s bays, corridors and Consensus spaces, keeping a quiet eye on the actions of the aspirants. When routine and familiarity allow, he takes himself into the peace of Sāmeru Mandala Consensus—

Nine hoops encircle the radiant pillar of Sāmeru:

Aglool, Aipal, and Anguta, three orca whale avatars representing the three gun-tug vessels under Êrak’s command, swim in loose formation. Matter is scarce this far out. Aipal pulls ahead with a surge of power, orienting towards one sea-mount. Aglool and Anguta hang back. The orcas, and the aspirants they carry, are on their own, weeks from home and many months of hard ‘swimming’ from the populated Golden Lands of the inner system. The ships are out among the sparse peaks of the Lok Gherd, Sāmeru’s Second Belt, cruising through the pack ice carrying koro’woid Êrak and his aspirant students.

***

Down on the Real, the gun-tugs, Aglool, Aipal, and Anguta, sledge through hard vacuum beyond the orbit of Sāmeru’s major planets. The ship’s Torches are running hot as they accelerate towards a clump of matter falling on a long, lazy manifold towards the bull’s eye at the centre of the system. The rocky object, which is the target of this leg of the voyage, is uninhabited, just one of a billion similar clumps of ice and rock orbiting within the Second Belt. As a destination, the rock is meaningless, arbitrary. It is the journey here that is the destination; a real-world exercise for the aspirants who Êrak is guiding through this stage of their ascendance to Kin adulthood.

‘We have just begun receiving a distress signal…’ Aipal’s voice says inside Êrak’s head.

In Consensus, Êrak removes the dull point of a knife from the side of his toenail. Tell me.

The signal’s source is twenty million kilometres from our current 4ordinates. We are likely the closest vessels.

Assessment?

Seems legitimate, Aipal says. "Mōdormen’s CODAG ties it to the habitat cluster which signed the distress signal."

Alright, good opportunity to see what the kids make of the situation, says Êrak. They will probably assume it’s part of their test…

***

A phospho-luminescent bow wave piles up against Aipal’s white chin. A little behind, Aglool and Anguta—sister gun-tugs, also manifesting orca whale avatars on the waters of the Mandala—leave their own glowing wakes. Êrak’s avatar sheathes his bronze pocket knife.

***

The physical Êrak places a nail clipper in a draw, where it will be tidied and filed by some sub-sentient Sage of Aipal—who, in the Real, stripped of metaphor, is thirty metres of precisely arranged carbon atoms, biologicals, physics-packages, and chemistry cisterns, all cloaked and coddled by kilometres of diaphanous plasma.

***

Koro’aga! Alde announces breathlessly. The aspirant manifests without warning. We received a distress signal!

Aspirant Alde, Koro’aga Êrak says, greeting the aspirant. Yes, I know.

Should we divert?

I would say this is a question for your Koro’aga. I am not in command for this exercise.

But, I thought… Oh, is this still part of the exercise then?

"Alde, I am busy. I don’t like being disturbed while I am trying to relax. I’m sure you remember the protocols? If not, ask Aipal!"

But Koro’aga…

I’m not your Koro’aga, Alde!

Oops. Sorry!

"Somebody’s life might be at stake, Alde! Get Tamura! She IS acting Koro’aga. Wake her if she is off-watch!"

[Koro: Warrior

Aga: Leader]

The primary purpose of the current exercise is to rotate the title of koro’aga through the sixteen Kin aspirants berthed on the three gun-tugs. Each will have the opportunity to lead. Aspirant Tamura—in woid Êrak’s assessment, a moderately talented, precocious, and intensely self-confident young woman—is the expedition’s current Aga.

Sorry! Permission to leave… Alde asks.

Go, Alde!!

The aspirant freezes, wrestling with the desire to go and inform Tamura and a competing urge, which would like him to utter another round of apologies. In the end, the youngster, taking direction from the deepening scowl on Êrak’s face, decides that it is probably best to just go.

Êrak shakes his head solemnly. That boy has got an uphill battle ahead of him!

His heart is in the right place. Your standards are high, Aipal says with detached remoteness. The ship’s zenolect mind is occupied elsewhere with a deep appraisal of the available information.

True enough, Êrak concedes. You’d give him the benefit of the doubt? Assume he has strengths elsewhere?

Not my disposition to assume anything.

Now that, for sure, is true! Êrak agrees. He decides his relaxation time is hopelessly compromised anyway, so drops back into his cabin, then ghosts as nothing more substantial than a point-of-view into the acceleration deck, with the intention of following Alde and the rest of the aspirants as they deal with this opportunity to demonstrate competence.

In another few months, assuming they pass the culmination exercise, the fourth-years will graduate and join their Klan as Kin, with the commensurate rights and responsibilities full Klan participation confers.

What is it? Tamura asks, joining Alde on Aipal’s acceleration deck. The girl is in her early twenties. Like all Kin, she is physically close to peak fitness—broad in the shoulders and hips, less angular and lean than some of the other girls. Her hair, gathered under the mesh hood of her shipsuit, is blonde.

It just started up. Twenty million kliks.

Kit or Kin? Tamura asks.

People, biological, but not Kin, Alde replies.

How quickly can we get there?

We are on a manifold which will take us close. Maximum burn would make it five days…

"Start prepping. I am going to bring Rapakê and the crew of Aglool and Anguta in on this."

***

Is this part of the exercise? Alde asks.

Doesn’t matter! Focus, Alde! Rapakê tells the visibly unsettled aspirant. Might be a trap, though, Rapakê continues, glancing to Tamura.

Aipal’s duty officers are gathered in the ship’s physical acceleration deck, while their peers from Aglool and Anguta are manifesting into a Consensus space which faithfully recreates the acceleration deck, while also extending off into imaginary dimensions to make space for the additional occupants manifesting from other ships. The aspirants are examining the data, giving it some initial intuiting.

How about, rather than a trap, it is someone in trouble who might actually need help? Tamura counters. Call me dumb, but that’s usually the point of a distress signal, isn’t it?

Rapakê shrugs.

Not everybody outside the Kin is a criminal, Rapakê! Tamura tells him pointedly, shuffling herself further onto the moral high ground.

Perhaps not, aspirant Arax begins, but is cut off by Rapakê, who is quite capable of speaking for himself. Life is tough… weakness sends people onto dark paths… SALOA…

Tamura shakes her head at this pessimism. "Aipal, how many distress signals turn out to be honeypots?" she asks.

About six percent, the ship’s gestalt replies immediately.

There! Tamura states, vindicated.

Low odds, Rapakê agrees. But not when you are gambling lives. One in twenty is a chance I’d rather avoid.

You’re just being paranoid, Tamura tells him. Then considers, But, I s’pose it’s probably a test, anyway, so we might as well do everything by the book. We’ll stealth up and take a look… wait, you’re not suggesting we ignore the signal, are you?

Of course not, says Rapakê. But there’s no need to rush in and make victims of ourselves…

I don’t think there’s much chance of that, Arax points out dryly. Whatever they are expecting to catch, if it is a honeypot, it won’t be three Kin gun-tugs!

Know your enemy and know yourself, Rapakê states. We don’t know our enemy here…

We don’t even know if there is any enemy outside your paranoid skull! Tamura corrects.

True. But it’s still safest to assume that there is one, and to assume we will be flying into a trap, Rapakê counters. Without more information, any confidence is overconfidence…

Fine, Tamura concedes.

But I agree, Rapakê continues, turning to Arax with a smile. If it’s a trap, somebody is most likely in for a nasty surprise!

Alright boys, enough chest beating! We go in, but take it super cautious, right? Tamura sugg-asks.

Arax and Rapakê, and the other aspirants standing in Consensus or floating in Aipal’s physical acceleration deck, mostly nod or otherwise signal their agreement.

"Right. Aipal… Tamura addresses the gestalt zenolect haunting the gun-tug’s physical aspect. Engage full stealth, turn off the transponders. Be on maximum alert. Hit maximum burn…"

Errr… Arax murmurs. There is a perceptible delay in his contributions; his physical locus is on the acceleration deck of the sister gun-tug Anguta, sixty thousand kilometres distant.

Yes? Tamura sighs. What else did I miss?

Full burn will not leave us enough in the tanks to get anybody we pick up back to a proper medical facility…

Frigg!

We could ping ahead to Eagle Strike? says Roxo. It’s the closest to our current manifold. Perhaps we could head there to refuel after we rendezvous with the signal?

That! Do that! Ping them and make sure they have fuel to sell first, Tamura tells aspirant Roxo.

It only takes a few minutes for the hastily formulated message to reach the decrepit cluster of prospector habitats that is Eagle Strike; and apparently, only a few more for a terse reply to be drafted. The prospectors’ reply is in the negative, with an unnecessarily blunt response, not even bothering to auto-finesse a polite formulation of ‘No’.

They’ve got nothing for us… aspirant Roxo states. Not very helpful at all, actually…

Is there any other polis nearby? Arax asks.

No, Rapakê shakes his head.

Should we maybe ask woid Êrak? Alde suggests.

Tamura shakes her head sharply.

No. We’ve got this, Alde, Rapakê tells the fidgeting Alde kindly.

We could send one of the tugs on a hard burn to intercept and have the rest follow? Roxo suggests. That way, we’ll have fuel in reserve once we know what we are getting into.

Send a single tug into a trap? Rapakê asks pointedly.

At this point, Koro’aga Êrak chooses to stop ghosting and manifests visibly alongside Tamura in the Consensus approximation of Aipal’s acceleration deck.

Very nice, Tamura! says Êrak. Good work, aspirants. Especially Arax, Rapakê, Roxo, and everybody else who contributed. Good plan. But look, I’m going to take a hand in this one. This is not an exercise. Like Rapakê said, distress signals tend to be dodgy out here. In my experience, more often than not the situation is ambiguous. There are a lot of arseholes! So we’re going to take this ultra-cautious. We might have three Kataraa gun-tugs, which, as I hope you appreciate by now, is a not-inconsiderable amount of firepower… and, of course, you guys are formidable, too! All of you! But you’re still aspirants and I don’t want to fly us into the grinder. We’ll send two Torches with bodkins, and stealth up and follow. If it looks like something legit, or something we can help with, or even if it’s just a situation we think we can handle, we’ll adjust our burns based on the evolving parameters. Always be cautious! Okay? Êrak waits for input. When nothing is forthcoming, he continues. Good. Back to you, Tamura.

Oh, thank you so much, Tamura says a little peevishly. Questions? No…? Alright. Let’s get this done!

***

CZR03662Torch:Aipal is closing with the source of the signal at a relative velocity of three million kilometres per hour. The Torch passes twelve thousand metres from the distress marker. Four million kilometres behind, CZR03411Torch:Aglool receives the images, raw data, and initial analysis. There are no obvious countermeasures or signs of suspicious activity, so CZR03411Torch:Aglool begins slam braking to bring verself into the same reference frame as the drifting object.

The scout’s preliminary examination also makes its way back to the three stealthed gun-tugs, and Êrak and the aspirants are presented with the image of an ancient, stained space suit, drifting, alone, millions of kilometres from anything significant. It is a poignant, troubling vision. The gestalt zenolects of the ships determine that the suit is most likely filled with between one hundred and three hundred kilograms of organic matter.

Poor guy, might have been out there for years, Tamura murmurs quietly.

Only days, actually. Still warm… Arax corrects as more data arrives.

***

The orca which is Aipal beats its tail flukes and rushes through the ink. Êrak, back in Consensus, composes an update message to modryb Leimeiê with a cc to Silicium Central Ledger. When he is done, he leans out of his golden pagoda, trails his fingers through the frigid water and pats the rubbery black and white head of Aipal.

This might be interesting, he states matter-of-factly.

Aipal coughs an ambiguous affirmative.

‘It’s been a long time since anyone from the Lok visited Eagle Strike,’ Aglool sends cryptically, surfacing and joining them in Consensus. 

What are you saying?

‘Their numbers are poor. Critically so. If they are subsisting, it is either with a very low population or at a desperate level of comfort,’ Aglool sends.

‘Tough times make tough men. The valency of their virtue is orthogonal to their toughness,’ Aipal counters.

Okay, you two, before you leave me behind down some rabbit hole! says Êrak. We’ll take care. If things go sideways, our priority is to keep the aspirants safe.

‘That’s clear,’ Aipal agrees.

‘Always,’ Aglool sends, vanishing beneath the syrupy black vacuum and pushing out ahead of ver sibling ships.

Chapter 2 — 2121 CE, Khawandagar

Sixty-three years ago:

It’s the reason why birds build new nests and monkeys make beds of branches each night, Koro’aga Thulogan was saying. Everything gets riddled with parasites! If you stay put, you’re just feeding them! He placed his glass down on the flat, polished upper surface of a stone embedded in the lush, cropped lawn.

Gaos shook his head. Bit nihilistic, isn’t it? You’re saying we can’t build things of value?

Build them, enjoy them, but don’t think you can keep ’em free from blood suckers… and, when they arrive, don’t bother fighting them off! They breed faster than you can squeeze ’em. Frigg off out of there, that or get sucked dry! That’s my advice!

Gaos laughed at the uncompromising cynicism of their leader. I hope the Zil get at least a couple of decades before this place is overrun, then, he replied. We’ve put in a lot of effort! With a gesture, he acknowledged the sky, the low rolling hills, and the grove of saplings lining the reed-rimmed pond they were sitting by.

It cost them more, Leimeiê pointed out, pulling her attention away from a small bird, singing from its perch on a vertical stem growing in the shallows of the nearby pond. She was still young and idealistic and didn’t like the talk of nests crawling with parasites.

True, that, Thulogan agreed. The Zil paid a steep price… but soon, we will pay the debt back. He finished his glass and Leimeiê let her eyes reacquire the avian virtuoso; its yellow chest vibrated as it broadcast a proud and optimistic message.

Seeing so many birds together was a novelty. There were birds in the Lok, but, with only a fraction of the genetic diversity of a planet stretched thinly across hundreds of habitats and carousels—ten billion kilometres from the star which had once warmed the amniotic waters of their ancestors—these were multifarious, but lonely.

There were birds populating the virtual Realms too; bright, loud, and pixelated. Exotic creatures which would have been familiar to Leimeiê’s distant ancestors only from dreams.

These birds, born within Khawandagar habitat, were different. Despite being confined by a tube two kilometres in diameter, separated from hard vacuum by a skin of metal and nanofilament, they were real, free, free-as-birds, free and wild, free to live according to their nature, free to hunt, or sing, or build nests—parasites burrowed again into Leimeiê’s mind, and she shivered at the thought of the yellow-breasted creature excavated and consumed by wriggling, pale, blood-sucking worms.

What are you thinking about? Gaos asked, sensitive to her internal states. The two were still in that early intense phase of hot love.

Nothing. This… It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

What?

It! This place!

It’s impressive.

I didn’t say that. Leimeiê had shaken her head. I said it’s beautiful.

Sure, that too. Beautiful and expensive.

Beautiful and worth every friggin coin we spent, Thulogan said, synthesising their points diplomatically. They had briefly forgotten he was there.

Beauty is always worth it! Leimeiê insisted, looking intently at Gaos.

Exactly what I meant! Gaos agreed, smiling.

Yeah, right! said Leimeiê. I know you, Gaos, darling! You can’t see the wood for the gigagrams of titanium, biologicals, and water!

That’s not true! What I mostly can’t see the wood for is the unnecessary and horrendously wasteful delta-v.

Well, I see the beauty of hope!

That is a good place to agree, Thulogan nodded sagely. Beauty and hope… He mulled the words over. I think I will use that in my speech later, if you don’t mind?

You’re welcome, Leimeiê had smiled.

The three had been sitting on a low circle of stones, arranged around a flat slab of granite resting on three shorter pillars of the same rough stone. The circle and the dolmen stood in the bowl of a shallow dell. The megalithic architecture looked ancient—it was built to an aesthetic first deployed ten thousand years ago by the cultural ancestors of both the Zil and, through a more convoluted and contrived route, the Kin of the Lok.

Despite its apparent antiquity, the sharp edges of recently cut turf told a different story and revealed the infancy of this artificial environment. With Thulogan, the relationship between appearance and truth was reversed. He looked to be in his early forties, but was closer to eighty standard years. He’d been with Klan Silicium since way back, when they’d first headed out to the Lok. But, despite his senectitude, Thulogan retained a lightness of spirit. Even his cynicism was usually softened by amusement—at least, with those he believed to be acting honestly. He had an uncompromising reputation with the bureaucrats of his Klan’s Central Ledger.

Don’t ever give up trying to soften that boy’s edges, Thulogan told Leimeiê. He’s too young to be so dry and sensible! Make him understand there’s more to life than mass and matter!

Roger that, Leimeiê complied, saluting her koro’aga; fist against chest.

Alright, I’m going to leave you love birds, Thulogan had said. I’m due on stage and, more importantly, you don’t need a three-body problem! 

Gaos laughed. Break a leg, boss.

You think he’ll run for Klan Koro’aga when we get back? Gaos asked after Thulogan had left.

I hope so, Leimeiê replied, settling back, letting her eyes follow Thulogan as he strode towards where the stage was being readied.

By the time Thulogan was ready to deliver his address, it was raining. Leimeiê smiled. They were showing off. She tipped her head towards the sky and felt the faint mist settling on her cheeks. Above, hanging improbably, was what the habitat’s architects wanted Leimeiê to believe was a small sea, hazy and blue’d by vast distance. The illusion was convincing, but Leimeiê knew that the elongated, irregular splodge—appearing to be a sea viewed from orbit—was little more than a pond and only two thousand metres distant across the void of the habitat’s empty hub. The haze was artificial, manufactured by an intervening plankton of bEEs floating in the micro-gravity of the axis. The pond hung amongst upside-down trees. Crowds of dangling people were a chaos of shapes and colours. Leimeiê’s Bug—following her attention—zoomed and enhanced until individual blurs became bodies. A boy was waving from the other side, one of the horrible snotty kids she’d spent the last nine months cooped up with on Sessrúmnir. Leimeiê waved back and even managed a convincing smile.

On stage, people were talking, their voices amplified into the habitat’s shared Consensus. Karavan koro’aga Thulogan was delivering a prepared speech. He was on the rustic wooden stage with half a dozen ‘aga and wizards—prestigious representatives of Silicium, Nuil, RedDaddy and other klans. StarShamen, ambassadors, engineers, and celebrated artists stood behind Thulogan; anthropomorphic stage dressing for his words of hope and kinship. A small party from the Thalassocracy of New Atlantis and a single Mufti from the Caliphate—uneasy, standing apart from the other VIPs—were the sole representation of Dünya. It was well known that the Forward faction was against the founding of this new nation. Keen to avoid a potentially incendiary situation, none of the other terrestrial factions had sent delegations.

Leimeiê, Gaos and a hundred and twenty-two other Silicium Kin from the Lok had travelled ten billion kilometres on their Karavan ship Sessrúmnir to be here today. Fólkvangr and Ýdalir, sister ships from Nuil Klan and Red Daddy, each brought approximately the same number. Kin Karavan ships were built to the same rough plan: a hundred-metre spindle with eight Kataraa gun-tugs docked at the rear; eight curved habitat modules; and the forward management and crew acceleration decks.

There would be some trade, lots of talking, some live performances, but mostly the visit was symbolic. Today was the historic opening of Khawandagar drum and the closing out of a very old debt between the Kin and the Zil.

Instead of celebrating the opening of mankind’s first Drum Habitat, many of Dünya’s factions had decided to sulk and boycott, making the occasion tenser than necessary. Legacy terrestrial factions insisted on taking the habitat’s construction as provocation, as if the Kin were deliberately trolling, impinging on Dünya’s vanity, with a calculated display of technological prowess.

When Thulogan finished talking, a Nuil koro’aga nodded and took his place at the lectern.

Khawandagar, the first drum! he began. The first habitat with an outdoors. I should have packed my umbrella! People smiled. A child laughed, as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. I am Kin, but my ancestors were Zil. I know that our people have dreamt of our own lands for a thousand years… He paused, clasped his hands and held them high. You can be proud of me, Dede! It is done! Our home is seeded and peopled!

A cheer went up from the crowd, mostly Zil, predominantly construction workers and a few early lottery winners. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was symbolic. Principal construction on the habitat had finished a decade ago, even the landscaping and bioengineering had wrapped up more than a year ago. Small numbers of ‘civilians’ had been living in the habitat for eighteen months now, testing its systems, gradually building numbers. More were being ‘bussed up’ every week from Dünya via the Atlantis High cats-cradle. Today, the requirement for emergency suits would be lifted. The habitat would transition from construction site to nation state.

Sessrúmnir had taken nine months to descend the gravity well from its home port of Heorot; an ancient ball of ice grown around the metallic nucleus of an inner-system planetesimal, exiled to the Second Belt by some ancient act of kinetic violence. The habitats and carousels of the Lok were nothing on the scale of Khawandagar—nothing was. A few private consortiums had medium-sized carousels at Dünya’s trailing lunar Trojan. However, even now, more than a hundred years since mankind’s first permanent space habitat, the best that most factions managed was to produce Consensus vapour-ware; decades out of date, breathless with mock enthusiasm, bearing little relationship to anything that would ever exist in the Real. A collaboration between Hind and Çin had created a web of gantries that was supposed, one day, to become a drum similar to Khawandagar, but construction had stopped a decade ago as plans were reassessed for the eleventh time.

The Zil community leaders of Khawandagar accepted the words of the Koro and wizards on the stage. The milling crowd clapped appreciatively. The hundreds of millions remoting in from Dünya, Māwjō, and the habitats of the First Belt, watched from Consensus as the ribbon was cut. One day, there would be habitats larger; but none would be first. That accolade would always be Khawandagar’s alone.

Leimeiê smiled. The Zil had been loyal friends to her Klan during the wars of ReImagination. Now, the Kin of the Lok had been permitted to pay back the debt, with interest. Not everybody was happy, of course; there was an increasingly audible grumbling from Dünya. Despite the transparent and mutually beneficial treaties which had been in place for three decades, the jigsaw of terrestrial factions was screaming about overreach. It was obviously one thing to agree to something decades in the future, but quite another to watch plans mature and embryonic nation spores sprout and stretch filigree filaments of information and influence through space above and around. Like every waning power, the factions of Dünya were prickly, arrogant, fickle, and narcissistic. They needed jingoism to distract from plastic croutons, acid rain, and the humiliation of a losing war against the ants and racoons—

Dünya had seen better days. Many in the Lok believed the planet’s very wealth was its prime barrier against success. Wealth seemed to incentivise people to waste creative energy concocting complicated ways of looting what was already there, rather than building anything new.

Do you agree?

What?

With Thulogan? About running away from the parasites?

It had taken Leimeiê a few seconds to pull herself out of her thoughts. She considered their koro’aga’s words. No. Look at this place! This is progress!

He didn’t say we couldn’t build value, said Gaos. He said that value attracts parasites.

Isn’t that why we chose to be Koro? replied Leimeiê. To defend our works?

Torches and Kataraa can’t fight all conflicts. Koro are warriors of the Real. What about meaning and opinion? Those are the battlefields where wealth is most effectively confiscated…

Meaning and opinion? Really? Well, I for one am happy to leave that dirty work to the wizards and shamen!

"And when they fall to the rot… will you fight? asked Gaos. Your own Kin? Or will you run away?"

Leimeiê’s mother had been on one of the first Torch ships to depart Dünya and the inner system’s daisy chain of circular looting. Her Karavan had headed past the First Belt—where rocks were already attracting prospectors looking for quick wins—and out into the infinite night of the Lok Gherd. The infant Leimeiê had grown up on stories of the place they’d left behind; mankind’s ancestral home, blue skies and yellow, sandy beaches were painted in her childish mind more vividly than any Consensus Realm. But, like Samichlaus and the Easter Rabbit, an older version of Leimeiê came to understand these were just stories; the place they had once called Dünya was too far gone. Saloa was a lost cause now. It was better here in the icy remoteness of the Second Belt, the Lok Gherd, where there was nothing to distract the Klans from reimagining their bodies, myths, and culture.

Chapter 3 — 2184 CE, Self-Evident Truth

It is quickly apparent that the occupant of the drifting space suit is dead. CZR03411Torch:Aglool decelerates but remains in paranoid mode. Aglool had boosted ahead; now, the ship decelerates to rendezvous with ver Torch in the drifting suit’s reference frame. While CZR03411Torch:Aglool waits for ver chaperone gun-tug to arrive, ve spends several hours spiralling the suit’s long axis; using ver own mass to sense gravity distribution; feeling for anomalous lumps or bladders which might turn out to contain day-ruining physics-packages. Aglool’s sister gun-tugs, Aipal and Anguta, are still two million kilometres behind. The plan has them avoiding high delta-v detours and conserving fuel. Aglool will slow, take the suit and presumed body onboard, then boost onto a common manifold. Koro’aga Êrak calls Mōdormen for the latest dump of the distant Karavan ship’s CODAG [Coherence Detection and Graphing] to check the entanglement ontology of the encounter, while the gun-tugs use their extreme separation to conduct extended baseline interferometry of the suit and Eagle Strike station.

Aglool arrives at the tumbling suit. The ship’s sensors and effectors are several orders of magnitude beyond a Torch’s capabilities; the gun-tug deploys deep optics, acoustic-resonance, gravity-tomography, and muon-imaging to lay bare grizzly secrets someone presumably hoped would remain hidden: biological-age, early twenties; weight, 74 kilograms; height, 178 centimetres; stabbed in the abdomen before being put into an antique space suit and pushed into the void.

The suit’s manifold would have eventually taken it close enough to Sāmeru, for all evidence of foul play to be incinerated. Another quotidian murder and unremarkable body disposal. The perfect crime; except, somebody had taped a distress marker to the suit’s ankle.

Eagle Strike, koro’aga Êrak says to the gathered aspirants. Bound to asteroid Konemo; nickel, iron, titanium, platinum and gold, traces of H3 and some organics. Eighty people. Two carousels. Two planetary shuttles, one karavan…

And a murderer… Roxo adds.

Could have been self-defence, aspirant Arax points out, turning to Roxo, playing devil’s advocate while giving her a friendly wink.

"Could have been, koro’aga Êrak nods. Eagle Strike polis is not Kin. We don’t enforce Dharma outside the Lok. He pauses. But they chose to live on our doorstep…"

I kind of think they will be more focused on survival than worrying about offending our metaphysics! Tamura points out snarkily.

It’s grim up North! Arax states.

Why bother with them? Roxo asks. Why not leave them to their sad fate?

Murder is against the SETs, Êrak explains. Killing is never trivial, but breaking the SETs is not something I will tolerate here. I’d planned a simulated exercise for you lot, but reality is the best learning tool. This, right here, this is reality. Gritty and sometimes unexpected. Get through this in good standing… Êrak gives Tamura a significant look …and you will have my acknowledgement to take back to woid Leimeiê. We go in, poke around, check them out and I decide if we need to get involved any further. You are my eyes and ears and my fists if things get messy… Okay?

The aspirants grunt their assent, some more enthusiastically than others.

Good, says Êrak. Now, we are going to mix things up. Great job, Tamura! You kept your head. You made good choices. You listened to your mez. I’m impressed!

Tamura pulls a derp grin and bows theatrically.

Now it’s time for somebody else to step up, Êrak continues. Rapakê, I’m making you koro’aga for this.

Thank you, woid Êrak, the aspirant says, fist to his chest.

There are sixteen of you, continues Êrak. We’ve plenty of firepower on our Kataraa. I want you to find out if Eagle Strike needs to learn the most important lesson of the Lok…

Which is? Alde asks dutifully.

Don’t frigg with the SETs! aspirant Arax answers immediately and with gusto.

Exactly, Êrak nods.

And if they do? Alde asks.

Then we are happy to teach them a lesson! Rapakê answers.

Always a little too happy! Tamura snaps. What about live and let be?

Righteous violence avoids greater suffering, Arax quotes from Dharma.

And it’s just your good luck that you enjoy it so much! Tamura states sarcastically.

A Kataraa must be kept sharp, Rapakê adds, quoting another passage, using ‘kataraa’ to describe a combat tanto and not a rudely potent hFusion gun-tug.

You’re always spoiling for a fight! Tamura tells him. Now that she is no longer in charge, she can get back to heckling from the back, a role she is anyway much more comfortable embracing.

We don’t seek it, but violence is part of a Koro’s world… Rapakê tells her solemnly.

Weakness invites violence… Arax starts to say.

Stop quoting Dharma! Tamura interrupts. I know it as well as you do! And I also know that boys with toys are eager to play!

Don’t forget there’s blood on somebody’s hands… aspirant Irbis says.

Not just their hands! Roxo adds dryly. Only a litre frozen in the suit… there’s still a lot unaccounted for…

***

Eagle Strike is old. It has come a long way. The station had started as a single spindle and one carousel. Forty people, fifteen couples and their children; homesteaders and optimists, part of the early wave. This had been towards the end of the twenty-first century. For two generations, Eagle Strike had grown and prospered. At one time, nearly five hundred people had called the extended polis home. But, while the Kin had set up beyond the First Belt, Eagle Strike had stayed, buffeted by the politics, nepotism, and corruption that wafted off the garbage-swaddled home planet like a bad smell. Some forgotten slight, or byzantine infraction against a bundle of selectively applied red tape, had put Eagle Strike polis on the wrong side of a succession of interdictions. Details were lost to