Prologue-4: First montage

Across the Federation screens glimmered, week in, week out. Some were scanned avidly, obsessively; some formed background fodder for a mind-numbed populace; some looped on endless routine surveillance in front of bored guards; some spooled unseen directly into storage, where countless chattering data processes analysed, pattern-matched and discarded.

Time passed; its ghosts in image-form remained.

~o~

Earth Sector, Quadrant One. In the heart of the Terran Federation, WestEurop Dome sprawled across a scarred but verdant landmass that the inhabitants, conditioned to a life of perpetual artificial light and filtered air, never saw; its millions were dosed into docility and its security forces held on constant alert.

Above the hurrying masses on Plaza 96-4E the daily broadcast was repeating in steady cycle on giant screens, the announcer's voice alternately harsh in condemnation and anodyne in its reassurances, and few of those below even spared it a glance. When a familiar image brought Gol Mayner's head up sharply, his next movement was a quick look round to check that the reaction had gone unobserved.

At his side, his younger colleague in Supply & Distribution broke stride to follow suit, her own breath hissing in indrawn recognition at the screened footage.

"Months, now." Shaita's voice was a bitter undertone. "It's been months, and still they can't let it rest."

Above them, forty feet high, a heavy, alert face beneath thick-springing hair stared out blankly from behind bars... recanted his politics... and was once more condemned, this time for offences that no secret sympathizer could condone. Roj Blake's fresh fall from grace was to be permanent, his charisma tainted for all time by dint of constant repetition.

"Why would they let it rest?" Gol glanced round again, his tone even lower than hers. "It's their biggest coup in years: the Freedom Party discredited by association, and the one man who might have brought about peaceful change smeared and sent into exile — the fools. Oh, they knew better than to martyr him — Blake still had a following — but mark my words, the uprising will come in the end all the same. Sooner or later, ten years or a hundred, but the longer delayed the bloodier it will be... and Blake and his like are the only ones who might have held it back. Small chance of that now, with a life sentence to the hell that's Cygnus Alpha."

"You mean... you still believe in him?" Shaita's eyes had widened; they were sharp in reassessment now, focussed on a colleague she knew to be neither idealist nor dupe.

"I believe he's innocent of that." Gol indicated, with a jerk of his head, the slowly-looping details above them: the testimony of the children, the damning medical reports. "Innocent of all but political naïveté. At heart, Blake still trusted the system. He's paid for that, and so have the rest. If he survives Cygnus Alpha — and his fellow convicts — then he'll learn; too late, but he'll learn."

~o~

Civil Administration Ship London under Commander Leylan.

Flight authorization K-701 out of Earth system to Cygnus Alpha, cruising at Time Distort Five: function, prisoner transport. Neither fast nor shapely, it would take her eight months to deliver her convict cargo to the prison planet — eight months of deep-space tedium and mind-numbing routine.

The little screen at the elbow of Artix, the junior officer, flicked automatically between surveillance views of the prisoner quarters. Caught up in his study tapes, he spared it a brief, dutiful glance from time to time. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever did.

"How's it coming, Mr. Artix?"

The Commander had entered the bridge quietly; he motioned the young man back into his seat as he made a move to rise. "As you were... Ready to face those exams?"

"I think so, sir."

"And then you'll be up and off for better things." Leylan sighed. "Not the glamorous end of the service, this. Space Command goes dashing off to strafe their experimental war zones and reduce a rebel planet or two to rubble, and here we just plod along with a cargo of cutthroats and swindlers and hope everything stays quiet. Don't be in too much of a hurry to get promotion, Mr. Artix. You'll find yourself in command over men like Raiker, and you'll have to lose that conscience of yours fast."

He nodded at the surveillance screen. "How's our trouble-maker getting along?"

"Blake, sir?" Artix selected manual override and located Blake's strong figure in the aft bay, seated with a couple of the other prisoners. One of them said something inaudible and Roj Blake laughed, joined a moment later by those around him as he gestured in response. The little group grew gradually larger as passing idlers drifted in.

"I... see." Leylan was frowning. "As Raiker claimed: no actual trouble as such, but the man draws a following."

Artix nodded. "Yes, sir. Should I—"

"No." The Commander rubbed at tired eyes. "I can't put a man under restraints simply for appreciating the jokes of his fellow unfortunates, however much pleasure Sub-commander Raiker might derive from the exercise. We haven't needed to up the suppressant dose so far this voyage; let's keep it that way."

But his gaze lingered a moment longer on the screen as Artix resumed his study, and the older man's weary mouth had tightened a little at the corners. Blake's face, even on the grainy image before them, was neither pacified nor resigned. And the same spark of awareness flared between those around him.

Leylan drew breath; hesitated. "Keep good watch, Mr. Artix."

The words held a caution; but the tone was one of defeat.

~o~

Internal Safety Monitor Unit E1ts/P052 had been installed some years previously in response to atmospheric drill breaches by underprepared personnel. Its recording modules triggered sporadically and automatically as Federation lapel flashes were registered within its visual field of detection: at circa eleven hundred hours, local Newparis time, it duly logged the departure of a standard three-trooper patrol from East-One airlock in full environmental gear. A few minutes later, data upload resumed with the arrival of a young Space Command officer in his off-duty tunic, portable civ-issue mask slung round his neck. He was fair enough to be native-born, and the girl whose hand swung together with his as they walked was fairer still, pale eyes sparkling beneath a coronet of flaxen braids.

She tugged him towards the exit, almost dancing.

"There's the old sandslip, where they found the crystals last year, and the little corrie where you can sit in the sun and look out over the dockyard — maybe we can even see your ship — and the place I told you about, where the garnians grow... oh, and Rall, do you remember, the big rock the boys used to boast about climbing when they went Outside, and we never believed them? I'll show you what really happened." A squeeze of his hand. "It'll be just like all the times we missed out on when we were growing up... Come on, it's a lovely day"—he had paused to pull up his breather, though she wore none—"you won't need that—"

Rall caught her arm just as she reached out for the control box to vent the outer doors. "Cris, wait. I've been off-planet too long: I'm not adapted. I'm not going to be able to go out there without a mask."

The glow in her face had ebbed a little. "But then we won't be able to talk properly without using the comm-links... and anyway, I haven't brought mine. Oh Rall, you're a Newpie born and a man grown — can't you try? I wanted us to go out together under the open sky, not trail round like off-worlders coming up from the docks..."

"For you, anything." But the bravado that accompanied the words held a sad edge. He took her hand again, drawing it up to hold against his cheek. "Only don't expect too much of me, Cris... wishing can't work miracles."

"Come on then." Her fingers lingered for a moment, cradling his face, and drew an answering smile. Then she had keyed open the doors, and drawn a deep, instinctive breath of the air that rushed Outside in their wake.

Rall, following suit, dropped briefly to one knee, running his fingers through the tinted sand of their homeworld, looked up, and began to cough. "Cris, I—"

He sought refuge in his mask, fumbling at the controls, as another spasm took his breath. The external door was closing; Cris, who had turned, eyes widening in distress, sprang back to wedge a boot in its direction, and between them, with her hands hauling under his shoulders, they managed to get him back inside.

"History repeats... itself not as... tragedy, but... as farce," Rall managed, gasping, before Cris, manœuvring him into a sitting position beneath the camera's indifferent eye, thrust his head down between his knees and held the mask firmly over his face with the other hand. The boy's shoulders shook beneath her arm in great sobbing breaths.

After a few minutes she let the mask fall and put both arms around him, and Rall raised a wet face and turned it against her breast. Cris buried tears of her own against the fair head and held tight.

"Stage one atmospheric exposure: minor irritation of soft tissues, no harm done. A textbook offworld case." Rall sat up at last, his voice almost steady. They avoided looking at each other. "It seems I don't make much of a showing as a Newpie any more... After Space Command, you can't go back."

He swallowed, and Cris put out a hand blindly to cover his. "Rall, it's my fault — I didn't listen — I'm sorry. But if you just give it time..."

"It's not just a matter of Outside." The words were rough, and she flinched. "Cris, I—"

But he broke off with an upward glance at the monitor unit, any avowal dying stillborn, and instead wrapped his fingers around hers.

It was Cris, hesitant, who broke the silence.

"How... how long do you have here on Newparis?"

"A month..." He cleared his throat and tried again. "The Borda's in for major refit: they've given us all a month's leave before embarkation starts."

"A month?" Cris looked down at their hands lying clasped together at his side. "In a month... a lot can happen."