Kelly had the last boy in her arms, a four-year-old who was virtually asleep, when Theo started up his hovercraft. “Oh no, Theo,” she datavised. “Not you as well.”
“They need me,” he replied. “I can’t leave them. I’m a part of them.”
Great bands of sunlight were raking the savannah. The fighting was over.
Kelly could see three or four knights on horseback milling about. None of them showed any interest in the spaceplane now. “But they’re dead, Theo.”
“You don’t know that, not for sure. In any case, haven’t you heard, there’s no such thing, not any more.” He stuck his arm up and waved.
“Hell.” She tipped her head back, letting the sweet rain wash her face.
“Come along now, Miss Kelly.” Shaun leant over and gave her cheek a platonic kiss. “Time you was leaving.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good asking you to come?”
“Would I ask you to stay?”
She put a foot on the bottom rung, the drowsy child heavy in her arms.
“Goodbye, Shaun. I wish it could have been different.”
“Aye, Miss Kelly. Me too.”
Kelly sat in the cabin with one eight-year-old boy on her lap and her arms round a pair of girls. The children squirmed round, fidgeting, excited and nervous, asking her about the waiting starship. Lalonde was already half-forgotten, yesterday’s nightmare.
If only, she wished.
The compressor whine permeated the overcrowded cabin as Ashly fed power into the fans. Then they were airborne, the deck tilting up, a press of acceleration. Kelly closed her eyes and accessed the spaceplane’s sensor suite. A lone figure was trudging over the savannah, a well-built man with tousled ginger hair, wearing a thick red and blue check cotton shirt, collar up against the rain as he headed for home.
A minute later a stentorian sonic boom broke across the vast grass plain.
Fenton raised his great head at the sound, but there was nothing in the sky apart from rain and clouds. He lowered his gaze again, and resumed his earthbound search for his lost masterlove.
Time Line
2020 Cavius base established. Mining of Lunar sub-crustal resources starts.
2037 Beginning of large-scale geneering on humans; improvement to immunology system, eradication of appendix, organ efficiency increased.
2041 First deuterium-fuelled fusion stations built; inefficient and expensive.
2044 Christian reunification.
2047 First asteroid capture mission. Beginning of Earth's O'Neill Halo.
2049 Quasi-sentient bitek animals employed as servitors.
2055 Jupiter mission.
2055 Lunar cities granted independence from founding companies.
2057 Ceres asteroid settlement founded.
2058 Affinity symbiont neurons developed by Wing-Tsit Chong, providing control over animals and bitek constructs.
2064 Multinational industrial consortium (Jovian Sky Power Corporation) begins mining Jupiter's atmosphere for He3 using aerostat factories.
2064 Islamic secular unification.
2067 Fusion stations begin to use He3 as fuel.
2069 Affinity bond gene spliced into human DNA.
2075 JSKP germinates Eden, a bitek habitat in orbit around Jupiter, with UN Protectorate status.
2077 New Kong asteroid begins FTL stardrive research project.
2085 Eden opened for habitation.
2086 Habitat Pallas germinated in Jupiter orbit.
2090 Wing-Tsit Chong dies, and transfers memories to Eden's neural strata. Start of Edenist culture. Eden and Pallas declare independence from UN. Launch buyout of JSKP shares. Pope Eleanor excommunicates all Christians with affinity gene. Exodus of affinity capable humans to Eden. Effective end of bitek industry on Earth.
2091 Lunar referendum to terraform Mars.
2094 Edenists begin exowomb breeding programme coupled with extensive geneering improvement to embroyos, tripling their population over a decade.
2103 Earth's national governments consolidate into Govcentral.
2103 Thoth base established on Mars.
2107 Govcentral jurisdiction extended to cover O'Neill Halo.
2115 First instantaneous translation by New Kong spaceship, Earth to Mars.
2118 Mission to Proxima Centauri.
2123 Terracompatible plant found at Ross 154.
2125 Ross 154 planet named Felicity, first multiethnic colonists arrive.
2125-2130 Four new terracompatible planets discovered. Multiethnic colonies founded.
2131 Edenists germinate Perseus in orbit around Ross 154 gas giant, begin He3 mining.
2131-2205 One hundred and thirty terracompatible planets discovered. Massive starship building programme initiated in O'Neill Halo. Govcentral begins large-scale enforced outshipment of surplus population, rising to 2 million a week in 2160: Great Dispersal. Civil conflict on some early multiethnic colonies. Individual Govcentral states sponsor ethnic-streaming colonies. Edenists expand their He3 mining enterprise to every inhabited star system with a gas giant.
2139 Asteroid Braun impacts on Mars.
2180 First orbital tower built on Earth.
2205 Antimatter production station built in orbit around sun by Govcentral in an attempt to break the Edenist energy monopoly.
2208 First antimatter-drive starships operational.
2210 Richard Saldana transports all of New Kong's industrial facilities from the O'Neill Halo to an asteroid orbiting Kulu. He claims independence for the Kulu star system, founds Christian-only colony, and begins to mine He3 from the system's gas giant.
2218 First voidhawk gestated, a bitek starship designed by Edenists.
2225 Establishment of a hundred voidhawk families. Habitats Romulus and Remus germinated in Saturn orbit to serve as voidhawk bases.
2232 Conflict at Jupiter's trailing Trojan asteroid cluster between belt alliance ships and an O'Neill Halo company hydrocarbon refinery. Antimatter used as a weapon; twenty-seven thousand people killed.
2238 Treaty of Deimos; outlaws production and use of antimatter in the Sol system; signed by Govcentral, Lunar nation, asteroid alliance, and Edenists. Antimatter stations abandoned and dismantled.
2240 Coronation of Gerrald Saldana as King of Kulu. Foundation of Saldana dynasty.
2267-2270 Eight separate skirmishes involving use of antimatter among colony worlds. Thirteen million killed.
2271 Avon summit between all planetary leaders. Treaty of Avon, banning the manufacture and use of antimatter throughout inhabited space. Formation of Human Confederation to police agreement. Construction of Confederation Navy begins.
2300 Confederation expanded to include Edenists.
2301 First Contact. Jiciro race discovered, a pre-technology civilization. System quarantined by Confederation to avoid cultural contamination.
2310 First ice asteroid impact on Mars.
2330 First blackhawks gestated at Valisk, independent habitat.
2350 War between Novska and Hilversum. Novska bombed with antimatter. Confederation Navy prevents retaliatory strike against Hilversum.
2356 Kiint homeworld discovered.
2357 Kiint join Confederation as "observers."
2360 A voidhawk scout discovers Atlantis.
2371 Edenists colonize Atlantis.
2395 Tyrathca colony world discovered.
2402 Tyrathca join Confederation.
2420 Kulu scoutship discovers Ruin Ring.
2428 Bitek habitat Tranquillity germinated by Crown Prince Michael Saldana, orbiting above Ruin Ring.
2432 Prince Michael's son, Maurice, geneered with affinity. Kulu abdication crisis. Coronation of Lukas Saldana. Prince Michael exiled.
2550 Mars declared habitable by Terraforming office.
2580 Dorado asteroids discovered around Tunja, claimed by both Garissa and Omuta.
2581 Omuta mercenary fleet drops twelve antimatter planet-busters on Garissa, planet rendered uninhabitable. Confed
eration imposes thirty-year sanction against Omuta, prohibiting any interstellar trade or transport. Blockade enforced by Confederation Navy.
2582 Colony established on Lalonde.
About the Author
Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland, England, in 1960 and still lives near Rutland Water. He began writing in 1987 and has published short stories in a number of magazines and anthologies. His other books include the Greg Mandel novels: Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, and The Nano Flower. The epic story begun in The Reality Dysfunction continues with The Neutronium Alchemist, which Warner Aspect will publish in April and May 1998.
Peter F. Hamilton, The Reality Dysfunction
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