Adam knew he was right. If the Starflyer truly hadn’t wanted them to follow, it could easily have wrecked the remaining planes before it left. So either they’d been sabotaged, or it simply intended to destroy the Port Evergreen generator, leaving them trapped here. Simple is always most effective. And the Starflyer must be improvising to a degree as well. “Okay,” he told the drivers. “Load them up.”

Kieran and Ayub opened the main cargo deck ramps at the back of the Carbon Goose. The Volvos went up first. As the armored car drove under the wing, Adam saw sensorbots starting to fall out of the turbine exhausts to lie flexing uselessly on the sheer rock floor, their sophisticated electronics victim to the micropile’s radiation. He stayed focused on them for a long time as they slowed and finally became inert. It was a bad omen on a world inimical to humans when even the machinery designed to function here proved deadly to standard Commonwealth technology.

Wilson was still in his armor suit when he entered the cockpit. In keeping with the rest of the Carbon Goose, it was a big compartment with seats more like leather recliners than the cramped USAF fighter seats that he used to contend with in his first life. The windshield was a curving transparency six feet high that gave a panoramic view out over the blunt nose. Kieran was sitting in the pilot’s seat, still in his armor, with three high-performance arrays spread out on the control console. They were plugged into the plane’s avionics with thick fiber-optic cable.

“Did you find anything?” Wilson asked.

“No. The software checks out. I’ve loaded some additional monitors in case anything was submerged, but they didn’t really have the time to plant anything sophisticated. There’s no thermal trace of anyone here before us. My opinion for what it’s worth: this is clean.” He climbed out of the chair and unsealed his helmet.

Wilson studied the young face that was exposed. Short hair framing slim features, alert eyes; eager, dedicated, efficient. Me, three hundred forty years ago. God! “When I was in the air force, I learned to always trust my engineering crew. I don’t suppose anything’s really changed.”

Kieran broke into a genuine grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“Okay, let’s see if I actually remember how to fly.” He started to take his armor suit off.

“Admiral. I’m glad you’re here.”

The term surprised Wilson. Thirty hours ago, the navy that he was in charge of had been hunting down the Guardians as if they were a pandemic virus. It made the young man’s faith all the more touching. “I’ll do whatever I can,” he promised.

Oscar and Anna arrived in the cockpit as Wilson was pulling his feet out of the armor’s boots. He was only wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, and the cockpit’s air was almost freezing.

“Here you go,” Oscar said, and dropped a small bag at Wilson’s feet. “Our CST-issue executive travel pack. Essential for survival in hotels and conferences the Commonwealth over.”

“Don’t mock,” Wilson growled as he unzipped the bag. He found a fleece with a CST logo on the chest, and pulled it on quickly before sitting in the luxurious pilot’s seat. “Yow, this leather’s cold.” He put his hands over the console’s i-pads, and reviewed the menus rolling into his virtual vision as the interface was established. The first thing he did was locate the plane’s environmental circuits and switch the heating on full.

“Everybody in and secure,” Adam reported.

Anna was out of her armor suit, puffing against the cold as she pulled on some clothes from her CST pack.

“You want to take the copilot’s seat?” Wilson asked.

“Sure.” She gave him a quick intimate smile.

“We actually need to be in the air before you two can join the mile-high club,” Oscar told them dryly.

Wilson grinned. “This is the bit I’ve always wanted to say,” he confessed to them as the avionics confirmed the micropiles were ready. “Atomic turbines to power!”

Anna and Oscar exchanged a look. Oscar shrugged.

The turbines spun up, and Wilson released the wheel brakes. The Carbon Goose rolled out of its hangar and down toward the icy sea.

***

“Oh, brother,” Ozzie grunted. He was accessing files from his asteroid, seeing the refugees from Randtown come stumbling through the wormhole. “There goes the neighborhood.” Two hours into his review of everything that had happened, and he was beginning to wish he’d headed off in the other direction after leaving Island Two.

The last home file showed him Nigel wandering around the bungalow. Ozzie’s own recorded projection played out, and Nigel swore at the end of it. Back in the cozy warmth of the Ledbetter penthouse suite, sprawled on his circular, emperor-sized jellmattress, Ozzie grinned at his old friend’s dismayed expression. Poor old Nige had always disapproved of his lifestyle, the decisions and choices. It was their contrary opinions that made them such a good team.

He drained his tumbler of bourbon and told the maidbot to refill it, then moved on to examine records from the latest invasion. “Oh, brother.” The damage that the flare bombs and quantumbusters inflicted on the stars was terrifying. Then something terminated Hell’s Gateway, something that the Sheldon Dynasty had done independently from the navy, something greater than a quantumbuster. Half of the unisphere now comprised speculation and gossip about Nigel using that ultra-weapon against Dyson Alpha, winning the war in a single strike.

The other half of the unisphere was busy discussing the Second47’s evacuation into the future. Ozzie took another swig as the War Cabinet made their announcement. “Son of a bitch, don’t bring me into this,” he shouted at Nigel’s image. His so-called friend’s face loomed hugely over the bed, as projected by the portal on the opposite wall. It was badly focused now. Ozzie tried to do some math to see if Nigel knew what the fuck he was talking about, but the equations were impossible to form. He looked at his tumbler, which was empty again. “Just bring the bottle,” he told the maidbot.

Virtual hands wobbled through virtual vision, and he knocked politely on the SI’s icon.

The War Cabinet vanished to be replaced by tangerine and turquoise lines weaving through and around each other. “Hello, Ozzie. Welcome back.”

“Good to be back. I mean it. You’ve no idea how wonderful toilet paper is until it’s taken away from you by an unfeeling universe. I think it’s a defining characteristic of human civilization, the ability to manufacture something decent to wipe your ass on. Believe me, forest leaves just don’t cut it. Well, actually,” he sniggered, “they do, and that’s the problem. And you can make that my epitaph if you want.”

“Duly noted.”

“Hey hey, don’t you smartass me. You’ve got some bigtime explaining to do, man.” The maidbot rolled up to the side of the bed, and held out the bourbon bottle. Ozzie took it, and winked at the little machine.

“You are referring to the emergency Randtown evacuation,” the SI said.

“Nail on the fucking head, dude.”

“We took the liberty of saving thousands of human lives. We assumed that given the circumstances, you wouldn’t object.”

“Yeah yeah, trillions of dollars spent building the ultimate in private housing, and it’s all blown. All gone.” The room rotated around him, leaving him spread-eagle on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He took another drink of bourbon to compensate. “I’ll have to dream up something else now. Maybe go back to the Ice Citadel. No! Fuck, what am I saying? It was cold there. I am, like, not a cold-weather person. I learned that about myself.”

“So your venture was successful, then?”

“Oh, brother, was it ever. I found out everything; who put the barriers up, why they did it, why they won’t help us. And I’ll tell you something else, I was right about the Silfen, too.”