‘I hate these places,’ Liu said, as they rolled through this zone.

‘Me too,’ admitted Stef. ‘I did some volunteer work in one of them. I couldn’t bear the crying of the children at night in those big dormitories. Not knowing where they were. They were terrified.’

Yuri looked at her. He said drily, ‘But you’re a scientist. Here we are becoming an interstellar species. We are achieving greatness. Isn’t it worth a little pain?’

She said, ‘Not if individuals suffer on the way to achieving species goals. No. There must be a better method, to whatever you want to achieve. Probably requiring more patience.’

Liu said, ‘But even the builders achieved greatness, in their way. They constructed the Hatch, somehow. At least it looks like that. We found traces of their factories and such, right?’

‘Yes,’ Stef said. ‘But they also built their canals. The Hatch map proves it, even if we still haven’t found any trace of them out on the planet itself. Now that was a great achievement, that suits the nature of the builders, rather than some gate to the stars. What was the point of the Hatch for them? What use is a world like Mercury to a builder from Per Ardua? Yet they turned their backs on their canals, and they built their Hatch, and then – what? They gave up and went home again, it seems. They may as well have built a statue of a builder a kilometre high, right at the Hub, thumbing its nose at Prox. Wouldn’t have been any less use.’

That made Yuri laugh. ‘Nice image. Although they don’t have noses. Or thumbs.’

Stef stayed serious. ‘Maybe it’s no wonder the builders are so gloomy, as the ColU tells us. Somehow they know their history is – all wrong. And because of the Hatch, it seems. I’m not sure that the Hatch had anything to do with the builders’ goals at all, their own fate as a species. After all, we’re now merrily using the Mercury-Ardua Hatch system to colonise this world, but we’ve somehow forgotten that whatever it was built for, surely it wasn’t for that.’

‘What is it for, then?’ Liu asked.

‘I don’t know. Even though I’ve studied related phenomena for decades. Even though the Hatches are already part of human history.’

‘Hm,’ Yuri said. ‘Well, I hope we last long enough to find the answer.’

CHAPTER 70

They came at last to the UN base, deep within the Hub province, close to the Hatch.

The base had been hugely extended from the days of Tollemache and his crew. The old Ad Astra hull was now at the centre of an elaborate complex of buildings, with the flags of the UN, ISF and other agencies hanging limply overhead, while wide areas of forest had been cleared, fenced off and connected to immigrant processing blocks by tall wire fences. There was talk of turning the hull itself into a museum of the pioneering days on the planet, and Yuri had mischievously suggested bringing back Conan Tollemache himself to run it.

And over the Hatch itself, above the rough transparent dome that now sheltered it from the substellar climate, was a big wrought-iron sign in the six major languages of the UN zones, the first thing you would see when you came scrambling through from Mercury:

WELCOME TO PER ARDUA

A UN PROTECTORATE

Yuri and the others were prominent enough citizens of the ‘protectorate’ to be allowed through the security barriers with minimal formalities. They were escorted by a young soldier to the headquarters of the new Emergency Powers corps of the Peacekeepers, a formidable building of Arduan concrete studded with automatic gun emplacements and security cameras.

Liu barely endured all this, his nerves clearly on a knife edge.

Inside the building they were met by Freddie Coolidge, sitting behind a desk. ‘Sit down,’ he said curtly. He tapped his desk; a built-in slate lit up. ‘I know why you’re here, obviously.’ Then he stared intently into the slate, drawing out the moment. Delga’s son, his surname taken from his father, was in his late thirties. He wore the uniform of a sergeant of the Peacekeepers. He looked nothing like his mother, not any more. He’d even removed the tattoos his mother had had engraved on his face as an infant.

Yuri felt diminished, sitting here in this clean office, being ignored by a kid like Freddie. For all their accomplishments and wealth, they were just three shabby, ageing people, come in from the country, facing the power of an interplanetary agency. He steeled himself, looking for inner strength.

But Liu was barely in control of himself. After thirty seconds he snapped: ‘You prick.’

Freddie looked up mildly. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re doing this deliberately. Stringing this out. Your mother would turn in her grave to see you like this.’

Yuri said, ‘Liu—’

Freddie said coldly, ‘My mother was a loser, like you, even before some disgruntled customer finally knifed her, and the best thing I ever did was to get away from you people, you “Founders”. Now. You want to know about your daughter, or not?’

‘What do I need to do to get her out of here?’

‘Too late, I’m afraid.’ He grinned. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘Through the Hatch. Back to Mercury, back to Earth. Daughter of a Founder, you see, Liu. Too sensitive politically to handle here, on Per Ardua. That was the thinking. Don’t want any trouble, do we?’

Liu looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. Yuri understood exactly what he was thinking. Through the Hatch: lost to him, for at least eight years, even if she turned back immediately she reached the Mercury side.

‘Let me go.’ Liu stood up. ‘Take me. Shove me after her through your damn Hatch.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Freddie said. ‘Political sensitivities again.’

‘Sensitivities? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Sit down.’

‘You prick—’

‘Sit down. I’m trying to do you a favour here, believe it or not.’

Stef grabbed Liu’s arm and dragged him down.

‘They’re coming for you too, Liu. I’ve put them off, actually. And the logic is you should be detained here, on Per Ardua. After all, you’re supposed to be serving a sentence on this prison of a world, aren’t you? You were an enemy combatant, on Mars.’

‘My mission was surveillance—’

‘Ancient history. Wouldn’t be right to send you home, would it, without you serving your time? That’s the thinking.’

Yuri could see the muscles in Liu’s arms clench. Yuri said, ‘Liu. Listen to what he’s saying. What are you offering us, Freddie?’

‘Time for you to get him out of here. I fixed the security, you’ll be able to get away from the Hub, you won’t be stopped.’ He glanced around, faintly nervous. ‘You understand I had to bring you all the way in here to tell you this. It’s the only place I could be sure we wouldn’t be overheard. Ha! Right in the heart of the complex. Take him as far from here as you can.’

Stef asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘For my mother, believe it or not. She was a loser. But I know she thought well of you, Liu Tao. You’re an honorary uncle,’ he said with disgust. ‘This is what you get. One favour. Now get him out, Yuri, before I change my mind.’

They had to drag Liu away.

The rover rolled past the quarantine camps, following the road’s steadily downward incline, heading out from the Hub.

Liu was too angry, too distressed to speak.

Yuri gave him some privacy by sitting up front with Stef. ‘So,’ he said. ‘We need to hide an angry Chinese from the Peacekeepers. Any ideas?’

‘Yes,’ she said, unhesitating.

He laughed. ‘I should have known.’

‘We get out of here with him ourselves. We go on an expedition. To another unique location, on Per Ardua, this world of mysteries and puzzles.’

He was baffled. ‘Where the hell?’

She glanced up at Proxima, directly above, its flare-scarred face shielded by scattered cloud. ‘As far from this place, this government-controlled substellar point, as it’s possible to get.’