Balance Point by Robert Buettner Page B

Cutler.
    Cutler had transferred at the Trueborn-controlled hub at Mousetrap to an Earthbound vessel, as had most of the passengers. And the world ahead was coming closer, not receding as Rand had been.
    The sight of home after the long journey caused Polian’s throat to swell. Yavet hung against the blackness of space like a soft, gray pearl, girdled at the equator by the thread-slender silver band of the Ring, twinkling in the sun as it turned slowly around the planet. Yavet’s clouds and the Ring, both symbols and products of mankind’s triumph over the environment, seemed to Polian more meaningfully beautiful than the Trueborn’s blue marble, smudged with uncontrolled smears of white and complemented only by a pocked and lifeless natural moon.
    The purser’s voice echoed through the blister, and the other six passengers in the blister turned in the direction of the speakers as though there were something to see. “Ladies and gentlemen, it will take us another hour to match and moor with the Ring of Yavet, which marks our closest approach to the Unified Republics of Yavet, as well as the terminus of our outbound voyage. All passengers are required to disembark at Ring Station, and once disembarked, cannot reboard. The Ring is officially part of Yavet and not affiliated with the Human Union Transport Authority. Downshuttle passage and baggage claim are entirely controlled by Yavi Customs and Immigration. So please be sure to gather all unchecked personal items, as well as your entry documentation, and carry them on your person where they are readily available for inspection. Duty Free, casual dining, and the Slot Slot will remain open until thirty minutes before final approach, for your last minute shopping, snacking and gaming convenience.”
    The blister’s other inhabitants swam aft. Polian remained, untempted by Trueborn cheeseburgers and their rigged games of chance.
    He stared forward again. The Ring was close, now.
    It was the only continuous orbital habitat conceived, much less completed, by mankind. The largest manmade structure in the known universe at a half mile across, thirty-six thousand miles in circumference, even the Trueborns ranked the Ring of Yavet first among the Union’s manmade wonders. Nature herself had produced nothing remotely comparable. The natural rings of other planets were optical frauds, loose assemblages of orbiting dust and rock.
    The Trueborns themselves had expanded into near orbital space in much the same way, at first. A clutter of communications satellites, surveillance facilities. Then a sprinkle of facilities to capture solar energy and to manufacture specialty products in perfect vacuum.
    But now the Ring marked the divergent history of the Union’s superpowers. The Pseudocephalopod War had depopulated Earth, and spared her the challenges and opportunities of population growth and exponentially accelerated industrialization. Historians said that if one wanted to see Earth as it would have been, but for the Slug War, one should look at Yavet.
    Perhaps. The difference, Polian thought, was how one appreciated what one saw. Polian saw greatness, fettered only by the Trueborns and the accident of their starships.
    To Polian, the story of the Ring was the story of pragmatic progress. Yavet had avoided nuclear war by melding its nations under a central government. As a unified people, more Yavi needed more, and produced more, and by their industry warmed their planet.
    The resultant rising seas shrank the land upon which Yavi lived. This allowed Yavet to raise great cities, and to select among the citizens who inhabited them those who contributed and those who were mere burdens.
    The Trueborns complained that the Ring was built by slaves, as an overflow prison for slaves. Easy for them to say, gifted a planet kept pristine by the accident of war, and then further gifted with the means to expand from that planet to other worlds. Yavet had been denied those gifts, but had fashioned