wooden desk groaning under books and document tubes, its small window framing an achingly familiar scene of gold and silver spheres, but this might put it in perspective: within that span of time, foreign empires had risen, then fallen, then started to rise again, then burst into flames. Great wars had been fought. Humanity had doubled in size while its resources had halved. Spheres beyond the size of suns had been built and torn down. The species had thrown together a telescopic array so large and powerful that it could peer back almost to the dawn of time. The navy had built the oracle called Skycore: a giant ball of hollow string filled with plasma, adrift in a secret part of space, which supposedly used the power of probability to tell the future. So there’s that as well.
It had taken an age or more, but the day had come when Queen Gargoylas would finally review Fabrigas’s deeds and, if he was lucky, give him his Bill of Passage. He stood, pink-faced, in the middle of the room as he dried his hands and stared at the spheres cluttering his window. When Carrofax drifted in with a young ‘slavey’ who carried a tray of tea and toast and a copy of the Gazette and Sentinel the old man started from his trance. ‘Good morning, sir. The Gazette has a very interesting piece today about plans to use Skycore to find the Vengeance.’
‘Barghhh!’ said Fabrigas, which is the noise you make when you try to express disgust with a mouthful of toast. He had no time for the Queen’s great ball of string. He watched the girl pour his tea, checking that she trickled in just the right amount of synthetic milk. She had dark skin and ornate tattoos on her young hands, so he knew she must be a slave taken during the Morphium Wars on Zapotek. He kept his fierce eyes upon her while he picked up the first section of his newspaper, then he slowly turned his gaze to the front. The Gazette ’s banner contained just three letters and a symbol of interrogation: ‘UWX?’
The great Sphere of Empires was in a precarious state, beset by shortages and conflict. The eight great Galactagogs of the universe – the U8 – were trapped inside this globe, like fighting animals forced to occupy the same cage. The Holy Neon Empire shared the centre of the sphere with the Vangardiks. They were once a single empire, but since the Great Schism, and the building of the Great Wall of Peace, they were bitter enemies. Nearby was the once mighty Concordat: a loose collection of states who were desperate to avoid war, but equally desperate to hold their place in the centre. The Xo occupied the mysterious outer reaches, the Floating Worlds, and remained a powerful and unknowable force. They were a neutral power, kept no standing army, but exercised power through their secret agency, Dark Hand. The other Galactagogs – the Hyperboreans, the Skandanyevans, the Kobra, the Cosmogoths – as well as all the many minor powers – were biding their time, aware of the cost of giving the Holy Neon Empire too much power, but equally aware of the price for failing to back the winner. Any small conflict could potentially trigger a 10th Universal War, UWX, and unlike the nine previous conflicts this one would be decisive, unimaginably destructive: it would be a war to end war.
Fabrigas let his eyes drift down to the ‘Briefly’ column. There wasa short piece on the inquiry into disastrous events at the Worlds’ Fair, when an attack by enemy agents led to the disappearance of the tiny treasure they called the Vengeance. There was a rumour the escape had been masterminded by Dark Hand. Were the Xo finally renouncing their neutral status?
Attempts were under way to recover the vessel of the Queen’s youngest brother, Prince Albert, the last male heir, who had almost brought down the dynasty when he went mad during a yachting regatta and tried to fly his ship into a sun. His name had become a byword for insanity. The magistrates had voted to ‘… give all resources
It had taken an age or more, but the day had come when Queen Gargoylas would finally review Fabrigas’s deeds and, if he was lucky, give him his Bill of Passage. He stood, pink-faced, in the middle of the room as he dried his hands and stared at the spheres cluttering his window. When Carrofax drifted in with a young ‘slavey’ who carried a tray of tea and toast and a copy of the Gazette and Sentinel the old man started from his trance. ‘Good morning, sir. The Gazette has a very interesting piece today about plans to use Skycore to find the Vengeance.’
‘Barghhh!’ said Fabrigas, which is the noise you make when you try to express disgust with a mouthful of toast. He had no time for the Queen’s great ball of string. He watched the girl pour his tea, checking that she trickled in just the right amount of synthetic milk. She had dark skin and ornate tattoos on her young hands, so he knew she must be a slave taken during the Morphium Wars on Zapotek. He kept his fierce eyes upon her while he picked up the first section of his newspaper, then he slowly turned his gaze to the front. The Gazette ’s banner contained just three letters and a symbol of interrogation: ‘UWX?’
The great Sphere of Empires was in a precarious state, beset by shortages and conflict. The eight great Galactagogs of the universe – the U8 – were trapped inside this globe, like fighting animals forced to occupy the same cage. The Holy Neon Empire shared the centre of the sphere with the Vangardiks. They were once a single empire, but since the Great Schism, and the building of the Great Wall of Peace, they were bitter enemies. Nearby was the once mighty Concordat: a loose collection of states who were desperate to avoid war, but equally desperate to hold their place in the centre. The Xo occupied the mysterious outer reaches, the Floating Worlds, and remained a powerful and unknowable force. They were a neutral power, kept no standing army, but exercised power through their secret agency, Dark Hand. The other Galactagogs – the Hyperboreans, the Skandanyevans, the Kobra, the Cosmogoths – as well as all the many minor powers – were biding their time, aware of the cost of giving the Holy Neon Empire too much power, but equally aware of the price for failing to back the winner. Any small conflict could potentially trigger a 10th Universal War, UWX, and unlike the nine previous conflicts this one would be decisive, unimaginably destructive: it would be a war to end war.
Fabrigas let his eyes drift down to the ‘Briefly’ column. There wasa short piece on the inquiry into disastrous events at the Worlds’ Fair, when an attack by enemy agents led to the disappearance of the tiny treasure they called the Vengeance. There was a rumour the escape had been masterminded by Dark Hand. Were the Xo finally renouncing their neutral status?
Attempts were under way to recover the vessel of the Queen’s youngest brother, Prince Albert, the last male heir, who had almost brought down the dynasty when he went mad during a yachting regatta and tried to fly his ship into a sun. His name had become a byword for insanity. The magistrates had voted to ‘… give all resources
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