Peter Hamilton - Great North Road

“Yeah. Boy, has he got some explaining to do.”

“I don’t think he has, actually. And what there is, he can blame on me.”

“Hey,” Paresh said. “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.”

Angela grinned down at him. “Sweets, that list is so long I wouldn’t even know where to start.” She shrugged out of her borrowed robe. It would’ve been nice if she was wearing something thin and lacy for him, but outside the lounge the bungalow wasn’t that warm, so she’d settled for some PJ trousers loaned by Emily and Saul’s mauve sweatshirt.

“I wasn’t kidding about my ribs,” he said glumly as she wiggled down into the sleeping bag beside him. “They do still hurt. The doc said nothing too strenuous.”

“Hmm, I like a challenge.”

Paresh laughed. “I still don’t understand you.”

“Many have tried.” She turned on her side to look at him. The skin on his face was peeling where it wasn’t scabbed. He looked exhausted, a deep-down fatigue that would take a long time to expunge. She realized she could look at that face for a long time without growing tired of it. “I want you to know this: I am genuinely fond of you. We’re not going to get married or anything. Clear? But I’m happy right now. And I can’t remember the last time that happened. You’re a part of that, so let’s keep going with what we’ve got. I don’t want to be unhappy.”

“Sure. I can see why you’re happy. Rebka is quite something.”

“She certainly is.”

“So do you trust the avatar?”

“You’re looking at and judging the avatar, not the life that animates it. Its shape makes you see human. That’s a mistake.”

“That’ll be a yes, then.”

She kissed him. “I think we’re going to be okay.”

“Given where we were this time yesterday, you may just be right.”

“Paresh. Thanks for not doubting me, for believing in me back in the canyon. It’s meant an awful lot to me these last few months.”

He nodded wisely. “It’s been a strange day, all right. But I’m glad it happened.”

“It’s been a strange life,” Angela said. “So far.”

It was Will who got to land the lightwave ship, under supervision from Caspar North—after all, he was still only eighteen and therefore officially just a trainee. Zara fumed and sulked the whole way down from the habitat amalgamation in its geostationary orbit around Sirius XIV. At sixteen she was ranked only as a cadet, so all she got to fly was a training zone virtual.

Sid was very good for the whole eight-minute hop down. He didn’t grip the edges of the acceleration couch in terror, or anything.

They touched down on one of the landing field’s pads on the outskirts of Burradon, as they’d named the planet’s first settlement town. Will joined them in the main passenger cabin, grinning broadly.

“Did you feel a bump?” he asked his family.

“Nothing until you switched the gravity field off,” Jacinta told him. “I think I can tell the difference from Earth.”

Sid certainly couldn’t. After nine years, he was so used to the spin gravity of the big habitat he’d forgotten what straight planetary gravity was like. His inner ear was only mildly perturbed as they walked out of the air lock into the hot air.

Apart from its two oceans, Sirius XIV was a desert from pole to pole. Oh, Sid had seen the dazzling ice caps from orbit, but underneath the new glaciers there was only sterile sand. When they arrived a month earlier, taking three days to decelerate the entire Jupiter constellation down from point-nine lightspeed, the planet was completely sterile. Devoid of even a single bacterium.

The ultimate blank canvas, Constantine said. A world where any possibility could be realized.

The powdery sand under Sid’s boots was an uninspiring dull ocher, rucked up with footprints, wheel tracks, and rills of rainwater. He had to slip on sunglasses against the sharp glare of the blue-white star that had now regained its former glory. When he stared up into the deep sapphire sky he could just see the spark-point of Sirius B a thumb’s width to the side of its primary. He tracked south. Like a particularly bright star, St. Libra twinkled above the horizon. Twenty-three million kilometers away, yet with a distinctive oval profile from its rings. XIV didn’t even have a moon.

There were mountains away to the east, a tall range fringed by snowy peaks. Clouds were piling up around them. It rained frequently in Burradon. Fast warm showers several times a day. Perfect for plants and crops and even trees. It also produced a lot of humidity, especially with the sea ten kilometers away.

A buggy pulled up in front of them. Its Hi-Q auto quested a link and told them it was assigned to drive them to their newly constructed house. The landing field octocyber loaded their bags into the boot, and they were off.

Beyond the landing field, the first district was numanetic, basic cyberblocs producing more of their own. Big cubes with black PV skin splitting off sections like geometric amoebas. Once they were free they absorbed more raw from the thick pipes threading along the side of the dirt track, expanding into set function producers. The initial stages of development had focused on microfacturing houses complete with domestic units, followed by human basics like clothes, furniture, vehicles… After that, Burradon had concentrated on churning out bioform systems.

Sid watched with delight as they drove past the onion-shaped numanetics of the bioversity seeders. Aerostats were inflating out of the pinnacles, big oval envelopes with their bulging breeder vats at the bottom, bioreactors that sucked moisture out of the muggy atmosphere to infect with dozens of species of soil bacteria that sprayed out of the bottom like a low-pressure rocket. Bacteria that multiplied rapidly, etching nutrients out of the naked minerals, preparing the ground for the next stage.

Algae would come next, establishing a textured biological component in the matrix of sand. Molds, fungi; all had their slot on the time table drawn up on the nine-year voyage.

In a couple of years’ time the first batches of insects would be released, their eggs gestated in their billions in clone vats to be scattered across the land. Finally the seeds would come, and flowers would bloom across the desert. Forests and meadows; jungles and savannas—all would rise to coat the land in a lush emerald terrestrial growth. Nature’s natural order would assume primacy, no longer requiring human assistance, and the bioform would end. Animals would charge out of their pens, enjoying their freedom along with the people who’d been transplanted here.

Just seeing the aerostats floating away to roam across the globe wherever the winds took them Sid knew he’d made the right decision. Judging by her expression, Jacinta was sharing the thought. They clasped hands, and kissed.

“Urrgh,” Zara wrinkled her nose up and turned away.

“Look!” Will shouted, pointing. “The gateway.”

Several kilometers beyond the town’s expanding boundary, the gateway was slowly being resurrected inside a massive, open-ended building. The components they’d dismantled in Newcastle had been methodically examined, refurbished, and upgraded by the constellation’s AIs on the voyage. Now a scaffold lattice rippled beneath slick triangular automata that were slowly and carefully locking the individual units back into place.

“There goes the neighborhood,” Zara said. “And we only just got here.”

“The migration over will be gradual,” Jacinta said. “It’ll have to be. Even our numanetics can’t cope with everybody all at once.”