After a decade of worsening hurricanes, the first real mega-storm struck the Eastern Pacific countries in February 2071. It lasted for nine days. The UN declared it an official international disaster zone; crops ruined over the entire region, whole forests torn out by the roots, tens of thousands made homeless. Some idiot newscable presenter said that if one butterfly flapping its wings causes an ordinary hurricane, then this must have taken a whole armada of butterflies to start. The name stuck.

The second armada storm came ten months later, that one hit southern Europe. It made the first one seem mild by comparison.

Everybody knew it was the heat which did it. By then more or less every home on the planet had a newscable feed, they could afford it. To prevent the third armada storm all they had to do was stop using so much electricity. The same electricity which brought them their newly found prosperous living standard.

People, it seems, don't wish to abandon their wealth.

Instead, they started migrating into large towns and cities, which they fortified against the weather. According to the UN, in another fifty years everybody will live in an urban area. Transgenic crops were spliced together which can withstand the worst the armada storms throw at them. And the amount of He3 from Jupiter creeps ever upwards. Outside the urban and agricultural zones the whole planet is slowly going to shit.

Our house was near the southern edge of Eden's town, with a long back lawn which ran down to the parkland. A stream marked where the lawn ended and the meadowland began. The whole street was some tree-festooned middle-class suburb from a bygone age. The house itself was made from aluminium and silicon sandwich panels, a four-bedroom L-shape bungalow ranch with broad patio doors in each room. Back in the Delph arcology we had a four-room flat on the fifty-second floor which overlooked the central tiered well, and we could only afford that thanks to the subsidized rent which came with my job.

I could hear voices as soon as I reached the fence which ran along the front lawn, Nicolette and Jocelyn arguing. And yes, it was a picket fence, even if it was made from sponge-steel.

The front door was ajar. Not that it had a lock. Eden's residents really did have absolute confidence in the habitat personality's observation. I walked in, and almost tripped on a hockey stick.

The five white composite cargo pods from the Ithilien had been delivered, containing the Parfitt family's entire worldly goods. Some had been opened, I guessed by the twins, boxes were strewn along the length of the hall.

«It's stupid, Mother!» Nicolette's heated voice yelled out of an open door.

«And you're not to raise your voice to me,» Jocelyn shouted back.

I went into the room. It was the one Nicolette had claimed. Cases were heaped on the floor, clothes draped all over the bed. The patio door was open, a servitor chimp stood placidly outside.