There had been nothing like it since the Sundering. The four million inhabitants of Thistledown were being removed from the asteroid’s five populated chambers with every vehicle available in the Earth-Moon vicinity. Even with ten thousand shuttles of all sizes and utility, the evacuation went slowly; there was a great deal of resistance. Some infighting had broken out between the various factions that had made new homes on Thistledown.

In the last four decades, Thistledown had become the bulwark and nerve center of the Hexamon, taking over many functions from the orbiting precincts, which were considered much more vulnerable. Transferring these functions was an enormous task, simplified only slightly by the Hexamon’s ability to move mountains of data in very small packages.

Olmy stood in the first chamber bore hole, wrapped in an environment field, watching shuttles pass back and forth in ordered array. Four shuttles had been taken out of service and as gaps occurred in the steady stream, were being guided below the rotating docks into the staging areas for repair. Four out of ten thousand…Hexamon technology was still wonderfully efficient in some areas.

Olmy’s master witnessed these actions without comment, leaving Olmy, for the time being, to follow a previously agreed-upon routine of working with the evacuation effort and preparing, in secret, for the theft of a flawship.

He had made his confession; the expression on Korzenowski’s face had been particularly painful. But the distinctions between failure and defeat, and compliance with an authority higher than any of them, were dim indeed now…

Olmy had put down some of his burdens. Now he assumed a greater burden: the realization that even were he not Jart-ridden, he would be doing the same things, making the same plans, opposing the will of the Hexamon’s leaders and the mens publica.

Some would undoubtedly believe that that made him a true traitor, not just a defeated and foolish soldier.

Korzenowski made his preparations just nine hours before the next link, this time neglecting his ceremonial red sack-robe and wearing black overalls, more utilitarian, more suited to the adventure—or misadventure—on which they would soon embark. As he absorbed the reports of automated remotes and partials, all saying that the sixth chamber machinery and projectors were functioning properly, his natural mind gave in to a bit of wandering.

He clearly remembered the early years, after the first opening, when unexpected instabilities had four times threatened complete collapse. Those had been very difficult times, when the Hexamon had faced not only his awesome, temperamental creation, but the threat of the Jarts.