Thistledown, launched thirteen centuries before by its own timeline, had been beyond doubt the greatest single achievement of the human race, made even greater by the creation of the Way. Containing the two finest and largest cities of all humanity, yet never fully populated; containing the greatest weapons ever devised, birthplace of the most accomplished and wide-ranging civilization, center of philosophies encompassing all the human religions, many synthesized into the myth of the Good Man, who exemplified the imperfect but glorious expression of that universal urge to Just Progress, Star, Fate and Pneuma: the universe, history and human spirit; Thistledown, transient and even humble name for such an endeavor.

Farren Siliom contemplated all these things from his apartment. He would not have time to get used to this new body; in a way, he regretted the waste of resources, but preferred to end his life in a physical form.

If Thistledown were to die, he would die with it, rather than explain to its citizens what he had done, and why.

Despite an odd melancholy—something akin to what he had seen in Korzenowski’s face—he did not feel much like a traitor. No doubt, in the scales of cosmic justice, he was a hero; but he didn’t feel that sense of justification, either. He had become nothing more than a small transducer in the circuit of history, a fate experienced most acutely by politicians who believe or hope they are in control.

He knew his place in the Thistledown’s history, though he was far from sure it would be an honored place. With no authorization, only the power of being in a certain office at a certain time, he had ordered—or at least supported—the asteroid starship’s destruction. He had done so for reasons that were inescapable and correct, yet that were still not clear to him. I have been persuaded by Gods. Historians are seldom kind to leaders.

His family was on Earth by now, in a camp in Southeast Asia. His two children, both conceived and born in the natural manner—in accord with his Naderite beliefs, but of course, with a few Hexamon embellishments, since he was not orthodox—those children would grow up more influenced by Earth than the orbiting precincts, he could prophesy; the precincts would more than likely close themselves off as a society, rendering aid and assistance, but turning inward. As such, within a century or two they could cease to be viable, their societies beginning the long process of decay, like a—he borrowed now from Terrestrial experiences, such as Garry Lanier might have had—lamb’s tail bound with cord, cut off from the parent body. Who could have foreseen such a possibility during the enthusiasm of the Sundering?

Earth would grow on its own, having been given a mighty boost; who could say where it would go, after the Recovery and such strong Hexamon influence?