Here nanomachinery was injected into their eyes. Their retinas were rebuilt, overlaid with a layer of technology whose purpose was to help their eyes cope with the blinding light of the Galaxy’s heart—and perhaps enable them to survive another few seconds. They had both taken many implants before, of course, even deep inside their skulls. But none of them had felt so directly violating.

They endured a night of agonizing pain. Pirius and Cohl had never been lovers, but that night they shared a bunk, weeping in each other’s arms.

The next morning, when Pirius looked in a mirror, he saw the silver in his eyes, and his own face reflected back from his pupils. It was as if his very soul had been coated in metal.

Part 2

TWO

The Qax, alien occupiers of Earth, inflicted the Extirpation on mankind. They churned up the rocks, destroyed the ecology, wrecked our homes, even imposed a new language on us. By these means they tried to destroy our past.

They were right to do so.

The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future.

Cut loose the past; it is dead weight.

Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.

—Hama Druz

Chapter 19

Pirius Red wasn’t impressed by Mars.

From low orbit it struck him as a dull, closed-in little world. Aside from the scrapings of ice at the polar caps, its color was a uniform, burned-out red. Mars was dead, or all but; you could tell that even from space, just by looking at its worn craters and soft-edged mountains.

Given this world had been the most earthlike world in Sol system after the home planet itself, it was surprising how little mark humans had made on its surface. There were plenty of ruins, though. Once, extensive arcologies had splashed the ancient face of this world with Earth green-blue. But those bubble-colonies had been smashed during the Qax Occupation. The largest of them had been in a region called Cydonia, and from space you could still make out where it had been: the neat circle of the dome’s perimeter, the blocky shapes of a few remaining buildings, a tracery of foundations. But the ubiquitous dust had covered it over, washing away lines and colors.

A more striking ruin, in fact, was a massive building put up by the Qax themselves: an exotic-matter factory. Its walls were massive and robust, enduring even after twenty thousand years. In the wars that had followed the expulsion of the Qax, the factory ruins had been used as a fortress, as human fought human. Pirius sent Virtual images back to Torec to remind her of the similar factory she had explored on the Moon. But Torec was at Saturn, still working on the CTC processor project, out of touch.