Marta, Cohl, Burden were all here, standing gravely as the surviving sisters wailed and clung to each other. “At least it was quick.” Captain Marta said gruffly. “There can have been no pain.”

One of the Tilis turned on the officer. “What comfort is that? It was a stupid accident.”

Burden stepped forward. He placed a big hand on each of the Tilis’ skinsuit helmets. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “None of this matters. There will be a better time, a better place, where you will be reunited with your sister, when all of this is wiped clean. . . .” And so on. Gradually his words were comforting the girls. They bent their heads to his chest, and he held them as they wept wretchedly.

This was too much for Cohl. She turned on Captain Marta. “What happened to the Doctrines? If you let him spout words like these, what did she die for?”

Marta eyed her coldly, the human half of her reconstructed face as still and expressionless as the metallized side. “His words are useful,” she said simply.

And so they were, Pirius saw now, just as Burden himself had said, and that was why they were tolerated. It didn’t matter whether anybody believed in Michael Poole and the rest or not. Everything here was dedicated to the purposes of the war: even the tolerance of a faith which undermined the war’s very justification. Just as long as its adherents were prepared to march off to die.

The Captain snapped, “Clean up here.” She turned and walked away.

Pirius and the triplets’ other friends helped the surviving sisters get back to the barracks. Pirius had never seen anything like their grief.

But there was no time for consolation. The very next day new orders came: Pirius’s company was to be thrown into the Front.

For their final preparation Pirius and Cohl were taken to a sick bay.

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.