This citys proximity to the spaceport meant it had become a melting-pot of different cultures and species over the centuries. A Bandati hive-tower stood on the Rooks western perimeter, while further inland a small colony of Skelites occupied a subterranean warren that emitted a never-ending haze of industrial fumes from surface vents. This was a logical base of operations for a sans de sezi dealer like Sarbakshian, and Megan had her own reasons for wanting to keep a distance from the Demarchy.

Staring out of the window, it was hard to believe anything had happened at all. Aguirre was a long way from the Demarchy, and so had avoided the direct effects of the flood. A series of hundred-metre waves had smashed into the Demarchys coastal regions, reaching far inland and destroying countless settlements, large and small. The death toll was reported to have reached the tens of millions, exacerbated by the fact that so many thousands of pilgrims had been making their way to Dios to celebrate Ascension Day.

Speculation on the cause of the disaster was increasingly focused around a rogue mining shipment from the outer system, which had apparently gone astray before plunging through the atmosphere at several thousand kilometres an hour. It had not, however, been anywhere near large enough to cause such terrible damage, so there were suggestions that it could have secretly contained an anti-matter core.

Certainly no one seemed to believe it was all an accident. Someone had brought this about, just as Avilon and Sifra had arrived in 82 Eridani, with uncanny timing.

Ever since encountering Luiz, Megan had wondered just what connection Sifra and Otto Schelling might have forged with the Freehold. Because if anyone stood to benefit from a catastrophe like this, it would be the latter.

Megan hit Aguirres streets swaddled in warm padded clothing, her face hidden behind a stylish breather mask. She jumped on a tram that creaked its way through dusty streets, its barely functional AI squawking out the names of each district they traversed through a damaged grille. Everywhere she looked, she saw people piling goods into the rear of vans and trucks. There were long queues on the main roads out of the city, and a constant stream of ground-to-air vehicles lifting up above the rooftops.

Megan sat back anxiously and glanced around the tram, realizing that, apart from herself, it was deserted. She watched some of the vehicles peeling flicker-posters, which displayed stylized animations of menacing figures adorned with Freehold tattoos placing bombs in public places or slaughtering busloads of children with equal enthusiasm. It wasnt hard now to guess what Aguirres citizens were running from.