She tried to work out what had happened. There must have been a cache of the strange, ancient supernova creatures, she decided, drawn there by Symat’s superheavy-element bait. Perhaps the eruption had been purely a matter of physics, a response to the sudden release of pressure when the upper levels of the crust were stripped away. Or perhaps that great blow against the Spline had been deliberate, a conscious lashing out, a manifestation of the rage of those ancient creatures at this disturbing of their aeons-long slumber.

And now, all around the sky, she could see more Spline entering the atmosphere: four, five, six of them, great misty moons descending to Earth. A fine dust pulsed from them in thin, silvery clouds, almost beautiful. The dust spread through the air, settling quickly. Where the glittering rain touched, the land began to soften, the valleys to subside, the hills to erode. It was shockingly fast.

This was the wrath of the Qax. The overlords had learned not to hesitate in the face of human defiance. And this nanotechnological drenching would leave the planet a featureless beach of silicate dust.

She took the translucent tablet from a pocket of her skinsuit. The scrap of Qax technology gleamed, warm. She thought of the wizened, anguished face of Gemo Cana, of Symat’s vibrant, passionate sacrifice. You must make your choice, Luru Parz.

I am too young, she thought. I have nothing to remember. Nothing but what was done today.

As the mountains of Earth crumbled, she swallowed the tablet.

We endured another century of the Qax.

When their reign ended it happened quickly, the result of an event far from Earth, the actions of a single human, a man called Bolder.

For all our conspiring, I think we never really believed the Qax would leave.

And we certainly never imagined we would miss them when they were gone.

CONURBATION 2473 - AD 5407

CONURBATION 2473

AD 5407

Rala knew there was something wrong.

For days, all around Conurbation 2473 there had been muttered rumours. A cell of counter-Extirpationists had been found hoarding illegal data. Or a group of cultists were planning an uprising, like the failed Rebellion decades ago. Rala just wanted to get on with her work. But everybody got a little agitated.

It all came to a head one morning.

The room lights came on as usual to wake them up, But when their supervising jasoft didn’t come to collect them for work, Rala quickly got uneasy.

Rala shared her tiny room with Ingre, a cadre sibling. The room was just a bubble blown in nano-engineered rock by Qax technology. There was nothing inside but a couple of bunk beds, a space to store clothes, waste systems, water spigots, a food hole.

Ingre was a little younger than Rala, thin, anxious. She went to the door - which had snapped open at the allotted time, as it always did - and peered up and down the corridor. ‘Luru Parz is never late.’