So far the Ideocracy had been as aloof concerning the Kardish as it was about all the successor states, which it regarded as illegal and temporary secessions from its own authority. But the Kards’ challenge was profound. Earth, base of the Ideocracy, was the home of mankind. But the Galaxy Core had been the centre of the war, and more humans had died there, by an order of magnitude, than all those who had lived and died on Earth before the age of spaceflight. The Core was the moral and spiritual capital of Homo galacticus, said the new Kard. The question was, who was the true heir to the Coalition’s mantle, Imperium or Ideocracy? The reputation of the Coalition still towered, and its name burned brightly in human imaginations; whoever won that argument might inherit a Galaxy.

This was the terrible friction that had rubbed away the life of Mara, and countless other refugees.

‘And now,’ Futurity said, ‘they are cleaning out the last Ideocracy enclaves in the Core.’

‘Ah. Like Mara’s world.’

‘Yes. There isn’t much the Ideocracy can do, short of all-out war. As for us,’ Futurity went on, ‘the Ecclesia is just trying to keep the peace.’ Through their faith the Ecclesia’s acolytes and academics had links that crossed the new, shifting political boundaries. ‘Michael Poole, the Wignerian faith was never legal under the Coalition, but it spanned the Galaxy, and in its way unified mankind. It survived the Coalition’s fall. Now, despite our fractured politics, and even though the faith itself has schismed and schismed again, it still unites us - or at least gives us something to talk to each other about. And it provides a moral, civilising centre to our affairs. If not for the faith’s moderating influence, the fall of the Coalition would have been much worse for most of humanity.’

Mara’s fate was an example. Wignerian diplomatic links had been used to set up a reasonably safe passage for Ideocracy refugees from the Core. Thus at places like Base 478 refugees like Mara were passed off from one authority to another, following a chain of sanctuaries out of the Core to their new homes in the remote gloom of the rim.

Poole seemed cynical about this. ‘A service for which you charge a handsome fee, no doubt.’

Futurity was stung. ‘We’re not a rich world, Michael Poole. We rely mostly on donations from pilgrims to keep us going. We have to charge the refugees or their governments for transit and passage; we’d fall into poverty ourselves otherwise.’

But Poole didn’t seem convinced. ‘Pilgrims? And what is it those pilgrims come to see on Base 478? Is it the shrine of the great messiah? Is it me? Have you dug up my bones? Do you have some gibbering manikin of me capering on a monument, begging for cash?’