He tried to stand, to walk towards her. He stumbled, weak and drained, and fell on his face.

Dredging up the last of her own strength, she went to him. She dug her hand under him and turned him on his back - as, once, Pharaoh had done for her.

He opened his mouth. Spittle looped between his lips, and his voice was a harsh rasp. ‘Gemo!’ he gasped.

‘My name is Callisto.’

‘I am your brother! I made you! Help me! Love me!’

Something tugged at her: recognition - and resentment.

She held his head to her chest. ‘This won’t hurt,’ she said. ‘Close your eyes.’ And she held him, until the last of his unwelcome memories had leaked away, and, forgetting who he was, he lay still.

The Coalition, hardened by Hama Druz’s doctrines of constancy and racial destiny, proved persistent, and determined. Cleansing themselves of the past, they continued to try to eradicate the undying, for we collaborators embodied the past. We had to flee, to hide.

But our taint of immortality went deeper than those who persecuted us could know. I, already an elder, found a new role.

ALL IN A BLAZE - AD 5478

ALL IN A BLAZE

AD 5478

On some level Faya Parz had always known the truth about herself. In the background of her life there had been bits of family gossip. And then as she grew older, and her friends began to grey, even though she had had to give up her Dancing, she stayed supple - as if she was charmed, time sliding by her, barely touching her.

But these were subtle things. She had never articulated it to herself, never framed the thought. On some deeper level she hadn’t wanted to know.

She had to meet Luru Parz before she faced it.

It all came to a head on the day of the Halo Dance.

The amphitheatre was a bowl gouged out of the icy surface of Port Sol. Of course the amphitheatre was crowded, as it was every four years for this famous event; there was a sea of upturned faces all around Faya. She gazed up at the platforms hovering high above, just under the envelope of the dome itself, where her sister and the other Dancers were preparing for their performance. And beyond it all the sun, seen from here at the edge of Sol system, was just a brighter pinprick in a tapestry of stars, its sharpness softened a little by the immense dome that spanned the theatre.

‘. . . Excuse me.’

Faya glanced down. A small woman faced her, stocky, broad-faced, dressed in a nondescript coverall. Faya couldn’t tell her age, but there was something solid about her, something heavy, despite the micro-gravity of Port Sol. And she looked oddly familiar.

The woman smiled at her.

Faya was staring. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The seat next to you—’

‘It’s free.’