And yet it worked. It worked because on a social level, apparently enough people wanted it to, and because at the heart of it, billions of humans living in fragile habitats prone to mechanical and environmental breakdowns and degradation, and with limited natural resources, were better off relying on each other than trying to go it alone. Even without the Interdependency, being interdependent was the best way for humanity to survive.

Except now we will all have to find a new way to survive, Marce said to himself. He looked up and around at Hub’s imperial station, with all the humans moving in it, and remembered that in less than a decade, all of them might be dead, or on their way to it. Including him.

“Lord Marce?” Marce looked up to see a young man in dark green imperial livery, looking at him, with a sign reading “Lord Marce Claremont” in his hand.

“Yes, that’s me,” Marce said.

“I’m to take you to Xi’an.” The young man looked around. “Do you have any luggage? I understand you are disembarking from a Lagos fiver. Do you have lodgings?”

“My luggage is being sent to the Moreland Hotel, here on the station.”

“Excellent choice, sir.”

“Thank you.” The Moreland had been recommended to him by Kiva, “assuming you can afford it.” Marce, currently in possession of eighty million marks in his data crypt, allowed that he might be able to scrape by.

The young man motioned. “This way, sir.”

Marce followed the young man, whose name was Verson Sohne, to an area of the imperial station used as a terminal for travel to Xi’an. Marce had his documents checked, rechecked, and his body scanned, also twice, and was asked his business in Xi’an, again twice, by two separate inquisitors. Each time Marce noted he had an appointment with the emperox and presented his tablet with the official appointment notice and security hash displayed. They did not ask him what specifically his meeting was about, for which Marce was thankful. He assumed “about the end of the Interdependency and the possible extinction of the human race” might raise some flags.

Verson apologized for the security measures. “They’ve been more stringent since those horrible End rebels bombed the coronation,” he said, and then suddenly shut up, aware that his charge, in fact, was from End. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about you, my lord,” he said, after a moment.

Marce smiled at this. He’d only in the past few hours caught up on the death of Attavio VI, the succession to his daughter Cardenia, now Grayland II, and the attempted assassination on the day of her coronation. He personally doubted anyone from End was at all involved. “It’s all right,” he said, to Verson, who looked visibly relieved.