Septame Banstegeyn gazed down at what his implants assured him was the location of the parliament complex in M’yon, but without the overlay he’d have struggled to identify it. How important it had always seemed, how important it genuinely was, to the lives of so many, and yet how tiny, how insignificant. He sighed, looked away, took in the whole sweep of the planet of Zyse – well, as much as he could see from the orbital base, which was only a few hundred kilometres up, so incapable of providing a view of the entire globe. Ah, the fabulous solidity of a planet.

Banstegeyn’s World. It had always sounded so good to him, so fitting. So lasting. Now, perhaps, Banstegeyn’s Star instead. It was no sacrifice. Stars could last longer than planets, and – once you had secured the agreement, the commitment of those who would inherit responsibility for them – it cost them nothing, really, to grant such a wish.

Of course, it would never stick unless there was a good reason for such an honour; any idiot could secure some up-and-coming primitive’s agreement that, oh yes, they’d rename a planet or a star after them (and, if they had any sense at all, know in their heart that it was an agreement so easily made because it could be so easily broken), but there was weight to his claim for such an accolade.

He had shepherded a whole people to their destiny; brought them on, shown them what they knew they wanted anyway, or what they would want, in time, even if there had been nobody with the vision and the foresight to show them. Was that not worth a “World” or a “Star”? Even having a star named after oneself didn’t really mean that much; there were hundreds of millions of them in the galaxy, and many had stupid, meaningless or hopelessly obscure names.

In some ways it seemed so little to ask.

“Septame,” a voice said. “Thank you so much for seeing me.” The avatar Ziborlun bowed from the doorway of the spherical observation pod. It smiled, its silver-skinned face lit by the soft glow of the light reflecting from the planet beneath.

“Ziborlun,” Banstegeyn said.

There was a particular way of saying somebody’s name – you pronounced it as you gave a small sigh – that informed them, assuming they had the wit to recognise the sign, that they were being seen as an indulgence, as a duty even, when really you had so many more important matters to attend to. It was in that manner that the septame had said the avatar’s name.

The avatar, being an avatar, picked up the signal immediately; the smile turned self-deprecatory, almost apologetic, and the creature said, “I won’t keep you long, Septame.”

“It is a busy time,” Banstegeyn agreed.