Lemurya was dying. A conjurer's trick of a world, balanced on the knife edge dividing Terra's gravity from the freedom of space, Lemurya was a marvel of science; its renovation had been a statement of mankind's new ascendancy that shone brightly in the glare of Sol. Like a heliograph it had winked the message of Unity and prosperity at a hostile universe. Within its arcades and mega halls were soft landscapes for a civilised people. The playgrounds of the rich had been a promise of what might come for all mankind's teeming billions once the war was done and the galaxy under humanity's rightful stewardship.

No more. After thousands of years, its end had come, and not

at the hand of any enemy. Lord Dorn had declared the great civilian platforms a liability. Every one was in the process of being disassembled. Those in the highest orbits were towed away to be reassembled in the wake of victory, if victory ever came. The smallest were repositioned, converted to the purpose of war, and their populations pressed into service to man gun-decks built over the parks and the palaces. The very largest could not be moved, and were too dangerous to be left in place. Lemurya, Rodinia and the rest were torn from the sky; prophylactic destruction to prevent the traitors hurling them down to break on the world below.

Metal continents died, killed by their masters to save them from conquest.