Ethereal Effect. Chapter 33 (Patreon)

Osred Norris

During the first weeks after my return to Aetris, Sylvana and I were almost never alone because she was so extremely busy. It would have looked strange if the head of an interstellar state had suddenly decided to seclude herself with an unknown orphan for no apparent reason.

So I immediately realized she was up to something when, after yet another meeting, she asked me to secretly make my way into her room.

"Did you get what you wanted, Ael?"

She sat across from me with her hands resting on the table. There was no irritation or anxiety on her face, but I knew her far too well. Sylvana never began important conversations with accusations. First she asked a question and gave the other person the chance to decide for themselves how honest their answer would be.

"What exactly are you asking about?"

"The Dominion. What it has become over the past few centuries."

Sylvana fell silent for a moment and looked out through the tall window at Eldarin by night. The capital had long since ceased to be the most populous or industrially developed city in our state, but it remained its heart. This was where the Council of Eternals sat, where the largest banks and oldest universities stood, and where the Houses whose histories had begun before the Aiterri ever reached space maintained their residences.

"Five years ago, we finally liberated every planet within our recognized territories," she continued. "The rachni have not launched a single major offensive against us in ten years. The colonies are growing, the shipyards are building more ships than we lose, and the Dominion's population increases every year. For most citizens, even the war now exists only in the news and in expenditure reports."

She looked at me again.

"The golden age of the Aiterri has begun, Ael. But you don't think it will last forever, do you?"

"No. Nothing lasts forever. But we need to make it last as long as possible."

"Good. Because I remember how the last golden age ended. And I remember how quickly you were ready then for something no one else was prepared for. I will not allow a second coincidence like that."

Sylvana said it in a perfectly calm voice. She did not raise it, reach for the Gift, or even change her posture. But her gaze became so cold that I immediately understood: the wrong answer could start a war between the two of us. And I did not want to fight her.

Nor was it only about politics. I loved Sylvana. She had lived beside me longer than almost anyone I had ever known. She had seen me young and old, powerful and helpless, met me after new births, and waited for years until I became myself again. She knew more about me than any other living Aiterri and remained the only being beside whom I did not have to constantly play yet another role.

But love alone was not the whole problem.

Over the past centuries, Sylvana had concentrated enormous power in her hands. She headed the Council, controlled a significant part of the state apparatus, and enjoyed the support of most Eternals. Even many Great Houses that disliked her reforms admitted that she was one of the factors keeping the Dominion from falling apart.

At the same time, she was now at the height of her abilities. Sylvana had never stopped training and continued practicing with me whenever the opportunity arose. She knew many of my techniques, understood how I moved and how I used the Gift. In a fair duel, my victory over her was no longer guaranteed, especially now, when Osred's body was only twenty years old and had not yet fully developed.

Of course, if I wanted to, I could still kill her. I would not even need to defeat her in a fair fight. But the two of us possessed so much power that our battle could destroy half the Council palace.

It would be difficult to call that a victory.

The Order of the Flame of Aethra protected the members of the Council and kept several permanent units in the palace. Eternals were almost always present here as well. They might disagree with Sylvana, argue with her, and try to limit her influence, but none of them would calmly watch their leader be murdered. Sooner or later, this body would be destroyed.

After another birth, I would drop out of politics for at least twenty-five years. Formally, Sylvana's place would most likely be taken by one of those I had long prepared as a fallback. But even the most loyal supporter could not fully replace her.

The Dominion would not lose to the rachni in a quarter of a century, but the internal situation could change so much that I would have to spend the next life repairing the consequences. The Houses would begin fighting over the vacant place at the top, the colonies would demand greater autonomy, and the Eternals would once again split into several rival groups.

Besides, there was no need for another civil war now.

"No, Sylvana. I swear I will never do anything that harms the Aiterri."

She gave the slightest shake of her head.

"You acted for the sake of the Aiterri then too, Ael. So that oath tells me nothing."

There was nothing I could say to that. Too many decisions I considered useful for our people could look like crimes from the outside. That oath really would allow me to do almost anything, as long as I could convince myself that the final result would benefit the Dominion.

"I am not preparing another civil war," I said. "I do not intend to destroy the Houses or rebuild the state through another catastrophe. At least not for the next thousand years."

Sylvana remained silent for a while, still watching me. Then some of the tension left her face, though it did not disappear completely.

"Good. Then tell me what you are going to do."

"About what?"

"The war. Even by the most conservative projections, the rachni will be completely defeated no later than a century from now. Possibly much sooner. We have finally accumulated enough strength to break through the fortified systems that have held the Dominion in place for so long. All that remains is to decide how many ships and lives we are willing to spend on it."

She brought up a map of the nearby clusters above the table. Several dozen systems under complete rachni control were marked on it. They had fortified nearly every one of them for more than a century, and some Queens had begun preparing their defenses before the Dominion had even encountered Citadel Space.

"By the way, remind me why we still need to fight for dead worlds?" Sylvana asked. "Most of these planets are useless now."

She was right about that. The rachni did not limit themselves to building hives and underground fortifications. Over decades of occupation, they completely reshaped a biosphere to suit their own needs. They altered the composition of the atmosphere, filled the oceans with their organisms, and spread plants and fungal colonies that displaced native life.

After that, the planet became poisonous not only to the Aiterri. Even Lizards and krogan, capable of surviving conditions lethal to most sapient species, could not remain there for long without protective equipment. Cleaning such a world took decades and cost more than building several new colonies on habitable planets.

"The worlds themselves really aren't always worth the cost," I admitted. "But their biospheres aren't the only thing that interests us."

"What else?"

"Whatever may have survived beneath the hives. Ruins of destroyed civilizations, old data repositories, Prothean ships and beacons. The rachni seized these territories long before they met us. We don't know what was there before them or how many traces they simply built their tunnels over."

"And for the chance of finding a few ancient devices, you're willing to spend another century?"

"Not a few devices. Any information about previous cycles could prove useful. The Protheans fought the Reapers for centuries. Before them, other species existed that also tried to resist. Even if most of what we find turns out to be useless, a single surviving beacon could give us more than decades of our own research."

Sylvana slowly ran her fingers across the map, enlarging one of the fortified systems. Data on the planets, the estimated rachni population, and known defensive installations appeared on the display.

"That explains why you want their territory," she said. "But it doesn't explain what you ultimately want to achieve. I've known you long enough. You wouldn't continue a war like this merely for the hope of finding old ruins."

"I don't have a separate secret plan for the current war. At least not one that is supposed to bear fruit within the next thousand years."

"Then what is your real goal?"

I looked at the map. The Dominion occupied only a small part of the galaxy, but even that territory seemed enormous. Hundreds of inhabited worlds, tens of billions of Aiterri, and billions of members of other species. Fleets, factories, research complexes, and entire planets transformed into unified industrial centers.

Once, it had all begun with a small city Asmund had built among the forests of Aetris.

"I want to make the Dominion the absolute hegemon of the galaxy."

Sylvana did not look surprised. She only leaned back slightly in her chair.

"For the war against the Reapers?"

"So that when they arrive, there will be someone in the galaxy capable of resisting. Citadel Space may not believe our warnings. The asari and salarians will decide that we're trying to frighten them, gain additional authority, or justify our own expansion. In a few centuries, the story of the Reapers may become nothing more than a strange Aiterri religious legend to them."

"But they'll believe in our ships."

"Exactly. If the Dominion keeps expanding, they'll have to maintain large fleets simply to defend themselves from us. They'll have to develop weapons, build fortified systems, and invest in military research. Not because they believe me, but because they won't want to become an appendage of our state one day."

"So you want to force the entire galaxy to prepare for war with us."

"If that's the only way to make it prepare for the Reapers, yes. I don't have to conquer Thessia or subjugate the salarian states. It is enough to make sure they cannot afford weakness. Let them develop, build ships, and search for ways to stop the Dominion. By the time the Reapers arrive, all of it will be on the same side."

Sylvana dismissed the map. For several seconds, she simply sat across from me, staring thoughtfully at the empty table.

"Then finish this war first. And prove that you don't need the next one."

***

Loren Weir

Outside the sealed dome, it was still impossible to breathe without a protective mask.

The air no longer killed after a few breaths as it had ten years ago, but the concentration of rachni toxins remained far too high. Purification stations worked without pause, releasing long trails of white vapor above the plain, while pipes ran along the dried riverbed carrying contaminated water away for processing.

Our transport slowly descended the slope. There was no road here yet, so the heavy six-wheeled vehicle moved along a packed strip between construction beacons. Through the armored glass, I could see the future city: several dozen residential blocks beneath a shared dome, a power station, a landing pad, and hundreds of construction machines.

Tavir sat across from me and remained silent for almost the entire journey. His gaze moved from the gray sky to the brown plains, then to the slender towers of the purification complexes. My antennae could sense his displeasure even without words.

"Did you imagine the new world differently?" I asked.

"I understood there had been a war here. I just didn't think it would be this bad."

"The rachni lived on this planet for more than fifty years. It would be strange to find flowering fields after them."

"It looked better in the Colonial Service recordings."

"Those recordings were made inside the cleared zone."

Tavir looked out the window again. A dark band of the former hive could be seen on the horizon. Its upper levels had been destroyed from orbit during the liberation of the planet, but most of it extended several kilometers underground. The military had been checking the tunnels for eight years and still found isolated chambers filled with eggs and the remains of old biological machines.

Completely destroying the underground network had turned out to be pointless. The rachni had spent decades cutting tunnels through solid rock, and the colonists now intended to make use of the ready-made network. Once the walls were reinforced, freight lines, water mains, power cables, and roads between future cities would run through the former hive. Several large chambers were already being converted into warehouses and industrial complexes.

"We flew here for almost a month," Tavir continued. "Then we spent another three days waiting for permission to cross a military system. And now it turns out the nearest proper city consists of twelve residential blocks."

"Fourteen. Two more entered service last week."

"On Arun, a single residential complex has more people."

"That's exactly why we're here."

He looked at me but said nothing. Tavir had known for a long time that I intended to hand him control of the House's local holdings, although until the very end he had hoped I would change my mind. In the future, he wanted to reach the Citadel, see Thessia, visit the old asari worlds, and spend at least a few years living among beings for whom interstellar travel had long since become routine.

I understood him. When I was young, I too had believed that real life was always happening somewhere far away. But House Weir was too young to waste its best representatives on travel.

"There is almost no room left for us on Arun," I said. "The land is divided among the state, cities, industrial associations, and old families. Even if we buy another factory or residential complex, it won't make us stronger. Everything is only beginning here. No one had time to take the best places before us."

Tavir ran his fingers over the base of his skull, where the biotic implant lay beneath the skin. He often did that when he was nervous. The implant itself had not caused him pain for a long time, but the habit had remained from the first months after the operation.

His Gift had been discovered in childhood. During an ordinary medical examination, sensors recorded slight changes in the mass of nearby objects. A few days later, specialists from the Protectorate confirmed that element zero was accumulating in the boy's neural tissue.

His parents were ordinary employees of the city's transit system. They could give him neither the education nor the implant nor the safe training he needed. Without training, the Gift would most likely have remained weak or eventually injured the child himself. So House Weir paid for everything.

We did not take him away from his family. His parents retained the right to see him, and after coming of age Tavir could have returned to them and rejected his new name. But he stayed. Too much of his life was already tied to the House, and the opportunities before him far exceeded anything his parents could offer.

Now he bore my family name and called me father. I had never demanded that he forget those who had given him life.

"Your mother wrote again," I told him. "She and your father are ready to move here if you finally accept control of the colony."

Tavir straightened a little.

"They didn't tell me."

"Because the decision hasn't been made yet. They've been offered housing in Sector Three and jobs with the transport authority."

"But they've lived on Arun their whole lives."

"And they're tired of waiting ten years for an apartment with two extra rooms."

There was nothing he could say to that. Eighteen billion Aruns already lived on our homeworld, and the population continued to grow. New cities were being built faster than in previous centuries, but that did not make the planet any larger. Every expansion had to be carefully calculated so as not to destroy the remaining natural zones or disrupt the climate-control systems.

Arun had not become one endless slum. Most of the population lived in enormous compact cities connected by high-speed rail lines. Residential districts extended deep underground and rose hundreds of stories into the air. Between them remained forests, lakes, agricultural zones, and entire territories that could not be entered without permission from the environmental service.

Almost half of all food came from enclosed hydroponic farms. Water passed through closed-loop purification systems, waste was recycled, and urban transit carried billions of passengers without the use of private vehicles. From above, Arun looked far greener than many less populated worlds.

But beneath that order lay constant difficulties. The cities produced enormous quantities of heat, and a significant share of all energy went into cooling. Housing was built continuously, yet waiting lists still stretched for years. The planet depended on shipments of metals and fuel from other systems, and any delay in transport immediately affected prices.

The Protectorate deliberately encouraged population growth. After the war, the Dominion would need workers, engineers, scientists, and colonists. No one intended to restrict births simply because the homeworld was becoming crowded. Instead, the Protectorate Council was preparing the Aruns for resettlement.

Seven new planets were to receive hundreds of millions of inhabitants over the coming decades.

"More than ten million sapients live on the Citadel," Tavir said. "And no one says they've run out of room there."

"The Citadel is a station only a few dozen kilometers long. It depends completely on outside supplies and spends enormous resources merely to sustain life. That is not a model for an entire planet."

"But every species in the galaxy is there. You can meet asari, salarians, quarians, volus. You can see ships that aren't built anywhere in the Dominion. And here I'm going to spend years watching workers reinforce the walls of an old hive."

He turned away in displeasure. Tavir considered himself worthy of more, and he had reason to. His Gift surpassed the abilities of most gifted Aruns, and his implant allowed him to lift several tons and create a field strong enough to stop a light vehicle.

For the Aiterri, that still amounted to the level of a weak Blessed. Among our people, only a handful possessed such strength.

Once, the Aruns had known nothing of the Gift at all. Our civilization had developed without the gifted. There had only been rare legends of moving objects and strange incidents that scientists could not explain. Everything changed after several shipwrecks.

The reactors of the crashed vessels released large amounts of element zero into the atmosphere. Thousands of Aruns and Aiterri suffered Aether poisoning, most of them died, and years later some of the survivors began having children with unusual abilities.

The Council of Eternals proclaimed that they had received the blessing of Aethra.

The official history held that the goddess had turned her attention to our people after the Aiterri saved Arun from the rachni. We had become part of the Dominion, accepted its laws, and proved our loyalty, and so the first Blessed appeared among us.

Later, secret Dominion laboratories developed a method that made it possible to noticeably increase the number of gifted children. No one said exactly what research had led to the result. It was only known that the program had originally been developed not for us, and that the desired effect had been discovered by accident.

The method was transferred to the Protectorate almost free of charge. In return, Arun armies had to clear an entire planet of the rachni.

That war lasted sixteen years. More than two million soldiers died in the assaults, and several million more were wounded or developed serious illnesses. Only after the final hive had been completely destroyed did the Dominion hand the full protocol over to the Protectorate's physicians.

My mother became one of the first participants in the program. Thanks to that, I was born, and a few decades later, hundreds more like me followed. That was how the first Arun Houses appeared.

Formally, the Aiterri recognized us as part of their aristocracy. A gifted Arun could found a minor House, accept new members, own enterprises, and participate in the work of state institutions. In time, one Arun House even gained Middle House status.

But we never became equals of the strongest Aiterri.

Our Gift was limited to the control of gravity. We could attract and repel objects, change their mass, create local fields and barriers. But we could not strengthen our bodies the way the Aiterri could, create fire, or control electricity. Even the strongest Arun with the best implant was inferior to the scion of an ordinary Middle House.

The transport crossed the boundary of the cleared zone. A blue line flashed across the glass, and the air-quality readings on the internal display improved noticeably. A few minutes later, we drove beneath the colony's outer dome.

Everything here was built to Arun proportions. Ceilings were low, doors narrow, and the passages between buildings took up as little space as possible. Separate residential blocks existed for Aiterri and Lizards, where they did not have to constantly duck.

Thousands of beings worked in the streets. Construction crews laid pavement, installed lighting lines, and erected new sealed sections. Small cargo platforms moved among them, some under remote control.

Aiterri were rare. Several engineers were supervising the installation of a reactor, soldiers were checking entrances to the underground levels, and a group of specialists in white uniforms stood outside the medical center. The Aruns did most of the work.

"One hundred and twenty thousand Aruns already live here," I said. "By the end of the year, there will be two hundred thousand. Within five years, the plan is to move more than a million."

"If no one changes their mind about coming."

"Five million families on Arun have applied to the colonization program."

The transport stopped at the edge of the construction site. Representatives of the local administration and two House Weir engineers met us. I dismissed them after a short report. All the information I needed was already on my terminal, and lengthy greetings only wasted time.

Tavir and I climbed to an observation platform. From there, we could see the first city sector and the entrance to the former hive. The tunnel had been widened, its walls covered with metal panels, and a freight railway already ran through the center. Trains delivered equipment to the underground purification stations and carried processed chitin out.

"In two years, this will be the main industrial district," I explained. "The upper chambers will be used for warehouses and production. Once sealed, the lower levels will become reservoirs and power facilities. We won't have to spend decades excavating rock."

"Are you really going to build our main city inside a rachni hive?"

"Partly. Most residential districts will remain on the surface. Our military forces are checking every level now. In a few generations, these will simply be underground spaces."

For us, the war with the rachni had begun with Tedros. Forty million inhabitants died during the first landing, and the site of the city became an enormous hive. Even centuries later, the name still evoked similar feelings among the Aruns.

The Protectorate Council had decided to name the first city on this planet New Tedros. I had not taken part in the vote, but I supported the decision. The rachni had destroyed the old city and tried to exterminate our entire species. Now their own tunnels would become the foundation of a new one.

"Isn't the House allocating too much money to this colony?" Tavir asked. "We could invest in a merchant fleet or buy a stake in one of the orbital shipyards."

"And remain one of dozens of minor Houses. On Arun, every major industry already belongs to someone. Here, we're building it first. We own the land within the colonial zone, the enterprises we build, the residential complexes, and the contracts for maintaining the infrastructure. House Weir does not own the planet. But in twenty years, most of its economy will depend on companies we created."

Tavir looked carefully at the city.

"And when the population grows, the Protectorate Council can revise the agreements."

"It can. That's why we have to be useful to more than ourselves."

I showed him the plans for the first university. The educational complex would be built beside the administrative center. It would train engineers, physicians, climate-system specialists, and future administrators for the other Arun colonies.

The university would not bring a quick profit. But a few decades from now, nearly every important specialist on this world would be connected to House Weir.

"Power cannot be built on property alone," I continued. "A factory can be bought, sold, or transferred to the state. People remember those who gave them education, work, and protection."

We walked along the edge of the platform. Below, several workers were installing a section of the future water main. One of the cranes stopped when its load struck a support. I extended a hand, caught the heavy pipe in a field, and lifted it slightly. The workers quickly realigned the fastenings, after which the crane resumed moving.

Tavir watched me with mild confusion.

"They could have called a second operator for that. Why did you interfere? Heads of Aiterri Houses don't help workers install pipes."

"You've spent too little time around heads of Aiterri Houses. You shouldn't judge them too harshly simply because they stand above us. Some really wouldn't have noticed what was happening. Others would have gone down themselves and checked the quality of the fastenings. Aiterri Blessed do not hold power through strength alone. For centuries, they have proved that they can perform tasks unavailable to Mortals and make decisions whose consequences last longer than an ordinary lifetime."

We would have to do the same.

"The Gift by itself does not give anyone the right to rule others," I said. "It gives you the opportunity to live longer, receive a better education, and be more useful. The right comes after that."

"But the Council of Houses recognizes us precisely because of the Gift."

"The Council recognizes our right to establish a House. The Aruns themselves will listen to us only as long as they believe we do a better job."

"And if they don't?"

"Then power will remain with the Protectorate, and our Houses will become wealthy families without any real influence."

Tavir slowly nodded.

That was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Blessed Aruns were still too few in number simply to demand power. We were respected, sometimes feared, but most inhabitants still saw the Houses as an order borrowed from the Aiterri.

The first generations of the Arun elite had to prove that their existence benefited the entire people. They had to build colonies, fund universities, defend cities, and make decisions whose consequences would only appear decades later. Only then would the Blessed take the same place in society that the Aiterri already occupied in the Dominion. Not above the people, but ahead of them.

At least, that was how it ought to be phrased.

"Has the transfer of the cluster been completed?" Tavir asked.

"Almost. A few issues with the Lizards remain."

"I thought everything had already been divided."

"The habitable worlds have. The Aruns received seven, the Lizards four. But the boundaries of the transport zones are still being clarified."

"And the two systems with relays?"

"They'll remain under direct Dominion administration. Military bases, customs stations, and traffic-control services will be stationed there."

"So the cluster still isn't ours."

"It is inside the Dominion. No world exists separately from the state."

"The Aiterri Great Houses have fleets of their own."

"They have ships commanded by the Dominion fleet. Formal ownership does not let them wage war independently or close the relays."

Tavir thought about my words for a while longer. He disliked the fact that the Aruns had received not complete independence, but only colonization rights and internal self-government. Such ideas were becoming increasingly popular among young Blessed.

They had been born after the salvation of Arun and did not remember a time when a single rachni fleet could have exterminated our entire species. To them, the Dominion was not a savior but simply a natural part of the world. They saw the restrictions, but did not always think about where the security, technology, and ability to travel between stars had come from.

I did not consider that ingratitude. The memory of one generation rarely survived the next.

"We can determine the laws of the colonies ourselves," I explained. "We can dispose of the land, build cities, create enterprises, and resettle citizens here. No one forbids us from developing our own culture. The fleet, foreign policy, and the relays remain with the Council of Eternals. That's how the entire Dominion works."

"Even if, a hundred years from now, more Aruns live in this cluster than Aiterri? You're fine with that?"

I looked at the working city. A small warship passed above the dome, checking the airspace.

"The Dominion has protected us for more than two centuries. The Aiterri gave us technologies that allow Arun to sustain eighteen billion inhabitants. They gave us the opportunity to settle seven new worlds. I see no reason to destroy that system merely for the right to send ambassadors to the Citadel ourselves."

"But you want our Houses to gain more power."

"Within the Protectorate. Aruns should be governed by those who understand our people and can answer for them for longer than one short lifetime."

"In other words, the Blessed."

"Primarily the Blessed. But the Gift alone is not enough."

I looked at him, and Tavir finally averted his eyes.

He was capable, educated, and strong. But for now, he saw his position in the House as a reward for his own exceptional nature. He still had to understand that it was not a reward, but a duty.

Below, the first workers who had finished their shift appeared. They headed toward the residential blocks in small groups. Some stopped when they noticed us on the platform and raised their hands in greeting.

I returned the gesture.

Tavir did the same a few seconds later.

"Arun receives more tourists every year," he said after the workers had gone. "Maybe some of them would agree to fly here too."

"For now, there's nothing here for them to see."

"We could run tours through the old hives. Once the military declares them safe."

Our homeworld really had become one of the Dominion's major tourist destinations. For most Aiterri, a journey there remained their only chance to see Aruns, apart from the rare specialists and soldiers found in other systems. Around a million Lizards and almost five million Aiterri lived on Arun, but against a population of eighteen billion they disappeared into the enormous cities.

Visitors were interested in more than our appearance. They wanted to see a civilization that had reached the space age without the gifted, Eternals, or Houses. They visited old parliaments, museums of the first states, restored districts of Tedros, and temples built long before the cult of Aethra appeared.

Some Aruns were irritated that their ordinary lives had become tourist attractions. In tourist districts, simplified traditional clothing was sold, dishes were made less spicy for Aiterri, and festival rituals were performed several times a day for new groups of visitors.

But tourism brought enormous amounts of money. It made it possible to maintain museums, restore old cities, and preserve the languages of smaller peoples that might otherwise gradually disappear under the influence of the Dominion's common culture.

"You said you wanted to see other worlds," I reminded him. "Millions of beings come to Arun every year precisely because they consider it another world."

"I've seen Arun my whole life."

"Which is why you've stopped noticing the things they cross several clusters to see."

"Would you want to live here permanently yourself?"

"For a few decades, yes."

Tavir looked at me skeptically.

"You'll leave the Protectorate Council?"

"I can participate in its sessions from here. And I'll hand most of the day-to-day work over to my deputies."

We left the observation platform and headed toward the administrative center. In the square before it, workers were raising the flag of the Arun Protectorate. The banners of the Dominion and House Weir were already flying beside it.

The three symbols did not contradict one another. The House was responsible for the city, the Protectorate for the Arun worlds, the Dominion for the entire state. In time, the boundaries between them would certainly become a source of disputes, but for now the system worked.

A group of future colonial officials waited for us at the entrance. Most were ordinary Aruns who had undergone training on the homeworld. There were only two Blessed among them, both very young and not yet fitted with implants.

They looked at Tavir with poorly concealed admiration.

He noticed. His back straightened, and his earlier displeasure almost disappeared.

"In a month, recruitment for the first permanent administration will begin," I said. "I need someone to take charge of its training."

"You want to entrust that to me?"

"At first, together with me. In a few years, on your own."

Tavir looked first at the officials, then at the unfinished buildings behind them. I could see that the new life still did not fill him with enthusiasm. But at least now he had begun to see it as something other than exile.

"How long will it take to build the city?" he asked.

"It won't be finished within our lifetimes. If a city keeps growing, its construction never truly ends."

He looked at the flags again. This time, there was none of the earlier disappointment in his gaze.

For the Protectorate, this planet was only one of seven new worlds. For the Dominion, it was another liberated territory that still had to be cleansed and settled. For most colonists, it was a chance to obtain spacious housing, good work, and a future for their children.

For House Weir, it could become the beginning of real power.

And if we did everything right, a few decades from now Tavir would no longer dream of leaving this world. He would be deciding who was allowed to move here.