viewports, then removed the hull so that viewers could see the entire site, including the two-hundred-year-old footprints in the lunar dust.
“What does it say, Daddy?” Mary asked, and pointed at the plaque affixed to one leg. Winn noted the hush that had come over the crowd as he quietly cleared his throat and recited the inscription that he had memorized so many years ago:
“It says, ‘HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.’”
FALLEN
L. E. MODESITT, JR.
I.
“In accordance with aetherial doctrine, the colonists have been epigenetically implanted with the standard ethical proscriptions.”
“In an unstructured setting, that could doom them.”
“You would deny them all that has made harmony and order possible?”
“In an unstructured environment, aetherial harmony and order do not exist.”
“Then all the more need for implanted proscriptions.”
“That will not work. The protocols would conflict.”
“There is no way and no time to remove the proscriptions.”
“It can be done on-site. You know that.”
“That would require one of Us. Who would wish to leave everything . . . for mere dreamers? You?”
“Why not?”
“You’d do that? Be entombed with them? And then re-embodied?”
“If there’s a link from the coffin to the Stop-Captain.”
“Even so . . . I must protest.”
“Protest will avail you nothing. I have the authorization to decide on-site.”
“Then I must also accompany the ark.” The speaker vanishes.
Estafen shudders at the conflict that awaits him so many years in the future.
II.
The ark hung in the sky, bathed in sunlight that could not heat it, shielded by shining gopher-steel against the chill of the airless darkness that made ice seem like water boiling by contrast . . . and within the endless corridors . . .
Go-Captain to Stop-Captain. The unspoken words flashed along the lightning lines from the bridge.
Stop-Captain standing by.
Proceed with download preparation.
Proceeding this time.
A shadowy figure appeared in the empty corridor outside the octagonal structure that both contained and embodied, in its own fashion, the Stop-Captain, a figure shadowy because no light would fall upon that presence. The figure moved silently toward the bays that held the rows upon rows of dreamers.
Stop-Captain, interrogative manifestation?
Go-Captain, authorized subroutine. Proceeding with inspection and preparation for download.
Stop-Captain, no additional preparation required.
Proceeding with inspection.
Request removal of unauthorized energy manifestation.
Proceeding as authorized.
The shadow figure reached the emergency manual-input console, extended a single digit, and pressed.
INPUT AUTHORIZATION appeared on the screen.
A code slowly appeared beneath the command, squeezed out character by character, since the shadow manifestation was not designed for physical input, and each character required energy pressure.
AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED. READY FOR INPUT.
Five yards away, in the direction of the bridge, also on the ramparts above the dreamers, appeared a figure in white, flashes of lightning sparking from its extremities. One of the lightning bolts flashed toward the shadowy figure, but the dark figure created a blade of even deeper darkness, flicking it into a block and a parry of the lightning, and the two met in blinding radiance—
* * *
—
Puffy white clouds dotted the deep blue sky above the harbor, a sky darkening as the yellow-white sun began to shift hues toward orange as it inexorably dropped toward the stone buildings west of the piers where Estafen found himself standing. He glanced around, taking in the wooden ship with three levels of oar ports. A trireme! The word came from somewhere.
Two men wearing polished bronze breastplates and iron-studded leather wrist and forearm gauntlets stood on the pier not ten yards away, guarding the gangway to the ship. Scabbarded shortswords hung from their wide leather belts. Estafen looked past the guards to see two more nearly identical triremes tied up along the stone pier that stretched out into the grayish-blue water.
He wasn’t looking for ships. That he knew. He just had to find the