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terrorism into conventional conflict — destruction of Federation industry, and then invasion. You can’t win …”
    “I’m not planning to win. How many times do I have to say it? I want to hurt them, make them know that we live and remember.”
    “And you want to continue with that indefinitely?”
    “Who’s to say that we won’t find wider support later,” Gorgias said.
    “I don’t want to argue — I’m here, that should be enough for you.”
    The older man turned and left the cabin.
    Gorgias shrugged and turned back to the screen. On the plain below, the smoke was a billowing, churning darkness pushing up toward the sky. Suddenly he wanted to hear the screaming rush of the ship through atmosphere, feel the kick of its shock wave pass over the dead town. He was just beginning on the road that would lead to the return of the Herculean Empire. He felt the will of his people surge through him as the ship shot through the curtain of smoke and out into a deep blue sky, which grew purple as he climbed, blackening into a void of bright stars. The nearby sun pulsed with anger, but could do nothing against him.
    Gorgias touched the controls and the ship began to run at the sun, accelerating to a few percent of light speed. Slowly the star grew in size, seething with the same energy he felt within himself; the star was his enemy, a watchdog that had failed to protect its planet.
    When he had absorbed his fill of the star’s intensity, he turned it off by switching the ship into jumpspace, abandoning again the universe of violent colors for the dead space of black suns.
    For a long time he sat before the screen, thinking about his father’s ambivalence. The gray-white jumpspace seemed a bit different this time, suggesting strong light trying to break in from a space beyond; maybe somewhere a waterfall of light marked the frontier between the two kinds of space. He imagined the light of a universe spilling over into an abyss, a cosmos dying in one place and being born again elsewhere.
    There was only one thing to do now — strike somewhere else as soon as possible, just in case there was no one left alive on Precept to report the raid.
    He would need an invasion force, his father had said. Gorgias made a mental note to question Myraa again about the story of the Herculean army which had fled into the Lesser Magellanic Cloud toward the end of the war. He would have to find out if this was true or just a legend; if true, he would make an effort to contact the force, or its descendants. They might have ships and weapons that would be of use to his campaign.
    Passing his hand over the panel, he summoned the star charts onto the screen and began searching for a new target.
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V. The Legacy
    “There will always be those who must look into the dark in order to see.”
    — Alan McGlashan
    EARTH’S SUN SETTLEMENTS sparkled across the New Zealand night, a ring of habitats encircling the planet, creating the illusion of an arch standing in the ocean. Rafael Kurbi sat with Grazia on the terrace of their seaside house. The waters were swallowing the ring as the night wore on, but there was always more coming up from the other horizon as the Earth turned.
    Tightening his arm around Grazia, he thought, I could drift off into death now and not mind . Immediately the thought startled him, as once the idea of his own existence had surprised him. He relaxed. I can live as long as I wish, but my life is precarious and could just as easily have not existed .
    “What is it, Raf?”
    “Oh, nothing. Just bored, I suppose.”
    “With me?”
    He looked into her dark eyes, enjoying the paleness of her skin in starlight, and wondered how long peace and satisfaction could be endured. Strange thought, since satisfaction must by its very nature be enough, always, he told himself unconvincingly. Perhaps there was too much order, too much tolerance and not enough conflict.
    There was plenty of disorder in the planetary