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target had only five per cent of the mass it had when it left that railgun,’ Dr Tallendin explained. ‘Standard tungsten-based alloys with carbon nanotube layering can withstand the reduced kinetic energy transferred at impact.’
    ‘How long can you hold that shield up?’ Vladric asked.
    ‘The energy cost is low, but it takes some time for resonance generation to recover from impact,’ the doctor answered. ‘Unfortunately, the degradation penalty is high, to the order of thirty per cent per second or so.’
    ‘So three seconds to fully recover from a direct hit?’ Sig clarified.
    ‘From an inert round, yes. And explosive warheads will still detonate on contact with the shield barrier. But with the MK50’s low rate of fire, the odds of successive rounds striking the same location during combat are very low, assuming the Navy doesn’t know how this defensive system works.’
    ‘They don’t know,’ Vladric interjected. ‘How soon can you equip the fleet with this?’
    Dr Tallendin looked at him as though he were kidding, which Sig could tell he regretted almost immediately.
    ‘The
fleet
?’ he croaked. ‘I can deliver a corvette or two with the equipment we have here, but setting up a manufacturing line for the generators would take—’
    ‘I’ll give you
total
control of Ceti’s resources to make this happen as soon as possible,’ Vladric said.
    Dr Tallendin was sceptical.
    ‘I am honoured, but …’
    ‘Ceti’s shipyards, Lethe’s mines, the Belt’s labs, every ship in our fleet, every manufacturing plant we have, and my personal word to procure anything else you need,’ Vladric insisted. ‘All you’d have to do is ask.’
    Sig knew nothing of the technology, other than the fact it had been stolen. But the corporations that built up Lethe had done so with a mega-industrial output in mind, and Ceti had managed to attract smart people who knew how to use its infrastructure to maximum effect.
    ‘I’ll find a way,’ Dr Tallendin finally said.
    ‘Now that’s an attitude I can admire,’ Vladric said. ‘Succeed, and you’ll keep some of the power I’m giving you now to make this work.’
    Dr Tallendin knew better than to ask the price of failure.

5
     
VIOLA
     
    There was white water on the Danube this morning, and Viola had to push herself to keep pace with its swift current. She raced off the pathway marked for joggers and into the brush parallel to the river, vaulting over and under obstacles that had once left her bloody. As much as she loved the challenge, it was the sound of the running, churning water that invigorated her most. There were few places like this, and soon it would be truly unique in Orionis. The station engineers had warned residents about the speedier currents as a consequence of a larger eco-engineering effort to introduce fish stocks, a first since the colonisation of Orionis.
    The ‘Danube River’, named after its ancient ancestor, ran through the entire nineteen-kilometre circumference of the torus-shaped station Luminosity
.
It wound through forests, orchards, and grasslands grown from original seeds and reconstructed genotypes that had arrived with the
Tabit Genesis
in 2638. Viola felt a surge of invigoration as she leapt over a rock outcrop, propelling herself even faster through the course. The air was thick with scents of natural vegetation growth and decay, so unlike the scrubbed, sterile gas of most ships and stations.
    Curving far ahead and above her, she could see a radiant beam of reflected sunlight illuminating the darkness beyond. Were there such a thing as paradise, it would look like this. Bounding through a small stream, Viola relished the splashing of water beneath her soles, knowing it would be some time before she felt it again. Such was the price of curiosity. For today she would begin a comprehensive study of the Arkady species on Zeus, under the sponsorship and supervision of Merckon Industries.
    This could well be the greatest day of her