The Domination

Epilogue III

OBSERVATORY DECK

DASCS LIONHEAR

NEAR PLUTO

OCTOBER 5, 2000

The bright dot of the New America’s drive was another star among many, in the screen that fronted the darkened chamber. Gwendolyn Ingolfsson hung before it, lost and rapt, unconscious even of the man whose arm was linked with hers.

“Oh, gods,” she whispered; starlight broke on tears. “How I envy them!”

LOW EARTH ORBIT

JULY 1, 2014

INGOLFSSON INCURSION TIMELINE

EARTH/2B

Nomura sat silent for a long time. “Obviously, that was not the end of the story,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.” Carmaggio nodded, running a hand over jowls that rasped with blue-black stubble. “You’ve been working on the physics parts of IngolfTech. What else do we sell?”

Nomura looked down, to where an Australia whose deserts were turning green passed by, and up—to his employer, a man in his sixties who looked and probably felt younger than he had in the last year of the old century.

“Biology,” he whispered. “Genetic technology.”

“The New Race they created replaced them—ironic justice, but it doesn’t do shit to help us. Homo Drakensis; and homo servus to serve them. One of them came here.”

The physicist’s ears perked up. “Cross . . . temporal travel?”

“Time travel and cross-temporal travel; they were working on using wormholes for FTL, and something went wrong.”

“Wrong?”

Carmaggio nodded. “You’re going to be among about twenty people who know the truth, about the one specimen of homo drakensis we got handed by accident.” He smiled wryly at the eagerness behind the younger man’s poker face. “And you’re going to regret knowing it,” he said. “Welcome to the Nightmare Club. Because somewhere out there”—his nod indicated a direction beyond the universe that turned outside the windows—“they’re still waiting. They know about us. They’re trying to find us. And they’re hungry.”