There had only ever been a few hundred thousand of her kind, spread across the seas and plains of Mars. They had never had names; there were only ever so few that names were unnecessary. She had been aware of every one of them, like voices dimly heard in the echoes of a vast cathedral.

She was very aware that they had all gone, all of them. Hers was a loneliness no human could have imagined.

And the approaching Firstborn weapon, Marss own Q-bomb, had gone too.

Just before the Discontinuity she had been working at the Martian pole, tending the trap of distorted spacetime within which she and her fellow workers had managed to capture the Firstborn Eye. To senses enhanced to see the distortion of space, the weapon was very visible, at the zenith, driving straight down from the sky toward the Martian pole.

And then came the time-slicing. The Eye remained in its cage. The Firstborn weapon was gone.

This time-sliced Mars was a ruin, the atmosphere only a thin veneer of carbon dioxide, only traces of frost in the beds of the vanished oceans, and dust storms towering over an arid landscape sterilized by the suns ultraviolet. In places the cities of her kind still stood, abandoned, even their lights burning in some cases. But her fellows were gone. And when she dug into the arid, toxic dirt, she found only methanogens and other simple bacteria, thinly spread, an echo of the great rich communities that had once inhabited this world. Scrapings that were her own last descendants.

She was alone. A toy of the Firstborn. Resentment seethed.

The Martians had thought they came to understand the Firstborn, to a degree.

The Firstborn must have been very old.

They may even be survivors of the First Days, the Martians thought, an age that began just half a billion years after the Big Bang itself, when the universe turned transparent, and the light of the very first stars shone uncertainly. That was why the Firstborn triggered instabilities in stars. In their day, all the stars had been unstable.

And if they were old, they were conservative. To achieve their goals they caused stars to flare or go nova, or change their variability, not to detonate entirely. They sent their cosmological bombs to sterilize worlds, not to shatter them. They appeared to be trying to shut down energy-consuming cultures as economically as possible.

To understand why they did this, the Martians tried to look at themselves through the eyes of a Firstborn.

The universe is full of energy, but much of it is at equilibrium. At equilibrium no energy can flow, and therefore it cannot be used for work, any more than the level waters of a pond can be used to drive a water-wheel. It is on the flow of energy out of equilibriumthe small fraction of useful energy, exergythat life depends.

And everywhere, exergy was being wasted.

Everywhere, evolution drove the progression of life to ever more complex forms, which depended on an ever faster usage of the available energy flow. And then there was intelligence. Civilizations were like experiments in ways of using up exergy faster.

From the Firstborns lofty point of view, the Martians speculated, the products of petty civilizations like their own were irrelevant. All that mattered was the flow of exergy, and the rate at which it was used up.

Surely a civilization so old as the Firstborn, so arbitrarily advanced, would become concerned with the destiny of the cosmos as a whole, and of the usage of its finite resources. The longer you wanted your culture to last, the more carefully you had to husband those resources.

If you wanted to reach the very far futurethe Last Days, when the surge of quintessence finally ended the age of matterthe restrictions were harsh. The Martians own calculations indicated that the universe could bear only one world as populous and energy-hungry as their own, one world in each of the universes hundred billion empty galaxies, if the Last Days were to be reached.

The Firstborn must have seen that if life were to survive in the very long termif even a single thread of awareness was to be passed to the furthest futurediscipline was needed on a cosmic scale. There must be no unnecessary disturbance, no wasted energy, no ripples in the stream of time.

Life: there was nothing more precious to the Firstborn. But it had to be the right kind of life. Orderly, calm, disciplined. Sadly, that was rare.

Certainly they regretted what they did. They watched the destruction they wreaked, and constructed time-sliced samples of the worlds they ruined, and popped them in pocket universes. But the Martian knew that in this toy universe the positive of its mass-energy was balanced out by the negative of gravity. And when it died, as soon it must, the energy sums would cancel out, a whole cosmos lapsing to the abstraction of zero.

The Firstborn were economical even in their expressions of regret.

The Martians argued among themselves as to why the Firstborn were so intent on reaching the Last Days.

Perhaps it derived from their origin. Perhaps in their coming of awareness in the First Days they had encounteredanother. One as far beyond their cosmos as they were beyond the toy universes in which they stored their time-slice worlds. One who would return in the Last Days, to consider what should be saved.

The Firstborn probably believed that in their universal cauterization they were being benevolent.

The last Martian pondered the signal from Mir.

Those on Mir had no wish to submit to the Firstborns hammer blow. Nor had the Martians wanted to see their culture die for the sake of a neurosis born when the cosmos was young. So they fought back. Just as the creatures from Mir, and its mother world in the parent universe, were trying to fight back now.

Her choice was clear.

It took her seven Martian days to make the preparations.

While she worked she considered her own future. She knew that this pocket cosmos was dying. She had no desire to die with it. And she knew that her own only possible exit was via another Firstborn artifact, clearly visible in her enhanced senses, an artifact nestling on the third planet.

All that for the future.

Unfortunately the implosion of the spacetime cage would damage her spire of ice. She began the construction of a new one, some distance away. The work pleased her.

The new spire was no more than half-finished when, following the modifications she had made, the gravitational cage crushed the Firstborn Eye.

51: DECISION.

There was only one Eye, though it had many projections into spacetime. And it had many functions.

One of those was to serve as a conduit of information.

When the Martian trap closed, the Eye there emitted a signal of distress. A shriek, transmitted to all its sister projections.

The Q-bomb was the only Firstborn artifact in the solar system, save for the Eye trapped in its Pit on Mars. And the Q-bomb sensed that shriek, a signal it could neither believe nor understand.

Troubled, it looked ahead.

There before the Q-bomb, a glittering toy, floated the planet Earth with all its peoples. Down there on that crowded globe, alarms were flashing across innumerable softscreens, the great telescopes were searching the skiesand an uncertain humanity feared that history was drawing to a close.

The Q-bomb could become master of this world. But the cry it had heard caused it conflict. Conflict that had to be resolved by a decision.

The bomb marshaled its cold thoughts, brooding over its still untested powers. And it turned away.

PART 5 LAST CONTACTS.

52: PARADE.

Bisesa and Emeline stepped out of the apartment for the last time. They were both laden with backpacks and valises. The sky was a lid, but at least it wasnt snowing.

Emeline locked up her apartment carefully, and tucked the keys away in a pocket in her thick fur coat. Of course she would never come this way again, and it wouldnt be long before the ice came and crushed the building. But Emeline locked up even so. Bisesa said nothing; she would have done exactly the same.

Bisesa made sure one more time that she had brought out the only possession of real importance to her: her phone, tucked into an inside pocket with its spacesuit battery packs.

Then they set off for Michigan Avenue.

Michigan, a canyon of concrete and brick running between blackened skyscrapers and shut-up stores, was always a wind tunnel, and Emeline and Bisesa turned away from the north to protect their eyes.

But the procession was already gathering, thousands of people standing around in the frozen mud, gradually forming up into an orderly column. Bisesa hadnt known there were still so many left in Chicago. There were carriages of every kind, from farmyard carts to graceful phaetons and stanhopes, with those stocky Arctic-adapted horses harnessed up. Even the citys grip-car streetcars were standing ready to roll one last time, full of passengers.

Most people, though, were on foot, with bundles on their backs or in barrows, and with their children or grandchildren holding their hands. Many of the Chicagoans were bundled up in their Arctic furs, but today some defied the elements and wore what looked like their Sunday best, frock coats and sweeping gowns, top hats and fur coats. Even the citys many prostitutes had come out into the light. With painted lips and rouged cheeks and defiant flashes of ankle or cleavage, they laughed and flirted like colourful birds. There was an excited buzz of conversation.

The parade was to be led by gleaming black carriages that lined up outside the Lexington Hotel. These would carry the citys dignitaries, principally Mayor Rices relatives and allies. Thomas Edison, it was rumored, was wrapped up in blankets in a carriage of his own design, heated and lit by a portable electric generator.

Rices own carriage of polished wood and black ribbon was at the very head of the procession, and Bisesa was astounded to see that it was to be drawn by a woolly mammoth. The animal was restless. It raised its head with that odd bulge over the crown, and its long tusks curled bright in the air. As its nervous handlers beat at it with rods and whips, it trumpeted, a brittle call that echoed from the windows of the skyscrapers. It was quite a stunt for Rice, Bisesa admitted grudginglyjust as long as the mammoth didnt wreck the carriage it was supposed to haul.

The whole thing was a spectacle, just as it was meant to be, and Bisesa admired Rice and his advisors for setting it up this way, and for choosing the date. On Mir this was July 4, according to the calendars devised by the university astronomers.

But this Independence Day parade was actually the final abandonment of old Chicago. These were not revelers but refugees, and they faced a great trial, a long walk all the way down through the suburbs and out of the city, heading south, ever south, to a hopeful new home beyond the ice. Even now there were some who refused to join the flight, hooligans and hedonists, drunks and deadbeats, and a few stubborn types who simply wouldnt leave their homes. Few expected these refuseniks to survive another winter.

Human life would go on here, then. But today saw the end of civilized Chicago. And beyond the bright human chatter Bisesa could hear the growl of the patient ice.

Emeline led Bisesa to their place among the respectable folk who massed behind the lead carriages. Drummers waited in a block, shivering, their mittened hands clutching their sticks.

They quickly found Harry and Joshua, Emelines sons. Harry, the older son and walkaway, had returned to help his mother leave the city. Bisesa was glad to see them. Both tall, lean, well-muscled young men, dressed in well-worn coats of seal fur and with their faces greased against the cold, they looked adapted for the new world. With the boys, Bisesa thought her own chances of surviving this trek were much improved.

Gifford Oker came pushing out of the crowd to meet them. He was encased in an immense black fur coat, with a cylindrical hat pulled right down to his eye line. He carried only a light backpack with cardboard tubes protruding from it. Madam Dutt, Mrs. White. Im glad to have found you.

Emeline said playfully, Youre not too heavily laden, Professor. What are these documents?

Star charts, he said firmly. The true treasure of our civilization. A few books toooh, what a horror it was that we were not able to empty the libraries! For once a book is lost to the ice, a little more of our past is gone forever. But as to my personal effects, my pots and pans, I have my own troop of slave bearers to help me with all that. They are called graduate students.

Another stiff professors joke. Bisesa laughed politely.

Madam Dutt, I suppose you know that Jacob Rice is looking for you. Hell wait until the procession is underway. But he wants you to come see him in his carriage. He has Abdikadir at his side already.

He does? I had hoped Abdikadir would be with you. Abdi had been working on astronomy projects with Oker and his students.

But Oker shook his head. What the mayor asks for, the mayor gets.

I suppose it might be worth a ride in the warmth for a bit. What does he want?

Oker cocked an eyebrow. I think you know. He wants to drain your knowledge of Alexander and his Old World empire. Sarissae and steam enginesI admit Im intrigued myself!

She smiled. Hes still dreaming of world domination?

Look at it from Rices point of view, Oker said. This is the completion of one great project, the migration from the old Chicago to the new, a work that has consumed his energies for years. Jacob Rice is still a young man, and a hungry and energetic one, and I suppose we should be glad of that or we surely wouldnt have got as far as this. Now he looks for a new challenge.

This world is a pretty big place, Bisesa said. Room enough for everybody.

But not infinite, Oker said. And after all we have already made tentative contacts across the ocean. Rice is no Alexander, Im convinced of that, but neither he nor the Great King are going to submit to the other.

And, you know, there may be something worth fighting for. Rice has accepted what you and Abdikadir have said of the future. He has demanded of his scientists, specifically of me, to explore ways to avert the end of the universeor perhaps even to escape it.

Wow. He does think big.

And, you see, he suspects that the dominance of this world may be a necessary first step to saving it.

Rice might actually be right, Bisesa thought. If the only way back to Earth was through the Eye in Babylon, war over possession of that city might ultimately be inevitable.

Oker sighed. The trouble is, however, that once you are in the pocket of a man like Rice, its hard to climb out again. I should know, he said ruefully. And you must decide, Bisesa Dutt, what you want.

She was clear about that. Ive achieved what I came here for. Now I have to get back to Babylon. Thats the way I came into this world, and its my only connection to my daughter. And I think I ought to take Abdikadir back home too. The court of Alexander needs clear intelligences like his.

Oker thought that over. You have given us much, Madam Duttnot least, an awareness of our place in this peculiar panoply of multiple universes. Jacob Rices wars are not your wars; his goals are not your goals. At some point we will help you get away from him. He glanced at Emeline and her sons, who nodded their support.

Thank you, Bisesa said sincerely. But what about you, Professor?

Well, the foundation stone of the new observatory at New Chicago has already been laid. Building that might be enough to see me through. But beyond that He looked up at the dense mass of cloud above. Sometimes I feel privileged just to be here, you know, on the world you call Mir. I have been projected into an entirely new universe, in which different worlds are suspended, studied by no astronomer before my generation! But the seeing is always poor. I would love to travel above the clouds of Mirto sail to the Moon and the other worlds in some aerial phaeton. It beggars my imagination as to how that might be achieved, but if Alexander the Great can run a steam-train service, perhaps New Chicago can reach the stars. What do you think? He grinned, suddenly boyish.

Bisesa smiled. I think thats a marvelous idea.

Emeline clung to the arm of Harry, her son. Well, you can keep the stars. All I want is a plot of land thats ice-free at least some of the time. And as for the futurefive hundred years, you say? That will see me out, and my boys. Its time enough for me.

Youre very wise, Oker said. There was a blast on a hunting horn.

An anticipatory cheer went up. Men, women and children shuffled, adjusting the packs on their backs. The horses neighed and bucked, harness rattled, and the somewhat shapeless crowd, crammed into the muddy street, began to take on the appearance of a procession.

Lights flared, startling Bisesa. Electric searchlights suspended from the skyscrapers splashed light over walls that were now revealed to be draped in bunting and the Stars and Stripes. The cheers grew louder.

All scavenged from the worlds fair, Emeline said, smiling, a bit tearful. I have my reservations about Jacob Rice, but Id never deny he has style! What a way to say good-bye to the old lady.

A walking beat was sounded by the massed drummers.

With a protesting trumpet Rices harnessed mammoth led the march, jolting the Mayors carriage into motion. The crowd was packed so tightly that the movement took time to ripple through its ranks; it was some minutes before Bisesa, Emeline, and the others had room to walk. At last all the great crowd shuffled forward, heading south along Michigan Avenue toward Jackson Park. Armed troopers wearing yellow armbands walked to either side of the dense column, to fend off the wild animals. Even the yellow streetcars clattered into motion, one last time, though they couldnt carry their passengers far along their journey.

As they marched the Chicagoans began to sing, the rhythm driven by the drums and the slow beat of the steps of their swaddled feet. At first they plumped for patriotic songs: My Country Tis of Thee, America, and The Star-Spangled Banner. But after a while they settled into a song Bisesa had heard many times here, a Tin Pan Alley hit of the 1890s from which Chicago had been plucked. It was a sweet dirge about an old man who had lost his love. The mournful voices rose up, echoing from the brick, glass, and concrete faces of the abandoned buildings around them, singing of the hopes that had vanished after the ball.

Bisesa heard a crash of glass, drunken laughter, and then a dull crump. Looking back, she saw that flames were already licking out of the darkened upper windows of the Lexington Hotel.

53: AURORA.

December 7, 2070 With Bill Carel and Bob Paxton at her side, Bella Fingal gazed out of the shuttles small blister window as they approached one of the most famous spacecraft in human history.

Bella felt exhausted, deep in her bones, after the strain of the last months. But now it was almost over. Only a few more days remained to the Q-bombs closest approach to Earth: Q-day, as the commentators called it. The astronomers and the military assured her daily that the bomb had stuck to the path to which it had been deflected after the Eye on Mars had suddenly flared to life; the Q-bomb would come close, even sailing between Earth and Moon, but it would not impact the planet.

Bella had to plan her affairs as if that were true. Today, for instance, she had to get through this conference on Aurora, fulfilling one of her last self-appointed duties, the kick-starting of a new debate about the future of mankind. But she suspected that like the rest of the human race she wouldnt quite believe it until the Q-bomb really had passed by harmlessly. And like much of mankind she planned to spend Q-day itself with her family.

After that she could lay down the burden of office at last, and submit herself to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague, and somebody else would have to make the decisions. She was content with that. Content even at being relieved of office before the final act of this lethal drama was played out, in the abandonment of Mars.