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now that they’d revealed its secrets to humankind, the older methods of construction were rapidly falling into obsolescence, and it was only in the more remote settlements that carpenters and bricklayers still had steady jobs.
    As the coupe entered the city center, the changes became more apparent. High-rise towers, more closely resembling enormous termite domes than the glass-walled skyscrapers of Old Earth, rose above broad avenues paved with native-stone compounds, their oval windows gleaming against the night sky. Within them were elevators that didn’t rely upon cables and pulleys but instead used kua’tah null-gravity shafts. Delicate-looking but sturdy footbridges led from one building to another; below, maglev trams traveling upon elevated monorails had replaced wagons and carts as the principal means of transportation within the city. As the coupe moved past the limestone edifice of the Bank of Coyote, Jorge spotted a couple of proctors on graveyard-shift foot patrol. Even they were different; wearing arsashi cloaks, they carried nord -made airpulse rifles, nonlethal weapons that fired not bullets or fléchettes but energy-directed microbursts capable of knocking targets down without harming them.
    Nor were the changes limited to Liberty. According to the most recent census estimates, Coyote’s global population was around 6 million, spread across various provinces—no one but old-timers called them colonies anymore—along the Great Equatorial River. Almost as soon as the Corps mapped some previously unexplored island or subcontinent, boats and airships began to arrive, bearing homesteaders intent on staking a claim. The population was rising, sure, but there was still plenty of land available for those who wanted to make a new start.
    Seventy Earth-years after the URSS Alabama had reached 47 Ursae Majoris, everything about Coyote was different. What had once been a remote colony world was now a full-fledged member of a galactic community. Every week, starships from Federation Navy’s merchant marine departed from the New Brighton spaceport, bound for planets dozens of light-years away. Not only that, but a merchant marine ship had recently informed the Federation of its discovery of an artificial world, nicknamed Hex, that a reclusive race called the danui had built within their homeworld’s system. If the cruiser’s reports were to be believed, Hex was two AUs in radius, comprised of trillions of cylindrical habitats forming an immense sphere around the G2-class star HD 76700. Jorge found this hard to imagine . . . and yet, he’d seen the pictures, and he knew it was real.
    None of this would have been possible without the Talus, or the hjadd’s willingness to help humankind recover from the events of Black Anael. But such gifts hadn’t come without a price . . .
    “Colonial for your thoughts?” Inez’s quiet voice broke his reverie.
    “Nothing, really.” Jorge stifled a yawn behind his hand. “Just trying to stay awake, that’s all.”
    “We’ll be there soon enough.” Sawyer nodded toward the window on his side of the coupe. “Trust me, the guest rooms are comfortable. I’ve stayed there before.”
    By then, the coupe had passed through the city center and was heading into Liberty’s historic district. In the interests of preserving Coyote’s past, the University of New Florida had prevailed upon the city council to set aside the original homes built by the Alabama colonists. There was a soft bump as the coupe left the pavement and started traveling down unplowed dirt roads, passing houses, wood-sheds, and chicken coops that university historians and volunteers had managed to keep intact. Jorge caught sight of the log cabin his grandparents had built. He’d lived there the first few years of his life, until his parents decided to move to a new home on the other side of the city; nonetheless, he had fond memories of the place. No one resided there now, of course; even his grandmother,