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police force and an army independent of the Houses.”
    Rich frowned introspectively. “I wonder why the Lords wouldn’t make him an emperor. I mean, you’d think when he’d just conquered a world for them, the time would be right, that they’d give him almost anything he asked for.”
    From the grove came the sardonic laugh of a kookaburra, and it seemed appropriate. “Well, Rich, it seems that Ballarat was a better conqueror and administrator than politician. Basically, I think the Lords were afraid of him. Afraid of innovation, of losing their own power.”
    Alexand commented, “Some things don’t seem to change.”
    Rovere hesitated, finding the cynicism underlying that disturbing.
    “No, Alex. In fact, our power distribution systems haven’t changed appreciably since Ballarat, and that was—what? Three centuries ago.”
    “Nor has the class system.”
    True enough, Rovere thought, although he recognized a tendency to generality there that glossed over subtleties of development. Alexand apparently sensed his reservations and added, “I mean, even the
names
of the three basic classes haven’t changed since Ballarat: Bond, Fesh, and Elite. The only difference is that now there’s no hope of advancing from one class to another; there
was
in Ballarat’s time.” Then he smiled faintly, as if to mask his emotional intensity. “Did they have the Outside and Outsiders in his time?”
    Rovere gave that a laugh. “Of course, but those terms didn’t become popular until the late PanTerran Confederation period. There are always those who live outside the laws and moral codes of any society. They seem to be a social necessity in some sense; at least, most societies have made room for them, left them an area of existence in one way or another. But let’s return to the PanTerran Confederation. And I’ll leave off the ‘PanTerran.’ That was generally dispensed with after the extraterrestrial colonization phase. It’s been called the Golden Age. Now, what about the year 3000, the Trimillennium? What, other than humankind’s survival through approximately six thousand years of recorded history, is special about that date?”
    Rich was first with the answer to that. “The Lunar landing; the first since the Disasters.”
    “Good.” Alexand, he noted, was showing signs of preoccupation. Rovere recalled his attention with, “Alex, a bonus point if you can tell me when humankind
first
set foot on Luna—before the Second Dark Age.”
    “About . . . 1970.”
    Rich put in, “It was 1969, to be exact.” To which Alexand only shrugged, and Rovere smiled as he marked the point under Rich’s initial.
    “All right. What about 3052?”
    Rich was ready with, “That was the year Ela Tolstyne’s
Treatise on Matter/Anti-Matter Interactions
was published.”
    “Yes, and that led to what two key developments?”
    “Nulgrav and the MAM-An drive.”
    “Yes. Let’s consider nulgrav first, although MAM-An actually preceded it by three years. What was its primary effect? Alex?”
    “It made interplanetary travel truly practical, but that was in conjuction with MAM-An. Of course, there were already colonies on Luna and Mars, but they were rather primitive at that point. The nulgrav-MAM-An combination made it easier to develop them further and go on to new colonies.”
    “True, but nulgrav had planetside effects, too.”
    Rich observed wryly, “Well, there were the Vinay follies in the late thirty-first century.”
    Rovere sent him a sidelong smile. “Yes. Master Vinay was a talented architech, but he neglected to allow for the effects of a momentary power failure on his floating edifices. However, nulgrav had more profound results, such as the elimination of ground travel, and with it the street. It made possible our pedway systems, and every aircar, ’dray, ’bus, and ’taxi is powered by nulgrav.”
    Alexand noted, “It also made the House of Hild Robek.”
    “Indeed, and MAM-An in a sense made the House of Badir