Chapter 5

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Home glittered and spangled like carelessly strewn jewelry on obsidian velvet. Gaudy, decadent, treasure-hued. Elegant and ambitious. Triumphant and unabashed about that fact. It flung arms out to everyone, as long as they came dressed up for the occasion, and the occasion went on all the time.

Somewhere under all the scintillating brightness lay a tiny patient moon, solid rock and star-stuff: invisible, or almost so, beneath the weight of palace lights and star liners and the shooting contrails of transports carving paths across the midnight sky. The dome of the force-field shimmered palely over everything, enclosing vital atmosphere: part of the thrill of living on Home, that artificiality. That dance at the edge of indulgence and expense and potential catastrophe, spinning along. Everything twinkled and shone.

Kit’s crew looked at each other, and got dressed nervously, and went down.