Opinions differ about whether they were vanquished by subsequent arrivals, or whether they were simply absorbed by the sheer vastness of the territories they bad attempted to claim. However, one of the first actions of the Optima Thule Metagovernment was to order the unsealing of all the portals, thereby giving every nation on Earth unlimited and free access to…

Cartoon animations floated on the surface of Dallen's vision. Miniature ships were firing miniature radiation weapons, progressively clearing Orbitsville's triple band of portals, allowing the enclosed sun to spill more and more of its beckoning rays into the surrounding blackness of space.

The migrations from Earth began immediately, and continued at a high level of activity for a century and a half. In the beginning the journey took four months, but there came many rapid improvements in spaceship design which eventually cut transit time to a matter of days. At the height of the migrations more than ten million people a year were arriving at the equatorial portals, a transport undertaking of such magnitude that…

Annoyed by the intrusive voice and images, Dallen turned away sharply and broke the beam contact. He retreated to the curving edge of the plaza and sat down on a bench to watch Cona taking her holographic pictures of the monument. Again it seemed to him that her interest in the statue and its historic associations was a little too evident, that she was putting on a show for his benefit. The message was that she would be fully occupied in getting on with her own life while they were apart, but did he have to interpret that as defiance? Was it not possible, knowing Cona, that she was only trying to make things easier for him by not clinging on? I’d be crazy to cut myself off from this, he thought, poised on the edge of a decision.