It was the city from his childhood: the high Belle Epoque. Awesome gold structures marched into the distance like sculpted clouds, buzzing with aerial traffic. Below, tiered parks and gardens stepped down in a series of dizzying vistas towards a verdant haze of greenery and light, kilometres beneath their feet.

“Isn’t it great to see the old place?” Cal said. “And to think that it was almost ours for the taking; so much within reach of our clan… who knows how we might have changed things, if we’d held the city’s reins?”

Janequin steadied himself on the railing. “Very nice, but I didn’t come to sight-see, Calvin. Dan, what were you about to tell me before we were so…”

“Rudely interrupted?” Sylveste said. “I was going to tell Cal to pull the gravitometer data from the escritoire, as he obviously has the means to read my private files.”

“There’s really nothing to it for a man in my position,” Cal said. There was a moment while he accessed the smoky imagery of the buried thing, the obelisk hanging in front of them beyond the railing, apparently life-size.

“Oh, very interesting,” Janequin said. “Very interesting indeed!”

“Not bad,” Cal said.

“Not bad?” Sylveste said. “It’s bigger and better preserved than anything we’ve found to date by an order of magnitude. It’s clear evidence of a more advanced phase of Amarantin technology… perhaps even a precursor phase to a full industrial revolution.”

“I suppose it could be quite a significant find,” Cal said, grudgingly. “You—um—are planning to unearth it, I assume?”

“Until a moment ago, yes.” Sylveste paused. “But something’s just come up. I’ve just been… I’ve just found out for myself that Girardieau may be planning to move against me a lot sooner than I had feared.”