There was more woodland covering the temperate regions than at any time since the last glaciation, locking in much of the excess carbon dioxide which had plagued previous centuries. And the great decline in species suffered after the industrialization of previous millennia was reversed, thanks to the use of genetic archives and careful reconstruction — from disparate descendants — of lost genotypes.

Earth was the first planet to be terraformed.

Meanwhile the Solar System was opened up.

Based in the orbit of Jupiter, an engineer called Michael Poole industriously took natural microscopic wormholes — flaws in space-time — and expanded them, making transit links big enough to permit spaceships to pass through.

Poole Interfaces were towed out of Jovian orbit and set up all over the System. The wormholes which connected the Interfaces enabled the inner System to be traversed in a matter of hours, rather than months. The Jovian system became a hub for interplanetary commerce.

And Port Sol — a Kuiper ice-object on the rim of the System — was to be established as the base for the first great interstellar voyages…

The Sun-People

A.D. 3672

At the instant of his birth, a hundred impressions cascaded over him.

His body, still moist from budding, was a heavy, powerful mass. He stretched, and his limbs extended with soft sucking noises. He felt blood — thick with mechanical potency — surge through the capillaries lacing his torso.

And he had eyes.

There were people all around him, crowding, arguing, hurrying. They seemed tense, worried; but he quickly forgot the thought. It was too glorious to be alive! He stretched up his new limbs. He wanted to embrace all of these people, his friends, his family; he wanted to share with them his vigor, his anticipation of his life to come.