byFrom Quintus Bland’s History of Mankind,
Chapter XXIV “The Terror.”
From Quintus Bland’s History of Mankind,
Chapter XXIV “The Terror.”
These are the halcyon years. The awful goad of the Terror is gone and men can look into the sky without fear. The new colonies thrive among the low red hills of Mars, in the icy moraines of Io, Europa, and Titan. Starships are poised on the outer moons; perhaps soon Earth will wear a diadem of stars.
Yet some of the bitterness of the fear-ridden years is with us still. Forgiveness does not come easily to those who have suffered the humiliation of the Terror; there are the blighted lives to remember, and the unfortunates who lived and died under the threat of annihilation from the sky. Jan Carvel’s memory is accursed—for it was Carvel who brought the
