By the time Elias returned from Milton Keynes, six offers had been made for his house. The lowest was equivalent to eight hundred million pounds. The highest did not contain a monetary figure at all. It offered him citizenship in the Selyr Compact, permanent research status, four hundred years of life-extension treatment, unrestricted academic travel across one hundred and twelve registered worlds and a laboratory "commensurate with demonstrated potential."
Elias read that one twice. Catherine watched him from across the kitchen table.
"Tempted?"
"Yes."
She blinked.
"Really?"
"Four hundred years."
"I thought you'd say the money."
"Money is replaceable. Time isn't."
Lucy sat between them eating cereal at eleven at night because conventional bedtime had joined several other pre-integration institutions in losing authority.
"Would we go to space?"
Catherine pointed her spoon at Elias.
"No."
"Potentially," Elias said at the same time.
"Elias."
"The offer includes dependants."
"We are not moving to an alien planet."
"I didn't say we were."
"You said potentially."
"All futures are potential."
"Mum says you do that when you know you're wrong," Lucy said.
Elias looked at his niece.
"Your mother has been poisoning your scientific objectivity."
Myrddin interrupted through a kitchen speaker.
"A seventh property offer has arrived."
Catherine groaned.
"Delete it."
"I am not authorised to accept instructions from you regarding Elias's assets."
"Good AI."
"However, I agree with Catherine."
Elias stared at the speaker.
"Mutiny."
The real problem was not the offers. It was what they revealed. Vale House stood on a convergence. Tesh explained the term the following morning.
"Arcane fields are not uniform," the scholar said. "They collect around geometric, geological, biological and dimensional structures. A convergence is a location where multiple gradients intersect."
Elias displayed historical maps of the estate.
Roman road.
Medieval boundary line.
Iron Age burial site three kilometres north. A cluster of folklore records within a ten-mile radius.
Unexplained lights.
Lost travellers.
Stories of music beneath hills. A seventeenth-century cleric describing a black doorway that appeared for seven nights and then vanished.
"Did human construction cause it?" Elias asked.
"Unlikely."
"Then humans noticed it."
"Possibly."
"Even before active mana."
"Residual field effects may have influenced perception, probability or local dimensional stability."
Elias smiled.
Forty-one years of nonsense rearranged itself in his mind. Not all folklore was true. Most probably remained nonsense. But the signal had existed.
Buried in stories.
Intermittent. Weak. Impossible to reproduce. He had been searching for water during a drought by studying old flood marks.
Tesh examined the map.
"Your choice of property was statistically improbable."
"I chose it partly because of the stories."
The alien's four eyes focused on him.
"Then less improbable."
Harcourt entered carrying another stack of papers.
"The government is designating a protective zone around the estate."
"No."
"Not optional."
"My land."
"Your land is now sitting on something half the known universe apparently wants."
"Then they can make offers."
"They can also hire people to make offers with rifles."
Elias looked at her.
"You have intelligence?"
"We have chatter. Foreign private groups. British organised crime. Three alien commercial entities. At least two extremist organisations."
"Vane?"
"Possibly."
Elias's expression cooled.
Harcourt continued.
"We establish checkpoints beyond your boundary. British law. British personnel. You retain control inside."
"Temporary."
"Everything is temporary at the moment."
Elias considered.
"Agreed."
Tesh made a small sound.
"You compromise more frequently than your public reputation suggests."
"My public reputation is maintained primarily by people I dislike."
The first sign of the convergence becoming active arrived that afternoon. Every compass on the estate rotated thirteen degrees east.
Then stopped.
At 16:21, the underground mana detectors spiked. At 16:23, water in an ornamental pond began glowing. At 16:25, the dead severed limb in refrigerated storage moved. Priya called Elias before the security alarm finished sounding. They reached the unit together.
The limb lay where it had for days. Except pale mineral plates along its surface were growing.
Slowly.
Visible to the eye.
A blue crystal pushed through dead flesh.
Priya stared.
"That's impossible."
Elias smiled.
"Please stop using that word."
The crystal grew another millimetre. Myrddin announced, "Arcane saturation beneath the estate has increased by fourteen percent in six minutes."
Elias's smile vanished.
"Depth?"
"Unknown. Multiple sensors saturated."
A tremor moved through the floor.
Not an earthquake.
Something deeper.
The Cognitive Translation Layer appeared in Elias's vision without invitation.
LOCAL CONVERGENCE ACTIVATION COMMENCING.
PROVISIONAL CLAIM WINDOW: SEVENTY-TWO LOCAL HOURS.
QUALIFIED NATIVE AND EXTERNAL ENTITIES MAY REGISTER INTEREST SUBJECT TO PROTECTED-WORLD RESTRICTIONS.
Elias read it once.
Then twice.
Priya whispered, "Claim window?" Myrddin was already receiving thousands of messages.
Contracts.
Offers.
Legal notices.
One from Veylan Frontier Resources. One from the Keth Commercial Assembly. One from a religious organisation called the Choir of Ascension. Several from human corporations.
Two from governments.
A message from Silas Vane contained only five words.
THE FIRST CIRCLE COMES HOME.
Elias looked at the floor.
"Harcourt."
"Already here," she said over the radio.
"Seal the estate."
"Done."
"No visitors."
"Done."
"Arm everyone trained."
A pause.
"Done."
Elias smiled faintly.
"You're learning."
"I hate you."
"Get in line."
Outside, the first gunshots began at the northern checkpoint. The claim window had been open for eleven minutes.