Ad astra

‘Playthings. Models made for a child’s amusement.’

‘They are of weapon rockets? Missiles?’

‘Rockets,’ he said. ‘For spaceflight. Don’t look so surprised, Mamzel Raeside. The first steps from Terra were said to have been taken using chemical rockets.’

‘It can only be estimated,’ he said. ‘They pre-date the ages of Strife and Technology. I think they come from the Pre-System Age, from the first millennium of the Age of Terra.’

‘What? Thirty-eight or thirty-nine thousand years ago?’

‘Perhaps. Vessels like this first took our species into the unknown,’ he said. ‘They first took us Blackwards. The family name behind this business comes from that outward urge.’

‘I think my employer will appreciate these,’ I said. ‘What price do you ask?’

‘I will write it down,’ he said.

‘And the markings on the side of the rocket ships,’ I asked. ‘The letters in red? What does C.C.C.P. mean?’

‘No one knows that,’ he said. ‘No one remembers any more.’

Дэн Абнетт. Пария