Prologue.  News Reaches Lyonesse.

The biggest commercial spaceport past the “New Centre” region of space is Port New Avalon, the starport near New Avalon on Lyonesse.  Lyonesse is generally considered the border between the teeming core of humanity and the much smaller settlements of the frontier.  It’s where frontier spacers go to find work- close enough to the central worlds, but still “out there”.

Of course, one must be careful to use the right definition of spacer.  Contrary to popular belief, most of the crews of spaceships are not the coverall and tool belt wearing technical experts who make things work.  Most ships are passenger ships.  On most passenger ships, the biggest component of the crew is the Steward department.  It takes far more effort to keep passengers safe, entertained, and fed than it does to steer a ship.  Stewards tend to be younger than the average technician, though.  Many of them see it as a temporary job- see the 100 worlds for a while, then settle down.

New Avalon has a pleasant climate- equatorial for Lyonesse, equivalent to subtropical on Earth.  The spaceport location was chosen for its easy weather.  There are few storms to cancel operations, whereas the rest of the planet can be more… challenging.  New Avalon rises on one side of the spaceport complex, the biggest city on the planet.  On the other side, Beardy’s Point extends out into the sea, enjoying the same climate as the Port New Avalon.  Rocky coast, sparkling white beaches, warm sun… it’s no wonder resorts sprung up here.  But it’s on the main flight path for Port New Avalon, with shuttles and starships thundering across the sky regularly.  So, it’s not popular with the locals.  It is very popular with spacers.  It is “their place”.  At the moment, there might be about a hundred Real Spacers.  Coveralls And Tool Belt Wearers.  They are very much outnumbered by the Stewards, who also consider themselves Spacers,  or maybe, Spacers Sort Of.

One day, when people will ask, “Where where you when you heard…” they will remember this place.

Far from here, the city of Accorde on the planet Telemonde is the capital of the Commonwealth.  News travels out to the frontier along the route called the Main Line, the courier ships doing 6 Light Years per day, less the time lag between courier ship departures. It can take months for news to get all the way out to Zinderneuf.  A month to Lyonesse.    “Breaking News From Telemonde” interrupting everyone now happened a month ago.

As the capital of the commonwealth, Accorde is the where the Governors meet, and the news from Telemonde usually has something to do with them.   For years, now, Accorde has been the focus of a stubborn group of political activists, gathered from various corners of the 100 Worlds to demand that the Commonwealth at least give them an official advisory role, as they, and not the Governors, are elected by the people they claim to represent.  They've also been demanding that every Governate in the Commonwealth be permitted to do this.  So far, it's been a lot of talk. If there have been threats, they have been silent, implicit threats.  The most influential voice in the movement so far has belonged to Rose Batek.  Until she left the service, Ms. Batek was a Governor herself, even serving as Vice Governor of Principia on Newton.  Her experience gave her more credibility than anyone else in the democracy movement.  It was becoming increasingly hard for the Governors to ignore her, and the demands she put to them.  She had been one of them.  One of the best of them.  To millions, maybe billions, for better or worse she was the one who might really bring a change in humanity's government.

And now, on the eve of a critical meeting with the Governor's Assembly on Accorde, her chartered courier ship inexplicably plunged into the sea.  There were no survivors.  Not much more than debris.

The untimely death of Rose Batek was bound to have consequences, but exactly what those consequences would be were still unknowable.  Would it solidify the democracy movement?  Or deprive it of an active and powerful voice, and thereby suppress it?  Either way, certain business interests on Lyonesse decided quickly that rather than pursue ambitious investments and development further out on the frontier, maybe it was better to wait a little.  Wait, see which way the wind blows.  There are fortunes to be made by the bold, but also, there are fortunes to be lost, and a short pause... no great impact, right?

Unless, of course, one was among those spacers that signed on to ships on a short term basis as freelancers, rather than pursue steady employment with the scheduled liners.

Very suddenly, plans were cancelled or altered for several ships.  Announcements on the "seeking crew" boards were pulled.

"Regretfully, positions on the Brisingamen Clipper are no longer available".

A number of spacers found that their next jobs had vanished.

Far away, on Telemonde, the Commonwealth Capital world.

Meeting a "Momo", the large but brilliant leaders of the alien "Oumo" was often disturbing.  It wasn't that it looked sort of like a squashed rhinoceros with a squid for a face.  Humans accepted that aliens looked... alien.  It was that every one of these creatures was, by Human standards, a genius.  They had a way of approaching Human accomplishment, thought, philosophy, art... values... everything Humans were really proud of... as if it was all childish, amateur, simple stuff.

It was said that if one chose to learn to play the piano, it would be a virtuoso in a few months.  They routinely mastered dozens of languages.

And they were annoyed with Humans that questioned their judgement.

"The Commonwealth must survive, it is essential," it explained to its small audience, mostly Human.  "There are inevitable conflicts if it does not.  If the current structure has deficiencies, the structure must be altered, but there must be survival.  We have been ignoring social and political forces that are now being expressed.  We believe this is because the Carinan threat seems less, and so Humans feel freer to push their social boundaries.  Your old democracies were chaotic.  Nevertheless, they allowed social and political forces to become visible... for better or worse.  If given the chance, how many of your polities would choose to leave the Commonwealth if democratic rule was allowed?"

"We do not know," said a gray clad, elderly human.

"It is essential that we know," the Momo said.  "Statistical inference leads us to suspect it is in the 50% range, and this is dangerous.  We must know, and we must work to reduce the figure."

Four thousand kilometers from New Avalon, the coastal governates of Ker Ys East and Ker Ys west are not the wealthiest parts of Lyonesse, and not known for great academic achievement either.  They are known to be stubborn, and suspicious of people with money who aren't locals.  But some industry has located here, because the people, stubborn though they might be, are willing to take lower wages than in some other areas of the planet.

But there has been unhappiness for a while, now.  No knows if it was connected to the sad news out of Telemonde, but the Ker Ys Labor Alliance called a sudden, general strike, and listed among their demands a right to representatives among the governors.  The strike, then, is against the government as much as it is the industries here.

The shipyard at Nanton is closed.  It is for maritime ships, not space ships, so one might think this has nothing to do with the destinies of those who are involved with space ships.

But chaos has a way of veering out of its lane.  Sometimes in small ways.