Ultima by Stephen Baxter Page B

“Welcome to Terra,” she said drily.
    â€œThis is Europa—Europe. Some of the oldest Roman provinces. Give or take the odd invasion from Asia, this whole swath from the Baltic coast in the north to the Mediterranean in the south has been urbanized continually for more than two thousand years, and the result is what you can see. Many of the denser nodes map onto cities we’re familiar with from our own timeline, which are either successor cities to Roman settlements—like Paris, for instance—or, in places the Romans never reached in our timeline, they follow the geographic logic of their position. Hamburg, Berlin. The nature of the country is different farther north, the Danish peninsula, Scandinavia. Just as heavily urbanized, but a different geography.”
    â€œThe heartland of my people,” Ari said. “You may have images of the canal which severs the peninsula from the mainland. A very ancient construction, which was widened extensively when kernels became available.”
    Penny goggled. “You’re telling me you use kernels to shape landscapes as well? On
Earth
?”
    â€œThis is Terra, Penny,” McGregor said evenly. “Not Earth. I guess that’s their business.”
    Penny showed images now of a desolate coastline, an angry gray sea, ports and industrial cities defiant blights on the gray-brown landscape. “This is northern Asia,” she said. “In our reality, the Arctic Ocean coast of Russia. There never was a Russia here, I don’t believe. But nor is there any sign of a boreal forest at these latitudes. Even the sea looks sterile—nobody fishing out there—and no sign of any Arctic ice, by the way, though we haven’t been able to see all the way to the pole.”
    Ari shrugged. “It is dead country. It always has been dead. Good only for extraction of minerals, methane for fuel.”
    Penny tapped her screen. “I’m going to pan south. The extent of the main Roman holdings seems to reach the Urals, roughly. Whereas you have the Xin empire, presumably some descendant of the early Chinese states we know about, extending up from the north of central China through Mongolia and eastern Siberia, all the way to the Bering Strait. In Central Asia, though—”
    More craters. A desolate, lifeless landscape.
    This made Beth gasp. “What happened here?”
    Ari sighed. “The steppe was historically always a problem. A source of ferocious nomadic herdsmen and warriors, who, whenever the weather took a turn for the worst, would come bursting out of their heartland to ravage the urban communities to the west and east. Finally Xin and Rome agreed to administer those worthless plains as a kind of joint protectorate. It is an arrangement that worked quite well, for centuries. Mostly.”
    McGregor’s grin was cold. “Mostly?”
    â€œWherever two great empires clash directly there will be war. And when weapons such as the kernels are available—well, you can see the result.”
    Penny said, “Here’s the Xin homeland. Again there seems to be a historical continuity with the cities and nations we know about from the early first millennium . . .”
    Some of the images had been taken at night. Half a continent glowed, a network of light embedded with jewel-like cities—and yet here and there Beth could see the distinctive circular holes of darkness that must be relics of kernel strikes.
    Ari was watching Beth, as much as he was following the images. “Your reaction is different from the others. You seem—dismayed.”
    â€œThat’s one word for it. I grew up on an empty world.”
    â€œAh. Whereas all this, in comparison, billions of us crammed into vast developments—”
    â€œHow do you breathe? How do you find dignity?”
    â€œYou mean, how will
you
live here?” He smiled. “Beth Eden Jones, you, of all the crew of the
Tatania
, are by