They knew so little about the Swarm. From the straggler arklets they’d picked up over the last three years, they knew that J.B.F. had moved swiftly to consolidate her power, exploiting the crisis of the first coronal mass ejection—which had killed something like 10 percent of the population—to set up her own version of martial law. From there the trains had run more or less on time, albeit with a steadily dwindling population, until about a year ago, when some Arkies had begun to rebel and the Swarm had divided into two Swarms, coexisting with each other—as they had little choice—but not talking.