“I was brought back. I believe I am your way into the Heart.”

“You have forgotten much. I am content to end here.”

Edeard felt his soul brother grip his hand. Inigo’s confidence, his surety, was astounding.

“We do not go there to submit to absorption,” Inigo told Makkathran unwaveringly. “We are here to finish this. The time you feared has arrived. Millions of my species are on their way to this world. They know its secret, and all of them are intent on resetting the Void to their own whim. The ensuing devourment phase will consume the galaxy.”

“It cannot be stopped,” Makkathran said. “The Void is what it is.”

“There is a chance. I believe we can still reason with it.”

“The Void does not listen. We tried. I watched my kind die in the tens of thousands as they attempted to pass through the final barrier. It was all for nothing. The flames of their death outshone the nebulae that day.”

“An entity has arrived in the Void who may make things worse. The devourment phase is beginning. And finally we have the smallest, most fragile opportunity to speak with the nucleus, the primary sentience. It will accept one of us if a Skylord guides him to the Heart. Help us. Please. Your species is still out there on the other side of the barrier, doing what they can. In all the eons since you came, they have never faltered. We owe them so much; we owe them this last attempt.”

“My kind still live?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I thought I heard one once, not so long ago. I called out, but it was your race who came instead.”

“Please,” Edeard said. “I was guided to the Heart once before. Whatever sacrifice I have to make to be guided again, I will do so, I swear upon the Lady.”

Makkathran’s thoughts fluctuated, dousing them all in a wave of ancient sorrow. Edeard was humbled by everything the city had endured, its terrible loss.

“I did not expect change to befall me ever again,” it told them. “I did not expect to be shown hope, however small. I did not expect to do what I was born to do: to fly against the greatest enemy once more. You have brought this to me. For that I should show thanks. If the galaxy is to fall, then it is fitting that I should fall with it. I will take you.”

“Thank you,” Edeard said.

“Thank you,” the others chorused.

They waited bunched together on the broad expanse outside the Lady’s church, farsight probing around, alert for the first change to manifest. They waited with the irrepressible excitement of schoolchildren knowing they were to witness something wholly spectacular.

Justine caught it first. “There,” she cried, her mind urging the others. “There, look, the crystal wall.”

All around the city, the high translucent gold wall that defined the edge was growing upward. It raced into the sky with astounding speed as the city put forth its will. Then they were tilting their heads back to gape in admiration as it curved overhead. Half an hour after the growth began, the last shrinking circle of clear sky vanished as the crystal melded together. The city was encased in a perfect dome.

Makkathran exerted its wishes. A mind larger than mountains engaged the Void’s elementary mass location ability, demanding that matter move in the manner it wanted.

Out beyond the sealed-off Port district, the Lyot Sea parted. Two vast tsunamis of water rushed apart, surging away from the shore, exposing the seabed for tens of miles. Water was the easy part. Makkathran continued its manipulation. The naked seabed cracked open with a howl of destruction that shredded any organic matter within fifty miles. Fissures deepened, slicing down through the ancient lava as they raced inland to splinter the Iguru plain.

Oscar was laughing helplessly as the ground shook furiously, triggering massive landslides over in the distant Donsori Mountains. It was the kind of semihysteria that was contagious. Edeard found himself grinning wildly in sympathy as he was toppled to his knees. Waves chased along the canals, sloshing over the edges as the earthquake’s power built. He could see the tips of the Eyrie towers rocking from side to side. Agitated air was slapping clouds against the outside of the dome.

“Glad we brought you back now?” Oscar called tauntingly above the roar.

The Iguru plain and the uncovered seabed had shattered down to a single level zone of undulating rubble. All the odd little volcanoes juddered about like disintegrating icebergs as their mass dissolved down into the churning debris. The city gave a sudden lurch, thrusting a hundred meters straight up as the land’s grip was finally broken. Edeard yelled in delirious shock along with everyone else as the impetus knocked him flat. He gave Oscar a crazy thumbs-up. “Oh, Lady, am I ever,” he longspoke above the tremendous din that was penetrating the protective crystal. What the devastation must be like outside was something he couldn’t conceive.

Frenzied clouds slid down the sides of the curving crystal as the domed city began to rise farther. That was just the apex of the immense warship.

Makkathran, last survivor of the Raiel armada, soared back up into the sky it had fallen from a million years ago and headed for the clean emptiness of space.

Gore Burnelli didn’t often admit admiration for other people, least of all meat humans. But he had to acknowledge that Araminta had done a fine job living in two different time flows. Even though he’d been one of the pioneers of enhanced mentality, he was finding the going a little tough.

The segment of his mind designated to maintain the connection to Justine was racing on ahead, looking back at the ponderous events on the Anomine homeworld with something approaching contempt. It would be very easy to divest himself of his sluggish flesh and live fast and free in the Void. He had to focus hard on the other aspects of his mind and the requirements they served to dismiss the notion. The temptation was pulling with unrelenting tidal force.

For a heartbeat he watched from the entranceway of the Lady’s church as Makkathran flew clear of Querencia’s atmosphere and then accelerated after the Skylord that had brought the Mellanie’s Redemption just a few hours earlier.

Exoimage displays surrounded him, tracing the progress of the infiltrator filaments as they slithered through the molecular structure of the elevation mechanism, chasing down the network pathways and penetrating delicate junctions. Primary attention switch-to the massed ranks of code awaiting initialization so the packages could slide into alien software, mimicking the routines in order to subvert them. His accelerated mind watched the symbology flip around at a speed he could actually follow as they analyzed the first impulses flashing through the junctions.

Incoming call-which he answered with another segment operating within his meat skull.

“We’re in,” the Delivery Man said. “I’m establishing control over all major siphon systems. The override is disengaged. Full wormhole initialization sequence is running. Power generation is increasing. I need to take that slow; there’s nowhere to send it yet.”

“Well done.”

“I never knew Makkathran was a Raiel ship.”

“What else could it be? Haven’t you ever visited High Angel?”

“No, actually.”

“Oh. Well, those domes are the real giveaway. They’re identical.”

“Obviously.”

“Any sign of Marius?”

“I haven’t got a decent sensor that can function down here in the innermost circle. Hysradar works, but it’s useless. He must be in stealth mode, still.”

“Keep watching. When he finally figures out we can stop his precious Ilanthe, he won’t take it well.”

“Oh, crap. All right.”

Makkathran caught up with the Skylord just before it crossed Nikran’s orbit, barely two million miles from the desert planet. Edeard stood in the square at the center of Sampalok, staring at the small brown orb that appeared to be hanging just above the mansion. It was kindling a surprising amount of nostalgia. He could just make out some of the surface features as he’d done that other day, now lost in the broken past, when he’d sat in the Malfit Hall waiting to be called before the Mayor and handed his bronze epaulets. His squadmates had teased him for his questions about other people living on Nikran. They never knew as he did that humans lived on hundreds of worlds. And now they never would.