Al-Khaled left T’Laen and walked into his office. The door hissed shut behind him. As he settled into his chair, he pressed a button on the desktop and opened a secure channel to the Lovell, which had been in orbit for the past four weeks, fabricating material and components that were then beamed or flown down to the planet’s surface. The past week had been spent creating pipes for an irrigation system. Must be a thrill a minute for the folks shipside, al-Khaled mused with a grin.

His desktop viewscreen glowed to life inside its bulky gray metallic shell. The face of Captain Daniel Okagawa appeared. From the few background details visible on the tiny screen, al-Khaled surmised that the captain was in his private quarters aboard the ship. “Good afternoon, Captain,” al-Khaled said. “Davis tells me you have news from Vanguard.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Okagawa said. “The word from the colonial admin office is that New Boulder’s going indie.”

“Are you kidding? They refused protectorate status?”

“Afraid so,” Okagawa said. “I don’t have to tell you, this makes things a bit trickier.”

As soon as al-Khaled could unclench his jaw, he asked, “Are they planning on kicking us out?”

“Don’t know yet,” the captain said. “I talked to Miller. He says the new boss doesn’t sound like one of our bigger fans.”

After taking a few seconds to consider the ramifications of the captain’s news, al-Khaled said, “We’ve built a pretty good working relationship with the colonists, so I don’t think we need to worry about any bad blood. After all, we’re not really asking them for anything.”

“All true,” Okagawa acknowledged.

“My only real concern,” al-Khaled said, “is what happens when word gets out that this isn’t a Federation colony.”

Okagawa sighed. “Let’s deal with one disaster at a time, shall we? The new colony president is still on Vanguard while her ship refuels and takes on new passengers, but she’ll probably be here inside of a week. We need to focus on making a good first impression and not ticking her off.”

Al-Khaled nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”

“Two things you ought to know,” Okagawa said. “First, she’s an esper—so watch what you think when she’s around.”

That provoked a dismayed groan from al-Khaled. “What else?”

“Her name’s Jeanne Vinueza,” the captain said, then added in a sepulchral tone, “and she’s Commodore Reyes’s ex-wife.”

A wince and a frown. “Permission to resign?”

“Denied,” Okagawa said. “And heaven have mercy on us all.”

3

A few dozen strong Kollotaan was all the Wanderer had sought; now she had them. Bound to the nodes of the First Conduit, these had proved both strong enough to withstand the terrible stresses of amplifying the voice of the Shedai and tractable enough to do so without struggling to the point of death. More than a hundred of their kith had perished as the Wanderer refined her trials, and many dozens more had been returned wounded and broken to the Conduit’s core, to be tended by the legion of the untested.

The Wanderer increased the power flowing into the Conduit. Eldritch fires surged inside the core, and its Song pitched higher and brighter, drowning out the panicked din of the Kollotaan. She projected her thoughts into the burning prison.

Unify, she commanded. One Song. One Voice.

Like a chorus yielding to the will of a conductor, the Kollotaan tuned themselves to the Song of the First Conduit, blending together into harmony. Some of them spoke in tones deep and resonant, others in pitches bright and piercing. Together they captured its eerie majesty and projected it into the void.

Its ineffable beauty permeated the Wanderer’s being, and for a moment it made the agony of physical existence almost bearable, almost worthwhile.

It was time. She spoke.

Awaken.

The imperative resounded and swelled within the First Conduit, and the power of the command trembled the foundations of the First World. The Wanderer’s directive left the Conduit, amplified by the Kollotaan.

Quantum frequencies vibrated in sympathy throughout the vast expanse of space as ancient Conduits stirred to life, their fires reignited by her urgent call. The Wanderer felt them pulse and respond in kind, echoing her summons into the endless dark, answering her invitation to return to the almighty embrace of the Shedai.

Awaken.

Light-years away, one consciousness stirred, then another. Crimson hues of anger sounded like brassy crashes of noise, disrupting the harmony of the Song.

It is not time, protested one. Raged another, Why do you rouse me? Violet waves of defiance surged back across cold, unfathomable distances. Be silent…. Go back to the darkness.

The Wanderer added the blinding whiteness of authority to her commandment and adjured the others, Rise…and return.

Resistance to her charge ran deep. None wished to endure the tribulations of the material realm again so soon after succumbing to oblivion. An hour of trial is upon us, the Wanderer warned. Our legacy is imperiled. Awaken and come home.

On a pelagic orb circling an unremarkable yellow star, deep below the shroud of its ocean primeval, a massive coral reef shrugged and broke free of the seabed. Creeping armies of bioluminescent bottom-feeders skittered away, retreating into crevasses and trenches. Schools of fish wheeled and turned and fled into the refracted shadows. The coral shattered and fell apart, dissipating into a dusty cloud rent by swift thermal currents. Free of physical bonds, the Herald shifted from a solid state to a fluid one and propelled himself by will alone through the dense medium of the sea. The Song of the Conduit pealed brightly in his thoughts, undistorted by the watery haven he had chosen for his aeons-long slumber.

The summons was like a pulse, a life force, a beacon pulling him forward. The briny depths foamed and boiled at his passage, molecular bonds excited almost to breaking by the energy of his essence coursing unshielded toward his destination. Then the Conduit was before him, its obsidian glory revealed for the first time in countless millennia. Sediment and barnacles and coral all had been blasted away, pulverized by its sudden resurgence of vital power.

Rise, came the behest of the Wanderer. And return.

The Herald envisioned the First World and projected his essence into the Conduit for the instantaneous journey home.

Our legacy is imperiled.

The Avenger stirred with furious anger, her wrath inflamed. The Wanderer would not speak such words lightly, she knew. Nor would she rouse us without cause. War is upon us.

Gathering her strength to break free of this world’s womb of fire was an arduous task. Secreted within its nickel-iron core, she had remained beyond the reach of all but the most omnipotent noncorporeal beings, none of whom had proved so rash as to disrupt her deathlike repose. Now she shaped herself into a subtle blade of excited particles and sliced her way upward.

The fluid outer core of the planet was relatively rich with light elements, such as sulfur and oxygen, which she penetrated with ease. Soon it thickened, impeding her ascent; she began her relentless drilling climb through the lower mantle of oxidized iron and silicate perovskite. Its resistance was considerable, but her impetus was greater. She punched through into the plastic magmas of the upper mantle, churning them with her rapid passage until at last she sped toward the crust and burst through, to the freedom of the surface.

Like a colossus of living smoke, she strode the face of this primitive world while plumes of magma jetted skyward behind her, laying waste to the landscape and plunging millions of helpless Telinaruul into blind flights of panic. Their cities collapsed beneath the tremor of tectonic shifts provoked by her rising. One after another they were swallowed in surges of lava, from scores of volcanoes spurred by the heat she had imparted to the upper mantle.