Eternity's Mind Read Free Page B

are infested with hundreds and hundreds of Onthos, which reproduce by killing the worldtrees. Before Sarein can reveal her terrible discovery, the Onthos kill her.
    Later, Collin comes to see Arita in the fungus-reef city, extremely disturbed. He thinks the worldforest is losing part of its connection, and that Kennebar’s isolationist priests have withdrawn. Collin asks her to come with him to investigate, but when they arrive in the Wild, they find Kennebar’s entire tree settlement abandoned. Then Kennebar himself comes to confront them: he is no longer a green priest, but entirely contaminated by shadows, as black as the void. He captures Arita and Collin.…
    The damaged Voracious Curiosity limps back to Newstation, arriving just as Lee Iswander is challenging the Speaker for his position. Iswander expects to regain his power and importance, to change the leadership of the Roamers … but Orli, Tasia, and Robb announce their dramatic news: the valuable fuel ekti-X is easily extracted from the common bloaters. They also show proof that in order to keep that secret, Iswander’s deputy destroyed all of the clan Duquesne operations, killing dozens, and when the Curiosity discovered the Iswander extraction fields, Elisa tried to blast them out of space. The Roamers are furious to hear of Iswander’s crimes. The ruined industrialist is unable to understand what has happened to him, since he didn’t know what Elisa was doing in his name. More importantly, Roamers now know how to extract stardrive fuel, and they rush off in droves to form their own operations.
    At Fireheart Station, Garrison and the Roamer workers have finished constructing Kotto’s Big Ring in the middle of the nebula, and it is ready for a full-power test run. Despite Shareen and Howard’s reservations, Kotto is anxious for the demonstration. He hopes the Big Ring will be the high point of his already illustrious career. The gigantic ring is activated in the intense flux from the nebula’s core stars, but the power escalates, caught in a feedback loop, and the experiment runs out of control. The Big Ring collapses under its own forces with such titanic energy that it tears a hole in the fabric of the universe—like a doorway into another dimension that no one knows how to close.
    On Kuivahr, some of Tamo’l’s experimental kelp extracts prove effective in treating Prince Reyn, and Osira’h is pleased to see him gaining strength. Tom Rom arrives with the Pergamus data on Reyn’s illness in exchange for Tamo’l’s research on the misbreeds, which she happily shares.
    Then the Shana Rei arrive with their shadow cloud and black robot fighters, to capture the two halfbreeds Osira’h and Tamo’l. In orbit, the Shana Rei send out countless hex plates, building up an opaque shell that begins to grow around Kuivahr. Soon, the entire planet will be swallowed up. Reyn and Osira’h immediately evacuate, joining the fleeing personnel from the Kellum distillery. But because Tamo’l won’t leave her misbreeds, Tom Rom helps her get them to the Klikiss transportal, so they can escape to another world.
    Inside his entropy bubble prison, Rod’h desperately tries to warn his siblings using his telepathic connection, and just as Tamo’l is about to escape Kuivahr through the transportal—which the misbreeds have just gone through to the planet Gorhum—Rod’h links with her. She is stunned, as the shadows hijack the link. Tom Rom forces Tamo’l through the transportal, but changes the coordinate tile so that they arrive on a different planet, beneath the Roamer complex of Newstation. Behind them, Kuivahr is entirely englobed.
    The station attendants at the transportal are surprised to receive the two bedraggled escapees. Tom Rom and Tamo’l hurry to his ship. Curious to know where the strangers came from, the station attendants foolishly open the transportal