Solomon felt before he knew. The sound began to manifest, quickly taking shape and tone after he became aware of the nonsensical mumble of Needle’s idle humming.

“Oh hey,” Needle said.

Solomon looked around. Needle had apparently propped his feet up on his console and laid a blanket over his legs. He turned his head and a hot water bottle slipped off onto the ground. “You really do spend a lot of time alone.”

“And I’m such a nurturer. You can imagine how difficult it is. We just exited the Silt Bridge, so you picked a good time to nap.”

“Am I supposed to laugh?”

Needle turned and cocked his head. “Yeah. Not my best joke. Don’t worry, I’ll keep telling them til I get a good one.”

“What’s our status?” he asked, ignoring Needle’s needling.

“Well, seeing as I had time to play a very worthwhile prank on you, I’d assume that our status is fine.”

“Where are we, Needle?”

“Ah, you want to know our location. Well, as you’ve observed, playing dead worked and the Surge left us alone. And we are, here. Well, there. Almost. Oh, nice trick powering down. A couple of old school shinobis, we.”

“Have you contacted Shah Rii yet?”

“No, but our vessels shook hands. She activated the beacon trail I helped devise for her. She misses you, by the way. She said you never called.”

Solomon gave Needle a long, cold stare. “I see why Yamin named you Needle.”

Needle’s entire mood changed, and his voice was quiet and very grim. “That man did not name me.”

And Solomon’s voice was mocking. “Oh, was my joke in poor taste? I’m sorry.”

“Ya know, Solomon…”

“No, Needle. You need to know something. I’ve slain four Archeus Knights and escaped Zar Zafaran. Keep that in mind when choosing your tone with me.”

“I’ve ended more lives than you can count, Solomon, and one of them was infinitely more powerful than four Archeus Knights. Keep that in mind when choosing your tone. We can play it this way if you want, Sol. Two mass murderers on a genocidal crusade. Or we can be friendly, and you can put up with me enjoying the only chance I’ve had this epoch to pretend I know how friendship feels.”

“We’re on a crusade for knowledge, Needle.”

Needle, in his eerie way, conveyed one of his featureless grins. “Interesting choice of points to contend. Look, Sol, I stayed away from Albion for a century. Take my recent emergence as flattery.”

“Then take my frustration seriously, Needle. Your juvenile antics are not the kind of company I enjoy.”

Needle tapped a series of inputs on his console. “Two souls live in me, alas. Irreconcilable to one another.”

Solomon rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to respond to sporadic literary…”

The comms crackled to life in a completely alien cadence. “Stop making love to your misery. It eats away at you like a worm.”

“Vulture,” Needle said. “Like a vulture, Dial baby. You make me nervous when you get our codes wrong.”

“Then choose something I’ll understand.”

Needle muted the comms. “See what I mean about cross species lit?”

Solomon reached across to Needle’s console and turned the comms back on. “Shah Rii, you sound well.”

There was a quiet pause, then a soft crackle.

“Sol? Is that you? You’re alive?”

“And bitchy as ever,” said Needle.

“Ned, you leave him alone. Solomon… I don’t… It worked. It worked and you made it back.”

“I have a lot to tell you, Shah Rii.”

A flame burst in front of them, spewing plasma in a spiral, its color ever shifting. One after another they ignited, showing a path only luminous eyes could see.

Needle spurred Iron Catastrophe onward, following the beacons.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” he said, giving Solomon a sidelong look.

“Am I now.”

“Implying, in the general’s presence, that you had some sort of moral high ground when the Gnomon and the Dial were mentioned.”

“I don’t owe you any explanation for my words, Needle.”

“I don’t need one, either. You’re a manipulator, Sol. And as the saying goes; it takes one to know one. You know, I’m surprised we never bumped into each other before. We clearly share a close friendship with Shah Rii.”

“She mentioned you once or twice, but I’m not one to pry.”

“If she mentions something offhand, she wants you to pry. She’s a manipulator in her own right. Birds of a feather, eh?”

The beacons swam by, bursting in a spew of plasma each time Needle flew his old vessel into one.

“You have to hit them all,” Needle said. “In case you’re ever trying to get here alone.”

The beacons ended in a spiral. Though he apparently helped design the beacon path, he struggled at the end, or at least made a show of it. But he hit them all, and a portal of kaleidoscopic crystals opened before them.

Solomon felt his radiance ignite, searing the inside of his skin. Then he was overwhelmed by the sensation of trillions of quantum lances piercing his body. He wondered if he’d be able to endure it much longer when he found himself for an instant floating in a white void. Then he was in Needle’s ship again, and they were flying gently through a large cloud of blue and pink gases. Here there a derelict floated free or hung still, limp vestiges of failed attempts at passage.

“Sorry about that,” said Needle.

“What did you do?”

“Helped her set up some Ulro propf defenses. She’s helped one too many natives of Briah, unfortunately.”

“I warned her she was pushing the limit. ‘The Gnomon and I walk a fine line,’ she’d always say.”

Needle shook his head. “Tyzon’s backpedaled a bit, I’d say.”

“I never trusted him.”

Needle chuckled. “No one ever has. But he’s grown unstable in the last century or so. Been too long on the other side. Speaking of the other side, I don’t suppose you’d tell me how Shah Rii got involved in your sojourn to Ulro?”

Solomon shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. She was the logical person to approach after communing with Hod.”

“The reason I ask, is that for her, Ulro is no mystery. She knew exactly what you were getting into. Did she give you any warnings?”

She tried. “No. And I didn’t ask for any. I wanted to involve her as little as possible.”

“Thoughtful of you.”

A vast hulk emerged from the gas cloud; empty weapons pods splayed like the arms of a lunging bear.

“That’s new,” said Needle.

“What’s a rathi cruiser doing here?”

The opportunity to find the answer to that question was not far off. The weapons satellites Shah Rii purloined from Albion shortly after its launch hung just on the edge of view.

“They’re so mean looking,” Needle remarked.

They did have a menacing presence, despite their simple shape. Solomon idly reflected on them as they cruised slowly towards the dense core of Conway’s Veil where Shah Rii hid in her glorious lair. The triangular panels of the satellites seemed so sensible and familiar, basic geometric shapes that any machine could be constructed of. But the red light glowing between their seams dispelled any quiet impressions given by their quaint diamond shape.

“Many times was I tempted to tell Central Command where these were,” Solomon mused.

“What stopped you?”

“The thought of them firing on our people.”

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Needle responded with a slow nod.

The seams glowed blue as they passed, then promptly turned to red. Solomon felt relieved when they heard Shah Rii’s voice again.

“Give me your controls, Ned.”

Needle punched in a string of commands, then folded his arms behind his head and leaned back.

“Why does she call you Ned?” Solomon asked.

“I have no idea. So what’s Haleon like up close?”

“Terrifying. Why does she call you Ned? I could easily get her to tell me, so you might as well.”

“That’s true. It’s funny. She’s great at keeping professional secrets, but not so great at the personal ones. Here it comes. This never gets old for me.”

Nor did for Solomon.

The core of Conway’s Veil, rich with hydrogen molecules, glittered from the reflective surfaces of its other composition; the microscopic shards of ancient armor, blasted into dust eons ago in an unsung battle when the dread fleets of Othomo reigned supreme, quelling unrest and piracy with swift and decisive judgement. Now their ablative hulls adorned rare pockets of space with pretty dances of light.

Such a dance greeted those Shah Rii allowed to approach, and as the dancers whirled, Nuglavong manifested a dark bulk hidden in the heart of the cloud. The fossilized beast grew ever darker as they drew near, verging on fuligin until they were close enough to spy his silhouette through the haze of the cloud.

“Marvelous brute,” Needle said with quiet reverence.

They passed through his draconian jaw (a jaw said to have once swallowed moons), then along his serpentine spine, caressed by the peculiar siphonophores that made that antediluvian throat their home.

Solomon took in every rib and vertebrae of the leviathan as Shah Rii drew them in. The stories rolled by a pale marquee so paltry in the presence of his bones. If only he still lived, the Tangent Lords might have decided against assaulting Briah. But then, Solomon thought, passing through the old dragon's third set of arms, each the size of a kzinti carrier, it might be for the best that Time claimed the life of this unknowable being. “It’s no wonder he was worshipped,” he said.

“I used to ride him through Samhadi.”

“How long ago was that?”

Needle was silent, watching entranced as the passed through the last of Nuglavong’s ribs. There, nested in his hips, was the space station Shah Rii roosted in.

“This station was once called the Bristol Byway,” Needle said. “Now they just call it The Cork.”

“I’m amazed she got it running again.”

“Being non-corporeal has its advantages, I imagine.”

Solomon felt his stomach tighten. “And a few disadvantages.”

Needle turned his head but said nothing.

The docking alerts rang, and the ship slowed to a gradual cruise, then stopped under one of The Cork’s docking tubes; spindly things long since stripped of their armor and other valuable components. The energy field Shah Rii invented to replace the gutted docking mechanism extended around the Iron Catastrophe and filled the cabin with a resonant hum.

Needle tapped a few controls, then went to the cabin and stood in the center. “Come along, now.”

Confused, Solomon followed. An anti-decompression field whirred to life and the whole top of the ship split open. They both rose, pulled upward by the docking beam. Solomon gasped at the beauty of the Veil, and almost reached out to touch the bleeding colors swirling around them.

“Never gets old,” Needle said.

The field remained active until they were past the docking tube and safe inside the habitation deck. Even the outer stretches of the docking hangar and customs were exposed to vacuum. Most of the crew, a motley of seemingly every sentient species (even a quadruped and a pair of arachnids), wore EVA gear.

The arachnids approached them, pincers ready and tail guns raised.

“We’re here to see Shah Rii,” Solomon told them. “The Dial. We’re known to her.”

Needle chuckled. “They aren’t pointing their guns at you.” He raised his hands and stepped forward, then turned and placed his hands behind his back, ready for shackles. “Don’t worry. Soon as we talk to her it’ll all be sorted out.”

The arachnids led Needle away, turning down a badly lit hallway into a lift.

“Mr. Solomon?” Said a very large man in an ursine EVA suit.

“Yes. That’s me.”

“The Dial is waiting. Follow me.”

Solomon followed the man through the labyrinth of hallways along the docking ring. The man offered Solomon an EVA suit when they neared a long-exposed stretch, but he refused, and the man seemed nervous after seeing Solomon walk through vacuum with no repercussions. In days gone by he would have worn his full battle dress and his harness. Now he wore only his long, tan robe.

The Grand Bazaar was bustling. Ne’er-do-wells from across the galaxy browsed through stalls and haggled at kiosks to the sounds of exotic music and the smells of exotic foods.

A green woman her head crowned with a beautifully colored bone crest instead of hair, approached him, slipping between him and his escort.

“How much for those eyes?”

He sneered, and with a gentle telekinetic nudge moved her aside.

“I’ll pay you anything you ask.”

“She thinks they’re made of glintstone,” his escort explained when they left the bazaar.

“Glintstone?”

The big man seemed perplexed. “It’s all top jazz. Everyone’s enthused about it. Rarest mineral in the galaxy. She doesn’t know what you are. But she knows glintstone better than most people.”

Solomon thanked his escort when they arrived at Shah Rii’s summoning pad. The man bowed, then left the otherwise empty room. Solomon stood on the glowing dais, but when the pad’s teleportation field activated, he resisted, pressing his own powerful energy against it and holding it still, unable to retract or to close around him.

“Before I come and see you,” he said, “I want to know why you’ve apprehended my partner.”

“You’re better off without Ned,” Shah Rii said over an unseen speaker.

“Somehow, I don’t expect you’ll be able to hold him long. You’d be saving us both trouble by releasing him.”

“He can’t be trusted.”

“I understand. But my commanding officer sent us on an op together. If you tell me what he did to offend you, then I can see to it he makes reparations.”

“I can give you your own ship,” she said. “You don’t need Ned.”

“You don’t know what I need, Shah Rii. You don’t even know why I’m here.”

There was a long pause which Solomon waited out.

“I don’t want to discuss it over the intercom,” she said at length.

He released his hold on the teleportation field, and it snapped shut, creating a micro wormhole and sending him to the command deck of the station.

But the Dial was not there.

“Shah Rii?”

There was silence.

Solomon looked around the derelict ops center of the station. The power relays installed to feed her with plasma and ions harvested from the surrounding nebula were powered down, the rerouted conduits laying limp on the floor.

“I’m in the engine room,” she said over the speaker.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“I haven’t had time to adjust the controls.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk over the comms.”

“This is a secure link. From where I am to where you are.”

“What’s going on, Shah Rii?”

A screen flickered to life on a nearby bay of workstations. Solomon went to it and sat down. She was as he knew her, ten glowing orbs of light connected by thin filaments. But she was changed somehow, treelike more in texture than merely in composition.

“What’s happened?”

She was quiet for a moment, and her voice shook when she did speak. “We’re cut off from Ulro.”

Solomon leaned forward. “How?”

“I don’t know. I think He might be waking.”

“Haleon? But it’s far too soon. He has too many things to watch over. And besides…”

“You’re not ready.”

Solomon sank back into the chair. “No. Not even close.”

She had grown faint, almost a calcified wisp of embers, but then she lit up brightly. “It could be a good sign.”

“Orak is half dead.”

Her blue and purple light turned gold. “How?”

“Our friend.”

“The Shadow Father?”

“Whatever he is.”

“This is good news! Can Albion defeat him here in Briah?”

Solomon caught himself drifting away on a train of anxious thoughts. “Albion is transforming. I can’t explain why but seeing it do so gave me hope."

Her gold turned to white. “Where is it?”

“Bindhu Prime.”

“Oh, Solomon. There is hope!”

“Why? What’s happening to the ship? And how do you know?”

“You’re worse than Ned! I can’t answer so many questions at once.”

“Please, Shah Rii. Tell me.”

“All I know is what I heard. Albion will be torn apart, its four powers fleeing from each other. But only when it finds Bastion.”

Solomon leaned forward. “The sphere within the sphere. Bindhu Prime is Bastion? The Temple of Fiends? I was there for… No. It makes sense.”

“Sol, I hope you have a plan.”

“Needle and I are searching for someone who can help us form one. But it seems we need look no further. Tell me, Shah Rii. How do you know these things?”

She was quiet, her light shifting between darker and paler colors. “Hod.”

Solomon sat starkly upright. “Ned and I are searching for him. We hoped you could help us find him. Where is he now?”

And there was shame in her voice. “My husband was hunting him, so I’m keeping him safe. For as long as I can.”

“Shah Rii, I need to speak with him. Please.”

She went almost dark. “Okay. Step on the pad.”

When transported to the engine room, Solomon’s radiance surged, soaking up the wild energies coming from the station’s transcendent power core.

“Shah Rii, bring Needle here as well.”

She said nothing, but he was soon transported as well. He had his wrists tight together and was emitting a beam from his pinky finger onto the locking pad of his manacles. He halted, looked at Solomon and then Shah Rii, and if blood flowed through his veins he might have blushed. The manacles dropped to the ground and Shah Rii let out an ethereal sigh.

Needle strode to Solomon’s side and looked at the Dial. “Howdy.”

“Ned, don’t.”

“Where is Hod, Shah Rii?” Solomon asked.

“The only place I could think of where he would be safe. You can’t go there. I can only send you.”

“Where, Shah Rii?” Solomon insisted.

Another ethereal sigh. “Inside the Phrastus Belt.”

Solomon turned to Needle, and they shared an astonished look.

“Groovy,” said Needle.