It had set the rebirth of the City in motion. It reached out to the finest endpoints of the networks and nursed long-idle systems back into operation. The lights glowed golden in the tunnels and rotundas of the City of Spirits. Deep in the City’s core, the source grew more powerful, the machines began to warm and gears turned. In the Terminal, the giant airlock doors slid shut. From the filter membrane flowed first drops, then trickles, and finally a cascade of water. The water flowed through walls and along channels into the plaza fountains and buildings and into the machines that produced the air.

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It felt an unusual emotion, something like pride, about completing the cycle that had begun long ago when her ancestors left for the Blue Planet.

She is returning.