‘Pathmistress! Listener Okass told me to fetch you up to see – there are new stars in the sky!’By the time she reached the high open platform where Okass awaited her, several other senior Uvovo had arrived to peer up into the night sky’s faint veils and hazy swirls. Some were regarding a particular quarter of the firmament, then they broke off to bow as Catriona joined them. ‘In the region of the Ineka constellation, Pathmistress,’ said Okass, pointing.Cat took her binoculars from a waist pouch and turned them to that particular direction. Brighter stars shone through the faraway streams and clouds of interstellar dust while others made diffuse glows, like specks of embers. But between those distant lamps and Darien, hanging in space, were formations of silver pinpoints unlike any stellar arrangement she had ever seen. She lowered the glasses. Those had to be ships, so was this an invasion? Or was it Earthsphere? Or an intervention by the Imisil Mergence? And what was happening down on Darien?
