“Atvar H’sial’s not easy to understand. Maybe you’ll catch on one day, when you get a bit smarter.”

Louis prayed, not for the first time, that this particular day would be a long time coming. If the Zardalu ever really caught on…

“Do you think, Master, that this might be the missing component?”

“Could be. Have to study it before I can be sure. Leave it here. Now get back inside, and help the Great Silent One.”

“Yes, Master. Let us pray that this is indeed the necessary component. For all our sakes.”

Nenda watched them as they retreated toward one of the holes that led to the interior. They weren’t groveling as much as usual. And that last crack hadn’t sounded quite as subservient as it should. “For all our sakes.” Maybe it was his imagination, but it sounded more like a threat than a prayer.

Even so, he was glad to see them go. Those huge beaks were big enough to bite him in half. The great tentacles could tear a human limb from limb. Louis had seen it done.

And some day soon, he might see it done again. Or feel it.

How long had it been? He squinted up again toward the invisible sun. Nearly two months. He and Atvar H’sial had stalled the Zardalu for all that time, pretending that they had the know-how to take the Indulgence out to space and away from Genizee. When the Zardalu found out that Nenda and Atvar H’sial were as trapped on the planet as they were, it would all be over.

It wasn’t the ship; he was sure of that. The Indulgence was perfectly spaceworthy. It was those damned annular singularities, the eye-twisting glow that he was peering at now, and the Builder constructs that controlled them. They made space off-limits to anything that started up from the surface of Genizee. How long before the Zardalu latched on to the fact that Louis was as helpless as they were?