The battle at the center of the Galaxy was watched from far away by cold eyes and orderly, patient minds.

Port Sol was a Kuiper object, a moon of ice. It was one of a hundred thousand such objects orbiting in the dark at the rim of Sol system. It was not the largest; there were monstrous worldlets out here larger than Pluto. But it was no closer to other planetesimals than Earth was to Mars.

This immense belt was a relic of the birth of Sol system itself. Around the fast-growing sun, grains of dust and ice had accreted into swarming planetesimals. Close to the fitfully burning young star, the planetesimals had been crowded enough to combine further into planets. Further out, though, out here, there had been too much room. The formation of larger bodies had stalled, and the ancient planetesimals survived, to swim on in the silent dark.

Port Sol’s human history had begun when its scattered kin had first been populated by a rum assortment of engineers, prospectors, refugees, and dissidents from the inner system. More than twenty thousand years had worn away since then. Now Port Sol’s great days were long past. Its icescapes, crowded with immense ruins, were silent once more.

But still, lights sparked on its surface.

This lonely worldlet had been home to Luru Parz for far longer than she cared to remember. Sometimes she felt she was as old as it was, her heart as cold as its primordial ice. But from here she watched the activities of humanity, from the bustling worlds of Sol system all the way to the heart of the Galaxy itself.