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of Laurea, the University representative to the Inner Council, stood a little apart from the others. She was a short woman, so muffled in the traditional green silk robe that from a distance she seemed no more than an overdressed doll. The slanting light made her cropped hair gleam like unpolished steel and brought out the filigree of lines on her face. On her left hand, she wore a signet ring of age-patinated gold, incised with a dotted double circle. As she waited, she rubbed the ring and twisted it around her finger, tracing the design, around and around in an unending circle.
    At Esmelda’s side stood her son and adjutant, Terricel sen’Laurea. The “sen” in his place-name denoted his status as a University senior. Although he appeared slightly built, his bones were big enough for an athlete — a swimmer or a gymnast — but they were covered by soft flesh instead of muscle. His skin was as pale as any scholar’s, his hands uncalloused except for his right index finger. Below colorless eyes, his lips pressed together, whitening the skin around his mouth still further. Despite the chill of the morning, a bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, yet he gave no sign he’d felt it. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the Starhall, as if by will alone he could wrest some secret from it.
    Pateros, brimming with confidence and energy in the prime of his life, arrived. He greeted each of his advisors with a touch and a friendly word. He stopped for a moment to ask Terricel about the progress of his master’s thesis proposal.
    â€œDoing well,” Terricel answered. “My presentation’s scheduled for next week.”
    â€œHistory? Following in your mother’s footsteps?”
    â€œNot exactly, sir. Same field, but different subject. I’m trying something no one’s done before.”
    Pateros patted Terricel’s shoulder before going inside. “You’ll do us proud, I’m sure of it.”
    Terricel squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and followed his mother and the other Councillors through the heavy bronzewood doors, past the contemporary-styled offices and the display cases containing the personal journals of Guardians from past dynasties. Above them swept the spectators’ balcony, where even now visitors stood and wondered at the bygone times when the entire Senate could gather in the hexagonal room below. Since the Senate Building had been completed, the Starhall was used primarily for the administration of traditional oaths to judges and Rangers, as well as meetings of the Guardian’s Inner Council.
    Although Terricel was prepared for it, the brilliant light of the central chamber made his eyes water. He remembered the discussion when, only a few years ago, Pateros had installed the banks of batteries and intensifying lenses in the roof. The traditionalists on the Council felt that a dimmer illumination would have been more flattering to the ancient walls, for the warped paneling was only partly covered by the tapestries hung by Pateros’s grandfather. Terricel liked the sense of age in the room, as well as the time-battered mosaic floors depicting the All-Mother planting a seedling.
    Old tales spoke of a treasure buried deep beneath those floors, beneath the Starhall’s very foundations, and Terricel had studied them all in his history classes. Some said it was all that remained of the starship that carried humankind to Harth more than a thousand years ago. Others said space travel was impossible, an offense to decently controlled science, and it was something else entirely, a device to travel through time perhaps, or across dimensions. Yet others claimed, completely illogically, that it was an altar to some blood-craving norther god, or else the sort of god the northers would pray to if they had any gods at all.
    Yet Terricel knew that more lay beneath the Starhall than legend. One day, he promised himself for the