Caldera sent us with a sentence, not a fleet: relight the spine. Six nodes have gone unread in fourteen weeks. Unread is Sol’s word. I am using it until we have a better one.

The ship is in good order. Hale has the pit. Calder has the table. The atrium is flowering a week early, which Veld insists is not an omen.

I walked the theater at the end of Watch I and looked at the nebula that has no name on our charts. The Compact was founded to keep roads. I would rather repair a road than name a war. We will try the former for as long as the latter will let us.