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butwe need to know how much . . . and we want to be sure the Consciousness has departed.”

“Understood.”

“You will then use the TRGA at the Omega Cluster to transit back to the N’gai Cloud, catch up with the Sh’daar migration,and learn what you can about their Singularity.”

“In direct violation of a presidential directive,” Gray pointed out.

“Well . . . yes. If it helps, you’ll have the full backing of the USNA Navy and the Joint Chiefs.” He held up a hand level across his eyebrows. “They’re fed up to here with Walker’s grandstanding. I don’tthink it will come down to another court-martial.” So . . . it was back to Omega Centauri.

The Rosette Consciousness had been an existential threat for Humankind, a hyperintelligent Mind that had come through from somewhere else by way of the six black holes whirling about a common center of gravity deep within the central regions of the globular star cluster known as Omega Centauri. Astronomers had recognized since the late twentieth century that Omega Centauri was not a normal globular cluster like its lesser siblings, but the remnant core of a dwarf galaxy devoured by the far vaster Milky Way spiral some 800 million years in the past.

A few individual stars—Kapteyn’s Star, just 12.7 light years from Earth, was one—had been identified by their spectral fingerprintsand their off-orbits through the galaxy as refugees from the cannibalized dwarf. Astrophysicists had connected the dots anddetermined that the ancient N’gai Cloud, home to the enigmatic civilization dubbed the ur-Sh’daar, had once been what eventuallybecame Omega Centauri. A sextet of hypergiant blue suns in an artificially created rosette at the center of the N’gai galaxyhad ultimately become the six black holes of the later globular cluster’s Rosette. The Consciousness, emerging at the coreof Omega Centauri, had established itself within the cluster and seemed to be searching for other minds. For a time, the alienintelligence was believed to be the Transcended ur-Sh’daar. Xenosophontologists now thought that the Consciousness had beensomething very other, an invader from another universe emerging through a hole within the weakened fabric of spacetime at the Rosette’s gravitationalcenter.

However, exactly what had actually happened to the Consciousness was still unknown. The Sh’daar had propelled a giant bluesun in the N’gai Cloud 800 million years ago through the circle of hypergiants on that side of the Rosette, so that it emerged on this side as a shotgun blast of raw energy, a hypernova of terrifying proportions. The full force of that stellar explosion hadbeen absorbed, somehow, by a Harvester ship—highly advanced aliens from Deneb with technologies literally magical by humanstandards.

That seemed to have gotten the Consciousness’s attention, at least, and it appeared to have withdrawn from human space, vanishingwith the Harvester.

The operative word there was seemed.

“And if the Consciousness doesn’t let me go through the triggah?”

“Omega Station reports no sign of the Rosette entity since the hypernova appeared,” Konstantin replied. “You should be okay.”

“What,” Marta asked, “is a ‘triggah?’”

“Navy slang,” Gray told her, “so it’s probably not on the Net. Look up ‘TRGA.’”

“‘Texaghu Resch Gravitational Anomaly?’” she said after a brief moment. “Ah . . . an interstellar transport mechanism. Namedfor a star with the Agletsch designation of Texaghu Resch close to the location of the first one discovered. . . .”

“For a long time we called them Sh’daar Nodes,” Koenig told her. “For a while, we were pretty sure that somebody else builtthe things a long, long time ago, and the Sh’daar were just taking advantage of them . . . just as we do. Now things have come full circle. We’repretty sure the Sh’daar did build the TRGA network, at least partly to let them infiltrate the Milky Way after they fled from N’gai. But . . . yeah.The short story is, they’re gateways across space and into other times.”

“They’re big, inside-out Tipler machines,” Gray told her. “You can look up the reference. But that’s how we can cross tensof thousands of light years in one jump.” He frowned. Thinking about the TRGA cylinders had made him think of something else . . .something that could be a huge problem. “Konstantin,” he said, “there’s an issue here. I know that most of the hypernova’senergy, the stuff coming through to the present, was absorbed or blocked somehow by the Denebans . . . right?”

“Correct.”

“But a lot of stuff still got through.”

“In sixteen thousand years,” Konstantin said, “when the wavefront of that event reaches Earth, Omega Centauri may become thebrightest object in the planet’s night sky.”

“Okay . . . so what did get through will have engulfed the Omega TRGA. And 876 million years ago it’ll have taken out Thorne.”

Thorne was the name of the N’gai TRGA, designated that after Kip Thorne, a brilliant twentieth-century theoretical physicistwho’d advanced human understanding of black holes, quantum physics, and the possibility of time travel.

“Indeed,” Konstantin replied. “You will need to proceed cautiously. We believe the TRGAs will have remained operational. They’revery hard to damage. But you’ll need to check your pathways carefully with drones.”

“I have to emphasize,” Koenig added, “that we are not ordering you to command this expedition. We’re asking you to volunteer.”

“And the reason would be . . .”

“You’ve probably had more experience dealing with the Sh’daar than any other command officer we have,” Koenig said. “And you’ve had extensive experience with the Consciousness. So we’re asking you just in case.”

“Just in case the Consciousness is still out there making trouble,” Gray said, nodding. “I understand.”

Gray was actually flattered that Koenig and Konstantin wanted him leading this expedition, though he refused to reveal thatemotion. And to tell the truth, he’d been seriously considering retiring in any case. Flying a desk in Washington, D.C., wassimply not the same as skippering a star carrier or running a carrier battlegroup. He was sick of politics, especially sinceKoenig’s term had run out and the former President had been replaced by Walker. A very real possibility would be forced retirementwhen he got back . . . retirement and disgrace. It might mean his pension, but he was pretty sure Koenig and Konstantin wouldhave that covered.

Gray had been in the Navy for twenty-eight years, since 2401. He had little to look forward to at this point, since he