Chapter One / City of 10,000 Eyes

        Desdemona arose to awareness. Through rosy eyelids, a glow summoned her upwards. Her eyes fluttered open. She did not see the steel confines of an imaging clinic. She saw a bedroom hung with pale silks. She snorted and sat upright. She was not alone.

        Verna Walters padded over and sat on the bed. She smiled and cupped Desdemona’s hand.

        "What?" Desdemona said. “What?”

        "Hush," Verna said, patting her hand. "Everything is okay."

        Desdemona glanced around the room. "Did it work? Do I have to do it again?"

"Yes, it's fine," Verna said. "Everything worked fine."

        Desdemona had lost consciousness, naked on a stainless-steel table. Now she looked down at herself. She was wearing a white bodysuit. She plucked the snappy fabric.

        "I don't have to do it again," she said.

        "No, no," Verna said. "You're imaging went just fine."

        "Oh, good," Desdemona sighed and collapsed onto the downy pillows. "I really don’t want to do that again."

        "Yes, I know."

        "And Paco?" Desdemona asked.

"Paco was fine. He sends his love."

"Good. Good. We can go home, then."

        Verna smiled gently. She patted Desdemona's hand.

        Desdemona moaned. She stretched her legs. "I feel good. That's for sure."

        "That's good."

        "Not a bad way to rest," Desdemona said. "I guess I needed it, after all that."

"Yes. Yes, certainly."

        Desdemona brushed her long black hair from her face. She stared at Verna. "Wait," she said, snatching her hand away. "You're not Verna!"

        Verna folded her hands on her lap. Her angelically blond hair, large wide-set eyes, long straight nose and plush lips were identical to those of Desdemona's memories of her, but she knew that this was not Verna Walters.

        "Who are you?" Desdemona demanded.

        "I am the true invocation of Verna Walters."

        Desdemona edged away from her. "Get the real Verna here!"

"I am here."

        "No, no! You look like her. You sound like her. But you are not her."

        Verna's smile grew. "Perhaps not," she said, sliding off the bed. "Could the old Verna Walters do this?"

        Kneeling, Verna did a handstand, then arched her back until her toes touched her head, then  split her legs and rotated to stand, smiling at Desdemona.

        "You said, ‘invocation,’" Desdemona said. "And if you are invoked? Then I am . . . invoked?"

        "Yes."

        "Who invoked me? What planet is this?"

        "It is your new home planet. Let me show you," Verna said, offering her hand to Desdemona. They walked down a long passageway past arched doorways.

        Verna gestured at the violet light slanting through an open doorway. "It is day-blue," she said, "but we’ll be okay."

        Desdemona stepped out onto a broad veranda. Millions of lights glimmered around and below her. Out beyond the city lights stretched a purple ocean. Above the distant horizon burned two suns. In orbit of a large orange-red sun, a white-blue sun beamed jets of white fire from its poles.

        "A dual sun."

        Verna nodded. “The Red Sun. The Blue Sun.”

        Desdemona staggered forward two steps, overwhelmed by the vista.

        "Can it be?" Desdemona asked. "Ephezium-4?"

Verna smiled and nodded.

        As the Blue Sun transited the Red Sun, the face of the Red Sun seemed to dim so that she could perceive sunspots, a huge corona and arcs of flares.

        "What happened?" Desdemona asked.

        Verna began to answer, "The opaline filters out -- "

        “That glass?"

        Verna swept her hand. "The veranda is under dome. Otherwise, we couldn't stand here. The Blue Sun would burn us."

        "Ephezium-4," said Desdemona. "Then I am invoked by the Hiyul?"

        "Yes," Verna said. "We are Envoys of the Silver Sun to the Hiyul, here on her home world."

        "Oh, dear," Desdemona said. She had hoped for a world free of the Hiyul.

        Verna smirked. "You are seven minutes old, my dear, and you have already unfolded a mystery."

        Desdemona scoffed. "A circumbinary, heavy planet. A red giant and a neutron star. Those are big clues. Tell me. What happened to the Earth?”

        “The Earth is fine, even today,” Verna said.

        Desdemona smiled, understanding that humanity had managed to win over the Hiyul. "Well, good,” she said. “One for the home team, I guess. So, where is Paco?"

        "Paco is coming," Verna said.

        "Oh, my," Desdemona said. "I didn't think it would be like this. It feels weird. And Paco isn’t with me."

        "It’s never like we expected," Verna said.

"What year is it?"

        "In our old calendar, it is 1,154,876."

        Desdemona blinked. "Then everyone I ever knew is dead.”

Verna shook her head. "No. Not everyone," she said. "I am here.”

"Who else?"

        "Right now, there’s more than fifty of us on the planet. Several from our cohort. Your cohort, I should say. Beryl is here," Verna said. She swept her arm and Beryl Salazar appeared.

        Desdemona blinked at the sudden apparition of the first Star Envoy from Earth. "And who’s the leader, then?” she asked. “Beryl?"

        "Many listen to Beryl. Some listen to me," Vernon answered. "Many listen to Paco."

"Who listens to a sixteen-year old?" Desdemona asked. "The pre-teens?"

        "How do you feel?" Beryl asked.

        Desdemona shrugged. "I feel great. I feel like I'm floating in a pink cloud."

        "Endorphins. Dopamine, oxytocin,” Beryl said, smiling. “Another gift from the Mother."

"I feel like it's a dream," Desdemona said. “How long has Paco been here?”

        “Paco is 128 years old," Beryl said.

"He hasn't been re-invoked?"

        Verna shook her head. "No. The Hiyul invokes envoys only with the consent of previous invocations. Paco says that he is already here."

        "And what did I say? The Desdemona that's over a hundred years old?"

Verna remained silent.

        Desdemona sighed. "So . . . I died."

        "Your invocation, the one who was invoked with me and Paco and the others, did not survive her first year.”

        "How did I die?" Desdemona asked quietly.

"Please, Desdemona,” Verna pleaded.

        “Not so soon,” Beryl cautioned.

        "All right," Desdemona said. "Later. Tell me about Paco."

        "Oh, Desdemona," Verna said. "He has been a great man for so long. It’s hard to see it sometimes, but he’s still our Paco. He still makes me laugh."

        "I can’t imagine Paco an old man," Desdemona said.

        Beryl tapped his temple. "He sports a silver streak, here, above his ears."

Desdemona was not amused by the notion of her little brother as an old man. “Why isn't he here? Why didn't he wake me up?"

        "He has other business that delays him,” Beryl said. “Vital business."

        As the Red Sun set beyond the oceanic horizon, the metropolis glinted variously of blood red to orange, the sky darkened to midnight blue, while the sea darkened to black, glimmering with veins of bio-luminescent blue and silver. Overhead in the starry sky, two moons loomed: a gibbous sphere of ice-blue and a larger orb of silver and grey.

        "My memory may not be perfect," Desdemona said. "I remember one moon, not two."

        Verna and Beryl said nothing. Their silence weighed heavily on her.

        She stared upwards at the larger silver moon, which seemed to loom larger even as she watched. She squinted her eyes and tried to focus on its brightly reflective silvery surface. She thought that she could make out thousands of parallel concentric lines. They gave her the impression that the orb was rotating.

        Desdemona planted her feet wide and pointed up toward the moon. "That is not a moon of Ephezium-4, is it?"

"Tomorrow . . . " Verna began.

        Desdemona wheeled on Verna. "Verna!" she cried. "Answer my questions!"

Verna shrugged. "I think it’s too soon, but so be it," she said. "Beryl, tell her."

        “That," he said, "is not a moon of Ephezium-4. That is a rogue planet in an elliptical orbit of the binary stars. Its orbit approaches ours."

        "It looks close," Desdemona said.

"It is close."

        As he spoke, Desdemona could feel the veranda under her feet tremble. She cried, "What is that?"

        "A quake. The Hiyul has been compensating for the tidal pressures, but now it is approaching too close. The tremors will only get stronger."

        "When is its . . . closest point of approach?" Desdemona asked.

“Three days," Beryl said.

        "And how close will it get?"

        A long silence conveyed to Desdemona an answer that was unspeakable. "Is it going to collide?" she asked.

        "Yes," Beryl said. "The planets will collide in 77 hours."

        Desdemona felt nauseous. "She waited . . . it waited for one million years to invoke me and then it invokes me three days before its home world is destroyed?"

        "Yes," Beryl answered flatly.

"And why? Why would it do -- "

        "Because," Verna interrupted, "of exactly that. You have been invoked to witness the collision."

        Desdemona mind boggled. Her sense of unreality deepened in a sickening crisis. She looked down and then reared her head back up to stare, once again, at the looming orb.

        “That,” Beryl said flatly. “is Black Pearl. The homeworld of Wa the Phoenix.”

        In the stunned silence, Desdemona experienced her memory of her encounter with Wa, deep under the Trial Grounds. “Comes . . . “ she murmured.

        “What?” Verna asked.

        “Comes!” Desdemona said. “Wa the Phoenix. Comes, Wa the Master. He is coming. He is coming for me.”

        A tremor vibrated under Desdemona's bare feet. She collapsed to her knees, her hands resting on her thighs. Her back arched and her head reared backwards. Her vision filled with the looming orb of Black Pearl, as she concentrated on her breathing, struggling to stifle a howl.

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