Needle

'Tanjiri is not for you. You are not ready to encounter what exists there.'

So Lezuri spoke in warning, long ago. Urban still possesses the strange gift-the impossible puzzle-Lezuri gave him that day. A needle, ultra-thin and twelve centimeters long, with a silvery surface that slices light into rainbow glints. All Lezuri's knowledge lies locked within that needle. Urban has only to discover the trick of opening it, to gain that knowledge for himself-but the needle remains an enigma.

Now Dragon and its fleet of outriders has reached the periphery of Tanjiri system. The belt of ruins lies ahead: a chaos of remnant megastructures from a fallen civilization. Farther in, an Earthlike world orbits in the company of a living moon created less than 4,000 years ago. An entity-one greater even than Lezuri-must have made that moon. And yet the system is silent. No one, nothing, has answered Dragon's hails.

Urban is sure that when the fleet enters Tanjiri system, he will meet this maker of worlds-with the lives of everyone he loves at stake. Better, safer, to encounter this entity from a position of strength, armed with all the knowledge and power contained within the needle.

So he believes.