Green priests were few, and their vital telink skills were in such demand that some missionary priests lived in opulent mansions, subsidized by the Hansa or colony governments, well paid to send and receive instantaneous messages. Other priests, however, lived a more austere life and spent their time simply planting and tending treelings. That was what Beneto would have preferred to do.

The Hansa had begged to hire as many green priests as Theroc would provide, but the merchants and politicians were constantly frustrated. Although Hanseatic envoys insisted that priests must serve the needs of humanity, Father Idriss and Mother Alexa had no interest in expanding their personal power. Instead, they allowed the priests to choose their postings for themselves.

Carefully selecting healthy specimens from the sentient forest on Theroc, the priests distributed treelings on scattered colony worlds or carried them aboard mercantile ships. More than sunlight and fertilization, the worldforest hungered for new information, data to store in its sprawling, interconnected web of half-sentience. The mission of the green priests was to spread the worldforest as far and wide as possible—not to serve the Earth-based trading conglomerate.

For generations, Hansa researchers had tried to understand instantaneous quantum communication through the interlinked trees, but they had made no progress. Only the worldtrees could provide telink, and only green priests could communicate through the forest network. The insurmountable problem drove the scientists into a frenzy of frustration.

Despite all the technology and manpower the Hansa had poured into the Klikiss Torch test, none of it could begin without a single mystic priest and his tree…

Now, aboard the technical observation platform, Chairman Wenceslas clasped his well-manicured hands in front of him. “Very well, Beneto, contact your counterpart at the neutron star. Tell them to open the wormhole.”

Beneto touched the tree again.

6ARCUS

Halfway across the Spiral Arm, another green priest waited with six Hansa technicians in a small scout ship in a stable spot beyond the gravitational pull of the neutron star.

The superdense stellar remnant was all that remained of a collapsed red giant that had run out of momentum and mass before it could become a black hole. Curling space with its powerful gravity, the neutron star rotated like a searchlight, jets of high-energy particles spraying from its poles like water from a fire hose. Such a tiny ball, less than ten kilometers across, yet with a celestial powerhouse of energy.

Crowded in the ship, the six techs were nervous and sweating. The tethered torpedo device had been deployed outside the ship, just waiting to drop into the crushed star’s gravitational mouth. The techs stared at Arcas, as if the green priest could ease their fears or offer them some sort of shortcut.

“Time?” one asked, as if pleading.

The treeling beside him had not yet spoken. Arcas sighed. “I will tell you as soon as I hear.”

Before long, he would return to Theroc, where the priests would give him some other duty to serve the worldforest. It was all the same to Arcas, though he had chosen this assignment—far away, and involving relatively few people. As a green priest, he could do nothing else. He was a loner, but he was also a green priest, linked with the forest. If only he could trade with someone who felt more devotion for the task.