He clenched the treeling’s rough bark, but felt no incoming telink message. Nothing. More waiting. “Not yet.”

Aboard the cold scout ship, the spaces were too confined, the walls too bare. The stored air tasted of processing filters, with none of the moist richness he was accustomed to breathing in the dense forests. Yet, even on Theroc Arcas felt none of the passion that most green priests did. He might have chosen another life entirely, but now his skin bore the green tinge of symbiosis, a subcutaneous algae that allowed him to photosynthesize bright light. The process was irreversible, and he would always remain linked to the worldforest, even if being a green priest was not what he truly wanted.

Arcas had become an acolyte to honor a deathbed promise to his father, rather than out of his own interests. Green priests were in such demand that even a mediocre one such as Arcas could choose from innumerable offers of employment. On Theroc, the elder green priests helped to make such decisions, and Father Idriss and Mother Alexa interacted with the Hansa. But each green priest—even Arcas—could tap into the overall forest mind and make his or her own choices. Among the numerous offers, opulent positions, important diplomatic and liaison posts, Arcas most wanted to be away from all the bustle. He had chosen to be here in this isolated station.

“Time?” another tech said, sounding even more anxious. “Why are they waiting so long?”

After communing through telink, Arcas refocused on the eager technicians. “They say they are ready at Oncier. You may launch the probe now.”

Working with machinery incomprehensible to the green priest, the Hansa techs scrambled to release the tether and activate the Klikiss wormhole-generating device. The probe separated from the scout ship and accelerated toward the neutron star, picking up speed as it coasted down the steep space-time slope.

The technicians cheered when the anchor point was established close to the beacon of the neutron star. They read off results in a breathless hurry because they didn’t know how long the torpedo device could remain in position against the furious gravitational tug-of-war.

Arcas watched, filing away images to transmit back to the worldtrees and all the other green priests. The trees were more interested than he was.

“Activate!” said the head technician.

The torpedo device used ancient Klikiss technology to distort, ripple, and then tear a yawning hole in the fabric of space. The maw of the wormhole tunnel was wide enough to engulf the superdense star.

Arcas muttered to the treeling, describing every step of the process—until even he became speechless as the new wormhole literally swallowed the blazing neutron star, like a pebble falling down a drain.

The torpedo generator gave out, its energy exhausted, and the wormhole slammed shut, sealing space-time without leaving a mark in the emptiness that had held the exotic celestial object.

“There. It is done.” Arcas looked to the technicians, who began to cheer wildly.

The gauzy remains of the gaseous accretion cloud drifted away like wispy scarves, no longer held in place by chains of gravity.