The celebration continued in the faint twilight under brilliant jewel-tone stars from the nearby cluster. Wide irrigation canals extended in straight lines out to the nialia fields, shimmering silver from the luminous gelfish that filled the waters. Young Thor’h seemed exhausted and preoccupied, but not willing to leave the celebrations. He consumed a fair amount of stimulant extracted from the fertilized nialia seedpods, one of Hyrillka’s drug exports.

The laughter, carousing, and music gave Kori’nh no enjoyment. He chose no pleasure mate for himself, though the Designate repeatedly offered the Adar his personal favorites. Finally, with good grace, the Mage-Imperator’s son laughed and instructed the pleasure mates all to go to his steamy bath pools, where he promised to make up for the Adar’s lack of interest.

As the celebration began to blur and fade, Kori’nh politely suggested that the Designate entertain his women; then he took a small shuttle back to his nearly empty flagship.

He spent hours in his cabin reading, but this time he put aside the Saga of Seven Suns and perused human military history instead. Over the past decade, Kori’nh had become quite enamored of all the wars and holocausts the Terrans had inflicted upon themselves. The desperate strategies of human generals—Kori’nh’s spiritual counterparts—surpassed the wildest imaginings of Ildiran soldiers.

He was constantly amazed that a single race, confined to one planet, had engendered such incredible strife, such terrible struggle. Humans had pursued more warfare in a handful of centuries than the Ildiran race had in all the empire’s recorded history. While Kori’nh did not envy Earth its bloodshed, he remained fascinated by the “thought experiments” he could conduct by analyzing Napoleon, Hitler, Hannibal.

While he waited for the celebration to end on Hyrillka, an idea brewed in his mind. Adar Kori’nh decided to call an important meeting of his subcommanders as soon as the Solar

Navy departed from the Horizon Cluster.

The Adar gave instructions to his navigator that the cohort was to be brought to a dead halt in an empty desert of space far from any stars or planets—or observers.

Flustered, the Qul subcommanders who led the seven maniples, as well as the Tal overseer of the entire cohort, answered the Adar’s summons to come aboard the flagship warliner. Kori’nh surveyed them coolly in his private briefing room under dazzling lights.

Most of the maniple commanders sat quietly awaiting orders, but Tal Aro’nh, senior leader of all 343 ships, was taken aback by the unexpected change in plans. “But Adar Kori’nh, we have a schedule. We have a new pageant to perform in two weeks’ time at Kamin. The Designate has erected an entirely new arena for our arrival celebration. Volunteers from seven kiths have been recruited to sew banners and stage a welcome ballet—”