“Don’t say that. And we were on Drenard a week ago. I—should we still go explore one of these stations, or should we jump along a few trade routes until we bump into someone? There’s a ton of settled worlds on this map.”

“What about jumping after them?” Edison asked.

“What? Jump into the center of that star? Have you melted your mind?”

“It was just a suggestion,” Edison said. “Then again, think about it, think about where we are. This is the front line of the Bern-Drenard war. We’re standing in the trenches of the most important standoff in your history. Do you really think they just left? Or that they killed themselves? I think it’s more likely they aren’t here because the front has moved elsewhere.”

“I know you hate it when I say this, but I don’t understand. Even without the English.”

Edison blew out his breath, then sucked in another deep one. “At almost the exact instant your Circle voted to change a tactic that has been in place for thousands and thousands of years, the moment they decided to move out of their arm of the Milky Way, the Bern disappear? Like I said, I loathe coincidences more than I hate prophecies.”

“More?” Anlyn asked, doubting him.

“Absolutely. A prophecy might be nothing more than a prediction, or a well-reasoned theory with flowery language. A major coincidence like this? I just don’t buy it.”

“What they did, if these scans are correct, it seems suicidal,” Anlyn said. “Desperate. Like something we should be celebrating instead of getting worried about.” Anlyn looked from the screens to the orbital base they had been approaching. “I say we go check out that station, maybe broadcast our message a few more times.”

Edison lowered his brows, peering at the distant station. Eventually, he nodded. “That seems logical. Still, something tells me we should follow them, but perhaps there is more to that than just jumping to a precise spot. A modification of some sort . . .”

“Exactly,” Anlyn said, not enjoying his line of reasoning. She turned to one of the stations and increased thrust. Edison adjusted the SADAR for her so she could see any major debris in the way. But no matter how much he played with the gain, the SADAR remained dominated by the hyperdrive traces: bright, big blooms of pixilated energy.

They were like the ghosts of something fierce, haunting the dark closet Anlyn had been taught to fear her entire life. But now, having stepped through that mystical and lore-filled door, she had found the closet to be perfectly empty, a prospect somehow worse.

As they approached one of the traces, she felt her cold side dominat-ing. The absence of the bad men—not knowing where they were right then—was far more powerful than their presence. It was as if they could be around any corner, or off doing worse things than merely lurking in her imagination.