Two openings, like eyes, awakened on the surface of the box. Everson would have screamed if it were not for the blue grid mask that clamped his mouth shut. Before he could blink, twin red lasers shot from the openings in the machine and penetrated his mesmerized eyes.

Everything went white…

Then Everson’s vision cleared like steam dissipating quickly from a winter window. The sight that greeted him was both stunning and deeply confusing.

He had somehow been transported into an opulent throne room, albeit one in the throes of violent battle. Indiran soldiers and Manolith warmen clashed in close-quarter combat all around him. There were even large Leftists engaged in the fray, though Everson could not easily ascertain for whom they fought. Yet no one seemed to take notice of him.

He raised his hand against the onslaught and was immediately transfixed. His flesh shimmered with an ethereal blue glow that made him question if it were corporeal at all. The elaborate cuff adorning his wrist prompted him to inspect the rest of his body. He was clad in Manolithic couture of such finery that he suspected someone of taste and substance had lent him this livery. Of course, this could all be some laser-induced hallucination.

Everson moved through the melee like the apparition he apparently was. He viewed the violence with real despair. Hallucination or not, it was all too real and reminiscent of the carnage he had encountered at the Grand Schism. The prince mourned the falling Manolith warmen as much as he grieved the dying Indirans.

He gazed helplessly at the stricken faces, their features contorting as the life left their eyes. Death was death, and its cruelty was democratic. Unable to watch any longer, Everson cast his gaze upward. Though he did not find mercy there, he at least discovered beauty.

She stood atop a curved staircase that ascended in a sweeping arc from behind two ornate thrones. She stood quite still and stared directly at him. The sight of her took his breath away, her gaze like a hand compressing his heart. Everson was certain that he could detect recognition in her countenance. They had met somewhere before, somewhere between the Tree and this vision of a possible future.

She was incandescent and the prince knew it was not just his imagination. This girl glowed, much as he himself was glowing. Everson surmised that they might just be spectral spectators, immersed but apart from this turmoil, as if the battle at hand was nothing more than a backdrop to their meeting.

The prince knew. He simply knew down to the core of his being. This was the Manolithic princess, Allegra.

As if the gravitational pull between Indira and Mano had finally grown strong enough to reunite the long-estranged planets, Everson was drawn to her, moving without conscious thought and almost without will. He felt as if he were floating and that the world around them with its hatred and violence no longer mattered.