His lover, Morwenna, is sent with him in the scrimshaw suit, a sensory deprivation device which paralyzes and blinds its wearer until they remove it.

On one of the moons of a gas giant he names Haldora (which also seems to disappear every so often for a few fractions of a second), he discovers an alien bridge, whose automated defense system attacks him.

However, Haldora vanishes and his radio signal reaches the shuttle, which races to save him at maximum acceleration, killing Morwenna.

Clavain agrees, but tells Scorpio to throw his corpse into the sea (where the Pattern Jugglers absorb him and reunite him with Galiana and Felka).

As the crew collect the last refugees attempting to escape the system, a minor mutiny breaks out amongst the upper echelons, in which Scorpio's leadership is overturned and the other leaders take power as a group.

Rashmika Els, a 17-year-old girl, leaves her home on Hela to search for her long-lost brother Harbin, who left to join the Cathedrals years before.

The Cathedrals were set up by Quaiche after the 2615 timeline and constantly move across Hela (making use of various propulsion systems, such as legs and tracks) to "observe" Haldora and its disappearances (known as "vanishings").

It uses special indoctrinal viruses to maintain religious faith amongst its supporters, although certain areas, such as Rashmika's town, are exempt.

He reveals he actually wants the ship to change Hela's rotation with its engines to stop it spinning; this will permit him to keep watching Haldora eternally, without the need for moving Cathedrals.

Brannigan agrees and lands, but not before he deploys a Cache Weapon on Haldora and destroys its exterior, revealing it to be the Shadows' transport mechanism.

As they walk away, Khouri asks Scorpio why he saved the shuttle in the Yellowstone system and it is implied that he saw her husband, Fazil, was on the passenger manifest.

The epilogue reveals that the woman is in fact an older version of Aura (with her guardian implied to be Scorpio), reflecting on the events that happened after the battle on Hela.

However, in doing so, they created a greater problem: the so-called "Greenfly" machines, self-replicating terraformers programmed to destroy every object in a solar system and reorganize them into trillions of vegetation-filled habitats that orbit the local star (behavior that is exactly the same as the threat described by the Shadows).

The Greenfly threat is described in detail in the short story "Galactic North", from its origins until the year 40,000, by which time it has spread to such an extent that humans are forced to abandon the Milky Way Galaxy.