1. Intergalactic SpaceSounds returned first to Selene. Two people were talking nearby, voices that she recognized. Then came a third voice, richer and louder. It seemed to call to her, to shake her free from the tangle of thoughts and dreams in which she'd been caught.
She knew what that was too: it was the planet talking, the ancient alien that Concordance, in their ignorance, called Omn. The truth of it was a wonder. Despite everything that had happened to her, delight that such an ancient individual should have survived from the galaxy's prehistory sent a thrill through her. There were real marvels, and the planet was perhaps the greatest. It was too easy to think of the galaxy as a battleground, a realm of suffering and conflict.
But delight carried with it a cargo of pain: Ondo woul
