"Finally," Zhou sighed, staring at the Arc's front window and revving up the engines, his fingers twisting within the pedestal's white glow. "This place was boring me to tears."

Ida balked. "Boring? To you?" She curled her skirt around her body, sinking into a cushioned dragonleaf chair. As a pair of brown reading glasses fell down the woman's nose, Lisa wondered why she was wearing them. She must, by now, have perfect vision. Perhaps it's just a familiar comfort.

Zhou's expression remained impassive as the ship began to rise off the ground. "There's nothing but salt," he replied. "It's depressing."

"What?" Priscilla grumbled, looking up from her chip reader. "Why?"

"It's so bland."

The entire ship fell quiet.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Priscilla said at last, uncertain.

Zhou cracked a grin and winked.

I feel like I don't know anything about him, Lisa thought, studying the man intently as he began to direct their ship toward the exit gate. Zhou never talks about himself. All we see of him is this cool, confident individual...but there's a reason why he's the head of the vanguard's kursi. Lisa had the impression that Zhou was far more intimidating than Jessup, the former head of Ritus. At the same time, as far as she knew, the man didn't have a noteworthy past.

Then again, she thought, how would I even know if he did? It's not like I have a face book of all COTD kursi. She realized that if anyone had such a book, it was Lepochim. I'll ask him about compiling one.

Soon, the ship was passing through the gate, bringing up the rear behind the other ships as they made landfall. All those not riding in the ships had departed through the gate three hours ago, setting out early to plant a city-seed.

"Wow..." Lisa murmured, struck by the stark difference between Dawn's Shadow and Dusk's Halo. While Dawn's Shadow shone largely white, its salt surface only occasionally broken by crystal growths, Dusk's Halo shone an intense green. Waves of short, hair-like fibers carpeted the ground.

The kursi's craft followed behind the other ships, casting the distant ground in shadow. The terrain seemed to consist entirely of rolling plains, the grass unbroken by trees or animals. Five minutes into the flight, however, an enormous tilled field came into view. A rib-like superstructure the size of an airport arched over the field, its translucent form glinting in the light of the planet's star. Using the superstructure as a scaffold were a number of small, moving metallic constructs that gleamed harshly star's radiation. A few of these same constructs also tended to the field on the ground. To Lisa's eye, the ground constructs appeared to be doing nothing more than walking through the dirt field in straight lines.

"These must be the farming androids," Ida said, coking her head to the left.

"They look suspiciously like the bug-bots the verdora fought off on Drift Jag," Priscilla muttered. Khalid chose this moment to exit the shift's small bathroom, his face pale.

"We have arrived?" he exclaimed, quickly settling into a dragonleaf cushion. "How far are we from the city-seed?"

"Not far," Zhou said, his eyes locked onto the outside. "This time, we established the city-seed in a geographically optimal location."

Lisa nodded. "Unlike the other planets, planet 39744--Dusk's Halo--has practical uses. We have access to maps of its surface and records detailing the arrangement between an entity known as Vora Star and Illudis."

"Vora Star?" Zhou murmured, raising an eyebrow.

Lisa met his eyes. "It's a relatively powerful cluster of gate planets within the Intermediary Strand. They serve as a middleman, connecting the crops from Dusk's Halo to their unnamed buyer within the Core."

Ida frowned. "Are the androids from Vora Star?"

"They're from the unnamed buyer," Lisa clarified.

Nodding, Ida crossed her hands and observed the passing of farmland below. Between the separate superstructures stretched untilled, grassy land. From when they initially spotted the first superstructure to when the Spire finally came into view, the only grass within their line of sight populated these half-mile long border areas.

"The city-seed...it's greener than usual," Khalid murmured, his voice partially obscured by his head wrap.

Lisa blinked. The city-seed did appear over-saturated. Though perhaps that's just in contrast to the city-seeds on the previous two planets. Drift Jag's city-seed--New Mogadishu--was stark, its dragonleaf taking on ashy-gray hues, while the city-seed on Dawn's Shadow--Saltflat--was a monochrome of white.

"Why here?" Priscilla asked, still curled up on her chair. "What's special about this part of the planet?"

"Do you see how the ground is sloping up?" Zhou queried.

"I suppose."

"The land juts out, forming a large, natural bluff overlooking a freshwater lake," he explained. "Recall that unlike Dawn's Shadow, Dusk's Halo has a salt deficit. All but one body of water hold fresh water."

"Huh," Priscilla intoned, looking intently at the rapidly-approaching city-seed. "How big is this lake, then?"

Zhou smiled. "You have a chip reader, don't you?"

Priscilla grumbled something under her breath, focusing her eyes on an encyclopedia projection that only she could see.

"Just tell her," Ida sighed wistfully, giving Zhou a disapproving look. She turned Priscilla's way, then cleared her throat. "The lake is approximately the size of the Mediterranean Sea."

Lisa swallowed. While she'd known how big the lake was, in square miles, the number hadn't meant much to her. Big was, well, big. But visualizing this lake as the Mediterranean Sea suddenly made its enormity tangible.

No wonder this world is such a desirable bread basket, she thought. The amount of fresh water on its surface is staggering.

"By area, or volume?" Priscilla asked, frowning.

Ida blinked. "Volume."

"The encyclopedia says that the body of water--I assume I've found the correct one, based on our current location--is only 3.5 kilometers deep at its lowest point." She gave everyone nearby a knowing look. "Moreover, it has an average depth of only half of kilometer."

This means nothing to me, Lisa acknowledged sadly. I need to better familiarize myself with geography and orders of magnitude.

Khalid gave a short chuckle. "So this lake is enormous," he stated. "Interesting."

"The planet itself is 1.25 times the radius of Earth in size," Lisa added. "It's not too surprising that it has larger bodies of water."

Thirty seconds later, the kursi disembarked from the ship, stepping eagerly onto the grass strip off to the city's left side.

"The atmosphere feels heavier," Priscilla noted, breathing in deeply.

"It doesn't feel like sticky, or heavy with humidity," Khalid murmured. He took in a series of slow, careful breaths. "The chip reader states that this planet's atmosphere has a greater concentration of CO2," he observed. "Perhaps the air is simply just difficult to breathe."

Lisa snorted. Compared to the atmosphere on some of the other planets we've been to, this place's atmosphere is easy to breathe. Unenhanced humans would probably be able to breathe the air, though they might be short of breath.

"Breathing in elevated levels of CO2 isn't the problem," Lisa argued. "The atmosphere literally is just...thicker."

The group fell in behind Zhou as he loped to the open front gates of the city-seed. As usual, the kursi set about locating their temporary living quarters and freshening up. Lisa elected to visit the bathhouse, craving the relaxing flow of water and steam over her body.

However, when she arrived at the entrance, a large, poorly-made sign discouraged her from openining the door.

"OUT OF ORDER."

"Bath," she hissed, flicking Bath's tiny ear resting behind her own.

"Hmm?"

"What's wrong with the bathhouse?"

Bath began to chuckle. "It's out of order."

"Yeah, I can clearly see that from the sign. Did you make that?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Maybe," Bath drawled.

"The first two words are enormous," she snickered. "You ran out of room?" "Order" was smooshed into the last quarter of the sign's length.

"Ha-ha," he chortled. "Regardless, I'm doing some modifications to the bathhouse."

Lisa walked toward the entrance, opening the door and stepping inside. "Like what?"

Bath appeared in front of her, his expression mischievous. He beckoned her forward, leading her into the bathhouse's main chamber. Because steam, a staple of the bathhouse, was nowhere to be found, Lisa could actually appreciate the attention to detail that Bath had paid the room. It was divided into three parts: a section for men, on the left; a section for people of any gender at the center; and a section for women on the right. These two walls bore striking scenes of alien life and tropical jungles. Well, alien to me, at least. Lisa had no doubts that the creatures on the wall had once populated Earth.

"This place is beautiful," she breathed, transfixed. She glanced up at the ceiling, where a patchwork of colored glass shone rainbow light down onto the floor. "That's new, right?"

Bath nodded. "Right."

Lisa turned around, facing him. "What else have you changed?"

Bath pointed downward. "I'm connecting the bathhouse to the lake below," he explained. "Ideally, before the day ends, we'll have a functional water slide."

Lisa gave him a look. "How long is the drop from here to the lake?"

"Half a mile."

"Uh..."

"The goal," Bath began, "is to build a slide that twists and loops, taking advantage of the elevation and the force of gravity for the full half mile."

"How, exactly, does this slide tie in with the bathhouse?"

"People can use the bathhouse as a waiting room," Bath explained. "Do you remember all the times our parents took us to the pool as children? Remember how you were always shivering as we waited in line to slide again?"

Lisa nodded. "I remember; but that's how it always is: after getting out of the water, the air feels cold." She smirked. "Which is why you're redirecting the line for the slide to the heated bathhouse."

"Exactly."

"Where are the people going to stand in line, then?" Lisa asked, raising an eyebrow.

Bath snorted. "I'm working on it," he exclaimed, his voice defensive. "That's why this place is out of order, for the time being."

"When should I come back?"

"I'll tell you as soon as its finished."

Lisa sighed. "That won't work," she said, tapping her ear. "I was going to go in an hour, but I'll just go now if I can't take a bath. I'll be beyond your range."

Bath tilted his head. "Where are you going?"

"To check out the enormous farms," Lisa explained. "Where else?"

"I'll go with you," he said. "I haven't investigated them, either."

Lisa gestured to the floor. "Don't you need to focus on finishing this place?" She smiled. "I'll be fine, seriously. I'll take all of the kursi with me."

"You've noticed that the androids bear a resemblance to the bug-bots, right?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "It's a pretty hard resemblance to miss. It might just be a coincidence. We won't know until we study one of the androids in detail." She sighed. "Not sure how we're going to do that, though. Remember what Juserin said?"

"Not to break any of the androids. Or, in his words, not to even touch them."

"He didn't say what would happen if we broke one, but he gave me the impression that it wouldn't be good." If a Core world decided to mete justice on us for destruction of property...what would that entail? Lisa wondered if the Core world would even personally get involved. Perhaps that's the role of Vora Star.

"Lisa," Bath said abruptly. "Take the kursi, explore, and come back after two hours. The bathhouse will be done by then."

Lisa grinned. "I'll be back soon." With that, she turned around and sprinted out of the bathhouse, the "OUT OF ORDER" sign clanking behind her.

---

Eyrin walked gingerly through the rows of stalks, his feet falling lightly on the loose soil. Behind him trailed a contingent of verdora ninety-eight strong.

So, everyone. Aside from Thaddeus. At Eyrin's sides were the Delelen twins, both of whom were transfixed by the superstructure overhead.

"Our first adventure away from Thaddeus," the female Delelen said, her voice low. "Needs to go perfectly."

"Thaddeus doesn't expect perfection," the male Delelen argued. "Adventure is a messy business."

A verdora--Eyrin recognized him as the son of a major lord--following behind the two broke into the conversation. "What kind of adventure are we going to find here?"

None of them have any idea that the one who taught Thaddeus...was me. He found the dramatic irony humorous. Having lived out much of his life in one identity or another, Eyrin was no stranger to this kind of situation. However, while he normally felt no need to prove himself, part of him...wanted the other verdora to respect him.

Not for being a kursi, of course--they already respected him for that. Instead, he wished that they saw him as a figure to go to for guidance. How did Thaddeus so quickly capture their faith and devotion?

Eyrin cleared his throat. "It seems to me," he interjected, "that there's only one thing to be done: investigate the superstructure and the androids scurrying about." He looked distastefully at the surrounding stalks of green. We're definitely not going to find adventure in these monotonous fields: the superstructure is the only valid point to investigate.

"Where do you propose we begin our investigation?" the male Delelen asked. I really should remember his name...

"We should continue along this stretch of untilled ground until we reach the edge of the field. Then, we should climb the superstructure and map out its mechanical components," Eyrin instructed, walking swiftly ahead.

Seeing no dissent, that was exactly what the verdora did. They reached the end of the field in a minute, emerging out onto the grassy barrier bordering its side.

Eyrin went first, scaling the structure's surface with ease. It had many square-shaped footholds, no-doubt in use by the androids. While his feet were a little large to fit into them comfortably, he only needed to push off against them and keep his balance. Soon, he found himself at the top of the structure.

He motioned for the other verdora to come up. The verdora began climbing up the dome-shaped structure from the sides, congregating at the metal supports parallel with the ground.

The cage-like superstructure was more than enough to support all of their weight. As soon as the last verdora fell into place, Eyrin began to voice his next instruction.