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brief cries. “Oh, grief,” a woman said quietly. Someone sobbed.
    â€œNot even particularly pretty,” Ziller muttered, so softly that Kabe suspected only he and the drone had heard.
    They all watched for a few more moments. Then the silver-skinned, dark-suited avatar said, “Thank you,” in that hollow, not loud but deep and carrying voice that avatars seemed to favor. It stepped down from the stage and walked away, leaving the opened room and heading for the quayside.
    â€œOh, we had a real one,” Ziller said. “I thought we’d have an image.” He looked at Tersono, which allowed itself a faint glow of aquamarine modesty.
    The roof started to roll back, gently shaking the deck beneath Kabe’s trio of feet as though the old barge’s engines had woken again. The lights brightened fractionally; the light of the newly bright star continued to pour through the gap between the halvesof the closing roof, then through the glass after the segments had met and locked again. The room was much darker than it had been before, but people could see well enough.
    They look like ghosts, thought Kabe, gazing around the humans. Many were still staring up at the star. Some were heading outside, to the open deck. A few couples and larger groups were huddled together, individuals comforting one another. I didn’t think it would affect so many so deeply, the Homomdan thought. I thought they might almost laugh it off. I still don’t really know them. Even after all this time.
    â€œThis is morbid,” Ziller said, drawing himself up. “I’m going home. I have work to do. Not that tonight’s news has exactly been conducive to inspiration or motivation.”
    â€œYes,” Tersono said. “Forgive a rude and impatient drone, but might I ask what you’ve been working on lately, Cr. Ziller? You haven’t published anything for a while but you do seem to have been very busy.”
    Ziller smiled broadly. “Actually, it’s a commissioned piece.”
    â€œReally?” the drone’s aura rainbowed with brief surprise. “For whom?”.
    Kabe saw the Chelgrian’s gaze flick briefly toward the stage where the avatar had stood earlier. “All in due course, Tersono,” Ziller said. “But it’s a biggish piece and it’ll be a while yet before its first performance.”
    â€œAh. Most mysterious.”
    Ziller stretched, putting one long furred leg out behind him and tensing before relaxing. He looked at Kabe. “Yes, and if I don’t get back to work on it, it’llbe late.” He turned back to Tersono. “You’ll keep me informed about this wretched emissary?”.
    â€œYou will have full access to all we know.”
    â€œRight. Good night, Tersono.” The Chelgrian nodded to Kabe. “Ambassador.”
    Kabe bowed. The drone dipped. Ziller went softly bounding through the thinning crowd.
    Kabe looked back up at the nova, thinking.
    Eight-hundred-and-three-year-old light shone steadily down.
    The light of ancient mistakes, he thought. That was what Ziller had called it, on the interview Kabe had heard just that morning. “Tonight you dance by the light of ancient mistakes!” Except that no one was dancing.
    It had been one of the last great battles of the Idiran war, and one of the most ferocious, one of the least restrained, as the Idirans risked everything, including the opprobrium even of those they regarded as friends and allies, in a series of desperate, wildly destructive and brutal attempts to alter the increasingly obvious likely outcome of the war. Only (if that was a word one could ever use in such a context) six stars had been destroyed during the nearly fifty years the war had raged. This single battle for a tendril of galactic limb, lasting less than a hundred days, had accounted for two of them as the suns Portisia and Junce had been induced to explode.
    It had become known as the