There was an unoccupied microlevel in Alisandrean orbit, like a hidden floor on an elevator. There, the Princess Ascendant sat on a Vedani sled’s platform, her back to the handlebar column. Here she had the time for a moment of removal, when information could come together in her mind and in the world. Moonshadow could access certain stream spectra. Together they ascertained this location, using some of Soleil’s familiar public database cross-referencing.

Once here, they were able to tap into sets of signals, sifting for specific importance. They found floating pieces of the scroll, in the Vedani aetherscape accessible to Moonshadow the coaster sled.

SOLEIL LOOK WHAT I FOUND

“Very good. Yes, very good.”

It was extremely moving, though it would command radical shifts in order to adapt. Somehow, all put together, the enormity of what was occurring socially cracked her heart open; all the tragedy and hope, personal loss and unbelievable discovery poured out in the swirling mist of shuddering breaths of revealed exertion. She wasn’t cold, but she wasn’t warm out here in the bubble of field that this light vehicle could create for her. Sweeping social movements often send one to perspective’s outer reaches of space, far from the comforting center.

The cosmos moved, and Soleil created a point of stillness where she sat.

This is always the way it is, isn’t it. Everything’s always happening.