As the suns move across the sky, the planets following them in their endless cosmic dance, Naomi and Titian take a smaller hovercar from the family garage to the East Court mines. The farmland from their trip in the limousine has been replaced by jungle, but even that quickly vanishes as they soar through the cloudless reaches, approaching the mountains that rise along the border of Prodigus. Naomi has been here once before, and seen it many times in pictures, but she can't help a wide-eyed look of awe as she half-hangs out of the window, gazing at the barren earth below. Another metal highway glitters, this one newer than the main one they