If anyone had been around to see it they would have seen the twinkle of the Athame coming out of jump-space back into the mundane universe. A nimbus of hyper-reality surrounded it briefly and then dissipated in the vacuum of the real. Sally looked out the screen. "Wow! I've never seen a moon that large before." She turned her eyes back to her console as several alarms came to life. She frowned, not sure what she was reading. "That's because this isn't a moon, Sally," I said as I read my own instruments. "Ladies, even with the shields I'm not going to hang around here more than an hour before I put a lot more distance between us and that radioactive cinder down there." "Radioactive?" Sally's eyes opened wide. I moved out of the pilot's station and back into the survey area to check the specialized instrumentation there. "I'm picking up traces of what was once an advanced civilization. At least those types of readings are nothing which occur naturally." I started another instrument working as I read off more information. "Those craters down there are not from asteroids or comets. There is a trace of atmosphere but nothing to write home about. There used to be large amounts of water here also." I glanced at the instrument I had turned on and shook my head. "According to the reaction half-lives I'm reading this place has been dead for about eight thousand years." Sally turned to look at me with wide eyes. "B....bu....but what happened? Did...did they kill themselves?" I was getting a feeling again. I shook my head. "Don't ask me, Sally." I turned to look at Lady Silver and the Iskar. They stood gazing out a port at the burned off planet below us. "Ask them." Sally looked at them then me and back at them. "What's he mean?" she asked Lady Silver. Lady Silver sighed. "Eight thousand and three hundred years ago this place was like Kedas. A thriving and progressive place. But something awoke here...." She stopped and continued staring out the port. "What could have awoken here to cause the use of weapons that could do this to a planet?" Sally asked incredulously. The Lady shook her head. "The Council burned this place off because hope awoke here." I watched Lady Silver closely as Sally shook her head and asked, "They destroyed this place because of hope? What does that mean?" "Not hope as in the feeling that comes of an emotion to those who have little idea what it truly is. No, this was a far more tangible thing. And the Council could not repress it. So they destroyed it all here." "This isn't the only such place, is it?" I asked quietly. Lady Silver shook her head and for the first time I saw pain in her eyes. "No." Her answer was a barely audible whisper of sound. I glanced at the instruments and looked back. "Do what you need to do if you can do it within an hour. After that I'm moving us out of here." "Can you project a navigational chart for me, Captain?" "Certainly." I touched some controls and a holo burst out surrounding her with glittering points of light. She pulled out a silver rod and held it in her palm. The Iskar placed her hand above it without touching it. Slowly a reddish glimmer shone on the surface of the rod and it spun on her hand until it was pointing at a particular place and then a reddish beam reached out from it to touch a star in the chart which glowed faintly red. "Sally!" "I've got it, Captain." I jumped and was just in time to keep Lady Silver from crumpling to the deck. The Iskar had gone to her knees and was breathing heavily. The silver rod had clattered to the floor and I reached for it but the Iskar stopped me. "Touch it not, Captain. Only she must touch it." I nodded and got Lady Silver stretched out on a bunk. "Sally, set course as indicated. I'm moving us out of here." I found myself with a lot to think about as I took the con and sped away from the dead world. To Be Continued....