- Portent -

THE RAIN continued to fall, obedient to gravity and dew point. It cratered dust and puddles, it slipped through abyssal cracks to become steam and rise again.

It tracked like tears over the great ships as they pulled free of the earth below, froze as they passed beyond cloud into the fierce glow of the sun, outgassed to randomly drifting molecules as those ships left air and world behind.

The great ships, silent and swifter now, ran for the Naralax Transect. The Others, witness to grief and flight, gave way. Well wishes followed the survivors of a world as they fled its system forever.

Back on that world, the rain continued to fall, driven by new winds, controlled and remarked by no life at all.