Scratching the surface of eternity. . . For a thousand years, the intelligent machines of Earth have been sending light-fast probes to the stars. They were to establish colonies, sow the seeds of the Cluster, of machine consciousness, continue its evolution on the cosmic stage and search for other forms of intelligence, for biological civilizations and survivors of the "world fire" that had wiped out several highly developed peoples a million years ago. What they found were ruins, traces consisting of artifacts left behind by the Muriah, the only known advanced civilization in the Milky Way, which had perished before the conflagration. They followed this trail from solar system to solar system in search of the "Cascade", a system of tunnels through space-time created by the Muriah that had once enabled them to travel across the galaxy - the machines of Earth, created by the ancestors of the last, immortal humans, aspired to the technological legacy of the Muriah. But they only discovered devastated worlds or young planets with still primitive life. Their search did not go unnoticed. In the vast abysses between the stars, there were eyes that watched and ears that heard everything, even the faintest electromagnetic whisper in the void of interstellar space. Time hardly mattered to these eyes and ears. For centuries, they contented themselves with observing the probes sent out by Earth's machine Cluster and listening to the probes' signals. Information was collected and evaluated, eventually leading to a decision. In the darkness between the stars, something woke up and began to stir. . .
