Part 2, Chapters 21-24 Summary

In Chapter 21, as Pham is physically recovered but lives in "a private dreamworld," Greenstalk explains that because the Zones are in flux the trip may take 120 days. Furthermore, the damaged ultradrive spines must be repaired soon. Because Jefri has less than 100 days to ward off attack, Ravna turns to the OOB library to send him to help bypass the trial-and-error that normally accompanies development of "guns and radios." Pham comes out of his shell long enough to say that this worked on Canberra.

In Chapter 22, Ravna gets Pham to talk about "the illusion of self-awareness." Realizing that Ravna loves him, Pham wants to find a way out of his own head and describes how it feels to have a godself die after being overstuffed with information. Old One considers the Blight a threat only when he himself comes under...