10 years of uneasy peace, since the Hour of Tragedy ... ten apprehensive, uneasy years pungent with fear, with hatred, distrust ... ten years like ten thousand in the past of man ... ten units out of the infinite, out of time the eternal, immutable, nonexistent dimension.... 9 planets spinning ... nine spawn of the sun, one of them nascent, a hairsbreadth from its heritage. But which heritage? It could choose. The fertile warmth of the parent star ... or the star's pure fire? 8 periods, in the g