Invaders to return. Rorden is a voice of calm, he has been researching the topic and can find no mention of the Invaders or any sort of treaty in the data banks. Alvin flies Rorden and Jeserac to Lys so they can add to the effort to understand Vanamonde. Over a period of months, they learn that their history is false. Man had only reached Persephone when aliens arrived, minds so much greater than their own that they returned to Earth and spent millions of years improving. When they were ready to join the galactic empire, they worked on projects like the Seven Suns, an artwork marking the agreed-on center of the galaxy. It was mankind that suggested the next great galactic effort, the construction of a non-physical pure intellect. This produced the Mad Mind, destroying swaths of the galaxy before it is locked up in the Black Sun. Learning from their mistakes, Vanamonde is created. Around the same time, the galactic empire contacts another race "far around the curve of the Cosmos" that has developed its own superintellect, one along purely physical lines. Most of the galaxy leaves on a quest to meet them, powering their great ship using the energy of all the suns, leaving the galaxy permanently dimmed. Only the Seven Suns remain untouched. Those that stayed behind were not adventurous and slowly went extinct over time, Earth only avoiding that fate by luck. Even the Battle of Shalmirane is a myth; Shalmirane was built to destroy the Moon when it threatened to crash into Earth. The book ends with the Tomb of Yarlan Zey being torn down as the links between Lys and Diaspar are opened to all. Alvin sets himself to rebuilding the Earth's oceans and solving the mystery of who the Master was. He intends to send the spaceship off on its own to bring a message to their now distant ancestors, hoping Earth will be worthy of their companionship when they return in the far distant future. Politics The book makes a distinction between the city life of Diaspar, and the life in Lys. Diaspar reflects the values of a city, in which technology cares for mundane tasks (robots, streets, food), so people can pursue pleasures such as music and knowledge. The opposite is true in Lys, which has a rural style where everything comes from nature. When Alvin re-introduced the two, they