to return it. The boys return to Lys, and Alvin is given the choice of staying in Lys forever or returning to Diaspar without his memories. Alvin agrees to the mind wipe but programs the robot to grab him and take him to the transit station before this occurs. He returns home, and Rorden takes Alvin and the robot under the city to meet the Master Robots, the computers that run the city. They are unable to remove the instructions from the Master, so they instead make a duplicate robot without the instructions in place. When they return to the surface, they find the Council has met in their absence and is trying to decide what to do about Alvin's visit to Lys. They decide to block the underground train system and instruct Rorden to remove all references to Lys from his records. As the Council debates, they allow Alvin to leave, expecting, and allowing, him to run for the train and return to Lys before it is blocked. Rorden is surprised when he finds a message from Alvin instructing him to meet at the tower where he first found the message from Alaine. Alvin explains that the new robot had revealed that the Master had landed on Earth not at Lys, but at the Port of Diaspar. He retrieves the ship from beneath the sand and flies to Lys where he learns they have also blocked the train, and sows confusion by claiming he used it without problem. He causes further confusion by stating that Diaspar now knows all about Lys but will have nothing to do with their inferior culture. The next day he and Theon fly to Shalmirane to fulfill his promise to return the robot, but find the old man had died. Alvin and Theon decide to visit the Seven Suns. They arrive at a planet around the middle star and find it as desolate as Earth. Despairing that his search for meaning has failed, they return to the ship and are met by a disembodied superintelligence with the behavior of a child but memories going back further than any human. The alien, Vanamonde, is convinced that Alvin is a member of the race of creators it has been waiting to return. They return to Earth to find Diaspar and Lys in constant communication over the events due to the fears their trip will trigger the