revealed a way to slow human metabolism and consciousness such that they would remain fully aware, but perceive time at 1/2000th the normal rate. This explains how they live "forever" and can travel between stars in "days", because they are calculated from the subjective perspective of someone living in S-Space. The Immortals' ability to make objects appear in their hands instantly, is just a result of service robots placing the object in their hand at normal speed, which is too fast to notice from the perspective of S-Space. After this discovery, the leading arcology decides to track down the traveling arcologies. Their trip takes place in S-Space so they never age, gaining their Immortal moniker. Meanwhile, the normal space (N-space) travellers have endured hundreds of generations and repeated political upheavals. The Immortals discover that due to their twisted metabolisms they cannot breed. Using their vastly superior technology, they control the new planet-based colonies from behind the scenes and use the Planetfest games as a recruiting method to reinforce their numbers. Peron and company commandeer the ship and go back to their legendary roots of Earth, while in S-Space. En route they realize that centuries have passed on their homeworld and there is no point in ever returning. The ship also encounters shadowy deep-space life forms of ambiguous intelligence, who are only visible from S-space. The Immortal crew dismisses this routine sighting as just another mystery of the galaxy. Peron arrives on Earth, finding it as nothing more than a mostly frozen nature preserve. They discuss their next move and resolve to uncover more secrets about the Immortals. While in orbit around Earth they detect that a large portion of the radio traffic throughout the Immortals' communication network seems to be coming from nowhere. When they track down the location they find the hidden Immortal headquarters isolated in deep space. Peron's gang manages to evade security and stowaway aboard a supply ship bound for the headquarters. Upon arrival they are immediately captured by the superior security at HQ. Here they meet the other scientist characters from Part I and are congratulated for coming so far. They are invited to become equal partners in the quest to solve a new problem. Apparently the deep space life forms they briefly saw previously, are miniature versions of giant entities situated in the gulfs of deep space between galaxies. These enormous beings are unquestionably intelligent,