The cold wind of a late autumn morning cut across the Orlia Flats. The sky was clear, but any heat from the sun was swept away by the dry wind.

The Flats were young by worldly standards. Though none could say the exact year they had formed, historic maps survived from a time when this entire region had been ocean. Now, it was a wasteland. Fields of black, volcanic basalt stretched on for miles without variation, save the occasional ripple or fissure. The jagged, peninsular expanse ...