The world stretched before her with its invisible bars. It would never do to cry, Jemma thought, standing defiantly with her arms akimbo.

    "Here we are, Jea'malon Velor. A forgotten planet for a better-forgotten Protector," he said, opening his hands as if he held the world in his palm in presentation to her. His voice held the now-familiar innuendo of disparaging contempt.

    She nodded, immune to but weary of his inane banter and intrusive company. This Messenger was no worse than the other three. Her escorts, her jailers, her guards. Had she not accepted the judgment? Had she not given her word? The vow itself would have held her and the shepherds were completely an abuse and a reminder.

    "Nothing to say? You'll wish for company, soon enough."

    The messenger touched her arm with a prolonged suggestive caress.

    "Touch me again, and die, sir," she said. Trey laughed until he saw the low glow of incipient heat in her cool blue eyes and the challenge in the set of her mouth.

    "You'll be begging for my touch next time," he said, sneering, but he pulled his hand away and that was enough.

    The disgraced Velorian let the insult pass. Let him think what he would. She was here. Here she would stay. As for his company, the ghosts of her past served better conversation. As for his touch, her memories brought her more joy. The wind lifted her hair from her neck like a lover's breath and she shivered, not from cold but from the remembrance of that.

    "Leave me," she demanded. Her world, her rules, and even Trey knew better than to argue his rights. The rush of air announced his departure and Gaugan was hers.

    The Council had chosen well. Little to tempt her, less to inspire her, and no one to conspire with, this world, plus her declaration, would imprison her.

    She waited on the mountaintop until the indigo sheet of night covered the sky. There! A star twinkled like a crystal bright beacon. Was he looking toward her with his eyes as dark blue as the evening? Did starlight penetrate the thick clouds and heavy atmosphere of his new home? She, who would have followed him anywhere else, was barred from that place by the essence of her genetics as his included him.

    Jemma closed her eyes and let his face enter her mind. "I'm here, my love. Are you thinking of me?" In her imagination, he did and they spoke of the inconsequential trivia that filled their days apart. As the Protector fell asleep, he whispered her name and murmured the consequential words of devotion, telling her that she would never be alone, that they would never be separated in the ways that counted, that his love would be unchanging.

    Boredom was the true challenge of survival until she discovered an affinity for architecture. Each moment spent in perfecting each temple deifying her loss and constancy was one spent in pleasant reminiscence. The idea that the flawlessness of her craftwork would enhance the bond between them would not leave her mind, and each edifice became more elaborate, more exacting in specifications and intricacies.

    Messengers came and went, bringing a few letters from Velor, which she never answered, and leaving with the puzzle of her satisfied solitude. Occasionally, one of these inadequate specimens would snare her conversation with clever words and amusing anecdotes but eventually their libidos would intrude and she would banish them without hope of reconciliation.

    An age passed, then two. Jemma watched as the inhabitants climbed from the well of savagery to something approaching civilization. In wood, in stone, and finally in metal and clay, they sculpted her likeness. In the work, studied in the moonlight while the artist slept nearby, she saw the intended direction of the Enlightenment.

    As a child, she helped her grandfather brew ale. The mixture of mashed grains and spices floated in clear water, separate and disparate. Not until the addition of starter organisms, which altered the blend, did the many parts become one whole.

    She was the yeast added to the barrel. These life forms, confronted with her existence, evolved into a higher society - one suitable to the designs and desires of the wizen and wily Elders of Velor. How terrible, she thought, for one civilization to impose such a burden on one of such beautiful innocence. How egocentric, she seethed, for one dysfunctional people to steer another into any path but its own.

    Decade to decade, the Gauganides developed new technologies. Their metal-poor planet enforced frugality and the people discovered alternatives for their advancements. Eventually, the genius born of such perimeters would be of interest to the war-machines of Velor and the rebellious forces of the newly established Arion Sphere.

    Jemma held long philosophic discussions with her distant lover. Either the Arions or the Velorians would come, try as she might to hide the obvious from the prying eyes of the stream of gadfly Messengers.

    If the Arions came first, what would she do about her vows of loyalty to the Enlightenment if her amorata were among them? If the Velorians arrived first, could she allow them the knowledge that would gain them enormous advantages against her lover and his people?

    Long she pondered the ramifications of each course, torn by either choice. Before she made her choice, the heavens did.

    The asteroid was a planet killer but well within her abilities to deflect. Deep in the currents of solar winds and gravitational wells, Jemma watched the massive sphere of ice, metal, minerals, rock and trace elements as it fell toward Gaugan's orbit.

    A chasm opened as the pull of Gauride placed contrary stresses on the asteroid's body. There, she decided. Looping through the shifting centrifugal forces surrounding the planet, the rock, and the sun as each sought to establish a harmony, Jemma dove into the pinnacled and pitted surface, as a Gauganide child would plunge into waves in the exceptionally salty sea.

    The meteor split, the larger piece ricocheting toward the sun, the smaller portion continuing in a spiral to the planet surface. The impact sent shock waves far beyond the stratosphere, forever changing the composition of the air below. The solid surface rippled like a pond as the shard exploded outward, sending debris into a billowing cloud to settle slowly across the planet's surface.

    The ice melted in the magma, forming moisture filled storms that swept the landmasses, changing the topography, climate, and vegetation. The air temperature rose, the icecaps thawed and diluted the oceans. Sunlight, the major source of power for the once-tidy little cities - now flattened and broken, vanished behind the ash of a billion burning trees. Those who died quickly in the shock blast were lucky, those who would perish in the six-year winter less so, but those who would survive never recovered from the catastrophe.

    Gaugan, once a plum ripe for the plucking but now devoid of promise, would remain a backwater. The Gauganides, once inventive and clever but now broken of the luxury of genius, would remain innocent of the politics in the universe.

    Jemma looked at what had been wrought. She hadn't expected the devastation, hadn't fully thought through the consequences of the act, and hadn't guessed that the tenuous emotional connection she'd made with the Gauginides would be severed by her decision.

    In horror and trembling grief, she consulted the inner place where she could hear her lover's voice. Only a whisper of revulsion lingered there. Guilt wrapped her in breath-stealing embrace, as hard as the new winter, as cold as sunshine in the vacuum of space, and as unforgiving as madness. The echoes of love drifted away, leaving her truly alone.