Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, and child death.

Lyria and her bitter travel companions search the Asteroid Belt for Quicksilver’s laboratory. On one of the asteroids, they find a group of Greens who died from a biological weapon attack. As they return to their deep-space racer, the Snowball, they are attacked by Dustwalkers, a powerful tribe, and the ship is destroyed. An obelisk appears from the asteroid, casting a light that knocks Lyria out. Lyria wakes to find herself floating above the asteroid, and a machine talks to the parasite in Lyria’s head.

Lyria wakes up and finds that her injuries have been treated. Leaving her room, she finds Matteo Sun, the husband of Quicksilver, or Regulus. Lyria learns that the parasite in her head is a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) created by Sun Industries. Matteo offers to either fix or remove the AI. When Lyria hears that fixing the AI might impair memories of her family, she elects to have it removed: “I’d rather die than forget my sister, my pa, and my ma. My brothers. They already died once. If I don’t remember them…” (132).