A clandestine Qeng Ho manhunt ends on Triland when Fleet Captain S. J. Park finds Pham Nuwen living in obscurity. Park reveals fresh radio from the OnOff star—proof of alien intelligence—and coaxes Pham to join the expedition. The Qeng Ho reach the system just ahead of the Emergents and strike a cautious deal to harvest scarce volatiles and watch the planet Arachna as its dim sun brightens toward Relight.

On the surface, Ezr Vinh’s team discovers a Spider library and ingenious cold-survival instruments, confirming a sophisticated civilization that hibernates through the long Dark. Linguist Trixia Bonsol accelerates decipherment. Yet misgivings grow: Tomas Nau’s polished hospitality masks an authoritarian mindset, and Park privately judges him treacherous. The Qeng Ho arm discreetly and keep operational control separate.

Nau strikes first. In a sudden, well-planned ambush, the Emergents cripple the Qeng Ho, destroy Park’s flagship, and roll surviving crews into a decades-long Exile at L1. With Anne Reynolt running Focus, the Emergents “ziphead” selected prisoners—including Trixia—into tireless specialists. Nau installs Ezr as a supervised “Fleet Manager” to legitimize control, while grooming the grieving, gifted Qiwi Lin Lisolet as his indispensable partner. Pham, posing as the blustering Pham Trinli, begins a covert resistance, subverting the Qeng Ho micro-localizer network and recruiting Ezr.

While orbit settles into watch cycles, the narrative descends to Arachna’s past and present. During a Deepest Dark strike, Sherkaner Underhill leads a small team across near-vacuum cold to sabotage Tiefer war stockpiles; loss and ingenuity carry them to a tenuous refreeze, seeding Crown victory when the New Sun returns. Years later, Underhill and General Victory Smith marry, build an Intelligence-backed institute, and reshape their society’s science—radio, computing, microwaves—while provoking a cultural reckoning with their out-of-phase children. As Relight dawns, Arachna’s airwaves erupt, and Trixia’s translations give humanity a vivid, humanized window into Spider thought.

In orbit, Nau consolidates power through “managed freedom,” quietly tolerating Qiwi’s black-market efficiency even as he and Reynolt expand Focus and surveillance. Pham unlocks hidden interfaces in the localizer net and tests Nau’s perimeter, recognizing Anne as the most dangerous mind on Nau’s team. A spectacular open-house for Qiwi’s engineered Lake Park becomes Pham’s chance to assassinate Reynolt; instead, moved by her resistance past, he spares her life and wipes recent memory—then nearly loses Ezr’s trust when Ezr forces a confrontation about Focus. Pham abandons any dream of ruling through Focus; their alliance hardens around protecting the Focused and toppling Nau.

Discovery changes the calculus: Jau Xin captures a Kindred satellite in an impossible synchronous orbit. Its cavorite-like diamond tiles rise under light—ancient nanotech baked into Arachna’s history. Nau accelerates his schedule to seize the Spiders through a limited, engineered war that preserves industry. On the ground, the Underhill children survive a Kindred kidnapping; one is killed, and Victory Smith forges the family into a covert team. As Southland hardliners and the Accord teeter toward war, Smith travels to Southmost and shocks Parliament with a trust-forging hostage plan.

Nau’s “peace” is cover. He and Brughel prepare to trigger Kindred launches and destroy Accord defenses from orbit, inheriting the wreckage. Pham moves first: he severs ziphead links in Hammerfest’s Attic, collapsing Emergent coordination. Nau cuts power to the localizers and flees into the lake’s infrastructure as Pham flips servos, unleashing a devastating microgravity flood that scatters Nau’s guard and wounds Ezr. In polar orbit, Brughel bullies Xin into executing the bombardment; Xin subtly sabotages targeting to spare millions.

On Arachna, shutters open on interceptor fields as a storm of missiles rises. Victory Lighthill, now a hardened intelligence officer, seizes network control, flips hostile missiles, restores antimissile coordination, and—working through translators—commandeers the Invisible Hand itself, forcing Brughel’s ship into a controlled, catastrophic descent toward the northern ocean. Sherkaner Underhill, badly burned by a killer beam, is evacuated by Rachner Thract; he insists their allies have neutralized remaining warheads, which reenter inert, and wanders into lethal cold as the helicopter lifts off, his fate uncertain.

Back at L1-A, Nau races for decisive firepower with Qiwi and her Focused father as leverage. Ezr surfaces from the flood, tourniquets a mangled arm, and staggers after them through a maintenance tunnel. Qiwi threads a taxi through hijacked ejet crossfire to the security vault; Nau jettisons the taxi to kill her and prepares a tactical nuke for the Qeng Ho temp. Ezr arrives with the wounded Ali Lin. When Ezr confronts Nau’s lies, Qiwi’s suppressed memories break through; she seizes a wire gun and kills Nau, ending his rule and the immediate nuclear threat.

With Nau dead and Brughel captured planetside, Pham frees Anne Reynolt from Focus. She awakens to the enormity of what Focus made her do. Pham asks her help to deFocus thousands; she agrees—on the condition that they later strike the Emergent heartlands to end Focus at its source. Pham pledges ships and years to that cause.

Ezr is chosen to negotiate with the Spiders, who specifically request him and a translator. He demands Trixia be deFocused; Pham prioritizes her despite risks. In Lands Command’s deep halls, Focused corroboration anchors talks: technology sharing, Spider presence at L1, human ground access, and plans for joint orbital industry. In a tense POW session, Ezr wins release of most prisoners, including Jau Xin, using Rita Liao’s keepsake as leverage; the Spiders keep Ritser Brughel for experimentation, judging his crimes beyond pardon.

Back at L1, Ezr reunites with Trixia. She is free of artificial loyalty but chooses, by her own will, to center her life on Spiders and serve as a bridge between species. Pham defends that choice and nudges Ezr toward the steadfast Qiwi, now a key human–Spider liaison. On Arachna, cavorite mining powers a rapid antigravity boom while Victory Lighthill shoulders the moral costs of the counterlurk and embraces cooperation with the Qeng Ho.

Seven years later, humans and Spiders meet in the Grand Temp for a small farewell. Pham and Anne commit three ships to infiltrate Balacrea and dismantle the Emergent regime, promising to reunite after the next Brightness. Pham sketches a further horizon: Arachna’s anomalies hint at ancient makers near the galactic core, a quest for a future fleet. As friends toast absent heroes—Underhill most of all—the victors split their watches between rebuilding, liberation, and the long, audacious work of turning first contact into a shared civilization.