Exiles Gate

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The qhal found the first Gate on a dead world of their own sun.

Who made it, or what befell those makers, the qhal of that age never learned. Their interest was in the dazzling prospect it offered them, a means to limitless power and freedom, a means to shortcut space and leap from world to world and star to star —instantaneous travel, once qhalur ships had crossed space at realtime, to carry to each new site the technology of the Gates and establish the link. Gates were built on every qhalur world, a web of eyeblink transport, binding together a vast empire in space.

That was their undoing . . . for Gates led not alone where but when, both forward and backward along the course of worlds and suns.

The qhal gained power beyond their wildest imaginings; they were freed of time. They seeded worlds with gatherings from the far reaches of Gate-spanned space . . . beasts, and plants, even qhal-like species. They created beauty, and whimsy, and leaped ahead in time to see the flowerings of civilizations they had planned —while their subjects lived real years and died in normal span, barred from the freedom of the Gates.

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