What Has Gone Before
Eighteen thousand years before the main story begins, the galaxy-spanning Atlantaean Empire fell – not over the thousands of years one would expect, but literally overnight, with her cities falling dark, ships spinning out of control or exploding, every single device on which they depended failing at the most crucial times. The forces behind this fall intended that, in time, even the memory of Atlantaea would fade… for they feared Atlantaea's power, and especially the enigma that had founded Atlantaea, and might, one day, return…
Commander Sasham Varan arrived at Tangia, an outpost on the border between the Reborn Empire and the Zchoradan Meld; a very uneasy peace, punctuated by raids, exists between the two star nations, and Tangia is a likely danger spot. Still, Varan is happy to find that an old friend, Diorre Jearsen, is also stationed on Tangia, and the two shortly discover that their old friendship has become something more with time. During this short, happy time, Varan and Jearsen meet the mysterious free trader called The Eonwyl.
A surprise Zchoradan attack puts Varan and Jearsen in the position of holding off a boarding force by themselves; they do well, but one of the leaders of the alien invaders is also a psionic. Jearsen is frozen in place and killed, and Varan nearly falls as well, but manages, somehow, to fight off the influence of the creature and kill him, then hold off the remaining force until rescued.
When the recordings of his victory reach Oro, the Capital, they cause quite a stir. Another of Varan's friends, Taelin Mel'Tasne, who is a member of the very powerful Five Families (one of several branches of the Imperial government), is immediately dispatched to bring Varan back.
Sasham Varan is still recovering from his ordeal, having discovered that in addition to losing Jearsen he has also developed a true phobia of Zchoradans or any related species such as the Chakrons (who are common Imperial subjects). Taelin's arrival is a puzzling but welcome interruption, until Taelin reveals why he was sent so swiftly: the recordings show that Varan managed to act against the psionic even after his suit's psi-shields collapsed… and at the same time, show no evidence that Varan himself was psionic.
This is unique. It violates the basic fact known throughout the galaxy, that if you are not a psi, you cannot fight a psi. More, it is known that human psionics universally go megalomaniacally insane; thus, psionics are feared and banned throughout the Reborn Empire. Varan's survival demands immediate investigation, headed by none other than Shagrath, the Prime Monitor – the overseer of the overseers of the Empire.
It appears that Varan's survival is – at least in part – due to his mastery of the meditative focus taught in the ancient martial art Tor, which is said to descend from Atlantaea itself. Shagrath introduces Varan to Sooovickalassa, a scientist of a species called the R'Thann, and after Sooovickalassa's tests, lets Varan in on a frightening secret: they are working on a process to create stable human psionics… and the results indicate that Varan is the most promising candidate they have ever found.
After much soul-searching, Varan agrees to undergo the process. During the process, however, there is an instant where his mind has become tremendously receptive, and at that moment, Shagrath and Sooovickalassa have an argument. For one tiny instant, Varan sees into Shagrath's mind… and learns that Shagrath is neither in any way human, nor in any way benign. Shagrath is something monstrously alien and malevolent, and he has hidden, and deadly, plans for Varan and the entire Empire.
Varan awakens to find that he is indeed developing psionic abilities, and manages, through luck and foresight, to avoid having Shagrath discover what he knows. Partly this is because of another horrid revelation: Shagrath is, himself, a powerful psionic.
Varan is now trapped; there is no chance that, as his powers progress and are tested heavily by Shagrath, he will be able to maintain the masquerade and hide his knowledge that Shagrath is an enemy of the Empire. Nor can he escape, as the experiment is taking place in the center of one of the most powerful and extensive military bases of the Reborn Empire, Silan-Luria Base.
In desperation, he reaches out to Sooovickalassa (whose name he shortens to "Vick") during a test that shields them from detection by any others. The R'Thann scientist, it turns out, has already had grave misgivings about Shagrath and his motivations, and after some consideration, says that he has an idea that may save them both – if Varan has the courage to trust Vick with his life, mind, and perhaps soul.
The stratagem is a daring one – and it succeeds. During his tests, Vick suppresses the key memories in Varan, and weakens some of Varan's moral strictures. This eliminates the chance of Shagrath discovering the truth when in contact with Varan's mind, and also makes Varan more … flexible, more willing to accept more and more compromises for the sake of the "greater good" in the future. Shagrath himself is pleased by this progress; he finds it infinitely amusing that the upright hero of the Empire will, eventually, become one of its destroyers, all while remaining convinced of his essential rightness.
But at the culmination of the psionic testing, Varan's powers begin to fail; it soon becomes evident that, as with prior attempts, they were only temporary. He reached a greater peak than the prior subjects, but is falling back to normal human even more quickly than he rose. Shagrath, to both console Varan and put the traumatized officer (now a Captain) even more in his debt, gives Varan command of the Teraikon, a powerful research vessel that will make good use of Varan's talents in command, engineering, and sciences.
Once Teraikon has departed from Oro, Vick appears in Varan's cabin and speaks a trigger phrase, returning Varan to his original self. Sickened by what he had nearly become and even more so by what he now knows of Shagrath, Varan swears that he will find some way to rip Shagrath's mask off and save the Empire from whatever he is planning.
Taelin receives a message from Varan which seems completely innocent, but some subtle patterns tell him there is another message hidden within, concealed through associations with shared experiences between the two friends. Eventually, he decodes it, to find the message consists of three terrifying words: "Please trust me." What could possibly lead his friend – someone who had saved Taelin's life when they were young, who had always been the most reliable and trusted person in Taelin's circle of friends, someone who Taelin had in fact just proposed for elevation to one of the Great Families – to ask Taelin to trust him, as though this would be even a question?
Unaware of these dark undercurrents, The Eonwyl is pleased to hear of Varan's elevation, despite her own knowledge that there are parts of the Empire – including her own homeworld, Fanabulax – that do not fit with Varan's idealistic beliefs. She thinks that, perhaps, if people like Varan can still climb to the heights, there may be hope that the Empire can be saved.
On board Teraikon, Varan meets with numerous alien scientists, including Guvthor Hok Guvthor, a gigantic bearlike astrophysicist, Hmmseeth, a strange semi-aquatic tentacled sociological researcher, planetary geophysicist Golden Pattern of Crystal Inlay, and others. He develops a good relationship with his crew, including the shipboard Monitor Nissen Frankel; Frankel was also one of Varan's childhood friends who chose the Monitor path instead of becoming Navy or Guardsman.
Varan also assists Vick in his own project: to apply the process to Vick. The R'Thann scientist was a "defective" of his people, all of whom have some degree of psionics. The R'Thann quite directly admits that his entire purpose in assisting Shagrath in the research was to find a way to give himself the powers that should have been his by birth.
But then Varan is caught by Monitor Frankel… and discovers that a strange, eerie screaming noise he has heard on occasional is not some peculiar psionic interference or natural phenomenon, but the signature of some monstrous alien mentality hidden within Frankel. The two battle, with Frankel showing an ability to increase his powers by drawing on some outside reserve, and despite everything Varan can do he is nearly killed…
… until Guvthor Hok Guvthor intervenes by dropping several tons of deck plating on top of Frankel just before the Monitor can deliver the final blow. Despite the general fear of psionics in the Empire, Guvthor and others manage to convince a good proportion of the crew to still trust Varan – partly with evidence of how Varan fought to protect others, even at the risk of his own life in the battle with Frankel.
But this is only a temporary respite; as psionics allow instantaneous contact even across Galactic distances, Frankel had already notified Shagrath that Varan was no powerless human, and now the Prime Monitor is on the way, in the fastest ship in the Empire – one of the few remaining functional Atlantaean vessels. The only possible avenue of escape is suggested by Guvthor; they are currently watching a once-in-many-lifetimes event, the collision of two neutron stars to become a new black hole, and if they can, in a smaller vessel – say, an FTL-equipped lifeboat or cutter – dive into the gravitic field and activate the drive at just the right moment, they could be flung across a large section of the Galaxy and out of Shagrath's reach.
The desperate maneuver succeeds; unfortunately, though they did their best to hide the truth, the crew of Teraikon cannot quite fool Shagrath, and he makes use of his own unique powers to change their memories and even the records on board the ship to accord with the story he wants to tell – about how Captain Sasham Varan has become a dangerous, renegade psionic willing even to kill his own friends!
Still, he also has no intention of letting Varan escape, and sends all of his allies – more of the bodiless, alien beings like the one that had been within Frankel – to search all the worlds of the Empire that seem likely refuges for Varan. He will be found.
Varan, with Guvthor and Vick, make it to the border world of Meletta, where they can sell their stolen Naval ship and then, hopefully, charter a vessel to somewhere they can recruit help in what is increasingly clear must become a revolutionary organization. A chance decision by Varan leads him to discover that The Eonwyl is also on Meletta, and after some tense negotiations, she agrees to be their transport.
But some of the screaming-mindvoiced beings detect them as they leave, and small warships move to intercept. The Eonwyl reveals that her ship (also called The Eonwyl) is far more capable than it appears, and takes out one patrol vessel and evades two more before making the jump… taking Varan on the next step of his journey.
At the end, Taelin is trying, numbly, to grasp the fact that his best friend has become a monster… and cannot do it. There are too many inconsistencies, despite all the evidence, things that Taelin simply cannot accept. He finds that his brother Lukhas, who works in Imperial Security, also does not believe Varan is either mad or a traitor, and after Lukhas hears the three-word message, the two of them realize that the only possible explanation points to the Prime Monitor as a villain, likely a psionic of unimagined power… and that they must begin the most dangerous possible game of working against him from within the Empire, so that whenever he returns, Varan will find he is not alone.