FROM SPACE, THE HOUSE of the First shone like fire on water. Wreathed in the white smoke of its atmosphere, blue like the heart of a gas-ignited flame, it burned the eye. It was absolutely lousy with water, smothering it all in the bluest of blue conflagrations. Visible even up here were the floating chains of squares and rectangles and oblongs, smudging the blue with grey and green, brown and black: the tumbled-down cities and temples of a House both long dead and unkillable. A sleeping throne. Far away its king and emperor sat on his seat of office and waited, a sentinel protecting his home
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