Father de Soya pursues Aenea in an Archangel-class courier ship "Raphael". The ship's new technology allows faster-than-light travel without time debt, at the price of a painful death and resurrection during each trip. Aenea convinces de Soya to allow her ship to land on the planet Renaissance Vector. She flies the ship through an ancient farcaster portal, which has been inactive since the Fall of Hyperion. De Soya attempts to disable Aenea's ship, but is too late to prevent it from farcasting.