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Pitiless as the Sun - Episode #204 (spoilers below!) (Click here for review)

In the opening scene a fairly conventional looking ship in space is attacked by a huge glowing ship. Later, Major Whendar of Inaris asks Dylan for help since their ships (carrying fertilizer, ammonium phosphate -AP), are being attacked. Dylan is hesitant since they are due at Sinti for a conference. He explains later to Beka and Harper they cannot help everyone and Inari is an unpredictable unimportant planet. He says idealism must be tempered by realism in light of the Magog, but Beka convinces him to try to help. Whendar sees Trance and invites her as a guest to their university to help overcome xenophobia. Dylan later objects, but Trance convinces him and goes as a diplomat and "spy". She meets Professor Logich who escorts Trance to her room and locks her inside.

Later Trance appears asleep until Logich enters, explaining she is bored. He says the lock is for her safety and then wants to ask questions. Later he asks about her childhood and she says her family wasn't very nice to young ones like her. (they did bad things to disobedient children). She says she is hungry to avoid more questions, and while eating says she was born in space but raised on many planets. Shortly after this she passes out.

Going to the Command with Whendar and her aide (Lt. Gadell) Dylan expects a mess, but finds Rommie and Harper redesigned it, implementing changes the Argosy planned before the Fall. Dylan has Harper give a tour and explains to Tyr that he wants to see what they do since he does not trust them. Whendar asks about a locked machine shop (#5), but Dylan says it has an un-repaired radiation leak. Later they go to meet Inari frigates but finds them destroyed. The debris is brittle which Harper and Tyr determine could be due to fire by a continuous plasma cannon. Beka takes the Maru with a shipment of AP and they follow through slipstream with Tyr piloting. The previously seen glowing ship appears and while Dylan puts them on standby Gadell slips into the machine shop #5 while Beka returns.

Rommie recognizes the radiation signature and Dylan breaks off their attack wanting to know what the Inari did to the Pyrians! He sends codes which they won't recognize since their treaty with the Commonwealth is no longer valid, so they Slipstream away. Dylan explains the Pyrians are high tech aggressive inhabitants of Venus type worlds (high pressure and high temperature) who signed a CW treaty to resolve conflicts over who could Terraform or Pyraform worlds. Whendar thinks the Pyrians are after their world because of its volcanic atmosphere and Gadell asks Dylan about machine shop #5. Dylan dismisses Beka and Tyr and says he is building Nova bombs to deal with the Magog.

Followed through slipstream Dylan says a fully crewed and armed ship was barely a match for a Pyrian torchship. After 300 years to improve their technology he is worried and attempts diplomatic overtures. Rommie takes Gadell aside and urges him to tell Dylan what he's hiding (she can sense fear, anxiety and guilt). The Pyrians attack with AD missiles that increase mass and cause them to lose maneuvering ability. Gadell tells Dylan the fertilizer they ship is a highly addictive fatal drug to the Pyrians which is why they are destroying the frigates and Tyr disarms Whendar.

Trance wakes restrained in a chair with tubes in her arms. Logich wants to know why she shows no life signs, why she is on the Andromeda and where she comes from. Trance says her people aren't real, created to be sex slaves and laughs. Logich studied her predecessor 15 years ago who was childlike, playful and caused a civil war, famines and the death of half the population. He believes she came to finish this but later Trance says she doesn't know the other, but thinks he was bored because when you've seen as much as they have the universe is small. Logich infuses Trance with a weapon his government had been working on in but she believes he doesn't like hurting people. He removes her wrist restraints and she grabs him, says he will see what her people are like and he sees galaxies in her eye.

Meanwhile, Beka and Dylan take the Maru on what she calls another suicide mission. Dylan has her dump the cargo and laser the contents. He tells the Pyrians he had no idea what was going on, arrests Major Whendar under old CW Protocol 15 and offers to hand her over which they agree to. Gadell admits he is a Pyrian informant, trying to help stop the shipments. Whendar blames the other like Trance saying the phosphate trade was all they had left to survive.

Logich is now in the chair and asks what she is, but she says he would not understand and that the universe is a messy place so she is not bored since she has a lot to keep her busy. On the Andromeda only tells Dylan the Inaris are a very unhappy people and she wishes she could help. Dylan implies that no matter her secrets he trusts her.

Synopsis 10/29/01 by Larry Kramer

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