Outside contact is minimal.
From time to time the Corporation sends out a ship to ensure its interests are maintained, and even more rarely Thalissar is visited by the Sinkhas. The Sinkhas are immortal beings who maintain benign order in the net of aligned worlds. They travel aboard the living starship Darcon, and each has the guise of one of the races that inhabit the net worlds. Mortals fear to look upon them, but Hyleyn seeks them out, desperate to plead for her escape from Thalissar. She has also fallen in love with a Sinkha, the silver-haired Aker.