 Once, Pardal had been an out-of-the-way minor planet of the Empire.Because it was out of the way, its governor managed to shut down the mat-trans system before Pardal was infected by the bio-weapon when the first warnings went out across the hypercoms, and also to devise with her chief engineer an extremely effective quarantine system.However, even as they hunkered down behind their orbital defenses, the hypercom continued to operate "like a comlink to hell" (pg 255), broadcasting the prolonged death of the Empire, and even more devastatingly, messages from worlds like Pardal which were fooled by the bio-weapon's long incubation period into thinking they were safe.