Chapter Sixty-Two

 

Olmy stood alone by the scaffold, staring at the clavicle. He wished the Engineer could interact with his thoughts, comment on his actions either positively or otherwise, but Korzenowski was stored inactively.

Vasquez and Lanier were still in their cubicle. For Olmy, the notion of sleeping for eight hours at a time was at once peculiar and attractive. To have a long, blank period in one's life, every day; to have that time free of thinking and immersed in a kind of other-world nothingness. . . Talsit cleansing was much more effective, but he was amused to find a primitive part of himself still longing for simple sleep.

He had never given deep consideration to the differences between humans of his time and theirs, except insofar as he had to plan for their needs. Even with all the accoutrements and additions and manipulations of his time, the similarities far outweighed the differences.

Yates crossed the smooth green carpet of lawn to the scaffold. His face was grim.

"Our time is limited," he picted to Olmy. "The defense station at one point nine ex nine says it's detecting excessive flaw radiation. The Jarts could be preparing to open a new, very large gate."

"Gate to a star's heart?" Olmy asked.

"That's the supposition. Station personnel are preparing to pull back."

The idea had been discussed in upper-level defense circles for decades. It was simple, if drastic: the Way at many points touched on stellar bodies. Since the Way was essentially a hollow, evacuated tube, opening a circuit of massive gates into the heart of a star would suck up the high-pressure, superheated plasma and distribute it throughout the Way. Barriers—though constructed of modified Way space-time—would transmit the extreme heat and finally break down, becoming level with the walls. The Way itself would remain intact, but everything else for billions of kilometers would simply dissolve to component particles in the fury.

"How fast would the plasma front travel?" Olmy asked.

"It would only be slowed by turbulence effects. Its final velocity could be about six thousand kilometers per second."

"Then we'd have about thirty-two hours to evacuate."

"If they can't open a gate remotely. . .”

The thought of the Jarts' being able to manipulate Way gates from a distance had sobered defense planners for years. The Jarts had never demonstrated such a capability within the human-controlled sector, but data from Way disturbances had led many gate researchers—including Ry Oyu's team—to believe they were doing so beyond 2 ex 9.

"I've passed word on to Senator Oyu," Yates continued. "Her father is with his researchers now. She'll tell him when he's available."

Olmy saw Patricia and Lanier emerge from the cubicle in the living quarters on the north side of the terminal shell.

"Will Ser Vasquez agree, do you think?" Yates asked. "You've spent much more time with our guests than I."

Olmy picted a symbol of uncertainty, carrying implications of resigned humor: an incomplete neomorph choosing between two high-fashion body designs.

"I wish I had your calm," Yates said. "I could use a Talsit session right now."

Patricia spotted Olmy and Yates and waved at them, then touched Lanier's shoulder. Both crossed the grass toward the scaffold.

"I have to see Ser Oyu," she told Olmy. Lanier seemed haggard, his eyes darting back and forth.

"He's in conference with his researchers. Senator Oyu will relay any message," Yates told her.

"Well, I suppose I don't have to tell him in particular. Olmy. . .”

Lanier focused on Olmy, his expression unhappy and resentful.

"I've decided. I'll make the bargain."

Olmy smiled. "When would be convenient?" he asked.

"Our time is limited," Yates said.

Patricia shrugged. "I suppose now is fine. Any time."

"I'll hold you personally responsible," Lanier said to Olmy, emphatically jabbing his finger at him.

"I take the responsibility," Olmy said solemnly. "She will be protected."

Yates went to inform Senator Oyu that they were about to begin. Olmy led them to the unfinished cupola where they had first met Ry Oyu, and picted instructions to a monitor floating nearby. "It will summon a medical worker. I'll make a few modifications in the worker and transfer the partials. You will then offer your Mystery and the patterns will be conformed. It's quite simple."

"If it works, it's a goddamned miracle," Lanier said under his breath, "and you say it's simple."

"'Lazarus come forth,' from your perspective, correct?" Olmy asked, hoping to amuse him.

"Don't patronize us," Lanier said. The man's anger was obviously building. Olmy thought he could understand why. Now that Patricia had made her decision, Lanier was cut out of the process. He was simply an appendage. Patricia had obviously ignored his misgivings.

The medical worker—an upright, elongated egg-shaped device about a meter tall, delineated with purple to show where manipulators and other instruments would emerge—approached them, floating a few centimeters above the grass.

Olmy picted modifying instructions and the worker extended a small cup-shape at the end of a thick metallic gray cable. He placed the cup below his ear and closed his eyes. Patricia watched, eyes wide, crossing and uncrossing the fingers of both hands. Her calmness seemed artificial now. Lanier's stomach knotted.

President Oyu and her father joined them just as Olmy removed the cup. They said nothing, standing a few meters away to watch.

The medical worker moved closer to Patricia. A traction field spread out into a kind of cot before it, and Olmy asked her to lie down. She complied. The worker then spread a fan of black cables around her head like a hairnet.

The net adjusted itself, squeezing her hair. Patricia reached up to feel it. "I should never go out in public with this thing on," she joked.

Lanier knelt beside the cot and took her hand. "Just a couple of Hottentots," he said. "Blowing in the wind."

Patricia made a face, then rolled her head to look at Olmy. "I'm ready," she said.

"There's no pain, no sensation whatsoever," Olmy said.

"Well, whatever, I'm ready." She pressed Lanier's hand and released it. He stepped back.

The net tightened, and she winced at the pressure, not painful but strong nevertheless. Lanier winced in sympathy but did not move. Prescient Oyu walked to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"She carries a part of our dream," the senator said. "Do not worry." Lanier squinted at her.

Patricia seemed to be concentrating, her eyes barely closed. Lanier felt a sick kind of fascination. There was no sound, nothing overt whatsoever, simply the transfer of whatever they were borrowing from her, copying.

She opened her eyes and turned her head toward him.

The net withdrew.

"I'm okay," she said, sitting up on the field. "I don't feel any different."

"The combination will take a few hours to mature," Olmy said. "Then Korzenowski should be with us again."

"Will he have a body?" Lanier asked. Patricia stood by him.

"He'll occupy the worker until one can be made," Olmy said. "He can project an image of himself, however. That would be one sign of his complete reconstruction."

Patricia took Lanier's hand in hers again and squeezed it firmly. "Thank you," she said.

"Thanks for what, for Christ's sake?"

"For being brave," she said.

Lanier stared at her in complete amazement.

 

Patricia, Lanier and Olmy followed the medical worker to the quarters where they had spent the night. Olmy judged it would be best if Korzenowski's first perceptions were in reasonably familiar surroundings—a normal room, sparsely decorated and without too many people—or nonhumans. Ry Oyu and Yates agreed. "Besides," the gate opener said, "you've been waiting for this moment for five centuries. It's your moment much more than ours."

In the quarters, they waited for fifteen minutes before Olmy prompted the worker to display an image showing the progress of the personality it contained. Patricia raised her hand to her mouth as the image manifested before them.

The image was grossly distorted, one-half of the body large and bulbous, the other small almost to vanishing. Its apparent solidity was imperfect, with some parts opaque and others transparent. Its color was predominantly blue. The elongated, side-slipping head seemed to watch them, turning from face to face.

"Don't be disturbed," Olmy warned them. "The awareness of body shape is the last thing to mature."

Across a period of minutes, almost imperceptibly, the distortions corrected themselves. The overall blue color became more natural, and the patches of translucency filled in.

When the adjustments were completed, Korzenowski's image was fully and accurately formed, Olmy noted with satisfaction. It matched the appearance the Engineer had once chosen for the official portrait miniatures: a slender, dark-haired man of medium height, with a sharp, long nose and inquisitive, humored black eyes, his skin colored light coffee.

Olmy still searched for deviations. The Mystery imposed upon the partials, however close to Korzenowski's original, was not exact. However, it was sufficient to return Korzenowski to full awareness, and that awareness would be patterned by the virtually complete memories of the partials to reproduce closely the personality that had been erased—assassinated—before Olmy was born.

"Welcome," Olmy said aloud.

The image regarded him steadily, then attempted to speak. Its lips moved, but produced no sound. The image wavered abruptly, and when it was solid again, said, "I know you. I feel much better—very different. Have I been reconstructed?"

"As best we can manage," Olmy said.

"I remember so little—like bad dreams. You were a child. . . when we first met."

Olmy felt the rise of another emotion that Ram Kikura might have regarded as atavistic. "A boy, five years old," he said. He clearly remembered first seeing the Engineer's partials in the apartment memory, remembered his child-self frightened and fascinated at meeting someone famous—and dead.

"How long have I been incomplete, dead, whatever I was?"

"Five centuries," Olmy said.

The Engineer's expletive would have been extremely crude in his day; for Olmy, now, it was archaic and quaint. "Why was I brought back? Surely everyone was better off without me."

Oh, no," Olmy said sincerely. "We are honored to bring you back."

"I must be completely out of date."

"We can correct that in a few hours."

"I don't feel. . . finished. Why is that?"

"You have to mature. Your reconstruction is still finding its pathways. You don't have your own body. You're occupying a medical worker."

Again the expletive, even stronger. "I am behind the times. Only a mental midget could have fit into the most advanced worker. . .” The image tilted its head forward, regarding Olmy from beneath its brows, eyes questioning. "I was damaged, wasn't I?"

"Yes," Olmy said.

"What's missing?"

"The Mystery. We had to work from partials only."

"Whose Mystery replaced it?"

Olmy pointed to Patricia.

"Thank you," Korzenowski said after a moment of thoughtful silence.

"You're welcome," Patricia said lamely.

"You look familiar. . . I've seen you before."

"This is Patricia Luisa Vasquez," Olmy said.

Korzenowski's expression was at first incredulous. The image extended its hand to Patricia. Patricia grabbed the hand, no longer surprised by the solidity and warmth of projections. "

"The Patricia Luisa Vasquez?"

"One and only," Patricia replied.

Korzenowski's image leaned its head back, grimacing. "I have an awful lot to catch up on." He released her hand, apologizing under his breath. He took Lanier's outstretched hand and shook it more briefly, his grip firm but not insistent.

Lanier was more than a little awed to meet the man who had designed the corridor. "I have a small. . . I don't know what it is, statue, hologram, whatever, of you. Back in my desk. You've been a puzzle to me for years. . . .” he realized he was babbling. "We're from Earth," he concluded abruptly.

Korzenowski's face was unreadable. "Where are we?" he asked.

"In the Way, at one point three ex nine," Olmy replied.

"Where is the Thistledown?"

"In orbit around the Earth and Moon."

"What year?"

"2005," Patricia said.

"That's Journey year?" Korzenowski asked hopefully.

"Anno Domini," Olmy said.

The Engineer suddenly looked very tired. "How long before you can educate me?"

"We can start now, even before your personality is mature. Is that what you wish?"

"I think we'd better, don't you?" Turning to Patricia again, he said, "You're very young. How much work have you done. . . how many of your papers?"

"None of my most important ones," she replied.

"This is not something I anticipated. . . . It is not an obvious result of our work. I mean to say, how could I have missed it? And you must tell me how you got here. . . and why you?"

Even before Olmy could arrange for the update of information, Patricia and the Engineer were deeper in discussion.

 

Within four hours, the researchers, representing seven of the species that utilized the corridor, had gathered around the scaffold. Each of these species had demonstrated its usefulness to the human patrons, though by no means their subservience; they were full partners in the venture of the Way, and they came in a wide variety of forms—though not necessarily much wider a variety than the neomorphs of the Axis City, Lanier thought.

There were three Frants, cloaked in the shiny foil jackets that seemed to be their usual clothing away from Timbl. A being shaped like two upside-down U's connected with a thick, gnarled rope of flesh—lacking visible eyes, its skin as smooth and featureless as black glass—stood unmoving on its four elephantine feet a few meters from the Frant, surrounded by a red line of quarantine. It apparently did not find the atmosphere uncomfortable, however.

A Talsit researcher stood on its eight limbs beside Yates on the north side of the scaffold, surrounded by a traction bubble containing its particular mix of atmosphere—very little oxygen, with a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide, at temperatures low enough to make condensation form on the field's flexible boundaries. Its mossy "antlers" were in constant motion. All the other nonhuman researchers were surrounded by similar fields, the most striking being a sinuous, snake-bodied, four-headed being suspended in coils in a levitated sphere of deep green liquid, like a preserved specimen.

From the evidence, human-form beings were not common.

Before the gathering, Lanier and the Talsit had engaged in a strange conversation—strange in its clarity and uncanny familiarity, as if they had been no stranger to each other than new neighbors at a block party.

The Talsit had stood on the north side of the scaffolding, conversing with a Frant while a second Frant waited silently nearby. The Frants had homogenized several hours before; there was little need for the second Frant to contribute to the conversation, unless parallel thinking was required. Lanier and Patricia had eaten as much from a bountiful floating lunch table as they cared to. Patricia had then gone off with Olmy to resume her conversation with Korzenowski.

Lanier found himself speaking with the Talsit almost by default. The Talsit had approached Prescient Oyu to discuss her father's plans for the ceremony's aftermath. Their conversation had been picted at first, and then she had shifted to English, introducing the Talsit to Lanier. The Talsit spoke perfect English, though nothing moved anywhere on its body in any way to show sound production.

Lanier didn't even bother to be curious; he had had a surfeit of marvels, minor and major. It took his full attention just finding the right words to explain how they had come to be here. In conversation with a being not even remotely human in shape, and of unknown psychological character (if it could speak perfect English, surely it could also provide a screen for its real thought processes), he talked casually enough about the Death, about alternate universes and invasions in space. The Talsit, in turn, discussed its own kind. Lanier found himself nodding in understanding to a story that would have been incomprehensible to him only a few short months ago.

The beings called Talsit were offshoots of a unified biological-mechanical intelligence that had once occupied the fourteen planets of a very old solar system. At one point, the intelligence had been entirely stored in memory banks, with no physically manifested individuals—not unlike the Axis City Memory. But gradually the intelligence had broken down into individuals—a condensation of consciousness within the system—and the individuals had created new forms for their physical manifestation. These had been the parent species of the Talsit. The parent species, this Talsit seemed to imply, still existed, but were introverted and isolationist; they had created the Talsit to act as mercantile representatives, consultants to younger civilizations. A circuit of gates happened to open onto one of their worlds, and they had begun trading, first with the Jarts who had opened the gates, and then with humans after the Jarts had been pushed back.

By implication, the Talsit and their ancestral forms were at least a hundred times older than humanity.

"Then why even bother communicating with us?" Lanier asked.

"Consider it a hobby of one's old age, or senility," the Talsit said, without a hint of condescension or dissembling. "My kind have services—particularly regarding the cleansing and reordering of information—which humans and others find invaluable. It pleases us to be useful, and in turn we acquire information of great value to us."

The call to the ceremony came a few minutes later, one of the Frants ringing a high-pitched, sweet sounding bell hung from a bar on the south side of the scaffold.

Lanier stood at parade rest, hands behind his back, next to Korzenowski's image and Prescient Oyu, while Patricia took a position of honor between Yates and Ry Oyu.

Ry Oyu's ceremonial clothes were simple, consisting of rough white cloth shirt and black pants. He wore black cloth slippers. Yates wore a forest-green robe, showing some signs of wear.

Ry Oyu stepped to the stairs that curved over the top of the rounded scaffold. He stood for a moment, head bowed, and then beckoned for Patricia to follow.

"You must learn this," Ry Oyu said to Patricia at the top of the scaffold. "The clavicle can tell you where a gate is to be opened, but only in part; you must also sense the point, and tune it to that desired world. There is as much of what you would call intuition as calculation."

He bent down and gripped the handles of the clavicle, removing it from its holder at the center of the radiance of traction lines. Patricia stared down and became dizzy; the top of the scaffold was at least sixty meters from the pit bottom.

"And there is also ritual. It tunes the mind," the gate opener said. "It prepares. It may not be strictly necessary, but I've always found it useful. Now." He held out the clavicle and closed his eyes. "We're not looking for the usual game today. I've been seeking this junction for fifty years at least, and until now, it's always eluded me." He opened one eye and gave her a querying half-smile. "You've been wondering why we're still here, opening another gate that we must inevitably close when the Jarts come or the Axis City passes over. Haven't you been wondering?"

Patricia nodded.

"Because whatever our disloyalty to the present Geshel rulers, I remain faithful to the Hexamon. I will serve the Hexamon even if they believe I'm a traitor, as they must if they know the role I've played in the secession. So to redeem myself, I open this gate."

"I still don't understand," Patricia said, head cocked to one side, eyes on the clavicle.

Ry Oyu removed one hand and spread his fingers, swinging his arm to indicate a circle. "All gates have been tuned to open onto worlds, planets. The Way passes an infinity of possible junctions with other worlds, and we must choose from a large subset of that infinity when we tune at each optimum point. You've noticed, perhaps, that our gates are always spaced at distances no less than four hundred kilometers. That's because of the rhythm of the geometry stacks. Do you understand that rhythm?"

Patricia nodded. "Yes."

"We do not venture into the stacks themselves. They commingle alternate universes and timelines in a way not useful to us. We work between." He axed the air with the edge of his hand. "We work within a range of ten meters, and within that range, there are perhaps a billion vantages. We tune as closely as we can to the location of an object with planetary mass; the clavicle tells us the mass by picting directly to our minds, giving us all the necessary information. Feel this." He took her hand and placed it on the opposite grip of the clavicle. Her mind was flooded with images, information. "Now look at me."

She stared at Ry Oyu, and into her head he picted a rapid, steady flow of techniques. "It would be much easier if you had an implant, but at least you have the inclination—and the motivation to learn. I cannot give you all the skill, but I can help you hone your intuition." He delivered another series of instructions. Hand still on the clavicle, she felt the flows of data merge.

"I can't help you find your way home," he said, tapping her hand to get her to remove it from the grip. "I won't be with you, and neither will Yates or Olmy. We all have business to attend to. But if your theory is correct—and I see no reason why it shouldn't be—then you can find the proper gate within the geometry stack. You have sufficient knowledge for the attempt. Now watch carefully. We do not open onto another world today. We open onto the Way itself."

Patricia frowned.

"You've seen the curve, Patricia; I'm sure you've calculated the curve of the Way."

"Yes," she said.

"Have you seen where it crosses itself?"

"No."

"It's a very subtle crossing, and the points are far-separated. At such distances, the Way's character may be very different.

"The Axis City will eventually reach those sectors in its travels, perhaps in millions of years, much sooner if the Geshels carry out their present plans. When we open the gate at this junction, we will know what the Way actually is, what we have created and perhaps how extensive it is. We redeem ourselves to the Hexamon by pioneering. Now do you understand why we have stayed here?"

Patricia nodded.

Ry Oyu turned to the researchers and his colleagues at the base of the scaffold. "Is the Engineer ready to witness?"

"I am here."

"Can you experience everything clearly?"

"Yes. I think so."

The gate opener took a deep breath and glanced sidewise at Patricia. "Today, we are all privileged," he said to her.

The clavicle hummed as he stepped down onto the traction field. He beckoned for Patricia to accompany him. She stood on the lines beside him, and the field dimpled downward where they stood, forming a cup around them. They were within a few meters of the floor of the pit when they stopped their descent. Ry Oyu kneeled and replaced the clavicle in its holder. "I've narrowed the region down to a few centimeters," he said.

Lifting his head, to Patricia's surprise he began to chant.

"In the name of Star, furnace of our being, forge of our substance, greatest of all fires, Star give us light, give us even in darkness the gift of right creation."

He adjusted the clavicle and gripped it tightly with both hands, closing his eyes and lifting his face to the heights of the terminal shell.

"In Fate we lay our trust, in the Way of Life and Light, in ultimate destiny's pattern, which we cannot deny, whatever we choose, however freely we choose.

"In the name of Pneuma, breath of our minds, wind of our thoughts, born of flesh or carried in machine, guide our hands, enthuse us, that we may create in truth ourselves, that we may manifest what is within, without."

Lanier saw Korzenowski's image mouthing the words along with Ry Oyu. Had the Engineer written the ceremony the gate opener now used?

The clavicle's hum rose in pitch. Patricia clenched her hands together in front of her, realizing that she was making a gesture of prayer. She could not persuade herself to untangle her fingers and put her hands to her sides.

"And in the name of the Eld, some of whom are with us this occasion, those born of flesh and those resurrected by the gifts of our past creativity; in the name of those who burned that we might find a truer path, who suffered the Death that we may live. . .”

Both Patricia and Lanier felt tears brim over and spill down their cheeks.

"I lift this clavicle to worlds without number, and bring a new light to the Way, opening this gate that all may prosper, those who guide and are guided, who create and are created, who light the Way and bask in the light so given."

He brought the clavicle out of its field receptacle and lifted it between his knees. The stream of picts issuing from the clavicle lit up his face with a fire-like intensity. The humming had passed out of range of hearing.

"Behold."

"I open a—new world. . . .”

The bronze surface of the Way beneath them seemed to degenerate into a crosshatching of black and green and red lines. Ry Oyu stood, keeping the clavicle level in his hands.

At the edge of the pit, standing as close as they could to the scaffold, the researchers, Yates, Prescient Oyu, Lanier and the image of Korzenowski stared down into the silent storm of the gate's beginning.

The traction cup lifted the gate opener and Patricia a few meters. Patricia became dizzy again, staring into the pregnant, whirling illusion of color and infinite possibility.

The illusion parted, an oily black circle forming at the center.

Ry Oyu handed the clavicle to Patricia. She took its grips firmly in her hands.

"Now feel the power of what is happening," he said in English. "Learn the sensation of a correct opening."

The clavicle was alive in her hands, part of her, connected with her by its constant picting. Ry Oyu's instructions to her had been quite detailed and were now fixed in her head.

The power was exhilarating. She felt like laughing as the clavicle broadened the hole in the surface of the Way. Overhead, the incomplete cupola that had sheltered Ry Oyu's work area now moved into position on its own, seeking the center of the disturbance.

"This is a dangerous time," Ry Oyu said to her. "If it gets out of control, the cupola encloses us and smooths out the disturbance. If that happens, we are forever lost to the Way. We go wherever the aborted gate takes us, and we cannot come back. Do you feel that potential?"

She did. Her exhilaration changed into a sensation of having something indescribably nasty and unfriendly by the tail. She kept her eyes on the clavicle.

"That's it," Ry Oyu said. "Olmy could not have been more correct. You're more of our time than your own."

The cupola's sketchy, racing lines shrank into the familiar active bronze coloration they had seen at other gate sites. At the center of the pit, the vortex surrounding the black circle began to rise, and the traction field carried them higher still.

"Follow me," Yates told Lanier as the researchers moved outward. They regrouped about fifty meters from the scaffold, near the site of the gate opener's work area. The ground around the pit was buckling, breaking up and forming a tumulus over the rising slope of the gate.

The scaffold and traction lines remained level. Ry Oyu resumed his grip on the clavicle. "A hundred thousand possibilities here," he murmured. "Through the clavicle, I can feel them. . . experience them. I learn about a hundred thousand worlds now, but I only want one. I listen for it. . . I know its character. . . I know the particular tangent it occupies. The clavicle controls its own probing, keeping its position steady, but I direct. . . . And find."

His expression was exalted, triumphant. The oily black circle widened and became an intense cerulean blue. Around the circle, the bronze Way material again took on definition, forming a smooth-lipped depression with the blueness at its center. The depression deepened; Patricia could not avoid characterizing the process as space-time healing, growing accustomed to the unnatural intrusion.

Around the circumference of the blueness, she received a camera-obscure, fish-eye-lens view of something long, bright and flowing, surrounded by massive dark objects.

"The gate is opened," Ry Oyu said, shoulders slumping. He slipped the clavicle into its receptacle and stretched out his arms. "Now we find out what lies on the other side."

"Do we enter?" Patricia asked.

"No," the gate opener said with a hint of amusement. "We send one of our mechanical friends. It makes its report, and we make our decision without immediately risking our lives."

The traction field cup brought them level with the steps at the top of the scaffold. Ry Oyu motioned for Patricia to precede him, and they joined the others near the work area.

A cubic monitor about half a meter on a side—large for such devices—floated up the new slope and passed through the bars of the scaffold. It slipped quietly into the depression and through the gate. Yates activated a pictor and tuned it to the monitor's signals, relayed by scaffold transponders.

To Lanier, Patricia's stature seemed to have increased. She appeared more self-assured, calm. Taking his hand and squeezing it between both of hers, she smiled at him and whispered, "I can do it. I felt it. I'll be able to follow through."

The monitor image had not yet come into focus. Yates translated picts carrying information about the conditions on the other side. "The monitor is in a high vacuum," he said, "with a very low radiation count. If we are indeed in another section of the Way, the flaw is particularly inactive and stable."

"There doesn't seem to be any flaw," Ry Oyu commented, squinting in concentration.

The visual image clarified.

"It's enormous," Senator Oyu said quietly.

At whatever point the gate had intersected the Way, the tube-shaped universe had expanded to a diameter of at least fifty thousand kilometers. "Geodesic drift," Patricia said.

"Well, that might account for it," Ry Oyu said. "But it may not be inherent."

Lanier didn't bother asking for an explanation; he doubted he could absorb it.

The Way was filled with cyclopean structures, dark crystalline masses thousands of kilometers long, some floating free, casting broad shadows against the opposite walls of the Way as they passed before an intense, meandering, snake-like plasma tube.

"Surface attraction is about one-tenth g," Yates said. "The parameters are substantially different, Ry. Do you suppose it's another Way, not our own?"

"Do we have reason to believe anyone else would have made a universe like this one?" the gate opener asked.

"No," Yates admitted.

"We imposed our own heritage on the shape of the Way when we made it cylindrical—I strongly doubt others would duplicate it. Not with the endless possibilities available."

"Still, there's a convenience to such a shape, a practicality if commerce is desired. . . .”

Ry Oyu agreed to that much with a curt nod. He seemed angry, surveying the results of his work. "It's very strange there," he said. "No detectable flaw, and the plasma tube is highly irregular. I'd say it's been tampered with."

"By Jarts?"

"No," the gate opener said. "Those structures are very un-Jart-like. I'm not sure I can conceive any practical uses for them—they're either distortions in the geometry, space-time extrusions and crystallizations, or. . .” He shook his head. "Or they're beyond our comprehension. And besides, I doubt very much if Jarts could have progressed so far. This junction—if it is a junction—has to be beyond one ex fifteen—over a hundred light years down the Way."

"There can't be any gates there, then," Patricia said.

Yates raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"

"Because that's beyond the end of our universe, in time. Gates would open onto. . .” She held up her hands. "Nothing. Null."

"Not necessarily," Ry Oyu said. "But you have an interesting point. The Way is adapted to fit conditions in its epoch of origin. Where it surpasses those conditions—extends beyond them—it may naturally reach other accommodations."

"Can the Axis City ever travel that far?" Prescient Oyu asked.

"I don't know. If the flaw ceases to exist, they would have to make adjustments. . . it would be difficult. And if there's no flaw beyond a certain point—"

"The Way is self-sustaining," Yates finished for him.

"It is indeed. It doesn't require sixth chamber machinery or any connection with the Thistledown."

"It looks empty," Lanier said, unsure he should enter into the discussion. "I don't see any traffic—there's no movement."

Yates instructed the monitor to survey the region. The images became greatly magnified, revealing the cyclopean crystals in more detail. The Way was filled with them—some soaring from one side to the other across tens of thousands of kilometers, the plasma tube curving around them.

All of the structures—even those floating free—were covered with cupola-like disks, each protecting the obvious blisters of open gates. The image magnified several more times. Shimmering strands of light passed in thick nets between the densely packed gates. There was traffic—commerce of some sort—but on an inconceivably vast scale, and of a different kind than they had ever witnessed.

More picts flashed beside the images. "Definitely no flaw," Yates affirmed. "The Way at this point is completely stable and self-consistent."

Patricia appeared half-asleep. She was in the state again, Lanier realized. She was struggling to understand what was happening—it was completely beyond him.

"It's causally connected," she said thickly.

"Pardon?" Lanier asked, glancing at the others and cupping her elbow in his hand. She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.

"If the Axis City travels at near light-speed down the Way, this is what will happen—even before the journey begins. The Way lies essentially outside time and has to accommodate any event within its length. This is what will happen—especially if the Thistledown end is sealed off."

"Yes? Please continue. . . .” Yates urged.

"She's right," Korzenowski said. "It's perfectly obvious. And you have somebody—not humans, not Jarts, not even of our universe—taking advantage of the adaptation."

Ry Oyu smiled broadly. "I'm afraid it isn't obvious to us. Please go on."

Patricia looked at the Engineer and felt a stir of recognition. Herself. . . Something about herself. Korzenowski nodded to her. "You're doing fine," he said.

"We're looking at the results, carried along superspace vectors, of what is about to happen in the Way," she said. "I was thinking about this before we left for Timbl, after the rogue came to my quarters. If the Axis City travels faster than one-third light-speed, it will twist the Way and create a space-time shock wave that will exceed light-speed, moving ahead of it. The shock wave will operate outside of time, arriving before its cause. The shock wave has already passed this point—perhaps centuries ago, perhaps even before the Way was opened. Something traveling at near light-speed on the singularity, the flaw, will strain it beyond its endurance. It will convert virtual particles into energy—radiate, 'evaporate.'" She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeing the mathematics being done even as she spoke. "The Way has been forced to expand to a stable configuration. The flaw has vanished."

Olmy said nothing, calmly listening to Korzenowski and Patricia. He's proud, Lanier thought.

"For several light-years, until the Way expands and the city's shock wave dissipates, everything will be sterilized ahead of the city. Nothing will exist in these segments but the city. All features will be wiped out, all gates fused shut." She pointed to the structures. "Obviously, the Way has expanded here, and relativistic objects along its length won't bother it quite as much."

Lanier tried to puzzle out the flaw's vanishing even before the construction of the object that would force its "evaporation." He quickly lost himself in contradictions, but the contradictions didn't seem to bother Korzenowski or the gate openers.

"When we've prepared the documentation—you can do that, can't you, soon?—" he asked Patricia.

She agreed. "With Ser Korzenowski's help."

"—Then we will know most of what we need to know," Ry Oyu said. "We can present our report to the President. His faction can do with it what they please." He smiled. "What, apparently, they must."

Bright red picts appeared before the defense monitor, signaling an urgent message. Olmy went to receive them. When he returned, his expression was jubilant—paradoxically so, considering what he said next. "The Jarts have opened their gate. It's a remote, at about one point five ex nine. They've cut off the last defense station. There's a plug of plasma reaching top velocity—it's about seven hours from us. We have to leave now."

Prescient Oyu looked to her father. "The Geshels will refuse to let the Jarts push them out," she said.

"Then the President has no choice now, does he?" Ry Oyu said. "The Way writes his destiny, and so do the Jarts. He must take his precincts, and we must take ours, and follow our separate paths."