Korzenowski walked across the sixth chamber terminal to join Mirsky under a transparent skylight. The avatar—Korzenowski found it easiest to think of him that way—stared up across the chamber at the carpet of machinery on the opposite side of the chamber. Clouds moved swiftly over the view, both on their side and the far side; the colors, gray and green and mottled, traversed by the glow of the plasma tube, soothed Korzenowski in a way he found puzzling. He had cut himself loose from all this, yet it continued to fascinate him.
Like Olmy, he now believed that the Hexamon would reopen the Way no matter what obstacles they faced; would he be sorry?
“It’s magnificent,” Mirsky said. “A magnificent achievement.” He smiled at the Engineer. “When I first saw this, it was beyond anything I could imagine. I was dwarfed. I had not been introduced gradually, had not had the time Lanier spent in the Potato—that’s what we called Thistledown. We had not entered peacefully. It felt impossibly alien and disturbing, and fascinating, too. Yet Ser Ram Kikura called it ‘hideous.’”
“Her passions do not lie in machinery; she’s spent her life with huge machines. She takes them for granted. It’s not unusual for Naderites to be blind to their actual environment, in quest of some perfection. We’re a mystical group, all in all; Star, Fate and Pneuma lie deep in us.”
“How long will it take you to complete this diagnostic?” Mirsky asked.
“Three days. There are partials and remotes all over the chamber now. Everything crucial seems in working order.”
“And the weapons?”
Korzenowski stared intently at the view through the skylight. Rain began to fall in gentle patters, mottling the glass; the same water that had cooled and cleansed the machinery in the sixth chamber for centuries. “I did not build them. I know very little about them. I suspect they’re in working order, also. The Hexamon spent much of its history relying on machinery to stay alive; we respect our creations, and by instinct, we build them to last.”
“How long until the re-opening, then?” Mirsky asked.
“The timetable hasn’t changed. Unless Lanier and Ram Kikura succeed in blocking the advisory and the vote, perhaps two weeks; no more than a month.”
“You’ll do it, if they order you to? Open the Way again?”
“I’ll do it,” Korzenowski answered. “It seems to be Fate acting, doesn’t it?”
Mirsky laughed. For the first time, Korzenowski heard a timbre in the avatar’s voice that did not seem entirely human, and it chilled him. “Fate indeed,” Mirsky said. “I have been with beings like gods, and fate puzzles them, too.”