Livia walked over to one of the barrels. When she tapped it, it sounded hollow. "So you and Maren Ellis inspired Aaron here to experiment with space travel," she said to Raven. "Aaron, last time I talked to you it sounded like you'd succeeded." She looked up, expecting to see the light of understanding in his eyes. Instead she saw disappointment.

"Theoretically, yes," he said, shaking his head. "Sure, we've sent cargoes ... even round-tripped them, but — "

"Round-tripped? What do you mean?"

He gazed at her evenly. "It doesn't matter. You know the difference between running away here, within Teven Coronal, and running away out there? If we run here, we can always change our minds. Always come back. But nobody ever responded to the messages we put in the barrels. We don't even know what's out there." He waved at the glass-walled end of the workshop, where the stars slowly wheeled past

"Raven knows," she said. "Don't you?"

To her surprise, the old man shook his head. "I know what was out there two hundred years ago. I've tried to contact my mother, but only get her anima. And it claims to know no more than we do. We can't help you much, I'm afraid."

"But you know what caused the accident that stranded Aaron and me outside of inscape," she accused. "You all knew, but you never told us. There was a name for the thing that caused the accident, Aaron."

His eyes widened. "Livia, I don't want to — "

"The anecliptics, Aaron. You know that word, don't you?" she said to Raven.

The old man shrugged. "I know we bought this world from them. They were our friends. But my mother never told me more than that."

"Your mother?'

"Maren Ellis." Seeing their astonished expressions, Raven laughed. "Yes, my mother. We've had our differences over the years ... I guess you could say Raven's people is one of them. But she's one of the originals, and I'm not. And the originals don't talk about the time before the manifolds. I don't know any more about what's out mere than you do."

Livia glared at the barrels. "You'd think she would have told you. Or told somebody what she knew. She knows more about what's happening than she's told any of us.

The one thing we know, though, is that Ellis and the other founders came from there." Livia nodded at the stars visible past the diamond-glass far wall of the workshop. "They built this world with the help of the anecliptics. Another thing I know is that this 3340 who is attacking us is not one of the anecliptics. It's an interloper, a trespasser, where our real ancestors were invited in."

Raven nodded. "Mother told me that the anecliptics agreed to shelter us from outside influences. I do agree mat if these so-called ancestors are invaders on our territory that they're also invading the territory of the anecliptics ... but ... "

Shouts from below, then tense silence. Then — the deep crump of a distant explosion. As dust filtered down from above, bom of them turned to watch the stairwells that led to the outer doors.

"What are you suggesting?" asked Aaron after silence returned.

For a moment she was afraid to say it But they were just standing there; nobody had a plan beyond simple survival. What was needed right now was a countermove whose audacity matched that of the attack against Teven. None of the peers seemed ready to think on that scale, and Livia didn't feel worthy of doing it either. But she had a reputation for heroism — even if she didn't remember being that hero. For her, audacity was permitted.

Her eyes on Raven, Livia said, "We have to leave the coronal. Find these anecliptics. Tell them about 3340. Maybe they'll evict everybody; maybe they'll kill us all, I don't know. But Aaron, I'm betting they won't be indifferent."

They stared at her in shock for a moment. Then Raven shook his head. "Well, Maren and I talked about this kind of travel ... We commissioned the space-travel research project. But, Livia, leaving Teven is a worse suicide than what we face here. We isolated ourselves in this place for a reason: because the outside world is full of enemies."

It was the old ostrich-head-in-the-sand argument that Esther and the peers had always used on her. It infuriated Livia.

Aaron shook his head. "It won't work anyway."

Gunfire and shouts echoed up from below. Livia grabbed Raven by the shoulders. "Listen! We're out of other options. Anything else we do, 3340 wins. Are you already resigned to that?"

People were boiling up out of the stairwell now. Qiingi came loping over. "Up, up!" he shouted. "They've taken the foyer. Eagles and thunderbirds!"

Aaron looked around at his scattered experiments. "Livia, there's no way to do it None of the test barrels is big enough to hold a person, much less the supplies and oxygen they'd need. And with no heat source ... it's sure death, Liv."

But Raven was looking away, his expression troubled. "There might be a way. If we go up," he said to Aaron. "All the way up."

Aaron frowned in sudden understanding. "How do you know about that?"

"You forget, I grew up in Westerhaven — before this manifold had that name. I know this place, and its secrets."

At that moment Francis ran over. "What are you doing standing around?" he shouted. "Grab a weapon and get down there!"

"Let me handle this," Raven said to Livia and Aaron. "You gather the supplies you'll need."

"Then you agree?" She ignored Francis.

Raven sighed. "No. But it's a thing to try."

"What's going on here?" demanded Francis. Livia didn't stick around to listen to his confrontation with Raven. She followed Aaron's lead as he grabbed a box and began throwing food and other gear into it.

The battle was reaching a peak. The equipment he'd been using for cover had crumbled under an onslaught of laser fire and Qiingi was looking for a better vantage point when he felt a hand descend on his shoulder. Startled, he looked up. Raven stood over him. The old man didn't say a word, but simply pointed — away from the battle.

Qiingi turned and immediately spotted Livia Kodaly dragging boxes onto an open-sided freight elevator stuffed with crates and pieces of metal equipment. He nodded to Raven and followed the founder over to help with the loading.

Half of the equipment appeared Modern, or even older. The rest was totally new, composed of quantum dots and ganged mesobots. Some of it exhibited the pseudo-life of post-scientific technology; it was all equally repellant to Qiingi.

Qiingi helped Aaron dump several last boxes into the elevator. "Where are you going?" he asked. Livia's friend eyed him suspiciously but said nothing.

Livia looked up from where she was lashing some metal tubes together. "Away from Teven. We're going to try to find help."

Away from Teven. The thought was astonishing, dizzying even. Qiingi didn't hesitate. "I will go with you." Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Raven nod.

"No," snapped Aaron Varese.

"This is my world, too," said Qiingi. "Or is it only Westerhaven mat you intend to save?"

"But you don't have the skills — "

"What skills, exactly, do you think we shall require?"

Aaron glared at him. Livia watched them both. Then Aaron simply said, "Up!" The huge metal square began grinding its way toward an empty black shaft in the ceiling; icy air swept down from there. Below them the workshop spread out like a game board. On it Westerhaven was playing a losing match.

It was shaming to watch Raven's thunderbirds clawing their way up the stairs through the withering fire. Once Qiingi would have trusted his life to the beasts. Now they were almost upon him. "We're rising too slowly," he said, as calmly as he could. Nobody answered. At any second the invaders would be up the stairs, and then this platform would be the most prominent target in the room.