"You'll need to use inscape, of course; in fact you won't be able to get along without it." She indicated the parkland and city. "This is one of the typical views of the Archipelago. You'll find this landscape goes on for millions of kilometers in every direction — it's a virtual aggregate of all the colonies, coronals, ships, and starlettes in the solar system. Most people here don't like to be reminded that they're living on artificial worlds. Many have forgotten or don't believe it anymore.

"The other thing you need to know is that I'm going to have to impound your house." The woman-shaped agent put its hands on its hips and glared at the building. "It's full of dangerous nanotech — so are your clothes, in fact It'll all have to go. I'll compensate you for the mass and energy you've lost You can use that to set yourselves up here."

"All right, but if you can't help us, who can?" asked Qiingi.

The Government hesitated. "Granted where you come from ... Well, just talk to people. Maybe you can generate an adhocracy to help you out. Or appeal to the Good Book or the votes."

"What about the anecliptics?" asked Livia.

The Government shook its head. "You'll get no help there." Then it winked out of existence, leaving two trim footprints in the grass.

They gathered their few things, and left the house at a walk. There were some people in die distance but otherwise the brightly lit parkland seemed very empty. If in-scape, it was particularly convincing. Livia plucked an orange from the low-hanging branch of a tree as they passed by. It seemed real; she peeled it, and felt the sharp flavor as she popped a piece in her mouth. "It tastes real," she said. "How is that possible?"

"Are you addressing me?" asked the orange. She almost dropped it in surprise.

"Well ... I suppose so."

"Just switch views a few times, and you'll see where I came from."

Livia obliged, calling up an inscape reticle around the tree. She tracked down die translucent menu with her eyes, and the parkland vanished, replaced by a towering cityscape. Where the tree had been was some sort of dispensing machine.

She tried another view. They now stood in a public market crowded with people. The tree had become a fruit-vendor's stall. The vendor himself waved from behind his counter. "Come back any time!" he said.

"What are you doing?" asked Qiingi.

"Aren't you seeing this?" she asked. He shook his head.

"There's no tracking on inscape in this manifold," said Aaron wonderingly. "Everybody can see whatever they want, however they want even if it contradicts what the person next to them sees."

Livia shuddered. "But that's madness. Where's the common view?"

"That's what I'm saying. There is no common view."

"No common view ... and just one tech set?"

"I'm in a technical view right now," said Aaron. Some inscape address icons glowed faintly around bis reticle like an aura; they were different from her own, she realized. "It's beautiful," said Aaron, gazing around himself. "I'm querying ... did you hear that? It says it doesn't know what I mean by tech locks."

"Who are you talking to?" asked Qiingi. "A qqatx-hana?"

"Uh, yeah. An inscape agent. You can't see him?" Qiingi shook his head.

They wandered on, experimenting. Livia found that after a few queries and after flipping through a few views to try to find something, her local view was beginning to anticipate her. The parkland mutated spontaneously, showing paths, buildings, labels, and reticles indicating rest stops and fountains; and people began appearing. The first few were serlings: inscape agents designed to help search for information. She asked one of them who the other people in her view were.

"People who share your interests or activities," said the man-shaped agent. "Or who just like the same places. When you use inscape you accumulate a profile based on what you've done and where you've gone. Inscape locates people with similar or complementary profiles and brings you close." It moved its open palms together.

"Not physically close."

Now it looked puzzled. "What do you mean, physically?"

"They're not really here, all of them, are they?"

It frowned for a moment. "If you mean, would you see them if you fell out of inscape, no. But don't worry, you can't do that."

Within an hour Livia, Qiingi, and Aaron were sitting in a restaurant surrounded by a crowd of affable strangers. Food came; people told jokes and let the three newcomers pester them with questions. Feeling cautious, they took the Government's advice and told no one that they had come from the Fallow Lands. But after the fourth time that someone asked just where they had come from, they went into a huddle to get their story straight Once again, a serling appeared to assist in the discussion.

When Qiingi asked it to name a plausible place of origin far enough away that no one here could have visited it, it said, "How about the planet Ventus? Nobody knows much about it, but it's a real place."

From then on they told people that they came from Ventus.

By the time their chosen view slid toward nightfall, they had a better understanding of this place — enough to know that a real understanding might not be easy to get. This Archipelago customized itself to your every thought and action. There was no base reality here, at least not for anybody inside inscape — and that was everybody. The irony was that now that Qiingi and Aaron could tune one another out, they seemed to be getting along at last Livia faded out their new acquaintances as well as the restaurant; the other two followed suit. For a while they wandered along a broad boulevard, their few salvaged possessions bobbing in virtual matter fogs behind them. Finally Aaron asked inscape where they could find a place to sleep, but he was a bit behind Livia, who had started yawning a few minutes before. As far as she was concerned, all three of them now stood in a luxurious apartment with deep beds and full amenities. Of course, the place must be, in part or whole, an illusion — but the plumbing and beds were real enough. A serling told Livia that the amenities were built up of programmable matter and certain pieces flown in by microbots as soon as the apartment was requested. This technology was like that which made up her angels back home, only taken to an almost absurd degree.

The whole place was also moving somewhere, though you couldn't tell unless you queried. But wherever they were, it was out of the way of heavy traffic.

Lying in tonight's bed — the first, she thought, of many — Livia listened to the silence, imagining she could hear the two men through the walls. The idea that they were there was reassuring, but even the walls could stroll away in the night if they chose to.

What world would be waiting for her in the morning? And would Aaron and Qiingi still be in it?

Livia stuck her head out the aircar's window, letting the rush of air whip back her hair. She was so happy to finally be free of that stale house, and to at last be doing something — even if the issue of their urgent mission still hung over their heads. Maybe today's meeting would hold the answer.

She had good reason to be hopeful. In the several days they had been here, none of the three had found any overt evidence of 3340. Inscape had adapted to their needs by bringing close anyone and anything that knew something about invading or aggressive forces throughout the Archipelago. No one they'd spoken to had heard of a numbered movement to subvert inscape. And if so, if it were not the godlike power of the Archipelago itself that had attacked Teven ... then maybe they could find help here.

"Livia," said Cicada, startling her out of her windblown reverie. The little faerie hovered in the air outside the car.