Stars exploded around him. Half of them were colored blue.

He gasped. Thet laughed.

It’s a simulation, he told himself. Just another sim.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Thet watched with amused contempt. “Get your bearings.”

The stars blurred together. Behind him they were tinged china blue. Ahead of him they formed a mist that hid… something, a hint of a torus shape—

“Bolder’s Ring is ahead,” he breathed.

“How do you know?”

Because that was the way everything was falling.

Thet said, “We’ve been space-going for a hundred and fifty millennia, probably. And yet we’re still children at the feet of the Xeelee. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?”

Rodi shrugged. “That’s why we’ve been trying to wreck that thing for almost as long. Envy.”

Thet paged through images on her monitor. “Shocking. And of course we of the Integrality are here to put it all right… ha! There’s our goal.” The screen contained a single spark of chlorophyll green. “Human life… or near enough to show up. A worldful of straying lambs. Right, Rodi?” And she drove the flitter through the crowd of stars.

On Holism Ark there were sim rooms of Earth. This little world, Rodi decided, was like a folded-up bit of Earth. They swept over oceans that sparkled in the jostling starlight — and then flew into an impossible dawn.

It was impossible because there was no sun.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Thet murmured. The light was diffusing down from a glowing sky. “Where’s that damn sunlight coming from?… And the planet’s only a quarter Earth’s size, gravity a sixth standard — too low for this thick layer of air…”

Rodi smiled. The little world was like a toy.

Thet poked buttons in triumph. “Contact! About time…”

A Virtual tank filled up with a smiling male face, long and gracefully austere. He spoke; Rodi picked out maybe one word in two. After a few seconds he flicked the translator button mounted in his thumbnail.

“…this equipment’s a little dusty, I’m afraid; we don’t get too many visitors. It’s only chance I was in the museum when the alarm chimed—”

“We represent the Exaltation of the Integrality,” said Thet formally. “We come from beyond the stars. We are human like yourselves.”

The man laughed; his eyes’ folds crinkled. “Thank you, my dear. You’re welcome to land and talk to us. But you’ll find we’re quite sophisticated. Use this signal as a beacon. The name of this area is Tycho…”

Thet let Rodi pilot the flitter out of orbit. Fifty miles above the surface the little craft shuddered; Rodi’s palms grew slick with sweat.

“That wasn’t your fault, surprisingly,” Thet said calmly. “We just passed through a kind of membrane. It’s — healing — behind us. Now we know how they keep the atmosphere in. And maybe this is where the sunshine comes from. Interesting.”

The Tycho museum perched at the summit of a green-clad mountain. A tall figure waved. The mountain was at the center of a plain which glistened with lakes and trees. The plain was walled by a circle of jagged hills. As they descended the hills dipped over the horizon.

Rodi landed neatly.

The air carried the scent of pine. Through the day-lit membrane Rodi could see stars; towards the horizon they were stained blue. He breathed deeply, invigorated.

Thet whooped. “I love this dinky gravity.” She did a neat double back somersault, her long legs flexing.

Their host walked around the curve of the little museum. He wore a white coverall and he was at least eight feet tall. He smiled. “Welcome,” he said. “My name is Darby.”

Thet landed breathlessly and introduced herself and Rodi. “Come to my home,” said Darby. “My family will be more than excited to meet you. And you can tell us all about your… integrality.”

Rodi looked around for a transport. There was none.

Darby said nothing. He held out his hands. Like children, Rodi and Thet took hold.

Rodi saw Darby’s coverall ripple, as if in a sudden breeze.

The museum, the flitter slid away.

Rodi looked down. He was flying, as if in a glass elevator. He felt no fear. Hand in hand they soared over the curves of the little world.

Darby’s home was a tentlike, translucent structure; it was at the heart of a light-filled forest. The days were as long as Ark days, adhering to some ancient, common standard. Thet and Rodi spent four days with Darby’s family.

Thet looked out of place in all this domesticity: squat, brusque, embarrassed by kindness. She let Rodi talk to the adults while she sat on the leaf-strewn ground telling Integrality parables to Darby’s two children. Each child towered over Thet. Their earnestness made Rodi smile.

On the final day Darby took Rodi by the hand. “Come with me. I’d like to show you a little more of our world.”

They flew soundlessly. Houseboats floated on circular oceans; clumps of dwellings grew by the banks of rivers. Everywhere people waved at them. “This is a peaceful place, you see, Rodi,” Darby said. “There are only a few thousand of us.”

“Yes. And this orderly world has risen from the debris of war… just as the Integrality teaches us to expect. As I’ve told you, the Integrality is a movement based on the inter-meshing of all things. Local reductions in entropy occur on all scales throughout the Universe, from the growth of a child to the convergence of a galaxy cluster. Order is to be celebrated…”

Irritation touched Darby’s face briefly. He said nothing. Rodi fell silent, faintly embarrassed.

At a savannah’s heart sat a simple dome. “This is a place we call Tranquility,” said Darby. “What I’m going to show you is a kind of monument. On seeing this perhaps you’ll understand why your sermons are a little out of place here.”

They landed like leaves.

Rodi peered through the clear dome wall. Boulders littered a patch of bald earth. There was a craft, a spiderlike structure as tall as a man. Gold foil gleamed through years of dust. Its colors faded beyond recognition, a flag lay in the soil.

“Here is the original surface of the planet, preserved through the terraforming,” said Darby. “Airless.”

“The craft looks very old. What is it?”

“Human, of course. This is one of our first spacecraft. Do you know where you are yet?”

Rodi turned and met Darby’s mild eyes.

“This is the Moon,” Darby said. “The original satellite of Earth. It was used in some ancient assault on the Ring… abandoned here, millions of light years from home, and terraformed by the handful of survivors.” He smiled. “Rodi, every glance at the night sky tells us where we are and how we got here. We live surrounded by the rubble of the past, the foolish sacrifices of war.

“We have had to come to terms with this, you see. We have made our peace with the Universe. Perhaps your Integrality has something to learn from us.”

Rodi stared for long minutes at the ancient craft. Then Darby took his arm. “I’ll take you back to your flitter. Your companion is already waiting for you.”

Hand in hand, they flew to the grass-coated walls of Tycho Crater.

The flitter soared through hyperspace.

“Those damn kids taught me a song,” Thet said. She recited: “We may with more successful hope resolve / To wage by force or guile eternal war / Irreconcilable to our grand Foe… That’s all there was.”

Rodi frowned. “Strange sort of kids’ song.”

“Sounds very old, doesn’t it? The kids say they learn it from older children, and so it’s passed on.” Punching the controls briskly, she said, “Well, that’s your first drop. Wasn’t so bad, was it? Next one solo, maybe.”

Sunk in depression, Rodi tapped at the data desk built into his thumbnail. “What do you know about glotto-chronology?”