“I’m glad you’re finding the room so interesting.” Hork’s tone contained patience, but with an undercurrent of threat.

“I wasn’t aware you were in a hurry. After all, you’ve lasted ten generations without talking to the Human Beings; what’s the rush now?”

“No games,” Hork growled. “Come on, upfluxer. You know why I’ve asked you here. I need your help.”

Muub interposed smoothly, “You must make allowances for this old rascal, sir. He rejoices in being difficult… a privilege of age, perhaps.”

Adda turned to glare at Muub, but the doctor would not meet his eye.

“I ask you again,” Hork said quietly. “Tell me of the Xeelee.”

“Not until you tell me that my friends will be returned from their exile.”

“From their indentures,” Muub said impatiently. “Damn it, Adda, I’ve already assured you that they’ve been sent for.”

Adda watched Hork, his mouth set firm.

Hork nodded, the motion an impatient spasm which caused ripples to flow over the front of his chest. “Their debts are dissolved. Now give me my answer.”

“I’ll tell you all you need to know in five words.”

Hork tilted his head back, his nostrils glowing.

Adda said slowly, “You — can — not — fight — Xeelee.”

Hork growled.

“That’s your intention, isn’t it?” Adda asked evenly. “You want to find a way to beat off Xeelee as if they were rampaging Air-boars; you want to find a way to stop them smashing up your beautiful Palace…”

“They are killing the people I am responsible for.”

Adda leaned forward in his sling. “City man, they don’t even know we’re here. Nothing you could do would even raise you to their attention.”

Muub was shaking his head. “How can you respect such — such primal monsters? Explain that, Adda.”

“The Xeelee have their own goals,” said Adda. “Goals which we do not share, and cannot even comprehend…”

The Xeelee — moving behind mists of legend — were immense. They were to the Ur-humans as Ur-humans were to Human Beings, perhaps. They were like gods — and yet lower than gods.

Perhaps gods could have been tolerated, by the Ur-human soul. Not the Xeelee. The Xeelee had been rivals.

Hork twisted in his sling, angry and impatient. “So the Ur-humans, unable to endure the aloof grandeur of these Xeelee, challenged them…”

“Yes. There were great wars.”

Billions had died. The destruction of the Xeelee had become a racial goal for the Ur-humans.

“…But not for everyone,” Adda said. “As the venom of the assaults grew, so did Ur-human understanding of the Xeelee’s great Projects. For instance the Ring was discovered…”

“The Ring?” Hork growled.

“Bolder’s Ring,” Adda said. “A huge construct which one day will form a gateway between universes…”

“What is this old fool babbling about, Physician? What are these universes of which he speaks? Are they in other parts of the Star?”

Muub spread his long, fine hands and smiled. “I’m as mystified as you are, sir. Perhaps the universes reside in other Stars. If such exist.”

Adda grunted. “If I knew all the answers I’d have spent my life doing a lot more than carve spears and hunt pigs,” he said sourly. “Look, Hork, I will tell you what I know; I’m telling you what my father told me. But if you ask stupid questions you are only going to get stupid answers.”

“Get on with it,” Muub murmured.

“Even if they could have been successful,” Adda said, “wise Ur-men came to see that to destroy the Xeelee might be as unwise as for a child to destroy its father. The Xeelee are working on our behalf, waging immense, invisible battles in order to save us from unknown danger. We cannot understand their ways; we are as dust in the Air to them. But they are our best hope.”

Hork glared at him, raking his fat fingers through his beard. “What evidence is there for any of this? It’s all legend and hearsay…”

“That’s true,” Muub said, “but we couldn’t expect any more from such a source, sir…”

Hork shoved himself out of his sling, his bulk quivering in the Air like a sac of liquid. “You’re too damn patient, Physician. Legend and hearsay. The ramblings of a senile old fool.” He Waved to the captive vortex ring and slammed his fist into the elegant spheres encasing it. The outermost sphere splintered in a star around his fist, and the vortex ring broke up into a chain of smaller rings which rapidly diminished in size, swooping around each other. “Am I supposed to gamble the future of the City, of my people, on such gibberish? And what about us, upfluxer? Forget these mythical men on other worlds. Why are the Xeelee interested in us?… and what am I to do about it?”

Past Hork’s wide, angry face, Adda watched the captive vortex ring struggling to re-form.

15

Bzya invited Farr to visit him at his home, deep in the Downside belly of the City.

The Harbor workers were expected to sleep inside the Harbor itself, in the huge, stinking dormitories. The authorities preferred to have their staff where they could call them out quickly in the event of some disaster — and where they had an outside chance of keeping them fit for work. To get access to the rest of the City, outside the Harbor walls, Bzya and Farr needed to arrange not only coincident off-shifts but also coincident out-passes, and they had to wait some weeks before Hosch — grudgingly and reluctantly — allowed the arrangement.

The Harbor, a huge spherical construction embedded in the base of the City, was enclosed by its own Skin and had its own skeleton of Corestuff, strengthened to withstand the forces exerted by the Bell winches. The Harbor was well designed for its function, Farr had come to realize, but the interior was damned claustrophobic, even by Parz standards. So he felt a mild relief as he emerged from the Harbor’s huge, daunting gates and entered the maze of Parz streets once more.

The streets — narrow, branching, indecipherably complex — twisted away in all directions. Farr looked around, feeling lost already; he knew he’d have little hope of finding his way through this three-dimensional maze.

Bzya rubbed his hands, grinned, and Waved off down one of the streets. He moved rapidly despite his huge, scarred bulk. Farr studied the street. It looked the same to him as a dozen others. Why that one? How had Bzya recognized it? And…

And Bzya was almost out of sight already, around the street’s first bend.

Farr kicked away from the outer Harbor wall and plunged after Bzya.

The area around the Harbor was one of the shabbiest in the City. The streets were cramped, old and twisting. The noise of the dynamo sheds, which were just above this area, was a constant, dull throb. The dwelling-places were dark mouths, most of them with doors or pieces of wall missing; as he hurried after Bzya, Farr was aware of curious, hungry eyecups peering out at him. Here and there people Waved unevenly past — men and women, some of them Harbor workers, and many of them in the strange state called “drunkenness.” Nobody spoke, to him or anybody else. Farr shivered, feeling clumsy and conspicuous; this was like being lost in a Crust-forest.

After a short time’s brisk Waving, Bzya began to slow. They must be nearly at his home. Farr looked around curiously. They were still in the deepest Downside, almost on top of the Harbor, and the buildings here had the shrunken meanness of the areas closest to the Harbor itself. But in this area there was a difference, Farr saw slowly. The walls and doors were patched, but mostly intact. And there were no “drunks.” It was astonishing to him how in such a short distance the character of Parz could change so completely.

Bzya grinned and pushed open a doorway — a doorway among thousands in these twisting corridors. Once again Farr wondered how Bzya knew how to find his way around with such unerring accuracy.