“How long do we have?” That was Elke, already on her feet.

“Before Chan Dalton and Deb Bisson leave, I want to know where we’re going and what we’re taking with us. Tomorrow I want us ashore. Anything else? Otherwise, let’s get going.”

Elke nodded. “One other thing, and it’s not good. Before I returned here I checked the condition of our external sensors. Air pressure at the surface has been dropping and wind speeds are picking up. We don’t have metsats to provide confirming images so I can’t be absolutely sure, but I think another big storm is on the way — worse than when we first arrived. The first front will hit this area sometime tonight, with high winds and rain. Then we’ll have a lull, low winds and clear skies, maybe lasting all day tomorrow. But two days from now the real hurricane hits. Either we’re out of here and somewhere safe before that, or we won’t be going anywhere at all.”

Everyone gave up all thoughts of sleep. When the meeting broke up, Elke Siry at once headed aft. Chan Dalton followed her.

She turned as they came to the entrance of the control room. “What do you want? Your assignment may not begin until tomorrow, but mine already started. I don’t have time to talk.”

“This will take only five minutes.” Chan followed her in. “Let me start with a question. You understand more about the multiverse than anyone on board. Suppose we could capture a Malacostracan vessel — don’t ask me how. What would our chances be of performing a Link transition in that ship, without help from them?”

“How long would we have to study their controls and operating systems?”

“Let’s say, an hour or two.”

“Forget it. Without their help our chances would be one in a billion. For starters, we have no idea how to open the Link itself. It turns on and off in a way that we don’t understand, and it’s been off almost all the time since we arrived.”

“It was open whenever one of our ships came here.”

“I suspect that it opens whenever something wants to come through this way, but for ships that are leaving it’s controlled locally by the Mallies. I realize that General Korin believes the use of an alien ship is our only hope for finding our way home, but I can’t imagine it being possible. They won’t loan us a ship, and they won’t open the Link for us.”

“All right, a different question. Back in General Korin’s quarters, you said that you and the Angel know how to set coordinates for a Link transfer to any universe. True?”

“Quite true. Of course, I meant we know how to do it using a ship that we understand. Not an alien ship. But with our own vessel, I think we’d be able to Link to any exit point in any universe.”

“Can you describe how?” Chan could see that she was becoming impatient.

“Certainly. Once you’ve made a structural map of the multiverse, navigation across the different energy levels isn’t difficult. But you have to be extremely careful what you’re doing.”

“Because of the different time rates in different universes?”

“There’s that. But the Link coordinates give a good idea whether a universe will run faster or slower than the one you’re in. In retrospect, knowing what we know now, we could have predicted that the coordinates we had for a transit to the Geyser Swirl wouldn’t take us there. They showed a transition from one universe — ours — to one like this where time runs slower.”

“If you can estimate the time rates, why do you say you have to be very careful with transitions?”

“Because of variability even within the same energy level. It seems as though almost any imaginable combination of physical constants is going to be found in some universe. Suppose you Link to a universe where those basic constants are grossly different? And in most universes, they will be. There might be no stars or planets. There might even be no matter , just pure radiation. Then the time rate wouldn’t matter, because our kind of life, and maybe any kind of life, would be impossible.”

“Can you show me how to avoid that problem?”

“In five minutes? Not so you’ll understand what you’re doing.”

“I don’t have to understand, not in your sense of the word. I just want to know how to Link.”

“In our own ship — or an alien one?”

“Our own ship. Let’s forget the idea of doing it with one of their ships.”

“The Hero’s Return will never fly again. But I can show you how to pick a subset of universes that should be safe to visit. That’s as far as I can go.”

“And will I know the time rate in each one, before I Link there?”

“I think so.”

Chan sat down beside Elke at the console. “Show me.”

“You have a plan?”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

“In case it’s no good?”

“In case it is. But I still don’t want to talk.” Not to you. Not to General Korin, not to Deb — not even to myself. Maybe especially not to me.

Chan stretched his five minutes to ten, and then to twenty, before Elke decided that he understood as much about the structure of the multiverse as he ever would, given his ignorance of macroscopic quantum fields. She threw him out.

“And close the door behind you,” she called as Chan was leaving. But she had barely summoned onto the display the satellite image that she needed when the door of the control room was sliding open again.

“No!” she said. “Not another millisecond. I have work to do. Oh! I’m sorry, sir. I thought it was somebody else.”

“It is somebody else.” Dag Korin hovered on the threshold. “I came to check on your progress. Liddy Morse and the others are making a first list of what we need, and they hit me with some very reasonable questions. Which of course I couldn’t answer. Where will we land? How far will we have to carry the things that we pick out? How much of the journey will be underwater? How long will we have to live on whatever we take with us? You’re the only one who can answer any of those. How’s it coming?”

“It’s not coming at all. I haven’t started yet. Chan Dalton was in here until two minutes ago, asking questions of his own.”

“Was he now?” Korin frowned and sat down uninvited next to Elke. “What sort of questions?”

“About whether we could fly an alien ship through a Link on the surface of the planet, and about the structure of the multiverse. He asked me for the transition sequences to different levels, especially to an extreme case that I’ve been calling the Omega level. He said he needed to know how to initiate the transfers before his meeting with the Malacostracans.”

“Did he now. You gave the information to him?”

“Of course. I assumed he was doing it with your knowledge and approval. Shouldn’t I have?”

Dag Korin bent his head forward. He was silent for a long time, the only sound in the control room the steady drip of condensation. Elke wondered if he had gone to sleep. At last he stirred and said, “Who’s in charge here? I thought I was, but maybe I’m fooling myself. Let me see what you gave him.”

“It’s still on the display. He wanted a selection of levels where a human can survive. And he wanted to know exactly what the protocol would be to make a transition to those universes. He also wanted to know if a Malacostracan would be likely to use the same protocol as one that we would use.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I said, yes, so far as I knew it made no difference who initiated the transition protocol, humans or Angels or Malacostracans. The parameters depend only on universal mathematical constants, like pi and e. But I would expect any alien ship, including all its controls and operating sequences, to be totally unfamiliar.”