The revolving hoop shaded the entire planet. From the small opening along the axis dark pencil-thin strands shot upward. Both poles vented streams of matter. Yellow metal-lava struck vacuum and exploded into banks of fog. From the vapor came long, thin threads.

“Looks like buildin’ somethin’,” Killeen said.

—Gutting the planet while they do it,—Shibo agreed.

Killeen said sharply, “You’ll do as I order. Shibo, you sounded the gathering call yet?”

Shibo replied reluctantly,—Yeasay.—

“Good. Now—”

—I got Flitters ready, too. They’re set up for easy destination programming. Files on the Argo showed me how. I’ve got them set for planet approach.—

Killeen saw bitterly that she had thought this through thoroughly. She could probably bring it off, too. Shibo was a wonder at ferreting out mechmind ways. “Naysay! Something awful’s going on here. Get away!”

—Sorry, lover. You’re outvoted.—Shibo gave the words a lilt but he could feel her tension.

“As Cap’n I—”

—If you want legalisms, try this,—Shibo cut in sternly.—You’ve been shanghaied off. As acting officers we’re expressing the Family’s decision.—

“Naysay! You can’t—”

—Listen!—Her voice suddenly flared with genuine anger. He could imagine her suddenly widened eyes, her clenched teeth. Emotions seldom broke her calm surface but the effect was spectacular, like an unleashed force of nature.—We’ll try saving you. But we’re holding with our dream.—

“Shibo, I want—”

—Lover, you know I can’t just sit here and do nothing.—

Killeen made himself pause. His frustration should be directed against whatever had seized this ship, not against this most precious of all women. “All…all right. No way I can stop you, is there?”

Cermo answered with surprising warmth,—Naysay. None.—

“Where’ll you go?”

A pause. He imagined that she was holding herself in check too. The thin strand connecting them seemed to sing with unspoken thoughts.—You…’member that signal from New Bishop?—

“Yeasay. Had human indices, you said.”

—I got a better fix on it. Voices. Near the equator. We’ll try for that.—

“Well…”

—There’re people down there. That convinced a lot of us. If we can’t defend Argo, we’ll go down and join our kin.—

It made sense. Killeen reluctantly admitted that Shibo and Cermo had logic and human fellowship on their side.

“The string, though!” he shouted, pounding the console. “How can you get past it?”

—It whirls round for a day or so, then stops,—Shibo said.—We’ll spread out from the station. When the string stops, we’ll hit the atmosphere.—

“Too risky.”

—Lover…—

For a long moment they said nothing. The purr of static seemed almost like a background chorus to poignant, unspeakable thoughts.

“When…when’ll you leave?”

—Soon. We’re nearly ready. I…we’ll…try…pick you up…you…hide from whatever’s in that ship…if we can…get in close…otherwise…—

Her voice faded in and out. Killeen listened intently for some last contact with her. Finally he switched off the static and realized he had been holding his breath.

Jocelyn looked at him expectantly. Killeen had no ideas and did not want to show it. He clamped down his jaw muscles, knowing this gave him a stern look, but this time he valued it more because it compressed his helpless frustration.

“They want to keep us in here till…” Jocelyn plainly could not think of a way to finish.

“Yeasay. Till they can flush us out, step on us.”

“Haulin’ us out this far, maybe they just want get some idea ’bout what we are, ’fore they go into the station.”

“Seems reasonable. Mechs’re careful.”

“Even dead, we’ll give ’em info,” Jocelyn said flatly.

He saw her meaning. “Yeasay.”

“We better get out ’fore we arrive.”

Anger brimmed fresh in him. He needed to think but the blind rage seethed nearly beyond control. His hands ached to smash and tear.

At that moment he saw the glimmer of an idea. Evolution’s mute legacy of hormones had made him get angry, and maybe that was the right thing after all. Use his rage, yes.

“Let’s have some fun,” he said with a thin smile.

“Huh?”

“This ship’s got some onboard mind, even if we can’t reach it. Let’s give it a problem. A big problem.”

Killeen picked up a metal rod he had wrenched free from a mech loading mechanism. With a spurt of joy he brought it down on the U-shaped pipes. One, two, three blows—and a pipe dented. Fractured. Split to let hiss forth a green gas.

“Seal up!” Jocelyn cried with alarm. They both twist-locked their helmets as the gas filled the ship with a billowing emerald fog.

Distant warnings wailed, keening in his sensorium. Killeen waved Jocelyn to follow and moved as quickly as he could through the snaking tunnels of the Flitter. There had been a small side lock that they could not open, but now, if they confused the ship’s internal systems enough…

The lock was a simple exit chute with a large dimpled cap. They had spent a lot of time trying to lever it open, and now Killeen simply slammed his metal rod into the thing. He chipped its finish and broke off the side flanges. Jocelyn had caught his meaning, too, and had found a shaft of heavy composite brass. She flailed at the lock with relish, grinning.

After the first rush of rage Killeen reflected that this at least cleared their heads. It burned up oxygen, but he didn’t have much hope of using his full reserve anyway. He knew he had blundered badly and was going to pay for it.

More alarms hooted through his sensorium, electromagnetic spikes of mech dismay. Killeen chopped down on power cables. Sparks jumped. He was wearing his rubber gloves to avoid the usual shocktraps but the surge still blinded him—breaking down the air, forking orange fingers into the deck. The green gas was thickening. Killeen smashed a panel of controls, denting the side and ripping wires.

And the lock popped open. Killeen stared at it. Brilliant stars beckoned. He had only an instant before the whoosh of escaping air drew him headfirst toward the open lock.

He windmilled his arms in the storm. This made him strike the yawning mouth sidewise, so it could not swallow him. Jocelyn slammed into his legs. He wrenched sidewise. That gave her a shove toward the floor, where she could grab at the base.

But securing her cost him his precarious hold on the lip of the lock. The rising gale’s shriek clutched at him. He tried to sit up. A giant hand pushed him heavily back. Small mouths sucked at his arms, legs, head—

Something struck him solidly in the neck and abruptly he was in the lock, battering against the side in a green-tinged darkness—

—and was out, free, whirling away from the shining skin of the Flitter.

Tumbling. Spinning.

He vectored hard to correct his plunge. A jumble of impressions began to make sense.

He hung on the dayside of New Bishop, far from the station. He was near a pole. Far below the ruddy twilight stretched shadows of mountains across beaten gray plains. Toward the equator green life still clung in valleys and plains, where forests thickened.

All this lay behind the incandescent golden blur of the cosmic string. It spun with endless energy. One edge of it arrowed straight down toward the pole. The other side bulged out far beyond the planet’s equator.

The hoop spun faster than the eye could follow. A hovering tapestry spread over the entire world. The polar axis was clear now. Killeen could see no dark jet of metal spewing up. But glinting craft lingered still.

Now he was going to get a close look. He was nearly over the pole. Far away, nearly over the soft curve of the world, arced vast gray warrens. The fabricated fruit of the recently ejected core metal, he guessed.

This he took in with the barest glance, unable to react—because something came looming into his view, swelling with the speed of its approach.