Someone on some news service had touted the place, commenting favorably on itsegalitarian flavor, and within a few years more the planet was starting toseem almost crowded.

The Grand Feast of Plorins was something the k'Tra had brought with them, andthe rest of the egalitarians on the planet had grabbed on to the idea withboth hands. Depending on who you talked to, the Grand Feast was either a deeply meaningful manifestation of esoteric historic and cultural significance, orelse the greatest excuse to party the Spiral had ever known. I assumed the truthwas probably somewhere in the middle, where truth has a tendency to lurk anyway, but I was certainly willing to concede the point that millions of beings who hadnot the slightest interest in k'Tra history or culture nevertheless descendedenthusiastically on the planet every year for a three-week bash.

The Grand Feast was sometimes compared to the annual Mardi Gras celebrationsthat still took place in various places on Earth and its colonies. Mardi Grasinvariably lost.

I had used the hull cameras to take a quick look at the changes that had beenmade to the ship before we ever took to hyperspace again. Chort was right: Thedisguise was far from perfect. On the other hand, he and his helpers hadgottenenough of the plates in place to markedly change both our visual and radarsignatures, which was hopefully all we would need to get to the ground withouttripping alarms from the underworld to the Patth and back again.

Once we were on the ground, of course, it would be a different story. Someonewho wandered in close for a good look would easily be able to see through thegaps to the distinctive joined spheres beneath. But I had a couple of ideasfor dealing with that one; and anyway, getting to the ground was the first orderof business.

After the near disaster at Utheno the situation at Palmary was decidedlyanticlimactic. The official start of the Grand Feast was still three daysaway, but the hard-core party types were already clogging the space lanes as theyheaded in to scope out the best celebration spots or just get a head start onthe festivities. With our new silhouette, plus yet another of Ixil's fake IDsidentifying us as the Sherman's Blunder, we sailed straight through theprelanding formalities. A harried-sounding controller directed me to a landingrectangle at the Bangrot Spaceport, a name that didn't even show up on mysupposedly comprehensive listing, and instructed us to have a good time.

The reason for the lack of a listing was apparent as soon as I got withinvisual range of the coordinates I'd been given. The Bangrot Spaceport was nothingmore than a large open area stretching across the southern ends of the twin citiesDrobney and k'Barch, an area that looked to me like a former condemnedbuildingdevelopment. Apparently, the Grand Feast had grown so large they were nowhavingto park spaceships on every reasonably sized vacant lot they could find.

And the official celebration didn't even start for three more days. Give thiswhole thing a few years, and they might as well declare it a permanent partyand be done with it.

One might have assumed that the Bangrot Expansion Spaceport would be onlysparsely settled, with the bulk of the space still waiting for the arrival ofthe latecomers. But one would have been wrong. The place was crowded withships, already crammed in practically nose to tail, with the narrow spaces betweenthem crawling with activity. As far as this party was concerned, we were thelatecomers.

I was also a little worried about what would happen to the definitions of "up" and "down" inside the Icarus as we went deeper into the Palmary gravity field.

Tera had told us that on Meima the alien gravity generator in the large spherehad been able to cancel out all other gravitational effects, but that wasbefore Cameron's techs had gotten in and started messing around. If it failed toovercome Palmary's gravitational attraction I was going to suddenly findmyselflying on my back in my seat as I tried to pilot the ship to the ground. Orworse, our jury-rigged seating system might fail completely and I would findmyself, my seat, and possibly my entire control board falling to the bottom ofthe sphere some twenty meters below.

That particular set of fears proved groundless. With the removal of the metalbaffling that had been created by the inner hull, walls, and corridors, thealien generator had come back to full strength, and I didn't feel so much as aflicker of change in the gravity as I eased the Icarus down onto theundersized plot of ground we'd been assigned.

"Now what?" Tera called to me from across the sphere, her voice echoingthroughthe open space as I keyed the ship's systems back to standby.

"I go scare us up some borandis," I said, craning my neck to look up at her, watching the top of her head as she got up from her seat at the computer andwalked toward the wraparound.

"What about the rest of us?" Shawn called up from a quarter of the way aroundthe sphere, at the natural bottom point of the ship. I'd stationed everyoneelse except Nicabar down there on the theory that there was no point in lettingeveryone fall to their deaths if the alien gravity failed. "I suppose we'reall going to sit around here like we did before and just wait for you? Twiddlingour thumbs or whatever?"

"You're welcome to twiddle whatever you want," I told him, walking down thecurve toward them, "since you and Everett are staying in here where he can tryto keep you quiet until I get back with the medicine."

I pointed at Chort and Tera, the latter approaching the group from the otherside. "You two and Nicabar, on the other hand, aren't going to have time totwiddle much of anything. I want the three of you to collect all the emergencylights we've got and start stringing them just inside the gaps in the shroudout there, with the lights shining outward. All nice and decorative for the GrandFeast, and with any luck the glare will keep everyone from seeing past them tothe linked spheres underneath."

"Maybe we could also get hold of some colored transparent sheeting to coverthem with," Tera suggested. "They'd look even more festive that way."

"Probably would," I agreed. "But I don't know how well they've got thistemporary spaceport equipped. I don't want anyone wandering too far afieldhunting for anything that's not really vital."

"They've got tram systems leading from the port into each of the two citycenters," Nicabar put in from the wraparound, apparently having arrived intime to hear this last exchange. "I spotted them on the monitors while you wereputting us down. If they had time to set those up, they've surely got an outfitters' shop or two in place. I can go check—it won't take me long."

"Forget it," Shawn growled before I could answer. "He never lets anyone goanywhere except him, remember? Just him."

"Shawn," Everett said warningly, putting a massive hand on the kid's shoulder.

"Don't 'Shawn' me," Shawn snapped, angrily shrugging off the hand. "I'm not achild, you know."

"If you want to make a quick check, go ahead," I told Nicabar. "Just watchyourself, and be back in half an hour to help Tera and Chort with the lights."

"I will," Nicabar promised. "Don't worry—it's a zoo out there. I won't even benoticed." Turning, he disappeared back down the wraparound.

"What about him?" Tera asked, nodding toward Ixil, who was standing slightlyoff to the side keeping out of the conversation.

"He'll be in overall charge here," I told her, ignoring the glare Shawn wasgiving me, this particular bile probably a result of me proving him wrong byletting Nicabar go. Even at his best Shawn hated being proved wrong, and inthe middle of borandis withdrawal he was a long way from his best. "He'll also beusing Pix and Pax to keep an eye on things outside the ship."

"How do you plan to get it this time?" Tera asked. "The borandis, I mean."