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gate terminals.
Beyond Central City was Axis Euclid, which contained a mixed population of
neomorphs and homorphs of both Geshel and Naderite sympathies. Axis
Thoreau and Axis Euclid counter-rotated to offset the rotation of Axis
Nader, which was slightly larger than either of them.
The projected point of view returned to the Maltese cross at the southern end
of the city. Within the center of the cross they found themselves in a
docking facility, witnessing the outfitting of a much larger, much more
sophisticated version of their own destroyed tuberider. Called a flawship,
the craft was about a hundred meters long, shaped like an ocarina pinched in
the'middle. The two segments of the spindle were almost featureless, one
shiny gray-black, the other blue-violet.
Facts and figures accompanied the display. The flawship--one of a fleet of
more than a hundred---could travel at five thousand kilometers a second. It
could disengage from the flaw to allow other tmflic to pass *,hough Heineman
confessed he didn't see how this was done, since the flaw passed right down
the center of the ship--and it could also send out smaller craft for landing
parties and reconnaissance.
Near the surface of the Way, the immense disks they had seen on their approach
provided transportation for cargo and passengers on less
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picted tour ended with a gold-and-silver armillary sphere whirling before
them.
"Ser Olmy," Lanier said.
"Yes?"
"Are we guests, or prisOners?"
"Neither, actually," Olmy said. "Depending on who you ask---and how honestly
they answer--you are assets, or you are liabilities.
Please remember that. We have three receptions planned," he said.
"One before the Hexamon Nexus, the second on the Frant homeworld, Thnbl, where
we may be able to meet with the President, and the third at one point three ex
nine, where a new gate is to be opened."
Lanier stood slowly and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"All right," he said. "We've gone public and now we're being used for ptuc.s
of propaganda. It'll take us years to
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we'll never make it, since we don't have implants. But at least you're
showing us more than before. We're no longer unblemished specimens of
pre-Death Homo sapiens." He paused, uncertain where he was heading.
"But--" "You'll never be completely happy with my explanations," Olmy
interrupted. "You sense however much we tell you, there's a subtext you
cannot understand. And you're right.
You'll notice that I have never asked you to trust me. That would be more
than I could reasonably expect. But for this once, it should be obvious that
we can help each other enormously. You want to communicate with your
fellows---and the Nexus must come to rips with your very presence, and what
that implies. In the next few days, you're going to learn more about the Way,
and our mission here---more than even the data pillar could tell you. I'll
escort you, and Suli
Ram Kikura and I will do everything in our power to plead your case--first,
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because it is just, and then because I believe that what is in your best
interest, also serves the Nexus."
Lanier looked at the other four, his gaze lingering on Farley and then
Patricia. Farley smiled encouragement; Patricia's expression was less clear.
"You have our cooperation, within reason, for seven more days," Lanier said.
"If it isn't obvious to me that our interests are being mutually served, and
if we haven't been allowed to communicate with the
Thistledown, the cooperation stops. I don't know how much of a threat that
is," he said, taking a deep breath. "For all I know, you can create
computer-generated images of us and make them do whatever you want, or even
manufacture look-alike androids. But that's our position."
"Agreed," Olmy said. "Seven days."
Olmy and Ram Kikura left them. Heineman swung his head back and forth slowly,
then looked at Lanier. "Well?"
"We keep on studying," Lanier said. "And we bide our time."
Hoffman stood before the small mirror in her "cardboard condo," as she had
come'to call the room in the women's bungalow. She decided she didn't look
too bad. She had been sleeping better the past few days.
The suicide rate had declined; her people--Hoffman always thought of them that
way, soldiers and civilians--seemed to be accepting their fate, and plans were
under way to re-outfit the shuttle and some of the
Russian heavy-lifters and see if a trek to the Moon was possible. A
few were even discussing an expedition to earth and Rimskaya leading that
program up.
Rinskaya had recovered with remarkable speed from his "lapse," as he referred
to it. He had been acutely embarrassed, and had finally requestedsomewhat
paradoxicallym that people stop being so understanding. "Be as hard on me as
I would be on you," he had demanded.
Hoffman had immediately put him in charge of logistics, an area she knew he
would handle well. Always put a tough (but very smart)
sonofabitch in front of the food and supply lockers. He would coordinate well
with the Russians and he would take that load from her back. In his spare
time--what little there was of it---he could confer
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Earth plans. Hoffman had her own unique ways of being hard on people,
rimskaya seemed to flourish under the new and extensive work load.
Her only major worry,'or now, was the fate of the tuberider expedition.
With the return of Mirsky, and the disappearance of the three political
officers, the Russians were becoming more and more cooperative. .
There was the problem of a shortage of women---there had been two rapes and
several near instances, but that was fewer than she had expected.
Many soldiersNATO and Russianhad donated small arms to the women. They had
not had to use them yet.
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