"Things are in quite a riot here, aren't they?" the man said. Patricia realized that he had a nose but no nostrils. His eyes were pale blue, almost blank, and his ears were large and round.

"Excuse me," she said more softly. "I don't know who you are."

"My name is Olmy. My companion is a Frant; they don't have names. I hope you don't mind our intruding. We've been watching everybody very closely."

"Who are you?" Patricia asked.

"I lived here, centuries ago," Olmy said. "And my ancestors before me. For that matter, you could be one of my ancestors. Please. We don't have time to talk. We must leave."

"Where?"

"Down the corridor."

"Really?"

"That's where my home is. The Frant and his people come from elsewhere. They. . . well, working for us doesn't quite describe it."

The Frant shook its head solemnly. "Please don't be frightened," it said, its voice like a large bird's, low and warbling.

A breeze from the northern cap pushed through the outskirts of the third chamber city, rustling the nearby trees. Following the breeze came a slender craft about ten meters long, shaped like a cone flattened lengthwise, with the nose truncated. It drifted gracefully around a tower and landed on the point of a single central pylon.

"You're done some remarkable work," Olmy said. "There are people where I live who will be very interested."

"I'm trying to go home," Patricia said. She realized she sounded like a lost child speaking to a policeman. "Are you a policeman? Do you guard the cities?"

"Not always," Olmy answered.

"Please come with us," the Frant said, stepping forward on long and oddly bent legs.

"You'll kidnap me?"

Olmy held out his hand, whether supplicating or indicating the situation was not his to control, she could not say.

"If I don't go willingly, you'll make me?"

"Make you?" He seemed puzzled, then said, "You mean, force you?" Olmy and the Frant exchanged glances. "Yes," Olmy said.

"Then I had better go with you, hadn't I?" Her words seemed to be spoken by a distant and heretofore unknown Patricia, calm and better versed in the analysis of nightmare.

"Please," the Frant said. "Until things are better here."

"Things are never going to be better here," she said. Olmy took her hand with a courtly bow and led her to the open oval hatchway in the craft's flat nose.

The interior of the craft was confined, a T expanding at the rear, the walls like abstract billows of polished marble, all white curves. Olmy took hold of a soft bulkhead and stretched it out to form a couch. "Please lie here." She lay in the softness. The substance firmed up beneath her, molding to her body.

The narrow-headed, knock-kneed brown Frant climbed farther back through the whiteness and nestled into its own couch. Olmy pulled out a section across the aisle from Patricia and sat in it, again touching his torque.