"Excuse me," Farley said to no one in particular. Lanier turned toward her and she smiled, embarrassed, and held up her hand. She then addressed the underside of the cupola. "Excuse me, but if we wish to enter the well—the gate—how do we use the suits, the. . . pathoscapes—"

"Bathyscaphes," Carrolson corrected.

"Yes. . . how do we use whatever they are?"

"Vehicles respond to vocal commands and can be adjusted to your language. Do you have proper authorization for a gate excursion?"

"What sort of authorization?" Farley asked.

"Authorization from the Nexus. All gates are controlled by the Nexus. Please present authorization within thirty seconds or this band of gates will be locked against tampering."

They stared back and forth at each other as the time passed. "No authorization," the voice announced without inflection. "These gates are now closed until a survey team investigates and corrects the situation."

Lanier pulled back from the invisible barrier. The twenty-meter-wide opening at the center irised in silently and formed a smooth bronze bulge. On the scaffold, Heineman yelped and jumped clear as the spheres and cradle slowly sank into the surface of the dimple, vanishing without trace.

Farley swore in melodious Chinese.

"Oh, well," Carrolson said, sighing. "We didn't have time to be tourists anyway."

The bland landscape around the well consisted of flat stretches of sand without any sign of life. The air was dry and soon their noses and throats were parched; it was with some relief that they boarded the V/STOL, sealed the hatch and prepared to return to the tuberider.

"This is fun," Heineman said. "She works like a charm." He lifted the V/STOL from the ground and increased their speed by inclining the engine nacelles forward. They climbed steadily, until they were within a kilometer of the plasma tube and the upper limits of the atmosphere. "Abracadabra," Heineman said, withdrawing the blades into the nacelles and activating the tail rocket.

With a sharp surge forward, they punched through the atmosphere barrier and plasma tube and entered the vacuum surrounding the singularity. Heineman guided the V/STOL with little pushes from the attitude jets, bringing it up beneath the tuberider and completing the linkup under direction of the plane's computers.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" he enthused, then shook his head and let out a puffed whooo.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

"We're not going to get a disarmament agreement out of them any time soon," Gerhardt said as he preceded Hoffman down the platform steps into the fourth chamber compound. "They're more afraid of each other than they are of us, right now, and nobody's going to hand in their weapons until the situation is settled."

"Who do you think will come out on top?"

Gerhardt shrugged. "No bets. They're all tough sons of bitches; my hopes are for Mirsky."

"He's been in the third chamber library more often than any of us," Hoffman said.