The five were then introduced to the first of many city officials, the Minister of Axis Nader, a gray-haired, distinguished and hale-looking orthodox Naderite who flew a Japanese rising sun over his left shoulder. He seemed to have not an ounce of Oriental blood, but then, his form could have been artificial—probably was—and no one had time or much inclination to inquire. "You may call me Mayor, if you like," he said in perfect English and Chinese. These languages were now the rage of the four precincts, extending even beyond those who claimed specific ancestry.

On the flaw was a beetle-like, black maintenance vehicle not dissimilar to the one that had dismantled the tuberider. It was larger, however, equipped with a wide and well-appointed cabin, liberally decorated with rare (and genuine) red bunting. Pictors projected very convincing fireworks around the vehicle and the flaw as Ram Kikura, the mayor and the Frant stood aside, allowing them to enter first. They took seats in a half-circle behind the controls and were gently clamped in by something they could not see.

The mayor took the controls—a Y-shaped black pillar with receptacles for the fingers of two hands—and the hatch irised shut silently.

They moved down the flaw, preceded by a faint pulse of red. Fireworks still blossomed on all sides, sometimes harmlessly intersecting parts of the crowd.

"It's not enough just to see you on the pictors," Ram Kikura said. "People haven't changed much. I'd guess that maybe a third of those out there are ghosts—picted themselves, with monitors at the center of their images. See and be seen."

"Where's Alice?" Heineman grumbled.

"Alice who?" Ram Kikura asked.

"Just Alice," Heineman said. "I can't help feeling we're in Wonderland."

"Are we missing someone?" the mayor asked, turning his head and appearing concerned.

"No," the Frant said, making its tooth-grinding noise.

The journey took a half hour, covering fifteen kilometers from the vicinity of Axis Nader to the Central City. Here, the crowds were even more dense—and more disorderly. Individuals—neomorphs predominating—tried to block the slow progress of the maintenance vehicle and were gently brushed aside, by the uncurling sheets of traction fields rippling ahead of the craft.

Patricia sat patiently, saying little, occasionally stealing glance at Lanier. Lanier's face wore a constant half-puzzled frown. He lifted his lip slightly at the appearance of some of the neomorphs—elongated snake-like curls, shiny as chrome; fish, birds and radiolarian spheres like the silicate shells of plankton; varieties of human shape that went beyond the basic description of homorph. Farley absorbed it all with gape-jawed fascination.

"I'll bet I look like a rude," she said at one point, then glanced at her companions, realizing nobody understood her. "What's the word I'm looking for?" she asked Lanier.

"I haven't the faintest idea," he replied, grinning affectionately. She put her hand on his. Patricia withdrew a little into her seat.