So what is this? she asked herself. A little jealousy? Being unfaithful to Paul? Why should Garry pay any attention to you to at all? He came to find you—out a sense of duty.

She shut off that area of inquiry, seeing no need to invade a territory of great pain and uncertainty and guilt.

They left the maintenance vehicle—and the mayor of Axis Nader—behind, escorted now by the neomorph Minister of Central City and Senator Prescient Oyu. Olmy greeted them at the broad circular entrance to the Hexamon Nexus Chamber. Within the chamber, there was confusion on all sides; homorphs, neomorphs, some with American flags picted over their shoulders—and at the center, near the podium, two wide and vibrantly living images of the flags of the Republic of China and the United States.

Cheers and music, boisterous and welcoming.

Heineman blinked and Carrolson took his arm as they were pushed along a traction field by Olmy and Ram Kikura. Prescient Oyu, as beautiful and graceful as any woman Lanier had ever seen, took his arm and Patricia's, and the Minister of Central City entered beside Farley.

Lanier saw several senators—or were they corpreps?—wearing the Soviet hammer and sickle. And then they were in the center of the Nexus Chamber. The senators and corpreps became quiet and all displays faded.

Director Hulane Ram Seija came to the podium and told the Nexus that their guests would soon be going to the Frant gate, to see the workings of commerce in the Way. And after that, they would be taken by Senator Prescient Oyu to meet with her father, who even now presided over the preliminaries to a gate opening at 1.3 ex 9.

Lanier had been elected spokesperson for the group. Suli Ram Kikura had suggested—against Olmy's mild objections—that he might use this opportunity to state his case.

He moved unsteadily along a traction field to the podium and received the armillary bands of light.

He looked to all sides—and behind—before starting.

"It's not an easy thing talking to one's descendants," he said. "Though. . . I never had children, so I doubt if any of you are even remotely related to me. And of course, there's the matter of different universes. Discussing these things makes me feel like a Stone Age tribesman seeing his first airplane—or spaceship. We are completely out of our element, and while we have been welcomed here, we cannot call this place home. . . .”

He caught Patricia's eye and her brief expression between fear and expectation. Of what?