"This is our second biggest gate, five kilometers in diameter," Olmy said. "The largest is seven kilometers wide and leads to the Talsit world at one point three ex seven."

"We're going down—through this one?" Heineman asked. The disk was already resuming its descent.

"Yes. There's no danger."

"Except to my mental health," Heineman said. "Garry, I wish I'd been a house painter."

They were directly over the gate now, but no detail was visible beyond the blueness. Five smaller disks moved in a squadron below, clearing a path for them. At the rim of the gate, hundreds of cylinders and other vehicles cascaded from the lanes in majestic, controlled fall.

Light guidelines rearranged to surround their disk in a column. When they had descended to a point where they were approximately level with the edge of the gate, Lanier suddenly made out details in the bottom, directly beneath. The Frant world was actually visible in the blueness, as if distorted in an old painting-on-a-cylinder that could only be seen when placed on a circular mirror. He could make out oceans distant mountains black against an ultramarine sky, the elongated brilliant orb of a sun.

"Jesus," Carrolson said again. "Look at it."

"I wish I wasn't," Heineman said. "Do you think Olmy has any Dramamine?"

The floating clusters of homorph and neomorphs picted bright circles and bursts of color in appreciation. The disk vibrated, and the landscape slid smoothly into proper perspective. The guiding column of light beams vanished and they completed their gate passage, suddenly sweeping low over a dazzling white surface.

Lanier, Carrolson and Patricia tracted to a lower point of the disk, near the boundary of the webwork lines of force, so that they could see the horizon of the Frant world. To each side, lines of cylinders and other vehicles were spaced between hovering disks disgorging cargo. Lanier turned full circle, surveying the mountains and sea beyond the white-paved gate reception area. He had never seen a sky so intensely blue.

Like a blowtorch describing an arc in the sky, a meteor plummeted toward the distant sea's surface. Before it struck, a web of pulsed orange rays lanced out from the horizon and shattered the meteor. More beams sought out and destroyed the crazily weaving fragments. Only dust remained to hit the ocean or land.

"That's the story of their life, in a nutshell," Ram Kikura said, pointing to where the meteor had met its end. "That's why the Frants are Frants." She took Lanier's hand and then reached for Patricia. Olmy gathered the other three around them. "Come. We'll disembark soon. It's a bit heavier here; you'll need belts at first."

The disk came to its assigned landing area. The transparent fields beneath them rearranged as they approached the white pavement, and the webwork of bright lines reformed into a vortex.