Toller paused for a moment, puzzled by the abruptness of her leap of ideas. "Exactly." He sat beside her, and she edged a few centimeters away. "Such as it is. Personally, despite Ser Lanier's most heartfelt plea, I see little reason to return to Earth now."

"You could help the survivors."

"Patricia, they—you—become us. I see nothing iniquitous with letting a world heal itself. The fact that we've made a causal loop—that we can return to the worst point in our world-line—is not what I would consider an opportunity. At the moment, it's a handicap. Has Olmy explained how we hope to push the Jarts from the Way? For good?"

She shook her head.

"It's an ambitious plan. You've heard rumors about secession—having the Axis City divide in two?"

She decided to play dumb and shook her head again.

"Our flaw research group discovered, years ago, that the Axis City could be accelerated to near c—to near light-speed. There would be no damage to the city itself, and the citizens would experience only minor discomfort—"

"I think we should all hear about this," Patricia decided suddenly, standing up. "I mean, all of my group. Not just me."

"They can learn as much as they want. You can guide them when they get back to the Axis City—it's all available in City Memory. Or Olmy can explain it to you."

"Why hasn't he told us already?"

"Patricia, our world is extremely complex, as you know perhaps better than I. I doubt Olmy has had the opportunity to educate you on a thousandth of the more important things there are to know about us."

"Okay," Patricia said, stepping onto the sand and facing Toller. "I'm listening."

"It would take over a day to approach that velocity, accelerating at about three hundred g's—which is very close to the theoretical limit for the inertial damping systems, and for something as large as the Axis City, traveling on the flaw. The flaw would be seriously stressed, producing hard radiation and heavy particles. . . . But within the Way, even a velocity of one-third light-speed would create a space-time shock wave. We would reach that velocity at about one point seven ex nine. We would pass through the territories held by the Jarts with devastating effect. The relativistic distortions within the Way would be incredible. The shape of the Way itself would be altered as we passed, and whatever gates the Jarts have opened would be smoothed out of existence"—he slid his hand in a flat-out gesture—"like ironing a piece of fabric in one of your world's laundries."

Patricia's eyes became distant. Her mind was racing now to absorb the idea of a relativistic object within the Way—and the realization that within the Way, an object traveling at only one-third c would be relativistic.

"A grand scheme, don't you think?"

She nodded abstractedly. "How far would you travel down the Way?"

"That's still being debated."