"Before she was captured, she was going to the library to do some final work. She had a hypothesis that she could proceed down the Way and find a place between the gates, in what we call the geometry stack regions. It fascinated me that she knew about such regions—that she had calculated their existence, because to understand the rudiments of Way theory is not necessarily to understand all the implications. She believed that she might be able to construct a gate opening device and probe the geometry stacks."

"What are geometry stacks?" Heineman asked, his voice froggy. He cleared his throat and glanced at Lanier.

"Gate regions are placed in specific rhythm along the Way. They open onto clearly defined locations in universes slightly different from our origin. Each gate opening, heading down the Way, will advance in time by approximately half a year in each universe. Patricia understood this very early, from what she tells me. But it took her some time to realize that the infinity of alternate worlds must be bunched by the existence of such clearly marked gate regions. The bunching occurs in the regions of stack geometry, and the distortion caused by the bunching leads to gross displacement of some universes, both in superspace and in Way time."

"I'm not following you," Lanier said softly.

"She believed she could open a gate into an alternate universe, an alternate Earth, where the Death did not take place, yet where things were very little different from her world. She understood that gate-opening devices are tunable to a certain extent. It is her theory that with one of our devices, she can open a precise path to an alternate and hospitable Earth."

"Can she?" Lanier asked.

Olmy didn't say anything for a moment. "We will consult with two gate openers. One is here on Timbl, the other is the prime opener, Ser Ry Oyu, father of Senator Prescient Oyu, and he awaits us at one point three ex nine."

"Is that another reason why we've been removed from the Axis City?"

Olmy smiled and nodded. "My reasons for bringing Patricia back with me were quite sound. But your arrival has caused no end of trouble. One visitor we might have been able to keep secret—though that seems doubtful now. Five visitors, impossible. The President hopes to make you assets rather than liabilities."

"Thirteen hundred years, and people are still people," Heineman mused with an edge of bitterness. "Still squabbling."