"Radical Geshels have walked on the edge for decades," Senator Oyu said. "They have not been bad leaders, but they haven't prepared adequately for the fulfillment of their plans. And they have exacted a kind of revenge on the orthodox Naderites by benign neglect. Now you see some of the results."

"Are you all orthodox Naderites?" Patricia asked.

"No," Olmy said. "I've long since given up that heritage, and Sers Yates and Oyu were raised Geshel."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"Because there is a way for both sides to achieve their goals—if reasonable people intervene," Senator Oyu said.

The small flawship was designed for speed and rapid acceleration. They averaged some 4,900 kilometers a second, and reached the first defense station at 5 ex 8 within 28 hours.

The stations were located at three points along the Way from 5 ex 8 to 1.3 ex 9. Each was a solid fifty-meter-thick black layer hugging the corridor's floor for a hundred kilometers, the surface dimpled with weapons emplacements and field generators.

At all three stations, the crews requested their mission and authority. Yates identified himself, and since the station personnel had no orders to prevent craft from moving down the Way, they were allowed to pass. A hundred thousand kilometers beyond each station, mechanical flaw defense vehicles cleared the Way for them, then resumed their posts on the singularity, vigilant for Jart flawships or flaw-riding weapons.

Within fifty hours, Olmy decelerated their little craft and approached the atmosphere barrier at 1.3 ex 9, passing through the axial hole at little more than a crawl—a few dozen meters per second. What lay on the other side of the barrier was unexpected—and enchanting.

For as far as the eye could see, the Way resembled the fourth chamber in the Thistledown. If anything, it was even greener and more luxuriant. Clouds drifted at leisure beyond the plasma tube, over a landscape of forested hills partaking of a palette of greens and grassy golds. Rivers cut bright paths through the hills, reflecting the tubelight at every point to take on an aspect of shimmering silver.

Patricia floated in the nose of the flawship, arms crossed. Prescient Oyu explained that this segment of the Way was being adapted for eventual human settlement. The project had been started by those who wished to relieve the tensions arising from overcrowding in the Axis City. Even City Memory's enormous capacity was being filled and would soon need extensions.

The Way had other, smaller segments adapted for human living, but on the whole it had been reserved for commerce. The segment at 1.3 ex 9 was to have been devoted to homorphs and their special needs—in short, it had been chiefly intended for orthodox Naderites.