They crossed the white pavement and then stepped on thick, fine-bladed grass. Oaks and maples were spaced evenly around the park-like grounds; beyond the trees, the yellow terminal pyramid possessed only four steps, each twisted in relation to the one below.

To one side of the terminal, a series of four traction pipes, each about three meters in diameter, wound for several kilometers around the terminal grounds just above head level. Within the pipes, suffused by a faint violet glow, shapes not even remotely human tracted over the landscape.

"Our clients and allies," Olmy said. He pointed to one individual, an eight-legged cylinder with a mane of fuzzy antler-like appendages surrounding its bifurcated, round "head." "Talsit," he said. "Tertiary form. They're a very old race—their history goes back at least two billion terrestrial years. You'll meet another Talsit soon—one serves as assistant to the primary gate opener."

The terminal was little more than a shell, about 100 meters high and 150 wide at the base. Within the terminal, a series graceful gun-metal-blue scaffolds curved above the smooth-lipped pit about 50 meters in diameter.

Hanging from the center of the scaffold in an intersecting radiance of traction fields was an object tiny in comparison, no broader than three hands. To Patricia, it resembled an old-fashioned Japanese pillow, with its neck-receiving curve. The base was forked, however, like the handlebars on a bike. She stopped by the edge of the scaffold to inspect it, knowing almost by instinct what it was, and how important it could be to her.

To Lanier, it looked like a divining rod with a radar dish attached.

"What is that?" Patricia asked, her voice small.

"That is what a gate opener uses to dilate the Way manifold," Olmy said.

She seemed to shudder. "What's it called?" she asked.

"A clavicle. Only three exist. Ry Oyu has charge of this one."

"Where's yours?" Patricia asked Rennslaer Yates. "Inactive," Yates said. "Each is tuned to a gate opener. When the gate opener is not performing his official function, the clavicle is deactivated."

She reluctantly looked away from the suspended clavicle and followed the others to the western end of the terminal building. There, under an incomplete cupola roughly sketched from racing black and gold lines, a tall, thin man with close-cut Titian-red hair stood next to a data pillar. Patricia looked first at the man, then at the cupola.

"Friends," Prescient Oyu said, "this is my father, Ser Ry Oyu." She introduced Olmy and Lanier. The primary gate opener nodded to each in turn.

"And this is Patricia Luisa Vasquez," Yates said, hand on her shoulder.

"I've learned the old language just to speak with this woman," Ry Oyu said. "And the old cultures and ways. Yet she gives me such a peculiar look!"

Patricia straightened and cleared a slight frown from her face.