The gate opener picted a symbol to her: Earth, blue and green and brown, clouds vivid and alive, and surrounding it, a loop of DNA; and around that, the simplified equation that Korzenowski had taken from one of the elder Vasquez's papers.

The Talsit in its cold bubble and a Frant in a white coat of permanent parting—unpacked just moments before—stood behind Ry Oyu. Prescient Oyu reached across and kissed him, then turned to join the rest at the disk.

The gate opener and his companions moved toward the workshop and the tumulus around the new gate.

"He fulfills his pledge to the Hexamon," Prescient Oyu said as the disk closed around them. "He'll guide the Axis City if it comes his way." She reached out to Patricia, whose eyes were again moist and touched the Earth woman's cheek. Removing a tear, Prescient Oyu placed it on her own cheek.

Olmy instructed the disk to take them out of the terminal, and up to the waiting flawships.

Both of the flawships, the gate opener's staff vessel and the defense craft they had arrived in, had removed themselves from the flaw and hung tethered by traction fields, a precaution in case evacuating defense ships came from the north. Olmy chose quickly; they needed speed, and the smaller defense craft was the faster.

They had to meet the accelerating precincts before they had reached one-third light-speed. There were two options then: the precincts could briefly pull in their generators and flaw grips, and allow the defense flawship to move through the passage; or the defense ship would have to disengage, hug the wall, and weather the pressure wave of particles and atoms pushed before the city.

But before they encountered the precincts, he had to fulfill his promise to Patricia.

In the barren sectors where she was likely to find the geometry stacks she needed, she would be sent with a clavicle to the surface of the Way. She would have very little time to accomplish her work; the plasma front would be right behind them.

Yates took Patricia to an isolated section of the ship and gave her final instructions on the use of the clavicle. "Remember," he told her when he was finished, "you have the instinct, and the desire, but not much skill. You have the knowledge, but not the experience. You must not be rash, you must be deliberate and careful." He took her by the shoulders and faced her directly. "Do you know your chances of success?"

She nodded. "Not very good."

"And you'll still take the risk?"