"Can we do that?"

"With some luck yes," Olmy said. "They'll be at thirty-one percent light-speed."

"I suppose that will be something to see," Lanier said.

"I doubt we'll 'see' much of anything," Olmy said.

"Figure of speech."

"Yes. There's food available if you wish it. Ser Yates is equipped to eat and would enjoy your company."

"How long until we meet the precincts?"

"Twenty-seven minutes," Olmy said.

Lanier swallowed hard and rotated. "Sure," he said. "I could eat."

He ate very little, however, glancing nervously about the cabin—at the nonhumans, secluded in their traction bubbles, dormant or disturbingly active (the snake with four heads was doing a quick, jerky ballet in its greenish fluid); at Prescient Oyu, who frankly returned his look; at Yates as he ate, the most human-seeming of them all, the most natural in his habits, and yet an opener of gates.

Olmy was quiet and still. Not far from him, the worker that held Korzenowski's reconstructed personality—and part of Patricia as well—floated wrapped in traction lines, its image shut off as it continued the long process of final maturation.

Lanier put aside the rest of his uneaten meal and said he would rather wait at the bow. Olmy agreed.

They crowded forward, Lanier beside Olmy and Yates, with the odd U-shaped beast on the opposite side of the flaw passage, still surrounded by its quarantine field. The two Frants relaxed behind them all, curled up with only necks and heads extended.

Ahead, the black and gold became a warmer orange and brown. The flaw pulsed faintly pink, disturbed by their acceleration.

"Just a few seconds," Olmy said.

The Way appeared to balloon outward in all directions. Lanier felt his hands tingle and his eyes grow warm. The flaw vibrated and glowed to a searing blue. The transparent bow grew darker and darker to compensate. The flaw passage through the middle of the ship vibrated and groaned.

Just a few seconds of life—less—

Lanier felt as if he were exploding. He yelled in pain and surprise and flung out his arms and legs.

Then it was over. He drifted against a net of traction lines, blinking. The Way was black and gold again. The flaw glowed faintly pink.

"There's no damage," Olmy said.

"Correction," Yates said, holding a hand over his eye. Lanier had struck him with an elbow. He apologized.

"Nothing to be upset over," Yates said. "All the more excuse for some Talsit. Quite exciting, actually."

Behind them, accelerating at four hundred g's, the linked Axis Nader and Central City met the plasma front with their building shock wave of space-time, beginning the process of converting the Way into an elongated nova.

The radiation level outside the flawship increased sharply.