The truck on the roadbed was a replica of the vehicle which had taken them across the first chamber. Farley offered Patricia the shotgun seat again, and the others climbed into the back, pushing aside boxes of fabric-wrapped scientific gear. Farley edged the truck forward, then brought it up to speed.

The roadbed expanded into a broad flat ribbon, winding through complexes of tanks and gray shapes hidden behind a rapidly spreading fog. Wu leaned between the two seats. "This stuff that looks like asphalt—it isn't. It's asteroid rock, all the metals removed, ground up and mixed with a plant-based oil. Very tough, no cracks. We wonder who's going to patent it."

Somehow, Patricia found the dreariness invigorating. There was a bluish quality about the fog that made her feel as if she were within a sapphire. The rain resumed, and the drum of water on the truck's roof—combined with a gentle surge of warm air from the heater—made everything seem secure, no more strenuous than watching an entertainment on a video.

She snapped herself out of that feeling quickly. Lanier was watching her. She angled her face toward him and then looked away. How could they consider her so important? In the face of this monumental mystery, what could she possibly do?

The size alone was enough to paralyze thought. Looking up through gaps in the cloud cover to the opposite side, she could just as well have been looking from the window of a shuttle reentering the atmosphere.

The truck followed the gently curving highway and crossed the sixth chamber in twenty minutes. The familiar arch and tunnel entrance loomed ahead. Farley switched on the lights as the tunnel enveloped them.

After the stormy sixth chamber, the clarity and brightness of the unhindered plasma tubelight was welcome.

"You can almost hear the birds singing," Patricia commented.

"I wish," Farley said. They descended the ramp. Ahead stretched an arrow-straight road, about half as broad as the sixth chamber highway and made of the same material. To each side of the road, sandy hummocks topped with stiff yellow grass dotted the floor for several kilometers. A short hike away were stands of low, scrawny trees. To the west, up the curve of the chamber floor, Patricia saw small lakes and what looked like a river emerging from one of the cap tunnels. A few fleecy clouds clung to the cap. The landscape was equally homogenous and bland right up to the limits of the tubelight both east and west. The plasma tube itself emerged from the center of the cap in a straight, unobscured beacon.

Patricia could feel the anticipation building in the cabin, centering on her. They were waiting for her reaction.

Reaction to what? If anything, this chamber was less impressive than the first. Her shoulders tensed. So what was she supposed to say?

Lanier reached between the seats to touch her arm. "What do you see?" he asked.

"Sand, grass, lakes, trees. A river. Some clouds."

"Look straight ahead."