The library proper was smaller in overall volume than its cousin—or ancestor—in Alexandria and had no visible stores of records. The main floor was a pastel-blue-carpeted plaza beneath a sheet of softly glowing white material which stretched without support for a hundred meters. The plaza was dotted with at least a thousand lime-green padded seats. In front of each seat was a chromium teardrop on a slate-gray pedestal.

The fabrics and materials in the library showed no sign of wear or decay.

Takahashi led her to a seat. Recording and monitoring equipment surrounded the seat, looking out-of-place and obviously rigged by the investigators. "We use this one normally, but the choice is yours."

She shook her head, "I don't like all this stuff," she said, indicating the equipment. Moving through the ranks of seats, she chose one about twenty meters from the edge of the array and sat.

Takahashi followed. "You can show yourself the entire Stone from here—as it used to be," he said. "Would you like a tour of the cities when they were occupied?" He pushed aside a fabric-covered lid on her seat arm and showed her how to use the simple controls on the panel beneath. "These are just the basics. There are hundreds of other tricks possible. Feel free to experiment. Think of it as a vacation. It's no fun to watch, and I have no real business here except to show you the ropes, so I'll wait outside. Join me when you're done—say in an hour or so?"

She didn't feel easy about being on the plaza alone, and she had deeply appreciated Lanier's staying with her in the Alexandria library. Still, she agreed with a nod and settled into the seat, manipulating the controls with one hand. A simple circular graphic display hovered before her, as crisp and clear as something solid. Takahashi had misinformed her on one point, and her fumbling triggered a tutorial. It corrected her errors and informed her—in only slightly accented American English—how to operate the equipment properly. Then it provided her with call numbers and codes for other types of information.

She called up a student's basic guide to the second chamber city. In an instant, Alexandria surrounded her. She appeared to be standing on the portico of an apartment in the lower floors of one of the megas, looking down on the busy streets. The illusion was perfect—even providing her with a memory of what "her" apartment looked like. She could turn her head and look completely behind her if she wished—indeed, she could walk around, even though she new she was sitting down.

In both her ears—or somewhere in the middle of her head—a voice explained what she was seeing.