When the partial transferred its findings to Olmy, for a time, as he sat with eyes open, he saw both the forest and

Great prism-shaped Jart flawships, moving with majestic slowness over a colonized segment of the Way

(again in several visual layers, but these more ordered, less frantic)

and dancing clouds of midge-like attendant machines and vehicles moving from the flawship to broad curving ramps on the floor of the Way.

With a start, replaying the memory, Olmy realized that beneath the nearest ramp was an inverted image of the exterior of a planet. He tried to reinterpret but could not; it seemed that at least in this case, Jart gates were not circular holes, but slashes in the Way several kilometers wide. There was always the possibility that all the information he had received this far was deception, that the Jart itself was a ruse; one way to find out would be to ask Korzenowski about the possibility of elongated gates in the Way. Even if they were possible, other details might be distorted…

Another memory:

mingling with other beings

(Jarts? Clients of the Jarts?)

in a thick green liquid, much smaller silver worms passing between them, occasionally wrapping around one individual or another and cinching tight enough to crease flesh. Some of the beings resembled the Jart body in the fifth chamber memory store’s second room; others were flat white specked black carpets with undulating fringes, flying through the liquid, or trilaterally symmetric “starfish” with flexible mandibles or fingers on the end of each arm, or thick shapeless extrusions from colorless tubes…

All seemed to have some remote and nightmarish sea floor as a common origin, and none of them did anything Olmy could even begin to understand.

There were other images, too many to experience for the moment. Storing these findings without examination, he moved on to the exchanged “greeting.”

Partial: (Replay of capture memories and a string signifying awareness of the Jart’s existence and status.) Jart: >I am beyond reach of duty? Where is duty expediter label?< Partial: You are >beyond reach of< all your kind. Jart: >What is brother/father status? Is this communication from command oversight?< Partial: >Brother/father status< not known. Not command oversight. You are captured and under examination. Jart: >Acknowledge personal status as captured.<

The partial then sent a long list of questions. Those were being processed now. At least, for the time being, he had an illusion of progress.

The partial passed along another string:

Jart: >Cooperation and transfer of status information? Replacement of command oversight and command?<