Korzenowski lifted a lump of white dough and listened to its soft hiss in his hands. The lumps were remains of a failed attempt six years before to create a gate without the Way; the failure had been quiet, but decisive. Instead of creating a gate, he had created a new form of matter, quite inert, possessing no useful properties that he had found, so far. And he had spent the past six years searching…

He laid the lump back in its pallet of black stone and straightened, surveying his laboratory, saying farewell. He would not be back for months, perhaps not ever.

The results of the Hexamon mens publica vote had been tabulated and broadcast. By a two-thirds majority—more than he had expected—permanent re-opening had been mandated.

Farren Siliom had no choice at all now.

Korzenowski activated the robot sentries and gave final instructions to a partial. Should he not return, and should anyone come visiting, the partial would be there to greet them.

He was not reluctant to return to the sixth chamber and begin the refurbishing; in fact, he was eager. There was a small and persistent voice in him that either echoed or perhaps, in some way not clear, created that eagerness: the unquiet voice of that which integrated his reassembled self, the mystery of Patricia Luisa Vasquez.

Korzenowski gathered up his small tools and journals, all that was necessary to begin work on the Way, and ordered the laboratory sealed. “Be good, now,” he instructed a cross-shaped sentry as he walked away from the domes. He paused at the boundary of the compound, frowning. It was certainly not in his character to address a remote; he treated them for what they were, useful machines.

Surrounded by kilometer after kilometer of scrub and sand, the Engineer boarded the tractor that would take him to the train station in the second chamber city.

Suli Ram Kikura’s partial argued persuasively that its original should be released from house arrest in Axis Euclid. The partial’s appeal was rejected by the City Memory auxiliary courts on the grounds that under Emergency Laws, all appeals had to be presented by corporeals. This was so ridiculous it did not even anger her; she was beyond anger, moving into sadness.