The Jart considered this. We are both on >borrowed time<, no, fellow expediter? We must act quickly. The risk of early exposure does not outweigh the risk of finding your pitfalls. Once his test opening is made, Korzenowski may have great difficulty closing it.

The sixth chamber machinery had been examined and certified, and repaired or replaced where necessary; ten thousand corporeal humans, some seventy thousand partials and innumerable robots and remotes had done their finest work the past few weeks, at Korzenowski’s direction. The next major test was at hand.

In the final hours before the first connection, the Engineer rested in his spherical quarters, attached to the wall of the bore hole like a cocoon. He was mentally and physically near complete exhaustion. Even dividing himself into a dozen partials could not lighten the burden he carried. He had felt this burden before, and in one way it exhilarated him, but it had a sour edge.

Once, gate-openers in the Way had relied on psychological self-mastery. The cloak of ceremony wrapped around a gate-opener’s duties served as a reminder that a fogged or unfocused mind could not properly use a clavicle…

Yet Korzenowski, his mind in turmoil, was about to use the entire sixth chamber—in effect, the Thistledown itself—as a clavicle, opening something analogous to a huge gate.

He curled tighter in his red robes, resting within a tube of sleepfield lines. Eyes closed, he released a small cloud of Talsit, the last genuine Talsit in the Terrestrial Hexamon, as far as he knew. The session would not last long enough to clear his thoughts completely, but it would help. The fog filled the sleepfield and he inhaled deeply, evenly, letting the tiny particles enter through lungs, skin, wherever they could, cleansing, correcting, soothing.

“Ser Korzenowski.”

He opened his eyes. Through the thinning Talsit fog, he saw a man floating nearby. The sphere was locked; no one could enter without the monitor notifying him. He uncurled, brushing away the last wisps.

Again, it was Olmy. His friend’s appearance startled Korzenowski; he looked unkempt, his eyes did not seem to focus properly, and he smelled like an ill-tended homorph; he also smelled afraid. Korzenowski’s nose wrinkled.

“I would have invited you in,” Korzenowski said. “No need to enter like a thief.”

“Nobody knows I’m here.”

“Why hide?”

Olmy shrugged. Korzenowski noted that he wore no pictor.

“We’ve been close friends, more than that even, for a long time.”

Korzenowski stretched out and braced himself against a weak traction field. This sudden awkwardness was peculiar; they had always been at ease around each other.

“You’ve always relied upon my judgment…trusted me. And I’ve always trusted you.”

The Engineer liked this conversation less and less. Olmy seemed scattered, almost twitchy. “Yes.”