The flawship entered the station’s dark triangle like a spear sliding slowly into a black pool. Beyond was more darkness, as if the pool were black paint, absorbing all light, all information; telling nothing.

Olmy’s Jart had no idea what awaited them. Things had changed greatly since its capture; little was familiar, including the design of the flaw station.

Ry Oyu floated toward Korzenowski and curled up beside him. “This is the area where I should find Patricia’s world,” he said. “If I have an opportunity to fulfill my obligations to her, I’ll need to copy her Mystery…”

They hadn’t brought along the necessary equipment. “How?” Korzenowski asked.

“This much I have the power to do,” Ry Oyu said. “Close your eyes, please.”

The gate-opener did not even touch him. A few seconds of warmth scattering through his head and body, the opposite of tingling, and it was over. Korzenowski opened his eyes. He did not feel any different.

“Just a copy,” Ry Oyu said quietly.

The darkness at the flawship’s nose suddenly parted and they stared at a segment of the Way perhaps three hundred kilometers long. Blocking the segment was a black radiance, deeply scalloped around its circumference, fully fifty kilometers in diameter. The walls of the Way leading up to this formation were brazen, undisturbed.

We will not be allowed to pass, the Jart told Olmy. That is a barrier to protect command individuals.

Olmy slowed the flawship to a few hundred kilometers per hour. A reception? he asked the Jart.

Very unusual for command individuals to come this far >south<.

He slowed the flawship to a crawl now, as the black shape filled their northern view. Green lines spun outward from the center of the shape and made graceful arcs to the circumference of the Way.

“I think we’ve been noticed,” Olmy said.

The arcs rose and neatly encased them. Dozens of transparent bubbles, perhaps a meter and a half in diameter, each containing a tiny black smudge like ink in water, flowed toward the flawship along the green lines.

“Traction fields, or something equivalent,” Korzenowski said. “Do they know how to communicate with us?”

“They don’t know any of our languages…” Olmy said.

A voice issued from the console. “We welcome the representatives of descendant command. Please accept the passage of our transport vehicles.”

“That was English,” Korzenowski commented dryly. The message was repeated in Spanish, then in a language very similar to Greek, and another language similar to Chinese. Other languages were less identifiable. At the conclusion of the translations, the bubbles took formation in concentric rings around the flawship.

Olmy felt the Jart take control of his movements again. The Jart sent another signal to the barrier through the flawship radio transmitters. It then moved Olmy to the transparent bow and waited there.