One of the green arcs flared suddenly and illuminated the flawship’s bow. Olmy was surrounded by something like St. Elmo’s fire; his body convulsed. Korzenowski had tracted halfway toward his friend when the display stopped. Olmy rotated to face them with a wan smile. “Inspection,” he said. “They still don’t trust us completely.”

“Did you pass?” Korzenowski asked.

“So far, so good.”

“Very advanced,” Ry Oyu said. Korzenowski thought he detected a hint of irony.

“Remove the ship from the flaw,” came a return signal in English. Olmy went to the console and instructed the flawship to unstring itself.

“Ride within the bubble nearest your ship’s door.”

They put on environment packs and stood by the hatchway. When it opened, a bubble expanded to about four meters in diameter and fastened itself around the hatch with a sucking, sizzling sound. The black nebulosity within congealed to make a railed platform.

“Our phaeton,” Korzenowski said, following Olmy onto the platform. A quiet hissing surrounded them; cool air smelling faintly musty, sweet, like young beer, blew against their faces. The bubble withdrew, sealing itself, and carried them along the green arcs toward a point just outside the center of the barrier. The flaw in this region was an uncharacteristic sour-orange color, carrying the additional burden of Jart information; it cast a feeble glow against the barrier’s gray-black surface.

Four green arcs cradled the flawship and guided it toward the walls of the Way. Olmy looked at the descending ship with a twinge of regret: their last contact with the Hexamon. Arms folded, still not entirely resigned, Korzenowski faced the featureless barrier surface toward which they were being ferried. His eyes carried little of Patricia’s impression now; she seemed to have sunk back deep into his psyche, biding her time.

Ry Oyu put his hand on the Engineer’s shoulder. “In our youth,” he said, “we would have called this an adventure.”

“In my youth, I always preferred thinking to adventuring,” Korzenowski replied.

The barrier absorbed the bubble, and again they were in darkness. Olmy would have been more comfortable if the Jart communicated with him, but it was silent; nothing had passed between them since the inspection. He could still feel it within him, as an oyster must feel a grain of sand…

When they finished their passage through the barrier, all that was human lay behind them. The bubble hovered above a broad forest-green floor. Perhaps a hundred meters away, the floor met a wall of lighter green. There did not seem to be a ceiling; merely a pale, featureless void.

“You will meet with command individuals,” said a bodiless voice in the bubble.

“Fine,” Korzenowski said, lips straight and tight. “Let’s get on with it.”

The green wall parted like a curtain and the bubble passed through. Only now did Olmy feel the Jart react within him; it seemed to change its shape, rearrange its points of contact with his mentality, stiffen.