The ring struck Rauc in the midriff. She seemed to implode around the ribbon of vorticity. Her smock was torn open and dragged forward, exposing her back; Dura saw shards of bone protruding from broken flesh. One arm was twisted around and torn away, leaving a grisly, twisted stump of ligament and bone. Rauc's head remained intact, but it seemed to have been pulped; her face had been stretched, grotesquely, the mouth ripping at its corners.

The vortex ring passed on through the wreckage of Rauc, shrinking rapidly.

Dura let herself drift to a stop in a clear volume of Air. She felt the tension leave her muscles; she curled slowly into a ball, as if she were seeking sleep. This shouldn't happen, she thought. It's not right. We don't deserve such a fate. It's — unnatural.

And now there was another name to add to the litany of the caravans.

On the horizon, something moved. An object, slicing through the Air; it was like a ray, with shining, golden wings which beat at the Air... but it was far larger than any ray, large enough to be seen even though it was almost lost in the mists of the horizon. Blue-white light stabbed from the belly of the great sky-ray into the bruised purple mass of the Quantum Sea below.

More memories, legends from the mouths and staring eyecups of intense, lean old men, returned to her. I know what that is. Could it he causing the Glitches, with those beams?

I know what it is. It's a ship, from beyond the Star.

She let her head sink forward, against her knees.

Xeelee.

14

"XEELEE."

Amidst the wreckage of ceiling-farm buildings, Hork cradled the head of his father in his lap. He looked up at Muub, despair and rage shining from his bearded face.

Muub studied the broken body of Hork, Chair of Parz Committee, determined to forget his own personal danger — exposed as he was to the mercurial anger of the younger Hork — and to view this shattered man as just another patient.

As soon as word of the latest Glitch reached Parz, Hork, fearing for his father's life, had summoned Muub. Now, less than a day later, here they were at the experimental Crust farm.

The small medical staff maintained here had clearly been overwhelmed by the disaster. They had greeted Muub on his arrival with a bizarre mixture of relief and fear — eager to hand over responsibility for the injured Chair, and yet fearful of the consequences if they were judged to be negligent. Well, the staff here had clearly done their best, and Muub doubted that the attention Hork had received could have been bettered even within his own Common Good Hospital. But the medics' work had been to no avail, Muub saw immediately. The large, delicate skull of the Committee Chair was clearly crushed.

A Guard, crossbow loaded, hovered over the body, watching Muub surreptitiously.