"I am struggling to contain my fascination," Hork said acidly. Restless, frustrated, he pushed his way out of his sling and began to swim briskly around the room. He watched the turning of the small, powerful cooling-fan set in one corner of the painted sky; he studied the captive vortex ring in its nest of clearwood spheres. He resisted the temptation to smash the spheres again, despite his mounting frustration; the cost of repair had been ruinous — indefensible, actually, in such times as now. "Go on with your account. If humans were brought here, made to fit the Mantle — then why isn't the evidence of this all around us? Where are the devices which made us? Where are these 'different' Ur-humans?"

Adda shook his head. "At one time there was plenty of evidence. Marvelous devices, left here by the Ur-men to help us survive, and to work here. Wormhole Interfaces. Weapons, huge structures which would dwarf your shabby City..."

"Where are they now?" Hork snapped. "And don't tell me they were suppressed, deliberately destroyed by some vindictive Parz administration of the past."

"No." Adda smiled. "Your forebears did not have to conceal physical evidence... merely the truth."

"Get on with it."

"The Colonists," Adda said slowly.

"What?"

Once, humans had traveled throughout the Star. The Quantum Sea had been as clear as the Air to them, in their marvelous machines. They had been able to venture even into the outer layers of the Core with impunity. And there had been marvelous gateways, called wormhole Interfaces, which had allowed humans even to travel outside the Star itself.

The humans, following the commands of their departed creators, the Ur-humans, had set about rebuilding the Star. And the mysterious Colonists, sleeping in their quark soup at the Core, had become hostile to the growing power of humans.

The Colonists had emerged from the Core. Brief, shattering wars were fought.

Human machines were destroyed or dragged into the Quantum Sea. The human population was devastated, the survivors pitched into the open Air virtually without resource.

Within generations, the stories of man's origin on the Star, the tale of the Colonists, became a dim legend, another baroque detail in the rich word-painting of human history, of the invisible worlds beyond the Star.

Muub laughed out loud, his long, aristocratic face creased with mirth. "I'm sorry, sir," he said to Hork. "But here we are compounding myth on myth. How long are we to continue with this charade? I have patients to attend."

"Shut up, Muub. You'll stay here as long as I need you."

Hork thought hard. He had damnably little resource to spare. He had to tend the wounded and destitute, and, in the longer term, rebuild on the hinterland, alleviate the hunger of the people.

And yet, and yet...

If — by a small diversion of effort — he could remove the fantastic Xeelee threat from the City — the whole world, in fact — then he could become the greatest hero of history.