Adda gazed around, trying to take in the whole scene as a gestalt — the immense, human construct of the City itself, a thousand people gathered below for a single purpose, the scarcely believable opulence of the courtiers in the Box with their fine clothes and sweetmeats and servants, the acrobats flourishing their limbs through the Air in their huge dance. "Yes, it's impressive," he said. He tried to find ways of expressing what he was feeling. "More than impressive. Uplifting, in a way. When humans work together, we can challenge the Star itself. I suppose it's good to know that not everyone has to scratch a living out of the Air, barely subsisting as the Human Beings do. And yet..."

And yet, why should there be wealth and poverty? The City was a marvelous construct, but it was dwarfed on the scale of the Star — and it was no bigger than an Ur-human's thumb, probably. But even within its tiny walls there were endless, rigid layers: the courtiers in their Box, walled off from the masses below; the Upside and Downside; and the invisible — yet very real — barriers between the two. Why should it be so? It was as if humans built such places as this with the sole purpose of finding ways to dominate each other.

Muub listened to Adda's clumsy expression of this. "But it's inevitable," he said, his face neutral. "You have to have organization — hierarchy — if you are to run the complex, interlinking systems which sustain a society like the City with its hinterland. And only within such a society can man afford art, science, wisdom — even leisure of the most brutish sort, like these Games. And with hierarchies comes power." He smiled at Adda, condescending once more. "People aren't very noble, upfluxer. Look around you. Their darker side will find expression in any situation where they can best each other."

Adda remembered times in the upflux, when he was young, and the world was less treacherous than it had become of late. He recalled hunting-parties of five or six men and women, utterly immersed in the silence of the Air, their senses open, thrilling to the environment around them. Completely aware and alive, as they worked together.

Muub was an observer, he realized. Believing he was above the rest of mankind, but in fact merely detached. Cold. The only way to live was to be yourself, in the world and in the company of others. The City was like a huge machine designed to stop its citizens doing just that — to alienate. No wonder the young people clambered out of the cargo ports and lived on the Skin, riding on the Air by wit and skill. Seeking life.

The light had changed. The rich yellow of the Air over the Pole seemed brighter. Puzzled, he turned his head toward the upflux.