Hork said slowly, "You are — a copy. Of an Ur-human. Living in the Core."

Dura said, "Where is the Ur-human Karen Macrae? Is she dead?"

She's gone. The ship left, once we were established here. I don't know where she is now... Dura tried to detect emotion in the woman-thing's voice — was she resentful of the original who had made her, who had thrust her into the Core of the Star? Was she envious? — but the quality of the voice was coarse, too harsh to tell; Dura was reminded of the Speaker system on Toba Mixxax's Air-car.

The colony of human copies, downloaded into the Core, had devices which interfaced with the physical environment of the Star, the woman-thing told them. They had a system to produce something called exotic matter; they laced the Mantle with wormholes, linking Pole to Pole, and they built a string of beautiful cities.

When they'd finished, the Mantle was like a garden. Clean, empty. Waiting.

Dura sighed. "Then you built us."

"Yes," Hork said. "Just as our fractured history tells us. We are made things. Like toys." He sounded angry, demeaned.

The world had been at peace. There had been no need to struggle to live. There were no Glitches (few, anyway). The downloaded Colonists, still residing in the Core, had been there for the Human Beings like immortal, omniscient parents.

One could Wave from upflux to Pole, through the wormhole transit ways, in a heartbeat.

Hork pushed forward, confronting the woman-thing. "You expected us to come here, to seek you."

We hoped you would come. We could not come to you.

"Why?" He seemed to be snarling now, Dura thought, unreasonably angry at this ancient, fascinating woman-shell. "Why do you need us now?"

Karen Macrae turned her head. The light-boxes drifted, colliding noiselessly — no, Dura saw, they drifted through each other, as smoothly as if they were made of colored Air.

The Glitches, she said slowly. They are damaging the Core... they are damaging us.

Dura frowned. "Why don't you stop them?"

We haven't a physical Interface any more. We withdrew it. Karen's voice was growing more indistinct, her component blocks larger; the form of a human was gradually being submerged in loss of detail.

Hork pushed himself forward from the cabin wall, his heavy hands outspread against the wood. "Why? Why did you withdraw? You built us, and took away our tools, and abandoned us. You waged war against us; you took our treasures, our heritage. Why? Why?"

Karen turned to him, her mouth open, purple boxes streaming from her coarsely defined lips. She expanded and blurred, the boxes comprising her image swelling.

Hork threw himself at the image. He entered it as if it were no more than Air. He batted at the drifting, crumbling light-boxes with his open palms. "Why did you make us? What purpose did we serve for you here? Why did you abandon us?"