She moved away from Hork and peered out of the ship. The vortex-blue tetrahedron had disappeared. There was a room around the ship now, a tetrahedral box constructed of some sheer gray material. It was as if this skin-smooth substance had plated over the framework, turning the Interface from an open cage into a four-sided box which encased the "Pig."

The walls weren't featureless, though. There was some form of decoration — circular, multicolored patches — on one wall, and, cut in another, a round-edged rectangle which could only be a door.

...A door to what?

Hork scratched his scalp. "Well. What now? Did you see where these walls came from?"

Dura pressed her face to a clearwood window. "Hork, I don't think we're in the underMantle any more."

"You're guessing." His face was creased with frustration.

She pointed to the room beyond the window. "I think that's Air out there. I think we could live out there."

"How can you know that?"

"Of course I can't know." Dura felt a calm certainty fill her. She was starting to feel safe, she realized, to trust the powers into whose hands she'd delivered herself. "But why would we be brought to a place which is lethal for us? What would be the point?"

He frowned. "You think this is all — designed? That our journey was meant to be this way, to bring us here?"

"Yes. Since we entered the wormhole we've been in the hands of the ancient machines of the Ur-humans. Surely they built their machines to protect us. I think we have to trust them."

Hork took a deep breath, the fine fabric of his costume scratching over his chest. "You're saying we should go out there. Shut down the turbine and our magnetic shell — leave the 'Pig' and go outside."

"Why else did we come here?" She smiled. "Anyway, I want to see what those markings on the wall are."

"All right. If we're not crushed in the first instant we'll know you're right." The decision made, his manner was brisk and pragmatic. "And I guess the pigs need a rest anyway."

"Yes," Dura said. "I believe they do."

Hork turned to his control console and threw switches. Dura tended to the pigs, providing them with healthy handfuls of leaves. As they fed, their flight-farts died to a trickle and the turbine slowed with a weary whirr.

The cabin fell silent, for the first time since the departure from Parz.

Hork whispered, "It's gone. Our magnetic field. It's shut down."

For a moment Hork and Dura stared at each other. Dura's heart pounded and she found it impossible to take a breath.

Nothing had changed; the ship still tumbled slowly within the cool gray walls of the wormhole chamber.

Hork grinned. "Well, we're still alive. You were right, it seems. And now..." He pointed to the hatch in the upper end of the craft. "You first," he said.

—

The hatch opened with a soft pop.