She frowned and pointed out the second cylinder to Hork. "What do you think that is? It looks like a fortress. Perhaps the Ur-humans needed to shelter — perhaps they came under attack..."

He was laughing at her, not unkindly. "No, Dura. You've lost the scale. Look at it again. It's maybe — what? — ten thousand mansheights tall?"

"Ten times as big as your glorious Parz City."

"Maybe, but that's still only ten centimeters or so. Dura, the Ur-humans were meters tall. The hand of an Ur-human could have engulfed that cylinder." He was watching her slyly. "Do you see it yet? Dura, that's a food vessel. A cup."

She stared. A cup, large enough to hold a dozen Parz Cities?

She tried to keep thinking. "Well," she said, "then it's a damn odd cup. All the food would float out of the top. Wouldn't it?"

Hork nodded grudgingly. "You'd think so." He sighed. "But then, there are many things about the Ur-humans we can't understand."

She imagined this little box of Mantle-stuff from the outside. "It's as if they created this inner chamber, around the wormhole Interface, as an ornament. A little section of the Star, so they could study Human Beings. We would look like toys to them," she murmured. "Less than toys; little animals, perhaps below the level of visibility." She looked at her hand. "They were a hundred thousand times taller than us; even the 'Pig' would have been no more than a mote in the palm of an Ur-human child..." She shivered. "Do you think any of them are still here?" She imagined a giant Ur-form floating in through some half-seen door, a face wider than a day's journey billowing down toward her...

"No," Hork said briskly. "No, I don't. They've gone."

She frowned. "How do you know?"

He grinned. "For one thing, that's what your precious legends tell us. But the clincher is this seat." He patted its arms. "The Ur-humans set up this place so that we could work their machines. If I move the chair I can mimic anything an Ur-human could have done... Dura, they have made me as powerful as any of them. Do you see?" He probed at the unyielding surface of the chair. "If we had the wit we could operate other devices." He looked around the ghostly chamber greedily. "There must be wonders here. Weapons we've never dreamed of."

The Ur-humans had meant Star people to come here, to work the devices they left behind, maybe when the Glitches got too bad. Perhaps there was something they were meant to do now... But what?

"Your arrow device doesn't have an analogue, in the Ur-human chair," she said slowly, pointing up. "See? So the arrow-thing must be something meant for us alone. Maybe to help us see what's going on." She frowned. "It only turned one quarter. What if you turned it again?"

"Only one way to find out."

He reached for the arrow.