"That we're not in the Star any more. That we've been transported, through the wormhole, to a planet outside it." Ring-light bathed his face, casting complex highlights from his beard. "Don't you see? That's our star — the Star — and, just like the map said, we're on a planet circling the Star. But the map didn't show the ring." He turned to her, excitement in his eyes. It was the excitement of understanding, she realized, of piecing together a puzzle. "So now we know how our Star's system is put together." He mimed with his hands. "Here's the Star, at the center of it all. The gas ring encircles it, like this. The planet must drift within the ring. And hanging above it all we have the globe-thing, glowing dully and leaking gas."

Dura stared at their Star. It was small and mean, she thought, disappointing compared to the glorious lanterns which glittered in other parts of the sky. And yet it was home; she felt a strange dislocation, a pang of sadness, of loss. "Our world is so limited," she said slowly. "How could we ever have known that beyond the Crust was so much wonder, immensity, beauty..."

"You know, I think that big sphere of gas has a glow of its own. It isn't just reflecting the Starlight, I mean."

The globe was like an immense pendant on the ring, utterly dwarfing the Star itself. Hork seemed to be right; the intensity of its gray-yellow glow increased toward its rough center. And it wasn't actually a sphere, she realized slowly; perhaps it had once been, but now it was drawn out into a teardrop shape, with a thin tip attached to the ring by an umbilical of glowing gas. The outer layers of the globe were misty, turbulent; Dura could see through them to the darkness of space.

"It's like a star itself. But..."

"But it doesn't look right." Dura searched for the right word. "It seems — unhealthy."

"Yes." He pointed. "It looks as if stuff is being drawn out of the big star and put into the ring." He glanced speculatively at Dura. "Perhaps, somehow, the Star is drawing flesh from the big star to create the ring. Perhaps the planet we're on is constructed of ring-stuff."

She shuddered. "You make the Star sound like a living thing. Like an eye-leech."

"A star-leech. Well, perhaps that's as good an explanation as we'll ever get..." He grinned at her, his face spectral in the ring's glow. "Come on. I want to try the arrow's last setting."

"Oh, Hork... Do you have any capacity for awe?"

"No." His grin broadened through his beard. "I think it's a survival characteristic. Mental toughness, I call it." He led her back around the inner portal-chamber and eyed her roguishly. "So we've seen the stars. Big deal. What's left?"

"Twist the arrow and find out."

He did so.

The universe — of stars and starlight — imploded.

Dura screamed.

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