So that is why we are here, she thought. That's the purpose of the whole project. The Colonists, the manufacture of Star-humans... That is the meaning, the purpose of my race. My life.

We are expendable weapons' manufacturers, serving a huge war beyond our comprehension.

And when the Star destroyed itself against the Ring — or was destroyed first, by the Xeelee starbreakers — then they would all die with it, their purpose fulfilled.

No.

The word was like a shout in the turmoil of her mind. She had to do something.

Without allowing herself to think about the consequences, she Waved briskly across the chamber toward the floating control seat.

"What are you doing? Dura, there's nothing we can do here. We're in the grip of immense forces; forces we barely understand. And..."

She took her place in the seat. Around her the ghostly Ur-human seat swiveled, trembling in response to her touch. She grasped the twin handles fixed to the seat's arms.

A globe swelled into existence in the Air, fat and sullen red; a neat grid covered its surface, laid out like the anchor-bands around Parz City.

Dura, startled by this sudden apparition, lost her nerve; she screamed.

Hork laughed at her. His voice, thin and shrill, betrayed his own tension. "Damn it, Dura, you've just witnessed a battle, immense beyond our capacity to comprehend. You've learned that our world is doomed. And yet you're scared by a simple conjuring trick like this!"

"But what is it?"

The globe was about a mansheight across; it hovered just in front of the seat. "Isn't it obvious?" Hork snapped. "Take your hands off the levers." She did so; the globe persisted for a few seconds, then deflated gracelessly, finally disappearing. "It's an aid," Hork said briskly. "Like..." He gestured vaguely. "Like a window in an Air-car. An aid to a pilot."

She tried to focus on this new puzzle. She glanced across the chamber and out at the Star, that scowling yellow-red speck at the center of its immense setting of gas and light. "But that globe looked like the Star itself."

Hork laughed, the shrill edge still present in his voice; his eyecups were wide with excitement. "Of course it did! Don't you see? Dura, one is meant to pilot the Star with these wonderful levers..."

"But that's absurd," she protested. "How can a Star — a whole world — be driven, directed like one of your Air-cars?"

"But, my dear, someone has already done so. The Star has been launched at the Ring, with deliberate intent. That we have found a device to do this is hardly a surprise. And this is a map-Star, to help you pilot a world..."

She grasped the handles again and the globe sprang into existence, wide, delicate and ominous. She gathered her scattered courage. "Hork, we can't let our world be destroyed."