"Scream!" Adda yelled over the crashing roar of the City. "Scream and cry all you want, damn you! But don't — stop — Waving!"

—

Hork pressed his face close to the surreally silent display. "It's a jetfart," he said wonderingly. He laughed. "I can scarcely believe it. A jetfart, from the North Pole of a Star!"

Dura gripped the control levers, forcing her hands to remain clenched. The levers were warm, comfortable; they seemed to fit well in her palms. She felt as if she were trapped inside her head, an impotent observer of her own actions. She tried to imagine what must be happening inside the Mantle, if that map-globe really did represent the Star itself.

Hork Waved to the transparent wall, and stared at the tiny image of the battle. Eventually he turned to Dura and shouted, "I think that's enough... You can let go."

Dura stared at her hands. Her fingers wouldn't open; she had to glare at her rebellious hands, consciously willing them to uncurl.

Released, the levers slid gently back to their rest positions.

The fount from the map-Star dwindled, thinning to a fine plume before dying completely; the map itself folded up and disappeared.

"Is it over? We're not aimed at the Ring any more?"

Hork Waved back across the huge chamber. He turned the chair's arrow device this way and that, alternately studying the starbow and the field of stars, trying to judge the changes Dura had made.

Dura settled back in the chair, watching starfields explode silently across the sky.

"We haven't turned the Star around, if that's what you mean," Hork said. "But we've turned it aside. I think so, anyway... The Ring has moved away from the center of that wall." He pointed. "We're still heading for the battlefield but we've deflected the Star; we're going to miss the Ring."

She frowned, her feeling of distance, of unimportance, lingering. "Will that be enough, do you think?"

"To stop the Xeelee destroying us?" He shrugged. "I don't know, Dura. But we've done all we can."

Dura looked at Hork, seeing a match in his broad face for her own sense of bewilderment, of anticlimax.

Hork held out his hand. "Come. We need to rest, I think, after such epic deeds. Let's return to our wooden ship. We'll eat, and try to relax."

She allowed him to pull her out of the chair. Hand in hand, they Waved back to the inner tetrahedron.

As they entered it, Dura made her way toward the "Pig's" open hatchway; but Hork held her arm. "Dura. Wait; look at this."

She turned. He was pointing to the map on the inner wall of the tetrahedron — the map-Star, the wormhole diagram they had studied earlier. One of the wormhole routes — a path which snaked from the Core of the Star to its Crust, at the North Pole — was flashing, slowly and deliberately.