Dura smiled. "You're too much of a cynic, dear Adda. Nobody forced the Human Beings to come here, to help the City folk dig their way out of the rubble."

"Although we're delighted you're here," Muub said expansively. "Without your upflux-hardened muscles we wouldn't be making half the progress we've managed so far."

"Sure. As long as we're not using our 'upflux-hardened muscles' to build another nice, neat cage for ourselves."

Dura said, "Now, Adda—"

Toba Mixxax said nervously, "But you were never in a cage. I don't understand."

Muub held up his hands. "Adda has a point. And while we're rebuilding our City, it's a time to think about rebuilding our hearts as well. The Human Beings were in a cage, Toba. As were we all: a cage of ignorance, prejudice and suppression."

Dura looked at him carefully. "You genuinely accept that?"

"Do we need a City at all?" Adda asked sourly. "Maybe it's time for a fresh start without one."

Dura shook her head. "I don't think I agree with that. Not any more. The benefits of a City — stability, a repository of understanding, the access to medicine — all of these will help us all, everyone in the Mantle." She fixed Muub with a sharp glance. "Won't they?"

He nodded seriously. "We could never advance from a base of subsistence farming. But the City must never again become a fortress-prison. That's why we're planning a whole series of satellite communities, with the City as the hub. We should not trap most of humanity in one place, so vulnerable to disasters from without — and from our own hearts."

Adda snorted. "You talk about human nature. What's to stop human nature from reasserting itself where prisons and fortresses are concerned?"

"Only the strong and continuing efforts of good men and women," Muub said evenly. "Hork shares these goals. He's talking about new kinds of power structures — representative councils which would give all of the Mantle's people a say in the way things are run."

"Knowing Hork," Dura admitted, "I find that a little hard to swallow."

"Then try harder," Muub said sternly. "Hork is no sentimental dreamer, Dura. He faces realities and acts on them. He knows that without the ancient wisdom of the Human Beings — without the clues you people brought about the Core Wars, the possibility of retrieving some of the ancient technology — the City would have been wiped out by the Xeelee attack, without even knowing why. Perhaps the race itself would have perished... We need each other. Hork accepts that, and is going to make sure we don't lose what we've gained. Surely his litany, today, is evidence of his goodwill. Perhaps we could construct a new, integrated philosophy, incorporating the best elements of all these strands — the Xeelee philosophy, the Wheel followers — and build a new faith to guide us..."

Dura laughed. "Maybe. But we'll have to put the City back together first."