Dura looked at him with a little suspicion, but there was no sign of irony in his expression; his good eye returned her gaze with a softness she hadn't often seen there before.

She nodded. "We have..." And some of us a little further than others, she thought. "How's Bzya?"

He sniffed. "Surviving. Accepting what he has. Which is a lot, I suppose; he has Jool and Shar both with him now..."

"And you," she said.

He didn't reply.

"Do you think you'll stay with them?"

He shrugged, with an echo of his old cantankerousness, but his expression remained soft.

She squeezed his hand. "I'm glad you've found a home," she said.

As they neared the Wheel at the heart of the debris cloud, they could hear once more the thin, clear voice of Physician Muub as he addressed the crowd gathering there.

"...The cult of the Xeelee, with its emphasis on higher goals than those of the here-and-now, was impossible for Parz's closed, controlled society to accommodate. It was only by the suppression of these elements — the expulsion of the Xeelee cultists, the Reformation's expunging of any genuine information about the past — that the authorities thought the City could survive.

"Well, they were wrong.

"Human nature will flourish, despite the strictest controls. The upfluxers kept their ancient knowledge almost intact — across generations, and with little recourse to records or writing materials. New faiths — like the cult of the Wheel — bloomed in the desert left by the destruction of beliefs and knowledge." Muub hesitated, and — unable to see him — Dura remembered how his cup-retinas characteristically lost some of their focused shape, briefly, as he turned to his inner visions. "It's interesting that both among the exiled Human Beings — and among the almost equally disadvantaged Downsiders, here in Parz — a detailed wisdom from the past survived, by oral tradition alone. If we are all descended from Stellar engineers — from a highly intelligent stock — perhaps we should not be surprised at such evidence of mentation, crossing generations. Indeed, the systematic waste of such talent seems a crime. How much more might man have achieved in this Star by now, if not for petty prejudice and superstition..."

Adda snorted. "Unctuous old fart."

Dura laughed.

"And I wish I could see Hork's face, as he Waves around having to listen to that."

"Maybe you misjudge him, Adda."

"Maybe. But then," he said slowly — carefully, she thought — "I've never been as close to him as you have."

Again she studied the old man sharply, wondering how much he knew — or what he could read, in her face. He was watching her, waiting for some reaction, his battered face empty of expression.

But what was her reaction? What did she want, now?