"Coolies aren't slaves," Toba Mixxax said heatedly. "Every man and woman is free in the eyes of the law of Parz City, and..."

"And I'm a Xeelee's grandmother," Adda said wearily. "In Parz, you are as free as you can afford to be. If you're poor — a coolie, or a coolie's son — you've no freedom at all."

Dura said to Adda, "What are you talking about? Is this how you knew where Toba was from — because we were from Parz City too, once?" She frowned. "You've never told me this. My father..."

Adda coughed, his throat rattling. "I doubt if Logue knew. Or, if he did, if he cared. It was ten generations ago. What difference does it make now? We could never return; why dwell on the past?"

Mixxax said absently, "I still haven't worked out what to do if you incur costs for the old man's medical treatment."

"It doesn't take much imagination to guess," Adda hissed. "Dura, I told you to drive away this City man."

"Hush," she told him. "He's helping us, Adda."

"I didn't want his help," Adda said. "Not if it meant going into Parz itself." He thrashed, feebly, in his cocoon of clothes. "I'd rather die. But I couldn't even manage that now."

Frightened by his words, Dura pressed against Adda's shoulders with her hands, forcing him to lie still.

Toba Mixxax called cautiously, "You mentioned 'Xeelee' earlier."

Dura turned to him, frowning.

He hesitated. "Then that's your faith? You're Xeelee cultists?"

"No," Dura said wearily. "If that word means what I think it means. We don't regard the Xeelee as gods; we aren't savages. But we believe the goals of the Xeelee represent the best hope for..."

"Listen," Toba said, more harshly, "I don't see that I owe you any more favors. I'm doing too much for you already." He chewed his lip, staring out at the patterned Crust through his window. "But I'll tell you this anyway. When we get to Parz, don't advertise your faith — your belief, about the Xeelee. Whatever it is. All right? There's no point looking for trouble."

Dura thought that over. "Even more trouble than following a wheel?"

Adda turned blind eyes to her. Mixxax twisted, startled. "What do you know about the Wheel?"

"Only that you wear one around your neck," she said mildly. "Except when you think you need to hide it."

The City man yanked on his reins angrily.

Adda had closed his eyes and breathed noisily but steadily, evidently unconscious once more. Farr still slept. With a pang of guilt, Dura rammed the last morsels of the food — the bread — into her mouth, and slid forward to rejoin Mixxax at his reins.

She gazed through the windows. Bewildering Crust detail billowed over her head. Even the vortex lines seemed to be racing past her, and she had a sudden, jarring sensation of immense speed; she was plummeting helplessly toward the mysteries of the Pole, and the future.