Other keys were touched. A network of green threads appeared on the map. Only one, so thin it was almost invisible, ran from the northern city of Ghew—through six smaller hives scattered across vast undeveloped plains—to Sed-Clee.

“If I had a secret I wanted to hide, I’d be hard pressed to find a more isolated place,” Wuu declared.

The soldier glanced up at him and gestured with his antennae for them to keep their whistles down. The other two operatives were staring curiously at them.

“Yes,” the soldier said a little too loudly. “Now, if you’re interested in other worlds on the periphery of our current sphere of exploration …” The other soldiers returned to their respective tasks.

“I’d agree that this hive,” their friend went on more quietly, “is about as isolated as you can get and still be on Hivehom.” He scrambled the map and shut down the monitor. When he returned his attention to them his manner was entirely professional.

“I wish you luck and good hunting in your research, gentlesirs.” He turned to gaze appreciatively up at Wuu. “And special thanks to you, sir, for your kindnesses.”

“A trifle, my estimable young friend.”

They made their own way out.

There was no doubt now where their hunt was going to take them, Ryo mused, but there was a city stop Wuu insisted on making first.

Though they would have no reason to go outside the shielded environs of Sed-Clee, the poet insisted they travel prepared for any eventuality. Even a transport module could break down.

Despite the diversity to be found in the immense hive they still had difficulty locating a firm that sold as exotic an item as cold-climate attire. It took several days.

The purveyor who provided the clothing asked no questions. However perverse, hobbies were the business of. none but their adherents. So she simply accepted credit from Wuu and did not inquire what the two oddly matched strangers intended to do with their bizarre purchases.

They checked out of their hotel and took an internal transport to the northernmost main module terminus. From there they traveled for more than an hour in line with hundreds of similar modules, until they reached the outskirts of the metropolis.

Soon they had been switched and were accelerating with perhaps fifty other modules in a train heading due north. At regular intervals modules split off from front or back of the column. Forty, thirty, then twenty-two, according to Ryo’s count, were traveling steadily north-northwest

Some time earlier the transport train had emerged from subterranean concourses to travel on repulsion rails above the surface. The character of the landscape had begun to change. In place of the valley of the Moregeeon and its" towering forests of ventilation pipes and air intakes, patches of steamy jungle alternated with cultivated fields and stack clumps marking the location of underground manufacturing facilities.

Hives were scattered more widely as they entered the second day of travel. They had already passed the good-sized cities of Fashmet and Pwelfree and hives were farther apart Most of the modules they had departed Daret in concert with had split off, but they periodically acquired others and, on balance, the train had shrunken by only half a dozen.