“What was that?”

My database says that wormrings are held together with exotic material, a kind of matter with “negative average energy density,” born in the Great Blossoming. It threads wormholes from end to end.

“Um, great. No use to us. Are we making any progress out of here?”

I cannot tell. What we see may be the girders of this tortured, warped spacetime.

“And you thought I didn’t have a plan.”

Wait—I do sense something bright—approaching—

The black outside reddened. Churned.

Suddenly they slammed out—and into a blue storm.

A mirror twin of the wormring dwindled behind them now. Brilliant rainbows rimmed it. Rotating fast in the opposite direction to where they came in. Wherever “in” is….

Her ship popped and groaned. Fraq said sternly, “This vibration. These colors. They are like when my ship slipped through, carrying our Flock. But that was fast. Not slow, as now. We only saw these changes, colors, sounds, after we ran the data. After we were through. So now we have gone through all of that slowly. But, still, is good news.”

Stars gleamed in a darkening sky. Strange stars.

“We’re through,” Rachel whispered. “In another star system.”

I register less spacetime curvature. We have popped through the toroid ringhole. Into…

“Somewhere. Some strange where,” Fraq said. “We have flown through that tortured Mouth. But we are not back home….” The Ythri flourished his neck fan feathers. A frustration signal, she knew.

“Then this wormring, it’s…”

“A multiply connected wormhole network,” Fraq finished. He bristled with worry, mouth stern, feathers flexing. “We came from our system, to yours—by threading the angular momenta the system had acquired. That was the legendary trouble, for mass coming through alters each exit’s spin. Ancient accounts spoke of other destinations, attained by knowing how to sail upon spin itself. That record was devoid of detail. We thought such were confused, perhaps religious in some way.”

“Really? But it was actually physics….” She had known Fraq years now, but he had never revealed this history. Some Flock constraint, maybe. They were a cautious species, far older than humanity. Secretive, some said.

Wary, worn, weary. “This confirms…?”

“Our worst fears. We, our Yth Flock, hoped for simplicity, when we ventured through the Mouth. A simple subway, your kind would say. But now it seems the route has other channels. The Mouth Maze, as we and now your Library Minds refer to it, or… to them.”

Rachel thought, So instead of flying down a nice comfy tube, we’re in s spinning spacetime. That has whirling branches. Changing constantly. Maybe dead ends? Can this get any more complicated?

“True, Fraq. We knew traces of that in the most ancient texts.” Rachel reflected back on her years of Librarian toil. Many fragments spoke of such, but they were never clear. “No maps, though.”

Maps of a multidimensional spacetime? That strains my abilities. I am after all a flight assistant, not… Erma’s voice trailed away in confusion.

Rachel had a hunch. “The spin. Maybe that plays through the whole damn wormring system? Ripples it? Opens… doors?”