that the mutineers would panic. She'd succeeded beyond her ambitions.

But it's killing me!

The screen of clouds swept past and away.

Gold was to left of center in the bow window. The Smoke Ring trailed left of Gold. They were accelerating east and a little out.

East takes you out.

They were leaving the Smoke Ring.

I knew it. That crazy Jeffer's killed us alL

With his head pulled far back, with the points of what should have been a neck rest digging savagely into his shoulder blades, Gavving looked along his nose and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

The skyflowed away at the edges of the bow window. A triune family split and fluttered and were gone before they could move. A small, flattish green jungle drifted close, accelerated, whipped past. A fluffy white cloud showed ahead. Closer. White blindness, and the carm shuddered and rang with the impact of water droplets. Something tiny struck the bow window a terrific blow and left a pink film a quarter meter across. In a breath the rain had pounded it clear.

The cloud was gone, and the sky ahead was clear of further obstructions. Gold and the Smoke Ring showed like a puffball on a stem, against blue sky . . . a deep, dark blue sky, a color he'd never seen in his life.

He rolled his head to look at Minya. The agony in his neck shifted the pressure was easier to take this way. She looked back at him.

Lovely Minya, her face fuller than he remembered. He tried to speak and couldn't. He could barely breathe.

She sighed, "Almost."

The light of the CARM's main drive was back, and blueshifting!

A shift in its spectral line, and he'd caught it. Lucky. Kendy aborted his usual message. The CARM's time-eroded program would be busy enough without distraction. For the CARM was in flight. It must have been accelerating for some minutes already. By the frequency shift, it was building up enough velocity to take it out of the Smoke Ring . .

within a few thousand kilometers of Discipline itself!

When the light went out, Kendy began his message. The air was already thinning around the CARM. Reception should be good.

"Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State."

The sound stopped, the terrible tide was gone, all in a moment. Bodies bent like bows recoiled. Citizens who had not had the breath for screaming, screamed now.

As the reflexive screams died to groans, the Grad heard Lawn say, wearily, "Jeffer. Never use the main motor unless you're pushing the

tree."

The Grad could only nod. He'd captured the carm, he'd. treefodder, everyone he knew, if he hadn't murdered him he'd put him aboard the carm! And then he'd touched the blue bar. He said, "Lawti, I'm open to suggestions."

"Feed it to the tree."