Forget it and try again . . . He could get them back into the Smoke Ring via a close approach past Goldblatt's World. In fact, the CARM's computer had already worked out a course change. It didn't matter.

They'd be dead by then.

He left that part of the program intact. He deleted the barriers that barred him from communication. He beamed the revised program to the CARM at the snail's pace the CARM could accept.

The CARM filed it.

It had worked! At least he could look them over, get to know them a little, before they were gone. After five hundred and twelve years!

The cold had gotten to the jungle giants. Anthon and Debby and Ilsa were curled into a friendly, cuddling, shivering ball, with the spare ponchos pulled around them.

The other passengers were taking it better. There were ponchos for everyone but Mark, and two to spare. One they tore into scarves. Jinny wound a scarf around Mark's neck and tucked the ends into the collar of the silver suit. "Comfortable?"

The silver man seemed cheerful enough, despite the lines that held him immobile in his chair. "Fine, thanks."

"Is that suit thick enough?"

"Damn it, woman, you're the one who's shivering. This suit keeps its own temperature, just like the carm. If anyone needs my scarf.

you want it?"

Jinny smiled and shook her head.

"Of course, I'd be even better off with my helmet closed," Mark said, and they laughed as if he'd said something funny. It didn't need saying:

if they couldn't plug the leak, or if Lawn chose to kill them somehow, Mark would die with the rest.

The Grad had made a torch from one of the scarves plus fat scraped from the skin of the salmon bird. He was about to light it when he

noticed mist before his face. He blew. . . white smoke. Everyone save Horse was breathing white smoke, as if they were all using tobacco.

"If you think something's leaking, breathe on it!" he announced.

"Watch your breath. No, Jayan, forget the doors. Voice has sensors

there."

Lawn did something to the controls "I'm turning up the humidity

the wetness in the air. More fog that way."

Citizens took their turns at the control panel to find the blank spots in the yellow diagram. The Grad began the uncomfortable job that others might miss: he crawled between the seats, edging around the cold corpse of Gavving's friend, blowing mist where the floor joined the starboard wall.

Merril called, "I've got it. It's the bow window."

A crowd of citizens crawled around the rim of the bow window, blowing, watching the pale smoke form streamlines where the window joined the hull. The window was loose around the ventral-port corner.

"Keep looking," Lawri ordered. "There may be more."

She herself made her way aft. The Grad joined her at the back wall. "What have you got in mind? Is there a way to plug the leaks?"