Rather withdrew his head to watch the completed rocket in action. Yellow-white coals glowed within the iron firebox that had given them so much trouble. The iron glowed dull red. A fourth pod nearby was filled with water in case the plates didn't hold together.

At the nozzle end of the rocket- "Nothing's happening."

His answer was the sound of Booce inflating his lungs. Then the rocket went Chuff! and sprayed steam.

"It's going, Booce," Rather said, and looked in.

Booce's face dripped with water. He was coughing and choking while he pounded the plug in with the heel of his hand. His glare was murderous.

CHUFF, CHUFF, Chuff chuffchuffchuff ... The rocket settled down. A row of cloud-puffs became a steady stream jogged by the play of capricious wind. Rather felt no acceleration. It would be gentle, with so great a mass to be moved.

Carlot came up behind him; her long fingers found his hand and enclosed it. "Father? Shouldn't we-"

Booce sounded like his throat was still full of water. "Yes, go play lookout on the west face, you two. Watch for Navy and anything we might hit."

The maelstrom revealed itself to them as they circled the trunk. Flying was a continuing wonder to Rather, but Carlot did it better. She kept darting ahead, then circled to urge him on. At a vantage point on the west face they doffed their wings and rested.

The Clump was a whorl like a tremendous fingerprint. Inward, matter thickened. There were puzzle trees, distorted cotton-candy jungles, the much smaller puffballs that Carlot had pointed out for him ("fisher jungles"), and greenery that was totally unfamiliar. Ponds took odd shapes in the distorted tide. The sky was thick with birds: skyhorses, triunes, and a thousand tiny red and yellow darts converging on a puff jungle. Everything moved in arcs, tighter near the center of the whorl, and darker. The center itself was almost black, but motion could still be seen there.

The triune families were hard to spot, but two had turned to observe the passing log. They were fat sky-blue cigar-shapes with wide triple fins: male and female and child, linked along their bellies. Three slender blue shapes flashed violent-orange bellies as they converged on the red-and-yellow bird-swarm: another triune family, separated to hunt.

A thin stream of cloud cut across other patterns of cloud-flow. Rather spotted it in the moment before Carlot pointed. "There. Navy."

"How do you know?" Rather saw only a dark point at the end of the line of cloud.

"It's coming toward us. Customs. They'll make a bum and intercept us in a day. Oh, treefodder."

Rather laughed. She'd borrowed his curse. "What?"

She showed him.

Far in toward the Clump's dark center, in the thick of moving matter, was a broad, flat ring-shape with a pebbly inner surface . . . angular structures in pastel colors . . . blatantly artificial. Could it really be as big as it looked?