When its voice came through again it had a richer timbre. "I have established a closed channel. All right, Jack. You are aware that quagma is the state of matter which emerged from the Big Bang. Matter, when raised to sufficiently high temperatures, melts into a magma of quarks -- a quagma. And at such temperatures the fundamental forces of physics unify into a single superforce. Quagma is bound together only by such a superforce. When quagma is allowed to cool and expand the superforce decomposes into the four sub-forces."

"So?"

"By controlling the decomposition, one can select the ratio between those forces."

"Ah." Eve, I wish you were here to help me with this... "And those ratios govern the fundamental constants -- including Planck's constant."

"Correct."

I wanted to rub my face, but my head and hands had been taken away. "So you're building a model Universe, in which Planck's constant is lowered. Lethe, Ambassador. I'm surprised the Xeelee have let you get as far as you have."

"We have concealed well... Jack Raoul, are you still human?"

I would have shrugged. "I don't know."

"You don't sound as if you care."

"Why should you?"

"I have known you for a long time, Jack. Among my people there are analogies for the grief you felt at the loss of your wife."

"Ambassador, do you think this is some complicated way of committing suicide? You invited me to take the damn trip, remember."

"Human or not, you will still have friends."

"You can't imagine how much that comforts me."

They disconnected my new senses during the hyperspace flight. "I apologize," the Sink Ambassador said. "When we reach the quagma project site you will have freedom to inspect."

"But you don't trust me with the location."

"I do not have a free rein, my friend."

I spent the passage floating in a Virtual reality, trying not to think about what lay beyond my skin.

I emerged into a half-Universe.

I was in a Ghost intrasystem cruiser, a rough ovoid constructed of silvered rope. Instrument clusters were knotted to the walls. Perhaps a dozen Ghosts clung to the rope like berries on seaweed.

Above me I saw stars. Below me a floor of crimson mist, a featureless plane, extended to infinity.

A Ghost approached me.

"Ambassador?"

"We have arrived, Jack Raoul."

"Arrived where?" I gestured at the blood-red floor. "What's this?"

The Ambassador rolled, as if amused. "Jack, this is a red giant star. Are you familiar with astrophysics? This star is about as wide as Earth's orbit. We have emerged a million miles above its boundary."

I'm no small-town boy; I'd been off Earth before. But this was different. I felt the soft human thing inside my Ghost shell cringe.

I'd seen nothing yet.

The ship plunged into the interior of the star.

I cried out and grabbed at silvered rope. Glowing banks of mist shot upwards all around us. The Ghost crew floated about their tasks, unconcerned.

"Lethe, Ambassador."