The flitter receded rapidly. Hyperspace smeared the Ark's image.

Now more Arks came into view. The flitter skirted islands of huge flesh as it worked its way through the fleet.

At last the flitter surged into clear hyperspace; Thet swung the flitter about.

Holism Ark was lost in a blurred wall of ten thousand Arks that cut the Universe in half. This was the Exaltation of the Integrality. Rodi imagined he could hear a thrumming as the great armada forged onwards; flitters skimmed between the huge hulls and rained into three-space.

"We're privileged to see this," Rodi said.

"Definitely," said Thet laconically. "A sight that hasn't changed for three thousand years." She snapped the flitter away; the Exaltation became a blur in the distance. Her shaven head gleamed in the cabin lights. "I'll tell you how we're privileged. After a hundred generations it's us who are around as the Exaltation reaches Bolder's Ring, the true Prime Radiant of the Xeelee. And so the sky here is full of lost human colonies. Bits of ancient, failed assaults. Instead of a dozen missionary drops a century we're getting a hundred a year. Which is why they're pressing almost anybody into service."

"Thanks," he said drily.

She grinned, showing teeth. "So I'm your tutor on your first drop. And I'm not what you expected. Am I?"

Rodi said nothing.

"Look -- I'm resourceful, a good pilot. I'm no great thinker, okay?... but you're different. Top marks in the seminary, Gren tells me. You should soon surpass me. And with all that understanding you should have no fear. The Integrality says that the death of an individual is unimportant."

"Yes." That was a child's precept; he clutched the thought and felt his anxiety recede.

"And you do believe in the Integrality. Don't you?" Her voice was sly.

Was she mocking him? "Of course. Don't you?"

She didn't reply. She stabbed at the control panel. The flitter popped out of hyperspace.

Stars exploded around him. Half of them were colored blue.

He gasped. Thet laughed.

It's a simulation, he told himself. Just another sim.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Thet watched with amused contempt. "Get your bearings."

The stars blurred together. Behind him they were tinged china blue. Ahead of him they formed a mist that hid... something, a hint of a torus shape--

"Bolder's Ring is ahead," he breathed.

"How do you know?"

Because that was the way everything was falling.

Thet said, "We've been space-going for a hundred and fifty millennia, probably. And yet we're still children at the feet of the Xeelee. Makes you sick, doesn't it?"

Rodi shrugged. "That's why we've been trying to wreck that thing for almost as long. Envy."