At first the humans had the advantage of surprise. The ponderous Xeelee construction ships scattered in confusion. One of them was caught in the cross-fire of two Arks; Rodi could see its structure melt and smolder. More human ships dropped out of hyperspace and the battle spread.

But now a Spline ship splashed open. Rodi watched people wriggle in vacuum, soaked by spurts of Spline blood.

A Xeelee nightfighter covered the wreck with wings a hundred miles wide.

There were nightfighters all around the battle site. Fire bit into the sides of the laboring Spline.

It was a massacre.

Rodi could not bear to watch. Each Ark was a world, millennia old, carrying families... He increased the scale of his monitors, turned the battle into a game of toys.

But now the Xeelee fighters pulled away. They folded their wings and hovered outside the mist of debris, almost aloof.

The human ships tore into the defenseless construction vessels. Out of control, the orange star splashed against the Ring surface.

The Arks withdrew to hyperspace. One of them whirled as if in jubilation, spitting fire in all directions. Wrecks sailed into clumsy orbits around the Ring.

The Xeelee fighters departed, wings shimmering.

Rodi closed his eyes.

This had been no triumph for the humans. The Xeelee had given them a meaningless victory; they had simply not wished to slaughter.

Couldn't the human crews see that? Would this happen again and again until every Ark was disabled, every human life lost?

No. He couldn't let it occur. And, he began to realize, there was a way he could prevent it.

He opened his eyes, rubbed his face, and lifted the flitter to hyperspace.

The neutron star scraped the surface of its companion, just as it had in that dream time before the metamorphosis. "Integrality for the Comms Officer--"

"Greetings, Rodi from the Integrality."

Rodi, in broken bits of old English, described the futile battle.

The Comms Officer mulled it over. "I understand little... only that people are dying for a foolish purpose."

"But with your help, I can avert many deaths."

"How?"

"Not all the Exaltation has been... contaminated. The virus of words is spreading via inseparability net links. If we break those links, the spread will stop."

"And how can we disrupt this inseparability net?"

"Cause a starquake."

He had to expand, to explain what he meant.

The Comms Officer hesitated. "Rodi, there are two things you should know. We cause these events for specific religious and sexual reasons. They are not -- a sport. Second, many of us will lose our lives."

"I know what I'm asking."

A monitor flashed: another craft had dropped out of hyperspace near him. A Virtual tank filled up with a grinning face.

The craft was Unity Ark. The face was Thet's.

She said, "They told me your flitter was gone. It wasn't hard to work out where you'd be. You're planning sabotage, aren't you?"

Rodi stared at her.