Some part of this suit -- perhaps the silver-gleaming inlays -- must be a much better conductor than human flesh and bone. And so the Magfield's push was so much greater. It was just a question of getting the feel of it.

She leaned back against the Magfield and thrust gently with her legs. Gradually she learned to build up the tempo of this assisted Waving, and wisps of electron gas curled about her thighs. The secret was not strength, really, but gentleness, suppleness, a sensitivity to the soft resistance of the Magfield.

The suit carried her gracefully, effortlessly, across the flux lines.

She sailed across the sky. The suit felt natural about her body, as if it had always been there -- and she suspected that a small, inner part of her would always cling to the memory of this experience, utterly addicted...

The Hero's face ballooned up before her. She cried out. He grinned through the faceplate at her, the age-lines around his eyecups deep and shadowed. He grabbed her shoulders; she could feel his bony fingers dig into her flesh through the suit fabric.

"I came up under you," he said, his voice harsh. "I knew you couldn't see me. That damn helmet must be cutting off half your field of view."

Fright passed, and anger came to her. She raised her gloved hands and knocked his forearms away.

...Easily. He suppressed a cry and clutched his arms to his chest; rapidly he straightened up to face her, but not before she had seen the pain in his eyecups.

She reached out and grabbed the Hero's shoulders, as he'd held hers. In this suit, not only could she Wave like a god -- she was strong, stronger than she had ever imagined. She let her fingers dig into his bone. Laughing, she raised him above her head. He seemed to be trying to keep his face empty of expression; she saw little fear there, but there was something else: a disquiet.

"Who's the Hero now?" she spat.

"A suit of Corestuff doesn't make a hero."

"No," she said, thinking of Lur. "And heroes don't need to be paid..."

He grinned, mocking her.

She thought over what he'd said. "What's Corestuff?"

"Let me go and I'll tell you."

She hesitated.

He snapped, "Let me go, damn you. What do you think I can do to you?"

Cautiously she let go of his shoulders and pushed him away from her.

He rubbed at the bulging bones of his shoulders. "You may as well understand what you're stealing. Corestuff. The inlay in the fabric; a superconducting thread mined from within the Quantum Sea." He sniffed. "From the old days, before the Core Wars, of course."

"Did the suit belong to an Ur-human?"

He laughed sourly. "Ur-humans couldn't survive here inside the Mantle. Even a savage child should know that."