"Data is data, Susan Chen. Whatever its source. I am a scientist; I do not accept your--" for a moment the small, precise mouth worked " -- your medieval morality."

"I'm not going to let you take this data out of here," Chen said calmly.

"Susan." Hassan was standing close to her; with a surprisingly strong grasp he lifted her hands from Bayliss's arm.

"Keep out of this."

"You must let her finish her work."

"Why? For science?"

"No. For commerce. And perhaps," he said dryly, "for the future of the race. If she is right about non-local communication--"

"I'm going to stop her."

"No." His hand moved minutely; it was resting against the butt of a laser pistol.

With automatic reflex, she let her muscles relax, began the ancient calculation of relative times and distances, of skills and physical conditions.

She could take him. And--

Bayliss cried out; it was a high-pitched, oddly girlish yelp. There was a clatter as she dropped some piece of equipment.

Chen's confrontation with Hassan broke up instantly. They turned, ran to Bayliss; Chen's steps were springy, unnatural in the tiny gravity.

"What is it?"

"Look at the floor."

The Sky resisted for an instant. Then it crumbled, melting away like ancient doubts.

He surged through the break, strong, exultant, still growing.

He was outside the Sky. He saw arrays of new postulate fruits, virgin, waiting for him. And there was no further Sky; the Pool went on forever, infinite, endlessly rich.

He roared outwards, devouring, budding; behind him a tree of brothers sprouted explosively.

The pool surged, in an instant, across the floor and out beyond the dome. The light, squirming with logic trees, rippled beneath Chen's dark, booted feet; she wanted, absurdly, to get away, to jump onto a data desk.

"The quantum switch." Bayliss's voice was tight, angry; she was squatting beside the switch, in the middle of the swamped light pool.

"Get away from there."

"It's not functioning. The nanobots are unrestrained."

"No more culling, then." Hassan stared into Chen's face. "Well, Susan? Is this some sentimental spasm, on your part? Have you liberated the poor logic trees from their Schrodinger hell?"

"Of course not. Lethe, Hassan, isn't it obvious? The logic trees themselves did this. They got through the Interface to Marsden's corpus callosum. Now they've got through into the switch box, wrecked Marsden's clever little toy."

Hassan looked down at his feet, as if aware of the light pool for the first time. "There's nothing to restrain them."

"Hassan, we've got to get out of here."

"Yes." He turned to Bayliss, who was still working frantically at her data mines.

"Leave her."

Hassan gave Chen one long, hard look, then stalked across to Bayliss. Ignoring the little mathematician's protests he grabbed her arm and dragged her from the data desks; Bayliss's booted feet slithered across the glowing floor comically.

"Visors up." Hassan lifted his pistol and lazed through the plastic wall of the dome. Air puffed out, striving to fill the vacuum beyond.