The weapon-star burned through the ranks of photino birds towards the Ring. Vast as it was the star was lost against that great tangled carcass...

Until it hit.

The battered star collapsed as if made of smoke. Sheets of hydrogen, some of it still burning at star-core temperatures, were dug out of the star's gut by writhing cosmic string. The star's mass was reduced from lightspeed to stationary in less than a minute; Paul watched huge shock waves race around the Ring's structure.

Now the Qax's Spline warships followed up the starstrike; cherry-red beams lanced from their weapon pits, and Paul recalled the Xeelee gravity-wave starbreaker cannons observed by Jim Bolder. Photino birds imploded around the beams, flocks of them turning into transient columns of smoke that shone with exotic radiations and then dispersed.

For a brief, exhilarating moment, Paul speculated on the possibility of a Qax victory, a defeat for the photino birds after this single, astonishing blitzkrieg; and he felt an unexpected surge of baryonic chauvinism.

Soundlessly he cheered on the Qax.

But, within thirty minutes, the debris of the starstrike was cooling and dispersing. The photino bird flocks began to regroup, gliding unimpeded through the glowing wreckage of the star. Grimly the Qax fought on; but now, from all around the Ring, photino birds were flicking through hyperspace to join the battle, and soon the marauding Qax were surrounded. The Spline armada, with foe in all directions, became a brief, short-blossoming flower of cherry-red light.

Soon the end was beyond question. Ghostly photino birds penetrated the Spline fleet and overlaid the battered Qax ships, and the Spline, their effective masses increased enormously, began to implode, to melt inwards one by one.

Perhaps if the Qax had taken more time, Paul mused; perhaps if they had organized a barrage of the starstrikes...

Perhaps, perhaps.

Soon it was evident that the assault had been no more than a temporary inconvenience for the photino birds, and the shadowy flocks were swooping once more into the Ring's crumbling threads.

Dropping out of hyperspace was like falling through ice.

The panel-window filled with light, but Erwal, disoriented, could make no sense of the image: of the threads of crystal-blue light that crossed the picture, of the sea of milky, muddled stars below her. Were those threads the Ring? Then they must be very close to it, poised over its very center. And what was the meaning of the crushed, twisted starlight below?

The Friend returned, screaming visions at her. She cried out, but she grasped the gloves.

Night-dark Xeelee wings stretched across space for the last time. Ignored by the warring fleets the ship dived towards the Kerr-metric Interface.

As Erwal entered the sea of light there was a moment of farewell, an instant of almost unbearable pain... and then the Friend was gone.

She dropped into strangeness.

The ghost-gray photino birds slid through the Ring's pale flesh and its bruiselike discoloration spread.