“Fanny Mae,” McKie said, “have you described for Mliss Abnethe the consequences of . . .”

“Bound by contract connectives,” the Caleban said.

“You see!” Abnethe pounced. “She’s bound by our open agreement, and you’re interfering.” Abnethe gestured to someone not visible in the jumpdoor’s vortal tube.

The opening suddenly doubled its diameter. Abnethe stepped aside, leaving half her head and one eye visible to McKie. A crowd of watching sentients could now be discerned in the background. Into Abnethe’s place darted the turtle form of a giant Palenki. Its hundreds of tiny feet flickered beneath its bulk. The single arm growing from the top of its ring-eyed head trailed a long whip in a double-thumbed hand. The arm thrust through the tube, jerked the whip against jumpdoor resistance, lashed the whip forward. The whip cracked above the spoon bowl.

A crystalline spray of green showered the unseeable region of the Caleban. It glittered for a moment like a fluorescent explosion of fireworks, dissolved.

An ecstatic moan came through the vortal tube.

McKie fought an intense outpouring sensation of distress, leaped forward. Instantly, the S’eye jumpdoor closed, dumping a severed Palenki arm and whip onto the floor of the room. The arm writhed and turned, slower . . . slower. It fell still.

“Fanny Mae?” McKie said.

“Yes?”

“Did that whip hit you?”

“Explain whip hit.”

“Encounter your substance!”

“Approximately.”

McKie moved close to the spoon bowl. He still sensed distress but knew it could be a side effect of angeret and the incident he had just witnessed.

“Describe the flogging sensation,” he said.

“You possess no proper referents.”

“Try me.”

“I inhaled substance of whip, exhaled my own substance.”

“You breathed it?”

“Approximately.”

“Well . . . describe your physical reactions.”

“No common physical referents.”

“Any reaction, dammit!”

“Whip incompatible with my glssrrk.”

“Your what?”

“No common referents.”

“What was that green spray when it hit you?”

“Explain greenspray.”

By referring to wavelengths and describing airborne water droplets, with a side excursion into wave and wind action, McKie thought he conveyed an approximate idea of green spray.

“You observe this phenomenon?” the Caleban asked.

“I saw it, yes.”

“Extraordinary!”

McKie hesitated, an odd thought filling his mind. Could we be as insubstantial to Calebans as they appear to us?

He asked.

“All creatures possess substance relative to their own quantum existence,” the Caleban said.

“But do you see our substance when you look at us?”

“Basic difficulty. Your species repeats this question. Possess no certain answer.”

“Try to explain. Start by telling me about the green spray.”

“Greenspray unknown phenomenon.”

“But what could it be?”

“Perhaps interplanar phenomenon, reaction to exhalation of my substance.”

“Is there a limit of how much of your substance you can exhale?”

“Quantum relationship defines limitations of your plane. Movement exists between planar origins. Movement changes referential relatives.”

No constant referents? McKie wondered. But there had to be! He explored this aspect with the Caleban, questions and answers obviously making less and less sense to both of them.