“Ghosts and goblins? No.”

Typical, the Delivery Man thought. But he was still disquieted by the city, and Tyzak was receiving information of some kind, which was impacting in a fashion his biononics couldn’t detect. He ran another scan. Sonic. Chemical. Electromagnetic. Visual/subliminal. Microbial. Surface vibration. Anything known to discomfort a human body.

The city wasn’t active in any way. Yet when he’d walked through previous Anomine cities without Tyzak, he’d felt none of this. So if the effect isn’t impacting from the outside … The Delivery Man opened his gaiamotes fully and searched amid his own thoughts.

It was there, hovering out of reach like a foreign dream on the fringes of the gaiafield generated by the nests they’d left orbiting above. A mind, but woven from notions very different from those human sentience was composed of. Colors, smells, sounds, emotions-they were all amiss, out of phase with what he perceived as correct.

“Hello?” he said to it.

There was a reaction, he was sure of that. A tiny stratum of the strange thoughts twisted and turned. There was even a weak sensation, not a thought or memory but an impression: an animal curled up sleeping, contracting further as something poked its skin.

So we can understand each other. Except the city didn’t want to, because he was not part of the city, not part of the world. He didn’t belong, didn’t connect. He was alien. There was no regret or even hostility within the somnolent mind. The city didn’t hold opinions on him; it simply knew he wasn’t a part of itself or its purpose.

“The AI is neural-based,” he told Gore. “I can sense it within the gaiafield. It’s semiactive but only responds to an Anomine’s mind. We’re never going to get any information out of it.”

“Shit.”

“How ironic is that? One wish, one thought from a native, and the whole city will revive itself to provide them a life they can’t even imagine anymore. Yet they’re happy with the whole been-there-done-that philosophy.”

They were trotting down a long boulevard that led up a steepening slope. Slim arches linked the buildings on either side, each one glowing with a uniform color, as if the bands of a rainbow had been split apart and then twisted around. His exovision was displaying a map. “You know, we’re heading your way.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“Actually, we’re heading directly for you. That can’t be coincidence.”

“Sonny, I’ve given up on being surprised by anything this planet pitches at us.”

It took them another hour to navigate the city’s broad streets. Tyzak walked on unhesitatingly, though toward the end the big alien did seem to be laboring to bounce forward with the vitality he’d possessed that morning. Even the Delivery Man’s biononic-aided muscles were starting to feel the strain. They’d been walking for fifteen hours with only a few short breaks.

But with the stars barely visible through the cloying light haze cast by the buildings, they finally came out into the open plaza. It was a broad empty circle seven hundred meters in diameter, with long garden segments of dense green-gray shrub trees ringing the outside. Towers and elongated globes over a kilometer high stood around the edge, something about their height and proximity giving the impression that they were leaning in protectively.

It was a slightly incongruous setting for the Last Throw, but Gore had brought the starship down on one side of the plaza, close to a swollen cylindrical tower with a blunt dark apex. The gold man was already striding over the plaza to greet them, casting a range of pale harlequin shadows in all directions that shifted like petals as he approached. He stopped in the middle of the plaza and bowed gracefully to the old Anomine.

“Tyzak, I am honored that you should spend time telling us the story of your ancestors’ departure.”

The Delivery Man raised his eyebrow as he realized that the sharp chittering sounds of Anomine language were coming directly from Gore’s throat.

“It is a joy to do so,” Tyzak replied. “Your coloration is different. Are you more advanced than your species colleague?”

“In this form, I am not, no. My body is from a time long past. Circumstances required me to adopt it once more.”

“I am glad you have. You are interesting.”

“Thank you. Can you tell us where your most sophisticated ancestors departed this world from?”

The Delivery Man almost winced at the bluntness.

“Right here,” Tyzak said.

Gore pointed a golden forefinger at the matte glass surface of the plaza. “Here?”

“Yes.”

Gore turned full circle, almost glaring at the shiny surface of the broad plaza. “So we’re actually standing on the machine which changed them into their final form?”

“Yes.”

The Delivery Man’s biononics performed a deep field function scan on the substance below his feet. Gore was doing exactly the same thing. The plaza was actually a solid cylinder extending nearly five hundred meters down into the city’s bedrock. Its nuclear structure was strange, with strands and sheets of enhanced long-chain molecules twisting and coiling around and through one another like smoke tormented by a hurricane. They were all cold and inert. But they did seem to be affecting the underlying quantum fields to a minute degree, an effect so small that it barely registered.

He’d never seen anything like it before. The smartcore certainly couldn’t identify it or any of the functions the weird molecular arrangements would produce if they went active. When he opened his gaiamotes, he could just sense the elevation mechanism’s soft thoughts, even more abstract than those of the city’s mind. With a despondent curse he knew there was never going to be any possible connection between it and a human. It would take Tyzak or his kind to coax it back to awareness and functionality.

“They really didn’t want anyone to follow them, did they?” Gore said pensively.

“Looks that way.”

“Huh. Then along came me. Right, then.” His hands went onto his hips as he looked up at Tyzak. “Will you ask the machine to switch on for me, please.”

“The machine which separated our ancestors from us is not a part of my life. It has discharged its purpose. The planet has destined us for something different.”

“That’s it? That’s your last word on this?”

“How could it be other?”

“The galaxy may be destroyed if we don’t establish how your ancestors left this universe.”

“That is a story which I would not repeat at any gathering. It lacks foundation in our world.”

“And if I could prove it was true?”

“If that is what awaits this planet, then it is what awaits us also. The planet carries us.”

“Goddamn fatalists,” Gore muttered.

“Now what?” the Delivery Man asked. It was hard to keep a tone of defeat from his voice.

“Stop complaining, start thinking. We’ll just have to hack into it, is all.”

“Hack into it?”

“The control net, not the actual machine. Once you’ve got control of the power switch, you’re in charge, period.”

“But we’re hardly talking about a management processor. This thing is a cross between a confluence nest and metacube network. You can’t subvert it. The bloody thing’s sentient, half-alive.”

“Then we physically chop the connections and insert our own command circuitry into the mechanism itself. Now shut up. Have you run a comparison review of the other fifty-three zero-width wormholes we found?”

“What? I-No.”

“Stay current. Every one of them is right next to an open space like this plaza. In other words, there are at least fifty-four elevation mechanisms on the planet. Makes sense, really. There were too many high-level Anomine for a single gathering point, especially if they really did all come back from their colony worlds. The upgrade to postphysical must have gone on for a long time.”