“Louise, you said you’d show me where I am.”

“All right, Spinner…”

Below the glistening glass the curves of the nightfighter rippled like some immense sculpture. There was Xeelee construction material only feet away from her now, and Lieserl had an urge to reach out and stroke it, as if the ’fighter were some immense, caged animal. But the material was separated from her both by the base of the lifedome and by a layer of hard vacuum — and, she thought ruefully, by a layer of unreality which only Mark Wu and his gadgets could breach.

“You’re thoughtful,” Milpitas said.

She rubbed her chin. “I was thinking how very alive this Xeelee ship looks. Not like a piece of technology at all. This is like some immense ocean beast, trapped beneath a frozen surface; it’s as if I can see muscles beneath that skin of construction material.”

Milpitas grunted. “It’s an attractive image,” he said drily. “Although I’m not entirely sure how helpful it is.”

Lieserl glanced up at the maintenance layer, a fifth of a mile above her, with its tangle of tree roots and plumbing conduits. “Look at that primitive mess up there, by contrast… Lethe’s waters, Milpitas, this was a starship designed to last a thousand years. Some of that design looks as if it predates the Romans.” She sighed. “You know, I caught a few glimpses of human technology, as we advanced over the years after the Northern’s launch. Obviously, we got better with time. But we always — always — ended up carrying our damn plumbing with us. I don’t think humans ever, in their long history, ever came close to matching the simple perfection of this one Xeelee artifact, this nightfighter.”

Milpitas dipped closer to the transparent base surface and peered through it, intent. “Perhaps you are right. But does that imply we should bow down and worship the Xeelee and all their works?”

“No,” she said coldly. “But it does imply that the Xeelee were smarter than we ever were, or could have become.”

She saw his eyebrows rise, through a fraction of an inch; otherwise he didn’t reply.

Now they were close to the rim of the base, near the transparent, curving wall of the loading bay. Here, the broad shoulders of the fighter nestled against the underside of the base; thick bands curled from the base around the ’fighter’s curves and out of sight, hugging the ’fighter against the life-dome.

Milpitas leaned over the control bar of his scooter, peering at the attaching bands. He seemed quite fearless, Lieserl thought with some amusement, now that he was only a few feet above the lifedome base: close to the floor of his rigid, gravity-dominated mental universe.

She allowed herself to sail smoothly along the lines of the Xeelee ship. Shoulders — yes, that was a good label for this part of the ’fighter, at the root of the wings; here, so close to the ship, she had a real sense of being carried, on the broad, strong shoulders of some giant of construction material.

Milpitas straightened up from his inspection.

“So how’s the engineering?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said, without looking up. “That is, within tolerance limits… The creep is minimal today.”

“Creep?”

He studied her. “Perhaps you’re not aware of the problems we faced, fixing the lifedome to this nightfighter. Lieserl, Xeelee construction material is effectively frictionless, and it is harder than any material substance known to us. It’s impervious even to exotic matter… You know we’ve speculated its manufacture may have violated the Pauli Exclusion Principle — ”

“I heard about that.”

“So when we came to attach the lifedome, we couldn’t simply nail a superstructure to the nightfighter. No known adhesive would adhere to the construction material either. So, instead, we constructed a loose cage around the ’fighter.”

Governed by the Northern’s processors, ’bots had drawn in the straps comprising the cage, slowly and steadily tugging the lifedome against the nightfighter.

“So,” the Planner said, “the strap arrangement hugs the nightfighter tightly against us, without fixing us to it. But that’s obviously enough to persuade the ’fighter to carry the lifedome safely through hyperspace.”

“And — creep?”

“Because the cage is not fixed to the ’fighter — and because we are subject to various stresses — the cage’s bands slip over the construction-material surface. They creep. But we have nanobots out there working continually, readjusting the straps and compensating for stress.”

Lieserl nodded. “It’s a smart solution, Milpitas.”

He bowed, sardonically. “Perhaps. But I can’t take the credit for it. I merely implemented the design which — ”

Suddenly she felt a stab of pity for this scarred, stunted man. “Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said on impulse. “Believe me, you’ve achieved so much…”

“For a madman?” he asked disarmingly. He smiled at her. “I know you think I’m a rather foolish, rigid person, Lieserl.”

Startled, she opened her mouth to deny this, but he held up his hand.

“Well, perhaps I am. But I was responsible, in large part, for the teams of ’bots which constructed this frame for the nightfighter. I know that our sensors could tell us much more about the state of the infrastructure which fixes us to this nightfighter than my naked gaze ever could. And yet — ”

“And yet, you feel you want to see it for yourself?” She smiled. “You’re wrong, Planner. You’re not the easiest person I’ve ever had to get along with, but I don’t think you’re a fool to follow your instincts.”

He studied her, coolly appraising. “You believe so?”

“I know so,” she said firmly. “After all, that was the whole point of my stay in the Sun — in fact, the point of my very existence. Plenty of probes were dropped into the Sun ahead of me, and after me. I was sent in so that — at least through a surrogate — human eyes could see what was happening in there.”

He grunted. “Although, it seems, we made precious little use of the insights you gained.”

“That’s as may be.” She laughed. “But I couldn’t control that.”

He studied her. “You may be a surrogate,” he said. “But, Lieserl, despite that your humanity is powerful and obvious.”

That left her confused. She kept her face straight, determinedly. She issued subvocal commands, overriding the autonomic simulation of her face; she was adamant that her cheeks shouldn’t show a hint of coloring. “Thank you,” she said lightly. “Although I’m not sure you need thanks. You’re not proffering compliments, are you? I suspect you don’t praise, Planner; you appraise,” she said.

“Perhaps.” He turned away, closing the subject.

She studied his battered profile. Milpitas gave the impression of a man in control, but maybe he gave away more than he bargained for. With Milpitas, the communication of information was only one function — and a subsidiary one at that — of speech. The real purpose of conversation, for Milpitas, was control. She felt he was constantly fencing with her — testing her sharpness, and strength of will.

This was a man who was used to power, and used to exerting it, even in the most trivial conversation. But what type of person was this who — after centuries of subjective existence — would bother to fence with a tired old Virtual like her?

Milpitas continued his inspection, slowly, methodically.

Perhaps he was a little less than human — less, even, than her, she thought. Still — she conceded warily — there was a core of strength in Milpitas she had to admire.

Milpitas had been forced to watch his world — a world he’d controlled — fall apart, before his eyes. And he’d fought hard to preserve it. But then he’d stopped fighting, when he realized his old world was gone — that his beliefs were actually indefensible.