Rue shrugged angrily. "But I wasn't responsible for all you guys then."

"We can look after ourselves, you know." The words stung. "I'm not saying you're not a wonderful captain— you are— it's just that you've got to learn that your responsibility ends where our ability to think for ourselves begins. You're upset about Max putting himself in cold storage, aren't you?"

"Of course I am! I should have taken better care of him."

Rebecca shook her head. "You did all you could for him. After a certain point, how he takes the help you give him is up to him. Max's problems run too deep for you or I to help him. We can be supportive; and ultimately you were, when you allowed him to put himself on ice."

Rue sat back, absorbing the words. They were silent for a long time; then Rue said, almost against her will, "Then I don't know what it means to be captain. Rebecca, I don't get it."

"You will. Just… not tonight." Rebecca pointed imperiously in the direction of the staterooms. "Now go to sleep. I want to see you fresh in the morning."

"Yes, doctor," said Rue unhappily. "Beck, I… I'm glad you're here."

Rebecca hugged her and Rue sailed back to her room, feeling a little lighter, though no less confused.

Rebecca was right, though; Rue had no picture in her mind of what her life would be like after this expedition. No picture at all. Success or failure seemed the same to her— a blank.

She resented Rebecca's insight, so when she strapped herself into bed, Rue fought down all thought— since to think would be to think about the question Rebecca had raised— and soon fell fast asleep.

THEY APPROACHED THE Lasa habitat in three sleds. This was the largest party to visit any of the Envy's strange, self-entombed vessels; even Crisler was along this time. That was unfortunate, because the admiral had made it plain that he considered Michael a renegade now, and the marines were watching every move he made. That would make it difficult for him to execute his little plan. He remained stubbornly determined, however. Crisler had made him angry.

The slowly spinning habitat glowed beautifully in the floodlights— a finely iridescent black, like velvet, with crimson lettering set in it in discrete islands. By Michael's reckoning, they were approaching from the side opposite to the side whose photos had been faked. On the face of it, this made sense: They were simply approaching the pole of the spinning ball that faced the Banshee.

When they were a hundred meters away, Michael said, "Let's take a quick orbit of the place. That way we can get a higher quality photomosaic."

"I don't think that'll be necessary, Bequith." Interesting— that was Crisler's voice.

"The more detail we have the better analysis we can make," he retorted. A couple of the scientists murmured in agreement.

"All right, then," said Crisler. That was a bit surprising.

He reached down into a thigh pouch and drew out the camera Rue had lent him. The mirror he left in the pouch. If for some reason they were not allowed to make this orbit, he had been planning to toss the mirror and try to photograph the far side of the habitat in its reflection. He was almost disappointed at not getting the chance to be so devious.

Maybe it was someone on Chandaka who had faked the Lasa photos, in which case all his caution was unnecessary. Maybe it was the saboteur… He should know in a few seconds.

The far side of the habitat rotated into view and the floodlights played over it. Michael had an inscape window open with the existing photomosaic in it and he looked at this, then at the habitat, then back at the mosaic.

"Gods and kami," he murmured. The full paragraph came into view and it was exactly the same as the one in the photos.

Was this somebody's idea of a joke? — take a photomosaic and doctor it to look like something had been faked when nothing had? Or had Blair just copied four pictures to complete an incomplete photomosaic? That was so sloppy as to be ridiculous— and Blair himself had insisted his photo documentary was complete. He had not missed this side of the sphere.

Michael looked over at sled two, which was briefly silhouetted against the red script. The third figure back was Rue Cassels. She was turned his way, a human shaped erasure of the lettering. He made an exaggerated shrug. She turned away.

It didn't make any sense. Frustrated, he aimed the camera and took a few shots of the paragraph anyway.

They returned to the «north» pole of the habitat— the one facing the Banshee. There was an airlock here, but not at the «south» pole, which only had a ring tying down the cord to the plow sail.

This airlock was of the same design as the one at Lake Flaccid. The iridescent black material of the hull gave way to a burnished metal ring— beryllium, Salas had declared— with the familiar black disk inside it like the pupil of a giant eye.

"Hold up here," said Crisler. The three sleds braked to a stop a meter from the lock. Michael took a flashlight and shone it on the black surface of the sphere. He was astonished to see that the surface was not smooth. "It's fur," he said. "The thing is covered in fur."

He reached out to touch it, even as Katz was saying something about fur being a better insulator in vacuum than air. The fine black pelt didn't seem to give at all under his touch. He pushed harder and felt a sudden sting in his fingertips.

"Damn!" He pulled his hand back. A red diagnostic window popped open, telling him he'd suffered a minor breach of suit integrity.

"What happened?" asked Crisler.

"It's hard as diamond— it poked me right through the glove."

"Well, nobody touch it, then."

The red writing was apparently bald hull. Very weird. While the others focused on finding the latch for the airlock, he swept his light along a long swath of hull. Now he could see texture to the fur, as if it had been mussed by the hand of a passing giant. It was like the back of some enormous, sleeping creature.

"Here it is," said one of the marines.

"Good work, Barendts." Crisler and Herat drifted over to the man. Without hesitation Herat reached out and put his hand in the switch hollow. The black disk roiled in a now-familiar manner.

Crisler put his arm out to block Herat's way. "We should send in a mesobot first."

"I suppose you're right." Herat gestured to Michael, who fetched a fist-sized explorer from the sled. Herat pushed it into the liquid material of the lock, letting go only when he was up to his elbow. "That's got it."

Michael made a public inscape window of the mesobot's camera readout and put it next to the lock. Everyone gathered around to watch. For the first few moments there was nothing to see but blackness.

"Registering magnetic field— very strong," said Herat. "And the walls are vibrating. Temperature rising rapidly… this place is alive, whatever it is." The little mesobot's lights came on, illuminating a metal wall several centimeters away; it swiveled around at Michael's command.

There was a collective intake of breath among the watchers. In the window, a large curving space appeared, cluttered with drifting debris. "Look at that crap," said the marine Barendts. "Something must have blew up."

"No." Michael skewed the camera around again. Now it was clear what the curving space was. The outer hull of the Lasa habitat was separated by a space of at least five meters from an inner sphere which was made of white metal. This inner sphere had no writing on it; instead, it was covered with hundreds of outward-dimpling airlock doors, one every four meters across the whole visible surface.

The space between the hulls contained various freely drifting objects. They were mostly spherical, but some were torus or bolo-shaped. Michael stared at one for a few seconds, trying to puzzle out what it was.