Chagrined, Rue fell back to the airlock. But Herat didn't know how dire their life-support situation was. Rue's inventory last night had revealed some cracked stack tubes, which was going to reduce the carrying capacity of the Banshee even further. She'd told Crisler about it, but so far the news hadn't percolated down. There was a good chance, though, that this would be their last EVA for a while.

It was pointless to argue with Herat. If this air became crucial to their survival, she would requisition it; he would have no say in the matter. Better just to avoid the confrontation, since it would do no good.

"If the air is breathable, we should at least conserve our suit supplies," she said. It was a small defiance, but saying it made her feel better.

"Good point," said the professor. "Bequith? Can we take off these damnable head-clamps?"

"Yes. We could even renew our suit supplies here; I doubt the Lasa would object to that."

She threw Mike a grateful look, which he probably didn't see as he was in the process of taking off his helmet. She quickly did the same. Her first sniff of this alien air revealed a metallic tang and the faint sharpness she associated with cold and ice. But the air was warm.

"Where's the heat coming from?"

Mike clipped his helmet to a shoulder loop. "In there." He jerked a thumb at the inner sphere.

Crisler and one of the marines had flown over to one of the black circles on the inner sphere. "What do you make of those?" asked Crisler. "Looks like airlocks covering the whole surface. Makes no sense."

"Not human sense, maybe," said Herat. "I'm more interested in why the air is perfect for us. I know how; The lasers must have taken a spectroscopic reading through our faceplates. But why?"

"Like Bequith said," said Crisler. "We were invited in."

Herat was scowling. "That makes a lot less sense than you might think. And what sense it makes isn't good. You might think they want to talk— but Bequith and I have found ample evidence that symbolic communication is only really useful within a species; different intelligent species are usually so different that communication between them is useless at any level above threat/reward signals. We never have anything in common above basic bodily functions, so what's to talk about?"

"What are you saying?"

"Well, Admiral, ask yourself this: Under what circumstances does one organism invite a member of another species into a place?"

Crisler looked alarmed. "When it's trapping the other for a meal."

Herat nodded. "This place has already extracted quite a bit of information about us without asking."

What Herat was saying was unsettling— but Mike shook his head.

"They are asking," he said. "These open doors are an invitation more clear than a symbolic communication. So was the air. They're gestures of friendliness."

"So is the scent on a Venus's flytrap," said Herat.

One of the marines shouted. Rue looked over in time to see him leaping away from the inner sphere. The airlock disk next to him had irised open.

"I just reached out to touch the thing and it opened!" he said. He had his sidearm out and ready.

Silently, all across the surface of the inner sphere, other airlocks opened.

No one moved. All conversation had ceased and they waited to see what would emerge.

Rue was in a position to look directly into the first airlock that had opened. Unlike the outer lock, this and the others had collapsed from disks into rings around the lip of a round opening. The magnetic liquid spiked up in cones and fantastical arcs that must follow the reshaped magnetic field. They were perfectly still, though the surface of the liquid roiled like oil.

The airlock opened into a can-shaped chamber about four meters long and half that wide. At its far end was another, closed, airlock disk. Floating in the center of the space was a large, perfect ball of water.

"The trap opens," muttered the marine.

"Quiet, Barendts," said Crisler.

"Only some of them opened," said Mike quietly. He and Herat had drifted together. Rue jetted over to them; she felt safer next to these experienced alien-hunters.

"I wonder why that is," said Herat, also quietly. "We need to get around the other side and see what's happening there." Rue felt a thrill of fear when he said that; something might be emerging opposite them while they hung here gaping.

Crisler had heard and motioned two marines to move. They reluctantly jetted off around the small horizon of the sphere, appearing a minute later from the other direction. The one Crisler had called Barendts shook his blond head. "Some open doors; funny things inside, but nothing moving."

"What kind of things?" asked Herat.

"Balls of water with various amounts of mud in it. Dirt in a couple. Sand. That kind of thing."

"This is insane," said Crisler.

Mike and Herat were grinning at one another. "Actually, it makes perfect sense," said Herat. "This is an attempt to communicate, though there's no way to know whether the ultimate aim is hostile or not. In any other situation I'd say it was a trap— but we have evidence of multispecies cooperation outside. Maybe…"

"This? Communication?" Crisler shook his head.

"Not symbolic communication," said Herat. "Physical communication— the kind most species use between one another. It's more universal and reliable than language. Of course the Lasa would use it for first contact! The only reason we never have is because we're…"

"Stupid?" said Mike with a small grin.

"I was going to say, 'infected with a number of academic prejudices, " said Herat. "But 'stupid' will do."

They were acting like such boys now. It was infuriating, considering everything that was at stake. "Speaking of stupid," said Rue, "are we going to investigate or float here gabbing? Let's check these things out."

"Not so fast," said Herat in his most condescending tone. "We don't know which questions to ask yet."

"What questions? Just send the bot into one of these doorways!"

Herat looked indignant, but Mike had that subtle little smile going again. "I can do that," he said. He concentrated for a moment and the glittering little mesobot scooted over to the nearest open door.

Rue accessed the inscape feed from the bot. It roved around the surface of the meter-sized ball of pure water that was the only contents of the chamber. There was no piece of scrip with a message written on it, no readout screens, no arrows pointing anywhere— but there was a latch next to the inner door, similar to the one on the outside airlock.

They retrieved the bot and sent it into several more open doors. Rue watched the proceedings with growing impatience. Michael and Herat had turned into plodding researchers like the rest of the science team— taking no chances, noting down pointless details, like small differences in lighting and temperature in the various cells. Each cylindrical chamber held a different sample of material: salt water in one, epsom-salted water in another, a cloud of dry silicate sand in a third. None of it even hinted at a way to control the vast cycler scattered through thousands of kilometers of space around her. It was all beside the point, but the scientists didn't seem to care.

Finally, after Rue had descended to nagging, Herat shrugged and said, "Let's try one of the inner doors. The question is, which one?"

"What do we need most?" she shot back. "That should be our prime consideration."

"That's shortsighted, Rue. We need to know what kind of question this place is asking us before we can answer."

"It's asking us what we like. Salt water or pure water, or no water," she said. "Isn't that right?"

"Well… probably…"

"So what do we like? Pure water, right?"

"Well…"

"As captain of the Envy I am ordering you to pick a chamber for us to investigate further."