The professor glowered, but after a minute said, "The pure-water one, then. We really don't know enough to—"

She held up a hand, conscious of Crisler's eyes on her. "We are not going to know the right answer, Professor, because we've been given a choice. This isn't about what the Lasa want us to do— it's about what we want. Let's try the water room."

"All right. Let's trip the switch."

Crisler held up a hand. "Not you, Professor. We don't know whether it's safe."

"I'll do it," said Barendts. Crisler nodded and the marine entered the small cylindrical room. He contorted his way around the water sphere and, without preamble, tripped the switch next to the inside airlock.

A splashing sound echoed through the interhull, like many glasses of water being tipped on the floor simultaneously. Rue had been watching Barendts, so she'd missed it: All the other other open doors had collapsed closed.

"Getting power readings from inside," said Michael.

"It's not opening," said Barendts.

"Weird," said another of the marines. "This is just weird."

"Hey! There's more doors opening!"

Rue looked away from the chamber containing Barendts. All across the sphere, other round airlocks had opened. These were different ones from those that had been open a moment ago. She smelled metallic odors, ozone, and sulphur. All the new doors contained floating balls of mud.

"Question. Response," muttered Herat. "New question."

"But what was the question?" asked Crisler. "And what was our response?"

Herat shook his head. "I… have no idea."

"WE ARE ONE step ahead of the souvenir-collectors," the professor said some hours later, as they were settling in to the little camp of balloon-tents they'd tethered next to the airlock. Nothing new had happened since Barendts opened the inner door; the Lasa machinery seemed quiescent, so Michael had gone with two of the marines and brought back the rest of the science team and some supplies. Between this place and Lake Flaccid, he mused, they could have years of investigation ahead of them.

Except, of course, that they would only be here a few more months.

"Look at this place," Herat went on, gesturing through the mesh of the tent foyer at the smooth metal walls. "Are you really going to make this into a habitat of your cycler, Rue?"

She sighed. "You've got me all wrong. What would be the point of reworking this place? It would take more equipment to scour out and refit these habitats than it would to ship up new quarters."

Herat grunted. "It's just a shame that this place is so inaccessible."

Rue stretched and yawned. "Inaccessible? Only to your people, Dr. Herat."

"Uh oh, there they go," Michael said to Barendts as Herat worked up a response. The marine grinned; of all Crisler's men, he was the only one who hadn't become frosty in his relations with Michael since the sabotage.

Michael climbed out of the tent and did a hand-walk up one of the ropes next to the inner sphere. He felt they were safe here, at least as long as they didn't flip any switches. This place seemed purely reactive; their act of entering through the airlock had stimulated a response, as had other actions they'd taken. As long as they touched nothing, nothing would happen.

It wasn't a frightening environment, anyway. Not like Dis had been. Dis was a place of death, so old that objects that had come together in the ancient past had become fused. He remembered finding the mummified corpse of some kind of animal, cemented to a floor in the tunnels.

It had been stupid of him to call the kami of that place. Of course it would scar him.

Having reached the horizon of the inner sphere, Michael let himself drift out into the center of the interhull space. One of the little models floated nearby; they'd spent an hour photographing those from every angle, but still no one had touched one. To do so, he suspected, would be to awaken some new Lasa response.

He felt an old itch at the base of his brain. The NeoShinto AI was awake, preparing to skew his neural pathways in the direction of a mystical experience. All he had to do was give it a subject to focus on.

Michael hesitated. This was what he had come here to do. Ever since Dis, Michael had felt uncomfortable in his own skin; he was adrift, because the kami of Dis dominated his consciousness. He had wracked his brains, but could think of no other way to get that feeling back than to find and contact stronger kami.

He looked back at the camp. Herat was looking at him; the professor nodded slightly. Herat knew what he was going to try. Michael felt a surge of affection for the older man and grinned. It would annoy the hell out of Crisler if he realized what Michael was doing— but they were on the Envy now, and Michael was under Rue's protection. Remembering this decided him.

Jetting over the horizon so that the camp was out of sight, he found a spot where the cables the marines had strung weren't visible. All he saw was the curving Lasa space itself. One of the marines followed him, looking suspicious, but Michael turned his back on the man. He opened his eyes wide, let go of verbal thought and tried to become pure awareness.

The AI took over smoothly; Michael felt his consciousness expand to fill the cool geometric perfection of the habitat. He thought he heard a sighing laughter echoing off the chamber's walls— the sound of something ancient shrugging awake for a moment.

For a few seconds he felt a swelling sense of wonder; that wasn't hard, considering where he was. He waited for it to translate into something more, but it didn't happen. All he got was a sense of something watching— a mind vast and cool and ultimately indifferent.

Michael blinked, staring at the metal walls. No. He couldn't leave things as they were. He had to find the kami again. He shut his eyes and consciously awoke the implants. Show me!

Nothing happened.

Michael squeezed his hands into fists. He felt trapped. But it was not the implants that were at fault, he knew. How could he find the kami anymore, now that he no longer believed in the doctrines of Permanence?

For a long time he hung there, bent over, hearing faint sounds of conversation echoing over the horizon, but uncaring to listen. Then, gradually, shame overtook him. Here he was in one of the most incredible alien artifacts of all time and he wasn't even looking at it. He was hardly here at all, in fact, so preoccupied was he with his own problems. No wonder he couldn't sense any kami; he hadn't formed any connection with this place.

Maybe. But if I did, would the kami help me?

He stared upward for several minutes, deliberately taking note of the fine details of the metal walls, the drifting models. Then he shook his head, shrugged at the marine who had watched this performance, and jetted back to the campsite.

"Did you get it?" asked the professor.

"No," he said. He tried to say more, but the words wouldn't come. Finally he just shook his head. "No, I failed."

"Failed at what?" asked Rue.

"It doesn't matter." He drifted down slightly apart from the others. Rue cast him a puzzled look, but didn't say anything more.

Herat also looked over. "Let's turn in," he suggested. "Tomorrow will probably be a long day."

They retreated to the interior of the tent; Barendts hung by the door, obviously not intending to sleep. Michael curled up and tried to dispel the sensation of falling. He could hear Rue breathing a few centimeters away.

For some reason, he thought about Rue's tale of the Supreme Meme. What would happen if he applied that little test to his beliefs? Would they come up short? Probably. Probably.

How would you have to feel? The words seemed to bounce around inside his skull, like a catchy advertising jingle. How would you have to feel, to want it all again?