"Everyone fall back to the main lock," ordered Crisler. "Now!"

With a sinking feeling, Michael realized what must have happened. He counted heads, then checked the view from the mesobot just to be sure.

Then he said, with some hesitation, "has anybody seen Rue?"

THE BIG QUESTION had been, was she acting from impulsive anger like she had when she ran away to the plow sail— or was Rue right when she thought that they should open the next chamber now? She perched outside the entrance to the green ball for a long time, tugging back and forth at the issue.

She was still a bit ashamed of how she'd acted after the sabotage. Rue couldn't decide whether she'd been right about Crisler; logic and, well, everybody else said she had overreacted. He hadn't been about to lock her up with her crew, that was just a paranoid fantasy.

But it wasn't paranoia now that made her think they were at the limit of what they could do. The Banshee's life support was continuing to degrade and in a day or so it would all be over. Rue would have to go into that terrible half-sleep stupor along with Max and the others and when she awoke they would be decelerating into the empty Maenad system, from there to return to Chandaka. And Rue would be poor again and there would never be another chance to return to Jentry's Envy, or in all likelihood the halo either.

So Herat's caution be damned. I'm right, she thought as she swung herself into the narrow cylindrical chamber that held the chlorophyll-green cabbage thing.

Edging around the tangle of leaves/vanes, which looked ready to pounce, she found herself at the black disk of the chamber's inner airlock.

There were two switches here. In the earlier chambers there had only been one; logic suggested that they should open the inner airlock door, but when tripped they had made the other outside chambers open and close. Here were two switches— but one of them was right next to the door itself, the other several hand-spans distant. This time, she was sure, she could open the inner door if she wanted.

But why would she want to? Rue looked back at the giant cabbage, wondering what question she was supposed to be answering by tripping the switches here. These living things were obviously not attempts to re-create humans from their DNA; unless the Lasa mind behind this place was an idiot, it could see that its productions didn't resemble people. Its previous questions seemed to have been about human preferences in environment— what kind of water they liked and what kind of soil. By that logic, this time the question was 'what kind of food do you like'?

Tentatively, she broke a small piece of leaf off the cabbage and nibbled it. Herat would kill her if he saw her doing this— but the mesobot had investigated this thing and said it wasn't poisonous.

It had no real taste, which was reassuring, actually. She chewed and swallowed.

"Okay." Of all the weird life-forms in these chambers, this one seemed most benign. That made her answer clear, at least on a gut level. It was increasingly clear to her that it was the gut-level answer that the Lasa were looking for.

She reached out, hesitated, and pressed the switch next to the inner airlock door.

With a splash the door irised open, really before she could register the fact that she had made an irreversible and maybe critical, decision. Rue found herself staring into a new chamber, one level further into the inner sphere of the habitat.

"Well, well, what have we here?" She pulled herself in.

This chamber was spherical, about four meters across. It had eight airlock doors in its walls. Floating in front of each airlock was a model, like the ones in the interhull. These models, however, were made of something transparent and each one held a tiny ball of leaves and earth, lit by tiny pinprick lamps inside it.

"Oh boy." This was major. She glanced back up the cylinders, wondering whether she should get the others in here now. Like as not Herat would want her locked up for what she'd just done— but damn it, this was her ship…

The outermost airlock door was closed.

"Hey!" Rue flew back to the door and pressed her hand against it. Her fist deformed the liquid slightly, then slid about friction-lessly on it. She couldn't push through it and there was no switch on this side.

"Oh, Meadow-Rue, you've done it this time." She almost laughed, it was so pathetic. She was on her own now.

Rue returned to the round chamber. Her heart was pounding, but she was more excited than scared now. The Lasa had locked her in, but she didn't think arms were going to come out of the wall to dissect her. If that had been the Lasa's intention, they would have done it a year ago, when she first arrived here.

No, this room was another question and she needed to answer it. Summoning her determination, she hand-walked over to the nearest model and examined it gingerly. This was a half-meter wide sphere, a little crystal ball, really, with a miniature version of the cabbage growing from a wet ball of earth in its center. There were little openings in the crystal; she put her nose to one and sniffed. It smelled like a terrarium, of wet soil.

The little plant was lit by eight tiny lights that were mounted in the outer crystal. It was beautiful, but what was most intriguing was the tiny black disks near the lights.

If Rue was right, then she knew exactly what the Lasa were asking her this time. Excitement mounting, she went to another model— this one a less beautiful can-shaped thing.

She could only see through the transparent end caps of this model. Its soil and water were distributed around the inside walls, with tiny grasslike plants innermost, basking under the light of a string of lamps strung down the can's center.

She checked the other models quickly. There was a cube, a doughnut shape, a flattened sphere. She came back to the can, though it was really the ugliest of the lot.

"This is perfect," she said aloud and pressed the switch for the door next to the can.

THEY WERE ALL outside now. The black airlock liquid had expanded in arcs and curving spikes, until it filled the entire interhull; the last marine was literally squeezed out through the lock. Michael now hung in space with the others, their jittery spotlights flitting across the placid face of the habitat as they talked excitedly about this development.

He felt sick. Rue was in there, devoured by the black liquid. There was no doubt in Michael's mind that she had tripped a switch and been caught like a mouse in a trap. He shouldn't have left her to brood.

Crisler's voice came loudly through his earphones. "Okay, people, we're falling back to one kilometer. The Banshee's weapons are on-line and trained on this place. If it looks like it's going to open fire on us, we'll have to hit it first with everything we've got."

"That's insane," said Herat. "We haven't found any evidence of hostile intent in this place."

"Except that your precious Lasa have just eaten Rue Cassels."

"Beware of using loaded terms, Admiral. We don't know what just happened. We certainly don't know it was a hostile act."

"You were the one urging caution before."

"I was saying we shouldn't act without certain knowledge and I still am."

"Sirs," said one of the marines. "The airlock's overflowing."

"Everybody back! Now!"

Reluctantly, Michael turned on his maneuvering thrusters and jetted back with the rest. When he was in place at Crisler's one-kilometer line, he turned and looked back at the habitat.

It was hard to see unless you knew what to look for, but the smooth black of the habitat's hull was being replaced by the oily shimmer of the magnetic liquid. It was being pumped out through the airlock and was slicking rapidly over the furred hull. Frightening as it was to look at, Michael had to admire the genius behind it: Using ferrofluids, the Lasa could make their airlock grow big enough to bring the entire habitat inside it. Its spiky outthrusts showed that this liquid had to follow the lines of the magnetic fields— it couldn't be filling all the space under its surface. He pictured a large and growing chamber inside; anything could be happening there.