Rickets. Was it possible that such a curse had been allowed to return to the Earth? Poole’s heart moved.

"You are Michael Poole. I am honored to meet you."

"And you’re Jaar — the guide Shira promised?"

"I am a physical sciences specialist. I trust you slept peacefully."

"Not very." Poole grinned. "I have too many questions."

Jaar nodded with the solemnity of the young. "You have a fine mind, Mr. Poole; it is natural for you to question—"

"And," Poole went on sharply, "Shira said she’d send someone who could provide answers."

Jaar smiled obscurely, and in that expression Poole recognized something of the abstractedness of Shira. Jaar seemed disengaged, uninterested in this little duel, or indeed in any form of interpersonal contact. It was as if he had much more important things weighing on his mind.

"Shira did say that there was little purpose trying to hide from you anything whose existence you had already deduced."

"So you’ve been sent along to humor an old man?"

"No one sent me, Mr. Poole," Jaar said. "I volunteered for the honor."

"It’s me who’s honored, Jaar."

With a little bow Jaar invited Poole to walk with him; side by side, they strolled across the pink-stained grass toward the heart of the earth-craft.

Poole said, "You’re only the second Friend I’ve met… and yet you seem very similar, in disposition, to Shira. Forgive my rudeness, Jaar, but are all you Friends so alike?"

"I don’t think so, Mr. Poole."

"Call me Michael. But you have an inner calm, a strange certainty — even after running the gauntlet of the Qax Navy; even after falling willy-nilly through a hole in spacetime…"

"I am sure that what we have come here to do is right."

Poole nodded. "Your Project. But you’re not allowed to tell me what that is."

"I’m something of a scientist myself; like you, I was born with the curse of an inquiring mind. It must be infuriating to have an area of knowledge blocked from you like this… I apologize." Jaar’s smile was smooth, bland, unyielding; his bald head seemed oddly egglike to Poole, seamless and lacking information. "But you must not think we are all alike, Michael. The Friends are from very different backgrounds, disparate circumstances. Granted we were selected for this mission on the grounds of youth and physical fitness, so we share those characteristics; but perhaps we seem similar to you simply because we are from such a removed reference frame. Perhaps the differences between us are diminished by our distance from you."

"Perhaps," Poole said, and he laughed. "But I’m not naive, lad."

"I’m sure that’s so," Jaar said smoothly. "And yet, without AS technology, none of us shares your two hundred years, Mr… Michael." For a precious second he sounded almost mischievous. "Perhaps you simply aren’t used to the company of young people."

Poole opened his mouth… then closed it again, feeling vaguely embarrassed. "Maybe you’re right." he said.

They walked silently for a while.

An inner calm, a strange certainty… Poole wondered if the mysterious purpose of this mission could have some mystical, or religious, content; perhaps it wasn’t the scientific or engineering project he had first assumed. He had a sudden bizarre image of the battered stones of the henge being aligned with a sunrise over the cloudy limb of Jupiter…

There were certainly elements of a religious devotion among these strange young people. Their blanked-out demeanor, their lack of hope for themselves, he thought. Yes, that was the key to it. Somehow they had no dreams of personal gain, or happiness, in all this. Perhaps the mission plan called for them to sacrifice their lives, Poole wondered; and now he imagined the fragile earth-craft, its mission over, plunging into the forbidding depths of the Jovian atmosphere, ancient menhirs tumbling away like matchsticks.

But what religious sect would style itself the Friends of Wigner?

They reached the "village" that surrounded the ancient henge at the heart of the earth-craft. Jaar led Poole past cones, cylinders, and cubes, all a few feet above head height and composed of the dove-gray Xeelee substance, and scattered in rough rows over the grass. Save for the doorways cut into the buildings it was, thought Poole, like wandering through the play pit of some monstrous child. Knots of young people moved about their tasks calmly and unhurriedly; some of them bore the flat, compact computing devices Berg had called "slates."

They reached a hemispherical hut, anonymous among the rest. "What’s this?" Poole asked. "Home, sweet home? No offense, but I ate enough seaweed with Shira yesterday—"

Jaar laughed, not unpleasantly. "No, Michael; though I would be honored if you would be my guest in my quarters later. This building is for access."

"Access?"

"To the interior of the earth-craft. To the plane of singularities." Jaar studied him, seeming puzzled. "That’s what you wanted to see, wasn’t it?"

Poole smiled. "What are we waiting for?"

They stepped into the dome, Jaar ducking to bring his head under the razor-sharp lintel. Poole felt light on his feet here, almost buoyant; the surface gravity must be a little less than outside. Inside the dome was a slim cylinder that sat on a floor of Xeelee material. A doorway was cut into the cylinder.

Jaar climbed into the cylinder, hunching his thin shoulders; Poole followed. Silently a panel slid over the entrance, sealing them in. The cylinder was cramped, seamless. There was a diffuse, pearly light, but Poole could find no source; it was a little like being inside a neon tube, he thought.

Poole was aware of Jaar studying him with a kind of amused patience. Now Jaar smiled. "This is an elevator. The terminology hasn’t changed since your day. It will take us into the interior."

Poole nodded, feeling oddly nervous; he wasn’t exactly used to exposing himself to the possibility of physical danger. "Right. So we’re over an elevator shaft, cut through the plane of singularities. Hence the reduced gravity."

Jaar seemed to respond to his nervousness. "If you’re not ready—"

"You don’t have to coddle me along, Jaar."

"All right." Jaar touched a section of blank wall. He did not try to hide what he was doing from Poole, even though he must have been aware that Poole would memorize every moment of this trip.

There was no noise. But the floor seemed to fall away. Poole’s stomach lurched and, without intending to, he reached behind himself for the stability of the wall.

Jaar murmured, "It will pass."

Now, as Poole floated, a band of pressure passed up the length of his body: but it was an inverse, negative pressure, like the pressures of exotic matter, which pulled his stomach and chest outward rather than compress them.

Jaar still watched him steadily with his blank brown eyes. Poole kept his face carefully blank. Damn it, he should have been prepared for this; as Jaar had said he’d deduced the structure of the interior of the craft already. "The plane of singularities," he said, his voice reasonably steady. "We’re passing through it. Right?"

Jaar nodded approvingly. "And the pressure you feel about your chest is the gravitational attraction of the singularities. When you stand on the surface of the earth-craft the plane is below you and draws you down, so simulating the gravitational field of the Earth; but here in the interior of the craft the plane is all around us."

The sharp gravitational plane had reached Poole’s neck now; absurdly he found himself raising his head, as if trying to keep his head above a gravitational sea.

Jaar said, "Now, Michael — be ready. You may want to anchor yourself to the walls, as before."

"This time I’ve worked it out. We’re going to tip over. Right?"