"You've never cooked before?"

             "Our machines do that."

             "How can machines know what tastes good?"

             Alvin explained, "They have something better: good taste."

             "Ha!"

             Alvin looked off^ended. "Diaspar has programs handed down from the greatest chefs."

             "I'd rather stir the coals and turn the meat myself."

             "You do not trust machines?"

             "Only so far as I have to."

             "But it was an Ur-human subspecies that set us on the road of technology."

             She spat out a piece of gristle. "Has its limits, though. Think it's done you a lot of good?"

             Alvin looked blank. "It kept us alive."

             "It kept you in a bottle, like a museum exhibit. Only nobody came to see."

             Alvin frowned. "And I broke out."

             Cley liked the way the flickering firelight cooked flavors and heat into the air, clasping them all in a perfumed veil. Something deeply human responded to this woodsmoke redolence. It touched Alvin, smoothed his face. Seeker sucked in the smoky bouquet, licking the air.

             "Did you ever wonder why nobody ever came to visit the museum?"

             Alvin looked startled. "Why, no."

             "Maybe they were too busy getting things done," she said.

             "Out here?"

             She could see that no matter how intelligent these Supras were, they also had values and associations that were virtually hard-wired into them. "Sure. Look at that—" She gestured at the translucent bowl above, where Jove spun like a colossal living firework. "—And tell me dried-up old Earth was a better idea."

             Alvin said nothing for a long time. Then, "I see. I had thought that human destiny turned upon the pivot of Diaspar."

             "It did," Seeker said. Alvin twitched as though something had prodded him; Cley suspected he had forgotten that Seeker was there. "But that is only a partial story."

             Alvin looked penetratingly at Seeker. "I have long suspected that you represent something . . . unknown. I extensively interrogated the archives of Diaspar about your species. You evolved during a time when humans were relatively unambitious."

             Seeker said softly, "They had done great damage to themselves. Remorse tinged them. But only for a while."

             Alvin nodded. "Still, our records did not show such a high intelligence as you display."

             "You still think of traits lodged in individuals, in species," Seeker said.

             "Well, of course. That defines species, nearly."

             Seeker asked, "And if a trait is shared among many species simultaneously?"

             Alvin shook his head. "By telepathy, like that of Lys?"

             "Or more advanced."

             "Well, that might alter the character of intelligence, granted."

             Alvin's face took on his librarian's precise, pensive cast, his cheeks hollowing as though he contracted into himself. "I wonder if such talents could arise naturally."

             "They do," Seeker said. "I am a member of a larger system. So are you, but you do not communicate well—a typical characteristic of early evolved intelligences."

             Alvin's mouth turned up in an irked curve. "People seem to feel I speak fairly clearly."

             "People do, yes."

             Alvin smiled stiffly. "We re-created you ourselves, made you whole from the Library of Life. Sometimes I think we erred somehow."

             "Oh no!" Seeker barked happily. "It was your best idea."

             "The records say you were solely suited for Earth."

             "Wrong," Seeker said.

             "That would explain why you move so easily in space."

             "Not entirely." Seeker's eyes danced merrily.

             "You have other connections?"

             "With everything. Don't you?"

             Alvin shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't think so."

             "Then do not think so much."

             Cley laughed, but at the back of her mind a growing tenor cry demanded attention. "Something's . . ."

             Seeker nodded. "Yes."

             She felt the Supras of Lys now, Seranis just one among many cascading voices. They formed tight links, some in their ships, some in this Leviathan, others dispersed among Jonahs and Leviathans and the churning life-mats of the Jove system.

             "How quickly does it approach?" Alvin asked urgently. The earlier mood was broken, his doubts momentarily dispelled. Now he was cool efficiency.

             "I can't tell." Cley frowned. "There are refractions. ... Is it possible that the Mad Mind can move even faster than light?"

             "That is but one of its achievements," Alvin said, concern creasing his forehead. "We humans attained that long ago, but only for small volumes, ships. The Mad Mind was limited, as are the magnetic beings. This great fact ordains that the linking of the natural magnetic minds proceeds slowly across the galaxy. Nothing so large can move faster than light. Or so we thought."

             "That's how the Mind finally got out of the Black Sun, isn't it?" Cley asked. She caught thin shouts of alarm in her mind.

             "It used the quantum vacuum," Alvin said. His cheeks hollowed again with a cast of relief. The chance to be secure in his knowledge, Cley guessed.

             Alvin leaned forward, his eyes soft as he peered into the dying firelight. "On average, empty space has zero energy. But by enclosing a volume with a sphere of conducting plasma, the Mad Mind prevented the creation of waves with wavelengths larger than that volume. These missing waves gave the vacuum a net negative energy, and allowed formation of a wormhole in space-time. All such processes are ruled by probabilities requiring great calculation. Yet through that hole the Mad Mind slithered."

             "To our solar system," Cley concluded.

             "Never before has a magnetic mind done this," Alvin said. "It escaped from the prison of time—a feat on such a scale that even the Empire did not anticipate."

             Seeker whispered, "Coincidence, Alvin?" This was the first time Cley had ever heard Seeker use the name. There was a tinge of pity in the beast's voice, or what she took for that.

             Alvin's head jerked up. He flicked a suspicious glance at Seeker. "The thought occurred to us, too. Why should the Mad Mind emerge now?"

             "Just as you're getting free of Earth again?" Cley asked.

             "Exactly," Alvin said. "So we studied all the physical evidence. Observed the path of damage the Mad Mind has wrecked as it left the galactic center." He hesitated. "And made a guess."

             Seeker said, "It was you."

             Alvin's eyes shifted away from the waning fire, as though he sought refuge in the gloom surrounding them. "Perhaps so. I found V^anamonde. The exuberance of anamonde was so great at being discovered! That sent magnetosonic twists through the whorls of an entire galactic arm. 1 hese reached the Mad Mind in its cage. To see