Killeen said sincerely, “We do thank you. We—”

“You’ll be paying for all this later, Captain, so don’t overdo the sincerity. Right now—”

“Who made this, this ‘esty’ of yours?” Toby burst in. “You people?” He looked doubtfully down at the man.

“Made it?” The dwarf shrugged. “It’s always been here.”

“How could it?” Toby demanded. “I mean, smack up against a black hole, the biggest in the galaxy—”

“Look, there’s things you flatlanders don’t grasp, kid. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ask who made the esty when it has its own timeline anyway, see?”

Toby didn’t. “I just want to know—”

“Enough! Come on, you scrimmage, we’ve got to get you filtered.” The dwarf had led them into a narrow little room. “Won’t take long.”

The walls were porous yellow sponge. Toby was still puzzling over the dwarf’s remarks. When Killeen started to say something the dwarf stepped lightly outside, smirking. A concealed sheet slid down, clicking shut.

Cermo said with alarm, “He’s trapped us. What if—”

Abruptly the air seemed to compress around them. Then it reversed, screeching down in pressure, popping their ears. An array of lenses in the ceiling showered them with quick flashes of brilliant, brittle light. Toby squeezed his eyes shut but the flashes stung his face and hands.

This went on a long while. Bishops shouted, threatened to blow a hole in the wall—but Killeen ordered them to stop. “No obvious threat here. Stand fast.”

A humming presence seemed to probe at their skins with unseen hands. Blunt inspections traced among weapons, bodygear, clothes. Toby tried to see where this was coming from. His sensorium told him nothing but a noisy hash of meaningless signals. He was looking at a spot on the wall when suddenly a circular hole opened in it and rapidly grew. Soon it was a new doorway.

Beyond stood the dwarf, looking bored.” You’re reasonably clean. None of those mech spore-spies we’ve been getting lately. Where’d you say you were from?”

They bumped and elbowed each other in their haste to get out of the cramped room. From long habit, Bishops preferred the open. Killeen said with studied neutrality, “Who wants to know?”

“Ummm?” Among a menu of irritating mannerisms, the dwarf had a habit of staring off into space, as if consulting an Aspect. A polite Bishop would have at least glanced at who was speaking to him. “Oh, I thought I said: I’m Andro, scut-work specialist supreme. I make sure you don’t drag in too many proffo-plagues, siggos, or microeyeballs.”

“Siggos?” Toby asked.

“You’re post-Arc, right? Still, shoulda heard about this. Siggos are esty bombs, cute li’l mech gizmos. Nasty, about the size of a skin cell—which’s what they look like. Can blow a hole in just about any esty we got.”

“How many of these esty—?” Killeen began, but Andro was already marching away with dwarf-fast steps. Toby saw that since the man was closer to the ground, he could just sort of skate along, hardly bothering to lift his feet. The gravity here was lighter than Argo’s, and the officers, abubble with excitement and confusion, bounded too high on each step.

Toby guessed “post-Arc” meant after the Arcology Eras. This impatient dwarf knew their history?

“Where are we going?” Killeen called after Andro.

“Scrub-dub.”

Which proved to be like being held under a microscope and poked at by giants. The dwarf turned toward them, chattering a rapid-fire explanation, walking backwards—and clapped his hands.

Something scooped Toby up, jabbed and snipped and smelled him. Without any apparent cause, his clothes wriggled and twisted and got free of him. They vanished, flapping away into the clotted air. He shouted, and heard only an echo. Then a web of snaky stuff held him upside down while living, sticky strings ran all over his body, into his ears and even more intimate orifices. Still upside down, with his arms pinned below his head by a soft but insistent clamshell, he got a bath. Fragrant, flowery, ferocious. It, too, worked into every crevice he knew and several that felt like fresh ideas.

The clamshell let go. He fell—and plunged into a green soup. He emerged sputtering, only to be hauled ashore on a sandy beach by a pulse of magnetic fields. It seized on his many metal implants and sucked him across the gritty purple sand—which lapped up at him, murmuring to itself like a microscopic mob. Somehow, being dragged didn’t hurt or even rub his skin raw. It was as though the sand flowed around him, exerting just enough pressure to keep him where it wanted. The sand-swarm ran all over his body, probed his nostrils, ears, ass, muttered disagreeably, and then meekly laid back down again, sighing. He stood up shakily. Grains of the gritty sand ran out his nostrils. It licked off his face and then fled into his hair, chuckling as it went.

Toby was not in a mood to laugh along. He stalked off the beach, just as Jocelyn fell out of an overhead cloud, tumbling in air, and splashed into the green soup pond. She shrieked and gasped.

“Just relax and let them do it to you,” Toby advised.

That didn’t seem to do any good. Jocelyn angrily slapped at the green soup. It lapped around her and magnetic fluxes grabbed her in a rather embarrassing position for a lady. The fluxes wrapped like ropes around her, Toby could see through his Dopplered sensorium/eye. Jocelyn floundered up onto the sand beach, sputtering.

Toby lost interest in her trials. He climbed over a sand dune and through a wall of pearly fog. Beyond it the dwarf was waiting, holding a fluffy yellow robe.

“Where’re my clothes?”

“Being reeducated,” Andro said with a distracted gaze.

“Huh?”

“Wear this while you eat.”

“Why?”

“It’s your tutor.”

“I didn’t know I’d enrolled.”

“Anybody comes through Port Athena gets the course, skyscraper.”

“Sky what?”

“Ancient term. Means you’re unnecessarily tall.”

“Ugly word for it. Seems to me you’re too short.”

“A few days of forehead-bashing on doorways will provide useful instruction.”

Toby shrugged and put on the ample yellow robe. It fit nicely, tucking itself in around him. “When do I get my clothes back?” he persisted.

“When they’ve graduated.” Andro pointed. “Right now you go that way.”

“Why should I?”

“Don’t eat, don’t learn, kid.” Andro yawned and picked up another robe from the neat stack nearby. Jocelyn came through the fog-wall, muttering, her breasts swaying like two angry red eyes looking for a fight.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Customs inspection,” the dwarf answered, looking over her shoulder at nothing.

“You little worm, don’t talk to me—”

“Cover yourself, madam—”

“Think you can—”

“—or you’ll be cited for false advertisement.”

Jocelyn blinked, turned red, and seemed to be deciding whether to stay angry. Toby got out of the way, trotting down the passageway Andro had fingered.

A cafeteria, simple and bare. Big tubs of fragrant vegetables, sauteed and fried and steeped in odd sauces. All bubbling under odd, slanted lamps, served up by auto-arms. To his surprise—and there seemed to be nothing but surprises here, though few answers—he liked the food. It gurgled and slid around while he tried to bite into it, sending heady aromas shooting through his sinuses. Enticing. Provocative.

Food it was, he was sure of that, but it wasn’t just difficult to catch with his teeth; it was impossible. The stuff slithered out of the way, as if it could read his mind. (Later, this seemed a distinct possibility.) He got tired of hearing his incisors click together uselessly and accepted the situation, just swallowing the smooth, delicious thing. It went down easily—almost happily, he thought, a crazy notion. In his stomach it exploded into warm waves of satisfaction. He sat back and enjoyed the sensation, which was even better than the eating had been. He was still like that, eyes unfocused, when the dwarf sped by, snorted, stuck a fresh spoonful in his mouth, and said, “Keep studying.”