Nimfur’thon’s new pod shaft worked better than her natural organic one, as usual. Quath envied Nimfur’thon the fresh pod, making her faster; she had no natural pods left at all. Nimfur’thon’s long, prickly body gleamed with purpose, nearly all of it covered in metallic cowlings.

The Hive had seen cause to outfit both Quath and Nimfur’thon with the latest in advanced cybertech, whole subsystems of handsomely self-powered organs and limbs and antennae. They were honored to be so chosen, but that did not leach from them the free high spirits of the young.

<Has memory fled you, Quath? We swore to slip away and meet, to brave fierce energies and watch the plasma dance on the hills!>

<I—we have—>

<Your ossicles overload at this small flight?> Nimfur’thon sent in sharp chatter. In parallel she lifted a singsong, I, we have!…I, we have! on a sour sideband of her carrier, taunting.

<No, I—I—>

<A groveling ground-burrower you become, CicadaQuath. Your thorax trumpets, but at the cusp moment—>

<Enough, cyst-sucker! I shall soon be upon you!>

Quath’s bravado rang false. Like all her ground-burrowing race, she was terrified of heights. And even more of flying. Her subminds pealed their alarm. She mustered all her courage.

With a lurch Quath birthed a rosy egg of flame beneath her. She jetted up a granite-flecked cliff face. All through Nimfur’thon’s chiding Quath had been planning, vectoring. Now, expending all her reserve in one spurt, Quath arced up the stony wall and—fuel guttering out in black fog, rockets choking down—she scrabbled at the boulders of the peak.

Clutched.

Teetered on the brink.

Fanned the blue air—

—and caught.

—Jitjitjit-eeeee—screamed a linkage, but Quath scrambled to safety, feeling the safety-warmth as her center of gravity slid into snug position above solid ground. Her hot fear changed to pride.

<Pay homage here!> Quath barked.

<How did you—? Ah, squeezed out your last dollop of fuel. Not wise.> Nimfur’thon was a squat disk on the plain below.

<You bray of wisdom? You, who jibed me into ambling here?>

Quath felt suddenly exposed on this high point. She spied sheets of phosphorescence hanging in the air—near, chillingly near.

Nimfur’thon’s rippling signal now betrayed a thin thread of doubt.

<The Syphon forms,> Quath cried.

Yellow steam gouted from far hills. Mudworked buildings crescented that ridgeline, temporary housings for the fluxtube formers.

<Go down the reverse side, Quath. Away from the Syphon.>

Quath scrambled downslope, sending boulders clattering with her bumpers. <And you? We must hurry.>

<I will cross this plain. We will meet in that low rut, there>—Nimfur’thon squirted a vectored grid image—<and watch the Syphon.>

Quath gave a heaving grunt as she geared up in haste.

Nimfur’thon called boisterously, <We deserve a good gaze at it. This is our first, not like a vinegar-souled multipodder who is bored with it all. We have labored hard for these moments.>

Quath ignored these repeated justifications and focused on the skittering gang of rocks that herded before her, racing and leaping downhill. No moment to be buried in the embrace of pebbles, no. She skirted a ledge, made a grinding controlled slide—

<Quath—there are animals here!>

<Impossible. This area was burnt fine.>

<No, I have stirred them out with my pounding. They swarm from their pits.>

Quath turned and crosshaired Nimfur’thon on the plain. Dots jiggled about her graywhite disk. <Flyers. Birds.>

<No, Noughts. They are the worst. Pests, into everything.> Nimfur’thon fired flame into the dots. They blackened and tumbled.

<Are you sure they are not mechs?> Quath felt real fear. They had vanquished the main forces, but vagrant mechs still roamed the hills.

<No, nothing so dangerous. Still—so many!>

<Move on! We have mere moments!>

<No. I sense there are more pests here. What if they have gotten into the fluxtube formers? They could spoil the Syphon.>

<Forget them. Run!> Quath lurched at full gear down a narrow ravine.

<I can pick up their thrummings now,> Nimfur’thon cried. <There are many here. They stretch in long lines.>

<Seeking food. Grazers. But you must leave that exposed plain. Now.> Chuffing, clenching, she jounced down the steep cleft.

<We must call upon the Tukar’ramin. These pests could even be inside the fluxworks—>

<Then they shall soon be scoured out. Witless one !—We cannot call the Tukar’ramin. Forgotten, have you, that we are here without mandate?>

<Ah, there—I have flamed the last. If there be more—>

<Forget them!>

<You are right. I come.>

The sky crinkled. Golden wealth spun toward them.

<Fly! Time does not allow—>

<I am. I fire—>

The sky shattered.

Quath skidded to a stop, tucked in pods, and—snick!—clapped fast her ports and shields. Rushing air sang an ionized blue.

From beyond the low hills a golden wall advanced. The glowing line had passed to the north as its revolutions increased. The grand Cosmic Circle revolved faster, its beats making a blur. The spinup had formed a steady cutting pressure. Now the wall of gold moved outward from the pole, a nearly perfect cylinder that stood and pointed through the sky.

A nearby flux station sent forth its strumming magnetic whorls, which seized the passing distant string and flung it on its way. Thousands of similar stations all tugged and pushed the spindly, rushing line on its path around the planet’s pole.

This tube of dancing light, the Syphon, bled color into the bruised sky, fed ripening pink to red to orange. Wind howled and clutched at Quath’s rim, thin fingers to tip her over. Quath tuned frantically to the brood’s channel, to call out. Instead she was flooded by the brood’s view from the far ridgeline.

The fluxtube grew straight and true from the skirt of hills. It bit the ceiling of clouds, boiling them away in a purple flash. Dark mottlings shot up, up—in an instant heat had cleared the ivory clouds.

Now the black of vacuum appeared, a spot forming high above, a target coming into being as the arrow shot through it. Stars winked new.

The upper link was forged as the tube opened on the clean vacuum of space. Quath watched writhing amber and gray motes climb, her eyes smarting, awed. The brood sent forth a chorus of applause, popping and frizzing song.

*Complete!* came the Tukar’ramin’s warm signal.

Now the Syphon hummed with new life deep in the rock. The tube walls kept back the pressing solid rock on all sides—except at the core. There immense pressures forced more metal into the tube with each revolution. Vast stresses fought along the tube walls. The strumming tube gnawed, burning a cylinder of stone free of its mother world. The top faced vacuum, while below liberated pressures pushed the freed rock upward.

*Flowing is,* the mellow, unhurried voice of the Tukar’ramin came—and the fluxtube suddenly filled.

Pearly, transparent walls of force dulled to gray. A plug of rock was streaming out.

Quath called, <Nimfur’thon!> in the roaring, pelting gale. The wind’s pebbled teeth clattered on her skin. <Nimfur’thon!>

<Here. I landed, but am exposed.>

<Hold there!>

<Blinded, we are, my monopoddy. This grimy breeze—>

A rolling blast burst over the hills. The fluxtube brightened. The cylinder filled, gold to red to white.

<The core!>

—And out it spurted.

Their lance had now struck to the treasure of this world. The tube throat was artfully shaped, fattening slightly as the whitehot metal funneled up. The gusher of molten metal rushed from the vast core pressures into the void of space. Riches squirted up and out, fleeing the groaning weight.