The light exploded around them, flooding the ship and turning the cabin’s lanterns into green wraiths. The pigs screamed.

Then the light died away — no, she realized; the light had congealed into a framework around them, another tetrahedral Interface. The finely drawn cage of light turned around them with stately grace; evidently the “Pig,” spewed out of the wormhole, had been brought almost to rest, and was now tumbling slowly.

Beyond the cage of light there was only darkness.

Dura glanced around the ship. There wasn’t any obvious sign of damage to the hull, and the turbine was still firmly fixed in place. The squeals of the pigs, the stink of their futile escape-farts, slowly subsided.

Hork remained in the pilot’s seat. He stared out of the windows, his large mouth gaping like a third eyecup in the middle of his beard.

Dura drifted down toward him. “Are you all right?”

At first her question seemed not to register; then, slowly, his head swiveled toward her. “I’m not injured.” His face twisted into a smile. “After that little trip, I’m not sure how healthy I am, but I’m not injured. You? The pigs?”

“I’m not damaged. Nor are the animals.”

“And the turbine?”

She admired his brisk dismissal of the wonders of the journey, his focus on the practical. She shrugged.

He nodded. “Good. Then we have the means to move.”

“…Yes,” she said slowly. “I suppose so. But only if the Magfield extends this far.”

He studied her face, then peered out of the craft uncertainly. “You think it mightn’t? That we’ve moved beyond the Magfield?”

“We’ve come a long way, Hork.”

She turned away, dropping her eyes to her hands. The shadows cast on her skin were soft, silvery; the diffuse glow seemed to smooth over the age-blemishes of her flesh, the wrinkles and the minute scars.

…Silvery?

Outside the ship, the light had changed.

She moved away from Hork and peered out of the ship. The vortex-blue tetrahedron had disappeared. There was a room around the ship now, a tetrahedral box constructed of some sheer gray material. It was as if this skin-smooth substance had plated over the framework, turning the Interface from an open cage into a four-sided box which encased the “Pig.”

The walls weren’t featureless, though. There was some form of decoration — circular, multicolored patches — on one wall, and, cut in another, a round-edged rectangle which could only be a door.

…A door to what?

Hork scratched his scalp. “Well. What now? Did you see where these walls came from?”

Dura pressed her face to a clearwood window. “Hork, I don’t think we’re in the underMantle any more.”

“You’re guessing.” His face was creased with frustration.

She pointed to the room beyond the window. “I think that’s Air out there. I think we could live out there.”

“How can you know that?”

“Of course I can’t know.” Dura felt a calm certainty fill her. She was starting to feel safe, she realized, to trust the powers into whose hands she’d delivered herself. “But why would we be brought to a place which is lethal for us? What would be the point?”

He frowned. “You think this is all — designed? That our journey was meant to be this way, to bring us here?”

“Yes. Since we entered the wormhole we’ve been in the hands of the ancient machines of the Ur-humans. Surely they built their machines to protect us. I think we have to trust them.”

Hork took a deep breath, the fine fabric of his costume scratching over his chest. “You’re saying we should go out there. Shut down the turbine and our magnetic shell — leave the ‘Pig’ and go outside.”

“Why else did we come here?” She smiled. “Anyway, I want to see what those markings on the wall are.”

“All right. If we’re not crushed in the first instant we’ll know you’re right.” The decision made, his manner was brisk and pragmatic. “And I guess the pigs need a rest anyway.”

“Yes,” Dura said. “I believe they do.”

Hork turned to his control console and threw switches. Dura tended to the pigs, providing them with healthy handfuls of leaves. As they fed, their flight-farts died to a trickle and the turbine slowed with a weary whirr.

The cabin fell silent, for the first time since the departure from Parz.

Hork whispered, “It’s gone. Our magnetic field. It’s shut down.”

For a moment Hork and Dura stared at each other. Dura’s heart pounded and she found it impossible to take a breath.

Nothing had changed; the ship still tumbled slowly within the cool gray walls of the wormhole chamber.

Hork grinned. “Well, we’re still alive. You were right, it seems. And now…” He pointed to the hatch in the upper end of the craft. “You first,” he said.

The hatch opened with a soft pop.

Dura winced as gas — Air? — puffed into the ship past her face. She found herself holding her breath. With an effort of will she exhaled, emptying her lungs, and opened her mouth to breathe deeply.

“Are you all right?”

She sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It’s Air all right, Hork… We were expected, it seems.” She sniffed. “The Air’s cool — cooler than the ship. And it’s — I don’t know how to describe it — it’s fresh. Clean.” Clean, in comparison to the murky Air of the City to which she’d grown accustomed. When she closed her eyes and drew in the strange Air it was almost like being back with the Human Beings in the upflux.

…Almost. Yet the Air here had a flat, lifeless, artificial quality to it. It was scrubbed clean of scents, she realized slowly.

Hork pushed past her and out into the room beyond. He looked around with fists clenched, aggressively inquisitive, his robe garish against the soft gray light of the walls. Dura, suppressing pangs of fear, followed him away from the wooden ship’s illusory protection.

They hung in the Air of the wormhole chamber. The “Flying Pig” tumbled slowly beside them, a scarred wooden cylinder crude and incongruous within the walls of this finely constructed room.

“If the Ur-human builders could see us now, I wonder what they would say?”

Hork grunted. “Probably, ‘Where have you been all this time?’ ” He Waved experimentally and moved forward a mansheight or so. “Hey. There’s a magnetic field here.”

“Is it the Magfield?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell. If it is, it’s weaker than I’ve ever felt it before.”

“Maybe it’s artificial… put here to help us move around.”

Hork grinned, his confidence growing visibly. “I think you’re right, Dura. These people really were expecting us, weren’t they?” He looked over his shoulder at the “Pig,” inspecting the ship briskly. He pointed, his embroidered sleeve flapping. “Look at that. We’ve brought a passenger.”

Dura turned. There was something clinging to the side of the craft; it was like a huge, metallic leech, spoiling the clean cylindrical lines of the ship. “It’s Corestuff,” she said. “We’ve brought a Corestuff berg with us, all the way through the wormhole. It must have stuck to our field-bands…”

“Yes,” Hork said. “But by no accident.” He made a mock salute to the lump of Corestuff. “Karen Macrae. So glad you could accompany us!”

“You think she’s in there? In that berg?”

“Why not?” He grinned at her, his eyecups dark with excitement. “It’s possible. Anything’s possible.”

“But why?”

“Because this trip is as important to Karen Macrae as it is to us, my dear.”

Dura flexed her legs; the Waving carried her easily through the Air. She moved away from the hulk of the “Pig” and toward the walls of the chamber. Tentatively she reached out a hand, placed it cautiously on the gray wall material. Beneath her fingers and palm its smooth perfection was unbroken. It was cool to the touch — not uncomfortably so, but a little cooler than her body.

“Dura.” Hork sounded excited; he was inspecting the wall display Dura had seen from within the “Pig.” “Come and look at this.”