Instantly she saw how wrong she had been. From around the Net she heard voices raised in wonder and rising alarm; within a few heartbeats, it seemed, she was hearing the first screams.

The next ripple was closing on them; already she could hear its rising clamor of heat fluctuations. This new instability was huge, at least five or six mansheights deep. Dura watched, mesmerized, her hands frozen. Already the ripple was hurtling at her faster than any she could remember, and as it approached its amplitude seemed to be deepening, as if it were feeding on Glitch energy. And, of course, with greater amplitude came still greater speed. The instability was a complex superposition of wave shapes clustered along the length of the migrating vortex line, a superposition which spiraled around the line like some malevolent animal clambering toward her…

Farr said, “We can’t escape that. Can we, Dura?”

There was a moment of stillness, almost of calm. Farr’s voice, though still cracked by adolescence, had sounded suddenly full of a premature wisdom. It was some comfort that Dura wasn’t going to have to lie to him.

“No,” she said. “We’ve been too slow. I think it’s going to hit the Net.” She felt distant from the danger around her, as if she were recalling events from long ago, far away.

Even as it rushed up toward them the ripple bowed away from the trend of the vortex line in ever more elaborate, fantastic shapes. It was as if some elastic limit had been passed and the vortex line, under intolerable strain, was yielding.

It was almost beautiful, captivating to watch. And it was only mansheights away.

She heard the thin voice of old Adda, from somewhere on the other side of the Net. “Get away from the Net. Oh, get away from the Net!”

“Do as he says. Come on.”

The boy slowly lifted his head; he still clung to the rope, and his eyes were empty, as if beyond fear or wonder. She drove a fist into one of his hands. “Come on!”