His words cut through her detachment, and despite herself, despite the urgency of the moment, she felt resentment building in her. “Where? I’ve been to the Core in a Xeelee nightfighter. Where do you think I’ve been?”

Logue turned from her in apparent disgust. “You shouldn’t blaspheme,” he muttered.

She wanted to laugh. Impatient with him, with herself, with the continual friction between them, she shook her head. “Oh, into the Ring with it. What do you want me to do?”

Now old Adda leaned forward, the open pores among his remaining hair sparkling Air-sweat. “Don’t know there’s much you can do,” he said sourly. “Look at them. What a shambles.”

“We’re not going to make it in time, are we?” Dura asked him. She pointed North. “Look at that ripple. We won’t get out of the way before it hits.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” The old man raised his empty eyes to the South Pole; its soft glow illuminated the backs of his eyes, the cup-retinas there; fragments of debris swirled around the rims and tiny cleansing symbiotes swam constantly in and out of the cups.

Logue bellowed suddenly, “Mur, you damn fool. If that knot is stuck then cut it. Rip it. Gnaw it through if you have to! — but don’t just leave it there, or half the Net is going to go flapping off into the Quantum Sea when the storm hits us…”

“Worst I’ve ever seen,” Adda muttered, sniffing. “Never known the photons to smell so sour. Like a frightened piglet… Of course,” he went on after a few moments, “I remember one spin storm when I was a kid…”

Dura couldn’t help but smile. Adda was the wisest among them, probably, about the ways of the Star. But he relished his role as doomsayer… he could never let go of the mysteries of his own past, of the wild, deadly days which only he could remember…

Logue turned on her with fury, his face as unstable as the quivering Magfield. “While you grin, we could die,” he hissed.