And the reward? MacDougal was glaring at him, for the commission of his numerous sins. What sins? Flammarion had no idea, except that, over twenty years ago, he had met Chan Dalton. Earl Dexter, pressed for information upon his return from the Gallimaufries, might as well have taken a vow of silence. All he would say was that they would be with Chan Dalton soon enough, and they would then have answers to all their questions.

As one small consolation, the Ambassador had become too preoccupied with their upcoming meeting with Dalton to continue his endless complaints about being down on Earth; which was just as well, because Earl Dexter was leading them through a setting which combined every conceivable element of noise, dirt, confusion, and strangeness.

The first part of the journey was a long drop through the black depths of a vertical drop-shaft. Earl Dexter had particularly warned about it, not realizing that to Kubo Flammarion and Dougal MacDougal this would provide a few welcome seconds of comfortable free-fall.

But that was the end of comfort. They had emerged into a series of vaulted chambers of rock where everything felt wrong. Instead of curves, following the natural stress lines of a habitat, every wall was flat as a plate and straight up-and-down. The roof, by contrast, was all random lumps and dimples, broken at intervals by ugly, powerful, and inconstant lights that threw broken reflections onto the jumble of cables, tents, guy ropes, and partitions that cluttered the floor. Above them, ramshackle multilevel platforms hung tipsily between steel pylons, with rope ladders stretching from one to another or hanging down to the ground beneath.

And that floor! Not metal, or plastic, but black granular soil in which blossoming plants grew everywhere, sprouting along zigzag walkways while blood-red vines festooned every column. A flowery perfume filled the air, tainted with a hint of a less pleasant smell.