"So as to isolate the disease," Aquilon added.

"We're not a disease!" Veg said.

Cal shrugged. "That may be a matter of opinion."

Veg thought of the omnivore again, destroying everything from flies to dinosaurs, and wondered. "What happens to the culture -- after they know what it is?"

"We'd rather not know," Aquilon said a bit tightly. Veg felt a surge of sympathy for her. She had salvaged nothing from Paleo but the egg -- and that was gone.

Tamme didn't comment, but Veg knew her mind was working. She was not about to sit still for the extermination of a used culture.

"That's for sure!" Tamme said, startling him, mocking his own speech mannerism. Once more he had forgotten to watch his thoughts. He knew she was not really a mind reader, but the effect was similar at times.

"It is my suspicion that our captors did not construct this city," Cal said. "Otherwise they would not need to study us in this manner. More likely the city was here, and we were there, so it combined us, trusting that we were compatible."

"That might be the test," Tamme said. "If we are compatible, we have affinities with the city, and so they know something about us. If we had died quickly, they would have known we had no affinities. Other samples, other environments, hit or miss."

"Score one for it," Aquilon said. "I rather like it here. Or at least I would if only I were certain of the future."

"If my conjecture is correct," Cal continued, "we have two mysteries. The origin of this city -- and the nature of the sparkle-cloud. And these mysteries may be mysteries to each other, too, if you see what I mean."

"Yeah, I see," Veg said. "City, sparkle, and us -- and none of us really knows the other two.

"With a three-way situation," Aquilon said thoughtfully, "we might have a fighting chance."

"If only we knew how to fight!" Veg said.

Night came again inside the auditorium as well as out. They ate and settled down.

Then Veg saw something. "The sparkle-cloud!" he exclaimed. "It's back!"

It shimmered on the stage, myriad ripples of lights, pattern on pattern. They had seen it in daylight; by night it was altogether different: phenomenal and beautiful.

"A living galaxy!" Aquilon breathed. "Impossible to paint..."

"Energy vortex," Cal said, studying it from a different view. "Controlled, complex..."

"It's staying on the stage," Veg said. "Not coming after us!"

"Yet," Tamme put in succinctly.

"If only we could talk to it!" Aquilon said.

"How do you communicate with an alternate-hopping energy vortex?" Tamme inquired. "Even if it had a brain, there's a problem in translation. More likely it is just a field of force generated by some distant machine."

"Even so, communication might be possible," Cal said. "When we use radio or telephone or television, we are actually communicating with each other. What counts is who or what is controlling the machine or the force."

"Translation -- that's the key!" Aquilon said, picking up from Tamme's remark. "Circe -- send it your signature."

The manta beside her did not move. The eye glowed, facing the vortex.

After a moment Aquilon shrugged, disappointed. "No connection," she said. "Their energy must be on different bands."

"It is possible that we are seeing the mere periphery of some natural effect," Cal said. "A schism between alternates, a crack in the floor that let us fall through to another level -- no intelligence to it."

Suddenly the vortex changed. Whorls of color spun off, while planes of growing points formed within the main ma.s.s. Lines of flickering color darted through those planes.

"A picture!" Aquilon exclaimed.

"Must be modern art," Veg snorted.

"So called 'modern art' happens to be centuries old," Cal observed.

"No, there really is a picture," Aquilon said. "You have to look at it the right way. The planes are like sections; the lines show the outlines. Each plane is a different view. Look at them all at once, integrate them..."

"I see it!" Tamme cried. "A holograph!"

Then Cal made it out. "A still life!"

Veg shook his head, bewildered. "All I see is sheets and squiggles."

"Try," Aquilon urged him. Oh, she was lovely in her earnestness! He needed no effort to appreciate that. "Let your mind go, look at the forms behind the forms. Once you catch it, you'll never lose it."

But Veg couldn't catch it, any more than he had been able to catch her, back when he thought she was within his grasp. He strained but only became more frustrated. He saw the flats and curves of it but no comprehensible picture.

"It's all in the way you look," Cal explained. "If you -- " He broke off, staring into the vortex. "Amazing!" Veg looked again, squinting, concentrating, but all he saw was a shifting of incomprehensibly geometric patterns with sparkles flying out like visual fireworks. "That's Orn!" Aquilon cried. "No, it's a chick -- "

"The hatchling," Cal said. "Ornet. Yet how -- ?"

"And a baby manta!" she continued. "Where are they?"

"Back on Paleo, maybe," Veg said, annoyed. "What sort of a game are you folks playing?"

"No game," Tamme a.s.sured him. "We see them."

" 'Quilon!" Cal cried. "Look! Behind that obscuring sparkle. Can that be -- ?"

"It is," she cried. "That's a human baby!" She shook her head, but her eyes remained riveted to the picture. "My G.o.d!"

Veg strained anew but could make out nothing. He was getting angry.

"Your G.o.d," Cal said. "I remember when you found that expression quaint."

Aquilon drew her eyes momentarily from the stage to look at Cal, and Veg felt the intensity of it, though he was not a part of it. She was moving inexorably to Cal, and that was right; that Veg loved her did not mean he was jealous of his friend. Cal deserved the best.

"I was painting," she said. "That first night on the mountain... and you said you loved me, and I cried." Her eyes returned to the stage. "Now I have picked up your mannerisms."

Veg put his own eyes straight at the indecipherable image. The human relations of the trio were just as confused as that supposed picture, only coming clear too late to do any good. He had not known Cal and Aquilon were so close, even back at the beginning of Nacre. He had been an interloper from the start.