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Madness is always the best armor against reality.

It was also a cheap out. He knew he wasn't mad. Retreating into psychosis would have been easy, especially in light of all that he knew and had experienced. Holding on to sanity was always the more difficult course for any sentient being.

The true immensity of the structure did not really hit home until the aircar cleared Security and proceeded deeper into the complex. The Great Hall was a city unto itself, frantic with activity and invested with purpose. Other vehicles darted in all directions, usually at a greater velocity than their own. When his host ordered the transport to turn down a narrower corridor, they found themselves traveling among a swarm of workers riding personalized vehicles.

After what seemed like half an hour they arrived at a parking area. As they disembarked, Eiipul told Flinx it was safe to remove the ijkk and leave it behind.

“No one will be looking for a common criminal in here,” he explained confidently. “The kind of antissocial figure repressented by your falsse AAnn identity would never make it passt the firsst ssecurity checkpoint.”

Taking extra care with his servo-assisted AAnn gait, Flinx loped alongside Lord Eiipul as they made their way through crowds of busy, intent AAnn. Focused on their individual tasks, hardly any of the workers glanced in the direction of the two nye. Flinx was unusually tall for an AAnn, but not to the point of drawing impolite (and potentially challenge-triggering) stares. The only interruptions came from the occasional passerby who would pause long enough to salute the status of the important noble who was Flinx's host and guide.

The final corridor they entered was different from any that had preceded it. Longer than most and devoid of doorways or branching passages, it had been machined from a single tube of some pale golden-brown metal. It reminded Flinx of translucent bronze. The hordes of workers had thinned here as well. Only a few AAnn strode the impressive span. Though their voices were kept to a respectful hiss, they still echoed off the flawless, seamless curved walls and ceiling.

“We are very closse now.” Flinx noted that in this place even Lord Eiipul had lowered his voice. “Make no eye contact with anyone we meet, resspond to no queriess. As my guesst, you are protected from challenge within The Eye. But I am not omnipotent. Even my influence hass itss limitss.”

Flinx gestured third-degree understanding. It was enough. Ahead, the light was growing brighter. The tunnel corridor was opening out into a larger space. How much larger he could not imagine until he and his host entered the chamber at the end of the bronze-colored corridor. He did not gasp for breath: in his short life he had seen far too much to be overawed by a mere room. But while he was not overawed, he was certainly impressed.

He had stood in chambers with higher ceilings. The core of a faraway structure that housed a certain ancient weapon/musical instrument, for example, rose to a greater peak. He had wandered through more extensive artificial voids, such as the interior of an ancient construct that appeared from the outside to be a methane dwarf but was in reality an unimaginably massive alien starship. But he had never before entered into one that was at once so expansive, so alien, and so beautiful.

The AAnn artisans who comprised the Tier of Ssaiinn would have approved, he decided as he admired his surroundings. For all he knew, some of them might have contributed to the decoration.

The inner sanctum known as The Eye of the Nye ran almost the entire width of the building. A full five stories high, it was crowned by an immense shallow dome of synthetic quartz that had been treated to change color at predetermined intervals. One moment it was a deep, rich amethyst purple, the next a golden citrine yellow, then transparent as crystal, followed by a tinting of sapphire blue, after which it appeared shot through with simulated rutile—the material of which the dome was composed progressively traversing every color of the