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“ ‘We,’ Master?”

“Now don’t start that! Okay, Hall, let’s do it!”

This time it was perceptible. Lando watched the room and everything in it shrink around him, Vuffi Raa grew smaller, the altar shorter. It only took a few moments. “How the devil does this work, anyway, Hall? I thought it was supposed to be impossible—cube–square relationships and my bones not supporting my weight above a certain size and everything. That’s why I figured Vuffi Raa had shrunk—plenty of problems there, but fewer, I think.”

“OH, NO PROBLEMS AT ALL, SIR,” the Hall began. Lando noticed that its voice wasn’t disturbed at all by the change in scales. Good engineers, those Sharu. “WHAT ARE YOU, NO OFFENSE, SIR, BUT ORGANIZED INFORMATION? WHAT DOES IT MATTER HOW DENSELY THAT INFORMATION IS COMPRESSED? AN OLD-FASHIONED BOOK MAY BE PRINTED UPON THICK PAPER, WITH THE LINES DOUBLE-SPACED. STILL, IT IS THE SAME INFORMATION, IS IT NOT?”

“You trying to tell me I’ve been sort of spread-out, like? I’m not sure I like that thought. Well, here we are. Vuffi Raa? That’s all right, you don’t have to talk back. Just help me with this thing once I get it down—it’s going to be big.”

At present, the Mindharp rested on the flat upper surface of the pylon. It was a precise replica of the Key, except for size, and, in his present condition, it felt the same to Lando as the Key had. He reached down to take it, it came away without resistance. He started to put it in his pocket—

“Master … don’t … do … that.”

“Right! It’d mess up my jacket a bit when I shrank back down, wouldn’t it? Okay, Hall, let’s lower me back where I belong.”

Silence.

“Hall? Hey, you’re supposed to shrink me again! Get with it!”

There was no reply.

“Look, Hall, if you don’t listen, I’m going to take this obscene artifact and—”

“OH, I’M VERY SORRY, SIR. WOOL-GATHERING AGAIN. I HAVE AN INCREASING TENDENCY TO THAT, AS THE MILLENNIA ROLL ON. I TAKE IT YOU WISH TO BE REDUCED AGAIN.”

“You take it right.”

With that, Lando began to shrink once more, the Mindharp growing perceptibly in his hands as he did so. He stooped gently, set it on the floor beside Vuffi Raa, straightened, and folded his arms over his chest.

The Mindharp was an armful when Lando had been restored to his natural size. Perhaps a meter in its greatest extent, it was even more visually distressing than the tiny model he had played with in the beginning.

“Vuffi Raa, take one end of this. Hall, how do we get out of here?”

“BEHIND THE PILLAR, SIR, AND GOOD LUCK.”

“Well, good luck to you, too. Maybe someday they’ll hold concerts here.”

“I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT, SIR. I RATHER LIKE THE PEACE AND QUIET.”

Behind the pylon was a wall.

Embedded in the wall was a Key.

Perhaps it was the same Key, Lando thought—this building seemed to like little jokes like that. The question was, how did you use it? It protruded somehow from the wall. He let one hand go from the Mindharp, reached out to touch its smaller counterpart.

There was a flash! and a hole began opening in the wall, like the iris of an ancient camera. Lando and Vuffi Raa stepped through.

Into the busy daytime streets of Teguta Lusat.

• XIX •

“OFFICER,” VUFFI RAA demanded, summoning the first constabulary cop he saw on the street. The robot pointed a tentacle at Lando. “Arrest this man immediately. Orders of the governor.”

Lando stopped, stunned. They hadn’t taken three steps away from the side of the Sharu ruin they’d emerged from. He looked back—the aperture they’d walked through was gone. He held the Mindharp to his chest, walked back a step, another, until his back was against the wall.

“Why, you little—”

“That’ll be enough of that,” the cop ordered. “I can’t arrest a man on the word of a machine. I’ll have to check it out with H.Q.” He touched the side of his helmet, communed momentarily with the radio inside it, then waved off with one hand the small crowd that was beginning to gather.

Lando took a small, quiet step sideways. No one seemed to notice. He took another, and another. Only a few more steps to a corner where he just