"Corcoran field? What's that?"
"I don't know." Alice's thoughts washed over him, pulling him back into complete integration, away from Nagor, into a medley of heroic Petes with gleaming eyes and clutching hands and good little Alices pushing them away—for the moment.
"But surely you can find out through the girl," Nagor insisted from far away, almost out of phase altogether.
"No, Pete!" Alice Hendricks said aloud.
"Riuku, you're the only one of us with any possible sort of contact. You've got to find out, if we're to stay here at all."
"Well," Alice Hendricks thought, "maybe...."
Riuku cursed her again, in the lingua franca of a dozen systems. Nagor's voice faded. Riuku switched back to English.
aturday. Into the plant at 3:58. Jean's diamond again.... Wish it would choke her; she's got a horsey enough face for it to. Where's old Liverlips? Don't see him around. Might as well go to the restroom for a while....