It was Proudwalk.
She walked on grass and over the patches of shifting dust; walked with the graceful, slightly affected manner that had given her the name. There was the pride in her walk, and there was sexuality.
Bump-arch leaped to the ground to meet her. He bowed as if they were at the King's Councillor's Ball and he were asking her for the dance. Proudwalk touched her palms together in the stylized gesture of acceptance. Immediately she slipped through the entrance. Bump-arch stooped, and quickly followed her. The door panel dropped down its grooves, sealing the chamber.
The scientists chattered; the godsman shouted.
The kingsman raised his voice. "What's going on, Grandmaster?"
"A reconstructed demonstration attempting the accelerated movement of matter through time to the relatively near future by an apprentice who, having completed the requisite service, has been admitted to candidature for the rank of journeyman physicist."
The Grandmaster took a breath.
"Ask the Candidate's master," the godsman said, with the calmness now of more intense anger. "You heard him trick the High Arbiter into ruling that a mystery of matter is not a mystery and a forbidden idea is not forbidden. Maybe he can convince you that a desire of matter is not a desire of matter."
Crookback spoke up at once. "It would seem an unlikely place to give way to desire, but I am an old bachelor, as ignorant of the desires of matter as of its mysteries. However, young men and women frequently work together on scientific experiments."