4/3 to 640e, 4/3pi to 622, 4/3pi to 560, 4/3pi to 499,
(Somehow the e component chanced to slip through 125. Jon moved in like a shower of anti-theta-mazons and extracted a painless cube so fast that the intruder oscillated on it three times before it knew what had happened to it:)
4/3pi to 53e, 4/3pi to 53e, 4/3pi to 53e under high gravity—very high, that is, two to three million times that of earth, such as inside a star—in such warped space there is a subtle difference between 53 and 125, though they represent the same number. It's like the notes E-sharp and F, which are technically the same, but are distinguished between when played by a good violinist with a fine ear. When the root came loose, therefore, the variation threw the wave-length all off balance:) 4/3pi to 5e, 4/3pi to 5e, 4/3pi to 5e....
(All right, everybody, concentrate—)
(There, there, there....)
For one moment, the intruding oscillation turned, ducked, tried to escape, and couldn't. It contracted into a small ball with a volume of 4/3pie3, and disappeared.
There....
Jon Koshar shook his head, staggered forward, and went down on his knees in white sand. He blinked. He looked up. There were two shadows in front of him. Then he saw the city.
It was Telphar, stuck on a desert, under a double sun. The transit ribbon started across the desert, got the length of twelve pylons, and then crumpled.