text: "Well if anyone's asking me," Dansmith says, "these two big buildings are the most interesting. They seem to be the most important, judging by their placement."
  
  "I agree," Dr. Wildon says. "Not that I'm an expert in Folvan society, but this central structure has got to be a communal gathering place of some kind. Maybe a temple? Maybe a longhouse?"
  
  "But what about this other one, way out here?" you ask. "What would that be? A barn?"
  
  Dansmith chuckles at that suggestion.
  
  "I wish I knew," Hun-Spruk says. "Maybe one of them is where we'll find this 'Anywhere Device' they seem so worried about."
  
  "Hey, guys?" Quabiss says tentatively, as if anxious about the idea of interrupting his seniors. "It's starting to get light over there in the east."
  
  "The starman's right," Dansmith says. "If we want to reach the village under the cover of darkness, and then get ourselves back out, we're probably only going to have time for one or the other."
  
  > If you head for the large structure located outside the village, turn to page 43.
  The outlying structure is about ninety meters beyond the village's periphery of smaller earthen mounds, and while it is the farthest building from the lakeshore it is the one nearest the mountain range. The grass is so tall that you do not have to crouch too low to remain unseen, but it does mean you are all the more exposed to the sharp blades.
  
  After getting a bearing on the structure, Hun-Spruk minimizes the WristComp display to a simple pointer, ensuring you won't be visible as a glow of light crawling across the prairie, laboring under the oppressive gravity. Since she knows where you're going, your science officer leads the way, even though she's the shortest member of your party and can barely see above the grass.
  
  It takes longer than you expected to reach the village, partly because the grass is tough to push through, and partly because of the gravity. Walking anywhere on this massive world is like continually climbing up a hill.
  
  As you near your destination you find that the grass has been cleared in a wide margin around the village. Much of the Folvan diet is derived from grazing, and you can picture the gray-skinned people cutting the tough vegetation with their massive, yellow fingernails as they harvest their breakfast directly from the unending grasslands that surround them. But this cleared area also means you have to cross fifty meters or so of open space to reach the isolated building, with no prairie grass to conceal you.
  
  "Is there anybody nearby?" you ask.
  
  Hun-Spruk makes a quick scan. "Our six Folvan friends are still down by the research post," she says. "Nobody is walking around this side of the town. But of course, I still can't read too much of what's inside these mounds. There might be fifty, seventy people here, many of them underground."
  
  The stars are swiftly fading above you as daylight begins to creep into the Folvan sky. This is probably the wrong time of day to be doing this, but you really want to find out what is inside this building—if "building" is the right word. It is basically a large earthen mound five meters tall and maybe twenty-five in diameter. It is covered in short-cropped grass, almost like yet another natural feature of the vast prairie. From the outside it appears to be solid earth, save for one narrow, arched entrance that is turned away from the village, facing the distant mountains instead.
  
  "Are we ready to do this?" you say.
  
  "Hell yes," Dansmith says.
  
  Everyone else nods their assent. You take a deep breath and run across the clearing toward the entrance, the others close behind. There is no door, just the cave-like opening. Your jog comes to an abrupt end as soon as you enter.
  
  The great mound is half hollowed out, but in this entire space there is nothing but a stairway leading into an underground chamber, with a noticeable draft of air being sucked into the opening. The four of you stand around the top of the stairway; there is no sound below, but the room is brightly lit.
  
  Hun-Spruk, examining her WristComp, points downstairs and nods yes. So one by one you descend the steps, which are made of hardened earth like adobe bricks.
  
  > Page 194
  At the bottom of the steps is a large chamber, organic in shape with not a single right angle to be seen. Nor are there any furnishings, just dozens of wreath-like decorations everywhere, both on the floor and on the rounded walls.
  
  But the most interesting feature by far is the large spherical object that occupies the heart of the chamber. It is like a three-dimensional window onto another part of the Folvan prairie, a landscape with a flat horizon and no noteworthy features that you can see. Wherever this scene is, it is daytime there, and thus the entire underground chamber is brightly illuminated. But the grassland in that other location is overhung with a sky full of dark clouds, as if a stormfront was moving in. The draft that you felt before is even more pronounced here, as if the sphere were sucking in air.
  
  "There's a low-pressure weather event there," Dr. Wildon says, nodding toward the scene contained within the sphere. "That's what is causing this draft."
  
  "So what are we looking at?" Dansmith says, circling this most unusual object. You do the same, noticing how the view changes as you do so.
  
  "The Anywhere Device, obviously," Hun-Spruk says, attempting humor. "Damned if I know, actually. I've been trying to scan the sphere, but all I get are readings from that landscape on the other side. It's as if I was trying to scan an open window."
  
  "Well then, that's it," you say. "An open window. This is a wormhole of some kind."
  
  "OK," Dansmith says. "I follow. But where to? No, wait—come here. Take a look at this."
  
  Dansmith is now at the far side of the sphere, directly opposite the bottom of the adobe stairs. As you step near him, the view through the portal pivots to include a bizarre scene: a large, sprawling structure, organic in shape, with thick walls, cavernous openings, and massive chimneys that resemble the pipes of an organ. You recognize it as a Folvan city, but only because the picture of a similar site had appeared in the mission files you read a few days ago.
  
  "Any ideas where that is?" Dr. Wildon asks.
  
  "None," Hun-Spruk says. "The nearest city is over thirty kilometers from here. But this one looks pretty big and important. Maybe it's Calx'kza? The capital of the Empire of the Thousand Lakes?"
  
  "You think that might be the capital city?" you say. "What makes you say that?"
  
  "The seven chimneys," she says. "Supposedly one for each historic dynasty, but who knows."
  
  Dr. Wildon grabs one of the wreaths of grass fiber leaning against the wall and whips it frisbee-style through the portal. It enters the scene as easily as if passing through an empty space; the wind takes it, and the wreath flutters unevenly before crashing in the grass.
  
  "A wormhole," he says. "This supposedly bronze-age civilization possesses the ability to create micro-wormholes to travel across their planet. Even we can't do that."
  
  "Then that leaves us with one inescapable question," Dansmith says. "What the hell?"
  
  > Page 78
  You are so enrapt by the discovery of this so-called "Anywhere Device" that none of you notice Starman Quabiss trying to attract your attention. Taking his job as the security specialist seriously, he has been maintaining a post at the bottom of the stairs leading into this chamber, leaving it to the rest of you to make sense of the portal. But as you have been standing on the opposite side of the sphere, the view of the Folvan city has been occupying the space between you and the entrance. So he comes up to you.
  
  "We have trouble," he says. "I've been hearing footsteps headed our way."
  
  "Where?" you ask.
  
  "Outside," he replies. "Several people, speaking in Folvan."
  
  "Damn," Dansmith says. "There's no way we're getting out of this building unseen."
  
  "Well yes," Dr. Wildon says. "There are two ways. Through there," and he points to the Anywhere Device, "or through there." Now he points to the entrance of a dark tunnel directly behind you.
  
  "Through there?" you say, looking quickly at the tunnel. "I think I'd rather stay here and confront whoever is coming than go there."
  
  "I'm all for staying and confronting," Hun-Spruk says. "But obviously this is your mission. You make the call."
  
  > If you escape through the Anywhere Device, turn to page 8.
  "Let's forget the dark tunnel," you say. "We've already met the Folvan elders, and we've seen how well they're armed. We have no reason to expect a warm reception from them. Therefore I see only one way out of this chamber." And to emphasize your point, you nod toward the Anywhere Device.
  
  "I'm not convinced we'll do any better in broad daylight outside of a capital city," Dansmith says, "but otherwise your logic is impeccable."
  
  No one moves, however. Dansmith gestures with his muscular arm from you to the portal. "You're the leader, so I guess that means you get to make the bold first step."
  
  You've never encountered a wormhole before—none of you have. Are there any risks to using it? You recall how easily the wreath sailed through the portal, so you wall off your reservations and focus on the scene in front of you. The sphere has no surface; there is merely here, and there is there, that plain just outside the Folvan city. You reach forward with your hand, feeling the change in temperature and humidity right away. A force that feels like gravity tugs you the rest of the way through, and instantly you are standing in the prairie less than a kilometer from the city. You turn around toward your companions, but now you see them as if looking through a second sphere.
  
  "Well?" Dansmith says. You can hear him as if he were still standing beside you.
  
  "Nothing to it," you say.
  
  "All right, then," he says. And a moment later he steps through, too, as easily as walking through a door.
  
  Hun-Spruk follows, and then Dr. Wildon, their eyes darting around in wonder at the sudden transition in environment. Quabiss looks more doubtful and hesitant, but he steps through too.
  
  > Page 9
  "OK, so now what?" Dr. Wildon says.
  
  You are indeed standing on a vast plain, empty of landmarks save for the alien city, which is set into an otherwise isolated knoll. Dark clouds are building overhead, and there is a chill in the gusty breeze. The grass is not tall at all here; it has been well-grazed and cropped at about knee height.
  
  "So now that we're here, where are we?" you ask Hun-Spruk, but she's already working on that problem with her WristComp.
  
  "Well, triangulating off the position of the Orion and Hinju's shuttle, I'd say this really is Calx'kza. In one step we've traveled over 200 kilometers to the east."
  
  "This is the capital city of some empire?" Dansmith says. "It looks as sleepy as that village we just left."
  
  "From what I can tell, there are a quarter million people here," Hun-Spruk says.
  
  "Really?" you say, incredulously; the structure in front of you doesn't look nearly that big.
  
  "Yes—directly underneath us," she says. "It's an underground city. There's no iron-rich soil clogging up my scans here, so I can see just about everything."
  
  "This is all good information," Dr. Wildon says. "But my original question remains: what do we do now?"
  
  "Maybe we should ask them." Quabiss points past you, and when you turn you see what he sees: a caravan of figures marching in formation toward the structure, which you realize now is just the above-ground entrance to a subterranean complex, similar to the mounded structure that concealed the entrance to the Anywhere Device's chamber.
  
  These Folvans are moving swiftly on their elongated legs, holding what look like long pikes. It doesn't take a xenoanthropologist to recognize a column of soldiers returning to their home base.
  
  > Page 79
  The problem arises, however, when a platoon breaks formation and starts charging across the grazed area straight toward you.
  
  "Orders, Lieutenant?" Dansmith says.
  
  You shake your head, realizing the impossibility of your situation. The only options that come to mind are to pass back through the portal and take your chances in the village you just escaped, or to flee into the tall, ungrazed grass a few hundred meters away. But the Folvan soldiers are approaching fast, so you have to decide now.
  
  > If you try and pass back through the Anywhere Device, turn to page 143.
  Looking back through the portal, all you see is the empty room you just left a moment ago. Whoever it was that was approaching isn't there yet, so maybe there is still a possibility you will be safer there than you first thought.
  
  "Maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea," you say.
  
  "I'm thinking you're right," Dansmith says.
  
  "Hun-Spruk, Wildon, you two go in first," you say. "The rest of us will follow."
  
  "OK," Hun-Spruk says.
  
  But the Folvan soldiers are bearing down fast, and they figure out what you're attempting to do even faster. As the lead runners keep charging toward you, the rest stop and take aim with their weapons. The Folvan pikes prove to be lightweight and speedy missiles, wielded by skilled throwers. You see Dansmith fumbling for his plasgun when the first pike impales him through the chest; a second one lands in the ground just centimeters from Quabiss.
  
  Hun-Spruk and Wildon trip over each other fleeing through the portal, with Quabiss on their heels. That just leaves you and Dansmith's body on the Folvan prairie.
  
  Before you can act another pike comes in for a landing, striking you in the skull. Your body is knocked backwards through the portal, coming to rest more than two hundred kilometers from where you were killed.