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 University, Mem said finally, her throat so tight she squeaked when she
spoke.  What s it like?
Shadow looked thoughtfully out past the vertical cables at the dark
irregular skyline of
Karintepe-on-Main and walked along for a while without saying anything. When
she finally spoke, it was as if she d forgotten them and was talking to
herself.  The ultimate in metaphors, she said.  Unlike items juxtaposed to
illustrate an ineffable somewhere in between, a process repeated ad infinitum.
An exercise in ordered chaos. A place where you can learn anything in the
universe if you know how to ask. And nothing at all if you don t. She shifted
the strap again, rubbed at her shoulder, still looking past them, seeing
things they couldn t know.
Pikka Machletta watched Mem struggling to under-stand what she
herself hadn t a hope of translating into terms she knew. It was a cruel
joke the stranger was playing on them.
Shadow looked at Men and smiled.  But that s not what you want. What s
University like? Not nearly as pretty as this. She swept her arm in a wide
circle.  Kind of bleak, actually. An old world. The mountains are like worn
down teeth. It was a mining world once; it s mostly worked out
now, honeycombed with caverns. No life on it, not until the miners came.
Everything from spores on up was brought there from somewhere else. The
Scholars keep adding to the collections, they ve been doing that for more than
ten millennia now. She looked up, held our her hand. A red bird swooped from
one of the towers, landed on her wrist, and sang a moment before she let it
go.
Pikka swallowed; it was such a little thing, such a pretty gesture, such quiet
power. She noticed for the first time the bandages on the hoshyid s
wrists and wondered about them. She didn t ask; the moment felt wrong
for that kind of question.
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 University gets wilder every year, Shadow said.  Pets get away, you
know, go feral. Always experimental subjects escaping. Absentminded types
set things down and forget where they put them.
You don t know what you re going to come across where. She grinned sud-denly.
 All in all, it s one of the weirdest places I ve ever been.
 And anyone can go there? Mem said, almost whis-pering.
 Just about. But it s not a dreamplace, little one. Shadow touched her tongue
to her lips, shook her head.  More like a nightmare for some. If you don t
have con-nections who can get you a room and a job, it s one of the best
places around to starve to death. Or freeze. Or get tunked on the head,
stripped of everything you own.
Ingra laughed; she d come closer and was listening to Mem and the stranger.
With only a little way to go before they were off the bridge and the traffic
thicker by the minute, she was getting careless.  Sounds a lot like Old Town,
she said. She saw Pikka Machletta scowling at her and dropped back to where
she should be.
 Could someone like me go? Someone without papers or .. or anything? Mem
sighed.  I NEED to know.
 Ay-yeh. Say you get there, there s no one to turn you away. You don t need
clearance, you don t need papers, they don t even want to know your credit
balance. Long as you don t make too much trouble or bother anyone important,
you can stay till you die. Or you can stay a while and move on ...
move on ... anywhere ... ships come, go, anywhere, everywhere, always new
ones...
Pikka Machletta closed her hands until the metal sliv-ers on her nails pricked
her palms. Move on ...
move on ... those words woke a yearning in her, the words and the girl who
said them ... she didn t want to feel like this ... she wanted ... she didn t
know what ... something ... there was a smell coming off that girl, a wild
smell that made her tremble ... she felt like she felt when she sniffed the
wind blowing down from the Dread Green the first time it had the perfume of
Spring on it. Like she wanted to run without stopping, away and away, howling
at the moon, like she could jump off the Shaggar Tower and fly with the
birds....
The hoshyid shifted the strap once again, worked her shoulders.  Gods, I am
tired. How far off is that tea-shop?
  No streets past the end of the bridge.
 They rent rooms?
 For the hour, if y know what I mean.
Mem touched Shadow s arm.  What does it cost, get-ting to University?
Shadow looked blank. It took her a while to make the connection, then she
rubbed at her forehead, sighed. On a worldship, even a dorm bed costs ...
ummm ... I suppose the equivalent of two, three
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