PART SEVEN

WELL AND FITLY SHAPED

I

Even before the sun had broached the dawn horizon, warm breezes wafted over the launching site and made the laqs of gas-globes swell. The mission controllers revised their estimates of available lift to record levels, and congratulated one another on the accuracy of their weather-sense. All was set fair for the first piloted flight beyond the atmosphere, the first attempt to link a group of orbiting ecosystems into what might become a colony, a settlement, and finally a vehicle, a junq to sail the interstellar sea. Compared to this climactic venture, all that had gone before was trivial. The seeding of the moon, the fact that the spectra of Swiftyouth and Sunbride kept changing in amazing fashion since those planets had been sprayed with spores intended to assure the continuance of life after its home world met disaster-those were experiments whose results might well not become known until after the race responsible was extinct. Here, on the other claw, was an undertaking designed to ensure that its extermination was postponed.

Now, just so long as their chosen pilot didn't let them down...

Karg was elated. He felt the eyes of history upon him. Soon his name would join the roster of the famous; it would be coupled with those of Gveest, Yockerbow, even Jing-

Stop! Danger! He was over the safe limit of euphoria, and took action to correct it. He had been adjusting to his life-supports since sundown. Years of experience underwater had accustomed him to similar systems; moonlongs of practice had prepared him for this particular version. Nonetheless it had taken a fair while before he persuaded it to eliminate from the cylinder's sealed atmosphere all trace of the pheromones that beset the launch site, redolent of doubt about himself, and he must have overcompensated.

Yet there were excellent reasons for choosing a male to venture into orbit first. Had it not been long accepted that legendary Gveest's revision of the folk's genetic heritage lacked certain safeguards, currently being supplied with all possible expedition? Was it not past a doubt that radiation or even minor stress might trigger the masculinizing effect again? Which of the mission controllers would risk such a doom falling on their own buds-?

Unfair! Unfair! They were the latest in line of those who for generations had dedicated themselves to ensuring that the folk of Slah should benefit to the full from the bequest of that astonishing pioneer of genetic control. Without such experience there could have been no hauqs, no life-supports in space or underwater... and Karg's epoch-making flight today would have been impossible.

Even so, there were many who resented it!

He struggled to dismiss such thoughts, and failed. What was one to make of people who knew their world might be destroyed without warning, yet scoffed at any attempt to seek refuge in space, called it foolish to obey the dictates of evolution, held that the only moral good consisted in multiplying the folk as much as possible? Oh, they were glad that the astronomers kept constant watch, for the whole world knew they had been right about the comet-head that crashed on Swiftyouth, and nobody in Karg's lifetime had tried to revive the sick and crazy teaching about “planet people” which their forebudders had swallowed-and been poisoned by. On the other claw, if Swiftyouth's gravity had been inadequate, or if it had been elsewhere in its orbit, then the folk of today might be struggling back from the swamps again.

But the past was dead, regardless of how vividly it might survive in one's imagination, and he was due for a ground check. He tensed his right foremantle, his left side being reserved for on-hauq maintenance. The hauq herself was a very refined version, maybe excessively so; she now and then responded to casual pheromones and did her mindless best to please her pilot without asking permission...

Well, so did scudders sometimes. Nobody could expect a trailblazing flight like this to be a simple task.

His pressure on the farspeaker stimulated its pith and woke it to signal mode on the correct wavelength. Its response was prompt. Would it perform as well in space? No good saying others like it had done so; never before had a living person been carried into orbit...

“Karg? You register?”

“Clearly! How long until lift-off?”

“Full gas-globe expansion predicted imminently. Final confirmation of system status! Body cushioning?”

Karg reviewed every point at which his mantle and torso were braced by the comfortable shape of the far tougher hauq, and announced, “Fine!”

“Propulsion mass and musculator pumps?”

There were no complaints from the docile creatures responsible for his maneuvers in orbit. He said so.

“Respiration?”

“Sourgas level normal.”

“Pheromone absorption?”

Traces of his own exudations were still, he feared, leaking back to him before the purifiers could cancel them. But he had endured worse underwater, and it seemed like a trifling matter to complain about.

“Seems satisfactory so far.”

The distant voice-he assumed it must belong to Yull, second-in-command at the launch site, but there was a degree of unreality about any communication by audio alone-took on a doubtful note. “Only 'so far'?”

He turned it with a joke. “How far have I got?”

However, there was no amusement in the response. “You realize we can't abort after you leave the ground?”

“Of course I do! Next is remote readings, correct?”

“Ah... Yes: we report normal signals. Mutual?”

“Confirm.”

“Any unusual textures or odors that might indicate potential navigation or orientation errors?”

“None.”

“Unusual coloration of any life-supports?”

“None.” Though it was hard to judge under these luminants, selected not so much because they were known to perform well in low pressure and zero gravity as because they tolerated their own wastes in a closed environment.

“We copy automatic reports confirming subjective assessment. All set for release. Clasp your branch!”

There was of course no branch. Yull was trying to sound sociable. Karg couched his answer in equally light tones.

“The next signal you receive will be from our outside broadcast unit. A very long way outside!”

“It's a big universe,” came the dry response. “Very well; as of the mark, you're on your own. Ready?”-to someone else. “Confirm! And mark!”

“Now I'm just a passenger,” said Karg, and waited for the sky to let him through.

To make this voyage possible scores-of-scores-of-scores of folk at Slah and in its hinterland had gone without for generations... though never without food, for the effects of starvation, voluntary or not, were much too horrible. Rather, they had resigned themselves and their budlings to less than their share of the wonders of the modern world: houses that thought, scudders and floaters, falqon-mail that flew from continent to continent where pitchens had only skimmed, communications that no longer called for nervograps, recordimals offering faithful transcriptions of the greatest thinkers and entertainers, newsimals and scentimals and haulimals, and the rest.

It was the tradition of their ancestors, and they were proud to keep it up.

Elsewhere the pattern had been otherwise. But that was the greatest source of conflict in the world today.

Nothing at all, however, could have prevented the citizens from gathering to marvel at the outcome of their self-denial. As a result of their efforts, gas-globes sprawled not just across the valley whence the launch took place, but over hill and dale and out to artificial islands in the nearest bay, wherever pumplekins might root to fill them with wetgas so light it bore up them, and their tethers, and a burden eloquent of eventual salvation.

Thanks to their hard work, too, Karg was promised survival and return. It had been their forebudders who devised means to break out into the vacuum of space; then they had found themselves short of essential raw materials. Ashamed to cheat their ignorant cousins on Glewm, the southern continent, out of what they did not so far know the worth of, they had resorted to their ancestors' domain, reinventing means to keep mind and pith together in mid-ocean, to locate themselves beneath dense cloud a season's trip from home, and ultimately to visit the sea-bed and supervise the work their creatures were undertaking there on their behalf. All the live tools they had bred to aid them in this venture had been exploited by the scientists who now were offering up Karg as a challenge to the stars.

The moon sparkled whether full or new. Comets were common; one had devastated Swiftyouth. Other rocks from out of nowhere had struck Stolidchurl and Steadyman, their impact sometimes bright enough to see without a telescope. Pure chance so far had saved the folk from another such disaster as created Slah.

All this they fervently believed. Whereas the inhabitants of other lands, not beneficiaries of what had been learned by digging Slah's foundations, reserved the right to doubt, and-almost as though they still accepted crazy Aglabec's ideas-acted as if their planet could endure forever.

That, though, the universe did not permit. The folk of Slah bore the fact in mind as they waited for Karg to take leave of this petty orb.

First on the smooth mirror of the water they cut loose the initial score of bladders. Up they went! A five-score bunch came next, and hoisted far into the clear blue autumn morning. Each batch was larger than the one before, and as the mass of them gathered it seemed that land and sea were uttering messages of hope about the future. Across the beach, across the nearer hills, then across the valley of the launch site, the sequence flowed without a flaw. This was the hugest skein of gas-globes ever lofted, almost a padlonglaq in total height.

At last they stirred the metal cylinder that held not only Karg but the drivers which would blast him beyond the atmosphere, along with creatures designed to keep him alive and in touch, navigate him to his rendezvous, assist his work and bring him back a moonlong hence.

But most of his voyage the watchers would not witness. No one was sure as yet what continent the vessel would be over when its drivers fired. As for its time and place of landing...

Oh, but it was a privilege to be present at the launch and see the countless bladders soaring up! (Countless? But they were counted, and farspeakers reported on the state of every single one of them during their brief lives. At a certain height they must explode, and leave the cylinder to fall, and orient, and rise again on jets of vivid fire.)

Through transparent ports Karg watched the world descend, much too busy to be frightened, never omitting to react to what his fellow creatures told him as they drifted towards the moon. It was changing color almost by the day as the life-forms sown there adapted to naked space and fearful radiation. And what they have done, he thought, the folk will do... Albeit we may change, we shall endure!

In a while he was looking down at clouds over Prutaj, that other continent he had never set pad on, where it was held that the hard work of Slah was misconceived, where present gratification was prized more than the future survival of the species.

And then the meteor struck.

II

Before the impact of the Greatest Meteorite, when folk debated concerning centers of learning and research, one was acknowledged to stand eye and mandibles above the rest. But Chisp was gone, save for what pastudiers could retrieve from the mud-slides which had buried it.

Now there was argument. Some held for Slah, as hewing truest to the principles of the past. Some still named Hulgrapuk, and certainly that city, though in decline, did not lack for dedicated scholars. When it came to innovation, though, there was no contest. Out of Fregwil on Prutaj flowed invention following insight following theory, and almost every theory was audacious, so that students from around the globe came begging for a chance to sit by the pads of those who had made its name world-famous.

And once each lustrum it was not just students who converged on it, but sightseers, merchants, news-collectors... for that was when the newest and latest was published to the admiring world. The tradition dated back five-score years. Much interest had then been aroused by the identification of solium in the atmosphere: so rare an element, it had previously been detected only in the spectrum of the sun. An intercontinental meeting of astronomers and chemists being convoked, it was overwhelmed by eager layfolk anxious to find out what benefit such a discovery might bring.

Yet most pronounced themselves disappointed. This news was of small significance to them in their daily lives. What the public mainly liked was something they could marvel at. What the scientists wanted was to attract the best and brightest of the next generation into research. Accordingly, every quarter-score of years since then the staid professors-and some not so staid-had mobilized to mount a spectacle for strangers. Indulgently they said, “We are all as budlings when we confront the mysteries of the universe, and a touch of juvenile wonderment can do no harm!”

Those who made a handsome living out of converting their experiments into practical devices agreed without reserve. And those who were obliged by their knowledge to accept that this touchy, fractious, immature species was unlikely to attain adulthood because the whole planetary system was orbiting into the fires of the Major Cluster-they resigned themselves to compliance on the grounds that there was nothing better to be done.

This time the Fregwil Festival of Science was nicknamed “The Spark-show,” because it was devoted to sparkforce, that amazing fluid known to permeate storm-clouds and nerve-pith alike, which held out promise of an infinity of new advances over and above the miracles it had already performed. And the name on everybody's mantle-rim was Quelf.

Sometimes when voyaging abroad citizens of Prutaj were tactless enough to boast about their superior way of life at home. On being challenged to offer evidence, as often as not they invoked Fregwil as a perfect symbol of the ideals to which Prutaj was dedicated. Its university, along with the healing-house from which it had originally sprung, dominated the city from its only high peak, and looked down on the local administrative complex, thereby exemplifying the preference Prutaj gave to knowledge over power; besides, it was surrounded by huge public parks where the folk might bring their young to enjoy the sight, the smell, the sound, even the touch and taste, of plants and animals that otherwise might long ago have disappeared from this continent at once so wealthy and so well controlled. (Which met, as often as not, with the retort: “So what? We have that stuff underpad anyhow!” And it was hard to tell whether they were jealous of Prutaj's progress, or despiteful of it.)

Sometimes, though, foreigners came to see for themselves, and departed duly abashed...

Exactly that was happening today. The parks were crammed with sparkforce exhibits which had attracted visitors from half the world, including a delegation from Slah: new ways of carrying messages, new means to control the growth of perfect primary and secondary plants, new and better styles in housing, feeding, moving, curing... Some objected, saying all they found was change for the sake of change. More stood awestricken, particularly those making a first visit to Fregwil. Now and then mongers of overseas news tried to distract the crowds with reports about Karg's spaceflight, but they were generally ignored. Almost everybody took it for granted that the most important and successful research in the world was happening right here at Fregwil. If ever it did become necessary to quit the planet, then it would be Fregwil scientists who found the way. And the most amazing demonstration was to come by dark.

There was a little ceremony first. Quelf took station on an artificial mound to be invested with the baldric of the Jingfired, a simple garland of phosphorescent leaves such as anyone might gather in a private garden. This provoked hilarity among the onlookers, shaming to her and her nominee Albumarak, and quickly reproved by Doyenne Greetch, who reminded those in range of the loudeners of the antiquity of this custom. But who in this generation, without visiting Glewm, or maybe the hinterland of Slah, could understand how differently their ancestors had lived? Albumarak, for one, enjoyed the symbolism of the ritual, devoid though it might be of historical authenticity.

At any rate she strove to. It was the least she could offer in return for Quelf's generosity in nominating her at so early an age as a candidate in her eventual turn for the status of becoming Jingfired. Whole families had gambled their possessions, and even the future of their offspring, on the chance of “being nominated.”

And it had overtaken her although her parents scorned her. She was rebellious, so they called her stupid...

Quelf disagreed. This prestigious neurophysicist had chanced across one of a quarter-score of recordimals which Albumarak had turned loose (she could not afford more, but she had modified them to ensure that they went about stinking good and loud!) to publicize a disagreement with her teachers. Quelf cared little for the argument-she said later it was clever but trivial-but she admired the neatness of the programming, and decided to enroll Albumarak among her students.

So here she was, doing her best not to seem bored even though the ceremony was going on for an awfully long time.

Eventually her attention was distracted by the shrill cry of yet another newsmonger announcing the launch of a piloted spaceship, and she found herself shuddering. At Fregwil the received opinion about such undertakings was the converse of the view the late Professor Wam had imposed at Hulgrapuk. Here it was dogmatically asserted that all preparations to meet a future catastrophe were pointless. No means existed to turn aside such another celestial missile as the Greatest Meteorite. However, if the next one were no larger, then at least some people would survive, conscious of the fact that there was nothing they could have done to fend off the disaster. If it were far bigger, nobody would be left to recriminate. As for lesser meteorites, thousands were falling every day, and patently no precautions could be taken against those because they were far too numerous. The folk of Prutaj were smugly proud of their acceptance of such arguments, and flattered themselves that they were being realistic.

As for escaping into space, out there either radiation or the lack of gravity was sure to kill any creature more advanced than a lowly plant, while dreams of substituting for the latter by spinning a huge hollow globe were countered with calculations showing how much it would cost in time, effort and materials to construct even the smallest suitable vessel. The figures were daunting; most layfolk accepted them without question. Besides, there was one additional consideration which weighed more with Albumarak than all the rest: how, demanded the psychologists at Fregwil, could anybody contemplate fleeing into space and abandoning the rest of the species to their fate? Recollection of their callousness would drive the survivors insane... or, if it did not, then they would have forfeited their right to be called civilized.

Albumarak concurred entirely. She could not imagine anyone being so cold-ichored. And yet-and yet, at the very least, this pilot must be brave...

Abruptly she realized that the ceremony was over, and it was time for the demonstration which everybody was awaiting. Hastily, for she had a minor part to play in it, she made her way to Quelf's side. By now it was full dark, and a layer of low cloud hid the moon and stars and the ceaseless sparkling of meteors. Moreover the nearby luminants were being masked, to render the spectacle yet more impressive. The crowd, which had been chattering and moving restlessly, quieted as Doyenne Greetch introduced Quelf over booming loudeners.

After a few formalities, the neurophysicist launched into the burden of her brief address.

“All of us must be familiar with nervograps, whose origin predated the Greatest Meteorite. Many of us now benefit, too, from sparkforce links, which carry that all-pervading fluid from pullstone generators like the ones you can see yonder”-her left claw extended, and the crowd's eyes turned as one-”or the more familiar flashplants, which many people now have in their homes. And we've learned that there is a certain loss of sparkforce in transmission. In some cases we can turn that loss to our advantage; anyone who has raised tropical fruit in midwinter thanks to sparkforce heaters knows what I mean by that! But in most cases this has been a serious drawback. And the same holds for communications; over a long circuit, messages can be garbled by system noise, and to ensure accuracy we have to install repeaters, not invariably reliable.

“That age is over, thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of our research team! We can now transmit both simple sparkforce, and messages as well, with negligible loss!”

Some of the onlookers had heard rumors of this breakthrough; others, though, to whom it was a complete surprise, uttered shouts of gleeful admiration. Quelf preened a little before continuing.

“On the slope behind me there's a tower. Perhaps some of you have been wondering what it is. Well, it's a device for generating artificial lightning. It's safely shielded, of course. But we now propose to activate it, using a sparkforce flow that will traverse a circuit more than five score-of-scores of padlonglaqs in length, using only those few generators you can see right over there. Are we ready?”

“Just a moment!” someone shouted back. “We're not quite up to working pressure.”

“Well, then, that gives me time to emphasize what's most remarkable about the circuit we've constructed,” Quelf went on. “Not only is it the longest ever laid; part of it runs underwater, part through desert, part through ice and snow within the polar circle! Nonetheless, it functions just as though it were entirely in country like this park. We all look forward to the benefits this discovery must entail!”

“I could name some people who aren't exactly overjoyed,” muttered Presthin, who stood close enough to Albumarak for her to hear. She was the goadster of the giant snowrither that had laid the arctic portion of the circuit. Many of her ancestors had been members of the Guild of Couriers in the days before nervograps and farspeakers, and she regarded modern vehicles, even snowrithers, as a poor substitute for the porps her forebudders had pithed and ridden. She was blunt and crotchety, but Albumarak had taken a great liking to her.

Right now, however, she had no time to reply, for the ready signal had been given, and Quelf was saying, “It gives me much pleasure to invite the youngest participant in our researches to close the circuit! Come on, Albumarak!”

To a ripple of applause she advanced shyly up the mound. Quelf ceded her place at the loudeners, and she managed to say, “This is indeed a great honor. Thank you, Quelf and all my colleagues... oh, yes, and if you look directly at the flash you may be dazzled. You have been warned!”

She stepped forward on to the flashplant tendril through which this end of the circuit was completed. At once the park was lit as bright as day. A clap of local thunder rolled, and a puff of sparkforce stink-due to a triple molecule of sourgas-assailed the watchers.

After an awed pause, there came a storm of cheers. Quelf let it continue a few moments, then called for quiet.

“But that's only part of the demonstration we have for you!” she declared. “In addition to the power circuit, we also have a message link, and in a moment you'll get the chance to inspect it for yourselves, and even to send a signal over it, if you have someone at its far end you'd like to get in touch with. The far end, in fact, is half this continent away, at Drupit! And from Drupit, on receipt of a go signal, one of the people who worked on the northernmost stretch of the message link will tell us the very latest news, without repeaters! Watch for it on the display behind me. Are we ready? Yes? Albumarak!”

Again she closed the circuit, this time using a smaller and finer linkup. There was a pause. It lasted so long, a few people voiced the fear that something had gone wrong.

Something had, but not at Fregwil nor at Drupit.

At long last the display began to show the expected symbols, and some of the onlookers recited them aloud:

“METEORITE BRINGS DOWN PILOTED SPACECRAFT-BELIEVED CRASHED IN CENTRAL UPLANDS-RESCUE SEARCH UNDER WAY!”

Before the last word had come clear, someone giggled, and within moments the crowd was caught up in gusts of mocking merriment. Even Quelf surrendered her dignity for long enough to utter a few sympathetic chuckles.

“You're not laughing,” Presthin murmured to Albumarak.

“Nor are you,” she answered just as softly.

“No. I've been in the uplands at this season. It's bad for the health. And if nothing else, that flier must be brave. Foolhardy and misguided, maybe. Nonetheless-!”

“I know exactly what you mean. But I don't suppose there's anything that we can do.”

“No. Not until he's spotted, anyway. At least they've stopped laughing; now they're cheering again. Quelf's beckoning. You'd better go and pretend you're as pleased as she is, hadn't you?”

III

The meteorite might well not have massed more than one of Karg's own pads or claws, but the fury of its passage smashed air into blazing plasma. Its shock-wave ripped half the gas-globes asunder, twisted and buffeted the cylinder worse than a storm at sea, punished Karg even through its tough protective walls with a hammer-slam of ultrasonic boom. Gasping, he wished indeed he had a branch to cling to, for the conviction that overcame his mind was primitive and brutal: I'm going to die!

Spinning, he grew dizzy, and it was a long while before an all-important fact began to register. He was only spinning. The cylinder was not tumbling end over end. So a good many of the gas-globes must be intact, though he had no way of telling how many; the monitors which should have been automatically issuing reports to him, as well as to mission control and its outstations scattered across one continent and three oceans, were uttering nonsense.

Was he too low to activate the musculator pumps intended for maneuvering in space? They incorporated a reflex designed to correct just such an axial rotation, but if the external pressure were too high... Giddiness was making it hard to think. He decided to try, and trust to luck.

And the system answered: reluctantly, yet as designed.

The cylinder steadied. But beneath the hauq on which he lay were bladders containing many score times his body-mass of reactive chemicals. If they sprang a leak, his fate would be written on the sky in patterns vaster and brighter than any meteor-streak. After establishing that all fuel-pressures were in the normal range, he relaxed a fraction, then almost relapsed into panic as he realized he could not tell whether he was floating or falling. Sealed in the cylinder, he was deprived of normal weather-sense, and the viewports were blinded by dense cloud. Suppose he was entering a storm! He could envisage much too clearly what a lightning-strike might do to the remaining gas-globes.

If only there were some way of jettisoning his explosive fuel...! The giant storage bladders were programmed to empty themselves, more or less according to the density of air in which the driver fired, and then when safe in vacuum expel whatever of their contents might remain. After that, they were to fold tight along the axis of the cylinder, so as not to unbalance it, and await the high temperature of reentry, whereupon they would convert into vast scoops and planes capable of resisting heat that could melt rock, and bring the cylinder to a gentle touchdown.

But this was not the sort of reentry foreseen by the mission controllers.

Karg's air had begun to stink of his own terror. Frantically he forced the purifiers into emergency mode, squandering capacity supposed to last a moonlong in the interests of preserving his sanity. Then the clouds parted, and he saw what lay below.

He hung about two padlonglaqs above a valley full of early snow, patched here and there with rocky crags but not a hint of vegetation. It was his first view of such a landscape, for he had spent all his life in coastal regions where winter was short and mild, but he knew he must be coming down in the desolate highlands of Prutaj.

Was there any hope that the wind might bear him clear of this continent where the achievements of Slah were regarded with contempt? Noting how rapidly the bitter frost of fall cut his lift, he concluded not, and chill struck his pith, as cruel as though he were not insulated from the outer air.

Striving to reassure himself, he said aloud, “The folk of Prutaj aren't savages! Even in their remotest towns people must have heard about my flight, officials may be willing to help me get back home-”

A horrifying lurch. More of the bladders had burst, or maybe a securing rope had given way. A vast blank snow-slope filled the groundward port. He could not help but close his eye.

The cylinder had been swinging pendulum-fashion beneath the remaining gas-globes. Loss of the topmost batch dropped it swiftly towards a blade-keen ridge of still-bare rock, against whose lee a deep soft drift had piled. A chance gust caught it; swerving, it missed the ridge, but touched the snow. Drag sufficed to outdo the wind, and it crunched through the overlying glaze of ice. Absorbed, accepted, it sank in, and the last gas-globes burst with soft reports.

But the driver-fuel did not explode.

In a little while Karg was able to believe that it was too cold to be a threat any longer. That, though, was not the end of the danger he was in. His hauq, and the other creatures which shared the cylinder, had been as carefully adapted to outer space as its actual structure. They were supposed to absorb heat-not too much, but precisely enough-from the naked sun, store it, and survive on it while orbiting through the planet's shadow. As soon as the mandibles of the ice closed on them they began to fail. That portion of the hauq's bulk which kept the exit sealed shrank away, and the sheer cold that entered made him cringe.

Also, but for the sighing of the wind and creaks from the chilling cylinder, there was total silence.

He sought in vain for any hint of folk-smell. Even a waft of smoke would have been welcome, for he knew that in lands like these some people managed to survive by using fire-another wasteful Prutaj habit. He detected none. Moreover, now that the pressure inside and out had equalized, he had normal weather-sense again, and it warned of storms.

He wanted to flee-flee anywhere-but he was aware how foolish it would be to venture across unknown territory rendered trackless by the snow. No, he must stay here. If all else failed, he could eat not only his intended rations but some of the on-hauq secondary plants. He might well last two moonlongs before being rescued... at least, so he was able to pretend for a while.

By dawn the overcast had blown away, and the next bright was clear and sunny. But though he searched the sky avidly for a floater or soarer that might catch sight of his crashed spacecraft, he saw none, and the air remained intensely cold. Shortly before sunset the clouds returned, and this time they heralded another fall of snow.

As Karg retreated for shelter inside the cylinder, he found he could no longer avoid thinking about the risk of freezing to death before he starved.

Next bright he was already too stiff to venture out. Little by little he began to curse himself, and the mission controllers, and his empty dreams of being one day remembered alongside Gveest and Jing.

Then dreams of another kind claimed him, and he let go his clawgrip on reality.

For the latest of too many times Albumarak muttered, “Why couldn't he have crashed where a floater could get to him?”

Perched forward of her in the snowrither's haodah, empty but for the two of them, some hastily grafted warmplants, and a stack of emergency supplies, Presthin retorted, “We don't even know he's where we're heading for! Slah could be wrong about the point where the meteor hit-our wind-speed estimates might be off-someone may have calculated the resultant position wrongly anyhow... Not that way, you misconceived misbudded miscegenate!”

She was navigating through a blizzard by dead reckoning, and had to ply her goad with vigor to keep their steed on course. Like all the folk's transport, snowrithers had been forcibly evolved, from a strain naturally adapted to polar climate and terrain, but the original species had only spread into its ecological niche during the comparatively recent Northern Freeze, and despite expert pithing this beast, like its ancestors, would have preferred to follow a spoor promising food at the end of its journey.

“Now I've got a question,” Presthin went on, peering through the forward window, on which snow was settling faster than the warmplants could melt it. “And it's a bit more sensible than yours. I want to hear why you volunteered to come with me! No guff about your 'moral duty,' please! I think you're here for the same reason I am. You want to see one of these famous space-cylinders, and there aren't apt to be any of them grown on our side of the world!”

“That has nothing to do with it! Anyway, they aren't grown! They're- well-cast, or forged, or something,” Albumarak concluded lamely.

“Hah! Well, it's not because you're so fond of my company, that's for sure. Then it must be because you want to get out of Quelf's claw-clutch for a while.”

“That's part of it”-reluctantly.

“Only part? Then what can the rest be?”

Albumarak remained silent, controlling her exudations. How could she explain, even to unconventional Presthin, the impulse that had overcome her after she heard the crowd at Fregwil greet the failure of Karg's mission with scornful jeers? Suddenly she had realized: she didn't believe that a person willing to risk his or her own life in hope of ensuring the survival of the species could truly be as nasty as her teachers claimed. So she wanted to meet one, well away from Quelf and all her colleagues.

Of course, if she admitted as much, and they didn't find him, or if when they did he were already dead, as was all too likely, Presthin's coarse sense of humor might induce her to treat the matter as a joke. Albumarak had never liked being laughed at; mockery had been one of her parents' chief weapons against their budlings.

Nonetheless she was bracing herself to disclose her real motive, when Presthin almost unperched her by jerking the snowrither to a convulsive halt.

Why? The blizzard had not grown fiercer; on the contrary, they had topped a rise and suddenly emerged under a clear evening sky.

“Look!” the goadster shouted. “They steered us to the right place after all!”

Across the next valley, on a hillside whose highest and steepest slope, still snow-free bar a thin white powdering, caught the last faint gleam of daylight: the multicolored rags and tatters of burst gas-globes.

“Just in time,” Presthin muttered. “By dark we could have missed it!”

Inside the cylinder the luminants were frosted and everything was foul with drying ichor. At first they thought their mission had been futile anyway, for they could find no sign of Karg. Presthin cursed him for being such a fool as to wander away from his craft. And then they realized he had only grown crazy enough to slash open the body of his hauq and burrow into it for warmth. It was long dead, and so within at best another day would he have been.

IV

Ever since Karg's arrival at Fregwil the university's healing-house had been besieged by sensation-seekers. Over and over it had been explained that the pilot would for long be too weak to leave his bower, and even when he recovered only scientists and high officials might apply to meet him. The crowds swelled and dwindled; nonetheless, as though merely looking at the place where he lay gave them some obscure satisfaction, their number never fell below ten score. Some of those who stood vainly waiting were local; most, however, were visitors to the Festival of Science, which lasted a moonlong and was not yet over.

Now and then Quelf graciously consented to be interviewed by foreign news-collectors, and took station in the nearby park behind a bank of efficient loudeners. The questions were almost always the same, but the neurophysicist's answers were delivered with no less enthusiasm each tune. She was positively basking in this welter of publicity, though of course she maintained that her sole ambition was to promote the fame and well-being of Prutaj in general and Fregwil in particular.

Certainly she missed no opportunity of boasting about her city and its skills. For example, to someone making the obvious inquiry about Karg's physical health, she would describe how frost had ruptured many of his tubules and he might lose his right pad, and then continue: “Luckily, as you know, we now have a loss-free sparkforce lead all the way to Drupit, so when one of our ultramodern snowrithers brought him there, a local physician was able to apply penetrative heating to the affected tissues. Now we're attempting to regenerate his damaged nerve-pith, too.”

Whereupon someone would invariably ask, “Has he regained full normal consciousness?”

“No, I'm afraid he's still dreamlost, though there are signs of lucidity. When he does recover, by the way, the first thing we shall want to know is whether he still feels the way he used to about the respective merits of what they do at Slah with their resources, and what we do with ours this side of the ocean. I think his views may well have changed since his unreliable toy fell out of the sky!”

Cue for sycophantic laughter...

As Quelf's nominee for Jingfired status, Albumarak was bound to dance permanent attendance on her, but the duty was becoming less and less bearable. Today, listening to the latest repetition of her stale gibes, feeling the change in air-pressure which harbingered bad weather, she wished the storm would break at once and put an end to the interview.

If only Presthin had not gone home... The goadster had been persuaded to accompany her and Karg to Fregwil, and spent a couple of grumpy days being introduced to city officials and other notables. Suddenly, however, she announced she'd had her mawful of this, and returned to her usual work with the snowrither, surveying the trade-routes which kept the highland towns supplied in winter and making sure that they were passable.

In the pleasant warmth of Fregwil, Albumarak found it almost impossible to recapture in memory the bitter chill of the valley where Karg had crashed. How could anybody want to be there, rather than here? There was, she realized glumly, an awful lot she didn't yet understand about people. Worst of all, she had not yet had a chance to fulfill the purpose which had induced her to join Presthin's rescue mission. All the time she had been in company with Karg, he had been unconscious or dreamlost, and since he had been brought here she had not been allowed to see him. Nobody was, apart from Quelf, a few of her associates, and the regular medical staff.

Wind rustled the nearby trees; the air-pressure shifted again, very rapidly, and people on the fringe of the crowd began to move away in search of shelter. With a few hollow-sounding apologies Quelf brought her public appearance to an end just as the first heavy drops pounded down.

“Do you need me any more right now?” Albumarak ventured.

“Hm? Oh-no, not until first bright tomorrow. Come to think of it, you could do with some time off. You don't seem to have recovered properly from the strain of bringing Karg back. Actually meeting someone who's prepared to abandon the rest of us to our fate is a considerable shock, isn't it?”

Albumarak recognized another of Quelf's stock insults, which the curtailment of today's interview had prevented her from using. But she judged it safest to say nothing.

“Yes, get along with you! Go have some fun with young'uns of your own age. Enjoy your dark!”

And the famous neurophysicist was gone, trailing a retinue of colleagues and admirers.

Dully Albumarak turned downslope, making for a branchway that would take her into the lower city, but with no special destination in mind. She had few friends. Some of her fellow students cultivated her acquaintance, but she knew it was because of her association with Quelf, not for her own sake, so she avoided them as much as possible. Now and then, and particularly since her return from the highlands, she found herself wishing for the old days when she could afford to do outrageous things in order to annoy her family. But she had not yet decided to risk trying that again, for Quelf would never be so tolerant... How strange to think of her parents as tolerant, when a year ago she would have sworn they were cruel and repressive!

She was aware of a sort of revolution going on within her. Attitudes she had taken for granted since budlinghood were changing without her willing it. It was like having to endure a private earthquake. She had been dazzled by the idea that one day she too could be Jingfired; she was growing into the habit of behaving herself appropriately. But now she was constantly wondering: do I really want it after all?

“Excuse me!”

A voice addressed her in an unfamiliar accent. She turned to see a she'un not much older than herself.

“Yes?”-more curtly than she intended.

“Aren't you Albumarak, who helped to rescue Karg?”

It was pointless to deny the fact. Any number of strangers recognized her nowadays.

“My name is Omber. I'm from the space-site at Slah.”

Albumarak's interest quickened. She knew that a delegation of scientists had arrived a few days ago, to take their pilot home and negotiate for recovery of his cylinder. But this was the first time she had met one of them.

“Ah! I suppose you've been to visit Karg, then.”

“They won't let us!” was the astonishing response.

“What?”

“Literally! Not even Yull-she's my chief, second-in-command of the entire project and the senior member of our group-not even she has been allowed to see him yet. Do you have any idea why?”

“This is the first I've heard about it!” Albumarak declared.

“Really?” Omber was taken aback. “Oh... Oh, well, then I won't trouble you any further. But I did rather assume-”

With rising excitement Albumarak interrupted. “No, I assure you! I'm horrified! What possible reason can they have to stop Karg's friends from visiting him, even if he isn't well enough to talk yet?”

“I'm not exactly a friend of his,” Omber said. “I only met him once or twice during his training. If it were just a matter of myself, I wouldn't be surprised. But Yull...! How is he, really? I suppose you've seen him recently?”

“They won't let me see him either,” Albumarak answered grimly. “They didn't let Presthin, come to that.”

“Presthin-? Oh, yes: the goadster! You mean not even she...? This is ridiculous! Excuse me; one doesn't mean to be impolite to one's host city, but it is, isn't it?”

“It's incredible!”

“You don't suppose... No, I oughtn't even to say it.”

“Go ahead,” Albumarak urged.

Omber filled her mantle. “You don't suppose he's being submitted to some sort of experimental treatment, and it's going wrong? We can't find out! Not many people here care to talk to us, and the people from our permanent trade mission say it's always the same for them, too.”

“You make me ashamed for my own city!”

“That's very kind and very reassuring.” Abruptly Omber sagged, revealing that she was dreadfully tired. “Excuse me, but I haven't had a proper rest since we boarded the floater. Yull sent me up here to have one more go at persuading the staff to admit us, while she went to see some official or other about recovering the cylinder. Not that there's much hope of our getting it back before the spring, apparently. They're making excuses about the danger from its unexpended fuel, and nobody understands that the colder it is, the safer. I mean, I work with it every day of my life, back home, and we haven't had any accidents with it, not ever, not even once. By the spring, though, venting it could really be hazardous. Still, with a bit of luck Yull will manage to make them listen.”

There was a pause. Except for the hardiest, most of the crowd surrounding the healing-house had dispersed or sought shelter. Abruptly Albumarak realized that she had kept Omber standing in the pouring rain, and hastily urged her to the nearest bower.

“Do you think your colleagues will believe that even I haven't been allowed to see Karg?” she demanded.

Omber gave a curl of faint amusement. “I believe you entirely. And nothing in this weird city is likely to surprise me after that. Yes, I think they will.”

“But just in case they don't...” Albumarak's mind was racing. “Would you like me to tell them personally?”

“Why-why, that's too much to ask! But it would be wonderful! That is, if you can spare the time?”

“I have nothing much to do,” Albumarak muttered, thinking how accurate that was not only of the present moment but of her entire life. Quelf's idea of encouraging her students' research was to let them watch what she herself was doing and then take over the repetitive drudgery involved... and blame them for anything that afterwards went wrong. “Where is your delegation lodged?”

“In a spare house near our trade mission, which they had to wake up specially for us. It's a bit primitive, since it hasn't been occupied for several moonlongs, but if you're sure you wouldn't mind...?”

“It will be a pleasure,” Albumarak declared. “Let's go!”

V

Nobody paid attention to the creature which Yull, Omber and Albumarak turned loose as they entered the healing-house at first bright next day. It looked like a commonplace scrapsaq-on the large side, perhaps, but one expected that in a public institution. Its kind were conditioned to go about disposing of spent luminants, spuder-webs full of dead wingets and the like, attracted to one or several kinds of rubbish by their respective odors. Having gathered as much as they could cope with, they then carried their loads to the rotting pits, and were rewarded with food before setting off again.

This one, however, was a trifle out of the ordinary.

Having seen it safely on its way, Albumarak turned to her companions.

“Follow me!” she urged. “Quelf is always in the neurophysics lab at this time of the morning.”

With Yull exuding the pheromones appropriate to a high official, and Omber playing the role of her nominee as Albumarak had taught her, they arrived at the laboratory unchallenged, along a high branchway either side of which the boughs were festooned with labeled experimental circuitry. Pithed ichormals lay sluggish with up to a score of tendrils grafted on their fat bodies; paired piqs and doqs stirred uneasily as each tried to accept signals from the other; long strands of isolated nerve-pith, some healthy and glistening, some dry and peeling, were attached to plants in an attempt to find better repeaters for nervograp links, for despite Quelf's optimism it would be long before loss-free communication circuits became universal.

“I don't like this place,” Omber muttered.

“That's because you're more used to working with raw chemicals than living things,” Yull returned, equally softly. “But we exploit them too, remember.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I'm sorry.”

Nonetheless she kept glancing unhappily from side to side.

One of Albumarak's fellow students, engaged in the usual drudgery of recording data from the various experiments, caught sight of her and called out “Hey! You're late! Quelf is fuming like a volcano!”

“I'm on my way to make her erupt,” was the composed reply.

And Albumarak led her companions into the laboratory itself, where the neurophysicist was holding forth to a group of distinguished visitors, probably foreign merchants anxious to acquire and exploit some of Fregwil's newest inventions. That was an unexpected bonus!

Albumarak padded boldly towards her, not lowering as she normally would in her professor's presence. Abruptly registering this departure from ordinary practice, Quelf broke off with an apology to her guests and glared at her.

“Where've you been? When I wished you a good dark I-”

“I want to see Karg,” Albumarak interrupted.

“What? You know perfectly well that's out of the question! Have you spent your dark taking drugs?”

“Not only I,” said Albumarak as though she had not spoken, “but my companions. Allow me to present Scholar Yull, head of the Slah delegation, and her assistant Omber.”

“Who are both,” murmured Yull in a quiet tone, “extremely anxious to see our old friend.”

She was a tall and commanding person in her late middle years. Albumarak clenched her claws, trying to conceal her glee. The moment she had set eye on Yull, last evening, she had suspected that she could dominate Quelf-and here was proof. She had an air of calm authority that made the other's arrogance look like mere bluster.

Taken totally aback, and hideously embarrassed that it should have happened in the presence of strangers, rather than only her students whom she could always overawe, Quelf reinforced her previous statement.

“Out of the question! He's still far too ill! Now show these people out and resume your duties!”

“If Karg is still so ill after being so long in your care,” Yull said silkily, “that indicates there must be something wrong with your medical techniques.”

“They are the best in the world! He was half-frozen! It was a miracle he didn't lose both pads instead of one!”

“I see. How is regrowth progressing?”

“What?”

“I said how is regrowth progressing?”-in the same soft tone but taking a step towards Quelf. “In such a case we would grow him a replacement, which would lack sensation but restore normal motor function. Has this not been done?”

“We-uh, that is, it's not customary...”

“Well, it's not important; it will be better for him to have the job done at home anyway, since your methods appear to be suspect.” Yull was ostensibly unaware of the grievous insult she was offering, but Quelf's exudations ascended rapidly towards the anger-stink level. She went on, “At least, however, we must insist on verifying that he is not at risk from secondary infection.”

“He's in our finest bower, guarded by a score of winget-killers, with filter-webs at every opening!”

“In that case, judging by his medical record, he should have recovered from a slight attack of frostbite long ago. Did the crash cause worse injuries than you've admitted?”

Albumarak was trying not to dance up and down with joy.

But Quelf gathered her forces for an equally crushing rebuttal.

“What you regard as good health may perhaps not correspond with what we of Prutaj take for granted,” she said, having recovered most of her poise. “Indeed, perhaps we have made a mistake in trying to bring him up to that level. But you must not prevent it happening, if it can be done.”

Yull turned her eye slowly on all those present, while drawing herself up to full height. She overtopped Quelf by eye and mandibles; moreover her mantle was sleek and beautifully patterned for her age. Only the youngest students' could match it. The distinguished visitors, and Quelf too, betrayed the puffiness due to overindulgence, and here and there a fat-sac peeked out under a mantle's edge, yellowish and sickly.

“I like your boss!” Albumarak whispered to Omber.

“She's a terror when you cross her,” came the answer. “But this kind of thing she's very good at.”

There was no need for Yull to spell out the implication of her scornful survey; many of the visitors fidgeted and tried to pull themselves into better shape. Only Quelf attempted to counter it.

“Well, if you prefer to go about half-starved, forever on the verge of becoming dreamlost, that's your lookout!”

“You're implying that I'm in that condition now?” Yull's manner suddenly turned dangerous.

“You? I wouldn't know about you for certain, but it seems pretty obvious that only people who were good and dreamlost would think of trying to send someone out into space!”

Yull turned away. “There seems little point in pursuing this conversation,” she said to Omber. “Show them what you're carrying and let's find out the truth.”

“Ah! The truth is that your costly toy fell out of the sky!” Quelf declared in triumph, using a phrase she had grown fond of. “You can't deny that, so you refuse to-”

But nobody was paying attention to her. All eyes were on Omber, who had produced from a bag she was carrying something which all present recognized by its unique odor: a farspeaker, smaller, yet patently more powerful, than they had ever seen before.

“This,” said Yull didactically, “is one of the miniature farspeakers we developed to communicate with our spaceship when in orbit. We brought a few of them with us so as to keep in touch with the authorities at Slah.”

She pinched the creature with a gentle claw. Its colors altered slightly and it gave off an aroma of contentment.

“Albumarak programmed a scrapsaq carrying another of these to seek out Karg. By now it should have reached the place where you're imprisoning him. When I-”

“Imprisoning? You have no right to say that!” Quelf shrieked.

“Let's find out whether I do or not,” said Yull imperturbably, and activated the farspeaker to maximum volume. At once a voice rang out, impersonal, repetitive: the sound of a recordimal.

“-is better than life at Slah. Having seen for myself, I honestly think life at Fregwil is better than life at Slah. Having seen for myself, I honestly think-”

“They're trying to condition him!” Albumarak burst out.

Silencing the farspeaker, Yull nodded gravely. “I can come to no other conclusion. Having had this gift from the sky drop into their claws, seeing the chance of a propaganda victory over us whom they regard as their rivals, Quelf and her colleagues set out to force poor Karg into such a state of permanent dreamness that when they eventually decided to let him appear in public again he would renounce his former allegiance. Luckily, as is evidenced by the fact that after so long they are still having to force one simple sentence into his memory, this is so transparent an untruth that even in his weakened state he continues to reject their dishonest overtures.”

“Untruth?” bellowed Quelf. “What's untrue is what you are saying!”

“Really?” Yull turned an icy gaze on her. “How, then, about the statement 'having seen for myself? What of Fregwil have you permitted Karg to see? The inside of a healing-house bower, correct?”

“That's exactly what I was thinking!” One of the visitors thrust forward. “I'm Yaxon, merchant from Heybrol! I came here to buy nervograp specifications-never mind that-and I know a conditioning program when I hear one! But I thought they'd been made illegal!”

She was echoed by an angry mumble from the others.

“In civilized cities,” Yull murmured, “yes, they have!”

Having closed on Quelf, the company now drew back, as though from something emitting a noxious stench. The professor uttered a faint whimper, looking about her for support. None was forthcoming; even her students regarded her with sudden loathing.

“Albumarak,” Yull said, returning the farspeaker to Omber's bag, “show us the way to Karg's bower.”

They all went, exuding such a reek of fury that no one dared gainsay them. There they found him, comfortable enough to be sure in a luxurious crotch padded with the best of mosh, with a nursh in attendance to change the cleanlickers on his frostbitten pad, and with plenty to eat and drink... but dazed, and totally unable to escape the message repeated and repeated by recordimals either side of him. When one grew fatigued the other took over automatically; the programming was impeccable, and- as Albumarak abruptly realized with a renewed access of horror- that meant it had almost certainly been prepared by Quelf in person.

She rushed forward, snatched up both of them, and hurled them out of the bower, careless of the fact that their passage slashed great gaps in the protective spuder-webs which filtered incoming air of not only wingets but microorganisms.

“And now,” said Yull with satisfaction, after checking Karg and finding him in good physical condition, at least, “we can arrange for this poor fellow to regain his normal senses. I understand that Quelf is only a research professor here. Who is the actual director? I require to speak with her at once!”

Her voice rang out like thunder, and one might have sworn that it altered the air-pressure like an actual storm.

The frightened nursh quavered, “I'll go find her!”

“Does she know about this?” Yull demanded.

“N-no! I'm sure she doesn't! We have at least eight-score folk in here at any given time, so she-”

“Then she's unfit to occupy her post, and I shall tell her so the moment she arrives! Fetch her, and fetch her now!”

VI

“What's going to happen to Quelf?” Omber asked. Recriminations had continued all day, and would doubtless resume next bright, but by nightfall everyone was tired of arguing and moreover hungry. The city officials had agreed to arrange for immediate recovery of the space-cylinder, and promised to announce in the morning what other compensation they would offer for Karg's mistreatment. The Slah delegation regarded that as acceptable.

As to Quelf, she had fled the healing-house in unbearable humiliation. Her last message as she mounted her scudder and made for home had been relayed to Albumarak: “Tell that misbudded traitor not to expect any more help from me!”

So there went her future, wiped away by a single well-intentioned decision... but how could she possibly have acted otherwise and lived with herself afterwards? Wearily she summoned the energy to answer Omber as they and Yull left the university precincts under a blustery autumn sky.

“Oh-nothing much, probably. She's just been made one of the Jingfired, you know, and they're virtually untouchable. Also she's far too brilliant a researcher for the authorities to risk her moving elsewhere, to Hulgrapuk, for example. On top of that, her sentiments are shared by just about all the teachers here. They really do regard people from other continents as basically inferior to themselves.”

“Is the incidence of metal poisoning exceptionally high at Fregwil, then?” Yull murmured, provoking her companions to a cynical chuckle.

And she continued, “I feel a celebration is in order, now that Karg is being properly cared for at last.” They had been assured he would be well enough to leave his bower within two or three days. “Let's dine at the best restaurant we can find, and afterwards make a tour of this Festival of Science; I gather it finishes tonight. Albumarak, you'll be my guest, of course. And perhaps you can advise us what we might ask by way of compensation if the proposals made to us tomorrow are inadequate. That is, unless you have a prior engagement?”

“No-no, I don't! I accept with pleasure!” Albumarak had difficulty concealing her delight. Already she had been favorably impressed by the unaffected way these people treated her: naturally, casually, as though she were one of themselves. Rather than seeking a reward for her assistance, she felt she ought to be performing further services for them, if only to salve the good reputation of her city, so disgracefully mildewed by Quelf.

“Then where shall we eat? For choice, suggest an establishment patronized by members of the Jingfired. I feel an unworthy desire to snub their mandibles.”

Quelf had invited Albumarak to dine with her the day she decided to cite her as her nominee. The idea of taking her new friends to the same place appealed greatly.

“I know just the one!” she declared. “And there's a dolmusq bound in the right direction over there!”

After the meal-which was excellent-they swarmed the short distance to the park where the Sparkshow was coming to its end. Though the weather was turning wintry, a number of special events had been mounted to mark its final night, and throngs of folk were vastly amused at being charged with so much sparkforce that they shed miniature aurorae from claw-tips and mandibles, yet felt no ill effects.

But Yull and Omber dismissed such shows as trivial, and paid far more attention to experiments with a practical application: gradient separation of similar organic molecules, for instance, and the use of rotating pull-stones to prove that the fields they generated were intimately related to sparkforce, though as yet nobody had satisfactorily explained how. Someone had even bred back what was held to be a counterpart of the long-extinct northfinder, and claimed that its ability always to turn towards the pole must have been due to metallic particles in its pith-a challenge to those who believed that reactive metal in a living nervous system invariably led to its breakdown.

At last they came to what had proved the most popular and impressive item in the Festival: the creation of artificial lightning by means of a charge sent along a loss-free circuit. Despite having been fired a score of times every dark for a moonlong, it was still operating perfectly, as was the message-link over which news of Karg's crash had come to Fregwil, although the display on which the information appeared had had to be replaced twice.

Here Yull and Omber lingered longer than at all the other demonstrations put together, insisting on watching two of the artificial lightning-flashes and sending an unimportant message-”Greetings to Drupit from citizens of Slah!”-over the communication link. For the first time Albumarak felt excluded from their company as they discussed what they had seen in low and private tones.

But eventually they turned back to her, curling their mantles in broad grins.

“Did you work on this remarkable discovery?” Yull asked.

“Ah... Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did. Quelf has the habit of delegating the details to her students, and-”

“You understand the principle?”

“I'm not sure anybody does, really, but I certainly know how the circuits are grown. Why?”

Yull began to pad meditatively downslope, and the others fell in alongside her.

“Quelf was right in one thing she said to us today,” she went on after a lengthy pause. “Our 'costly toy' did fall out of the sky. What served us well when we were only launching spores and spawn and automatic systems designed to fend for themselves in orbit has turned out to be much too risky when it comes to a piloted mission. For a long time we've been seeking an alternative to wetgas-bladders as a means of lofting spacecraft. We even went so far as to consider using giant drivers directly from ground level, or rather from a mountain-top. But the life-support and guidance systems would burst under the requisite acceleration. As for what would happen to the crew-!

“Have you, though, padded across standing-sparkforce repulsion?”

“Of course,” Albumarak replied, staring. “But it's a mere laboratory curiosity, with about the power of one of those seeds young'uns put under a burning-glass to watch them leap as their internal gas heats up.”

“You do that here too?” Yull countered with a smile. “I guess budlings are pretty much the same everywhere, aren't they? But, as I was just saying to Omber, if one could grow sufficient of these new loss-free circuits... Do you see what I'm getting at?”

Albumarak was momentarily aghast. She said, “But if you mean you want to use that method to launch spacecraft, you'd need laqs and craws of them!”

“I think we're less daunted by projects on such a scale than you are; the skein of gas-globes that lofted Karg was already more than a padlonglaq in height. And we don't waste our resources on private luxury the way you do on Prutaj. Excuse me, but it is the case, you know.”

“It's often seemed to me,” said Albumarak meditatively, “that most of what we produce is designed to keep us from thinking about the ultimate threat that hangs over us all.”

“You're very different from most of your own folk, aren't you?” Omber ventured. Albumarak turned to her.

“If Quelf is to be taken as typical-and I'm afraid she is-then I'm proud of the fact!”

“You'd be quite at home in Slah, then,” Yull said lightly. “But before we wander off down that particular branchway: do you think we might reasonably, in compensation for what's been done to Karg, ask how to grow a loss-free sparkforce circuit?”

Albumarak pondered for a long moment. Eventually, clenching her claws, she said with barely suppressed glee, “Yes! Yes, that's exactly what you should ask for!”

And if they refuse to part with it-well, then, I'll go to Slah with you and bring the knowledge in my memory!

She did not speak it aloud, but the moment she reached her decision, she felt somehow that it was far more right than waiting for her turn to be made Jingfired.

On the morrow Yull and the rest of the Slah delegation were bidden to attend a Full Court of Council, held in a huge and handsome bower in the most ancient quarter of the city. Albumarak tagged along, though on arrival she was quite ignored. It pleased her to see her “superiors” in such a plight; the atmosphere was stiff with the reek of embarrassment, and the welcome offered to the visitors, though correct, was a hollow one.

Sullen, Quelf had been obliged to put in an appearance, and perched with a few of her closest colleagues on one side of the bower. At the center was Ingolfine, old, excessively fat, but the senior of the living Jingfired, to whom all others must defer when matters of high policy were debated.

“Were there not once Jingfired at Slah?” Albumarak asked Omber in a whisper.

“Oh yes! Indeed, they still exist. But ours are mostly scientists who do not make their rank the excuse for show and pomp. They regard it as the greatest possible honor to be elected, and they are charged never to boast about it. Yull may be one; I'd rather lose a claw than ask her.”

The more she learned about the way of life at Slah, the more Albumarak approved of it.

And then Ingolfine wheezed a command for silence, and they composed themselves to listen to what she had to say.

“It has been concluded by the members of our Council that a grave- ah-error of judgment has occurred in the case of the foreigner Karg, inasmuch as although-and let me emphasize this-he has been afforded the best of medical care, excessive enthusiasm for the merits of life at Fregwil led respected Quelf to overpad the boundary of normal courtesy towards one who was sick and far from home.”

Quelf looked as though she would like to disappear.

“Honor obliges us therefore to make restitution. We propose to endow a studentship tenable by a young person from Slah for up to a quarter-score of years, to be devoted to any subject taught at our university.”

And she waited for Yull's response to what she clearly regarded as a generous offer.

It followed promptly. “We would be dreamlost and foolish to commit any of our young people to the claws and mandibles of so-called teachers who regard us as an inferior folk!”

The insult provoked a furious outcry. When Ingolfine quelled it, she demanded, “Then what do you ask for?”

“The secret of loss-free circuitry, so we can put it to better use than what you're sure to waste it on!”

This time the hubbub was reinforced by combat-stink. “Out of the question!” Ingolfine declared after consulting her advisers.

“Very well, then,” Yull said composedly. “We have an alternative demand. Regardless of the medical care given him, which we have certain reservations about, it is an undeniable fact that Karg was maltreated here. We will settle for taking one of your citizens home with us, not against her or his will, in order to demonstrate to the world how much better we at Slah can make a foreigner welcome.”

Ingolfine and the other officials relaxed. If the Slah delegation were content to achieve a mere propaganda coup... More private discussion followed, and finally Ingolfine announced, “To that we see no objection.”

“You state that publicly, as a matter of principle?”

Again, hurried consultation. Then, defiantly, “Yes!”

“Very well. We choose Albumarak.”

There was a horrified hush. Quelf broke it, rising to full height and shrieking, “But she's my best student!”

“Was!” shouted Albumarak, marveling at how clearly Yull had read her secret intentions. “After what you did to Karg, nobody will respect you again so long as you live!”

VII

During the dark that preceded her departure, Albumarak perched alone in one of the shabby neglected bowers of the house where the Slah delegation had been obliged to take up lodging. Her mind was reeling under the impact of the hatred she was having to endure. Even in her fits of bitterest loathing for the “high-pressure citizens” of her bud-place she had never imagined that they, in full awareness of what had been done to Karg, would regard her as the traitor and not Quelf. It showed that they too would have wanted the foreigner to be cheated into turning his mantle, heedless of how much he suffered in the process, in order to delude those who were striving to escape the truth.

Soft slithering at the entrance aroused her. The bower's luminants were withering and dun, and the night was cloudy; neither moonshine nor the glimmer of stars and comets lent their light. Not waiting to sense the newcomer's aroma, she said in a dull tone, “Who's there?”

“It's Karg. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Why-why, certainly you may!” She had met him earlier; he was still weak, but had insisted on remaining at Fregwil until arrangements for recovering his cylinder were complete. Thinking he might need assistance, she moved towards him, but he waved her aside with one claw.

“I may not be able to walk properly right now, but I can swarm along a branch all right... There.” He settled in the crotch next to hers, where they could look out at the city through gaps between the bravetree trunks.

“I suspect I owe you my sanity as well as my life,” he said after a while.

Embarrassed, she shifted on her perch. “It was Presthin who actually rescued you. I just went along for the ride. And it was Yull who suggested how we could eavesdrop on what Quelf was doing to you.”

“But you programmed the scrapsaq, didn't you? She told me it was an amazing job, given the time available.”

“Well, we had to keep the snowrither's haodah sealed all the way to Drupit, so I had plenty of time to get to know your aroma. Mimicking it well enough to condition a scrapsaq wasn't hard.”

She found herself feeling a little uncomfortable in the presence of this person who had risked and suffered so much in a cause which, a moon-long ago, she had been accustomed to dismissing as worthless.

Sensing her mood, Karg inquired, “Are you having second thoughts about going to Slah?”

“No, quite the reverse!”-with a harsh laugh. “I'm looking forward to it. I never thought my folk could be so brutal!”

After a pause, Karg said, “I've been talking to Yull about your people. She said... I don't know if I ought to repeat this. It's indecent to talk that way about another folk.”

“Say anything you like and I'll say worse!”

“Very well. But there isn't really another folk, is there? We are all one. We're budded, and we die, and in between we make the most of what's offered to us, and afterwards whatever it was that made us us returns to whence it came. Maybe next time it will animate creatures under another sun, so different from ourselves that when what used to make up you and me comes back we won't recognize each other. But of course there can't be any way of knowing.”

Albumarak was not in the habit of debating the mystery of awareness; the academics of Fregwil had long ago decreed that certain problems were inherently insoluble and should be left to take care of themselves. She said hastily, “You were about to quote Yull, weren't you?”

“All right, since you insist. She holds that your folk must be less than civilized because you take no thought for the future, and won't invest effort to promote the survival of our species but only for your own immediate enjoyment. She says this is proved by the way you waste so much of your resources on entertainment and distraction. You don't have enough left over to make sure either that your food-plants are healthy or that the air you breathe has been purged of poisonous metals. If you did, you'd be working to ensure that even though we as individuals can't escape into space our budlings or their budlings may. She's so convinced of this, she's going to insist on all of us being purified from crest to pad when we get home. And she swears that's why the people of Fregwil went crazy enough to want the futile victory of conditioning me by force!”

He ended on a defiant note, as though expecting Albumarak to contradict.

And only a short while ago she would have done so. But her journey with Presthin, brief though it was, had given her the shadow of an insight into what Karg must have braced himself for when he volunteered to fly into space. To her the snowbound wastes of the highlands were alien enough; how much more, then, the boundless desert between the stars!

Hesitantly she asked, “Did it do any lasting harm? The conditioning, I mean?”

He gave a dry chuckle. “Probably not very much, vulnerable though I was. I had to learn to cling hard to reality a long time ago. I used to supervise an underwater quarry, you know, in an environment nearly as harsh and lonely as outer space.”

“I didn't know! In fact, I know almost nothing about you, do I? This is the first time we've met properly.”

He stretched himself; his injuries were tightening as they healed, causing discomfort. “Well, that was why they picked me-that, and the fact that I was much smaller than the other candidates, so they could loft a bit of extra reaction mass for free-fall maneuvering. Do you understand how my craft works, or rather, was supposed to work?”

“I think so. The gas-globes were to carry it above most of the atmosphere, and then the drivers were to blast you into orbit, and then you'd fire them again to-”

“Not quite. Out in space I was to use regular musculator pumps to expel a heavy inert liquid that we've developed. The fuel used for the drivers becomes unstable under free-space radiation. We lost two or three of our early cylinders that way, before we figured out what the problem was. Or rather, I should say 'they,' not 'we,' because that happened long before I joined the team.”

Karg heaved a deep sigh. “I was looking forward to it, I really was! And now I've lost my chance forever.”

“Surely not! After your pad has grown back”-Albumarak could still not mention that promise without a hint of awe in her voice, for it bespoke medical techniques far surpassing those boasted of at Fregwil- “they won't want to waste someone with your special talents and training.”

“Oh, I gather Yull impressed everybody mightily with her reference to regrowth, but the process is actually still in the experimental stage, and in any case you don't get the feeling back. And every square clawide of my body was pressed into service to control the hauq, and the purifiers, and the maneuvering pumps, and the farspeakers and the rest. No, I had my chance, and a meteorite stole it once for all.”

“So what will you do now-go back to underwater work?”

“I could, I suppose; it isn't so demanding... But I'd rather not. I think I'll stay on at the space-site. I gather Yull told you that we're going to have to abandon our existing plans and try another course.”

“Yes, but...” Albumarak clacked her mandibles dolefully. “You said your regrowth techniques are still at the experimental stage. The same is true of our loss-free circuits. They still take ages to grow-we'd been working on the one which we demonstrated at the Sparkshow ever since the last Festival of Science-and they haven't yet been proved under field conditions. For all we can tell, they may be vulnerable to disease, funqi, wild beasts, parasitic plants...”

“Yes, it seems more than a padlong from demonstration of a pilot version to what Yull is talking about. Even so, a fresh eye cast on the principle... What is it?”

“The principle? Well... Well, how much do you know about sparkforce?”

Karg shrugged; she felt the branches stir. “Take it for granted that I know a little about a lot of things.”

“Yes, you'd have to, wouldn't you?” Embarrassed again, Albumarak went on hastily. “What she seems to have in mind isn't even at the experimental level yet. It's a mere oddment, a curiosity. It depends on using sparkforce charges to repel each other.”

“I thought that must be it, but if you did put such a huge charge on one of our cylinders, then... Hmm! Wait a moment; I think I see how it might be done. If there were some way to alternate the kinds of repulsion-Ach! I'm taking an infusion to control my pain, and my mind is still too foggy for constructive reasoning. But I'll remember to mention my idea to Yull in the morning.”

He shifted in the crotch, turning his eye on her. “Did you get enough to eat this sundown?”

“As much as I wanted.”

“If you didn't eat properly, you may find your mind is as sluggish as mine when you arrive in Slah. It can take quite a long time to adjust to local dark and bright after traveling to a different continent at today's speeds-Oh, hark at me! I hadn't set pad on a foreign continent myself before my crash. I'm not the person to lecture you. But I thought it was worth mentioning.”

“How would you have coped in space, then? There isn't a dark-bright cycle up there!”

“In the orbit I was supposed to follow, there would have been, but six or seven times as fast as a regular day. I didn't expect any trouble, though. Deep underwater you have no dark-bright cycle at all, and I lived through that.”

“What exactly were you to do out there?”

Karg stretched again, and a hint of agony discolored his pheromones, but it lasted only a moment.

“Bring together two of our automatic orbital cylinders and connect their ecosystems, then work inside them for a while, making sure everything was going as well as the farspeakers indicate. We do seem to have beaten one major problem: we've developed plants that purge themselves of deleterious mutations due to radiation. Some of them have been through four or five score generations without losing their identity, and should still be fit to eat. But of course there may be changes too tiny for our monitors to locate and report on. How I wish we could get to the moon and back! We need samples of the vegetation up there in the worst way!”

Listening to him in the gloom of the ill-tended bower, Albumarak found herself wondering what Presthin had been like when she was younger and less cynical; much like Karg, she suspected... She decided once for all that she had been right to throw in her lot with these people. If they succeeded with their plan to survive in space, they would not be driven mad by the fate of their fellow creatures, any more than Karg by Quelf's mistreatment. But they were no less civilized for that. Yull's contempt for the folk of Prutaj was justified. Worse than primitive, they were insane... if sanity consisted in doing the most the universe allowed, and she knew no better definition.

In a tremulous tone she said, “I admire you very much, Karg. I'd invite you to pair with me, but I shouldn't be in bud during my first few moonlongs at Slah, should I?”

“Quite right,” was the answer. “And in any case I'm still too weak, though I look forward to the time when it will be possible. And-ah- you say you admire me. But all my life I've been trained under the finest tutors to do unusual and extraordinary work. You've had a truly awful teacher, and yet for me at least you've performed not just one miracle, but two. Thank you again.”

And he swarmed away, leaving her delighted with the world.

VIII

For the first few days, what fascinated Albumarak about her new home was less its modern aspect-its space-site, its laboratories which in many ways were more impressive than those at Fregwil, perhaps because the staff were under less pressure to be forever producing novelties-than its sheer antiquity. She had been vaguely aware that Slah enshrined the last remaining traces of the only ocean-going city to have outlasted the heyday of the People of the Sea, but it was very different to hold in her own claws the mandible of a long-extinct fish, found among the roots of its most ancient trees, or nibble a fragment of funqus and know the species had last been modified by Gveest in person.

As she had expected, the pace of life here was calmer, yet she detected few signs of discontent or boredom. More people were occupied with old-fashioned tasks-such as disposing of dead luminants-which at Fregwil were deputed to creatures programmed for them, but there was a greater sense of being in touch with the natural world, which Albumarak found refreshing, and the citizens, most of whom had naturally heard about her, seemed never to lack time to offer advice or assistance.

By stages she began to grasp the full sweep of the plan these people had conceived for the salvation of their afterbuds, and its grandeur overawed her. They referred casually to the astronomers' estimate that it might take ten thousand years for the sun to orbit through the Major Cluster, they accepted without question that its dense gas-from which stars could be observed condensing-would raise the solar temperature to the point where the planet became uninhabitable; they were resigned to the high probability that there would be a stellar collision, and if that did not eventuate, then so much random matter was bound to fall from the sky that it would come to the same thing in the end; and all this was equally well known at Fregwil.

But instead of closing their minds to the catastrophe, these people were prepared to plan against it. They spoke confidently of vehicles carrying scores-of-scores of folk, along with everything needed to support them, which could be moved away from the sun as it heated up, maneuvering as necessary to remain within its biosphere, while adapted plants freed raw materials from the outer planets and their moons. Then, later, they envisaged breaking up the smaller orbs and converting them into cylinders which could be spun on their long axis to provide a substitute for gravity. These, they predicted, would permit at least some isolated units of the folk to navigate between the nascent stars, using reaction mass or the pressure of light itself.

All this, of course, was still theoretical. But Albumarak was astonished to learn in what detail the history of the future had been worked out here. She wondered whether she was worthy to contribute to it.

Inevitably, the bright arrived when she was summoned to the neurophysical laboratory attached to the space-site, well beyond the city limits. Omber appeared to guide her. There she was welcomed by a tubby, somewhat irascible personage called Scholar Theng, who lost no time in getting down to business.

“Well, young'un,” she boomed, “it seems we have to reconsider our ideas. Yull tells me loss-free circuits are the answer. She brought me a sample-Don't look so surprised! Turned out a good many of your citizens didn't care for what Quelf did to Karg, and gifted her with a piece of one, enough to culture a few cells from.”

“You didn't tell me!” Albumarak cried. “I'd have been here long ago if I'd realized you weren't going to have to start from scratch! I've wasted time trying to reconstruct from memory everything I know about designing the things!”

“So that's what you've been doing, is it?” Theng growled. “I had the impression you were just sight-seeing... Well, come and look at what we've got so far.”

If it was true that she had started with “a few cells” she had made remarkable progress. Already a web of thin brownish tendrils stretched back and forth over a patch of heavily fertilized ground under a transparent membrane that gathered winter sunwarmth and protected them from storms.

“But this is wonderful!” Albumarak declared.

“Oh, we can grow them all right, and they seem to perform as advertised. Question is, can we make them do what Yull wants? You're an expert on sparkforce, they tell me. What do you think?”

The likelihood of putting Yull's proposal into effect seemed suddenly much greater. Albumarak filled her mantle.

“Omber, it is the case, isn't it, that one would still have to loft drivers and their fuel, even if one did build a-a launcher capable of replacing gas-globes?”

They had occasionally discussed the matter; she knew the answer would be yes before it came. And went on, “So the next step must be to grow a miniature test version of your cylinders and see whether”-thank you, Karg!-”we can put sufficient charge on it.”

“We can't,” Theng retorted briskly. “We already went over that with our chief chemist Ewblet. It would destabilize the fuel. Want to see the simulation records?”

Albumarak was minded to clack her mandibles in dismay, but controlled herself and, so far as she could, her exudations. She said in a tone as sharp as Theng's, “Then let Ewblet find a way of preventing it! My business is loss-free sparkforce circuitry, and I'd like to get on with it!”

Theng looked at her for a long moment. At last she said, “Well spoken. What do you expect to need?”

It was like being on a different planet. Colleagues much older than herself consulted her without being patronizing; others of her own age reported to her the problems they had encountered, described their proposed solutions, and asked for her opinion; in turn, when she swam into a snag they were prompt to offer information and advice. She had already grasped the overall pattern of what the folk here were committed to, but now she was given insight into its minutiae... and the multiplicity of details was frightening. So too, in a sense, was the dedication she discovered. She almost came to believe that there was no one in the whole of Slah, bar a clawful of budlings, who lacked a part to play in converting their vision into reality.

Space-launches using gas-globes were continuing despite the winter storms, along with work on every other aspect of the scheme. The orbits of some of the space-cylinders were decaying; it was essential to send up more reaction mass, using automatic control systems, so they could be forced further out. Everybody, not just Karg, wanted to learn what was happening to the vegetation on the moon; one of the younger scientists proposed crashing a cylinder there which would survive sufficiently intact to gather samples and then emit two or three others much smaller than itself, propelled by a simple explosion on to a course that would bring them to rendezvous with a collector in local orbit, and then recovering the collector in the way designed for Karg. Simulations showed it might well succeed, and the job was promptly put in claw.

Eventually Albumarak said despairingly to her new friends, “I don't know how you stand the pressure!”

But they answered confidently, “We enjoy it! After all, is there a better cause we could be working for?”

And then, to their amazement, they realized she had never learned the means to make the most of dark-time, devised long before the Greatest Meteorite, which depended on freeing consciousness from attending to the process of digestion. With only the mildest of reproaches concerning Fregwil's standards of education, they instructed her in the technique, and after that she no longer wondered how they crammed so much into a single day.

As Karg had predicted, casting a fresh eye on the loss-free circuits led to rapid improvement. Whiter was milder here than at Fregwil, but that alone did not account for the speed with which the tendrils grew, nor for the flawless way each and every one checked out. Quelf's team had been resigned to losing two or three in every score; here, when one slacked in its growth, the cause was sought and found and in a few days' time it was back to schedule.

Albumarak detected something of the same phenomenon in herself.

She was eating an unfamiliar diet, but her mind had never been so active. She mentioned as much to Theng once, when the latter was in a particularly good mood, and was told: “A few generations ago, the air at Slah was always filthy thanks to the metal-working sites nearby. That was at the time of Aglabec and his disciples-heard of them? I thought you would have! Rival cities like Hulgrapuk and Fregwil made the most of it, to disparage us! But we retained our wits well enough to realize it was no use sending crazy people into space, so we put that right, and now there's not a city on the planet where you breathe purer air or drink cleaner water or eat a more nourishing diet. We're allegedly possessed of intelligence; we judged it right to apply our conclusions to ourselves as well as our environment. And it's paid off, hasn't it?” Indeed it had...

At one stage Albumarak came near despair, when a simulation proved that nothing like enough sparkforce could be generated to drive even the smallest of the Slah cylinders to the heights achieved by gas-globes. There were no pullstones worth mentioning on this continent; the world's only large deposit was on Prutaj. Suddenly someone she had never heard of reported that by adding this and this to the diet of a flashplant, and modifying it in such a way, its output could be multiplied until it matched the best pullstone generator. Someone else suggested means of deriving current from the wind; another, from compression using the beating of ocean waves; another, from conversion of sunshine...

Yull was in the habit of visiting the laboratory now and then, sometimes with Karg or Omber, more often alone. One day in spring she arrived with a grave expression, and asked Theng, in Albumarak's hearing, what progress had been made.

“Good!” Theng declared gruffly. “Ewblet has stabilized the fuel at last, we have enough sparkforce and nearly enough loss-free circuitry to loft a driver to where it can be fired into orbit, and the eastern side of Spikemount slopes at pretty well an ideal angle to build the launcher. We expect to be at status go by fall.”

“You're going to have to do better than that,” Yull told her soberly.

Sensing disaster, Albumarak drew close.

“Take a look at these,” Yull invited, proffering a pack of images. They were regular astronomical pictures of the kind produced at any major observatory, and they showed a patch of night sky in the vicinity of the Major Cluster. Theng glanced at them and passed them to Albumarak.

“You'll have to explain what's so special about them!”

“This is!” Yull tapped one tiny dot with a delicate claw. “Look again. They were taken on successive nights.”

“It's not on this one,” Albumarak muttered. “But it's on this one, only fainter, and-no, not on this one, but on this one as well, and brighter if anything... Oh, no!”

“I think,” Yull murmured, “you've caught on. For nearly a moonlong past, something has been appearing and vanishing in that area of the sky. We have here a score of images that show it and a quarter-score that don't. What is it?”

Albumarak's mind raced. “Something spinning! It's rough on one side and smooth on the other, so it only catches the sun at certain angles!”

“Exactly what our most eminent astronomers suspect,” Yull said, reclaiming the pictures. “In addition, though, they can show that it's very far out, beyond Sluggard.”

“Then it must be huge!”

“Yes. As big as the moon. And what little of its orbit has been analyzed suggests it may be going to intersect with ours in at most a score of years. Even if it misses us, it will certainly crash into the sun.”

IX

Albumarak felt unbelievably old as she strove to judge the relative merits of a score of rival projects competing for time on the world's only full-scale sparkforce launcher.

Yull's inspiration had been justified over and over. Cylinders had been flung skyward first to where half the mass of the air was below, then four-fifths, then nine-tenths, the magic altitude from which the drivers could reach escape velocity. Now it glowed vivid blue ten tunes every moon-long, summer and winter alike, and the air for padlonglaqs reeked of sparkforce stink, and the night sky was crowded with artificial stars, one of which loomed brighter than the moon at full: an orbital colony-to-be.

But should she recommend to Theng that their precious future charges be expended on yet more automatic linkup systems, in the hope of making that “moon” habitable by more people than the schedule called for, or should priority be given to this new scheme to win time by crashing on the wild planetoid a load of rockeater spawn modified to digest it into dust? Now it was crossing the orbit of Stolidchurl, so even if all went perfectly the encounter could not occur earlier than when it reached the distance of Steadyman...

Life at Slah had grown hard over the past five years.

But there were others it had treated worse. She didn't look up at the visitor who entered her bower in the control-house. A familiar aroma preceded him, tinged with mingled rage and weariness. As soon as she could, she uttered a greeting, and was horrified to see, as he slumped into a crotch, how limp Karg's posture had become.

“I heard how you were received at Hulgrapuk,” she said.

“No worse than last time,” he sighed. “Same old story! 'There's no means of avoiding the impact of this greater-than-greatest meteorite, so...!' But I do have some good news. I bet you won't guess where it's from.”

“Fregwil,” she offered, intending a joke.

“Correct. Quelf's coming here.”

Reflexively she rose to full height. “Incredible! Why?”

“Officially they're talking about a fact-finding mission. Our local informants say different. There's likely to be a revolution at Fregwil if the city officials don't start actively helping our project.”

Albumarak slowly subsided. “There are some kinds of aid we'd be better off without,” she muttered.

“Don't I know it!” Karg winced, flexing his regrown pad; it continued to give pain, especially when he was under stress. “As we came in to land, I had a fine view of the campfuls of 'volunteers' outside the city. I gather they're proving more of a nuisance than a blessing.”

“Our propaganda has been too successful. They expect to be lofted into orbit right away. When they find out their role only involves making sure there are enough raw materials, enough food, enough of everything that has to be at a given place at a given time, they turn nasty on us.”

“Figures. But they're leaving Hulgrapuk in droves, you know. And the exodus from Fregwil is scaring Quelf and the rest of her coterie. Their young people are simply moving out, flying here if they can, or taking passage on any old barq or junq that might carry them to Slah. I saw the port at Fregwil. I think a lot of them may get drowned.”

After a pause Albumarak said, “I've been asked if I'd like to go to orbit one of these days.”

“Grab the chance! I still dream of how wonderful it would have been if I-”

“But everything is still theory! We're investing this colossal effort, and we still haven't sent anybody into space, let alone proved that folk can survive up there!”

Rigid as a rock but for the flexing of his mantle as he spoke, Karg said, “I'd have proved it. I didn't insist on waiting until your huge new complex had been spun up to a rate that will mimic gravity. My chance was stolen from me!”

“Everybody knows that!”

“Everyone except you seems to have forgotten!”

And he erected and stormed out.

For a moment Albumarak thought of rushing after him, to offer consolation. She abandoned the idea. She had come to know him intimately since arriving at Slah, and when a mood like this overcame him there was small point in arguing. Besides, she had more urgent matters on her mind.

Calmly she activated the nervograp that connected her with Theng's bower, and dictated to a recordimal: “Data at claw indicate that we cannot modify rockeater spores in sufficient quantities to demolish the wild planetoid prior to estimated encounter time.” She hesitated, then went on, “It is my opinion that far more effort should be directed towards ensuring that the conditions we are establishing for survival in orbit are actually survivable up to and including reproduction of the species! Because otherwise we're done for... aren't we?”

But the prospect of making an alliance with Fregwil was too good to miss. If the resources of Prutaj were put at Slah's disposal, within a decade most of what the space-planners hoped for could be brought about. Fevered discussions ensued, in which Albumarak resolutely declined to take part, ostensibly on the grounds that she had been away from home too long, in fact because she still hated Quelf's pith.

Obviously, a special demonstration had to be laid on to coincide with Quelf's visit, and in a fit of the same kind of exasperation which had plagued her youth Albumarak suggested they might as well loft her into orbit. Both Theng and Yull vetoed that at once; they maintained she had too many useful skills to let her risk her life. Yet she garnered the impression that someone, at least, had taken her seriously.

She forced herself to continue her normal daily duties, wondering constantly whether she had been wrong to advise against the rockeater project, whether someone had miscalculated the wild planetoid's orbital velocity, whether...

Her mind remained incessantly in turmoil. Talking to Omber, talking to Karg now that he was back from the latest of his trips around the world to recruit support-nothing helped, until the dark when Karg said acutely, “You would flee into space, wouldn't you, if it meant escaping Quelf and the memory of shame you brought here?”

That made her laugh at herself, and she said as she embraced him fondly, “Had it not been for the wild planetoid, we would have paired by now. I'd like your bud!”

“I know!” A shadow fell across his words. “You were correct to say we don't know whether we can survive as well as our creatures do in space. I wouldn't curse a budling with deformity-yet evolution must compel it, no?”

“Our distant ancestors...”

“Exactly. They were very different from ourselves.”

She pondered that.

The floater from Prutaj that brought in Quelf and her party was larger and clawsomer than any other at Slah's touchdown-ground. Albumarak had begged to be excused from the official welcome party, but she was unable to resist joining the crowd which gathered to witness this unprecedented visit. Polite applause greeted Quelf's appearance-from those who had somehow missed hearing about what she had done to Karg, she thought sourly. But when she recognized the second person who descended from the floater, she could control herself no longer.

“Presthin!” she shouted, and rushed towards her.

“That same,” came the dry response. “I felt it was high time I said hello to Karg. We never met properly, remember?”

“I must introduce you at once! If he's here, that is. I haven't seen him, but then he has small reason to love Quelf.” Albumarak glanced around, but was abruptly reminded that there were formalities to get through; Quelf was fixing her with the same withering glare she had learned to know so well when she was still a lowly student at Fregwil.

“Later!” she whispered as Yull and Theng led Quelf towards the waiting loudeners... exactly at the moment when a chorus of execration thundered forth from half the crowd.

Of course! Who more likely to turn up today than those who had quit Fregwil in fury at its rulers' indolence?

Suddenly there was chaos. Albumarak clenched her claws as the speeches of welcome were drowned out. But Presthin only said, “Sometimes I wonder whether this species we belong to can be worth preserving...”

Eventually order was restored, and Yull and Theng were able to utter a few generalizations about the value of cooperation between Slah and Fregwil. Then Quelf launched into a carefully planned address, praising the astronomers who had located the wild planetoid and the efforts of those who for so long had been reaching out towards the stars.

“Hypocrite!” Albumarak muttered.

“Oh, no. She means precisely what she says,” countered Presthin. “It's finally penetrated her pith that if there is another giant meteorite strike in a few years' time, she won't be more immune than anybody else. Just listen to the conclusion of her speech. She's been rehearsing it on the way here.”

Albumarak composed herself. Quelf was saying, “-and if you prove you can actually keep the folk alive in space, as you have for so long been promising, then you may rely on our supplying both materiel... and personnel!”

“She's as bad as the volunteers in the camps!” Albumarak cried. “She expects us to send her into orbit!”

“It might be a good way of getting rid of her,” said Presthin caustically.

The crowd erupted again, and this time individual shouts were discernible: “About time! What were you saying five years ago? Couldn't you have led instead of following? What were you made Jingfired for?”

Reeking with anger, Quelf bent towards Yull. Albumarak barely caught what she said; it sounded like, “This rowdy reception is no advertisement for your city!”

Turning ever so slightly, just enough for the loudeners to pick up her words, Yull countered, “Normally, at Slah, we don't waste time on this sort of ceremonial. We have urgent work to do. Apparently you've not acquired that habit.”

Quelf towered, exuding combat-stink. But Yull's point had registered with the crowd and delighted everyone else within hearing, not just the Fregwil expatriates. A burst of hilarity allowed Theng to claim the loudeners.

“I'm sure you're all anxious,” she stated with heavy irony, “to hear more of what our guest has to say. Regrettably”-a well-timed pause- “we've arranged a demonstration of precisely the kind she wishes to see, and it's overdue, so... A scudder is waiting, Scholar Quelf. Do come this way!”

X

Albumarak was unable to avoid being caught up in the exodus towards the space-site, though she and Presthin did at least manage to mount the scudder behind Quelf's.

“Still no sign of Karg?” the goadster inquired.

“No, but... Well, I haven't seen him around much lately, anyhow. Not since the news of Quelf's visit broke.”

“Can't say I blame him,” Presthin grunted. Surveying the scenery, she went on, “So this is the city you prefer to your own. What's life like here, that it attracts you so?”

“I used to wonder what attracted you to the highlands. I found my own equivalent at Slah. Life is much harder and we enjoy many fewer luxuries. But there's a sense of purpose in the air, a feeling that we're all working towards the best possible goal. Also our leaders aren't so... I don't quite know how to define it. Maybe I should just say that nobody like Quelf could wield such influence at Slah.”

“All by itself that explains why you like the place,” Presthin said dryly. Craning for a better view, she added, “And that must be your space-launcher, right?”

In a dead straight line at the circle/23 angle, the giant tube sloped sunsetward up the mountain they were passing. At its base a cylinder was being readied for launch. Presthin gazed at it long and hard.

“I've seen images,” she said at last, “but the reality is something else. How long is it now?”

“Ten padlonglaqs. We just extended it. But it's been launching cylinders successfully since it was only half that length.”

“And you're going to dispatch another specially for us. What sort?”

“I don't know,” Albumarak muttered.

“I thought you were among the top scientists here now!”

“Yes, but-well, frankly, Presthin, I didn't want anything to do with making Quelf welcome. I said as much, and they respected my wishes.”

Their scudder checked and dropped off the branchway just behind the one carrying Quelf. Yull, compelling herself to be polite, ushered the Fregwil delegation towards the control-house. Contriving to fall back a little, Theng muttered to Albumarak, “No wonder you dislike your old teacher so much! She must be the vainest and most self-important person on the planet! Do you know what she was saying on the way here? Because it was her team that developed the loss-free circuit, we ought to have invited somebody from Fregwil to supervise the construction of the launcher and dictate what missions were flown with it!”

“We're not all like Quelf,” Presthin countered.

“Ah... No, of course.” Theng exuded embarrassment. “I spoke out of turn. I'm sorry. Well, we'd better go inside, or we shall miss the launch-gap.”

“Is Karg around? Presthin would like to say hello.”

Theng's expression changed to one of utter surprise. She started to say something, but it was drowned out by the racket of a klaxonplant, warning everybody on the site to prepare for launch. The acceleration imparted to a space-cylinder was relatively gentle now, and created less overpressure than a driver test, but there was still a sonic boom to brace oneself against.

“Inside!” Theng directed, and they hastened to obey.

By now so many launches had occurred, they were reduced to a matter of routine, but this one was made different by Quelf and her companions, who were wandering around demanding the function of this, that and the other device, and on being told declaring that they would have organized things otherwise. Yull withstood the temptation as long as possible, but at last erupted in ill-disguised annoyance.

“Permit me to remind our distinguished visitors that from this site we have achieved four-score successful orbital missions employing gas-globes, and twice that number using the sparkforce launcher! I submit this as evidence for the correctness of our approach!”

Albumarak could guess the nature of Quelf's retort before it was uttered. She was right.

“And you still haven't proved that the folk can survive in space. Have you?”

Her tone was harsh, yet unmistakably her exudations contradicted it. She wanted to be told there was an escape from this endangered planet; she simply didn't want anybody but herself to be the one who gained the credit for making it possible.

Her posture eloquent of disdain, Yull snapped her claw against a far-speaker hanging from a nearby branch. At once a voice rang out.

“On-hauq status is go! I've been ready for ages-how much longer do you plan to keep me waiting?”

Karg!

Albumarak padded half a step towards Yull, but Theng caught her by the mantle's edge.

“Did you really not know?” she demanded.

“I haven't seen him for nearly a moonlong!”

But there was no time to say anything else. Yull was turning to the visitors again.

“I am about to give the launch command. You will oblige us by remaining still and saying nothing as from-now!”

First the long straight tube began to hum. Apart from its size, in appearance this launcher was not so different from the ranks of rings which once had served to guide under test the primitive drivers known to Chybee, three generations ago. But it operated on a very different principle. Both the amount of sparkforce it could withstand and the subtlety of its controls bore witness to the unstinting effort of its creators, who had condensed five-score years' worth of development into less than five.

After the humming came the glow. No matter how perfect the insulation of the circuits, there was always a trace of energy that leaked out as light, because matter was matter and would be so until the universe's end. Ideally it should have been enclosed by vacuum, but the best that could be done was to create a low-pressure zone within the tube. The necessary pumping made a low and grumbling noise.

The cylinder, at this point, began to stir. The charge upon it was enough to counteract its weight.

Inevitably, all communication ceased.

“Why did you let him?” Albumarak whispered to Yull.

“It was a promise,” she replied elliptically.

“But he's a cripple!”

“Yes...” Yull was scanning the remotes; they were as normal as for any launch. “You never paired, did you?”

“We've always wanted to, but after hearing about the wild planetoid we both agreed it was too risky to start budding. But what does that have to do with-? Oh! No!”

“I think you worked it out. He'd never have told you, or anyone, but of course he couldn't keep it from the doctors who treated him after his return. He thinks the reason he can't pair anymore wasn't due to frostbite, but to something done to him at Fregwil, maybe under Quelf's instructions. Those who regard other folk as their inferiors-No time for more! Slack down! You visitors, copy us! There's going to be a very loud noise!”

Those with experience set a prompt example, dropping to the ground as though prong-stabbed. From the corner of her eye Albumarak saw how reluctantly Quelf complied, and hoped she would fail to relax completely. If so, she would be taught a lesson by pain.

A lesson that she clearly well deserved.

The air was full of a familiar grinding noise, like the sound of pebbles on a headland fidgeting under the impact of the tide. This was always the most fearful moment. The launcher, if it failed, would do so now, when the charge on both the cylinder and the tube was at its peak.

No one was watching. No one could watch. All must be reported through sensors and monitors, at which Albumarak stared achingly. All normal-all normal-GO!

She struggled to remember that Karg had lived underwater, that he had survived frostbite, that he had resisted conditioning, that he had retained enough self-control not to become embittered at losing his chance of pairing, and indeed had lived half his life in the hope of just this opportunity. But then the sonic boom made the control-house rock, and he was gone.

When the echoes died away there was another noise: Quelf moaning. It was, as Albumarak had half expected, beneath her dignity to slump on the ground like everybody else. She had no doubt ruptured some unimportant tubule, which would heal. The rest of the company seemed to have reached the same conclusion, for no one was paying attention to her.

“How long do we have to wait before we hear from him?” Presthin asked.

“Oh, quite a while.” Yull curled her mantle in a cryptic grin. “But then it won't just be us; it will be everyone who hears from him. Let's go outside. There's very little cloud. We should be able to see his drivers fire.”

Leaving Quelf to worry about herself, they quit the control-house. A number of portable telescopes had been provided; Presthin appropriated one at once.

She said what she had said before: “On Prutaj, you know, we aren't all as bad as Quelf!”

“Working with Albumarak has taught me that much,” Yull replied. “And you'd agree, wouldn't you, Theng?”

“Of course!” was the bluff and prompt reply. “Our only problem is apt to be with the ones who ran away from Fregwil-because they've never learned the meaning of an honest day's work, and we have to support them until they do!”

“Things are going to change back home,” said Presthin, her eye to the ocular. “Of course, as you know, I'm not from Fregwil myself, but I can state that for too long the self-indulgence of that city has offended the ordinary folk on Prutaj. It's been fun having the goodies they produced, but how many of them are directed at ensuring the survival of the folk? Since news of the wild planetoid broke there's been a radical shift of attitudes. I like the young'uns at Fregwil now, and I used to loathe them! By the way, tell me something, Scholar Yull.”

“If I can.”

“Do you honestly believe we can survive in space?”

“There it goes!”

A unison cry greeted fire blooming at the zenith. Karg's cylinder had reached altitude and was spearing into space. For a while no one could think of anything else but that slowly fading gleam.

When it had been masked by drifting cloud, Yull said, “Yes.”

“What?” By then Presthin had forgotten her question.

“I said yes! We're very sure we can survive! It's as though evolution designed us for precisely the role we hope to play out there. Do you know much about biology?”

Unconsciously Presthin echoed what Karg had said to Albumarak: “I know a little about a lot of things!”

“Well, then, you doubtless know that there were once creatures on this planet that had rigid bodies. They supported their weight by using substances so stiff that they became brittle, like a dead tree, and had constantly to be renewed. Imagine what would happen to a species like that if they tried to survive without gravity! They'd become amorphous- they'd wither like spent luminants! But we...”

She spoke with swelling pride.

“We depend for our survival on nothing more than the tone of our musculature and our tubules! We can live underwater, where effectively one has no weight, and sometimes folk have returned after years without noticeable damage to their health. Karg was chosen for precisely that reason! In the imagery of the Mysteries of the Jingfired, which always have to do with forging metal, we are 'well and fitly shaped'!”

Karg's voice echoed from the control-house. Yull signaled for it to be relayed by loudeners, and instantly they knew he was exultant.

“Listen to me, you down there-listen to me! My name is Karg, and I'm in space, and I feel wonderful! I'm free at last! I'm not trapped on a lump of mud that may be smashed at any moment by gods playing at target-practice! I'm free!”

Suddenly grave, Yull was about to suggest that the level of euphoria be reduced, when Karg calmed of his own accord.

“But I'm not out here purely for the pleasure of it. I have a mission to perform. I'm to be the first inhabitant of another planet-a world we devised at Slah, which is just coming over my horizon, so I'm activating the maneuvering pumps-just a moment... Done. If you're watching with telescopes, you'll be able to see my cylinder match orbits with the artificial world. And from there, using its farspeakers, I'm going to tell everybody the good news. You and I won't survive our system's passage through the Major Cluster. But we'd be long dead anyhow, remember! What I'm here to prove is that the species can!”

His voice rose in a jubilant crescendo as Albumarak and Presthin clutched each other, not knowing whether to laugh or sob.

“We can escape! We can survive! We shall!”

EPILOGUE

“And, of course, we did,” said the preceptor.

Afterwards there was a long pause. Inevitably one of the youngest budlings broke it by demanding, loudly enough to be heard: “What became of the wild planetoid, then?”

“Wait!”

The center of the globe, where the marvels of modern technology had recreated Jing and Chybee, Yockerbow and Aglabec, all the characters famous and infamous from the long story of their species, swirled and blurred and resumed its original configuration.

Now, though, everything was in closer focus. The budworld was emphasized, the sun and planets far away. Then, from the threshold of infinity, the wild planetoid rushed in. For one pith-freezing moment, which even those who had witnessed the spectacle a score of times found fearful, it seemed as though they were about to crash!

A shift of perspective: they were back on the budworld. Its oceans were rising to the wild planet's tug, beating the shores and swamping the cities. The air wrought havoc with fantastic gales. Closeups revealed the naked panic of those who were caught up and burst to death.

The youngest of the budlings screamed in terror.

“Our species could have been destroyed,” said the preceptor as the view shifted again. This time it could be seen how the wild planetoid swung past, disturbing the orbit of the moon, but sweeping by towards the belt of asteroids that ringed the sun.

“We think, but because it was hidden from our forebudders we'll never know, that it collided with an asteroid behind the sun. At all events, it did not reappear. But it had done harm enough. Had not the joint resources of both Slah and Fregwil been applied to launching vessels into space, it is beyond a doubt that by this time we'd be extinct. The show is over. Ponder the lessons that it teaches-all your lives!”

And suddenly the feigned imagery that had filled the center of the globe was replaced by the reality of what surrounded their fragile home. Beautiful, yet terrible, there loomed the Major Cluster, from which they were being borne away by the pressure of light from its exploding stars; there too was the Arc of Heaven which their forebudders had imagined to be the weapon of a god; there was the sun that had shone on the budworld, fading to the petty status of just another star...

And far beyond lay the safe dark deeps that they were steering for, where they were certain of energy, and the means to feed themselves and grow more drifting globes, choosing what they wanted from the resources of the galaxy.

“Yes?” said the preceptor to another young'un, knowing what question was invariably put.

“Scholar, do you think there's anybody else out there?”

“There's bound to be!”-with total confidence. “And when we meet them, we shall be able to stand proud on what we've done!”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Brunner was born in England in 1934 and educated at Cheltenham College. He sold his first novel in 1951 and has been publishing sf steadily since then. His books have won him international acclaim from both mainstream and genre audiences. His most famous novel, the classic Stand on Zanzibar, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969, the British Science Fiction Award, and the Prix Apollo in France. Mr. Brunner lives in Somerset, England.

The End