thought came to her that they might be crushed unnoticed by the great power
which humans endured; that perhaps humans had forgotten them here in the deep
dark of the ship. But no, Downers came and went; hisa survived this great force,
and flew, and saw all the wonders which inhabited the Upabove, walked where they
might look down on the stars and looked into the face of great Sun, filled their
eyes with good things.
This waited for them. It was now the spring, and the heat had begun in her and
in him; and she had chosen the Journey she would make, longer than all journeys,
and the high place higher than all high places, where she would spend her first
spring.
The pressure eased; they still held to each other, still feeling motion. It was
a very far flight, they had been warned so; they must not loose themselves until
a man came and told them. The Konstantin had told them what to do and they would
surely be safe. Satin felt so with a faith which increased as the force grew
less and she knew that they had lived. They were on their way. They flew.
She clutched the shell which Konstantin had given her, the gift which marked
this Time for her, and about her was the red cloth which was her special
treasure, the best thing, the honor that Bennett himself had given her a name.
She felt the more secure for these things, and for Bluetooth, for whom she felt
an increasing fondness, true affection, not the springtime heat of mating. He
was not the biggest and far from the handsomest, but he was clever and
clear-headed.
Not wholly. He dug in one of the pouches he carried, brought out a small bit of
twig, on which the buds had burst… moved his breather to smell it, offered it to
her. It brought with them the world, the riverside, and promises.
She felt a flood of heat which turned her sweating despite the chill. It was
unnatural, being so close to him and not having the freedom of the land, places
to run, the restlessness which would lead her further and further into the
lonely lands where only the images stood. They were traveling, in a strange and
different way, in a way that great Sun looked down upon all the same, and so she
needed do nothing. She accepted Bluetooth’s attentions, nervously at first, and
then with increasing easiness, for it was right The games they would have played
on the face of the land, until he was the last male determined enough to follow
where she led… were not needed. He was the one who had come farthest, and he was
here, and it was very right
The motion of the ship changed; they held each other a moment in fear, but this
men had warned them of, and they had heard that there was a time of great
strangeness. They laughed, and joined, and ceased, giddy and delirious. They
marveled at the bit of blossoming twig which floated by them in the air, which
moved when they batted at it by turns. She reached carefully and plucked it from
the air, and laughed again, letting it free.
“This is where Sun lives,” Bluetooth surmised. She thought that it must be so,
imagined Sun drifting majestically through the light of his power, and
themselves swimming in it, toward the Upabove, the metal home of humans, which
held out arms for them. They joined, and joined again, in spasms of joy.
After long and long came another change, little stresses at the bindings, very
gentle, and by and by they began to feel heavy again.
“We are coming down,” Satin thought aloud. But they stayed quiet, remembering
what they had been told, that they must wait on a man to tell them it was safe.
And there was a series of jolts and terrible noises, so that their arms clenched
about each other; but the ground was solid under them now. The speaker overhead
rang with human voices giving instructions and none of them sounded frightened,
rather as humans usually sounded, in a hurry and humorless. “I think we are all