Chad fussed with the sound recorder, setting it to record even the subsonics, and they sat in awed astonishment, not moving, barely breathing, while the concert took place. They were treated to everything from what Chiddy called a simple summer pastoral song, rather fluty, to a lament on the fall of a great ancestor, extremely profound, full of aching chords and fleeting dissonances. At various points during the music, the Vixbot struck themselves with their arms, accompanying their harmonies with percussion in complex rhythms. Chiddy had said the Vixbot choirs created the universe’s most marvelous sounds, and when Benita managed to achieve some degree of self-awareness once more, which was long after the ship had taken off again, she knew ai was right.
Chiddy gave them the choice of visiting the Thwakians or the Oumfuz, or both, explaining rather apologetically that since the Oumfuz were swamp livers, visiting them entailed unavoidable exposure to muck and fetid aromas. They chose the Thwakians, and were next plunged deep into a violet ocean dotted with verdant islands. Through the view screen they were shown the undersea tunnels, accretions like vast cables of sand netting the bottoms of the planetary sea, outside the portals of which were gardens of seaweed and small, immobile creatures. They followed one of the tunnels to its emergence on an island, where Benita and Chad were introduced to two Thwakians who emerged only partially from the tunnel, rather in the manner of hermit crabs emerging partially from their borrowed shells.
Their foreparts seemed armored, though what could be seen of the nether parts seemed naked and fragile. Chiddy explained that they ate both flora and fauna of the ocean, going out through sea locks to harvest their crops and flocks. The Thwakians explained, through Vess, that the only time they were endangered was when they emerged onto dry land, which was necessary only at the time of egg laying. Since the ocean-living form had descended from a land-living one, the young still had to hatch in the sands, under the orange sun. Once hatched, they skittered into the nearest tunnel and were thereafter quite safe.
“What danger is there?” Chad asked.
Chiddy said, “A large winged thing, analogous to your osprey or albatross. It spends most of its life in the air, coming to ground only when it, too, needs to feed or reproduce. Usually it eats fish, but it is also willing to dine on a Thwakian or a clutch of Thwaki eggs.
The two representatives of their race were thanked for their time and trouble, and the visitors returned to their ship. “No trouble admitting them to the Confederation,” Chiddy remarked. “They are the single intelligent race on the planet, they inhabit the entire planet, and except for recurrent arguments over nest space, they are almost totally peaceable.”
Their final stop was Pistach-home, swimming in air, with its own green oceans and greener mountains and chains of silver lakes and vast ocher prairies and sparkling little cities.
“Beautiful,” breathed Benita, Chad nodding seriously at her side. Even from this distance, it was attractive, and as they came closer, it was obvious that it was consistently lovely. They saw deserts but no desolations, and nowhere did any fog of despoilment spew from chimneys to hang loathsomely over the land.
When they were quite near the surface on the night side, they saw three moons, one largish silvery one, two much smaller greenish-blue ones, all more or less spherical, all bearing clusters of domes, like drops of dew. Chiddy mentioned that there were also three other occupied planets in the system, one very warm and fertile farm planet in the next orbit toward the sun, one completely domed laboratory and light industry planet so far from the sun the atmosphere was frozen, and one dead rock planet, even farther out, on which all system heavy industry and asteroid smelters were located. Since all work was done by robots and no one lived there except temporary supervisors and inspectors, and since they had completely enclosed quarters with gardens attached and even a little aviary and zoo, so as not to lose track of their place in the natural world, the need for extensive anti-pollution programs was lessened. There were such programs, Chiddy said, even there, but they were concerned with storing dangerous substances so they should never threaten living things. Each inbound ship carried a load of disposables which was at some point released on a trajectory that would carry it into the sun.