The old woman sat down by Anana’s basket and began wailing a death chant. She didn’t seem to notice when he waved farewell.
Tears were running down Anana’s cheeks, but she was busy feeding the fire.
McKay shouted, “So long! See you later! I hope!”
He pulled the balloon out until it was past the overhang. Then he climbed quickly aboard the car, threw on some more sticks, and waited. The balloon leaned a little as the edge of the wind coming over the roof struck its top. It began rising, was caught by the full force of the moving air, and rose at an angle.
Anana’s craft ascended a few minutes later. Kickaha’s followed at the same interval of time.
He looked up the bulge of the envelope. The parawing was still attached to the net and was undamaged. It had been tied to the upper side when the bag had been laid out on the ground. An observer at a distance might have thought it looked like a giant moth plastered against a giant light bulb.
He was thrilled with his flight in an aerostat. There had been no sensation of moving; he could just as well have been on a flying carpet. Except that there was no wind against his face. The balloon moved at the same speed as the air.
Above and beyond him the other two balloons floated. Anana waved once, and he waved back. Then he tended the fire.
Once he looked back at the windbreak. Shoo-bam was a dim tiny figure who whisked out of sight as the roof intervened.
The area of vision expanded; the horizon rushed outwards. Vistas of mountains and plains and here and there large bodies of water where rain had collected in temporary depressions spread out for him.
Above them hung the vast body of the primary. The great wound made by the splitoff had healed. The mother planet was waiting to receive the baby, waiting for another cataclysm.
Flocks of birds and small winged mammals passed him. They were headed for the planet, which meant that the moon’s shape-change wasn’t far off. The three had left just in time.
Briefly, his craft went through a layer of winged and threaded seeds, soaring, whirling.
The flames ate up the wood, and the supply began to look rather short to Kickaha. The only consolation was that as the fuel burned, it relieved the balloon of more weight. Hence, the aerostat was lighter and ascended even more swiftly.
At an estimated fifteen miles altitude, Kickaha guessed that he had enough to go another five miles.
McKay’s balloon was drifting away from the others. Anana’s was about a half a mile from Kickaha’s, but it seemed to have stopped moving away from it.
At twenty miles-estimated, of course-Kickaha threw the last stick of wood onto the fire. When it had burned, he scraped the hot ashes over the side, leewards, and then pushed the earth after it. After which he closed the funnel of rawhide which had acted as a deflector. This would help keep the hot air from cooling off so fast.
His work done for the moment, he leaned against the side of the basket. The balloon would quickly begin to fall. If it did, he would have to use the parawing to glide back to the moon. The only chance of survival then would be his good luck in being on the upper side after the shape-change.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by warm air. Grinning, he waved at Anana, though he didn’t expect her to see him. The rapid change in the air temperature must mean that the balloon had reached what Urthona called the gravity interface. Here the energy of the counterrepulsive force dissipated or “leaked” somewhat. And the rising current of air would keep the aerostats aloft for a while. He hoped that they would be bouyed long enough.
As the heat became stronger, he untied the funnnel, and he cut it away with his knife. The situation was uncertain. Actually, the balloon was falling, but the hot air was pushing it upwards faster than it descended. A certain amount was entering the neck opening as the hotter air within the bag I slowly cooled. But the bag was beginning to collapse. It would probably not completely deflate. Nevertheless, it would fall.