The kites were just as nice. They were a bit more complex than the balloons, but a special pleasure during the autumn, when the trade winds blew strong and steady every day. Go out to one of the western sea cliffs, take a short run into the wind, get the kite into the air; a big orange box kite, bobbing this way and that; then as it got up into the steadier wind it stabilized, and he reeled it out feeling the shifts in the wind as subtle quiverings in his arms. Or else he wedged a spool pole in a crack, and set the resistance, and watched the kite soar up and away. The line was nearly invisible. When the spool ran out the line hummed, and if he held it between his fingers, the wind’s fluctuations were communicated to him as a kind of music. The kite would stay up for weeks at a time, out of sight or, if he kept it low enough, just within sight, a tiny flaw in the sky. Transmitting data all the while. A square object was visible at a greater distance than a round object of the same area. The mind was a funny animal.

• • •

Michel called up to talk about nothing in particular. This was the hardest kind of conversation of all for Sax. The image of Michel would look down and to the right, and it would be very clear as he spoke that his mind was elsewhere, that he was unhappy, that Sax needed to somehow take the lead.

“Come visit and go for a walk with me,” Sax said again. “I really think you should.” How could one emphasize that? “I really think you should.” Throw things together. “Da Vinci is like the west coast of Ireland. The end of Europe, all green sea cliff over a big plate of water.”

Michel nodded uncertainly.

Then a couple of weeks later there he was, walking down a hall in Da Vinci. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the end of Europe.”

“Good man.”

So they went out together on a day trip. Sax drove him west to the Shalbatana cliffs, then they got out and walked north, toward Simshal Point. Such a pleasure to have his old friend with him in this beautiful place. Seeing any of the First Hundred was a welcome break in his routine, a rare event that he treasured. The weeks would pass in their comfortable round, and then suddenly one of the old family would appear, and it was like a homecoming without the home, making him think he perhaps ought to move to Sabishii or Odessa someday, so that he could experience such a wonderful feeling more often.