The portrait was unveiled. It was, after all, a web-network, colored threads woven across the hollow frame, passing each other in intricate parallels and skews and slants, touching and tracing three-dimensional patterns in a kind of gossamer fascination. It signified nothing, at first; then, as his emotions began to respond to the sense of the design, lured inside by clever signal-strands, the whole crept into focus, a weird and vivid picture of a forest scene.

Two people were depicted, coming alive through the alien magic, human, similar, yet oddly opposite. One, a strikingly beautiful woman, her hair the texture of a raging fire. The other, a small boy, a giant book in his arms, naked wonder in his face.

Aton stared at it, hypnotized. “This is—the two of us?”

“Our artistry is not easy to explain,” the Xest conveyed. “We do not understand the true nature of the Human. We have fashioned the portrait of you as you saw the two Male-Female parts of your being, when first you came together with comprehension. We hope this is of value to you.”

Aton turned slowly to Captain Moyne. He saw the tears glisten in the depths of her deep green eyes.

“Perhaps she had to hide,” she said. “The—the love of this man would cost her everything, in conventional terms, everything.”

Slowly he put his hand to her tight cap and pulled it free.

The billowing fire cascaded down around her shoulders.

Aton touched the living hue of her hair. “You!” he said.

III. CHILL

§400

7

Hastings plumped down beside Aton, his huge body steaming. “I tried,” he said sadly. “I tried—but I simply cannot pry a garnet out of that vacant wall in one piece. I’m jinxed.”

“You’re fat,” Framy muttered helpfully from the other side. “Your stomach always beats you to it. Lucky you can even see a garnet, let ’lone reach it.”

“I could reach it if I were able to see through the sweat,” Hastings said, smudging the moisture from his eyes. If Framy’s jibes bothered him, he never showed it. “I’m quick with my hands, but that heat—sometimes I long for a bout of the chill.”

“The chill! I heard of that. You don’t get no stone from me this time, Hasty. The chill’d kill you.”

Hastings’ eyes narrowed. Aton sat tight, knowing that the man would never have attempted to mine a garnet on his own unless his supply was low, and that he smelled a profitable encounter. Entertainment broke up the monotony of prison life when Hastings got hungry—and perhaps Framy, subdued for several chows after the disappointment of the blue garnet, was ready to play again.

“Are you certain you know enough about the chill?” Hastings asked gently.