It seemed to take forever. The big egg fluttered; its surface grew dull and crinkly and began to expand. It was rounding the sun now, lighted on one side, black on the other. It grew still bigger, became lopsided…and slowly, slowly the sail came free. It streamed away like a comet’s tail, and then it filled, a silver parachute with four threadlike shrouds pointing at the sun. Where the shrouds met was a tiny knob.

This is how they travel. A starseed spends most of its time folded into a compact egg shape, falling through the galaxy on its own momentum. But inevitably there come times when it must change course. Then the sail unfolds, a silver mirror thinner than the paint on a cheap car but thousands of miles across. A cross-shaped thickening in the material of the sail is the living body of the starseed itself. In the knob that hangs from the shrouds is more living matter. There are the muscles to control the shrouds and set the attitude of the sail, and there is the egg, fertilized at the Core, launched near the galactic rim.

The sail came free, and nobody breathed. The sail expanded, filled the screen, and swung toward us. A blue-white point crossed in front of it, a newsman’s ship, a candle so tiny as to be barely visible. Now the sail was fully inflated by the light from behind, belling outward, crimped along one side for attitude control.

The intercom said, “And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen and other guests. We will make one short hyperspace hop into the system of Gummidgy and will proceed from there in normal space. We will be landing in sixteen hours.”

There was a collective sigh. The Kdatlyno sculptor took his horn out of my sleeve and stood up, improbably erect.

And what would his next work be like? I thought of human faces set in expressions of sheer wonder and grinning incredulity, muscles bunched and backs arched forward for a better view of a flat wall. Had Lloobee known of the starseed in advance? I thought he had.

Most of the spectators were drifting away, though the starseed still showed. My tea was icy. We’d been watching for nearly an hour, though it felt like ten minutes.

Emil said, “How are you doing with Captain Tellefsen?”

I looked blank.

“You called her Margo a while back.”

“Oh, that. I’m not really trying, Emil. What would she see in a crashlander?”

“That girl must have hurt you pretty bad.”

“What girl?”