"Easy," Dura called, trying to match his motion. "Not too fast, and not jerkily; nice and smooth..."

The birth canal gaped like a green-dark tunnel. Dia's legs parted further than it would have seemed possible; Dura could see, under the thin flesh around the girl's hips, how the pelvis had hinged wide.

Dia screamed; her stomach convulsed.

The baby came suddenly, wriggling down the birth passage like an Air-piglet. It squirted into the Air with a soft, sucking noise; droplets of dense, green-gold Air sprayed around it. As soon as it was out of the canal the baby started to Wave, instinctively but feebly, across the Magfield within which it would be embedded for all of its life.

Dura's eyes locked on Farr. He was following the baby's uncertain progress through the Air, his mouth slack with wonder; but he was still firmly holding Dia's leg. "Farr," Dura commanded. "Come back toward me now. Slowly, steadily — that's it..."

Dia's only danger now was that her hinged bones would not settle neatly back into place without dislocation; and even if all went well, for a few days she would be barely able to move as the halves of her pelvis knitted together once more. With Dura and Farr guiding them, her legs closed smoothly; Dura could see the bones around Dia's pelvis sliding smoothly back into place.

Mur had managed to snatch a rag, a remnant of some piece of clothing, from the littered Air; now he wiped tenderly at Dia's relaxing, half-sleeping face. Dura took some of the rag and mopped at Dia's thighs and belly.

Farr Waved slowly toward them. He had chased after and caught the baby, Dura saw; now he held the child against his chest as proudly as if it were his own, uncaring of the birth fluid which pooled on his chest. The infant's mouth was still distorted into the characteristic horn-shape it had needed to lock on to the womb-wall nipples which sustained it before its birth; and its tiny penis had popped out of the protective cache between its legs.

Farr, grinning, held the baby out to its mother. "It's a boy," he said.

"Jai," Dia whispered. "He's Jai."

 —

Forty Human Beings had survived, of fifty. All but six adult Air-pigs, four of them male, were gone. The Net, torn and scattered, was irreparable.

Logue was lost.

The tribe huddled together in the Magfield, surrounded by featureless Air. Mur and Dia clung together, cradling their new, mewling baby. Dura uncomfortably led the Human Beings through a brief service of prayers, calling down the beneficence of the Xeelee. Adda stayed close to her, silent and strong despite his age, and Farr's hand was a constant presence in hers.

Then the bodies they'd managed to retrieve were released into the Air; they slid, dwindling, down to the Quantum Sea.