"Not gods," Dura said firmly. "Even the Xeelee aren't gods... But these Colonists could be monsters, if they exist. Remember the Core Wars."

Adda sniffed. "This damn fool expedition will never get that far anyway. This Waving Bell will be crushed."

"Perhaps. But you needn't be so stuffy, Adda. I know you enjoyed playing with ideas, back there. You have to admire the imagination, the spirit of these City folk."

"Well, what now?" Adda asked. "Do you want to find your friend Ito?"

"Later... I have something to do first. I need to find someone — the daughter of a friend, from my ceiling-farm. A friend called Rauc."

Adda thought about that. "Does the girl know what's become of her mother?"

"No," Dura said quietly. "I'm going to have to tell her."

Adda nodded, his crumpled face expressionless, seeming to understand.

And one day, Dura thought, I will have to go to the upflux forests, and tell Brow...

She glanced at Farr. The boy's eyes were fixed on an indefinite distance, and his face was blank. She felt as if she could read his mind. Humans were going to build a ship to find the Colonists. It was indeed an idea full of wonder... deep inside herself, too, she found, there was a small spark of awe.

And Farr was young enough to relish a ride.

But Adda was right. It was an utterly deadly prospect. And surely, she thought, as Hork's "experts" on the Xeelee, at least one of the three Human Beings would be assigned to the voyage, if it were ever made...

She held Farr's arm tight and pulled herself closer to him, determined that Farr should never make the journey he was dreaming of.

18

WAKEFULNESS INTRUDED SLOWLY on Mur.

Slowly, in shreds and shards, he became aware of the rustle of the Crust-trees, the tired stink of his own body, the endless yellow glow of the Air pushing into his closed eyecups. He'd used a few loops of frayed rope to bind himself loosely to a branch of an outlying tree, and now he could feel the undeniable reality of the ropes as they dug into the thin flesh of his chest and thighs.

Then the pain started.

His stomach, empty for so long, seemed to be slowly imploding, filling the center of his body with a dull, dragging ache. His joints protested when he began to stir — stiff joints were a wholly unexpected side-effect of hunger, reducing his movements on bad days to those of an old man — and there was a sharp sheet of pain stretched around the inside of his skull, as if his brain were pulling away from the bone.