There had always been Glitches, spin storms. He even knew what caused them, in an abstract sort of way: the slowing of the Star's rotation, and the consequent explosive equalizations of spin energy. But over the last few years the Glitches had got worse... far worse, and much more frequent.

Something else was causing Glitches now. Something unknowably powerful, disrupting the Star...

Of course, his crotchety exterior had a major advantage — one he'd never admitted to anyone else, and only half-allowed to himself. By acting so sour he never had to show the unbearable love he felt for his fellow humans as he watched their alien, vulnerable, impossibly beautiful flight across the Magfield, or the heartbreak he endured at the loss of even the most wasted, most spoiled life.

Hefting his dragging spear in tiring fingers, Adda kicked on toward the treetops of the Crust with renewed vigor.

—

Farr hovered in the Air, his knees tucked against his chest. With four or five brisk pushes he emptied his bowels. He watched the pale, odorless pellets of shit sail sparkling into the empty Air and sink toward the underMantle. Dense with neutrons, the waste would merge into the unbreathable underMantle and, perhaps, sink at last into the Quantum Sea.

He'd never been so high.

The treetops were only a few minutes' Waving above him now: only a score of mansheights or so. The round, bronzed leaves of the trees, all turned toward the Quantum Sea, formed a glimmering ceiling over the world. As he Waved he stared up at that ceiling longingly, as if the leaves somehow represented safety — and yet he looked nervously too. For beyond the leaves were the tree trunks, suspended in darkness; and beyond the trunks lay the Crust itself, where all manner of creatures prowled... At least according to old Adda, and some of the other kids.

But still, Farr realized, he'd rather be up there amidst the trees than — suspended — out here.

He pushed at the Magfield and shimmered upward.

Farr, young as he was, was used to the feeling of fear. Of mortal terror, even. But he was experiencing a kind of fear new to him — a novelty — and he probed at it, trying to understand.

The nine adults around him Waved steadily upward, their faces turned up to the trees like inverted leaves. Their bodies moved efficiently and with varying degrees of grace, and Farr could smell the musky photons they exuded, hear the steady rhythm of their breathing as they worked, wordless. His own breath was rapid; the Air up here felt thin, shallow. And he was growing colder, despite the hard work of Waving.

Somehow, without realizing it, Farr had gotten himself to the center of the Waving group, so they formed a protective barrier around him. In fact, he realized, he was Waving close to his sister, Dura, as if he were some little kid who needed his hand holding.

How embarrassing.