Suddenly, as rapidly as he had entered it, he was through the web. The last threads parted softly before him with a soft, sucking sigh, and he was released into empty Air.

Ray was waiting for him a hundred mansheights from the border of the web, with her board tucked neatly under her arm. He brought his board to a halt beside her and allowed himself to tumble off gracelessly.

He turned and looked back. The tunnel in the web had already closed — all that remained of it was a dark, cylindrical path through the layers of webbing, showing where their passage had disrupted the structure of the web — and the spin-spider itself was making its slow, patient way past the vortex lines on its way to investigate this disturbance in its realm.

Farr felt himself shuddering; he didn't bother trying to hide his reaction. He turned to Ray. "Thank you..."

"No. Don't say it." She was grinning. She was showing no fear, he realized. Her pores were wide open and her eyecups staring, and again she exuded the vivid, unbearably attractive aliveness which had struck him when he'd first met her. She grabbed his arms and shook him. "Wasn't it fantastic? What a ride. Wait till I tell Cris about this..."

She jumped on her board and surged away into the Air.

As he watched her supple legs work the board, and as the reaction from his brush with death worked through his shocked mind, Farr once again felt an unwelcome erection push its way out of his cache.

He climbed onto his board and set off, steering a wide, slow course around the web.

9

AFTER A FEW DAYS TOBA RETURNED, and told Dura and Farr that he had booked them into a labor stall in the Market. Dura was given to understand that Toba had done them yet another favor by this, and yet he kept his eyes averted as he discussed it with them, and when they ate Cris seemed embarrassed into an unusual silence. Ito fussed around the upfluxers, her eyecups deep and dark.

Dura and Farr dressed as usual in the clothes the family had loaned them. But Toba told them quietly that, this time, they should go unclothed. Dura peeled off the thick material of her coverall with an odd reluctance; she could hardly say she had grown used to it, but in the bustling streets she knew she would feel exposed — conspicuously naked.

Toba pointed, embarrassed, to Dura's waist. "You'd better leave that behind."

Dura looked down. Her frayed length of rope was knotted, as always, at her waist, and her small knife and scraper were comforting, hard presences just above her hips at her back. Reflexively her hands flew to the rope.