That will serve to get us downward to their Earth and even into their ocean. They will vex, but we must have this, to truly engage in the grand task we seek to share. We must know their world, perform on it with them, for bloodpride status. And so to gain their help with the Mouth. For surely, they are a prideful kind. They must be, to have risen so far, and so swiftly.

They are too young to have yet plundered their world, as we did.

Yet we shall instruct them by showing our appetite for challenge. Only such are grounds for deep connections. They must venture with us—with me, as your Flock commander. We must show them that to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self. And in so doing, to truly know others.

At times a superior intelligence must exploit those younger inferiors, to gain knowledge. And regain our Mouth, as well. In time.

PART 8 ORBITFALL

Death has this much to be said for it:

You don’t have to get out of bed for it.

Wherever you happen to be

They bring it to you—free.

—KINGSLEY AMIS

1.

Rachel liked the view, at least.

In the frame chair atop an open deck, she had a commanding perspective on the grand curve of Earth, from 115 kilometers up. High enough to boil her blood in seconds, if the visor before her eyes should pop. And suit pressure loss was just one of the possibilities ahead. She could be slammed, torn, crushed, electrocuted, frozen….

She recalled what the bony Prefect Velma had said, weeks ago: “You must build strength, agility.”

“Why?”

“The Ythri have ways, worldviews that we can explore only in their ways. Their rituals, events.”

“I fly with them in—”

“You must accompany them to Earth. This will be physically trying.”

Prefect Velma had smooth olive skin, the only sign of her age crow’s-feet cracks at the eyes. Prefects were mostly over a hundred years old, but she obviously was using the best restoration tech.

Trying… That meant warm-up and stretching moves more severe than any Rachel had ever done. Twist both arms one at a time behind her head, leaning forward on outstretched legs… then try to touch the floor with the top of her head. Fail and try again, fail and try…

So while she met and flew with Fraq and his flock, she’d also been caught up in the big team poking the Ythri with questions, suggestions—all to extract knowledge. Usually not with success. She’d worked off her anxieties with Kane, joyously distracted in the sack. He wanted a deeper affair, he murmured in her ear after they made love. Every time, now. She dodged the issue. Too much going on now, became her mantra.

She’d dreamed about Fraq, too. When she woke up, Kane got the benefit. Hey, he was there.

So instead: pump iron, pull-ups, push-ups called “dive bombers” because she caught herself a centimeter above the floor—or else smacked her nose. Stomach crunches, side-straddle hops, back flexes and extensions, sit-ups with chest weights—all much like atrocities. Long runs in the centrifugal spinner, agonies under Earth full grav.