Here were all the celestial objects a child had once wondered about. Harp had told him that he might see them someday. More practical heads had denied this. The tree moved at the whim of natural forces, and nobody left the tree.

He had left the tree, and was married, and marooned, and thirsty.

Quinn Tribe clung along the forward edge of the bark raft. At Clave's insistence they had donned their packs. Anything could happen... but nothing had, except that the pond continued to dwindle.

"So near and yet so far," the Grad said. "Don't we still have a few jet pods?"

"Not enough." Clave looked around him. "At least we haven't lost anyone. Okay. We're moving, and we're moving out; that's good, isn't it, Scientist? Thicker air?"

"Thicker anything," said the Grad. "Air, water, plants, meat, meateaters."

The moby was turning, swinging gradually east, and slowing. Tiring.

Its fins folded against its side, presenting a streamlined egg-shape to the wind; it continued to fall outward, towing the bark raft. The pond had become a tiny jewel, glowing with refracted blue Voylight.

Clave said, "We'll cut loose as soon as we get near anything interesting. Integral tree, pond, forest, anything with water in it. I don't want anyone cutting the line too soon."

"aoud ahead," Merril said.

A distant, clotted streamer of white fading into blue. Clave barked laughter. "How far ahead? Sixty, seventy klomters? Anyway, it isn't ahead, it's straight out from us. We're aimed almost east."

"Maybe not," said the Grad. "We're aimed out from east and moving

--

pretty fast. Gavving, remember? 'East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east, port and starboard bring you

back."

"What the treefodder is that?" Clave demanded. Gavving remembered, but he said nothing. It was 'classified' . . . and the Grad had never told him what it meant.

But Minya was saying, "Every child learns that. It's supposed to be the way to move, if you're lost in the sky but you've got jet pods."

The Grad nodded happily. "We're being pulled east. We're moving too fast for our orbit, so we'll fall outward and slow down. I'll bet the moby is making for that cloud bank."

The moby's fins were spread and flapping slowly. There was nothing at all ahead of them, out to where the arch of the Smoke Ring formed from infinity. Minya moved her tether to bring herself alongside Gayving. They clung to the rim of the bark and watched the wisp of cloud out from them, and hoarded their thirst.

The sun circled behind Voy.

Again. Already they had moved many klomters outward; the daynight cycle had grown longer.

The cloud bank was growing. It was!

"It'll try to lose us in the fog," the Grad said with more hope than conviction.