Panille listened to them with only part of his attention. He released himself from his seat and looked up at the open hatch. There was a sweet smell to the salt-washed air blowing in the hatchway. He found the smell invigorating. Through an unblocked area beside his console, he could see the flock of hylighters tacking closer across the wind. The motions of the gondola, the smells—even the survival from the perils of the dive—all charged him with a sense of being intensely alive.

Thomas finished his examination.

“Nothing,” he said.

Waela said: “I still find it difficult to . . .”

“Believe it anyway,” Panille said. “There are things happening around Oakes that the rest of us are not supposed to learn.”

She was outraged. “Ship wouldn’t allow . . .”

“Hah!” Thomas grimaced. “Oakes may be right. Ship or the ship? How can we be sure?”

Such open blasphemy intrigued Panille. From another Ceepee, too! But it was the old philosophical question he had debated many times with Ship, merely cast in a more direct form. As he thought about this, Panille watched the approach of the hylighters, and now he pointed downwind.

“Look at those hylighters!”

Waela glanced over her shoulder. “A lot of them and big ones. What’re they doing?”

“Probably coming to investigate us,” Thomas said.

“They won’t get too close, do you think?”

Panille stared at the orange flock. They were alive, perhaps sentient. “Have they ever attacked?”

“There’s argument about that,” Waela said. “They use hydrogen for buoyancy, you know, very explosive if ignited. There have been incidents . . .”

“Lewis argues that they sacrifice themselves as living bombs,” Thomas said. “I think they’re just curious.”

“Could they wreck us?” Panille asked. He stared all around the horizon. No land in sight. He knew they had food and water in the compartments under their feet. Waela had inspected those before takeoff while he held a handlight.

“They could blacken the gondola’s skin a bit,” Thomas said. He spoke while working at his console. “I’ve activated the locator beacon, but there’s a lot of static on those frequencies. Radio appears to be working . . .”

“But we can’t punch past the interference without the ‘sonde,” Waela said. “We’re marooned.”

Panille, holding himself against the pitching of the gondola, climbed several steps of the ladder until his shoulders cleared the hatch. One glance showed the hylighters still working their way toward the gondola. He turned his attention to the ‘sonde-release package attached to the plaz beside the hatch.

“What’re you doing?” Thomas demanded.

“There’s a lot of the ‘sonde’s antenna wire still in its reel.”

Thomas moved to the foot of the ladder, peered up. “What’re you thinking?”