Yes, this is the place.

It was here, Panille recalled, that he had learned to appreciate all the centuries of poetry celebrating rock and sand and sea, and the peculiar Avata life-of-Self illuminated by the regular passage of moons and suns. Here, the occasional monotony of wave against shore had been broken by the healthy slap of a nightborn hylighter breaking free of its motherplant and drifting off with its long umbilicus tentacles trailing in the sea. Though all Avata was one creature, Panille had felt his own private kinship with the nightborn hylighter-Avatan. Here, he had listened for them and greeted each birth with a song. A far-off slap would catch his attention and fill him with all the wonder of an answered prayer. Across the gently rolling sea, the tiny creature would rise into darkness.

Never again?

Panille whispered a chant to those lost cells of Avata, feeling his whole body transmit the chant as though he were, at last, truly one with Avata.

The solitary blossom overpowers the bouquet.

Even remembering union, without embrace:

a transformation.

Oh, the golden, night-blooming truth!

As he chanted, the whole line of beach glowed with the moons-rise and the shimmering friendship of Avata. The glow illuminated the people of Thomas’ ragtag army. Panille saw Thomas outlined against the dim light. Pushing himself away from the gateway rock, Panille went down the beach to stand near this mysterious “friend of Ship.”

“They’re less than two minutes away,” Panille said. He felt the beacon within him, a timed fire which linked him to that hot metal behemoth diving toward him.

“Oakes will send probes,” Thomas said.

“Avata will help me jam their signals.” Panille gave a smile to the dark. “Would you care to join me in this?”

“No!”

You hold back too much, Raja Thomas.

“But I need your help,” Panille said. And he felt Thomas fuming, the tension mounting.

“What do I do?” Thomas forced the words out.

“It may help you to touch an Avatan tentacle. Not necessary, but it helps at first.”

A black tentacle came looping down to him then from the night sky. Reluctance apparent in every movement, Thomas reached out and placed a palm against the thrusting warmth.

Immediately, he felt his awareness joined to whoever guided that freighter toward them. He could see two hylighters hovering directly ahead of him and he felt his body standing on surf-drummed sand, a place to go. But the pulse of flight held him in thralldom.

If anybody had told me back at Moonbase that one day I’d land a freighter with my mind and a couple of plants that sing in the dark . . .

And think!

The Avata intrusion could not be avoided. Avata would not accept that designation as plant. Thomas sensed more than heard the aural projection, something not quite pride, but not completely separated from pride.

Avata confuses me, he apologized.

You confuse yourself. Why do you hide your true identity?