At the same time there was a strangeness in what Sectry had said . . . and then he had it. "How do you know all that? Booce told us about the Library. He said only officers' children are taught there."

"Wayne told me."

"Oh."

"We were together for a while. I never thought he'd marry me, I'm not an officer, but when he ... What I was saying, he told me a lot of history. The Library used to be part of a starstuff rocket. We've never built anything like it."

"What does it look like? Where-"

She shook her head; her hair spread around her like a flaming halo. "I never saw it myself. I'd like to. I wonder if I could talk my way past the guards ..."

Guards. That door.

Voices and vision were turning strange. Sectry glowed;

she was the Smoke Ring's most beautiful living thing. Rather took a firm grip on his equilibrium. Offering to make babies with a high-ranking Navy officer now seemed presumptuous beyond insanity. Carlot had warned him:

she might be badly offended. Yet he'd never seen a woman like her.

"Then he married a woman three meters tall and thin as a feathersnake. She's got a face that would scare away a drillbit, and when she carries a guest she looks like a line with a knot in it. But she's an officer."

"Money."

"Mmm? No. Rank."

"Money," Rather said distinctly, "is why Carlot is going to marry Raff Belmy." He was losing control of his mouth.

"Oh. The dark girl, Serjent's daughter?" A smile flickered and vanished, but Rather caught it. "That's rank too."

"You saw us."

"Yeah." The smile was back.

"Do you have rank?"

"I'm a Bosun. Crew."

"Do I have rank?"

"No. What's this all about? If you want rank you join the Navy. Then you're crew."

"Would you marry me then?" His mouth was running away with him. Fringe.

She laughed. She was trying to stop, and ultimately she succeeded. "We just met. How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"I'm twenty-eight. Where do you want to live?"

"Citizens Tree. Any tree."

"Carlot probably wants to live in the Admiralty."

"To the treemouth with Carlot."

"I do too."

"Make babies with me," his mouth said.

She thought it over, while Rather tried to think himself invisible. She said, "Right."

A score or so of puff jungles were in view. Some bore logos. They chose one that didn't, and circled it to be sure. "Quietly now," Sectry said.

"Nobody here but us flashers."

"If we scare flashers out, some meat eater might come after them."

He wiggled through the foliage in her wake. Nice to have a view. The puff jungle was hollow in the middle. A thousand flashers edged warily away, flashing blue and yellow wings at them.

They balled their clothes and threw them at the flashers, causing great excitement.