"Well, that's good!"

"Suppose they want to go home?"

"They can't," Minya said flatly.

A child stirred: Qwen. Gavving lowered his voice. "Suppose we built them another rocket. Suppose some of us wanted to go with them."

Minya stopped to sort words through her head. Gavving waited patiently. Presently she said, "They'd have to be crazy. We'd have to be crazy to let them go. Gav, have you forgotten London Tree?"

"No. I haven't forgotten Quinn Tuft, either, or Carther States. They didn't make citizens into copsiks, and neither did your people." "... No. But we attacked you the instant we saw you."

"True."

"Do you remember being lost in the sky, clinging to a sheet of bark and dying of thirst? We faced dangers we can't even describe to our children, because they were too strange! We fought hard for Citizens Tree! And now both Scientists want to cross a thousand klomters to the Clump shouting 'Here we are!' Why do you want to risk what we've got?"

"They've got things to trade. They've got wings-"

"We've got wings."

"We picked jet pods, when we could find them. All this time. And it's so simple'. Minya, what would you have given for a pair of wings, when we were stranded in the sky? Everything in the Smoke Ring can fly except men, and all it takes is spine branches and cloth! They've got a rocket that moves a tree, and it isn't stolen starstuff, it's made mostly from things they find in the Smoke Ring.

What have they got in the Clump? What haven't we seen yet?"

She put bitterness in her laughter. "A thousand people and a drastic need for copsiks, maybe."

Gavving sighed. "Stet, you don't want anything changed. What should we do? They're here."

"Make them welcome," said Minya. "Teach them how to live in a tree. Get the girls married. Make them part of us. Gavving, Mark intends to marry Karilly."

"Karilly's sick in the mind. She isn't getting over it."

"Sure, and Mark's a dwarf. He's needed a wife, and none of us would touch him. 1 never did feel sorry for the copsik runner, but... but he's willing to take care other. And I think you ought to marry one of the other girls." Bang! Gavving stared. This was a woman afraid of changes? "I am married."

"Clave has two wives. Anthon did, until lisa died. I'm getting too old to make babies, dear."

"You don't mean-"

"No!" She hugged him. "But it won't give me a guest to carry."

"You're serious? Okay, who?"

She hesitated. Then, bravely (he thought): "I would have thought Mishael. She's the oldest. Gavving, she showed me how to fly. I like her."

"Have you mentioned any of-"

"No, you fool! A woman doesn't ask a woman to be her wife!" And when he laughed she smiled, weakly. Gavving saw how difficult this was for her. Minya must have thought long and hard about this.