The dwarf nodded cheerfully; her flame-red hair swirled around her. Her short but powerful legs shot her across the cabin to the instrument closet. She chose what she needed and went out.

The long hair would have to go when she reached higher rank. Pity. But dwarves were rare, and Bosun Sectry Murphy must be trained quickly . . .

Through the hatch Wheeler could see a blue light, tiny and intense: a Navy heliograph, reflected Voy-light blinking near the east limb of the whorl. Red hair and a squarish feminine face suddenly blocked the view. "Petty, we're at two-sixty-five flat, six south, two-forty klomters."

"And we've got better than half a tank, right?" Murphy nodded. "Get on the heliograph. We'll rendezvous with the log. Jimson, Rice, get us ready for a bum."

The thick, disordered sky made Rather dizzy. If he fell into that he would be more than ordinarily lost. He climbed with care. Clave and Debby trailed him.

There had been hard work followed by a long climb. They were all tired. Rather's fingers and toes were starting to cramp. But the rocket was in sight, a hundred meters out ... if that direction was still out.

The log was rising through the Clump's eastern fringes. Wind slapped at Rather from ambush, here, there, everywhere, as if he were embedded in a flock of terrified turkeys. Clouds ran in peculiar directions, not east-west, not flattened spirals, but shallow in-out curves. A line of small green puff jungles flowed in an arc that was not tidelike at all. Confronted by such strangeness, Rather's bewildered eyes sought the one unchanging reference point.

Voy burned blue-white and steady . . . twenty-five degrees east of the stump of the in tuft! Choppy clouds blurred the sun. Shadows pulsed, blurring and sharpening. Overlaid on those, Voy's faint, sharp blue shadows lay in skew directions. Children learned not to see Voyshadows. Voy-shadows told nothing, for they never moved, never changed, never distracted the eye.

The tree had turned; the trunk was pointing wrong.

Booce and Carlot waited at the rocket. Debby called, "Booce! How can you stand it?"

"The tide? I grew up in it. You'll get used to it. The happyfeet do."

"The shadows are making me sick to my stomach," Debby said.

Rather's own stomach was queasy. "Carlot-"

"We're almost home." There was no mistaking her joy. She liked it here. "Look, we've got the pipefire going."

"I'll start the water." A smaller pod had been carved into Logbearer's new cabin. Booce crawled inside. "Tether yourselves."

The rocket cone pointed east. Rather poked his nose into the small hatch. "Booce, are you slowing us again?"

Booce's voice echoed. "What? No, tide's different in the Clump. We'll push west, straight toward the Dark." He pulled a wooden plug from the water tank. He inhaled, put his lips to the hole, and blew,