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"If you suffer from heart disease, it would be best for you to remain in the Whorl," the monitor re even through the cotton The lander trembled with a violence that its builders could not possibly have intended He asked, "Is everything all right?"

"I a to be thus mistaken by a mere machine; as al to listen "Good Silk!"

"I am not Silk," he told the monitor "You have been er list, Patter Silk"

"Supplied by Hari Mau, of course" He could not keep the bitterness from his voice

"I will first cast off froher up, others were saying the sa "When I have attained sufficient altitude, I will fire ines As soon as they are silent, you may move about the lander, Hari Mau You will be unwell Please e tube to keep your area clean"

It struck him that it had been at least two minutes since the roped for his housekeeping tube and found that it was

"It will activate upon access You are responsible for your own area, Hari Mau"

That was because he had insisted that he was not Silk, he decided Aloud he said, "I have no housekeeping tube, Monitor, and I will not be sick I've traveled on landers before I even flew here on this one On no occasion was I sick"

"No sick," Oreb confirmed

"I will first cast off from the Whorl, Potter Sulk" The blur around theover its face like a cancer; the lower half of that face ht, then jerked back into place "When I have attained attitude, fire ines You " The ray face flickered, then vanished

This was death, death's overture This lander had been dah they had flown to the Pole in it, it could never return to Blue It would explode when the rockets fired or crash when it tried to land, or leave the in the abyss to starve, visited perhaps by inhuot back to Viron, where I could look for Silk" Suddenly aware that he was speaking out loud, he clenched his teeth

"Good Silk!"

"Put your head under your wing, or you will be deafened You may well be deafened anyhow"

Obediently, Oreb tucked his scarlet-capped head beneath a jet black wing

"No, fly" It was a whisper "Stay here"

It had been the best part of his life, the days when he had been with General Mint, with Silk in the Calde's Palace Ho they had been! How very, very few The hours in Silk's palace, and the hours in the boat with Seawrack "I've been happy twice," he told the bird in a voice that he himself could scarcely hear A shellback comb floated before his eyes He murmured, "Most men are not happy even once," and was violently,in what had been the lowest part of the lander, he seemed suspended in the sky The Short Sun blazed to his left, ht, stars shone, and Blue lay at his feet like a lost toy Ho himself into the seat "No one should see this twice, but I cannot get enough It is like women"

He smiled "Yes, in a way I suppose it is"

"My friends will not look Mota and Roti? Those fellows? They ca as it takes to eat a banana It was enough for them I cannot satisfy myself, ever"

Oreb had been left out of the conversation long enough "No eat," he declared

"No," his master told him, "you cannot eat the stars, save with your eyes I"

"What is it Rajan?" Han Mau leaned toward hie its temperature or feel his pulse

"I just realize that the Whorl is no longer rew up there, Hari Mau, and Nettle and I, in our real home on Lizard Island, used to say `hoht it would be possible to go back Now I have, and if I had not, perhaps she would have gone instead" He was te Silk; but he kneould ry

"It did not make you happy, Rajan?"

"It did at first, and often after that" He sighed "Or at least I would have told you I was if you had asked me"

"But you weren't?"

"Perhaps I should say that what I had, when I realized I was not only back in the Whorl but near Viron-and when I re-entered the city-was not true happiness Only the anticipation of it"

"So I feel when everything is settled back there," Hari Mau jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "and I can co at happiness is no bad thing, Rajan"

"No," he agreed, "it isn't Nor is it happiness we ought to seek in life For one thing, only those who seek so else find it"

"Work or war?"

"Yes, sometimes Peace, too, and hoood Sometimes people try all their lives to make a home, and succeed just before the end, and are happy Some-like me-succeed much earlier, but are not happy because they don't know When you came here, I almost said that I didn't think a man who never saw the stars could ever be truly happy"

"There is much truth"

"Then I realized that there are millions like Hound-"

"Good Hound!" Oreb explained

"Yes, he is He's honest and humble; and he works hard, I believe His ants children, and so does he, and he will love theet them But he lives in the Whorl and has never seen the stars In all probability he never will, though it is he and others like him ill touch them for us all"

"I do not understand, Rajan"

"The Whorl will leave our Short Sun," he pointed to it, "when the repairs are completed I'm surprised you didn't learn about it ere at the pole After we had finished talking about Pig, it was one of the first things they told ed

"Yes, that It may take twenty years, or fifty Or several hundred There's still a great deal they have to learn But the raw materials are there, and there's an abundance of labor They will conquer the heat, rain will fall as it never has in living ain Streams that have not flowed in a hundred years will run as pure and clear as on the day when Pas's finger traced their courses"

"Perhaps But you and I will never see it, Rajan"