Zdorab knew that most of the others were thinking similar thoughts. Well, not dreaming of soft beds in Basilica, The younger men had never seen the city-or any city, for that matter. Nevertheless, they were filled with resentment, knowing that there was no hope of accomplishing anything. Wherever these flying creatures lived, it would probably be very high. Out of reach. And if in fact they had taken Elemak's daughter, how was this group of men going to save her? With their motley assortment of farming tools, what would they do? Hand over our little girl, you villains, or we'll plant a garden!

At this little bit of whimsy Zdorab couldn't help but smile. But at that moment he crested the rise to find Elemak glaring at him.

"What's the smile about, Zdorab?"

"I was off in another world," said Zdorab, ducking his head obsequiously. It was a posture he had learned long ago. It generally deflected the wrath of bullies. "I'm so sorry."

"You shouldn't be," said Elemak. "Better any world than this."

So he, too, resented it. As if he hadn't been part of the cause of it, with his plotting and conniving back on Basilica.

But Zdorab said nothing more. Instead he turned and surveyed the terrain that dawn was revealing. At this altitude the air was noticeably cooler, and the undergrowth wasn't quite as thick. A thin mist had formed in the valley behind the saddle, like a river flowing among the trees. The next row of peaks was astonishing in its craggy beauty, and behind that he could see the very tops of a couple of mountains so high that even at these latitudes they had snow. It had snowed several times during the years he lived in Basilica, but it was never more than an inch or two on the ground, and it always melted within a day. But the snow must never melt up there. What had Shedemei said? Mountains so new and high that it was a miracle the mantle of Earth could sustain the weight of them. Eleven thousand meters. The Oversold said that there were no mountains so high on Harmony, and as far as his records showed there had never been such high mountains on Earth before, either. These were new, pushed up by an ocean plate being subducted under what had once been a narrow isthmus connecting two continents. Now it was a great massif, the highest spot on Earth, and every climate and terrain existed on its perimeter. On the western coast the mountains were so high their rain shadow caused an utter desert. On the east, there was a place where rain fell almost continuously, day and night, summer and winter, so that it was bare rock, except for a few hardy mosses that could live with perpetual cloud cover.

Why can't Shedemei and I leave this village, simply explore this new planet? They don't need us. We don't want to be with them. Our son and daughter are grown up and married now. It would be nice to visit with them from time to time, but parenting they don't need. When they have children, I can sing them silly songs and dandle them on my knee. Twice a year.

But thinking of little children made him remember why they were there. Why they had spent tonight with no sleep, climbing a canyon in the dark. And now he looked out over the valley and saw that in the first light of dawn, the trees were jumping with life. Flying creatures bounding into the air, flying a short distance, and then dropping back down into the leaves. Each of them seemed to be carrying something in its feet as it flew.

"They're terrified of us," said Elemak softly.

"How can you tell that?" asked Mebbekew.

"Because they're evacuating their village. Look- those are their own children they're carrying."

"Look," said Zdorab. "When the children are a little larger, it takes two adults to carry them."

"Good eyes," said Elemak. "It took four of them to lift Zhivya. And if they think they can get away from me by carrying their children to-"

"They can" said Vas scornfully. "They can get away from us any time they want, precisely by carrying their children to safety. What are you going to do, dance along the treetops till you catch up with them?"

Elemak turned slowly. "Go back down the mountain, then, if you don't care about this errand."

Vas immediately apologized. "I'm tired, Elemak. I'm too tired to know what I'm saying."

"Then keep your mouth shut," said Elemak. "And your eyes open."

Zdorab sighed and turned away from this touching scene of true friendship. The only people who hated Elemak worse than his enemies were his friends. And yet they followed him, because they knew he needed them so much he couldn't ignore them, as Nafai certainly would have. That's probably how a lot of vile men get others to follow them, thought Zdorab. They can't get good men to follow them, and they need somebody, so they have to take the kind of men who can't find a good man interested in taking them on. The miracle was that evil persisted in the world, since the only people who took part in it generally couldn't stand each other, and for good reason.

Zdorab's attention was caught by a movement in a tree just down from the crest. A single bat-thing was sitting on a branch. "Look," said Zdorab.

"I see him," said Elemak.

"What's he doing?" asked Yasai.

"We all have the same number of eyes," said Elemak scornfully. "Watch and we'll see together."

The angel abruptly dropped from the tree, fluttering down to the ground in a small clearing that led up to where the humans stood. Zdorab got a chance to see it clearly then, its wings extended. The face was hideously ugly, but that was hardly a surprise. After all, it had descended from some wizen-snouted species of bat, hadn't it? The real surprise was the fascinating compromise that evolution had reached. Its arms and legs were almost mockingly thin. From wrist to ankle on each side of his body, the wings fanned out, held rigid by two distorted fingers of each hand. The other three fingers on each side, however, were of normal size, giving the creature good hands for grasping. And the head was very large for the size of the body. The miracle was that it could fly at all. It was surely at the outside limit of its growth-any larger, and it would lose the power of flight.

At this moment, however, it was walking toward diem. It wasn't without grace when it walked, but it was dear that it was more at ease on branches or in the air. A long-distance hiker it would never be, not on those feet.

Those feet.

Zdorab knew enough to hold his tongue. Young Yasai, alas, did not. "Oykib was right," he blurted out. "No way did those feet make those footprints back in the village."

Elemak turned slowly toward him. "So maybe it wasn't this thing that made the prints. Do you think I didn't know that was a possibility? The fact remains that this fellow was the lookout for the kidnappers. If he doesn't have Zhivya, he knows where she is." Elemak took a step downward, toward the creature.

Almost at once, the creature stopped, and then did the most extraordinary thing. He reached down and took from his foot a small number of stalks of grain that he had been holding. Then he laid them down in the grass, making a great show of each one, as if counting them out. When they were all laid out, the creature took a step backward.

"That's grain from our field," said Obring.

"Did you just realize that?" asked Vas,

"Does it matter?" asked Meb.

"He thinks that's why we came up here," said Padarok, Zdorab's own son. "Because he stole our grain. He's giving it back."

"And when did you become an expert on overgrown bats?" asked Elemak.

"It makes sense," said Padarok stubbornly.

Zdorab waved a hand at him, trying to get him to shut up.

"No, I won't shut up, Father. This whole thing is ludicrous. The angel took some grain from the field and he doesn't know a thing about Zhivya. If somebody had stopped to give this any thought at all, we wouldn't have spent all night climbing a mountain in pursuit of an innocent man."