He spoke into the speech-tube:

"...Fifteen additional years is too long to wait, Pussycat. Have themfigure the time-span if we were to purchase only twenty Worldchange units.Love and kisses, Jarry."

During the days which followed, he stalked above his chamber, erect atfirst, then on all fours as his mood deepened.

"Approximately three thousand years," came the reply. "May your coat beever shiny--Sanza."

"Let's put it to a vote, Greeneyes," he said.

Quick, a world in 300 words or less! Picture this...

One land mass, really, containing three black and brackish lookingseas; gray plains and yellow plains and skies the color of dry sand; shallowforests with trees like mushrooms which have been swabbed with iodine; nomountains, just hills brown, yellow, white, lavender; green birds with wingslike parachutes, bills like sickles, feathers like oak leaves, an inside-outumbrella behind; six very distant moons, like spots before the eyes indaytime; grass like mustard in the moister valleys; mists like white fire onwindless mornings, albino serpents when the air's astir; radiating chasms,like fractures in frosted windowpanes; hidden caverns, like chains of darkbubbles; seventeen known dangerous predators, ranging from one to six metersin length, excessively furred and fanged; sudden hailstorms, like hurledhammerheads from a clear sky; an icecap like a blue beret at eitherflattened pole; nervous bipeds a meter and a half in height, short oncerebrum, which wander the shallow forests and prey upon the giantcaterpillar's larva, as well as the giant caterpillar, the green bird, theblind burrower, and the offal-eating murkbeast; seventeen mighty rivers;clouds like pregnant purple cows, which quickly cross the land to lie-inbeyond the visible east; stands of windblasted stones like frozen music;nights like soot, to obscure the lesser stars; valleys which flow like thetorsos of women or instruments of music; perpetual frost in places ofshadow; sounds in the morning like the cracking of ice, the trembling oftin, the snapping of steel strands...

They knew they would turn it to heaven.

The vanguard arrived, decked out in refrigeration suits, installed tenWorldchange units in either hemisphere, began setting up cold-sleep bunkersin several of the larger caverns.

Then came the members of December down from the sand-colored sky.

They came and they saw, decided it was almost heaven, then enteredtheir caverns and slept. Over twenty-eight thousand Coldworld Catforms(modified per Alyonal) came into their own world to sleep for a season insilence the sleep of ice and of stone, to inherit the new Alyonal. There isno dreaming in that sleep. But had there been, their dreams might have beenas the thoughts of those yet awake.

"It is bitter, Sanza."

"Yes, but only for a time--"

"...To have each other and our own world, and still to go forth likedivers at the bottom of the sea. To have to crawl when you want to leap..."

"It is only for a short time, Jarry, as the sense will reckon it."

"But it is really three thousand years! An ice age will come to pass aswe doze. Our former worlds will change so that we would not know them werewe to go back for a visit--and none will remember us."

"Visit what? Our former cells? Let the rest of the worlds go by! Let usbe forgotten in the lands of our birth! We are a people apart and we havefound our home. What else matters?"

"True...It will be but a few years, and we shall stand our tours ofwakefulness and watching together."

"When is the first?"

"Two and a half centuries from now--three months of wakefulness."

"What will it be like then?"

"I don't know. Less warm..."

"Then let us return and sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day."

"Yes."

"Oh! See the green bird! It drifts like a dream..."

When they awakened that first time, they stayed within the Worldchangeinstallation at the place called Deadland. The world was alreadycolder and the edges of the sky were tinted with pink. The metalwalls of the great installation were black and rimed with frost. Theatmosphere was still lethal and the temperature far too high. Theyremained within their special chambers for most of the time, venturingoutside mainly to make necessary tests and to inspect the structure oftheir home.

Deadland...Rocks and sand. No trees, no marks of life at all.

The time of terrible winds was still upon the land, as the world foughtback against the fields of the machines. At night, great clouds of realestate smoothed and sculpted the stands of stone, and when the windsdeparted the desert would shimmer as if fresh-painted and the stones wouldstand like flames within the morning and its singing. After the sun came upinto the sky and hung there for a time, the winds would begin again and adun-colored fog would curtain the day. When the morning winds departed,Jarry and Sanza would stare out across the Deadland through the east windowof the installation, for that was their favorite--the one on the thirdfloor--where the stone that looked like a gnarly Normform waved to them, andthey would lie upon the green couch they had moved up from the first floor,and would sometimes make love as they listened for the winds to rise again,or Sanza would sing and Jarry would write in the log or read back throughit, the scribblings of friends and unknowns through the centuries, and theywould purr often but never laugh, because they did not know how.

One morning, as they watched, they saw one of the biped creatures ofthe iodine forests moving across the land. It fell several times, pickeditself up, fell once more, lay still.

"What is it doing this far from its home?" asked Sanza.

"Dying," said Jarry. "Let's go outside."

They crossed a catwalk, descended to the first floor, donned theirprotective suits and departed the installation.

The creature had risen to its feet and was staggering once again. Itwas covered with a reddish down, had dark eyes and a long, wide nose, lackeda true forehead. It had four brief digits, clawed, upon each hand and foot.

When it saw them emerge from the Worldchange unit, it stopped andstared at them. Then it fell.

They moved to its side and studied it where it lay.

It continued to stare at them, its dark eyes wide, as it lay thereshivering.

"It will die if we leave it here," said Sanza.

"...And it will die if we take it inside," said Jarry.

It raised a forelimb toward them, let it fall again. Its eyes narrowed,then closed.

Jarry reached out and touched it with the toe of his boot. There was noresponse.

"It's dead," he said.

"What will we do?"

"Leave it here. The sands will cover it."

They returned to the installation, and Jarry entered the event in thelog.

During their last month of duty, Sanza asked him, "Will everything diehere but us? The green birds and the big eaters of flesh? The funny littletrees and the hairy caterpillar?"

"I hope not," said Jarry. "I've been reading back through thebiologists' notes. I think life might adapt. Once it gets a start anywhere,it'll do anything it can to keep going. It's probably better for thecreatures of this planet we could afford only twenty Worldchangers That waythey have three millennia to grow more hair and learn to breathe our air anddrink our water. With a hundred units we might have wiped them out and hadto import coldworld creatures or breed them. This way, the ones who livehere might be able to make it."

"It's funny," she said, "but the thought just occurred to me that we'redoing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took itaway. These creatures came to life in this place, and we're taking it away.We're turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our formerworlds--misfits."