“Show me now,” he said.

“You won’t be afraid when I touch you?”

“Show me.”

He really has changed, she thought.

Still she was fearful of provoking fear in him, of forcing him away from her. But he had asked. He had asked. Show me. She summoned her second sight and sent it outward, expanding its field around him. He felt it. No doubt of that. She perceived his mind’s instantaneous reaction, a startled drawing-back. And he was trembling. But he remained close beside her, open, accessible. There was no indication that he was putting up any of the usual defenses that one would put up against someone else’s use of second sight. Was it simply that he didn’t know how? No, no, he seemed to be accepting her probing willingly.

She took a deep breath and drove her expanded perceptions as deep into his mind as she dared.

And she saw the Nest.

Everything was blurred, indistinct, uncertain. Either his mental powers were still undeveloped, or he had learned some hjjk way of masking his mind. For what she saw in him she saw as though through many thicknesses of dark water.

It was the Nest, all right. She saw the dusky underground corridors, she saw the vaulted roofs. Dark figures moved about, hjjk-shaped, hjjk-rigid. But everything was vague. She couldn’t distinguish castes. She couldn’t even tell male from female, Military from Worker. And what was missing, above all else, was the spirit of the Nest, the dimension of soul-reality, the depth of Nest-bond that should envelop everything, the all-pervasive sweep of Queen-love flooding those dim subterranean aisles, the overriding imperative that was Egg-plan. There was no savor. There was no warmth. There was no nourishment. She was looking into the Nest and yet she remained cut off from it, an outsider, alone, lost in the cold realm of blackness that lies between the unfeeling stars.

In frustration, she probed a little deeper. No better. Then she felt a gentle push.

Kundalimon was trying to help her. Somehow he had discovered the font of his own second sight, which perhaps he had never used before, or had used without knowing what it was, and he was straining to amplify the vision for her. But even that couldn’t entirely lift the veil. She saw more clearly, yes, but the new brightness merely brought new distortions.

Maddening. To come this close, and not get there—

A sob burst from her. She pulled her mind free of his and rolled away, to lie facing the wall.

“Nialli?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be all right in a moment.” She wept silently. She felt more alone than ever before.

His hands caressed her back, her shoulders. “Did I do anything to upset you?”

“No. Nothing, Kundalimon.”

“We went about it the wrong way, then?”

She shook her head. “I saw a little. Just a little. The edge of the outline of the Nest. It was all so shadowy. Unclear. Distant.”

“I did it wrong. You will teach me the right way.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It — just didn’t work.”

There was silence for a while. He moved closer to her, covering her body with his. Then, suddenly, startlingly, he ran his sensing-organ along hers, a quick whispering touch that sent a shiver of keen sensation through her soul.

“We try the twining, you think?” he asked.

“Do you want to, Kundalimon?” She held her breath, waiting.

“You want to see the Nest.”

“Yes. Yes, I do. So very much.”

“Then maybe the twining.”

“You were afraid, that other time.”

“That was the other time.” He laughed softly. “And there once was a time when you were afraid of coupling, I think.”

She smiled. “Things change.”

“Yes. Things change. Come. Show me the twining, and I’ll show you the Nest. But you must turn toward me, first.”

Nialli Apuilana nodded and swung around to face him. He was smiling, that wonderful open sunlit smile of his, a child’s innocent smile in a man’s face. His eyes gleamed into hers, bright, expectant, excited. He was beckoning to her in a way that he had never done before.

“I’ve twined only once,” she said. “With Boldirinthe, almost four years ago. I may not be much better at it than you are.”

“We will be fine,” he said. “Show me what it is, this twining.”

“First the sensing-organs, the contact. You focus everything, your entire being—” He began to look troubled. “No,” she said. “Don’t try to focus anything, don’t even try to think. Just do as I do, and let things happen to you.” She drew her sensing-organ close to his. He relaxed. He seemed completely trusting now.

They made contact. And held it.

Nialli Apuilana had never forgotten her hour of intimacy with Boldirinthe. The phases of it were clear in her mind, the way they had descended the ladder of perception that led to the deep realms of the soul where the communion took place. Kundalimon followed her readily. He seemed to know intuitively what to do, or else he discovered it as he went. In moments he was following her no longer, but was descending at her side, and even, at times, leading the way, down toward the dark mysterious depths where self was unknown and nothing existed but the unity of all souls.

They joined, then, in full twining.

His soul swept into hers, and hers into his, and at last she is back in the Nest.

The Nest of Nests, it is, the great one far in the north, not the subsidiary Nest where Nialli Apuilana had lived during her brief few months of captivity. In a sense all Nests were one, for Queen-presence infused them all; but she had known, even then, that her Nest was only a minor one in an outlying district of the hjjk domain, presided over by a subsidiary Queen. Where they are now is the heartspring of the nation, the core and hub of it, the great pivot, the axis of all. Here dwells the Queen of Queens.

Nothing about this place seems strange to Nialli Apuilana. It is where Kundalimon had spent most of the days of his life, flesh-folk boy among the hjjks, moving freely in their world, eating their food, breathing their air, thinking their thoughts, living as they lived. This was his home. And so it is her home also.

Hand in hand they float through it like wandering ghosts, unseen, undisturbed. She is Kundalimon, and he is Nialli Apuilana. He is she and she is he: not knowing where one leaves off and the other begins.

The great Nest is endless, a maze of warm dark galleries half hidden beneath the surface of the ground, stretching for leagues in all directions. The gentle glow of Nest-light comes from the walls, pink and soft, a dream-light. On the easy currents of the air drifts the tingling sweet fragrance of Nest-breath, soft as fur, rich with the complex chemical messages that pass between the Nest’s inhabitants. Here in these intricate labyrinths live millions of hjjks, and here too, in the deepest part, at the still point of this busy hive, at the center of everything, lies the quiescent immensity of the Queen of Queens, ancient, eternal, undying, vast, all-guiding, all-loving. Nialli Apuilana feels the presence of Her greatness now, rolling through every hall like the tolling of a giant gong. There is no escaping it. She encompasses all the Nest and all the subordinate Nests as well in Her overflowing outpouring of love. And then too over everything else there sweeps that even higher and more all-embracing force, which even the Queen Herself acknowledges as supreme, the great undeniable inescapable torrential energy that is Egg-plan, the fundamental power of life, the ineluctable universal femaleness that drives all existence endlessly forward.

Nialli Apuilana yields herself to that great song of perfection with utmost joy and ease. This is why she had yearned to come here: to feel once again the reassuring knowledge that the world has meaning and structure, to know once more that a shape, a design, an underlying purpose governs the bewildering workings of the cosmos.