She felt then both awe, that fear of immensity, and loneliness. She wished her clan could see this, wished that there were other minds of her cut and shape to share this spectacle.

             Her attention was so riveted on the unfolding sky that she did not hear the stealthy approach of scraping paws. But she did catch the jostle as something launched itself in the weak gravity.

             The shape came at her from behind. She got only a snatched instant to see it, a thing of sleek-jacketed black and flagrant reds. It was hinged like a bat at the wings and slung with ball-bearing agility in its swiveling, three-legged attack.

             Claws snatched at the air where Cley had been.

             She had ducked and shot sideways, rebounding from a barnacled branch. Instead of fleeing into unknown leafy wilderness, where a pack of the attackers might well be waiting, she launched herself back into the silent, sleek thing.

             This it had not expected. It had just seen Seeker and was trying to decide if this new development was a threat or an unexpected banquet.

             Cley hit it amidships. A leg snapped; weightlessness makes for flimsy construction. She had flicked two of her fingers into needles, usually used for the fine treatment of ailing creatures. They plunged into the flared red ears of the attacker, puncturing the enlarged eardrums which were its principal sensory organ. The creature departed, a squawking blur of pain and anger.

             Cley landed on a wide branch, hands ready. She trembled with a mixture of eagerness and fear which a billion years of selection had still retained as fundamental to the human constitution. The foliage replied to her intent wariness with silent indifference.

             Seeker awoke, stretching and yawning. "More food?"

30

             They sighted the Supra ship their third day out. It came flaring into view from Earthside, as Cley now thought of the aft layers of the Leviathan.

             She and Seeker spent much of their time there, enjoying the view of the steadily shrinking green moon, resting among a tangle of enormous flowerlike growths. Near the moon a yellow star grew swiftly. It became a sleek, silver ship balancing on a thin torch flame.

             This had just registered with Cley when Seeker jerked her back behind an overarching stamen. "Do not move," it whispered.

             The slim craft darted around the Leviathan as though it were sniffing, its nose turning and swiveling despite being glossy metal. The torch ebbed and fine jets sent it zooming beyond view along the bulk of the Leviathan. Cley felt a shadowy presence, like a sound just beyond recognition. The Supra ship returned, prowling close enough to the prickly growths to risk colliding with upper stems.

             Seeker put both of its large, padded hands on Cley's face. Seeker had done this before, to soothe Cley when her anxieties refused to let her sleep. Now the pressure of those rough palms, covered with fine black hair, sent a calming thread through her. She knew what the touch implied: let her mind go blank. That way her talent would transmit as little as possible. Any Supra aboard the ship who had come from Lys could pick up her thoughts, but only if they were focused clearly into perceptible messages. Or so Cley hoped.

             The ship held absolutely still for a long while, as if deciding whether to venture inside. The cloud of spaceborne life that surrounded the Leviathan had drawn away from the ship, perhaps fearing the ship's rockets. Its exact cylindrical symmetries and severe gleam seemed strange and malevolent among the drifting swarms, hard and enclosed, giving nothing away. Suddenly the yellow blowtorch ignited again, sending the life-forms skittering away. The ship vanished in moments, heading out from the sun.

             "Must've guessed I was running this way," Cley said.

             "They try every fleeting possibility."

             Seeker seemed concerned, though she was seldom sure what meanings attached to its quick frowns, fur-ripplings and teeth displays.

             "I felt something ..."

             "They sought your thought-smell."

             "Didn't know I had one."

             "It is distinctive."

             "You can smell it?"

             "In your species many memories are lodged near the brain's receptors for smell. Scents then evoke memories. I do not share this property."

             "So?" Sometimes Seeker's roundabout manner irked her. She was not sure whether it was suggesting much by saying little, or simply amusing itself.

             "A Supra can remember the savor of your thinking. This act of recollection calls up your talent, makes it stronger."

             "Just by remembering, they make me transmit better?"

             "Something like that."

             Cley could not match this with the odd, scratchy presence she had felt. "Well, they're gone now."

             "They may return."

             "You've got the talent, don't you?"

             "If you cannot tell, then I suppose I do not."

             "Well, yeah, I sure can't pick up anything from you. But—"

             "Let us move away from here. The ship could try again."

             They left the flower zone where they had foraged for a day, supping on thick nectar. Cley did not register a transition but somehow they came into a region with light centrifugal gravity. This was not as simple an inner geometry as the Jonah's. Internal portions of Leviathan spun on unseen axes, and streams flowed along sloping hillsides. The local gravity was never more than a subtle touch, but it gave shape and order to the rampant vegetation.

             They came into a vast chamber with teeming platforms, passageways, tunnels, balustrades, antechambers, all thronged with small animals moving on intent paths. It was a central station for a system of tubes that seemed to sprout everywhere, even high up the walls. The moist air above was crisscrossed by great shafts of filtered sunlight rising from sources near the floor, up to a distant arched ceiling decorated astonishingly—as if to say that this vault was the fulcrum of all—with a projected view of the starscape outside. The galactic center glowed brilliantly.

             Yet all the busy grandeur of this place did not intimidate her; it was even inviting. The scurrying animals were intelligent, in their way, going about swift tasks without giving her more than a glance. Humans were apparently uninteresting, maybe not even unusual— though she doubted that many Supras used Leviathans to journey, given their swift ships.

             She did not dwell on the Supra pursuit. The momentum of events carried her further from her lands, and she had resolved to plunge forward rather than endlessly fret. Perhaps she could find Ur-hu-mans somewhere out here, as Seeker had said.

             Her hunting skills reawakened as she followed Seeker in its unhurried but quick foraging. Seeker ate a lot and seemed to savor the pursuit of small prey for sport, though it devoured mostly plants. It especially enjoyed ripping big fronds to shreds, picking out packets of ripe red seeds.

             The ferment of tangled life around them, extending in all three dimensions throughout Leviathan, captivated Cley. It was so unlike the Supras' carefully tuned projects. As she immersed herself in this complex wealth she understood what had irked and daunted her about the Supras. Their air of superiority had been tolerable, but in their grave manner she felt a cold brush with something she could not name.