The barrier winked out and there stood Maelen and Krip. But where was the other? Not hidden behind the two, for Farree would have still seen the edge or tips of wings. He knew—

Where was she!

"For whom do you search, little brother?" asked Krip. There was a shade of concern in his voice as he studied Farree.

"The one—the gracious one—she who flies in beauty! Where is she, my brother, my sister! Have you hidden her?" He suddenly recalled the warning Zoror had given him only moments earner. "On the ship? Surely she is not of Gragal! For they have not seen our like before—he"—Farree signaled with a finger—"has told me so."

He wanted to shout—to sing—to fly triumphantly up and up—to meet her above in the clouds where their own road ran. Yet there were no smiles on the faces of his friends. Rather Maelen's thought reached into him, dampening the excitement that filled him.

"There is no one with us—nor at the ship, little brother. Why do you think—?"

Farree reached her, his hands outstretched, then a chill extinguished all the sudden joy he had known for the first time in his hard and barren life. The scent—no, he could not mistake that! And it came from—

His hand shot out and he grabbed from Maelen's hold, something wrapped in a sheet of luxwool such as was used to protect some fragile ware after purchase. The sheet flipped apart, letting him see something which shimmered in a melting burst of color: rose, pearl-white, and the warm grey of first twilight.

Farree continued to stare as the fragrance arose about him in a cloud of scent filling every breath he drew. She—she—

He uttered a harsh cry and dropped upon the nearest pile of dead tapes that wondrous thing—wondrous, yes. But the feel of raw cruelty was a part of it: such torment as to sweep away all he had first felt, giving instead a sense of harsh pain. Then out of that pain grew an anger, fierce, filling him to the point where he threw out an arm and swept to the floor two piles of tapes, his lips drawn back so tightly against his teeth that his face was now that of a snarling animal unable to give vent to anger save through claw and fang. His other hand flew to his belt and freed the short defense knife which was his legacy from their meeting with the Guild. Who could be made to pay for this—this hurt, sorrow—DEATH!

"Where—" The demand came as a slurred snarl. "Where was this?" He dared not touch that thing of many colors again; it racked him now even to look at it.

Maelen moved deliberately, coming up beside him. Farree's whole body quivered as he longed to turn on her, large as she was, to shake from her the knowledge he must have. She picked up the scrap of beauty, shook it out so that he saw, having to watch in spite of his rage and horror, she held a length which might form a scarf. The strip had been cut at an angle which led the colors to play in and out.

"What is this?" Maelen did not try to pierce the turmoil in Farree's mind, rather spoke aloud in a quiet voice such as she would use with her beloved little ones—those beasts, strange or familiar, which shared her life.

"What is it—brother?" she asked for the second time. Farree had given room to too many strong emotions in too short a time. Now he felt dizzy and sick, having to hold onto the edge of the table. Three times he swallowed before he could bring forth a word.

"It is—from a wing!" His own quivered as he answered.

"So!" That was Krip Vorlund who answered. "Perhaps a wing such as yours?" he asked.

Farree turned his head so he did not have to watch that flutter of color which Maelen had taken up again. Memory– did he have any memory of this? He wrestled with his rage and got its explosive force under control. "A wing—maybe like mine." Save that it was far more beautiful in its warm colors than his own shaded green pinions.

"Can you tell us more, little brother?" Maelen, who was the, friend of all winged, pawed, other live forms, was watching him very intently.

Farree did not even raise his hand. His mouth twisted and there was a burning in his throat—anger was still there but here now was something else, a sense of loss so great that it bore down on him as had the burden of his wings before time and dire effort had freed them.

"She is dead—" He spoke the words, and in his mind he wept.

"How did death come?" Vorlund's firm voice steadied Farree enough so he could answer.

"I—I don't know. If I try to learn"—he waved his thin fingers inches above the length of the scarf—"I will only feel what she felt, not the way of death, nor where it came for her."

Zoror's neck frill was fully raised. He leaned forward a little as if he could force from the length of wing silk more.

"Smuggled—contraband?" His hiss was nearly lost in the sharpness of his demand. But he did not try to handle the Jength which continued to flutter even though there were no breezes here to set it in motion.

Vorlund asked the question for them all. "This then is a forbidden import? Why would any one risk exile from space to peddle such a thing? What virtue does it have besides beauty?"

It was true that smuggling was a major crime on all planets, one which brought a full force of all law enforcement officers, on planet or off, to find and punish the miscreants.

"I do not know," the Zacanthan returned. "Because I officially deal in off-world curios, things which might add even a word or two to our records, I have a full membership in the Importers' Guild, not only here but on five other worlds. This is on the forbidden list—"

"And how is it listed?" Maelen laid the strip carefully back on the table.

"As spider silk—a new type—to be reported to the nearest Patrol post at once."

"I do not know this spider silk." Farree looked at nothing but that shimmering mass. "But this cannot be that—"

"No." Krip Vorlund shook his head. "It appears to be far more. Taken from wings—"

At his words Farree shuddered and had again to grab at the table's edge to steady himself. He must wall off that beginning of thought. In the scum of the Limits, where these two had found him, had saved him from rotting with the rest of the drifters bogged there in the mud of evil which the straggling settlement near the landing space really was, he had had the first beginnings of thought to thought—sharing with the smux, also a prisoner. Then these two had come and swept up Togger, and him. He had seen sights a-plenty which were a mingling of fear and horror, but somehow none of those had touched within him as this did—as if it strove to unlock a door which, if he opened it, would sweep him up into another time and place which he must not enter, not yet—

"If it is on the forbidden list," Maelen said, "then its nature and source must be known to someone—it's likely been seen before."

It was Zoror who answered the question. "Wings– brother." He looked now to Farree and there was concern in his eyes, hidden partly by wrinkles of scales. "Could you tell us who or where?"

There was a wave of sickness rising in Farree. "I—"

"No!" Maelen interrupted him. "That is one place he dares not venture—into the past from which this came." She put forth her hand and pushed back a sweat-damp lock of hair from Farree's forehead.

"Where did you find this, Daughter of Moon Power," Zoror asked in a formal tone, as if she were to give evidence.

"For open sale at the market. To search bodily, that we can do!" she returned. "There Farree may find a clue that he dares draw into his mind."

"Watch for a spacer, down on his luck, far down," commented Vorlund.

"A spacer who has been to many worlds, perhaps, known and unknown," Zoror added as if he were attacking some problem with the full strength of his own knowledge. "It follows that we must see this spacer again—and perhaps best in his own setting. There may be more—!" He did not touch the scarf which his talons indicated. "But our little brother here—he must have some protection. Let us see—"