And the humans too were just as assorted: tall, short, fat, thin, black, white, yellow, old, young.

Even before the convoy had come to a full stop, the chattering people and animals-and things-were already surrounding the vehicles, clustering excitedly to help unload and hear the news. All of them were abuzz with questions-but first they backed up politely to give Orrie room to dismount. The back of the truck slapped down into the dirt to make a wide ramp and Orrie flowed down and into the cheering crowd. They surged in close, oohing and aahing and patting at him affectionately.

"Whhhhrrrr!" said Orrie. "Whhrr-whhhhrrrrrr!"

It almost sounded like a purr. I'd never heard a worm make that sound before; but then, I'd never seen a worm that had acted like this one either. Delandro jumped down out of the truck next and the crowd surged in to hug him and kiss him too, men and women alike. Loolie and Jessie and Marcie burst happily out of the van to join them. I stayed where I was, trying as hard as I could to be invisible.

"All right, all right," said Jason, caught up in the crush, laughing with delight at being the center of so much attention, "let's get some of this gear unloaded first, okay!" But his words were swept away in the roar of greetings.

The younger children were all squealing in delight. I heard cries of "What did you bring us?" and "Did you get any candy?" The adults were also shouting back and forth, exchanging greetings and good-natured jibes.

I wanted to be afraid, but I couldn't. Mostly, I felt-left out. Most of the people here looked disappointingly mundane, and they acted as solid as a community of New Christian farmers. Many of the men wore beards, and most of the women had their hair pulled back in neat efficient ponytails, or close-cropped like the men. They all wore jeans and T-shirts, or jeans and flannel shirts, or jeans and sweatshirts, or jeans and no shirt at all-but all the adults looked clean. For some reason, that seemed important. The other two worms were climbing down from their truck now. The crowd greeted them enthusiastically too. Their affection and respect was obvious; but it was equally obvious that Orrie was held in special regard.

I could understand their enthusiasm. Orrie may have been one of the smallest worms I'd ever seen, but he was also one of the brightest. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. It had been my previous experience that the older and larger a worm was, the brighter and more distinct its stripes would be, but Orrie was just a baby and already his colors were vivid. His stripes were more sharply delineated than I'd ever seen before on a worm. His proud patterns shifted back and forth across his sides like the letters on a billboard. The crowd pressed in closer.

And the worm seemed to like the attention! He even lowered his eyes, so the children could reach up and scratch behind the thick fleshy stalks that supported them. Two of the smaller boys were trying to climb up on his back.

I could feel my fists clenching in my lap: I felt naked without a weapon. A flame-thrower.

A couple of the teenagers noticed me sitting in the back of the van then and started calling to the rest of the crowd. "Look, look-Jason brought back a new guest! H'ray!" They started waving affectionately to me. "Hi! Come on out! What's your name?"

They climbed in and took me by the hand and pulled me out to join the crowd. The people gathered around me like I was a long lost cousin. I was hugged and kissed by all of them, male and female, young and old, everyone who could get to me. "Welcome, welcome home! What's your name? We're so glad you came! Welcome!" They dragged me out in front of the vehicles where a large, raucous, and informal gathering was coming spontaneously together. Everyone was linking arms in a huge circle. The bunnydogs and naked-bunnydog things were joining the group too, but they did not link arms; instead they squatted attentively just inside the line of humans.

Just before the last few individuals linked up, Orrie flowed into the center of the circle, purring loudly. He swiveled his eyes around to look at everybody. People cheered and applauded and hollered with good-natured whoops of encouragement.

I found myself between a skinny adolescent girl and a nervous looking boy, but they seemed proud to be next to me.

And then Jason Delandro stepped into the middle of the circle.

He turned around slowly, so everyone could see him laughing and smiling and waving, and the wild cheering broke out again. What were all these people so excited about? Did they do this all the time? They applauded, they screamed, they stamped their feet and hollered.

Delandro grinned and raised his hands high. "Hello!" he shouted.

"Hello!" they shouted back.

"I want to share with you!"

Another burst of wild enthusiasm. My military mind decided they were mindless idiots. But I knew these people weren't stupid. There was something else going on here.

"As you can all see," Delandro pointed, "we have a new guest with us tonight!"

They looked at me and cheered again.

"His name is James Edward McCarthy. Until this afternoon, he was a lieutenant in the United States Army."

Faces turned to me. More smiles. People looked and waved and hollered, "Hello!" and "Welcome!"

"He's our guest," Jason continued. "We gave him the choice and he chose to be our guest. I know I don't have to tell you to give him all the love you can, because I know you will; but I want you to make a special effort to cherish Jim because he's still carrying a great deal of fear and he needs to know that there's nothing in the world to fear here, is there?"

They hooted and stamped and clapped again. The girl on my right put her arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. The boy on my left-he wore thick glasses, he looked half blind-patted my shoulder warmly.

"All right now, I've got a lot of other news for you. There are some very exciting things happening! And I know you want to hear all about everything!"

"Yeah, Jase!" someone shouted. "Tell us!"

"But if I started to share all of it tonight, we'd be here till tomorrow!" He looked ecstatic. He said, "But I will tell you the big surprise right now."

"Do it, Jase!"

"Go for it!"

"I want you all to look at Orrie! Doesn't he look terrific! Orrie is very very pleased! Because we did good."

"Yeah!"

"Yay, Orrie!"

The cheering and stomping started to become a steady roar. I wondered if these people were about to erupt into a fit of collective hysteria. They were delirious with joy!

Orrie was circling and turning in the center. He was almost writhing. His excitement was growing with the crowd's.

"We did good!" Jason was hollering now to be heard. Someone shoved a microphone in his hand. He took it and shouted into it: "We did very good! We found what we were looking for!"

The crowd went crazy. They started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling, hugging and kissing each other.

Jason was screaming now. "We are going to add the fourth corner!"

And they screamed and cheered again. They started hollering, "When, Jason? When?" It turned into a chant. "When, Jason? When?"

Jason held up his hands and waited for silence. The crowd hushed quickly. As Jason lowered his hands, he was abruptly illuminated by two bright spotlights. They were mounted on the cabs of two of the trucks. Jason had to squint his eyes against the glare. Orrie's eyes went sput-phwut. Jason lifted the microphone to his mouth and whispered dramatically into it, "That's the big news. It looks like it'll happen before summer!"

This time, screaming wasn't enough. The circle broke ranks. They charged Orrie to hug him. They charged Jason to hug him. I was left standing and watching.

Suddenly, people were grabbing and hugging me. "Jim, it's great for you to be here!"