Such foolishness, Athaclena thought. How did humans last even this long, I wonder?

Perhaps they had to be lucky. She had read of their twentieth century, when it seemed more than Ifni’s chance that helped them squeeze past near certain doom… doom not only for themselves but for all future sapient races that might be born of their rich, fecund world. The tale of that narrow escape was perhaps one reason why so many races feared or hated the k’chu’non, the wolflings. It was uncanny, and unexplained to this day.

The Earthlings had a saying, “There, but for the love of God, go I.” The sick, raped paucity of Garth was mild compared to what they might easily have done to Terra.

How many of us would have done better under such circumstances? That was the question that underlay all the smug, superior posturings, and all of the contempt pouring from the great clans. For they had never been tested by the ages of ignorance Mankind suffered. What might it have felt like, to have no patrons, no Library, no ancient wisdom, only the bright flame of mind, unchanneled and undirected, free to challenge the Universe or to consume the world? The question was one few clans dared ask themselves.

She brushed aside the little parachutes. Athaclena edged past the snagged cluster of early spore carriers and continued her ascent, pondering the vagaries of destiny.

At last she came to a stony slope where the southern outlook gave a view of more mountains and, in the far distance, just the faintest possible colored trace of a sloping steppe. She breathed deeply and took out the locket her father had given her.

Growing daylight did not keep away the thing that had begun to form amid her waving tendrils. This time Athaclena did not even try to stop it. She ignored it — always the best thing to do when an observer does not yet want to collapse probability into reality.

Her fingers worked the clasp, the locket opened, and she flipped back the lid.

Your marriage was true, she thought of her parents. For where two threads had formerly lain, now there was only one larger one, shimmering upon the velvety lining.

An end curled around one of her fingers. The locket tumbled to the rocky ground and lay there forgotten as she plucked the other end out of the air. Stretched out, the tendril hummed, at first quietly. But she held it tautly in front of her, allowing the wind to stroke it, and she began to hear harmonics.

Perhaps she should have eaten, should have built her strength for this thing she was about to attempt. It was something few of her race did even once in their lifetimes. On occasions Tymbrimi had died…

“A t’ith’tuanoo, Uthacalthing,” she breathed. And she added her mother’s name. “A t’ith’tuanine, Mathicluanna!”

The throbbing increased. It seemed to carry up her arms, to resonate against her heartbeat. Her own tendrils responded to the notes and Athaclena began to sway. “A t’ith’tuanoo, Uthacalthing …”

“It’s a beauty, all right. Maybe a few more weeks’ work would make it more potent, but this batch will do, an’ it’ll be ready in time for when the ivy sheds.”

Dr. de Shriver put the culture back into its incubator. Their makeshift laboratory on the flanks of the mountain had been sheltered from the winds. The storm had not interfered with the experiments. Now, the fruit of their labors seemed nearly ripe.

Her assistant grumbled, though. “What’s th’ use? The Gubru’d just come up with countermeasures. And anyway, the major says the attack is gonna take place before the stuffs ready to be used.”

De Shriver took off her glasses. “The point is that we keep working until Miss Athaclena tells us otherwise. I’m a civilian. So’re you. Fiben and Robert may have to obey the chain of command when they don’t like it, but you and I can choose…”

Her voice trailed off when she saw that Sammy wasn’t listening any longer. He stared over her shoulder. She whirled to see what he was looking at.

If Athaclena had appeared strange, eerie this morning, after her terrifying nightmare, now her features made Dr. de Shriver gasp. The disheveled alien girl blinked with eyes narrow and close together in fatigue. She clutched the tent pole as they hurried forward, but when the chims tried to move her to a cot she shook her head.

“No,” she said simply. “Take me to Robert. Take me to Robert now.”

The gorillas were singing again, their low music without melody. Sammy ran out to fetch Benjamin while de Shriver settled Athaclena into a chair. Not knowing what to do, she spent a few moments brushing leaves and dirt from the young Tymbrimi’s ruff. The tendrils of her corona seemed to give off a heavy, fragrant heat that she could feel with her fingers.

And above them, the thing that tutsunucann had become made the air seem to ripple even before the eyes of the befuddled chim.

Athaclena sat there, listening to the gorillas’ song, and feeling for the first time as if she understood it.

All, all would play their role, she now knew. The chims would not be very happy about what was to come. But that was their problem. Everybody had problems.

“Take me to Robert,” she breathed again.

He trembled, standing there with his back to the rising sun, feeling as if he had been sucked as dry as a husk.

Never before had a metaphor felt more appropriate. Uthacalthing blinked, slowly returning to the world … to the dry steppe facing the looming Mountains of Mulun. All at once it seemed that he was old, and the years lay heavier than ever before.

Deep down, on the nahakieri level, he felt a numbness. After all of this, there was no way to tell if Athaclena had even survived the experience of drawing so much into herself.

She must have felt great need, he thought. For the first time his daughter had attempted something neither of her parents could ever have prepared her for. Nor was this something one picked up in school.

“You have returned,” Kault said, matter-of-factly. The Thennanin, Uthacalthing’s companion for so many months, leaned on a stout staff and watched him from a few meters away. They stood in the midst of a sea of brown savannah grass, their long shadows gradually shortening with the rising sun.

“Did you receive a message of some sort?” Kault asked. He had the curiosity shared by many total nonpsychics about matters that must seem, to him, quite unnatural.

“I — ” Uthacalthing moistened his lips. But how could he explain that he had not really received anything at all? No, what happened was that his daughter had taken him up on an offer he had made, in leaving both his own thread and his dead wife’s in her hands. She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world.

One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted.

Indeed, she drained me dry. He felt as if there was nothing left. And after all that, there was still no guarantee she had even survived the experience. Or that it had left her still sane.

Shall I lie down and die, then? Uthacalthing shivered.

No, I think. Not quite yet.

“I did experience a communion, of sorts,” he told Kault.

“Will the Gubru be able to detect this thing you have done?”

Uthacalthing could not even craft a palanq shrug. “I do not think so. Maybe.” His tendrils lay flat, like human hair. “I don’t know.”

The Thennanin sighed, his breathing slits flapping. “I wish you would be honest with me, colleague. It pains me to be forced to believe that you are hiding things from me.”

How Uthacalthing had tried and tried to get Kault to utter those words! And now he could not really bring himself to care. “What do you mean?” he asked.

The Thennanin blew in exasperation. “I mean that I have begun to suspect that you know more than you are telling me about this fascinating creature I have seen traces of. I warn you, Uthacalthing, I am building a device that will solve this riddle for me. You would be well served to be direct with me before I discover the truth all by myself!”