h's powerful mind would soon find Rack. They had no idea what would happen then. They knew only that they would be separated and the thought was intolerable. Outside, the survival factor was fearfully low. To take the desperate measure—to escape, if only briefly, the surveillance of the Far Seers— would mean going out into that hell of poison. A brief exposure would not seriously harm Rack, but even a short time outside, with the atmosphere giving off potent projectiles, was folly for a Power Giver. The time spent outside would be subtracted from her life, in expanded pictures of the unit spent outside. But she was feminine, in love, in change, and filled with the glory of having, perhaps, a new life in her. «I will not be robbed,» she sent. He protested, but he too, was in love. He, too, felt the potent biological, chemical, and emotional stresses. Outside he could breathe for her, giving her air from his lungs, but he could not, short of wrapping his more thickly scaled body as tightly around hers as possible, shield her from the deadly projectiles. «It is my life, love, and I will gladly spend part of it,» she sent. «I cannot allow it.» «I will not live long if you are sent to the south.» He could feel the power behind the statement and he believed her, for in rare cases the union produced a lifetime of love, an ability to blend minds even when nature forbade the joining of bodies. «I would hate myself, I would die myself, if your life were shortened,» he argued. «Then we die together.» Together they packed the broth, a supply sufficient to last both through the winter. Together they loaded the Breathers into travel containers of the Material. He winced as he measured the load she would have to carry. But they were now committed, for a tentative probe from Red Earth's mind had located him, then drew back. Red Earth was mustering the powerful force of his mind to act. Rack knew not what the shocked Far Seer would do. Immobilization was the least he could expect. He quickly depleted the establishment, storing its last remaining air in his huge lungs, and numerous cells. As Beautiful Wings lifted he wept, for he could feel the drain, the using up of her force. And she, not blessed with his healing powers, could not repair the damage. He held her tightly in his arms, giving her air from his mouth, protecting all of her that he could with his superior armor. The ascent took its toll and when they were finally above the high clouds she breathed furiously of his stored air, trying to regain some of the loss. The soaring was not as strenuous, but the descent through the roiling clouds, as she fought the pull of the earth, caused waves of pain to sweep through her. He shared them in his mind, if not in his body, and his entire being cried out at the injustice of it. It should have been he who was sacrificing for their love. On the thin film of icy frost of the far north he held her and gave her a lungful of his good air. Then he entered the closed establishment of Northern Ice the Healer, her late father, set the Breathers working, and emptied his store to replenish the barren establishment. She lay weakly on the rack, breathing with difficulty. He wept openly. Once again he had been criminally foolish, and this time his actions harmed not himself, but the one he loved. Both had underestimated the weight of her load, the distance, and the height of the clouds and now she was paying for it. Her very substance had been used. She looked thin, drawn-out. But she smiled at him and directed his attention to her breasts, which were being exposed slowly as she flowered. The ruby tint spread and her lower scales opened and those delicate, soft buds swelled with nature's bounty. «Poor Rack,» she sent. «Don't suffer more than I, for I gave myself gladly and would do it again.» Twice blessed by nature, they were alone in the far north, beyond the full strength of Red Earth's punitive measures. No Far Seer was near enough to intrude upon their privacy. The hardworking Breathers expelled good air and made the long vacant establishment comfortable. The unaccustomed chill served merely to invite body closeness. The fiery tint of love added richness to the body tones of each of them, and the delicate flowering of the chest bulges of Beautiful Wings belied her weakened condition. Even as her ravaged body felt pain, the powerful joining forces overcame all but a slight discomfort that, when her mind sought Rack's, brought a wail of sorrow from him. He held her, standing, her chest hard against his, his arms supporting her, saving her remaining strength. More than anything in his world he wanted to lift the suffering from her, to take it into his body, where it rightfully belonged, for the entire situation was of his making. The soft tendrils of her mind pressed at his shame points, caressed his pain and sorrow. «I will live to give birth,» she told him, inside him. Her body anticipated and Rack felt the wonder of growth, the swelling of life. He knew the movements of labor and the emergence of a new life. He could not help but exult. They moved into oneness and a fierce pride of achievement sent strong radiations reverberating around the domed establishment. Their new ecstasy mounted until, facing each other, seated cross-legged on the rack, the beauty of their union was all. There was total communication and the joy of deep emotion, emotion that would be as strong in memory as the actual physical sensations. Rack experienced a bewilderingly powerful sadness mixed with the most complete happiness he had ever known, for he was loved to the point of the exclusion of the most basic value of all, the regard for life. To be so loved changes an individual, and it changed Rack, brought out in him a humbleness, a desire to please. Beautiful Wings, though seriously weakened, received the compensation of knowing the total love of a Healer. It washed through her, easing the pain and making the warning signals being sent to her brain from every part of her body things of little consequence. She would live to give birth. The joining began. Linked, flesh within flesh, Rack became even more a part of her and she a part of him and the long, lovely process extended into time without end, time without thought of the future, except for the deep awareness of creation. And, yet in Rack's mind, in that joined mind, there was also the despair, the pain, the sadness. Joinings were routinely monitored by Far Seers and though the nearest Far Seer was not near enough to be able to break into the concentration of the two lovers, he was awed by the force, the closeness, and the duration of this joining. A Healer knows the flesh of a Power Giver once, perhaps, in lucky cases, twice in a lifetime. Rack, the fortunate one, knew more. He knew flesh and total love and this made his despair deeper, for even in total union he was aware of her condition, and knew that he and he alone was responsible for it. Neither of them would think that the very uniqueness and desperation of their union were adding to the depth of their emotions, but that obvious conclusion was made by the observing Far Seer before he withdrew, tinglingly envious, to seek his sterile consolation with his Keeper. Rack knew only that he would forsake all if his actions resulted in the death of Beautiful Wings. She was very weak. When the seed planting began and joy convulsed them, she was overwhelmed by the strength of her joy. Rack's mind filled with panic, even as his entire being lived the glory of nature's finest moment. As her mind withdrew, going blank, he roared a hoarse animal sound, an expression of his outrage that she should pass into unawareness at such a moment. He sent his body out to her, tried to possess her, to will her to be strong as he was strong. His mind weeping, his healing cells screamed out to her to fight, not to give in to the specter that had thrust itself into their moment of joy. Love was the force. His message was not a mere hope or a plea, it was a command: Be well. And it was repeated by every fiber of his being; his body thundered the order, and he wished desperately to be able to send into her body the gift of his healing. Yet still she sank. He felt the darkness of her mind, a foreboding of the darkness of death which he, who loved her, had inflicted upon her. The burden was to great for him to bear. His mind threatened to join hers in blankness, but in that last, wildly emotional moment, he felt another change, a great and astonishing change, roar through him. At the point of their union an unheard-of thing began to happen—it was as if their very flesh melted and joined. At first he was not directing it; it was an event of nature, his flesh becoming her flesh. Cell bonded to cell and where there had been lubricous nonfriction there was a bond and movement ceased. He felt a strange swelling and a sensation that he could not identify until he felt, in his body, the beat of her feeble heart. The flow of her blood joined his, passing through the bonded flesh as they literally became one, connected in all the soft areas of their union. He sensed the damaged cells of her blood and then he was aware of her entity as well as his own. He sent his powerful Healer's forces out to battle the darkness, cell by cell. His substance was her substance and he was strong, freshly filled with broth and air, equal to the task of mending her frail body. With an awed joy, he felt life spring up in her, and saw her eyes open in wonder and look into his. He was too busy to pause to analyze what was happening. His Healer's blood flowed in her veins, his cells were her cells and his healing ability worked for both of them. He used up his stored substance with abandon, voiding poisons through his gills not at all concerned by this breach of politeness. «Rack, Rack,» she sent. The extent of her weakness frightened him, but he was equal to the task. It cost him, but he was giving joyously, praising nature for this chance to redeem himself, to give of himself as she had given of herself for him. As he healed he flowed in her, was part of her, knew the intimate processes of her body, and found the inherent weakness of the Power Givers in organs that could not reject the deadly things in the environment. He knew his Power Giver as no Healer had ever known his love, and he made her young and whole again. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the process ceased. The flesh parted and they were lying together, both aware of his seed in her. Rack told her what he knew, for he had been able to see that she was in the process of conceiving. He could no longer watch, but they talked of the mechanics of the process, timed it, and tried to pinpoint the exact moment. They laughed joyously and clung to each other and, in a total love that made them both giddy, found the union of mind that transported them once again. Later she fed him. Her being radiated health. He felt his strength returning as he consumed broth and filled his storage cells with air. The last tints of russet left Rack's pelvic region. On Beautiful Wings' chest bulges the scales folded into place and covered the soft flesh. The sun, only a puny force in the far north, stayed below the horizon and in the cool dark they found it beautiful to sink into the mind-blend union. They did not miss the physical union, for that was nature's way and the physical aspects were purely concerned with the creation of life. Pictures of days became pictures of satellite changes and they were not aware of the swift passage of time, lost in the beauty of mind-blend, eating only when necessary, using air sparingly. They had achieved that rare union which lasts past the creation of life, and were drawn closer by the miracle that had occurred. Once, for a time, Rack's blood had flowed in her veins; he had known her down to the minutest cell level; and he had felt and seen what she could never feel or see, the beginnings of new life within her body. After many satellite changes of pure happiness, responsibility intruded in the form of the mind of a Far Seer. «Rack the Healer, will you voluntarily attend the meeting of the council of Far Seers, Healers, and Power Givers?» «I will inform you,» Rack sent, sinking to depths of sadness. «Now you have other crimes to answer to,» Beautiful Wings told him. «They will cite your disobedience.» «And the crime of endangering the life of a Power Giver in unlawful flight,» Rack agreed. «I will lose you.» «Negative, negative,» he sent angrily. If she lost him he would lose her and he could envision no worse fate. «I will go with you to the death lands of the far south,» she promised. «Negative, negative,» he sent, thinking furiously «Perhaps, by some miracle of nature, you can heal me even in the death lands.» «There I cannot even heal myself,» he said. «Then we die together.» «Much as I revere my own life—and life in the abstract—I revere yours more.» He caressed her. «To think of you dead is the most terrible pain.» «Then let us flee again. We will go to the lands across the eastern sea.» «Negative,» he sent, adding pictures of the distance, the load she would carry, the drain on her system. She was in perfect health, but even the most healthy Power Giver was seriously drained by such a trip. The passage across the eastern sea had been made only a few times in recorded history and only in times of dire emergency. «But you forget,» she chided. «You can heal me. You can join your power to mine.» Hope sprang up in him. Then he negated. «In the heat of the union I felt your flesh and healed you. I have no feel for it now. I don't think I could do it again, not without the emotional stimulus of the joining.» «We could try.» The problem was that without the flowering of scales that accompanied the physical union there were no flesh areas to bring into contact. Armored hand on armored hand gave a heady and pleasant sensation, but produced not even one spark of that strange power Rack had felt during the union. Rack considered. Every portion of Beautiful Wings' body was protected by her small, decorative scales, save for the inside of her small mouth and the inner lids of her eyes. He examined her small, protected lips. With a finger he opened them and looked into the pink, toothless maw. Her vestigial tongue was very small. His own tongue would barely extend past his armored lips. Yet, this was the only area of exposed flesh that could possibly be joined. «We can only try,» he agreed. He placed his lips on hers, thrusting his tongue into the fleshy interior of her mouth. «A sensation not to be despised,» she giggled. «Quiet, I am thinking.» Flesh on flesh, remembering. The glory of union, the softness of entering her body, the feel of her cells, were implanted in his mind. It was, he found, surprisingly simple. He had only to will it and his tongue welded flesh to flesh, melted into her, knew her. Through that small contact of united flesh he sensed the processes of her body and made minor healings. He closed off the contact, knowing a wild elation. He would never have to be without her; his healing abilities would make her as long-lived as he. Only the ruin of his system would bring death to both of them and that would be many, many sun circles away. He knew the feeling of complete victory, and then it was tinged with regret. «I know,» she said, «responsibility is a heavy thing.» She touched him, sending a warm glow through the scales of his arm. «But we have something to contribute"—a picture of their unborn offspring. «The people to the east, it is said, are much like us,» she consoled. «But they are not our people,» he sent, regretting already the loss of their own land and friends. There was, however, no choice. Had he not loved her, he would have gone to the council and would have used the forum to try to convince the Far Seers of the importance of that strange object he found in the valley of the hot waters. But having known perfect love and knowing that his own banishment would condemn Beautiful Wings and his child to an early death, he chose to flee to the eastern lands. Amid much hilarity they practiced soaring. The mouth-to-mouth position made for some difficulty. Beautiful Wings drew not only on Rack's substance, but utilized as well his power of mind to reinforce her own push against the magnetic field of the planet. At first she could not see, but an adjustment of their heads conquered that difficulty and practice sent them flying effortlessly, without cost to her substance, into the clean air of the world above the clouds. Having become proficient in joint flight, Rack guided them to a position over Red Earth's establishment. «I am Rack the Healer, bringer of new and startling things,» he sen