r closed his mind for contemplation. When he sent again he asked questions. Rack, freed of the fear of punishment, answered, telling of the methods used to unearth the object. «It is said by some that the Old Ones built with stone,» Weathered Mountain said. A wave of excitement sent Rack's mind speculating. «There is evidence?» «Suspicion. Guessing. Curious formations.» «But in your lands no object, of the curious material has been discovered?» «None. Although we do, of course, find hard-material nuggets, which we value for their beauty, if not for their usefulness. There is a certain competition for their possession.» «And do they come from the subsurface?» Rack asked. «No Healer can withstand the lure of the low areas,» Weathered Mountain said. «But are there areas such as the valley of the hot waters where digging is possible?» «So it is said.» Amusement. «When I am offered a hard-material nugget in exchange for a certain favor, such as a change of duty time or an extra ration of the Material, I do not question the Healer too closely.» «And your knowledge of the Old Ones?» «It is not one of my interest areas, but there are some who are as fascinated with the Old Ones as you. I can put you in contact with them. Is this, then, this pursuit of the old myths, your sole reason for journeying across the sea?» «Is not knowledge worthy of pursuit?» Rack asked. Weathered Mountain, vaguely disappointed, but still stimulated by the contact, said, «My area of interest is that common to all Far Seers—life and the maintenance thereof. If you knew that the object you found was the work of the Old Ones would it help those who have left their establishments in the lowlands of the interior for lack of air?» «It might have some significance,» Rack said. «I am interested in knowing if life has always been at the mercy of the whims of nature or—and this is not meant to be blasphemy—» «Blasphemy is an outdated concept,» Weathered Mountain sent, «at least to one as old as I.» «Could the Old Ones have known more than we credit them with? Did they in any way control the forces of nature?» Weathered Mountain was silent. After a long pause he spoke. «I find that I am not, after all, past the ability to be shocked. It is, indeed, a startling concept. Nature, my young Healer, is nature. How would you control her? By stilling the movements of the air? As long as the planet spins, there will be movements of the air. Moreover, the calculations of Wide River the Far Seer prove that if the air were stilled and allowed to settle, only the peaks of the highest mountains would extend above the heavy gases.» «I think in smaller pictures,» Rack said. «If the Old Ones did use the hard materials, what did they use them for? Would the answer to this question be of more than passing interest to us? Was the object I found in the valley of the hot waters made by the Old Ones? Or did it, as the Far Seers in our land think, fall from the vastness of the space outside? And even so, is it still not amazing? For if it came from one of the worlds out there, could it not have been crafted by men like us? I see no conflict in either theory, for both contain much that should interest our minds. Life exists, according to our best minds, on all worlds. Why would nature provide a world if not to support life?» «Had I not seen the death of a Keeper just days ago I could be more in sympathy with your theory,» Weathered Mountain said. «And since you seem to be of an inquiring mind, I will tell you something that has not been revealed to any mind other than that of a Far Seer. It is the prediction of our combined minds, after a vast picture of measurements and agonizing analysis, that life on this planet will cease to exist, save for the inert plants of the poisonous sink holes, in a frighteningly short period of sun circles, a picture well within the range of the mind of a Healer. Does this shock you?» Rack felt weak. He seized Beautiful Wings' hand and felt her tremble. Such a thought, the extinction of all life, was unbearable. «As do the Far Seers in your land,» Weathered Mountain said, «we measure the growth of the Breathers in the southern seas. We read the air and the poisons therein. What we read discourages us. There is a steady decline in the quantity of good air. Survival factors are lower and lower. We measure the emanations of the sun and the movements of the air. We find little to indicate hope.» «Should this be true,» Rack said, «then there is ever more reason for inquiry.» He was tempted to tell the Far Seer that something new had come to him, the ability to blend with Beautiful Wings' flesh and to heal, but he restrained himself. «For who knows where inquiry might lead?» Weathered Mountain was tired. He longed for the comfort of his rack with the new Keeper beside him. At first he had hoped that the unusual journey across the sea had brought new information, perhaps a good survival factor reading to indicate that somehow, against all logic, the planet was starting a new cycle of replenishing itself. Instead, he had been subjected to the wild speculations of the mind of a Healer and had been given only one piece of new information of doubtful use. The knowledge of a strange, unexplained object was not in any way going to put clean air over the abandoned lowlands of the interior. The existence of the object would not, he determined, save one life. «I rest,» he sent. «You are welcome to use my air and drink of my broth. You are free to use the stored knowledge in the minds of my Keepers.» At the doorway to his chamber he paused. «In spite of the superb condition of your Power Giver the journey back to your homeland will, of course, be impossible. You must therefore choose your community. You will be welcome in mine. We can always use a strong Healer and a young Power Giver. I note your attachment and will assign your periods of free time so that you may be together. Take your pick of the unused establishments in my place and be part of us if you choose.» Rack sent gratitude, but he, too, knew disappointment. He was not sure what he was seeking, but the Far Seer of the mountains had added little to his store of knowledge beyond one doubtful picture of the Old Ones building with stone. That would bear investigation during his first free period. Meanwhile, there was other food for thought—the pessimistic prediction of death for all. It was of little consolation he would be allowed his full lifespan, as would Beautiful Wings and their offspring. What lay ahead for his grandchild, should Beautiful Wings give birth to a Healer or a Power Giver? Death? The end of life on the entire planet? That he would not accept. Soaring low, they examined the unused establishments in Weathered Mountain's area and selected a spot on the side of a craggy, bone-bare mountain where updrafts brought occasional breaths of good air. There they rested, blended minds, and installed the new colony of Breathers from the scant reserves of Weathered Mountain's place. To repay the generosity shown them, they worked, Beautiful Wings powering a vat of brewing broth, and Rack diving into the murky, heavy sea to pluck slime source. Conditions improved slightly, seemingly giving the lie to Weathered Mountain's dire prophecy of doom. Life was good. Rack came to know his fellow workers with whom he compared knowledge. He was told, to his mounting excitement, of the methods used by eastern Healers to collect the hard material. In safe spots, which were, of course, scattered and always rare, they actually used tools fashioned of the Material to turn the soil and find the telltale streaks of waste that indicated the possible presence of a nugget. He was astounded to find that the hard materials, once the surface of the earth was scratched, seemed to be relatively plentiful. Although his former pride in the ownership of three nuggets, of which was one mounted on Beautiful Wings' breast, was damaged, dashed, his ambition was stimulated, for, while visiting the establishment of another Healer, he saw a nugget of amazing size and shape. One flat, gleaming side reflected his image. It was a treasure, but its value as an object was secondary to its interest to his own particular inquiry, for, like the object from the valley of hot water, this nugget seemed to him, at least, to have obviously been crafted. More convinced than ever that the Old Ones had been more than a shiftless race of savages living on the fat of a young planet, he approached his first free period with excited anticipation. IX Beautiful Wings' belly began to stretch with the life inside it. New scales sprang up to cover the expanded area of flesh. They would molt and fall after the birth returned her belly to normal size. After working through the new beginning and into the summer, they were allowed a free period in a time of stable, warm air. Using their combined technique for soaring they went exploring finding, as in their homeland, vast, uninhabited emptiness. Everywhere the land was stripped bare. Low spots stank with the same rank growth. Broad, thick-watered rivers crisscrossed the land. Digging without fear beside them, Rack found discoloration that indicated the past existence of much hard material. When their supplies were gone, they soared back to the establishment, enriched with three tiny nuggets of the hard material. There, they refreshed, breathed, ate. Under Rack's hand, the life in Beautiful Wings' belly moved—an occurrence that never ceased to fill Rack with a proud joy. Rack went to Weathered Mountain's establishment to consult the minds of his Keepers. At the end of summer storms Beautiful Wings was confined to the establishment, as the time of birth was nearing. Of the most interest was the store of knowledge in the older Keeper, for the new Keeper's mind was stocked with technical data, while the other held more miscellaneous material. And while the mind of the younger one was orderly and arranged, the mind of the older, kept as a luxury by an old Far Seer, was chaotically misfiled. Ancestral records were mixed with fragments of ancient picture poetry, planet movements with speculation on the thoughts of the early Far Seers, broth inventories with the familiar Book of Rose the Healer. The older Keeper was pleasant-minded, childishly delighted with Rack's company, expressing herself in uncoordinated movements and audible sounds of pleasure. Her fleshy white body was no longer firm, and consequently she was neglected by the aging Far Seer, who sought his pleasure in the arms of his new Keeper. Rack, his mind engaged, did a kindness with his hand, was rewarded with a flow of pleasure. But he was, as always, contemptuous of such things; his time of readiness was long past, and his Healer's nature was not able to comprehend unpurposeful sex. Keepers, he felt, were to be pitied. The portion of their minds that was their own never matured, and, remaining at the level of a baby, could comprehend only sensation. But in the huge storage areas a wealth of information lay waiting to be mined. Rack sorted through the records, musing over the scant, beautiful pictures of poetic Healers, skipping the dry, technical records of the Far Seers, seeking any clue that might feed his curiosity. It was not true, he discovered, that the people of the east were unresponsive to duty. Once, long ago, Red Earth—or was it one of his teachers?— had indicated that the eastern civilization was based on the bartering of hard-material nuggets in exchange for services. Rack now found that this was not true. The easterners valued the hard-material nuggets mostly as objects of wonder and beauty, although, as Weathered Mountain had indicated, it was not unknown to exchange a nugget for favors. In the mind of the Keeper there was an exact record of each exchange made by Weathered Mountain. In addition there was an analysis of different types of hard material. This interested Rack, for he had seen only a limited picture of types. Apart from this information, he gained nothing new, and as the birth time neared, he abandoned his visits to the Keeper to tend Beautiful Wings. As the awareness of the inner movements came to Beautiful Wings, she felt no pain. Rack watched in awe as nature did her work. Soon, very soon, he would know. Was their child to be a Healer? Far Seer? Keeper? Power Giver? He hoped for the latter, a daughter with the beauty of his love, to be named Many Pleasures in honor of the union in the far north. Beautiful Wings asked nature, in a shy picture, for a Healer. She writhed now, feeling as the movements became more powerful. Rack, his hands on her belly, saw the miracle of birth flowering, the red, beautiful tint reminding him of the joining. Scales flowered and molted. «Come, Many Pleasures,» Rack sent to the unresponsive, tiny mind inside the Power Giver's body. «It is a pleasant world and it will be yours.» Beautiful Wings' body did the work for which it was designed, creating new life. Her lower portions, mottled ruby red, spread to reveal a large, soft fleshy area. With a new day dawning, the birth began. Interior muscles contracted and pushed until, miraculously, painlessly, a tiny head emerged, encased in a fleshy sack, followed by a soft, scaleless body which wiggled with life and reeked with the products of birth. Rack, trying to hide his disappointment, cleaned his Keeper daughter and presented her to her mother to suckle at the flowering chest bulges. Nature's balance was maintained. Ungovernable forces decreed the type of the child that was born, and obviously, another Keeper was needed. And their life would not be filled with a growing Power Giver or a curious, wild, young Healer, Rack thought sadly. «We will have ourselves,» Beautiful Wings sent. Rack berated himself for letting Beautiful Wings see his sorrow. He tried to take pleasure in watching the infant suckle the rich juices of her mother's body, but he could not help but think of the fate of their child, to be kept by a Far Seer, used for his pleasure. Ah, but she, in turn, would have pleasure. Protected inside an impregnable establishment, she would live a long, happy life. And she would make her contribution, for what is civilization but an accumulation of knowledge and experience? Without Keepers, civilization, dependent on the frail memory of other types, would decline. «We will have each other,» Rack agreed. He sent pictures of soaring, traveling. The ice of the far north, the fire of the south lands, the fields of the Breathers in the southern sea—they would see all. «And—» She sent a devastatingly strong picture, full of sadness and nostalgia, of the establishment where they had known their initial bliss, and then of the one in the far north and the repetition. «Do you miss it so?» he asked. «I shouldn't. It isn't logical.» She smiled as the infant had its fill and slept. «I will take you home,» he said. She sent alarm. «Surely they will listen to reason,» he said. «Here in the east we dig, and the death that was promised does not come. Moreover, they should be apprised of the predictions of the eastern Far Seers, the dire warnings of all-encompassing death.» «I fear for you,» she said. «We have unlimited soaring ability. We could fly to the satellite itself, given enough broth and air to carry us through cold space.» «Silly,» she giggled. «We could, at any rate, fly away again if they are not responsive.» He, too, longed for his homeland. He would take her to the valley of the hot waters. There they would dig and hopefully unearth other odd things, perhaps something that would pull together his confused thoughts. When their infant Keeper was able to take broth, she was delivered to the establishment of a youthful Far Seer who had not as yet been provided with a Keeper. The Far Seer assured them that she would be given the best of treatment, and his tender handling of the baby comforted them. Rack tried not to think of her future, but thought instead of the Book of Rack the Healer, the work he had planted in the scarcely formed storage space of her brain. Some day, a curious Healer would find it, read the pictures, and know him. In his daughter's mind he had left all his thoughts, all his questions, all his discoveries. They felt no regret when they soared, pack in place on Rack's back, into the clean, thin air above the early winter clouds. Nature provided and nature made a balance. Behind them was the product of their miraculously beautiful union—a baby without a name, a baby that had ceased to be theirs when she took her first meal of broth. Ahead was home. X People were dying in Rack's world. It was the first thing he sensed after an uneventful soar across the sea. In a land where the barren rocks were broken only occas