being readied by nature for a joining. But they were continually disappointed; Power Giver after Power Giver, feeling the approach of her own time, had to search elsewhere, for the gray scale covering on Rack's lower abdomen remained rigid, showing no tint of the tell-tale red of readiness. III «You are, I see, preparing,» said Red Earth from his sanctuary, his mind engaged with Rack's. «Affirmative.» «A group of Breathers overworking,» Red Earth sent. «I have seen and am content with what I have stored,» Rack said. He had spent some time storing life. His body weight was up. His chest was expanded to bursting. All his cells were alive, fattened with precious air. «They will have ample time to recover in my absence.» «Is it polite to inquire?» «When were you concerned about being polite?» Rack queried laughingly. Red Earth was an old friend and teacher. «West,» he sent. «To the river and the rift.» «In search of hard-material nuggets?» Rack gave a mental shrug. «In search.» He sensed a regret on Red Earth's part and knew that the Far Seer begrudged him the waste of his energies in his own pursuits. He sent a hint of reproach, accompanied by a vivid picture of Red Earth with his Keeper, and got a chuckle in return. «Beautiful Wings the Power Giver will be alert to your needs.» «I thank you.» He liked the picture Red Earth sent, but was not familiar with the individual. «She is newly mature, assigned to the west of the area.» «Daughter of old Northern Ice the Healer? I knew her when she was a child.» «The same. She is no longer a child.» Red Earth paused. «And speaking of maturity, I note that your tint will soon be the same.» Rack did not like speaking of such matters. He closed his mind. «Could a joining be arranged it would be a propitious event,» Red Earth added. Joining was a matter of nature's design and of personal choice. Rack told Red Earth so and was acknowledged, but the hurt in the Far Seer's mind softened Rack and he sent soothing pictures, along with the rational conclusion that if Beautiful Wings were indeed newly mature his readiness would not match hers. Red Earth agreed with a sigh and ended the contact. Rack entered into the end-of-circle storms, freshly charged, walking with a distance-eating gait over the bare bones of the planet. His horny feet were impervious to the hard rock underfoot. His scales tingled as projectiles from the low spots bounced off them. Heavy clouds passed, and his gills vented poison, lungs taking only the scattered particles of life from the noxious mixture. For long periods he went without breathing until, on high spots, there was a hint of life in the air and he inhaled to help save his vital store in the cells of his body. There was a wild beauty in the outside—the constant swirl of heavy gases, the changes of light. And there was the feeling of being alone. Far off Rack could sense an establishment, closed tightly, inhabited by an old Healer whose venturesome soul was now confined to a body unable to withstand the rigors of the outside. Ahead of him stretched a vast, empty wilderness. He alone was living, moving through sterile spaces, the clouds eddying about him, the sun filtering down. The sun was never visible as a round source of heat as he knew it to be; it was now a glow, now only a hint of color, a diffuse feeling under the hothouse clouds. But it heated the rocks under his feet, which were not yet cooled by the movements of winter air. He skirted a sinkhole, feeling the corrosive strength of its deadly air on his scales. A small shower wet him and his scales crackled as acids sizzled and boiled. The thick clouds in the sinkhole parted, giving him a dim view of the rank growth on its floor, a tangled, pulpy mass. He picked his way carefully, along the edge of the hole. A slip would have been fatal, for not even his healing abilities, not even his tough protective scales, would have saved him had he fallen in. The land sloped gradually upward and the going became easier. He walked with long, strong strides, the weight of his pack light on his back. On the plains of glass the wind was a steady force in his face. Billowing clouds moved overhead, but the heat of the smooth plain seemed to form a pocket of fairly decent air immediately above it, so he breathed more easily, not using his stored life. He camped in the center of the plain, lying on the warm, glassy earth with only a coverlet of the Material over him. He awoke with the first glow of day, fed, strapped on his pack, and set off at a swift pace, eager to put the plains behind him. His jogging pace ate up his reserves, but hopefully there would be good air near the great river. He could smell the river from afar and it urged him on. To his disappointment a heavy accumulation of gases hung over it, hiding it from his view until, pushing through the low growth of vegetation which lined its banks, he stood with his feet in the water. He strained his eyes, trying in vain to see the tall, broken rocks of the escarpment on the other side. The water was clean, a pleasant contrast to the heaviness of the sea, in which he spent his working hours. He waded in and felt the coolness covering his scales, washing away the accumulated ash of corrosion. He found a few inches of good air at the surface and gulped it, gills pumping out wastes, then closed his outer lids and ducked under. He swam, his natural buoyancy keeping him just below the surface. He opened his outer lids to find that visibility was good, although there was nothing to see. The river was, of course, lifeless. He walked the last short distance to the shore on slippery rocks, then breathed air at the surface of the water before starting his climb up the escarpment. The rift had been formed by an age-old cataclysm which, for a period of a sun cycle, thrust the western land up into a high plateau. He made the ascent slowly, examining the exposed bones of the planet as he went. Halfway up, he was bemused by brown streaks which made erratic patterns in the rock on the exposed wall. The discoloration reminded him of the waste formed on the smaller of his hard-material nuggets. He had seen such markings before in his travels and had once asked his teachers an oblique question regarding them. He could not keep his mind from speculating. Could the hard materials have been natural deposits within the forbidden depths of the earth? In places like this where the forces of nature had bared the subsurface rock the ground took on a new look. He spent much of the remaining light climbing the escarpment, searching in vain. Arriving at last at the top, he felt the effects of the strenuous climb, and, picking his way through boulders that dwarfed him, he quickly found a sheltered place. He cocooned himself within his protective sheet of the Material, fed, and was sleeping before the darkness of the night closed down over him. He awoke to a feeling of delicious aloneness. A storm was raging. Wet rocks poured moisture as the yellowish rain fell, formed rivulets, dripped, ran, and splashed down the near wall of the escarpment. He lay inside his shelter, hearing the hiss of the acid rain on the impregnable Material. The storm, he knew, would wash the air, leaving behind, hopefully, more amenable conditions. And he had also noted, at other places and at other times, that a heavy rain often washed away pockets of loose material atop the hard rocks, leaving behind newly exposed areas. He had hoped for just such a storm, and it was fortunate that it had occurred on his first night on the plateau. The hunting would be interesting. When the storm let up, he walked the steaming rocks, his pack in place, for he would not return the same way. The high plateau extended to the north and south all along the western bank of the river. In spots irregular rock formations dammed up lakes of dull water. However, it was not the river's edge that interested him, but the central portions of the plateau where for endless sun circles of time the rain had washed the rocks, leaving behind an accumulation of stones of various sizes. With his eyes on the ground he picked his way carefully through the stones. Now and then a loose stone rolled under his foot, causing him to struggle for balance. To add to his splendid isolation, he had closed off his mind. He asked for no contact. In the event of dire emergency, he could summon help, for Red Earth's mind was far reaching and a Power Giver was in the western area. But he was calmly confident in his ability and envisioned no such emergency. For the first two days, he covered ground that was partly familiar. Then he moved southward. The bleak landscape was unchanged. It was a world of exposed rocks, long since eroded clean by the storms. He was the only life, save for a few thin air-feeders growing on the protected side of the largest boulders. Nothing moved but poison-laden air, which rose from the rank low areas, and was shifted by the vast movements of the atmosphere. His broth supply was holding out well and he was finding enough air to be able to conserve the vital stores within his body. Because of the five-day lull in the storms he covered a large area; the picture in his mind was based on a comparison of his progress with the well-known image of the distance around the planet. He rested. During his sixth night on the plateau the winds increased and new clouds of forbidding density moved in. He spent the following day in his protective cover, unable to breathe. He used his life stores sparingly, allowing his body to lapse into a state of sluggishness during which his heart beat only rarely. Although his mind was slowed, his capacity for cenesthesia allowed him to take stock of his condition. He was satisfied. The new storm blew through the day, calmed at night, but then began anew at dawn. The inactivity galled Rack, and, in order to escape the boredom of nonmovement, he reviewed all of the knowledge he had gained in the last few days. He wished for a contact with a Keeper, but did nothing since the distances and energies involved would have been a drain. He would not admit, even in the privacy of his mind, that he was indeed looking for a fabled lost city. Yet there was some connection, he conceded, between his being on the escarpment plateau and his having once heard an unconfirmed legend regarding a lost city beside the river. While the storm blew and there was no breathable air, he indulged in speculation about the Old Ones. If it were true that the land had once been rich with growing things, the waters sweet, then the Old Ones would have sought locations such as this, near water. The city, if there had been one, could have been on either side of the river, but the legend repeated by the Healers had specified the western bank, which meant that it had been located on what now was the plateau. Since, according to the observations of Rack and other Healers with similar interests, the plateau was a fairly recent development, any city that might have stood there would have been lifted with the upheaval of the earth and been tumbled and broken. The most tenuous of Rack's speculations he would never have made public, lest he be ridiculed. If a city had stood on the western bank and had been broken and scattered by the titanic upheaval of the earth, the rains would have long since washed away any trace—except, perhaps, for the hard materials, which were heavier than the stones. It was his vague hope that he would find particles of the hard material lodged in the broken fields of stone atop the plateau. It was, indeed, a foolish hope. There was still no connection, except in his imagination, between the Old Ones and the hard materials. But he would not have been content to spend his free time in the confinement of his establishment. His feet tingled from the walking, his scales sizzled when the acid rain struck them, his cells were being used as he lived on his stored air. Yet even if he spent the rest of his life span using his free time to walk the desolate places, it was his life. And even if he never found another nugget of hard material, the mere seeing, the experiencing, the knowledge that he, Rack the Healer, had explored vast stretches of his world with his own feet would be reward enough. When, at last, the storm abated enough so that he could find some hint of air amid the dense yellows and purples, he moved onward, eyes always on the ground. Near the midpoint of the day he came upon a sinkhole and looked down, expecting to see the usual rank growth, to sense the poisonous accumulation of heavy gases. He was amazed to find that not only could he see to the bottom of the rather large depression, but also he could smell the goodness of clean air. The vegetation on the floor of the depression, was not the misshapen plants that grew in other sinkholes. The sparse growth was more like the harmless stuff that grew along the river bank. He squatted to examine his find, peering through the obscuring curtains of gases. He could hear running water. He moved tentatively down the sloping face of the depression, taking stock as he went. He found no deadly elements, only an improvement in the general atmosphere. Encouraged, he continued down until he stood on the floor of the small valley. He confirmed that the vegetation was not the deadly sort. The air was clean. There seemed to be a sort of rising current which lifted the heavy, noxious gases and dispersed them into the overhanging clouds. He advanced across the valley floor, feeling the unfamiliar softness of soil under his feet. He walked gingerly, for only a fool walked unconcernedly on the deadliness of soft earth. This earth, however, was surprisingly free of the hard particles that destroyed cells more rapidly than the most healthy Healer could replace them. He made his way toward the sound of running water and came upon a wonderfully clean outpouring. The water gushed from the rocks underlying the soft earth, bubbling up with a cheery sound, so clear that he could see small particles of soil circulating in it. He tested it gingerly and found it to be scalding hot. He knew then why the small valley was not like the usual low spot. The polar air that lay over the plateau was cooler than the air in the sinkhole which was heated by the water. Even when the heat of the summer lay over the plateau, the air in the sinkhole would still be much hotter than the surrounding air, thus creating upcurrents and discouraging the growth of noxious weeds. He was squatting on the edge of the basin into which the astoundingly clean water flowed from its source in the valley wall. The soft earth under his feet sent out particles, but the quantity, although more than the emission of solid rock, was less than the quantity encountered in a dense cloud, and was well below the danger level for a Healer. A load of worry lifted from his mind and his interest was drawn to the movement of the water as it swirled into the basin. The water seemed about waist deep. The flow was strong. Seeking an outlet from the basin, it had cut through the soft earth to bedrock and loose stone. He followed the stream's wanderings as it looped from the side of the valley toward the center, its entire length lined with the harmless vegetation. The water, incredibly, remained clean. The bed of the stream was covered with loose, rounded pebbles. He had never seen anything quite like it. Near the fall wall, the wall closest to the edge of the escarpment and the river, it formed a small lake and from that lake there was no outlet. Rack concluded that the water must be seeping down through the earth and rocks to the level of the river below. The most pleasing thing about the valley, however, was not the miraculously clean water of the meandering stream, but the relative purity of the air. When a low-hanging cloud passed, noxious vapors filled the valley for only short periods of time before they were lifted by the rising currents. It was almost as if the valley generated its own clean air. He did not understand, but neither did he question. He walked on the strange-feeling softness, examined the harmless green growths alongside the creek, then left the water reluctantly to explore the remainder of the valley. He located nothing as exciting as the water and soon was tired. It was growing dark. He slept with the sound of running water in his ear. In the light of morning, invigorated by sleep and good air, he examined the stream more closely. He knew the erosive effect of moving water and accepted the fact that it was the stream that had cut through the thick layer of soft earth, a layer fully as deep as the distance between his outstretched thumb and finger, to the rocky underlayer. He reached into the water and han