"Snuggle?" shouted Gurder. "I've never snuggled in my life!"
"You rode on the Concorde," Angalo pointed out. "And that was built and driven by humans."
Gurder glared like someone who wasn't going to give in easily.
"Well, who built the geese?" he demanded.
Angalo grinned at Masklin, who said: "What? Dunno. Other geese, I expect."
"Geese? Geese? And what do they know about designing for air safety?"
"Listen," said Masklin, "They can take us all the way across this place.
The Floridians fly thousands of miles on them. Thousands of miles, without even any smoked salmon or pink wobbly stuff. It's worth tryingit for eighteen miles, isn't it?"
Gurder hesitated. Topknot muttered something.
Gurder cleared his throat.
"Very well," he said haughtily. "I'm sure if this misguided individual is in the habit of flying on these things, I should have no difficultywhatsoever." He stared up at the gray shapes bobbing out in the lagoon.
"Do the Floridians talk to the creatures?"
The Thing tried this on Shrub. She shook her head. No, she said, geesewere quite stupid. Friendly but stupid. Why talk to something thatcouldn't talk back?
"Have you told her what we're doing?" said Masklin.
"No. She hasn't asked."
"How do we get on?"
Shrub stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled.
Half a dozen geese waddled up the bank. Close up, they didn't look any smaller. "I remember reading something about geese once," said Gurder, in a sort of dreamy terror. "It said they could break a human's arm with a blow of their nose."
"Wing," said Angalo, looking up at the feathery gray bodies looming over him. "It was their wing."
"And it was swans that do that," said Masklin, weakly. "Geese are the ones you mustn't say boo to."
Gurder watched a long neck weave back and forth above him.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said.
A long time after, when Masklin came to write the story of his life, hedescribed the flight of the geese as the fastest, highest, and mostterrifying of all.
People said, Hold on, that's not right. You said the plane went so fastthat it left its sound behind, and so high up there was blue all aroundit.
And he said, That's the point. It went so fast you didn't know how fastit was going, it went so high you couldn't see how high it was. It wasjust something that happened. And the Concorde looked as though it wasmeant to fly. When it was on the ground it looked kind of lost.
The geese, on the other hand, looked as aerodynamic as a pillow. Theydidn't roll into the sky and sneer at the clouds like the plane did. No, they ran across the top of the water and hammered desperately at theair with their wings and then, just when it was obvious they weren'tgoing to achieve anything, they suddenly did; the water dropped away, andthere was just the slow creak of wings pulling the goose up into the sky.
Masklin would be the first to admit that he didn't understand about jetsand engines and machines, so maybe that was why he didn't worry abouttraveling in them. But he thought he knew a thing or two about muscles, and the knowledge that it was only a couple of big muscles that werekeeping him alive was not comforting.
Each traveler shared a goose with one of the Floridians. They didn't doany steering, as far as Masklin could see. That was all done by Shrub, who sat far out on the neck of the leading goose. He never found out howshe steered. Maybe by orders in some language the geese and the geesenomes shared. Maybe by little movements. Maybe (according to Angalo) bysome sort of Science. It was a mystery. But then-he told himself-Shrubprobably wouldn't know how to drive a truck. She'd probably be veryimpressed, he told himself. That made him feel a bit better.
The ones behind Shrub's bird followed their leader in a perfect V shape.
Masklin buried himself in the feathers. It was comfortable, if a bitcold. Floridians, he learned later, had no difficulty sleeping on aflying goose. The mere thought made Masklin's hands sweat.
He peered out just long enough to see distant trees sweeping by much toofast, and stuck his head down again.
"How long have we got, Thing?" he said.
"I estimate arrival in the vicinity of the launch pad one hour fromlaunch."
"I suppose there's absolutely no possibility that launches have anythingto do with lunches?" said Masklin wistfully.
'Wo."
"Pity. Well-have you any suggestions about how we get on the machine?"
"That is almost impossible."
"I thought you'd say that."
"But you could put me on, " the Thing added.
"Yes, but how? Tie you to the outside?"
'Wo. Get me close enough and I will do the rest."
"What rest?"
"Call the Ship."
"Yes, where is the Ship? I'm amazed satellites and things haven't bumped into it."
"It is waiting."
"You're a great help, sometimes."
"Thank you."
"That was meant to be sarcastic."
"I know."
There was a rustling beside Masklin and his Floridian co-rider pushed aside a feather. It was the boy he had seen with Shrub. He'd said nothing, but just stared at Masklin and the Thing. Now he grinned, and said afew words.
"He wants to know if you feel sick."
"I feel fine," Masklin lied. "What's his name?"
"His name is Pion. He is Shrub's oldest son."
Pion gave Masklin another encouraging grin.
"He wants to know what it is like in a jet," said the Thing. "He says it sounds exciting. They see them sometimes, but they keep away from them."
The goose canted sideways. Masklin tried to hang on with his toes as well as his fingers.
"It must be much more exciting than geese, he says," said the Thing.
"Oh, I don't know," said Masklin weakly.
Landing was much worse than flying. It would have been better on water, Masklin was told later, but Shrub had brought them down on land. Thegeese didn't like that much. It meant that they had almost to stand onthe air, flapping furiously, and then drop the last few inches.
Pion helped Masklin down onto the ground, which seemed to him to bemoving from side to side. The other travelers tottered toward him throughthe throng of birds.
"The ground!" panted Angalo. "It was so close! No one seemed to mind!"
He sagged to his knees.
"And they made honking noises!" he said. "And kept swinging from side to side! And they're all knobbly under the feathers!"
Masklin flexed his arms to let the tension out.
The land around them didn't seem a lot different from the place they'd left, except that the vegetation was lower and Masklin couldn't see any water.
"Shrub says that this is as close as the geese can go," the Thing said.
"It is too dangerous to go any farther."
Shrub nodded, and pointed to the horizon.
There was a white shape on it.
"That?" said Masklin.
"That's it?" said Angalo.
"Yes."
"Doesn't look very big," said Gurder quietly.
"It's still quite a long way off," said Masklin.
"I can see helicopters," said Angalo. "No wonder Shrub didn't want to take the geese any closer."
"And we must be going," said Masklin. "We've got an hour, and I reckon that's barely enough. Er. We'd better say good-bye to Shrub. Can you ex plain, Thing? Tell her that-that we'll try to find her again. Afterward.
If everything's all right. I suppose."
"If there is any afterward," Gurder added. He looked like a badly washed dishcloth.
Shrub nodded when the Thing had finished translating, and then pushed Pion forward.
The Thing told Masklin what she wanted.
"What? We can't take him with us!" said Masklin.
"Young names in Shrub's people are encouraged to travel," said the Thing.
"Pion is only fourteen months old and already he has been to Alaska."
"Try to explain that we're not going to a Laska," said Masklin. "Try to make her understand that all sorts of things could happen to him!"