"Then you can come to look for me."

"Easy enough to say. Across all the thousands of worlds, and all the billions and trillions of people."

"That's encouragement, in a way. If you don't find me, you'll surely come upon someone else exactly like me, or is it thinkable nicer than me."

"There's no one in the whole Gaean Reach exactly like you, with exactly that pretty mouth, exactly that tilt of the chin, or that little curl of hair, or the way you smell."

"I hope it's a pleasant smell."

"Of course. I always think of wind blowing across the moors."

"That's just the soap I use. Glawen, please don't be sentimental because I'm going away. I'll get maudlin too and start to cry."

"Just as you say. Kiss me."

"With everyone looking up here? No, thank you."

"No one is looking now."

"Glawen, stop. That's enough. I'm much too susceptible to this sort of thing ... Look! Just as I told you! Mother is scolding me."

"I don't think she saw us; she's not looking now."

"Perhaps not." Wayness pointed.

"There's Aries, sitting rather modestly in the corner."

"Yes, I find it amazing. Spanchetta is furious because she could not promote a 'special." My father is here, which makes it worse."

"Who is that girl with Aries? I don't think I've seen her before ... They appear to be on very good terms."

Glawen looked at Aries' companion: a rather showy young woman with flowing orange-pink hair, a fair skin and voluptuous contours.

"That's Drusilla co-Laverty, one of Floreste's Mummers. She is also quite friendly with Namour, if rumor can be trusted.

Still, it's none of my affair."

"Nor mine. Although it's rather odd."

"How so?"

"No great matter. Did I mention that Julian Bohost is back from Stroma? He still wants to marry me, and also plans to study the Mad Mountain massacres, not necessarily in that order."

"Too bad he couldn't be here tonight and give a speech."

"As a matter of fact, he had just that in mind, but Father told him that tickets were unavailable. How is Kirdy Wook?"

"I don't know. The doctor seems to think that if he wanted to be well he could be well right now. Kirdy won't talk, although he will read and watch television, and bangs the dinner utensils when he doesn't like his food. The doctor says that the brain--Kirdy's brain, anybody's brain--is run by a kind of committee. Kirdy's mental committee doesn't quite trust his conscious mind with full powers yet, and is holding back a bit. It's just a question of time, according to the doctor."

"Poor Kirdy."

Glawen thought back over the fateful evening at Yipton. He said:

"All taken with all, I agree. It's poor Kirdy, for a fact."

Wayness looked at him curiously.

"You seem just a trifle sardonic."

"Probably so. I've never told you all that went on that night."

"Do you plan to do so? Pussycat Palace and all?"

"I can tell you all I know about Pussycat Palace in three sentences, if you're interested."

"I am, rather."

"I did not want to go, but I obeyed Kirdy's orders, so that I might seem a roaring full-fledged Bold Lion, afraid of nothing. I drank tea with the girl, and inquired as to the health of her family. She watched me with no more expression than you see on the face of a dead fish. That's all that happened."

Wayness hugged his arm.

"Let's not talk any more of such things. Here comes Milo. He seems suspiciously jaunty. I wonder what's happened."

Milo dropped into a seat.

"I have news concerning our friend Julian Bohost," he told Glawen.

"I suppose you know' he at Riverview House. He still wants to go to Mad Mountain Lodge, and singlehandedly quell the banjee wars."

"He may get a nasty bruise from a battle-ax."

"He hopes to avoid violence. If they won't join the LPF, or listen

to reason, he'll study them from a distance and write a report."

"I suppose I can't object, especially if he is paying his own way." Milo turned Glawen an incredulous stare.

"You can't be serious!

Julian is a politician, and pays for nothing."

"Julian doesn't have any money to speak of," said Wayness.

"As Dame Clyde's representative, he feels that tourist transport is unsuitable, and he wants full official treatment, which means at least a Station flyer with a pilot. Father just heaved a deep sigh and agreed.

You will be the pilot, if the idea appeals to you."

"It does if you and Wayness are coming. Otherwise, no."