"When do you want to go to Maroli Meadow? I should know a day or two in advance."

"A week from next Ing is a school holiday. The Calliope Club is planning a swimming party and picnic up at Blue Mountain Lake. Perhaps you and I can go to Maroli Meadow on our own picnic."

"Very well. I'll have Chiike reserve a Mitrix for me."

Sessily stirred.

"I hate to leave but I must! Now, do be careful walking home! Don't fall down and hurt yourself, and don't get carried away by a big night bird or an owl!"

"I'll be careful."

Chiike had given Glawen his flight training and made no difficulty about providing a Mitrix flyer for what would go on the log as a "cadet day patrol."" On the appointed bright sunny Ing morning, Glawen and Sessily arrived at the airport, Glawen with a pair of mesh baskets and a long-handled net while Sessily carried a picnic hamper.

Chiike pointed to a nearby flyer.

"There's your Mitrix. But why the baskets and the net?"

Sessily said: "We're putting down on Maroli Meadow for butterfly wings. I need them for my Parilia costume. I'm to be a beautiful four-winged butterfly in the spectacle."

"You'll be that without a doubt," said Chiike gallantly.

Sessily warned him: "Don't tell anyone! It's supposed to be a surprise."

"Never fear! I'll hold my tongue."

Glawen asked: "What of your own costume?"

"Me? Costume? I'm just one of the help."

"Come now, Chiike! All of us know better than that! Surely you'll be at the festival!"

"Well--maybe so. It's the one affair where I'm allowed, but only because the mask hides my face. I'll be Chitterjay the Clown, which you'll probably consider not much of a disguise. What of you?"

"I'm a Black Imp, in a tight black velvet skin, with even my face painted black."

"You're not one of the Bold Lions, then."

"Not a chance! They'll all be in Lion costume." Glawen pointed to the Mitrix.

"Is it ready to go?"

"Approximately, considering it's an Araminta flyer. Let's see if you remember the checkout."

Chiike watched as Glawen performed the routine inspections.

"Fuel:

charged," said Glawen.

"Emergency power: charged. Navigator:

nulls all proper. Time: correct. Circuits: blue light.

Radio: blue light. Backup box: blue light. Emergency flares:

in case. Pistol: on rack, at ready. Emergency water: full.

Emergency gear: in cabinet. Engines:

alarms quiet. All systems alert: blue light."

Glawen went on to complete the checkout, to Chilke's satisfaction.

' Flights of inspection across the Conservancy, to monitor the movement of animal herds; to search for evidence of plague or blight; to take note of natural cataclysms such as floods, fires, storms and volcanic eruptions, and, most urgently, to discover and check any Yip encroachment into the mainland. Qualified cadets were therefore not discouraged from flying short patrols.

"Two things to remember," said Chilke.

"At Maroli Meadow, make! sure to land on the pad. If you break open a hummock you'll have bugs everywhere, and curse the day you were born. Second: donS stray off into the forest; tangle-tops have been sighted in the neighbor-3 hood. So keep your eyes open, and stay close to the flyer." 3 "Very well, sir. We'll take care." | Glawen and Sessily stowed their gear, climbed into the flyer, waved| to Chilke, then, to Glawen's touch, were taken aloft. With the autopilot! engaged, they flew south at a conservative altitude of a thousand feet.j The Mitrix drifted at no great speed over plantations and vineyards! across the River Wan and the Big Lagoon, then away from the enclave^ and out over the wilderness: here a placid savanna of low hills grownl over with a carpet of low blue-gray plants and pale green bushes;| marked by dark green dendrons, alone or in copses, and occasionalJ smoke trees, holding puffs of fragile blue foliage three hundred fee(| into the air. To the west the hills rolled higher, one rank behind| another, and at last swelled enormously to become the Muldoon| Mountains, with plain-to-be-seen Flutterby Pass: that notch through the mountains which funneled the migrating butterflies down Marol Valley to their rendezvous with the sea.

Ten miles, twenty miles, thirty miles: below was Maroli Meadow a garish sight splotched with a hundred colors. The flyer settled slowl;

through a myriad butterflies. Glawen sighted through the optic finder fixed the pale green disk on a pad of concrete established for th convenience of tourists in omnibus flyers. Glawen pushed the landinj toggle, and the Mitrix lowered itself to the pad.

For a minute the two sat quietly, looking around the meadow.

The:

were alone. Except for the butterflies, nothing moved. A hundred yard to the right rose a rim of forest, ominously dense and dark, with simila forest to the left, even closer.

Ahead, at a somewhat greater distance, th meadow opened upon the ocean beach, with blue ocean beyond.

The two opened the door and stepped down to the pad. The sk:

flickered with the wings of a million butterflies arriving from all part of Deucas. The throb of their wings created a low near-inaudible hum the air reeked with a rich sweet stench. In shoals and schools each o distinctive color:

scarlet and blue; lambent green; lemon yellow am black;

purple, lavender, white and blue; purple and red, they slant en down into the meadow, to swirl and circle, often flying through i swarm of a different sort, producing what seemed previously unknowl colors of amazing pointillist brilliance. | The swarms, after milling and wheeling, at last settled into that trc dedicated to their own sort.

At once they nipped off their wings, fi create a rain of colored snow under the tree, and give the meadow a curiously garish aspect.

The butterflies, now two-inch grubs, identically pale gray, with six strong legs and horny mandibles, ran down the tree trunk to the ground, and scurried at full speed toward the ocean."

Glawen and Sessily took long-handled nets and trays from the flyer and Glawen, mindful ofChilke's remarks, thrust the pistol into his belt.

Sessily asked quizzically: "Why the gun? There are plenty of loose wings; you needn't shoot the butterflies."

Glawen said: "It's one of the first things my father taught me: never go even three feet into the wilderness without a gun."