Everything moved to slow motion.

The car dipped. She saw one wing catch on rain-slick earth…

…watched it dig a furrow, bend and buckle…

…heard the crack as it broke in two…

…felt the beginning of the aircar’s first cartwheel…

…and knew, beyond doubt, that the best part of the landing was over.

Darya never once lost consciousness. She was so convinced of that fact that after a while her brain came up with an explanation of what was happening. It was simple: Every time she closed her eyes, even for a moment, someone changed the scenery.

First, the agony and indignity of a drag across wet, uneven soil. No scenery there, because her eyes were not working.

(blink)

She was lying face-upward, while someone leaned over her and sponged at her head. “Chin, mouth, nose,” a voice said. “Eyes.” And terrible pain.

“Transmission fluid, looks like.” He was not speaking to her. “It’s all right, not toxic. Can you handle it on the others?”

“Yeah,” another man said. “But the big one has a crack in its shell. It’s dribbling gunk and we can’t suture. What should I do?”

“Tape, maybe?” A dark shape moved away from her. Cold raindrops splashed into her stinging eyes.

(blink)

Green walls, a beige ceiling, and the hissing and purring of pumps. A computer-controlled IV dripped into her left arm, cantilevered up over her body by a metal brace. She felt warm and comfortable and just wonderful.

Neomorph, said a detached voice in her brain. Fed in by the computer whenever the telemetry shows you need it. Powerful. Rapidly addictive. Controlled use on Sentinel Gate. Employ only under controlled conditions with reverse epinephrine triggers.

Nuts, the rest of her said. Feels great. Phemus Circle really know how to use drugs. Hooray for them.

(blink)

“Feeling better?”

A stupid question. She did not feel good at all. Her eyes ached, her ears ached, her teeth ached, her toes ached. Her head buzzed, and there were stabs of pain that started near her left ear and ran all the way to her fingertips. But she knew that voice.

Darya opened her eyes. A man had magically appeared at the bedside.

“I know you.” She sighed. “But I don’t know your first name. You poor man. You don’t even have a first name, do you?”

“Yes, I do. It is Hans.”

“Captain Hans Rebka. That’s all right, then, you do have a name. You’re pretty nice, you know, if you’d just smile a bit more. But you’re supposed to be away on Quake.”

“We got back.”

“I want to go to Quake.”

The damned drug, she thought. It was the drug, it must be, and now she knew why it was illegal. She had to shut up before she said something really damaging.

“Can I go there, nice Hans Rebka? I have to, you see. I really have to.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“See, I knew you’d look a lot better if you smiled. So will you let me go to Quake? What do you say, Hans Rebka?”

She blinked before he could reply. He disappeared.

When she opened her eyes again there was a major addition to the room. Over to her right a lattice of black metal tubes had been erected to form a cubical scaffolding. A harness hung at the center of it, attached by strong cords to the corners. In that harness, pipe-stem torso swathed in white tape, head drooping low, and thin limbs stretched out vertically and to both sides, hung J’merlia.

The contorted position of the wrapped body suggested the agony of a final death spasm. Darya automatically looked around for Atvar Hsial. There was no sign of the Cecropian. Was it possible that the symbiosis between the two was so complete that the Lo’tfian could not survive without the other? Had he died when the two were separated?

“J’merlia?”

She spoke without thinking. Since J’merlia’s words were nothing more than than a translation of Atvar H’sial’s pheromonal speech, it was stupid to expect an independent response.

One lemon eye swiveled in her direction. So at least he knew she was there.

“Can you hear me, J’merlia? You look as though you are in terrible pain. I don’t know why you are in that awful harness. If you can understand me, and you need help, tell me.”

There was a long silence. Hopeless, Darya thought.

“Thank you for your concern,” a dry and familiar voice said finally. “But I am in no pain. This harness was built at my own request, for my comfort. You were not conscious when it was being done.”

Was that really J’merlia speaking? Darya automatically looked around the room again. “Is that you, or Atvar H’sial? Where is Atvar H’sial? Is she alive?”

“She is. But regrettably, her wounds are worse than yours. She required major surgery on her exoskeleton. You have one broken bone and many bruises. You will be fully mobile in three Dobelle days.”

“How about you?”

“I am nothing; my situation is unimportant.”

J’merlia’s self-effacing manner had been acceptable when Darya had thought him no more than a mouthpiece for Cecropian thoughts. But now this was a rational being, with its own thoughts, its own feelings.

“Tell me, J’merlia. I want to know.”

“I lost two joints of one hind limb — nothing important; they will grow back — and I leaked a little at my pedicel. Negligible.”

It had its own feelings — and its own rights?

“J’merlia.” She paused. Was it her business? A member of the Council was here, on this very planet. In fact, running away from him had been the prime cause of their injuries. If anyone should be worrying about the status of the Lo’tfians, it ought to be Julius Graves, not Darya Lang.

“J’merlia.” She found herself talking anyway. How long before the drug was out of her system? “When Atvar H’sial is present you never speak any of your own thoughts. You never say anything at all.”

“That is true.”

“Why not?”

“I have nothing to say. And it would not be appropriate. Even before I reached second shape, when I was no more than postlarval, Atvar H’sial was named my dominatrix. When she is present, I serve only to carry her thoughts to others. I have no other thoughts.”

“But you have intelligence, you have knowledge. It’s wrong. You should have your own rights…” Darya paused.

The Lo’tfian was wriggling in his harness, so that both compound eyes could be turned toward the human.

He bowed his head to her. “Professor Darya Lang, with permission. You and all humans are far above me, above all Lo’tfians. I would not presume to disagree with you. But will you permit me to tell you of our history, and also of the Cecropians? May I?”

She nodded. That was apparently not enough, for he waited until she finally said, “Very well. Tell me.”

“Thank you. I will begin with us, not because we are important, but only for purposes of comparison. Our homeworld is Lo’tfi. It is cold and clear-skied. As you might guess from my appearance, we have excellent vision. We saw the stars every night. For thousands of generations we made use of that information only to tell at what time of the year certain foods should be available. That was all. When it was colder or hotter than usual, many of us would starve to death. We could speak to each other, but we were hardlv more than primitive animals, knowing nothing of the future and little of the past. We would probably have stayed so forever.

“Think now of Atvar H’sial and her people. They developed on a dark and cloud-covered world — and they were blind. Because they by echolocation, sight for them implies the presence of air to carry the signal. So their senses could never receive information of anything beyond their own atmosphere. They deduced the presence of their own sun, only because they felt its weak radiation as a source of warmth. They had to develop a technology that told them of the very existence of light. And they had to build instruments that were sensitive to light and to other electromagnetic radiation, so that they could detect and measure it.