Dilna leaned over closer to Hoom, and said softly, "You'd almost think Stipock wanted us to go to this place from the beginning." Hoom's only answer was a faint smile. He didn't talk much, even though he was virtually healed from his burning in the fire at Noyock's house.

They crossed an endless forest, and then the forest ended, and below them was nothing but blue, striped with white. "The sea," Stipock explained. "Water for kilometers in every direction, so it seems you can never find the end."

But they found the end, and under them was rock and sand, carved into canyons and hostile mountains, plateaus and occasional patches of green. From the air it was impossible to see the details, but it was plain enough to everyone, though they had never seen a desert, that the land below them was dead.

It was frightening to Dilna, to see so much space with nothing growing in it. It looked endlessly dry. She swallowed convulsively. Hoom's hand closed over hers, and drew her close, and his arm reached around her, and held her.

"Hoom," she whispered, "I've never loved anyone but you."

"And I trust you with my life," he answered; and it occurred to Dilna to wonder whether Hoom had told as great a lie as she had told.

Jason left them near trees, and a shallow stream ran nearby, but the earth underfoot was sand, and the air was hot and dry. They milled around aimlessly, until Jason said a few words wishing them luck, urging them to obey Stipock; then the starpilot climbed back into the flying ship and the door closed behind him.

"Well, everybody," Stipock said. "Let's get moving — up into the trees. We'll follow the stream. Feels warm enough that we probably won't need to build houses tonight — give us all a chance to be lazy!" Stipock laughed, but no one joined him. The sandy soil didn't look like it would be easy to farm. The water trickled over rocks, but a thin film of dust covered its surface even as it moved.

They shouldered their burdens and followed Stipock into the tall, gaunt–looking trees. Dilna and Hoom were among the last, and Dilna turned around to see dust rise under the flying ship.

She stopped and watched as it rose into the air and moved away north over the sandy plain. Wait, she wanted to cry out to him. Wait for me!

Instead, she shifted her pack and smiled at Hoom, who was waiting for her. "Well," she said. "This is more fun than a broken leg." He laughed, and they hurried to catch up with the others.

13

IN HIS haste to get back with the good news, Billin slipped on a shale slope and cut his hand severely. Of course he swore; of course he shouted; and then he ripped up his good sleeve (the left) and bound the bleeding cut and walked on.

He still carried his pack, though the food was gone since yesterday — good cloth was far too scarce these days. In the hot gray days of autumn when they first arrived, they had thrown away all the clothing that modesty allowed. Now they knew better. The summer sun burnt, and clothing was the only defense.

The trees were already getting more open, and shorter. The rich loam of the mountains had given way to more sandy soil, loose and sliding and hard to walk on. He was almost there, following the trickling stream that kept Stipock's City alive.

It was late afternoon when Billin finally reached the irrigation ditch and the diversion dam. Wix's idea of course, and brilliant, of course, but only a stopgap in their constant losing battle with the sun and the sand. Although they might have had a chance if Stipock weren't so dead set on getting the iron — no. We'd be losing anyway. But now, Billin thought exultantly as he lurched along down the path of the ditch, now we can live better than we did at Heaven City . Just reach out a hand and pick food from the trees. Water everywhere. We have to leave immediately.

A house (new since he had left, but hardly a surprise, and he noticed that they had built it higher, out of the reach of the sand) and Billin went to the door and knocked.

No one. Getting on toward dark — wait here or go on down?

Billin was too hungry to wait, and too eager to tell his news, though his legs were weak enough that he had to think of every step before they would move.

And then he saw Wix and Dilna coming in from the trees. He stopped and waited until they came up to him.

"Billin," they said as soon as they were close enough to see who it was, and they rushed up and embraced him and welcomed him home. Yet Billin was not too tired to wonder what Wix and the bitch had been doing in the woods (as if he and everybody didn't know — a miracle Hoom hadn't murdered them both by now, except that the sweet simple–minded ox didn't notice), and he smiled at them as he said, "How's Hoom doing?"

"Well," Wix said. Was Dilna blushing? Billin doubted it — she wasn't the blushing type. At least Cirith, ugly and foul–tempered as she was, stayed faithful to Billin and loved him desperately.

"You must be tired," Dilna said, and Billin didn't even have to agree. He just stumbled and Wix caught him before he fell, and then the two of them helped him to the nearest house that might be large enough for him to rest awhile before going on to his own home.

It was a struggle between hunger (stay awake until the fish is fried) and sleep. Sleep won.

He woke in his own bed with Cirith leaning over him, smiling.

"Good morning," Billin said.

"Stay in bed," Cirith ordered, losing the smile the moment she knew he was looking. "You're too tired and weak to get up."

"Then bring me something to eat, dammit," Billin said, lying back down.

"It was so good while you were gone," Cirith grumbled as she brought a bowl from the fire. "No one to complain at me."

"How did you make it through the weeks?" Billin said. And then as Cirith set the bowl on his bed and made as if to walk away in a huff, he lunged over (spilling stew) and pinched her.

She whirled on him. "If you're that wide awake, Billin my boy, you'll have no more sympathy from me!" And then she was off to the children's bed room. Billin lay back on his bed and sighed. It was so good to be home.

He vomited the stew, but was able to eat broth later on in the morning.

And after noon, Stipock, Wix, and Hoom came to see him.

"Three out of four," Billin said as they gathered around his bed. "I feel honored."

"Dilna's pregnant again," Hoom said proudly.

"How many does that make — three?" Billin asked.

"No, four, of course — unless it's twins."

Four of hers, Billin kept himself from saying, but only three of yours. Not my place to tell the fool what everybody else knows.

"You were gone three and a half months," Stipock said.

"The days just flew by," Billin said, smiling.

They waited, and Billin loved watching them as they tried not to seem eager. But he was even more eager than they, and he ended the game and told them.

"A swift–flowing river, plenty of water even during the heat of the summer. A bay, and there are trees every inch, except where there are thick berry bushes. While I was there I wasn't hungry for a minute — I would have brought you back some of the fruit, but it started spoiling in the heat this side of the mountains, and so I ate it."

But as Billin described the paradise he had found a hundred miles to the south (or more — who can tell when the distance is covered on foot, scaling cliffs and wasting days hunting for a path through an impassable barrier), he became more and more uneasy. Hoom and Wix kept glancing at Stipock — and Stipock just watched Billin, his face impassive.

"I tell you," Billin said, determined to fire them with the enthusiasm he felt for the place, "that we could leave the plow behind and live forever there by just gathering. It goes on like that for miles. And the ground is as rich as anything in Heaven City, I swear it, except there's plenty of rain — the mountains must catch all the clouds, keep them from coming to us — and it's warmer than Heaven City, and besides — from the mountains I could see another land across the water, not far — we could build a boat and cross to it, and that other land looks even richer than the one I was in."