Wh-wh-wh-! Sky in one view, ground in the other. He gave a look at Thorn, saw the cords in Thorn's neck stand out as he braced himself. Another grip of claws. Thorn visibly relaxed. Turned his face to Duun's with studied serenity.

So. Duun slipped his finger down Thorn's arm, to the place on Thorn's wrist where veins lay next the surface. The pulse throbbed beneath his finger-pad as if the heart that drove it was going to burst.

"Keep your eyes on the horizon," Duun said into Thorn's ear. "Helps your stomach."

"I'm not scared," Thorn shouted back. But the copter turned off for the west then, sharply, and Thorn's fingers clenched on his armrest.

The great flat, more hills, an hour and more of trees and roads and herds that raced beneath them in a brown tide. Suddenly the great sheet of a bay spread itself beyond a brown rim of trees, water shining silver in the sun and going on forever to the south. Thorn forgot his terror and pointed-"What's that?"

"Djohin Bay," Duun shouted back. "That's the sea out there, minnow! That's the great wide sea!"

Land came up eastward beyond that shining surface: outthrusts of the city, a stain against the sky. "What's there?" Thorn yelled into the rotor noise.

"That's Pekenan," Duun said. "That's the port town. The city's coming up. There-that's the shuttle-port, see that gray ribbon there."

"What's a shuttle-port?" Thorn asked. "What's a port town?" His skin was white in the sunlight that streamed through the copter's side windows. He sweated. It was too soon to have traveled. Sights and strangeness multiplied. (Don't faint on me, minnow, not here, not now. There's more.) "Here." Duun fished out an inhaler from the kit at his feet. He had brought it with their gear. "Put that in your mouth- Breathe in hard." He pushed the spray and Thorn choked, coughed. Fell back against the seat with a shocked offended look. But he lost the waxen taint. His pupils dilated. "There. Want more?"

"No, Duun," Thorn said earnestly. He turned and looked out the window.

Duun had little desire to look. He knew what he would see. The capital. Dsonan. The tall buildings where shonunin lived one on top of the other.

"Look at those!" Thorn cried suddenly, pointing at the city-center.

"I've seen them, minnow." Tall buildings failed to interest him. "We're going to land on one. We're going to live there. Inside." To explain more than that took too much shouting. The rotor noise depressed him. He remembered the perspective of the concrete canyons, the buildings passing under them. He took Thorn by the wrist and held his finger on the pulse.

Thorn looked at him, knowing what he was doing, looking as if he were vastly ashamed of a heart he could not control. "Look down," Duun said as they began to fly over the city. "Get used to it."

Thorn did not flinch. The pulse sped as the perspectives shifted beneath them. ("What's that?" Thorn asked, when a train whisked below them.) What's that? Duun had not wanted questions yet. There would have been time. The pulse fluttered beneath his fingertip with unbearable rapidity. "Are we coming down?"

"They never miss," Duun said. "Watch the roof, minnow. See the circle there. That's where we land."

VI

The window gave them a brook, a woodland. Duun cared nothing for it. The wind from the air-conditioning brought wood-scent. It was, like the opal sand on the floor, synthetic and expensive. Thorn marveled at it, touched the window-"Are we turning?"-because the scene moved. "No," Duun said with acerbity. "Have you forgotten? There's city behind that wall. Behave yourself. You don't own this. I don't. It's all here, that's all. Don't be impressed with it.

("Whose is it?")

Duun regretted then bringing up the matter.

And perhaps Thorn suspected then that he had been in the company of more than one illusion maintained for him. Thorn's ebullience ebbed away and left a look of pain, the fine-drawn look of someone scant of resources. The lack of sleep for days, the purgative, the hunt, the wounds; a heart which had worked harder than the engines had in the copter flight-which had had, perhaps, all a heart ought to bear for a while. Duun went into his room, delved into his kit and took out a sedative, went into the kitchen and mixed it in milk.

The apartment was larger than the house had been. There were four bedrooms, the kitchen, a sitting room, dining hall, office, bath, gymnasium, sunroom (a lie); there was a library; a viewing-room; a sauna; a robing-room; a pantry; a laundry; a servant's quarters, but that was vacant. A security post. That was not. But Thorn knew nothing about guards and monitors and the hall outside. There were several rooms that feigned sunlight well enough to have growing plants, if one bothered. The bath and master bedroom had a wraparound tridee screen that doubled as windows-gods knew, it was not all nature scenes the builders meant with that. And a man grew tempted. There were recourses in the city. There were places a man or woman could go, amusements to be had. A hatani would be discreet. But even a hatani might-with a woman of discretion-find some out-of-season comforts. Duun laid his ears back. Hours in this place and it was as if sixteen years had not happened. Except for the presence which turned up at his shoulder.

He turned and handed Thorn the cup. "This is yours. Drink it. Go lie down."

Thorn took it. Perhaps Thorn was not quite that scent-blind. His eyes acquired wariness. And weary puzzlement.

"Sedative," Duun said. "Drink it. Go lie down. You'll sleep."

"Duun." Thorn set the milk on the counter. His face was white again. He leaned against the wall, not so strong as he pretended; he had been limping when he came in. "Have you been here before?"

"I lived here." Duun picked up the milk and picked up Thorn's hand and joined one firmly to the other. "Drink that. Shall I convince you, Thorn?"

Thorn drank it. All. He set the cup down again.

"So you've found out what you don't know," Duun said. "Does the world scare you, Thorn? You have to pick out the illusions here, that's all. You have to know what's real and what's not."

"You'll be with me."

"Haras-hatani. Thorn. What do I hear? Is that need? Is that something I have and you don't? What is that thing?"

"Courage." Thorn's voice was hoarse and hollow.

"Do I hear can't?"

"No, Duun-hatani."

"The meds want you. They want to take you and take that arm apart again; they want to put their machines on you and get pieces of your hide and measure you up and down. I told them to wait a day or so."

Silence. Thorn's eyes were dilated. It was not all the sedative. "Thank you, Duun-hatani."

"Get to bed."

Thorn went. Limping.

So. So. There was no rebellion. Thorn might have. Duun stared out the vacant kitchen door. The place smelled of remodeling, beneath the wood-scent. Beneath the false wind and the false images. And the sand under his stone-callused feet felt too light, like powder.

He walked into the bedroom and found Thorn in bed. It was night. Duun's senses knew that, though the wall-images were out of synch and showed mid-afternoon. Thorn slept, the pale blue sheets clutched in a brown, smooth hand. The face had taken on a hollowed look, the jaw lengthened, the cheekbones more prominent. Final changes. Almost-manhood. Duun selected for night-image. The lights went out and a dust of stars shone on the walls, about the sleeper. The air-conditioning breathed a noncommittal scent, something synthetic and vaguely like the sea.

"Well, Duun?"

Duun tucked up his feet cross-legged on the riser (city manners came hard after sixteen years), rested his arms on his thighs and let his hands fall limp into his lap. (Well?) He looked up at Ellud, who sat on his desk, surrounded by the appurtenances of office, monitor, communications. Worm-in-web. Lines went everywhere from here, all over the world. "He's well," Duun said. "I don't think there was damage. A scar or two-what's that?"