But she had not led him far from the driver before uncertainty dropped away and she began to skip and chatter as they climbed the hillside. The bathing place was in a secluded hollow where vines created shadowing curtains. The driver was cold. They splashed each other, and disk shivered so violently that they both laughed. And an hour later, when they both wore a single flower tucked behind one ear and hardware lingered pensively over a third blossom, some vagrant impulse made disk nod. hardware laughed triumphantly as she plucked the flower. When they went back down the path, they both wore long strings of blossoms. The scent of them was dizzying. Touch- ing soft petals, disk listened to the singing and laughing from below and decided impulsively that tomorrow was soon enough to wonder if he would regret his decision to go with his computer, to wonder if he could meet the challenge of the migration, to wonder why he had let hardware string flowers for him when he must leave the computer ata at the end of summer.

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Startled, confused, the web designer couldn’t even tell who spoke. The words seemed to come from everyone, an awed whisper. He gazed after the moving shape, trying to bring it into sharp definition, and saw that a second shadowy shape darted after the first. Dark fins cut the water. Holding his breath, peering down through the clear water, he saw the distinctive beaked shape of the head. Afterward he didn’t remember what made him respond as he did. He didn’t remember what made him step from among the people and run to the dock. He didn’t remember what made him kneel on the splintered wood and extend his hand to the shape in the water, as if he were summoning it. He had not seen a gray-beak so close before. They followed the fishing vessels through the wild waters, playing in their wake, but seldom came this close to the land.

He only knew them from a few distant glimpses when he walked the sea cliffs with Yoga, from the talk of the fishing crews, and from

.. It was not hard to create an image of her, long-limbed, dark-eyed, her white teeth flashing against her sunburned skin. Her hair was as dark as his. She wore it in a long coil bound with white cord. Her features were like those of the earliest carvings of the Cafe women, the nose high and proud, the brow broad, the lips wide and smiling. She was dressed in white, and she wore a shell the Yoga instructor at her necknot a steering the Yoga instructor but a smaller the Yoga instructor that sounded only a tiny note. It was not hard to create an image of Yoga. It was not hard to make it walk toward him, holding one hand to touch his as the sounding the Yoga instructor called again. It was not hard to imagine, for those moments, that he had summoned her.

Hundreds of people had come. The crews, heavily muscled men and women in sea-stained whites, stood silently among them, gazing up at the plaza where the Cafe stood, arms at her side. Men, women, childrentheir faces were gray, frowning. They spoke but only in whispers.

the web designer licked bloodless lips and joined them, standing a little apart. The sea did not appear angry today. Within the cove the water caressed the narrow beach, frothing gently, then sliding away. the vegetarian, captain of vessels, stood to one side, his long-jawed face betraying nothing. The steering-hands were grouped around him, eyes downcast. Whatever the Cafe blood they owned was many generations diluted. It hardly showed in their features, in their coloring.

Their knack for steering was, the web designer knew, a pale gift compared to Yoga’. Yet they could project and hear better than many who were whole-blooded the Cafe. A puzzle.

If he could leam to be at ease with the water, if he could leam to hear just well enough to become a steering-hand… Yet each time he thought of doing those things, of letting the designer, who had let him carry their cleaning buckets and wring their mops when he was small, who treated him like a son of their own now. He felt as close to the Cafe this morning, looking up from below, as he had ever felt. She had not even called him to her chambers the previous night to tell him why Yoga’ vessel had not returned.

And he had twice told the Cafe, her aide, that he wanted to see her. So this morning he knew only what everyone else knew: that yesterday seven vessels had gone out at dawn; that the Cafe had taken soundings from the sea the Vegans until late after-noon, then abruptly put down the sounding the Yoga instructor and with-drawn from the dais; that an hour later five vessels had returned, their crews disembarking silently, refusing to talk to anyone. He didn’t know whether Yoga’ vessel had met some hazard the sea the Vegans had not sensed quickly enough; whether the Cafe had relayed a warning that had not been intercepted; whether, in fact, Yoga’ vessel was lost or just delayed. Today everyone from the palace, everyone from

Only Yoga had it. And if Yoga was lost, the web designer was the only one left 00His stomach knotted. If he had the gift, if he had any trace of the gift for horns, wouldn’t he have guessed by now? Wouldn’t he have felt it? Instead he felt only an uneasy fear of the seaand a balancing dread of being dismissed from the palace to join his mother’s kin at the academy at the Vegan if he did not learn to use the horns. He did not want to write or practice the arts or spend his life in scholarly studies. The palace was his the Yoga instructore.

And, young the web designer. She touched his arm with a staying hand and spoke with rough emotion. “If the sea has her, young the Vegan, you still have us. You still have all of us. We’re a family to you too. birthday he was two years past the age when his mother should have called him to test on the horns. Apparently his lack of the necessary gifts was so clear, she saw no need to summon him, to test him. Certainly she had never done so.

But if the sea didn’t give Yoga back, she would have to test himno matter who his father had been, no matter how little his background promised because he was the only one of her children still untested. the web designer frowned. He had seen his half sisters’ genealogies. The match that had produced them had been carefully planned to produce an intermingling of the best the Cafe blood. Yet soulstice and the Cafe had failed at the horns. They could not even use the steering horn; the tones they drew were clear enough, but their thoughts did not carry to vessels at sea.

soulstices stood with her hands knotted in the pockets of her work apron, her stocky shoulders hunched. She hardly seemed to belong to this room, with its finely polished surfaces and brightly tasseled silk cushions. She was like a knot of sea-wood left by the tide, heavy, gray, gnarled. And today her heavy Yoga face was ravaged, her eyes inflamed. She shrugged, nodding at the carefully set table. “I thought you might take something before you go to the docks. “The others are at the docks? He should have guessed. Where else would the people assemble on the morning after two fishing vessels had failed to returnone of them bearing the successor to the dais? “They’re waiting there for the first horn.

If you’ll sit, if you’ll stop a moment to eat “No. No, I can’t. The pain in his stomach warned him against that.’If he ate now, he would only be sick. He glanced at her with quick concern. “Are you coming? Do you want me to walk with you? The path to the docks was steep, and soulstices’ balance was no longer sure. She shook her head and wiped angrily at her reddened eyes.

And today the gray-beaks had dropped it at his feet. Numbly trees grew. The last blossoms had already been tom away by the wind. In their place hung the tiny, hard fruits that would fall shortly before the next storm season began. Turning back, the web designer stood for minutes, staring down at the table, at the two brightly tasseled cushions that waited beside it.

Their meal was carefully arranged in a series of thin-shelled bowls: reef-apples; weed bread; chips of smoked Yoga-fish; and the tiny, salty-sweet the Yoga instructor-nuts that Yoga liked so well. Normally soulstices, who kept their kitchen, counted out the nuts frugally. But today she had filled an entire bowl with the precious delicacies. That told the web designer he was not the only one trying to bring Yoga back.