my sacred calling I save my life.'
A particularly vicious jolt threw Silk against the woman on his right, who apologized profusely. When he had begged her pardon instead, he began the prayer of the voided cross. 'Great Pas, designer and creator of the whorl, lord guardian and keeper of the Aureate Path-' The path across the sky that was the spiritual equivalent of the sun, he reminded himself. Sacrifices rose to it, and so were brought in the end to Mainframe, where both the sun and the Path began, at the east pole. The spirits of the dead walked that glorious road, too, if not weighted with evil, and it was asserted in the Chrasmologic Writings that the spirits of certain holy theodidacts had at times abandoned the shapen mud of their corporeal bodies and-joining the crowding, lowing beasts and the penitent dead-journeyed to Mainframe to confer for a time with the god who had enlightened them. He himself was a theodidact, Silk reminded himself, having been enlightened by the Outsider. He had finished the voided cross and (he counted them by touch) four beads already. Murmuring the prescribed prayers and adding the name of the Outsider to them all, he willed himself to leave his body and this crowded street and unite with the hastening traffic of the Aureate Path.
For an instant it seemed that he had succeeded, though it was not. the sun's golden road that he saw, but the frigid black emptiness beyond the whorl, dotted here and there with gleaming sparks.
'Talking of writing on walls, Silk. Silk? Look there. Open your eyes.'
He did. It was a poster, badly but boldly printed in red and black, so new that no one had yet torn it or scrawled an obscene drawing over it, which in this quarter probably meant that it had been up less than an hour.
STRONG YOUNG MEN WILL BE WELCOMED IN THE NEW PROVISIONAL RESERVE BRIGADE Have YOU Wished to Become a GUARDSMAN? The Reserve Brigade Will Drill Twice Weekly Will Receive PAY and UNIFORMS Will Receive FIRST CONSIDERATION for
TRANSFER TO THE REGULAR FORMATIONS
Apply THIRD BRIGADE HEADQUARTERS Colonel Oosik, Commanding
'You don't think the kite tired him too much?'
It was not the first time Blood had asked the question, and Musk had tired of saying no. This time he said, 'I told you. Aquila's a female.' The huge hooded bird on his wrist baited as he spoke, whether at the sound of her name, or at that of his voice, or by mere coincidence. Musk waited for her to slake before he finished the thought. 'Males don't get this big. For Molpe's sake listen sometime.'
'All right-all right. Maybe a smaller one could fly higher.'
'She can do it. The bigger they are, the higher they fly. You ever see a sparrow fly any higher than that bald head of yours?' Musk spoke without looking at the fleshy, red-faced man to whom he spoke, his eyes upon his eagle or on the sky. 'I still think we should've let Hoppy in.'
'If they bring it back, in a week they'll have done it themselves.'
'They fly high, way up close to the sun. If we get one, he could come down anywhere.'
'We've got three floaters with three men in each floater. We've got five on highriders.'
With his free hand, Musk lifted his binoculars. Though he knew there was nothing there, he scanned the clear vacancy overhead.
'Don't point those things at the sun. You could blind yourself.' It was not the first time Blood had said that, either.
'He could come down anywhere in the whorl. You heard where the kite came down, and it was on a shaggy string, for Molpe's sake. You think that it's got to be close to a road because you travel on them.' It was a long speech for Musk. 'If you'd hunted with my hawks a couple of times, you'd know different. Most of the whorl's not anywhere near any shaggy road. Most of the whorl's twenty, thirty, fifty stades from a shaggy road.'
'That's good,' Blood said. 'What I'm afraid of is some farmer peeping to Hoppy.' He waited for Musk to speak again; when Musk did not, he added, 'They can't really get up near the sun. The sun's a lot hotter than any fire. They'd be burned to death.'
'Maybe they don't bum.' Musk lowered his binoculars. 'Maybe they're not even people.'
'They're people. Just like us.'
'Then maybe they got needlers.'
Blood said, 'They won't carry anything they don't have to carry.'
'I'm shaggy glad you know. I'm shaggy glad you asked them.'
Aquila adjusted the position of one huge talon with a minute jingle of hawk bells as Musk lifted his binoculars again.
'There's one!' Blood said unnecessarily. 'Are you going to fly her?'
'I don't know,' Musk admitted. 'He's a long ways off, the yard.'
Blood trained his own binoculars on the flier. 'He's coming closer. He's headed this way!'
'I know. That's why I'm watching him.'
'He's high.'
Musk struggled to speak in the bored and bitter tones he had affected since childhood. 'I've seen them higher.' The thrill of the hunt was upon him, as sudden as a fever and as welcome as spring.
'I told you about that big gun they built. They shot at them for a month, but shells don't go straight up there, and they couldn't get them high enough anyway.'
Musk let his binoculars drop to his chest. He could see the flier clearly now, silhouetted against the silver mirror that was Lake Limna, mounting into the sky on the other side of the city.
'Wait for him to get closer,' Blood said urgently.
'If we wait much longer, he'll be farther by the time she gets up there.'
'What if-'
'Stand back. If she goes for you, you're dead.' With his free hand Musk grasped the crown of scarlet plumes and snatched the hood. 'Away, hawk!'
This time there was no hesitation. The eagle's immense wings spread, and she sprang into the air with a whirlwind roar that for a moment frightened even Musk, flying hard at first, laboring to gain the thermal from the roof, then lifting, rising, and soaring, a jet black, heraldic bird against the sun-blind blue of the open sky.
'Maybe the rabbit filled her up.'
Musk laughed. 'That baby bunny? It was the littlest we had. That only made her strong.' For the second time since they had met, he took Blood's hand.
And Blood, desperately happy but pretending that nothing had occurred, inquired as calmly as he could, 'You think she sees him?'
'Shag yes, she sees him. She sees everything. If she went straight for him she'd spook him. She'll get above him and come down at him out of the sun.' Unconsciously Musk rose upon his toes, so as to be, by the thickness of three fingers, nearer his bird. 'Just like a goose. Just like he was a big goose. They're born knowing it. You watch.' His pale, handsome face was wreathed in smiles; his devil's eyes glittered like black ice. 'You just watch her, old cully shagger.'
Iolar saw the eagle far below him to the north, and put on speed. The front, marked by a line of towering clouds, was interesting and might even be important; but the front was two hundred leagues off, if not more, and might never reach this parched and overheated region. The index was a hundred fifteen here, a hundred nine over much of the sun's length; with the seasonal adjustment-he checked the date mentally-a hundred and eighteen here.
He had forgotten the eagle already.
He was a small man by any standard, and as thin as his own main struts; his eyes were better than average, and most of those who knew him thought him introverted and perhaps a trifle cold-blooded. He seldom spoke; when he did, his talk was of air masses and prevailing winds, of landmarks by day and landmarks by night, of named solar reaches unrecognized (or only grudgingly recognized) by science, and of course of wings and flightsuits and instruments and propulsion modules. But then the talk of all fliers was like that. Because he was so near the ideal, both physically and mentally, he had been permitted three wives, but the second had left him after
