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“Use the green navigation sensor,” Daria said. “Move quietly. The scenic opportunity is one mile, or point-eight wheels, north of your current
location.”
With that, she clicked off.
Tim moved as quietly as he could, but to himself he sounded very loud. In the end, it probably made no difference. The path opened into
the first large clearing he had come to since entering the forest, and the beings occupying it took no notice of him at all.
There were six billy-bumblers sitting on a fallen ironwood tree, with their snouts raised to the crescent moon. Their eyes gleamed like jewels.
Throcken were hardly ever seen in Tree these days, and to see even one was considered extremely lucky. Tim never had. Several of his friends
claimed to have glimpsed them at play in the fields, or in the blossie groves, but he suspected they were fibbing. And now . . . to see a full halfdozen
. . .
They were, he thought, far more beautiful than the treacherous Armaneeta, because the only magic about them was the plain magic of living
things. These were the creatures that surrounded me last night—I know they were.
He approached them as in a dream, knowing he would probably frighten them away, but helpless to stay where he was. They did not move. He
stretched his hand out to one, ignoring the doleful voice in his head (it sounded like the Widow’s) telling him he would certainly be bitten.
The bumbler did not bite, but when it felt Tim’s fingers in the dense fur below the shelf of its jaw, it seemed to awake. It leaped from the log. The
others did the same. They began to chase around his feet and between his legs, nipping at each other and uttering high-pitched barks that made
Tim laugh.
One looked over its shoulder at him . . . and seemed to laugh back.
They left him and raced to the center of the clearing. There they made a moving ring in the moonlight, their faint shadows dancing and weaving.
They all stopped at once and rose on their hind legs with their paws outstretched, looking for all the world like little furry men. Beneath the cold smile
of the crescent moon, they all faced north, along the Path of the Beam.
“You’re wonderful!” Tim called.
They turned to him, concentration broken. “Wunnerful!” one of them said . . . and then they all raced into the trees. It happened so quickly that Tim
could almost believe he had imagined the whole thing.
Almost.
He made camp in the clearing that night, hoping they might return. And, as he drifted toward sleep, he remembered something the Widow
Smack had said about the unseasonably warm weather. It’s probably nothing . . . unless you see Sir Throcken dancing in the starlight or looking
north with his muzzle upraised.
He had seen not just one bumbler but a full half-dozen doing both.
Tim sat up. The Widow had said those things were a sign of something—what? A stunblast? That was close, but not quite—
“Starkblast,” he said. “That was it.”
“Starkblast,” Daria said, startling him more wide awake than ever. “A fast-moving storm of great power. Its features include steep and sudden
drops in temperature accompanied by strong winds. It has been known to cause major destruction and loss of life in civilized portions of the world.
In primitive areas, entire tribes have been wiped out. This definition of starkblast has been a service of North Central Positronics.”
Tim lay down again on his bed of duff, arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the circle of stars this clearing made visible. A service of
North Central Positronics, was it? Well . . . maybe. He had an idea it might really have been a service of Daria. She was a marvelous machine
(although he wasn’t sure a machine was all she was), but there were things she wasn’t allowed to tell him. He had an idea she might be hinting at
some things, though. Was she leading him on, as the Covenant Man and Armaneeta had done? Tim had to admit it was a possibility, but he didn’t
really believe it. He thought—possibly because he was just a stupid kid, ready to believe anything—that maybe she hadn’t had anyone to talk to for
a long time, and had taken a shine to him. One thing he knew for sure: if there was a terrible storm coming, he would do well to finish his business
quickly, and then get undercover. But where would be safe?
This led his musings back to the Fagonard tribe. They weren’t a bit safe . . . as they knew, for hadn’t they already imitated the bumblers for him?
He had promised himself he would recognize what they were trying to show him if it was put before him, and he had. The storm was coming—the
starkblast. They knew it, probably from the bumblers, and they expected it to kill them.
With such thoughts in his mind, Tim guessed it would be a long time before he could get to sleep, but five minutes later he was lost to the world.
He dreamed of throcken dancing in the moonlight.
He began to think of Daria as his companion, although she didn’t speak much, and when she did, Tim didn’t always understand why (or what
in Na’ar she was talking about). Once it was a series of numbers. Once she told him she would be “off-line” because she was “searching for
satellite” and suggested he stop. He did, and for half an hour the plate seemed completely dead—no lights, no voice. Just when he’d begun to
believe she really had died, the green light came back on, the little stick reappeared, and Daria announced, “I have reestablished satellite link.”
“Wish you joy of it,” Tim replied.
Several times, she offered to calculate a detour. This Tim continued to decline. And once, near the end of the second day after leaving the
Fagonard, she recited a bit of verse:
See the Eagle’s brilliant eye,
And wings on which he holds the sky!
He spies the land and spies the sea
And even spies a child like me.
If he lived to be a hundred (which, given his current mad errand, Tim doubted was in the cards), he thought he would never forget the things he
saw on the three days he and Daria trudged ever upward in the continuing heat. The path, once vague, became a clear lane, one that for several
wheels was bordered by crumbling rock walls. Once, for a space of almost an hour, the corridor in the sky above that lane was filled with thousands
of huge red birds flying south, as if in migration. But surely, Tim thought, they must come to rest in the Endless Forest. For no birds like that had
ever been seen above the village of Tree. Once four blue deer less than two feet high crossed the path ahead of him, seeming to take no notice of
the thunderstruck boy who stood staring at these mutie dwarfs. And once they came to a field filled with giant yellow mushrooms standing four feet
high, with caps the size of umbrellas.
“Are they good to eat, Daria?” Tim asked, for he was reaching the end of the goods in the hamper. “Does thee know?”
“No, traveler,” Daria replied. “They are poison. If you even brush their dust on your skin, you will die of seizures. I advise extreme caution.”