er, you
pushed me ahead of you. You were guarding me. Why?"

He stared at her, or rather at the pale blur of her standing close to
him. "Well, it's always been sort of the custom for the men to-- But now
that I think of it, Webber didn't bother."

"No," said Paula. "Back in your day women were still taking advantage of
the dual standard--demanding complete equality with men but clinging to
their special status. We've got beyond that."

"Do you like it? Beyond, I mean."

"Yes," she said. "It was good of you to do that, but--"

Webber said, "They're moving again. Come on."

The people walked this time, strung out in a long line between the trees
and the water, where the light was a little better and the way more
open. The three outlanders tagged behind, clumsy in their boots and
clothing. The long hair of the people blew in the wind and their bare
feet padded softly, light and swift.

Kieran looked up at the sky. The trees obscured much of it so that all
he could see was some scattered stars overhead. But he thought that
somewhere a moon was rising.

He asked Paula and she said, "Wait. You'll see."

Night and the river rolled behind them. The moonlight became brighter,
but it was not at all like the moonlight Kieran remembered from long ago
and far away. That had had a cold tranquility to it, but this light was
neither cold nor tranquil. It seemed somehow to shift color, too, which
made it even less adequate for seeing than the white moonlight he was
used to. Sometimes as it filtered through the trees it seemed,
ice-green, and again it was reddish or amber, or blue.

They came to a place where the river made a wide bend and they cut
across it, clear of the trees. Paula touched Kieran's arm and pointed.
"Look."

Kieran looked, and then he stopped still. The light was not moonlight,
and its source was not a moon. It was a globular cluster of stars, hung
in the sky like a swarm of fiery bees, a burning and pulsing of many
colors, diamond-white and gold, green and crimson, peacock blue and
smoky umber. Kieran stared, and beside him Paula murmured, "I've been on
a lot of planets, but none of them have anything like this."

The people moved swiftly on, paying no attention at all to the sky.

Reluctantly Kieran followed them into the obscuring woods. He kept
looking at the open sky above the river, waiting for the cluster to rise
high so he could see it.

It was some time after this, but before the cluster rose