ked except for an ornate hat and a
narrow binding around the loins--descended the trunk. He went from cage
to cage, feeding the glow-worms with bits of shining fungus from a
basket on his arm.

I called to him in his own language, and he dropped the basket, with an
exclamation, his spidery thin body braced to flee or to raise an alarm.

"But I belong to the Nest," I called to him, and gave him the names of
my foster-parents. He came toward me, gripping my forearm with warm long
fingers in a gesture of greeting.

"Jason? Yes, I hear them speak of you," he said in his gentle twittering
voice, "you are at home. But those others--?" He gestured nervously at
the strange faces.

"My friends," I assured him, "and we come to beg the Old One for an
audience. For tonight I seek shelter with my parents, if they will
receive us."

He raised his head and called softly, and a slim child bounded down the
trunk and took the basket. The trailman said, "I am Carrho. Perhaps it
would be better if I guided you to your foster-parents, so you will not
be challenged."

I breathed more freely. I did not personally recognize Carrho, but he
looked pleasantly familiar. Guided by him, we climbed one by one up the
dark stairway inside the trunk, and emerged into the bright square,
shaded by the topmost leaves into a delicate green twilight. I felt
weary and successful.

Kendricks stepped gingerly on the swaying, jiggling floor of the square.
It gave slightly at every step, and Kendricks swore morosely in a
language that fortunately only Rafe and I understood. Curious trailmen
flocked to the street and twittered welcome and surprise.

* * * * *

Rafe and Kendricks betrayed considerable contempt when I greeted my
foster-parents affectionately. They were already old, and I was saddened
to see it; their fur graying, their prehensile toes and fingers crooked
with a rheumatic complaint of some sort, their reddish eyes bleared and
rheumy. They welcomed me, and made arrangements for the others in my
party to be housed in an abandoned house nearby ... they had insisted
that I, of course, must return to their roof, and Kyla, of course, had
to stay with me.

"Couldn't we camp on the ground instead?" Kendricks asked, eying the
flimsy shelter with distaste.

"It would offend our hosts," I said firmly. I saw nothing wrong with it.
Roofed with woven bark, carpeted with moss which was planted on the
floor, the place wa