. Iak and Karrn were whispering together at the far end of the
glade, and had not heard her.

Letha shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk again, sitting
spraddle-legged this time in the hope of catching Evon's eye. She was a
graceful girl, and while gracefulness is sometimes feline, Letha's was
more nearly kittenish. She was full-bodied and soft, but well-shaped in
spite of a trace of plumpness. Thick masses of black hair fell over
baby-skin shoulders in a pleasing contrast, and while her face was a bit
too round, it radiated a gentle, winning grin, and the sympathetic gaze
of gray-blue eyes. Now she seemed ready to pout. Evon remained
self-absorbed.

"I think we should tell them to go away," she repeated a little sharply.
"They'll all be big and swashbuckling and handsome, and the children
will become unmanageable as soon as they see them. All the little girls
will swoon, and all the little boys will want to go with them."

Evon glanced at her briefly. "It's up to the elders of the Geoark," he
muttered without interest, and prepared to return to his own
meditations.

"And all the _big_ girls will run away with them," she purred with a
tight smile, and stretched a languorous leg out in front of her to
waggle her foot.

Evon shot her a quick glance, held it for a moment, then looked skyward
again. She pursed her lips in irritation and glared at him. Gradually,
she forgave him. Evon was distraught. He _must_ be--because she hadn't
seen him sit still this long in years. He was _always_ doing something,
or looking for something to do. It wasn't like Evon just to sit still
and think. He was a restless, outgoing fellow, nearly always reacting
boisterously, or laughing his staccato laugh. Now he just sat there and
looked puzzledly in the direction of the sky-fleet. Looking puzzled
didn't fit his face, somehow. It was a bony brown face, slightly oily,
with a long narrow jaw that jutted forward like a plowshare under an
elastic smirk. It was a rubbery kind of a face, the kind that could
twist into horrid masks for the amusement of the young. Now it just
drooped.

She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding.

"You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked.

He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head.

"To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added.

"_Me?_ What _are_ you thinking of, Letha?"

"Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me of
an ol