d schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year to
play his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens."

"I don't fiddle."

"But your eyes are on the sky-fleet."

Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It's
strange," he murmured at last. "It's as if I know them--the star-birds,
I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking at
something I expected to happen ... or ... or...."

"Something familiar?"

"Yes."

"You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl
who sat on the cool rock by the spring.

Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't
believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief."

"How silly! What's that to do with it?"

"He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember
where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a
club toe in the spring.

Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like
sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on
the Geoark to make up its mind?"

"What do you think they'll do?"

"The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?"

"Tell them to go away."

"And suppose they chose not to go?"

The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the
Geoark."

"Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with
ours?"

"_Two_ Geoarks? What a strange idea."

"Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware
that I have one too?"

"Evon! What a _strange_ idea."

He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring,
then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling
complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the
glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the
gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to
wander into the clearing from the pathways.

"I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone
suggested.

"About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?"

"I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them."

"Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're _people_--such as you and I."

So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the
glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet.

PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KL