d his skin turned green at the
memory. "If I don't get that last note, I may be this color the rest of
my life."

"Why don't you play what you've written so far. It's not very long, and
it might cheer you up a bit."

You're a good friend, Channeljumper, Longtree thought, and when Redsand
and I are married after the Music Festival we'll have you over to our
hole for dinner. As he thought this, he felt his body take on an orange
cast, and he felt better.

"I can't seem to get that last note," he said, picking up the blowstring
again and putting it into position. "The final note must be conclusive,
something complete in itself and yet be able to sum up the entire
meaning of the symphony preceding it."

Channeljumper hummed sympathetically. "That's a big job for one note. It
might be a sound no one has ever heard before."

Longtree shrugged. "It may even sound _alien_," he admitted, "but it's
got to be the right note."

"Play, and we'll see," Channeljumper urged.

Longtree played. And as he played, his features relaxed into a gentle
smile of happiness and his body turned orange. Delicately, he strummed
the three strings of the blowstring with his long-nailed fingers, softly
he pursed his frail lips and blew expertly into the mouthpiece.

From the instrument came sounds the like of which Channeljumper had
never before heard. The Martian sat and listened in evident rapture, his
body radiating a golden glow of ecstasy. He sat and dreamed, and as the
music played, his spine tingled with growing excitement. The music
swelled, surrounding him, permeating him, picking him up in a great hand
and sweeping him into new and strange and beautiful worlds--worlds of
tall metal structures, of vast stretches of greenness and of water and
of trees and of small pale creatures that flew giant metal insects. He
dreamed of these things which his planet Mars had not known for millions
of years.

After a while, the music stopped, but for a moment neither of them said
anything.

At last Channeljumper sighed. "It's beautiful," he said.

"Yes," Longtree admitted.

"But--" Channeljumper seemed puzzled--"but somehow it doesn't seem
complete. Almost, but not quite. As though--as though--"

Longtree sighed. "One more note would do it. One more note--no more, no
less--at the end of the crescendo could tie the symphony together and
end it. But which one? I've tried them all, and none of them fit!"

His voice had risen higher in his excit