Chapter 38

With Meiersdottir still comatose it fell to Heisinger to relate the momentous events of the past few hours to the Edenites. Hoping to preoccupy the collective, she planned to begin by noting that the need for the increased gravity they'd been enduring for the past few weeks had passed, and wouldn't return.

When she first arrived in the Edenform bay, though, it was immediately apparent that most of her thought-out commentary on the gravity would be redundant. Not only the Edenites themselves but also the animals accompanying them were clearly reveling in the return to their normal weight, and she was amused to see the amount of light-hearted frolicking that was going on.

The artificial waterway that ran through the bay was also seeing a huge volume of traffic. All land-based life on Eden, including even the aviators, shared a common excretory system, she knew. With no bodily openings for the purpose, they exuded waste in liquid form through pores in their hides that dilated and contracted by muscular control. It was usual for them to immerse themselves on a regular basis to wash away the residue.

With the intensified gravity, though, they'd been unable to follow this ritual; they would no longer float in the water. The Edenites themselves, she knew, had been swabbing themselves down with dampened cloths, fronds and other materials, and had even tried to do the same for their tamed beasts, but it had been at best a makeshift substitute.

My God, it must have been terribly unpleasant for them, she thought. Uncomfortable, too. And smelly. If Edenites have a sense of smell. I wonder do they? Amanda's never said, and it's not in the literature. Maybe they don't. I haven't smelled anything, but I'm not sure if I would even if there was something that might smell to an Edenite. Different biology. Oh, there's so much we have to learn about them.

She simply stood for a while and watched the various creatures bathe themselves. The Edenites were handling it in their usual orderly fashion, queuing up in an order she couldn't discern in one area of the stream. The livestock were, of course, much more disorganized, pushing and shoving as each sought its turn. The aviators, happily flying once more, tended to dive in anywhere there was momentarily free space, splash briefly in a fashion that reminded her strong­ly of the way Earthly birds behaved in birdbaths, and then exultantly fly off again.

The scrubbers—the cleansing equipment through which the flowing water passed on each rotation through the bay—were, she could see, going to be kept quite busy for a while.

So enthusiastically were the Edenites celebrating their long-awaited return to normal gravity that she stood for several minutes before one of them approached. It was, she recognized, Kukhakkhing, the second in seniority among the females. The Edenite greeted her with arms outstretched, and they touched hands.

"Have you waited long?" Kukhakkhing asked.

"Only a few minutes," replied Heisinger. "I've been enjoying the sight of everyone having such a good time now that the extra weight is gone."

"This time has been very difficult for us," the mother told her—unnecessarily, since she'd seen that for herself. "There is great happiness that it is finished. But will this come again?"

"No. That's one of the things I came to tell you. The power that makes the gravity on our ship normal, I mean the same as it is on your world and on our world too, we needed some of that power to help the engines that push this ship, that make it go. We had to hurry so we wouldn't be caught in the same fire that was coming to your world. But the need for this is finished, and it won't come again. There will be no extra weight again."

Once again Heisinger was astonished by how rapidly the alien collective could absorb information and draw conclusions from it. "Then we are now away from our world?" the mother asked with scarcely a pause.

"Yes, Kukhakkhing," she said. "We've left it far behind."