'You've been sticky
like this for weeks now!'
He saw the bright brown eyes and felt the hair all over his face like
a bath of perfume. They rushed together. His heart beat faster....
'Who wants me in such a hurry?' he cried, the moment he was
disentangled. Laughter ran past him on every side from the world of
trees.
'As if you didn't know! What _is_ the good of pretending any longer!
You're both together in the Network, and you know it just as well as
she does!'
Pretending! Just as well as _she_ does!
As though he had eyes all over his body he saw the Net of Stars above
him. Below were forests, vineyards, meadows, and the tiny lights of
houses. In the distance shimmered the waters of a familiar lake. Great
purple mountains rolled against the sky line. But immediately over his
head, close yet also distant, filling the entire heavens, there hung a
glittering Pattern that he knew, grown now so vast that at first he
scarcely recognised its dazzling loveliness. From the painted western
horizon it stretched to other fastenings that dipped below the world,
where the East laid its gulfs of darkness to surprise the sun. It
swung proudly down, as though hung from the Pole Star towards the
north, and while the Great Bear 'pointers' tossed its embroidery
across Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, just rising, flung its further
fringes down to Orion, waiting in wonder to receive them far below the
horizon.
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