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retired, asking for Delm Korval. The demand having been made in that melant’i , Mr. pel’Kana had of course to pass the message, despite the hour.
    So, the message was relayed, and Uncle Val Con had come himself to stand Korval and receive the Scouts, leaving the delmae to her rest, which the gods knew she—and that was when Mrs. ana’Tak had seen him, and asked if he’d come for his morning apple.
    Syl Vor admitted this, and the fruit was bestowed. There was no help for it then but that he leave the kitchen. And neither Mr. pel’Kana or Mrs. ana’Tak said one word more.
    Some time later, apple eaten and lessons done, he went in search of company, or, if not company, then . . . occupation.
    Everybody had something useful to do, except for him.
    Aunt Miri was busy with Aunt Priscilla; Uncle Ren Zel was busy with Mr. Brunner, the weather tech; Granduncle Daav had gone out early to visit Boss Sherton; Aunt Anthora was doing something ; and Grandaunt Kareen was going into town to meet with the Civics Committee. Even Eztina was busy, stalking leaves in the inner garden.
    Mrs. pel’Esla had recommended that he work ahead of his tutor, but he had already finished all the modules at his current level and lacked the key code necessary to access the next. She had then recommended that he find a book or play a match game, but the books in the nursery library were boring, and the counterchance program had performed a disallowed move that put him unjustly in peril, and besides that, it was bright and sunny outside.
    After having studied upon that fact for an entire half hour, Syl Vor put on his sweater, jacket, hat and gloves, then let himself out by the west patio and was soon walking briskly across the crunchy brown grass.
    If he had exited Trealla Fantrol by the west patio, he would have gone across the lawn to the edge of the trees, then down a path which eventually found and followed the stream. A little way on, there was a place where the rocks were close enough together that a boy who was steady on his feet could use them as a bridge across the stream. On the other side was a meadow, and another path, not so well marked, that ended at the fence, though Syl Vor hardly ever went all that way by himself.
    He didn’t mean to go far today—only a walk, on their own land, to see something different from the inside garden.
    Before long, he had taken off his gloves and his hat and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket, which he had unsealed. The day was cooler than a similarly bright day would be at ho— on Liad, but the combination of the sun, a lack of breeze and a rather spanking pace soon warmed him. Indeed, he was considering removing the jacket, too, when he came to the crack in the world.
    The sight of the irregular joining of the land that had come to Surebleak with Jelaza Kazone, and the land that had been here all along, gave Syl Vor pause. This was the border with their nearest neighbor, Mr. Shaper. One had been cautioned that Mr. Shaper was sometimes irritable and unwelcoming of visitors. One had been told not to cross over the boundary unless explicitly invited, and never to tease or in any way harm Mr. Shaper’s cats.
    That last had hardly been necessary, Syl Vor thought, irritable at the memory. He approached the boundary with a certain amount of curiosity. Unlike the browning grasses he walked on, each step waking a crunch, the grass on the far side of the boundary was green—short and sharp-looking, but green.
    Native grass, Syl Vor thought, which had adapted. He had learned about adaptation and useful mutations and cross-breeding. Perhaps the grass from home would breed with the Surebleak grass and so learn how to survive in this changed climate.
    He was at the boundary now, the toes of his boots just barely not over the edge of Korval land. Granduncle Daav had told him that, when first the house and land had been grounded within the old quarry that it now occupied, the gap between Mr. Shaper’s land