the captives were painful to look on . all had some kind of deformity . one had no legs . one had no flesh on his lower jaw . one had four gnarled dwarf arms . one had short wings of flesh connecting ear lobes and thumbs , so that he lived perpetually with hands half raised to his face . one had boneless arms trailing at his side and one boneless leg . one had monstrous wings which trailed about him like a carpet . one was hiding his ill-shaped form away behind a screen of his own excrement , smearing it onto the transparent walls of his cell . and one had a second head , a small wizened thing growing from the first that fixed Lily-yo with a malevolent eye . this last captive , who seemed to lead the others , spoke now , using the mouth of his main head . I am the Chief captive . I greet you . you are of the heavy world . we are of the true world . now you join us because you are of us . though your wings and your scars are new , you may join us . I am Lily-yo . we three are humans . you are only flymen . we will not join you . the captives grunted in boredom . the Chief captive spoke again . always this talk from you of the heavy world ! you have joined us . you are flymen , we are human . you know little , we know much . but we - stop your stupid talk , woman ! we are - be silent , woman , and listen , Band Appa Bondi said . we know much , repeated the Chief captive . some things we will tell you . all who make the journey from the heavy world become changed . some die . most live and grow wings . between the worlds are many strong rays , not seen or felt , which change our bodies . when you come here , when you come to the true world , you become a true human . the grub of the tigerfly is not a tigerfly until it changes . so humans change . I can not know what he says , Haris said stubbornly , throwing himself down . but Lily-yo and Flor were listening . to this true world , as you call it , we come to die , Lily-yo said , doubtingly . the captive with the fleshless jaw said , the grub of the tigerfly thinks it dies when it changes into a tigerfly . you are still young , said the Chief captive . you begin newly here . where are your souls ? Lily-yo and Flor looked at each other . in their flight from the wiltmilt they had heedlessly thrown down their souls . Haris had trampled on his . it was unthinkable ! you see . you needed them no more . you are still young . you may be able to have babies . some of those babies may be born with wings . the captive with the boneless arms added , some may be born wrong , as we are . some may be born right . you are too foul to live ! Haris growled . why are you not killed ? because we know all things , the Chief captive said . suddenly his second head roused itself and declared , to be a good shape is not all in life . to know is also good . because we can not move well we can - think . this tribe of the true world is good and knows these things . so it lets us rule it . Flor and Lily-yo muttered together . do you say that you poor captives rule the true world ? Lily-yo asked at last . we do . then why are you captives ? the flyman with ear lobes and thumbs connected , making his perpetual little gesture of protest , spoke for the first time . to rule is to serve , woman . those who bear power are slaves to it . only an outcast is free . because we are captives , we have the time to talk and think and plan and know . those who know command the knives of others . no hurt will come to you , Lily-yo , Band Appa Bondi added . you will live among us and enjoy your life free from harm . no ! the Chief captive said with both mouths . before she can enjoy , Lily-yo and her companion Flor - this other man creature is plainly useless - must help our great plan . the invasion ? Bondi asked . what else ? Flor and Lily-yo , you arrive here at a good time . memories of the heavy world and its savage life are still fresh in you . we need such memories . so we ask you to go back there on a great plan we have . go back ? gasped Flor . yes . we plan to attack the heavy world . you must help to lead our force . 6 . the long afternoon of eternity wore on , that long golden road of an afternoon that would somewhere lead to everlasting night . motion there was , but motion without event - except for those negligible events that seemed so large to the creatures participating in them . for Lily-yo , Flor and Haris there were many events . chief of these was that they learned to fly properly . the pains associated with their wings soon died away as the wonderful new flesh and tendon strengthened . to sail up in the light gravity became an increasing delight - the ugly flopping movements of flymen on the heavy world had no place here . they learned to fly in packs , and then to hunt in packs . in time they were trained to carry out the captives &apos; plan . the series of accidents that had first delivered humans to this world in burnurns had been a fortunate one , growing more fortunate as millennia tolled away . for gradually the humans adapted better to the true world . their survival factor became greater , their power surer . and all this as on the heavy world conditions grew more and more adverse to anything but the giant vegetables . Lily-yo at least was quick to see how much easier life was in these new conditions . she sat with Flor and a dozen others eating pulped pluggyrugg , before they did the captives &apos; bidding and left for the heavy world . it was hard to express all she felt . here we are safe , she said , indicating the whole green land that sweltered under the silver network of webs . except from the tigerflies , Flor agreed . they rested on a bare peak , where the air was thin and even the giant creepers had not climbed . the turbulent green stretched away below them , almost as if they were on earth - although here it was continually checked by the circular formations of rock . this world is smaller , Lily-yo said , trying again to make Flor know what was in her head . here we are much bigger . we do not need to fight so much . soon we must fight . then we can come back here again . this is a good place , with nothing so savage and with not so many enemies . here the groups could live without so much fear . Veggy and Toy and May and Gren and the other little ones would like it here . they would miss the trees . we shall soon miss the trees no longer . we have wings instead . this idle talk took place beneath the unmoving shadow of a rock . overhead , silver blobs against a purple sky , the transversers went , walking their networks , descending only occasionally to the celeries far below . as Lily-yo fell to watching these creatures , she thought in her mind of the grand plan the captives had hatched , she flicked it over in a series of vivid pictures . yes , the captives knew . they could see ahead as she could not . she and those about her had lived like plants , doing what came . the captives were not plants . from their cells they saw more than those outside . this , the captives saw : that the few humans who reached the true world bore few children , because they were old , or because the rays that made their wings grow made their seeds die : that it was good here , and would be better still with more humans ; that one way to get more humans here was to bring babies and children from the heavy world . for countless time , this had been done . brave flymen had travelled back to that other world and stolen children . the flymen who had once attacked Lily-yo &apos;s group on their climb to the tips had been on that mission . they had taken Bain to bring her to the true world in burnurns - and had not been heard of since . many perils and mischances lay in that long double journey . of those who set out , few returned . now the captives had thought of a better and more daring scheme . here comes a traverser , Band Appa Bondi said . let us be ready to move . he walked before the pack of twelve flyers who had been chosen for this new attempt . he was the leader . Lily-yo , Flo and Haris were in support of him , together with eight others , three male , five female . only one of them , Band Appa Bondi himself , had been carried to the true world as a boy . slowly the pack stood up , stretching their wings . the moment for their great adventure was here . yet they felt little fear ; they could not look ahead as the captives did , except perhaps for Band Appa Bondi and Lily-yo . she strengthened her will by saying , it is the way . then they all spread their arms wide and soared off to meet the traverser . the traverser had eaten . it had caught one of its most tasty enemies , a tigerfly , in a web , and had sucked it till only a shell was left . now it sank down into a bed of celeries , crushing them under its great bulk . gently , it began to bud . afterwards , it would head out for the great black gulfs , where heat and radiance called it . it had been born on this world . being young , it had never yet made that dreaded , desired journey . its buds burst up from its back , hung over , popped , fell to the ground , and scurried away to bury themselves in the pulp and dirt where they might begin their ten thousand years &apos; growth in peace . young though it was , the traverser was sick . it did not know this . the enemy tigerfly had been at it , but it did not know this . its vast bulk held little sensation . the twelve humans glided down and landed on its back , low down on the abdomen in a position hidden from the creature &apos;s cluster of eyes . they sank among the tough shoulder-high fibres that served the traverser as hair , and looked about them . a ray-plane swooped overhead and disappeared . a trio of tumbleweeds skittered into the fibres and were seen no more . all was as quiet as if they lay on a small deserted hill . at length they spread out and moved along in a line , heads down , eyes searching , Band Appa Bondi at one end , Lily-yo at the other . the great body was streaked and pitted and scarred , so that progress down the slope was not easy . the fibre grew in patterns of different shades , green , yellow , black , breaking up the traverser &apos;s bulk when seen from the air , serving it as natural camouflage . in many places , tough parasitic plants had rooted themselves , drawing their nourishment entirely from their host ; most of them would die when the traverser launched itself out between worlds . the humans worked hard . once they were thrown flat when the traverser changed position . as the slope down which they moved grew steeper , so progress became more slow . here ! cried Y Coyin , one of the women . at last they had found what they sought , what the captives sent them to seek . clustering round Y Coyin with their knives out , the pack looked down . here the fibres had been neatly champed away in swathes , leaving a bare patch as far across as a human was long . in this patch was a round scab . Lily-yo felt it . it was immensely hard . Lo Jint put his ear to it . silence . they looked at each other . no signal was needed , none given . together they knelt , prising with their knives round the scab . once the traverser moved , and they threw themselves flat . 