"You won't have to do that," Joseph said. "My crew and I are going to be space pirates."
Then Wellesley laughed aloud, and felt better afterward than he had felt in many a long month.
The trail through the swamp was damp and primitive. Everywhere the cycads, giant ferns and reeds overhung the path. There were great, blood-colored flowers which snapped at twigs that Joseph put into their corollas.
Meanwhile, the ferrax-beast labored behind them, following with its proboscis to the ground, until the boy, taking pity, picked it up and carried it. Wellesley asked its name.
"His name is Omur," Joseph said. "I caught him in the mountains when he was little and raised him. But now Omur is too fat to walk."
Eventually they emerged into an open swale, with a stretch of dark water before them. On the other side of the slough lay a sight well worth a day's march. Dozens of giant pipes, some two hundred feet or more in height, stood braced against the sky, pastel blue, pink, and gold in the mists.
But Wellesley was less interested in these than the creatures which moved like grubs about their base, at the edge of the lake—squat, grotesque forms that waded the shallow water, scavenging for shellfish and crustaceans, and took no notice of the humans.
