Rak asked in solemn curiosity, "For what is it good?"
"To make us laugh," Paul said, "so long as we're kind to it."
"Ah?" Rak moved his fingers to aid the patient mill of his mind.
"Dance-Nose," said Muson, who already understood. She shook all over. "Come, Funny-Nose." It would not—yet, but Muson could be patient too.
Sears whispered in his beard, "Less homesick?"
"Yes...."
After the meal Arek wanted Paul to come out on the cliffs. Though there seemed no danger from the omasha, she carried a long stick and Paul took his pistol. The slope leveled out to the bare rock of the headland; the ocean voice was the humming of a thousand giants. The way was easy, with no crevasses, no peril while the wind was mild. Arek had often been out here alone. Yesterday Paul had seen her standing for an hour, watching the west where unbroken water met a sun-reddened horizon. In her earlier years there might have been dim mention of the sea by her almost wordless people, but no true knowledge: the mainland coast was steaming vine-choked jungle, or tidal marsh, and shut away by the kaksma hills. Paul wondered what member of his race could stand for an hour in contemplation like a thinking tree, not shifting a foot nor raising an arm...?
"Paul, why did you leave Earth?" Arek patted the rock beside her.
Below the troubled water laughed, endlessly defeated and returning. Cloud fantasies gathered below a lucid green, and the wind was a friend. "I have doubted sometimes whether we ought to have done so."
"That wasn't my meaning. We love you. Didn't you know? But I've wondered what sent you away from such a place. Ann says it was beautiful."