"We feel your thought...." They came down close around him. Their delicate membranes fluttered like fairy wings. Their golden eyes were huge and soft and pleading.
"Can you help us? Can you bring our mates back safe? They've forgotten everything. If The Others should come...."
"The Others?"
Lundy's brain was drowned in stark and terrible fear. Pictures came through it. Vague gigantic dreams of nightmare....
"They come, riding the currents that go between the hot cracks in the mountains and the cold deeps. They eat. They destroy." The little woman-things were shaken suddenly like leaves in a gust of wind.
"We hide from them in the buildings. We can keep them out, away from our seed and the little new ones. But our mates have forgotten. If The Others come while they follow Her, outside and away from safety, they'll all be killed. We'll be left alone, and there'll be no more seed for us, and no more little new ones."
They pressed in close around him, touching him with their small blue-grey fore-fins.
"Can you help us? Oh, can you help us?"
Lundy closed his eyes. His mouth twitched and set. When he opened his eyes again they were hard as agates.
"I'll help you," he said, "or die trying."