Prell's brows knitted, his mind probably steeped in the swift, strange action to come. Barbara gave a soundless laugh.
"The crotch of an oak!" her lips commented. "What a trysting place! But it seems natural enough. Are we mad, or were we once just dull?"
Was her gaiety just bravado, or was she as cool as she seemed? Ed hoped that she was cool. Tugging at the linten line that joined them, Ed drew himself close to her.
"You don't have to speak, Eddie," she told him. "I know what you're thinking. But why shouldn't I—and all of us—be all right?"
Her face had sobered. She looked strong. And so he was somewhat relieved. He kissed her. Perhaps it was odd that dust-mote beings still could do that.
[VIII]
Ed and Barbara and Prell came to the parting of the ways sooner than they had intended. Without instruments, it was hard to judge velocity. They did not use their Midas Touch cylinders quite long enough to check speed sufficiently as they approached the great blue-green planet with its blurred ring. They hit the atmosphere, not really fast, but fast enough. Briefly, sound was reborn around them in a shrieking whistle, like a vast, thin wind. They tumbled over and over, and the strand that kept them together was broken. Tumultuous currents of the high ionosphere separated and scattered them as they plummeted lower.
Ed was unhurt. And did he hear—more in his imagination than his ears, here in the muffling semi-vacuum—a distant laugh and shout: "It's all right, Eddie ..."? The impression faded away, like the voice of some gay sprite vanishing. He'd thought before of losing Barbara. Now they were two specks, separated from each other in the infinity of the terrestrial atmosphere. Even with the logic of plan and method, there was still some unbelief about how they would ever find each other again.
Using his radio, he tried to call. But there was no answer. The microscopic instrument could pick up messages from powerful stations millions of miles away. But for transmission, its range and that of those like it had to be ridiculously short: perhaps a score of yards—a fair distance in proportionate units.