Then he rippled slightly, like a reflection in water, and was gone.
Torcred was hardly conscious of how they squirmed out of range of the pillbox people's venomous annoyance. Ladna, brushing tangled black hair out of her eyes, was first to break the silence.
"Was that what you saw yesterday?"
"Uh-huh," admitted Torcred glumly. "But you saw. He wasn't real at all."
"Did we see the same? He was blown to bits, and reassembled himself unhurt?" Torcred nodded. "Then there was something there."
"What?" he demanded, irked by her superior reasoning.
"I don't know.... But I remember something. A month ago, a man in strange clothing like that—a real man of flesh and blood—came to our eyrie. No one knew where he came from, or where he went when they laughed him to scorn."
"They laughed—why?"
"Because he talked about 'civilization' to every one who would listen—but he didn't seem to realize that the civilization of the air is necessarily the highest. And he said we should make peace with all other creatures—even the buzzards!—and refrain from hunting, and practise photosynthesis like the lesser races." She wrinkled her peeling nose. "If that weren't enough, he mixed his talk with old legends—stories of the ancients, and the floating cities."
"I've heard—" Torcred began, looking impressed. The girl smiled loftily.