The Indulgence shivered and began a wobbling, drunken ascent. Nenda watched the ground as it drifted past on the viewscreens. They were at six feet — ten feet — still within reach of questing tentacles. The shoreline was approaching. The ship was crabbing sideways, slowly lifting. Engine power was nearing eighty percent.

“We’re going to make it, At. We’re lifting, and nothing aloft is stopping us.” Nenda glanced at a viewing screen. “Hold on, though. We got a problem. There’s a whole line of Zardalu, right at the edge of the beach. We might be low enough for them to grab us.”

“What are they doing?”

Nenda stared hard. He didn’t speak the Zardalu slave tongue all that well, and the body language was even harder to read. But the splayed lower tentacles and the upper two raised high above every Zardalu head, together with the wide-open gaping beaks, were an easy signal.

“You won’t believe this, At. But they’re cheering.”

“As they should be. For are we not demonstrating to them that, as promised, we are able to leave the surface of Genizee and go to space?”

“Yeah. But they won’t cheer so loud when they find out we’re not coming back. They were relying on us to get them off the planet and back into the spiral arm. They’re going to be mad as hell.”

“Perhaps so.” The ship was rising steadily, and the waving Zardalu were no more than blue dots on the gray-brown beach. Atvar H’sial settled into a more comfortable position at Nenda’s side. “But they ought to be most grateful.”

“Huh?” The Indulgence was moving faster, above the thick haze of Genizee’s lower atmosphere. Louis gave the Cecropian beside him only a fraction of his attention. Already he was beginning to worry about the next step. They might be off the planet, but they were still deep within the convoluted space-time of the Torvil Anfract.

“I assert, they should be grateful.” The pheromonal message carried with it an overtone of sleepy satisfaction.