like fractures in frosted windowpanes; hidden caverns, like chains of darkbubbles; seventeen known dangerous predators, ranging from one to six metersin length, excessively furred and fanged; sudden hailstorms, like hurledhammerheads from a clear sky; an icecap like a blue beret at eitherflattened pole; nervous bipeds a meter and a half in height, short oncerebrum, which wander the shallow forests and prey upon the giantcaterpillar's larva, as well as the giant caterpillar, the green bird, theblind burrower, and the offal-eating murkbeast; seventeen mighty rivers;clouds like pregnant purple cows, which quickly cross the land to lie-inbeyond the visible east; stands of windblasted stones like frozen music;nights like soot, to obscure the lesser stars; valleys which flow like thetorsos of women or instruments of music; perpetual frost in places ofshadow; sounds in the morning like the cracking of ice, the trembling oftin, the snapping of steel strands...

They knew they would turn it to heaven.

The vanguard arrived, decked out in refrigeration suits, installed tenWorldchange units in either hemisphere, began setting up cold-sleep bunkersin several of the larger caverns.

Then came the members of December down from the sand-colored sky.

They came and they saw, decided it was almost heaven, then enteredtheir caverns and slept. Over twenty-eight thousand Coldworld Catforms(modified per Alyonal) came into their own world to sleep for a season insilence the sleep of ice and of stone, to inherit the new Alyonal. There isno dreaming in that sleep. But had there been, their dreams might have beenas the thoughts of those yet awake.

"It is bitter, Sanza."

"Yes, but only for a time--"

"...To have each other and our own world, and still to go forth like