Climbing down the ladder in the open air, to the landing platform two hundred feet below might have created problems for anyone with a fear of heights, but it was nothing compared to the trip from the platform to the ground on a strand of plastic cable. I am not prone to acrophobia, but was still unnerved. I thought for a moment that the city had gained altitude since we had come aboard, but quickly realized that this was not so, as the cables were still trailing along the ground at about the same length.
“I’ll go down first,” I said. “Follow me.”
I wanted to make sure that if she fell, I would have a chance to catch her, and likewise if I were to fall, that I would not knock her off as well. She nodded, and I started down. The climb was much easier than I expected. I had gotten used to the effect that the lower gravity had upon me when I walked, ran, or picked something up. I had forgotten that the same principles would apply in this situation, allowing me to lift my own body with much greater ease than I would have had I been on Earth.
About half way down the cord to the ground, I stopped and looked up to check on the Princess’s progress. She was some thirty feet above me and seemed to be having no trouble with the descent. I paused for a moment to look around and noticed for the first time that as we were climbing down one rope, something was climbing up another. About fifty feet away from our position, a creature was ascending. It was horrible looking. It was frighteningly ugly. It was the stuff of nightmares. I was thankful for the eternal daylight of Ecos, for to face such a thing in the darkness was something I had no wish to contemplate. About twice the height of a man, the creature was covered with slime-dripping green hair. Its upper extremities were half hands, half flippers and its lower extremities were even more flipper-like, with suction cups lining the interiors. Its face was nothing more that a large sucker with a stinger or a long tusk protruding from it.
“Amath preserve us!” cried the Princess, seeing the thing for the first time.
“Indeed,” I replied, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“No, and I hope I never do again.”
The creature stared at us for several moments with its malevolent yellow eyes drilling holes into us. It then looked up and down. Then it attempted to swing the cord it was climbing, as if to, Tarzan-like, propel itself over to us. Quickly realizing that it would not be able to do so, it turned its attention away from us and resumed its task of making toward the hovering city.
“I hate to think of that thing preying on our flyers,” I said.
“Or the Kartags,” said Noriandara Remontar, and I agreed. I wouldn’t have turned that creature loose on a Zoasian.

Once we had eaten, the head avian stood up, and again motioned for us to follow him. He led us to the edge of the building and hopped off. Looking after him, I saw him fly up and enter the side of the building through an open window.
“I hope he doesn’t expect us to do the same,” I said, but a moment later he reappeared from the opening and flew back up to our position, this time carrying a rope stretching out from the window. When he reached our elevation, he took the end of the rope which he carried, and tied it around the base of one of the potted trees. He then pointed over the edge with his wing.
“Shall we climb down?” asked Noriandara Remontar.
“I don’t know how much more my arm can take,” I said, attempting to reminder her both that I had a broken arm, and that it had been broken in service to her.
“You are treating it like a mother’s mother’s elder sister,” she replied, which was an Amatharian expression something along the line of “babying it”– literally, treating it as you would treat a frail old great aunt.
I sighed, resigned to the knowledge that I would get no sympathy on the subject. It seemed that the Princess was, in general, an unsympathetic person. She quite reminded me of her aunt in that respect. Grasping the rope firmly, I stepped over the edge of the building top, and repelled down the side, twenty feet or so, until I reached the open window and entered. Noriandara Remontar was close behind me.
I don’t know what I expected– perhaps a feather-lined nest, but I was pleasantly surprised by what turned out to be our accommodations during our stay with the flyers. The room was about fourteen feet wide, and about twenty-five feet long. It was clean, and it was empty with the exception of two large sleeping mats made of heaps of soft grasses covered with smooth white cloth. Before I had a chance to examine anything else, our friendly avian arrived, pointed to the beds with his wing, and then left. I didn’t need to be told twice. I dropped down in the first of the beds and as usual had no trouble in dropping right off to sleep.
I suspect that I slept a long while, though as usual, I had no way to tell– it was still noon when I woke. It was a very restful sleep though, and I felt much better. The Princess sat on her bed and cleaned her weapons.
“You sleep too much,” she said.
“I have been told that,” I replied. “I don’t recall being a particularly heavy sleeper on my home world, but since I have been here in Ecos, I seem to require more sleep than anyone else around me.”
“Mm,” she replied.
“Do you suppose that my arm has healed yet?” I wondered. It was impossible to recall if it had been splinted for a week or six weeks.
“Probably.” Noriandara Remontar rose and crossed the room. She removed the remaining bits of cloth holding the splint to my ulna, and tossed the makeshift splints aside.
“Can you move it?”
“I haven’t stopped moving it since it was broken.”
“It must not be that bad then,” she replied unsympathetically.
I shrugged and started to clean my own weapons. The cleaning of one’s swords, or if one is not a warrior, one’s equipment in general, was a common Amatharian pass-time. It was a minor disgrace to have damaged or soiled equipment. It seemed that few Amatharians ever reached that state of disgrace, for Amatharian weapons needed little maintenance. Still the cleaning and maintaining of one’s equipment was just what one did during periods of relaxation.
While we were still sitting upon our beds, a flapping noise alerted us to the arrival of the old flyer, who stepped into our room. He now had a sack, tied with string, slung over his neck. After peering at each of us intently, which I took as an avian form of greeting, he removed his burden and opened it up. Inside, he had a collection of fruit much like that which had been given to us on our arrival. We each selected one of the offerings for our breakfast, and the flyer watched us as we ate. When we had finished, he indicated that he should climb up the rope to the top of the building.
Once atop the skyscraper, Noriandara Remontar and I found ourselves in the company of a large group of flyers. It seemed the entire community had turned out to welcome, or at least to examine us. The flyers were divided up into two groups– those who were brightly plumed and those who had relatively plain feathers. I still assumed that the brightly feathered ones were the males of the species. Several of these brightly colored individuals stepped forward and peered at us with what seemed to be a typical avian stare. One of these had a nasty cut across his chest. It had been stitched together with white thread.
“These must be the fellows who were fighting with the Kartags when we came along,” I suggested.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” replied my Amatharian companion.
The elder came forward again. He pointed at the two of us with his two extremities, and then made a sweeping motion toward his fellows.
“He is either welcoming us, or inviting us to join the tribe,” I said.
“I don’t suppose that there is much distinction,” replied Noriandara Remontar, “I doubt that they have many casual visitors up here on this floating little world of theirs.”

I stepped onto the ledge which looked as though it must have been a landing pad for some type of small air-going vessel. It was about sixty five feet square, and hung down about one hundred feet below the rest of the city. Standing at the edge were the metallic being who was now helping me onto the level surface of the deck, and Noriandara Remontar who was watching warily.
“I started to pull you up,” she explained, “but this thing took the rope from me and did it for me.”
“It looks like an automaton,” I said, using the closest word in the Amatharian vocabulary to robot. The creature stacked the rope neatly near the precipice, and began rolling around on wheeled feet, picking up debris here and there which had blown on to the deck. “It looks like a maintenance man.”
“That is not a man,” she sneered. “It is grotesque.”
“I thought Amatharians were more tolerant of other species. It is probably designed to look something like the Meznarks.”
“Oh it is,” she said. “The Meznarks had three eyes and four arms, just as this thing does. They have legs though and not wheels. It is not the Meznarks that I find so grotesque. It is this artificial representation of them.”
“They probably made their machines look as much like them as possible so that they could feel more comfortable around them.” I suggested.
“They should not be comfortable around them,” replied the Princess. “It is one thing to have a machine as a tool, to enhance one’s abilities. It is another thing entirely to have a machine as a replacement for a person, whether that replaced person is a companion, a coworker, a slave, or a master. It disgusts me.”
I nodded. I had known people who chose to make machines their masters, and it was disgusting, whether the machine was a robot, a computer terminal, or a time clock.
“Perhaps,” I changed the subject, “if there are machines still working here, then there may well be living Meznarks as well.”
“Hmm,” she said, still irked about the robot.
I began looking around for a way to the upper levels from the deck, and was rewarded with a platform on the side opposite where I had been lifted up. This platform was open on all sides but had a small raised control panel in the center of it, and another just beside the platform on the main deck.
“Looks like a down-going room,” I said, using the Amatharian term for elevator.
“Down-going room,” muttered the Princess.