"Tel?" he called. He was a brown, wiry man whose leathery face was netted with lines from sand and wind. "Tel?" he called once more. Now he turned back into the cottage. "And where has the boy gotten off to now?" Grella had already seated herself at the loom, and her strong hands now began to work the shuttle back and forth while her feet stamped the treadle. "Where has he gone?" Cithon demanded. "He went out early this morning," Grella said quietly. She did not look at her husband. She watched the shuttle moving back and forth, back and forth between the green and yellow threads. "I can see he's gone out," Cithon snapped. "But where? The sun is up. He should be out with me on the boat. When will he be back?" Grella didn't answer. "When will he be back?" Cithon demanded. "I don't know." Outside there was a sound, and Cithon turned abruptly and went to the side of the shack. The boy was leaning over the water trough, sloshing his face. "Tel." The boy looked up quickly at his father. He was perhaps fourteen, a thin child, with a shock of black hair, yet eyes as green as the sea. Fear had widened them now. "Where were you?" "No place," was the boy's quietly defensive answer. "I wasn't doing anything." "Where were you?" "No place," Tel mumbled again. "Just walking...." Suddenly Cithon's hand, which had been at his waist jerked up and then down, and the leather strap that had been his belt slashed over the boy's wet shoulder. The only sound was a sudden intake of breath. "Now get down to the boat." Inside the shack, the shuttle paused in Grella's fist the length of a drawn breath. Then it shot once more between the threads. * * * * * Down the beach, the transit ribbon leapt across the water. Light shook on the surface of the sea like flung diamonds, and the ribbon above was dull by comparison. Dawn reached across the water till at last the early light fell on the shore of an island. High in the air, the ribbon gleamed above the busy piers and the early morning traffic of the wharf. Behind the piers, the towers of the City were lanced with gold, and as the sun rose, gold light dropped further down the building faces. On the boardwalk, two merchants were talking above the roar of tetron-powered winches and chuckling carts. "It looks like your boat's bringing in a cargo of fish," said the stout one. "It could be fish. It could be something else," answered the other. "Tell me, friend," asked the portly one, whose coat was of cut and cloth expensive enough to suggest his guesses were usually right, "why do you trouble to send your boat all the way to the mainland to buy from the little fishermen there? My aquariums can supply the City with all the food it needs." The other merchant looked down at the clip-board of inventory slips. "Perhaps my clientele is somewhat different from yours."