Between the age of twelve and fifteen she had spent at least one day of every weekend here. During her holidays, summer and winter, she had often defied her father's wishes and camped overnight. What had made the place such an attraction, apart from its obvious beauty, was the fact that it was secret secret - a place she could call her own, a paradise from which her father and her minders were excluded. - a place she could call her own, a paradise from which her father and her minders were excluded.

Then, in the summer holidays of her fourteenth year, she'd discovered that someone else used her lagoon. What could have been a crushing blow turned out to be a miracle that made her secret extra-special.

She recalled the evening as if it were yesterday.

Her father was having guests for dinner, and he wanted Ella present to serve the food and pour the drinks and talk about how well she was doing at school, but the draw of the lagoon was too much. She had slipped from the house and ran up the zig-zag track to the final bend before the summit.

She had pushed her way through the fringe of shrubs and...

At first she thought the figure standing on the camel's hump of rock in the centre of the lagoon was a naked boy of around her own age. Suffused with rage and indignation, she stepped forward to shout or remonstrate.

Then she stopped. Her rage evaporated, replaced by fear - fear at having her expectations so thoroughly subverted - for the boy was not a boy at all. Ella experienced a sudden, chill dread of the unfamiliar, the unknown.

The boy was not a boy, but an alien; a member of the Lho-Dharvo people. It was tall and spectacularly elongated, and Ella's first reaction was revulsion, even though there was something beautiful about the tone of its copper-bronze skin.

Its stance on the rock was not a human stance. It stood with its arms outstretched slightly behind it, its head tilted back, eyes closed.

A shiver coursed down her spine.

This was the first Lho-Dharvon Ella had ever seen, though she had watched anthropological films about them on vid-screen, and read articles in magazines and on discs. They were a tribal people, nomadic for part of the year, who herded animals similar to goats and lived off the land. They were at the stage of their evolution that corresponded to h.o.m.o sapien's h.o.m.o sapien's stone-age, and a xeno-anthropologist working with them over thirty years ago had recorded their religious beliefs in a work known as the Book of the Lho. They lived on all four continents of the Reach, in conditions ranging from polar to desert. Ella had never heard mention of the fact that a tribe was living so close to the Falls. stone-age, and a xeno-anthropologist working with them over thirty years ago had recorded their religious beliefs in a work known as the Book of the Lho. They lived on all four continents of the Reach, in conditions ranging from polar to desert. Ella had never heard mention of the fact that a tribe was living so close to the Falls.

She watched the alien for the next ten minutes. It maintained its odd pose, unmoving. Wanting to get closer, Ella edged around the lagoon, always ensuring that she was concealed by shrubbery. At last she was as close as she could get to the creature, on an overhang of rock above the water, concealed by scant, sprouting gra.s.s. She knelt and stared down.

She could not tell to which s.e.x it belonged. Where its reproductive organ should have been was nothing more than a slight protuberance. It was so thin and long that it seemed that its torso and limbs had been stretched. She stared and stared, and could not decide whether she saw more of its alienness or its humanity: one moment she was taken in by its familiar features and thought it human, and the next it appeared horribly alien in its crude mimicry of the human form. Watching the alien was like looking at an optical illusion that the brain had worked out at one second, and lost the next.

Its eyes were ma.s.sive, bulging and lidded like those of a toad. Its nose was almost non-existent, two tiny slits, and its mouth was similarly atrophied. Thin lips curved around the hull of its jaw in a thin, stoic, reptilian line.

Ella was wondering whether she had seen enough when the alien opened its eyes - its lids dropping from underneath, she saw - and stared directly at her. In panic she tried to scramble away, but lost her footing and slipped from the overhang. She struck her head as she fell, and in a second of panic she was aware of the warm, cloying water enveloping her as she slipped into oblivion.

She had no idea how long she was unconscious. When she came to her senses she was lying on her side on the flat rock she used as a diving platform. She tried to sit up, and cried out in pain. The back of her head throbbed as if someone was. .h.i.tting it from the inside with a hammer. She touched her hair, and her fingers came away smeared with blood. She peered at the collar of her blouse and saw that that too was blood-soaked. At the thought of how her father might react, she quickly removed her blouse, crouched at the water's edge and scrubbed it thoroughly.

Only then did she recall the alien. She looked across to the camel's hump on which it had stood, but it was no longer there. Then she looked up at the overhang from which she'd fallen, a good ten metres above her. There was no tide in the pool, of course. There was no way she could have fetched up here without...

Hard on the realisation that the alien had saved her life, she experienced first revulsion that the creature had actually touched her, and then a profound amazement that something so... so alien alien had bothered to save her life - the kind of amazement she might have felt had she been saved by a monkey or a bear. had bothered to save her life - the kind of amazement she might have felt had she been saved by a monkey or a bear.

Then she saw the alien. It was crouching three metres from her, its long shins drawn up before its chest, its elongated head peering at her from above the peaks of its bony knees.

Ella jumped up in fright - at the same time trying to drag on her blouse to cover her nakedness - but the pain in her head forced her down again. Sobbing, she fumbled with the wet, clinging material, finally getting it on and fastening the studs.

All the time she watched the alien, as if it might spring up and attack her at any second.

When it did move, she was ready. The alien unfolded itself to its full height and took a step towards her. She scrambled to her feet, trying to ignore the insistent throbbing in her head. She backed off, sobbing in fear and confusion.

"Don't come near me!" she screamed. "Why did you have to come here anyway?" And she knelt and found a rock and hurled it at the frozen alien. It missed by a long way, sailing over its head, but the creature never flinched. It regarded Ella without expression as she ran off through the bushes to the track.

By the time she reached her father's villa she was sick with exhaustion and shame. The party had broken up - she must have been unconscious for longer than she'd thought. Her minder was swimming in the artificial lagoon behind the house, and her father was in the lounge, staring through the picture window at the sunset. He didn't even look around as Ella hurried to her room. She showered and washed her b.l.o.o.d.y clothes, hanging them on her balcony rail to dry, then lay on her bed and thought through the events of that evening, the alien and her reaction to it. The contusion at the base of her skull was the size of a racquet-ball, but that had nothing to do with the fact that she slept little that night.

For disobeying her father's orders and not attending the party, she was not allowed out of the villa for a week. In the circ.u.mstances she could think of no worse punishment. She wanted nothing more than to find the alien, to make amends for her ungrateful behaviour.

She used the week to good effect; she remained in her room and made a gift for the Lho-Dharvon. On the first day of her freedom, she rushed up to the lagoon. She waited for hours but there was no sign of the alien. The following day she returned, and her heart jumped as she pushed through the bushes and saw, on the rock in the centre of the lagoon, the slim golden Lho, arms outstretched behind it, head in the air. She moved around the water's edge, her resolve to confront the being and apologise diminishing with a renewal of her uneasiness at the creature's very alienness alienness.

She crouched on the flat rock and watched for perhaps thirty minutes. At the end of that time, it opened its eyes and gracefully lowered its arms. It did not seem surprised to see her.

Startling her, it dived into the water without the slightest splash, emerged just as cleanly and leapt onto the rock before her. It paused, crouching, and regarded her with ma.s.sive eyes which nict.i.tated every ten seconds from the bottom up.

She gripped the gift in her hand, but it was as if she were paralysed and could not hold it out for the alien to take. Her mouth was dry; words would not come.

The alien reached out an arm which ended in a long hand with three long, slim fingers and a stubby thumb. Ella marshalled her panic, fought her very real revulsion.

She closed her eyes and swallowed.

She felt gentle fingers probing the b.u.mp at the back of her head. When the fingers withdrew, Ella opened her eyes. The alien was staring into her face, its expression unreadable. Perhaps it found the arrangement of her eyelids as strange as she found its?

Then it dabbed the centre of Ella's forehead with its middle finger in a gesture that obviously meant something, turned and walked towards the jungle. Even the spry articulation of its gait was entirely dissimilar to that of a human.

"Wait!" Ella found herself calling.

More, she thought, in surprise at her shout than with any understanding of her command, the alien paused and turned to her. Ella approached, held the painted rock out at arm's length.

The alien accepted it, turned it over and regarded the painting.

"It's you," Ella said. "I did it myself. I thought it appropriate, a rock for the one I threw at you. I know you don't understand, but..." And she shrugged, realising the futility of her words.

The alien looked from Ella to the gift. It was on a long thong, but rather than hang it around its neck, it wound it around its thin wrist, grasping the rock in its hand.

"Before you go," Ella said, and shrugged. "I don't know... Will you be here again tomorrow?"

She took off her watch and stepped a little closer to the alien. She displayed her watch and tried to indicate the pa.s.sage of thirty-six hours.

"Here, same time, tomorrow?"

But what hope, she told herself, had she of making the alien understand something as abstract as the pa.s.sage of time divided into human hours?

It regarded her without any sign of comprehension, then disappeared quickly into the jungle.

The following day, when she pushed through the bushes with no real hope, but expectation bubbling within her, the alien was waiting for her on the flat rock.

Now, Ella moved around the lagoon, tears of joy in her eyes. Her memories were so vivid, so alive. There was the camel's hump of rock, and she could see it standing there, could see it diving into the water, emerging with the quick sleek grace of a seal. She stood on the flat of rock on which they had sun-bathed, and stared across the water.

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

They had met at the lagoon on every weekend for the next four months.

At first they remained within the confines of the lagoon, diving and swimming in the calm blue water. There was little communication between them other than gestures, and they were often so bizarre on the part of the alien - and no doubt hers were to it, too - that she often failed completely to understand its meaning. It spoke occasionally in a soft whispery rush, but the only thing she understood was its name: L'Endo-kharriat, or so she wrote it in her diary, where she kept a detailed account of their meetings. There seemed to be a clicking pause between the consonant and the vowel of the first part of its name, and a shorter pause before the second word. L'Endo-kharriat...

As for its s.e.x... Ella could not be sure. They shared a friendship that was platonic, like that between girlfriends, but for some reason, as time wore on, Ella came increasingly to think of the Lho as a male, perhaps in compensation for the fact that at school no boy had yet shown an interest in her.

At one point every time they met, L'Endo would swim to the camel's hump and perform his strange ritualistic statue-impression, which could last up to thirty minutes. It seemed at these times that he was in a trance, oblivious of Ella and the lagoon around him. One day when he rejoined Ella on the flat rock and lay beside her, golden and spangled with water, she indicated the camel's hump and asked, "Why, L'Endo?"

He stared at her. "Why?" he breathed, and said no more. Ella shrugged to herself and reflected that she might never know. he breathed, and said no more. Ella shrugged to herself and reflected that she might never know.

The following week, before commencing his ritual, L'Endo pointed across to the rock. "Why," he said. Then, "Give thanks," he said, but without any indication that he understood the words. "For life."

Ella nodded, intrigued by the fact that there was a member of his tribe who could speak English.

The months pa.s.sed, and they left the lagoon and explored the upper reaches of the plateau so far left undeveloped by the colonists. It was a magical realm of caves and grottoes, spectacular waterfalls and placid lagoons. L'Endo showed her tunnels which riddled the mountainside, secret pa.s.sages leading from lagoon to lagoon, strange flowers she had never seen before and even stranger animals.

In return for L'Endo's showing her the wonder of the plateau, on one occasion Ella led him to a nearby dome whose owners were away on vacation. She broke in through a cooling vent and they crawled inside. She had become so accustomed to seeing L'Endo where he belonged, in his home environment where his alienness seemed natural, that seeing him in a human habitat once again made her aware of how very strange - how very alien alien, there was no other word for it - he was.

He seemed uncomfortable in the hi-tech dome, like a stone-age man in a s.p.a.ceship. Ella showed him all the technological wonders; the synthesiser and vid-screen, the ultra-son shower and the walls of the dome which polarised during the day. L'Endo was quiet and watchful, his eyes half-cupped by their lower lids in an expression Ella thought might denote wonder or suspicion. They left after one hour, returned to the lagoon and sported in the water.

Then, two weeks later, L'Endo failed to turn up at the lagoon. Ella was there at the same time as ever, but there was no sign of the Lho. It was the first time he had failed to show for four months, and Ella was worried. Perhaps their meetings meant less to him than they did to her, and he had quite simply grown bored with the company of the strange human? She had no idea where she might find him, where his tribe was encamped.

Ella waited for three hours, and was about to leave when she saw, through the trees that partially concealed a narrow fissure in the rockface, a familiar alien form. She leapt to her feet, her heart skipping, but the alien was not L'Endo.

It approached Ella with long, nimble strides, an old, bowed Lho whose skin was mottled and faded. It regarded Ella through half-cupped eyes.

"Ella Hunter?" It asked her, and she knew then who L'Endo had spoken to in order to explain his ritual.

"Where's L'Endo?"

"L'Endo-kharriat wishes to see you. This way..."

"Is he okay?" she asked desperately. "Please, what's wrong?"

The old Lho turned and walked away without replying.

Now Ella sat cross-legged on the flat rock beside the lagoon and stared at the sunset. Was it really ten years since she had last been here? She remembered the events of all those years ago as if they had happened yesterday. She recalled minutely what happened next, every last detail of the climb to the summit and what she found there; she relived the horror of it, and also the wonder.

Ella had followed the old alien into the fissure in the rock. As they walked the defile widened, became a gorge with jungle plants clinging to its sides. They climbed a narrow path, the old alien pacing ahead with long, sure-footed strides. The rockface on each side tilted back, opened out to form an ever-widening valley. Well-worn paths striated the sides of the valley like contour lines.

When Ella asked, "Please, is L'Endo okay? Why does he want to see me?" the Lho either failed to understand or chose to ignore her. They pa.s.sed scampering children, tiny and golden, who hardly reached to Ella's knees. She felt eyes watching her from the entrances of caves on either side of the valley.

More than once she considered turning back. The further they went, the more they entered into alien territory, with animals and plants Ella had never seen before and dozens of aliens who stopped to stare at her. But the thought that L'Endo wished to see her kept her going.

At last the old Lho paused before a dark cave entrance overhung with creepers. He gestured inside. "L'Endo is ill," he said now. "Many of my people have succ.u.mbed to the plague." He swept his arm in a scything gesture, his face expressionless.

Ella felt something growing within her; a disbelief that was physical and hard in her chest, threatening to burst with rage and anguish.

Hesitantly she stepped into the cave. A flickering brand lit the nether recesses. In the half-light she made out a figure lying on packed animals skins. Someone crouched beside L'Endo, administering mouthfuls of water from a conch sh.e.l.l. At a word from the old Lho behind Ella, the nurse stood and hurried out. Ella felt a hand on her elbow, gesturing her forward.

She approached her friend and sat down next to him.

L'Endo turned his head and stared at her, and in the hesitant light of the brand Ella saw that the right side of his face had dissolved, the flesh fluid and suppurating, the infrastructure of muscle beneath subsided.

The cry she stifled seemed to resonate in every part of her body, filling her with pain. She quickly dashed tears from her cheeks.

Something clutched her fingers, and when she looked down she saw that it was L'Endo's frail hand. Wound around his wrist was the rock painting she had given him.

"Five of your days he has been ill," the old Lho whispered to her. "L'Endo, and many more of my people. We can do little. We can only rejoice at their pa.s.sing."

She stared at the old alien through her tears. "What do you mean?" she spluttered.

The alien sighed. "Humans..."

L'Endo moved his head closer to Ella, spoke in a voice even lighter than his usual whispery register.

The old Lho translated. "L'Endo says, 'Do not cry for me, be happy.' This is the moment for which he has lived his life. Truly, Ella, he gives thanks that he is pa.s.sing. He gives thanks that he has experienced this life and will experience the next."

Ella felt L'Endo's fingers squeeze hers. "The next?"

The old Lho took her free hand. "Only the humans you know as Engineman and Enginewoman believe, like us, in a Beyond. They know that we should rejoice in the gift of life, and not grieve for its pa.s.sing, for without this life there would be no hope of attaining the Beyond. Look upon L'Endo - do you see a being in mortal agony? He rejoices, Ella. Truly he rejoices!"

She gazed down at her friend. Through the pain, through the obvious affliction of the plague, she recognised in L'Endo something of the inexpressible rapture he had exhibited when standing on the rock in the centre of the lagoon - giving thanks, as he had said, for life.

L'Endo glowed with an energy at odds with his failing life-force. He spoke, and the old Lho translated.

"Can you return in five of your days, Ella, for his pa.s.sing?"

L'Endo squeezed her fingers.

"His... pa.s.sing?" she echoed.

"A time of celebration, of joy at his attainment. More than anything, he wishes you to attend. He wishes to share with you his joy as he leaves this life. He wishes to convince convince you..." you..."

"In five days..." she began. "But how can you tell?"

"In five of your days, L'Endo will release his hold upon life and pa.s.s from us. He feels it within him, he feels that then the time will be right."

She was in a dark cave with two aliens, she told herself, one of whom, a friend for the past four months, was dying of some horrendous wasting plague, and yet all she could feel was... was joy joy.

She wondered if it was her way of coping with so much grief, but she searched within her and found no such emotion, only the strongest communion with anyone, alien or human, she had ever experienced. Closer to L'Endo than ever before, she shared in his rapture, and felt blessed.

"I'll be honoured to attend his pa.s.sing," Ella said.

The old Lho translated her words, and L'Endo lay back on the skins with what might have been relief.

Then she took her leave of the dying alien, and the oldster arranged to meet her in five days, and then led her back to the lagoon and said farewell.

For the next few days at home, her life seemed dull and lackl.u.s.tre. She contrasted the materialism of colony life with what she had experienced with the Lho, and felt cheated. She could never become a Lho, but she could leave the Reach, start a life of her own. She antic.i.p.ated the time, in three months, when she could legally leave school and the clutches of her father.

In the meantime, she wanted only to re-experience the communion she had shared in the cave with L'Endo.

Then, two days before she was due to attend his pa.s.sing, her father appeared on the patio above the lagoon where she was swimming. "Ella - my study, this minute."

She shivered, despite the sunlight. He spoke to her rarely, and an official summons to his study could only mean that in some way she had transgressed. She dried herself and dressed quickly, trying to think what she might have done wrong, then hurried inside. The sooner she got this over with...

Her father was seated in a swivel chair behind his desk. To his left stood Conway, her minder. He was dressed all in black today and held, by his side, Ella's metallic-backed diary.