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cheat.”
    The woman looked up from tightening a strap around her thigh. She grinned at the crouched Chelgrian. “Did you?”.
    â€œCheating death.”
    â€œOh, that. That’s just a form of words, isn’t it?”.
    â€œIt is?”.
    â€œYeah. It’s cheat as in … deprive. Not cheating in the technical sense of agreeing to follow certain rules and then secretly not, while everybody else does.”
    The Chelgrian was silent for a moment, then said, “Uh-huh.”
    The woman stood up straight, smiling. “When are we going to get to a statement of mine you agree with, Cr. Ziller?”.
    â€œI’m not sure.” He glanced about the platform,where the remaining fliers were completing their preparations and the others were packing up breakfast picnics and transferring to the various small aircraft hovering silently nearby. “Isn’t all of this cheating?”.
    Feli exchanged shouts of good luck and last minute advice with a few of her fellow wing-fliers. Then she looked at Kabe and Ziller and nodded toward one of the aircraft. “Come on. We’ll cheat and take the easy way.”
    The aircraft was a little arrowhead-shaped sliver of a thing with a large open cabin. Kabe thought it looked more like a small motorboat than a proper plane. He guessed it was big enough to take about eight humans. He weighed the same as three of the bipeds and Ziller was probably almost the mass of two so they should be under its maximum capacity, but it still didn’t look up to the task. It wobbled very slightly as he stepped aboard. Seats morphed and rearranged themselves for the two non-human shapes. Feli Vitrouv swung into the lead seat with a sort of clacking noise from the stowed wing fins, which she flicked out of the way as she sat. She pulled a control grip from the cockpit’s fascia and said, “Manual please, Hub.”
    â€œYou have control,” the machine said.
    The woman clicked the grip into place and, after a look around, pulled, twisted and pushed it to send them gently backing out and away from the platform and then racing off just above the tops of the ground trees. Some sort of field prevented more than a gentle breeze from entering the passenger compartment. Kabe reached out and poked it with one finger, feeling an invisible plastic resistance.
    â€œSo, how is all of this cheating?” Feli called back.
    Ziller looked over the side. “Could you crash this?” he asked casually.
    She laughed. “Is that a request?”.
    â€œNo, just a question.”
    â€œWant me to try?”.
    â€œNot particularly.”
    â€œWell then, no; I probably couldn’t. I’m flying it, but if I did anything really stupid the automatics would take over and haul us out of trouble.”
    â€œIs that cheating?”.
    â€œDepends. Not what I call cheating.” She angled the craft down toward a group of blimp trees in a large clearing. “I’d call it a reasonable combination of fun and safety.” She turned back to glance at them. The craft wriggled fractionally in the air, aiming between two tall ground trees. “Though of course a purist might say I shouldn’t be using an aircraft to get to my blimp in the first place.”
    The trees rushed past, one on either side, very close; Kabe felt himself flinch. There was a hint of a thud and when he looked back Kabe saw a few leaves and twigs whirling and falling in their slipstream. The craft bellied down toward the largest blimp tree, aiming close in underneath the curve of the gas sac where the giant tentacle roots joined together and merged into the dark brown bulbous pod of the banner reservoir.
    â€œA purist would walk?” suggested Ziller.
    â€œYup.” The woman made a sort of tapping-down motion with the grip and the craft settled onto the roots. She stowed the grip control in the panel in front of her. “Here’s our boy,” she said, nodding up