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For your sake, we shall call him Antares, after the great star.” No sooner had she spoken his name than hundreds of humans soared into the air. Children and adults, like a flock of birds, rose in even ranks, then broke the uniformity into myriads of individual positions, elevations and directions. There were objects under their feet which looked like round skates. The a Voie people looped and zoomed up and down, they twirled like toe dancers and some tumbled about with dizzying speed. They were skating in thin air, and then their skating area was filled with waltz- like music, accompanied by angelic singing. Launie had anticipated his utter surprise and, smiling happily, was ready to explain to Adam, who was too mute to ask. “You see, Adam, they wear crystal-plastic shoes, which simply ride the magnetic waves. The entire floor of Andromeda functions Weed od 1 1 in the same way, as do our little craft here and our larger space ships, and as do the solar systems, the galaxies and the cosmic spheres-within-spheres. It is really very simple, once you know how, she finished, with her hearty but enchanting laugh. Very simple. Indeed! thought Adam. Their simplicities were his perplexities. At last he found his voice. “Launie, don’t laugh that way or I will be tempted to kiss you. I will call you ‘lovely one’ instead of Launie.I...1...oh, I don’t know what I'll do,” he managed to say, laughing with her. “Go ahead, handsome one,” she said, laughing still more beautifully. “Leo would like to hear you say it, too.” With those words, she regained her composure. Adam was beginning to see the real Launie. What to him was akin to a spiritual unfoldment was adventure for the sake of a little bit of learning to her. He felt he was among angels and so, he reasoned, she must feel as if cavorting with a primitivelike creature, yet he could not have been made to feel more at home, nor more delighted. Soon there were many craft rising up and going to and fro, of various sizes and shapes, weaving among the hundreds of “skaters.” 111 ADAM MEETS ANTARES