Agent of Change by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page B

seven would yield all the information the Elders required.

    Being relatively young, Edger did not regard himself as large; his twelfth shell had been still dangerously soft when they'd begun their journey, and even now was barely set. Yet people not of the Clutch regarded him with awe, for few of the working class traveled, and his four-hundred-pound bottle-green frame was fully one-third larger than the svelte and speedy persons the Ambassadorial Clans sent to human worlds.

    Being young, Edger was fond of entertainment. In fact, it was for this purpose that he and his three companions were now moving with ponderous haste down the wide walkway of a neighborhood consisting of very tall, pastel-colored buildings. There was a piece of music to be performed in a building just a little farther down this street and then somewhat farther down the next. One could have argued that the briefness of the piece—barely longer than the speaking of Edger's full name in Terran—hardly justified walking such a distance at such a pace. But Edger's delight in music was well-known to his kin, and they were disposed to accompany him to this pleasure.

    Thus they walked, taking care to keep to the strip of soft material Terrans lined their walkways with. And why not use stone, which endured at least a generation or two, demanded Selector, who had an acid tongue. Why use this—this concrete, which wore so quickly? Were the Clutch to use such material, nothing would be accomplished save the constant repaving of the roads.

    Handler reminded Selector of the briefness of human lives. "Therefore, many of their own generations may walk upon this surface before it wears to nothing. And, in their hastiness, they may by then have decided upon the use of another material altogether so that it is not a waste for them, brother."

    What reply Selector may have made to this gentle reproof was not to be known, for it was at that moment that the howl of a siren sounded behind them, echoed by another in front. Directly across the street from the group of Clutch members, a building chimed a shrill song to itself.

    Edger stopped, enchanted.

    The building continued its song while people gathered around it, each crying out in what could very possibly be some hasty new harmony. This was counterpointed by the screaming sirens atop the two bright red vehicles which had so recently arrived on the scene.

    Edger left the walkway and moved across the crowded street toward the building that sang. His Clan members, seeing him in the throes of his passion, followed.

    They moved through the crowd at the entrance very like a herd of elephants moving through grassland, and they did not stop at the policeman's order. Possibly, he had not been heard. Or his voice might merely have been approved for its place in the song, the words disregarded in the present of the experience.

    Rapt, Edger came into the lobby, kin trailing after. Here, he noted, the sound of the sirens was not so shrill; the rich counter-harmony of the singers faded to a primal growl over which the solitary, single-noted song of the building soared triumphant, nearly incandescent.

    And there were other textures herein encountered, doubtless meant as a frame to the piece: the softness of the carpeting beneath his feet; the clearness of the colors; the harshness of the light reflected from the framed glass surfaces. Edger stepped deeper into the experience, opening his comprehension to the wholeness of this piece of art.

    Patiently, his Clan members waited.
    * * *

    TOO DAMN EASY, Miri thought with habitual distrust of easiness. The service corridor formed a small cul-de-sac off the first-floor hallway, and they had loitered there until the evacuation team arrived and began knocking on doors and hustling people to safety. Val Con had stepped quietly into the group of refugees, Miri at his shoulder, and so they had gotten rescued, too.

    When the group hit the lobby, he as quietly dropped out, slipping