To find her way back. But tonight only a slatternly line of thrumcaps barked diminishing hints. Vidalia's course through the obscure and pungent was marked by nothing but blind need, though this too was interlinked with sky and tongue, moon and island, stork, city and ship. All matter is our cousins. The universe is only shredded by men, she thought.
Women take in the whole, expand, grow and revive.
That was it. No radar was needed. A kiss convinced her of that. Then the Crepe de chine hour parted its wings and Vidalia slid between them. Drowsiness took her gently, not an escape but a surrender, and as the last nibbles of consciousness left her she put her fingers on her tummy, felt the simulation of foreign flesh and spidered downward.