As the evening star twins rose over the eastern and western edges of the horizon, as constant in their alignment as the twin eyes of a beloved, the Elder sat before the giant rocks of the Altar of the Voice, and crossed his legs, lowered his head, and laid the backs of his hands down upon the soft needled ground. His mind was full of images -- his son on the far and strange vessel, and his long lost daughter, the people of Tern and the sacred charter, and many other things of great moment. But as he sank gently onto the rich mossy, red-needled floor of the forest, he felt the very ground of Tern connect with him, its thousands of root systems and microscopic pockets of rich life welcoming his attention in a kind of deep organic acknowledgement. And he felt the jagged edges of his thought blend with their ancinet currents and rhythms, and he knew that soon, if he but bided his moment, the Voice would come.

So, indeed, it was, as the twin stars of evening rose above the mark of eleven hours, that he felt, with no sense of the time, the deeper richness of the Voice enter from the ground into his veins, and into his blood, and intohis entire consciousness until he was once again a breathing, single whole, brother to the tree blood and the river waters and the deep rocks and hidden spaces, and the life of Tern spoke with him as one.

He saw, in a way that surpasses seeing, the endless centuries of the giant trees, the galloping songs of the child like streams galloping from less than a season's passage, full of their momentary enthusiasm, and the tireless comings and goings of the seasons of the mosses, and the slow dawning of awareness in each ancient sapling grown full...all this and more did he see. And when the time was, and his breath was as one with the most ancient and the most patient of the ancient Plantiarchs of Tern, he turned his mind to his quest, and waited until seeing was.

The forests and soil of Tern, the life forms of every part of the planet, connected in a tender, breathing, whole, brought many answers to the Elder, some he could grasp and others he could not. Images of long pasts leading to long futures, of cells-rivers and growth forth combined in his meditations in forces of harmony that would have been overhwelming tot he unready mind; and among the flying streams of knowing that his linkage to all that was Tern brought him, he saw two things that brought him peace.

One was his son, standing broad, alert, and ready on the bridge of a strange starship. The other, less an image than a harmonic, tranquil certainty, was the breath in the world of his lost faughter; for a moment he recieved a sense, as if the very yendril of the forest were singing to him, "She is with us", but the meaning slipped his grasp and left only a faint glowing trace of quiet joy.

He sat still in that place until the twin stars of evening had risen to the midnight mark, and descended again in their endless recurring passage through the night sky. ANd when the first light of Neezie dappled the highest limbs in the forest around and above him, graying the paths with light promised and night compleing, he rose again, his ancient bones creaking in protest, and descended the winding trails toward the banks of the river which wended its way to the shores of the Ternian sea. As he made his way cautiously, following the edges of silver water, he caught in the wind, a snatch of a tune he had sung when a youth:

"The river bank makes a mighty good road
Follow! The drinking gourd.
And the left foot, peg foot, traveling on,
Follow the Drinking Gourd!

...and the senior Elder of Tern found the sound of ancient strings ringing in his mind as dawn filled the forest edges, and he smiled.