But twenty seconds can be horribly long. No, worse than thatand quite different.

A number of these were already curtained and the sounds issuing from them left no doubts that the need had arisen and was being amply catered to. The grass that had covered the hillside was turning blotchy brown in some places, and not others, and he wondered what pattern the forest had in mind, if it had a mind, for where there would be grass and where there would not.