Next it was time for Dabbles to go talk to his friends in the aviary.

Himpledonk shuffled excitedly as they walked along to the far end of the great creature's belly. The hem of Dabbles's coverings rippled oddly as the portly Sculptor glided over the floor. "Do be patient, my dear, only a little longer," he instructed kindly, and in short order they reached a valve that Dabbles had marked with a small wooden sign, a bird on it inscribed.

"Hello, friends!" said Dabbles.

"COO-ROO-OO-ROO!" said four hundred and fifty-nine pigeons.

"Why, what an excitable lot you are today!"

Dabbles trundled along to one of several large canvas sacks set against the wall. The aviary was an adapted airlock, or perhaps a small hangar; Whatever its origins, with the help of some Sweethearts it had soon become a place of warmth, comfort, perches, seed, and guano. "Hello, Lillidop," said Dabbles to the technician currently occupied with sweeping the last of the night's birdshit into a pot to be sent to Alefpria's farmers and botanists. "Hello, Runko, hello, Jonglebongle," said Dabbles to the two pigeons seated on its head. The trio hooted and cooed at him respectively, and went back to their own conversation, which Dabbles refrained from interrupting.

This, too, was an important job, and Dabbles carefully refilled each basin of seed or water, inspected the wounds of those rowdy males who had pecked one another over a mate ("Shame on you, Pirrippadoo! You should know better than this!"), and checked each nesting-box for new eggs. There were seven eggs in four different clutches, and Dabbles congratulated the parents proudly.

In the end, though, it was time to leave. Dabbles had many friends here, but he also had friends outside, and in all the fuss around the Cosmic Knights, he had not seen them in several days.

"Goodbye, friends!" said Dabbles, leaving Himpledonk on a perch with one last stroke of her cheek.

"Coor-oo-oor-oo," said Jonglebongle, leaving a feather and a gift on the Sweetheart's head.

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