The Hidden Folk II

The Hidden Folk have worked for generations to construct a half-mile-wide town of nests from hovering plant bladders. Females and young spread meat out to dry, husk the fruits of aerial vegetation and spin cord. Containers are woven baskets. Tools are chipped bone. A harpoon is bone sections with a tusk for a head.

Catching Theor with ropes, the Hidden Folk take him to their town. A mile below, he recognizes familiar territory. A mile up, above half the atmosphere and many clouds, the aerial pastures with their monstrous browsers and the Hidden Folk nests are permanently concealed from ground dwellers. Only a rare disaster would force Hidden Folk down into the heat, darkness and thick air and maybe those few would never return. These sky dwellers know less than the Terrestrials about the Jovian surface.

Sky dwellers have no streams or rivers to drink from. They must get ammonia from food or absorb it from clouds. The Hidden Folk give Theor meat and pulpy spheres containing quenching juice.

Only a few pages describe this life in the Jovian sky.