The Capture

the most advanced third-degree picker, it is my task to instruct you." And then the owlet blinked. She began humming the dreadful song.

    "It is best when beginning as a picker to use your beak. Your talons can be used to steady the pellet.
    Each object you find is to be lined up neatly on the stone ledge -- your work area. Failure to line up objects neatly is a most serious offense. Offenders are severely punished, as shall be demonstrated during our laughter therapy sessions."

    Soren and Gylfie had no idea what this owlet was talking about. Laughter therapy? "Do your work diligently and you, too, may be advanced someday." The owlet then stepped up to the ledge, which was covered with pellets,
    and bent over one. "Proceed. It is strictly forbidden to use your own pellets in this work." 47-2 glared at Soren. The owlet bent her speckled head and began to pick.

    Soren felt a gagging sensation and yarped another pellet.

    Soren and Gylfie had no idea how long they had been working. It seemed endless. It was not entirely quiet, however. At certain intervals, a low soft whistle alarm would be sounded from one of the smaller owls who monitored the work from overhead ledges and the sound of another pellet song would begin to rise. The songs were sung in the same hollow tones in which 47-2 had spoken. But Soren felt that they were sung mostly to provide a rhythm for their work. The words, he supposed, like their own non-number names, had become meaningless. In between the songs it was not completely silent. There were, of course, certain commands that had to be given. "New pellets needed in area 10-B." Or "Area 20-c needs to pick up the pace." And then there was some talk among the owls as they worked, but the more carefully Soren and Gylfie listened, the stranger this talk seemed. And then suddenly an owlet working at the same ledge as Soren began to speak. "12-1. I feel perfect this morning. I have just completed my first set of pellets. I am sure you shall feel perfect, too, when you have completed your first set. It is a
    feeling of rare contentment to complete a set. I feel this sense of rare contentment every morning at this hour."

    Rare? Soren thought. That was a word he knew, for his parents had told them that the family of Barn Owls to which they belonged, the Tyto Alba, had become rare, which meant there were not many of them. So how could this owlet's contentment be rare if it happened every morning at a particular hour?

    "I, too, feel perfect." Another owlet now spoke, turning toward Gylfie this time. It was nearly the same speech.

    At regular intervals now, the two owls turned alternately to Soren and Gylfie and gave short little reports on their states of contentment. On occasion, these reports became interspersed with comments. "25-2, for an owlet of your exceedingly tiny stature you have a fine posture as you peck."

    "Thank you," Gylfie replied, and dipped her head in what she thought was a docile manner.

    "You are most welcome, 25-2."

    Then the owlet closest to Soren began, "12-1, your beak work is quite advanced. You work with industry and delicacy"

    "Thank you," said Soren. And then for some reason he added, "Thank you very much."

    "You're welcome. But you need not be excessively polite. It wastes energy. Politeness is its own reward -
    - just like flecks."

    "What are flecks?" The question slipped out, but many of the pellet songs referred to flecks and Soren could not understand for the life of him what they were. He understood the feathers and bones and teeth being found in the pellets, but what were these mysterious flecks? The two owlets each gave small piercing shrieks that contrasted sharply with their usual tones. "Question alarm! Question alarm!" Two ferocious, darkly feathered owls, their glaring yellow eyes framed above by dark red eye tufts, swooped down and plucked up Soren.

    "How could you, Soren?" Gylfie nearly cried out, but luckily the question died on her beak.

    Soren felt as if his gizzard were dropping to his talons as the two owls soared with him dangling between them. They were transporting him in a most painful manner. Each one held a wing in his talons and it was as if he were being torn in half! And as they spiraled upward in the pelletorium, Soren felt beneath him not the cushion of captured air of which his father had often spoken, but instead a surge of noisy vibrations that seem to pummel him from below.

    "They are laughing at you, 12-1. They laugh so hard the air