Lord LaFayette received Daniel with profuse apologies, then both quickly let past differences be past.

Daniel did not say why he had come to Aeolis, and no one questioned it, for it seemed obvious that anyone who could come to Aeolis naturally would.  Leaving the paradise world was what raised eyebrows, not coming to it.

But now that Daniel was on the planet, he could not think how he was to contact a Kistraalian.  He had assumed an idea would come to him by the time he arrived.  One hadn't.

Now what?

Find a wind and start talking to it, hoping it was a live one?  Talk to it in what language?  Where did one find Kistraalians?  A world was a big place to search for something invisible.

To begin, he had a cousin take him to his mother's estate, and there he spent the night.

He was lying awake, deep in self-pity, when he thought he heard soft, garbled voices on the edge of his awareness.  He sat up in the bed.

There were voices in the room.

"Who's there?"

The voices stopped.

Daniel waited and the voices started again, tentatively, like crickets, whispering very low.
"Who's there?" Daniel said again.

Again the voices stopped, abruptly.  The curtains at the window moved with a passage of outgoing air, and Daniel sensed he was alone.

Later the winds returned, more of them, whispering in a rushing incomprehensible language, till one voice, startlingly clear, said "Laure."

"Laure," said Daniel.  "She was my mother."

The whispers became frenetic, repeating "mother" questioningly.

The winds brushed him, buffeting him, wanting him to do something, but Daniel could not figure out what that was.

"Laure," they said.

Daniel tried to ask questions, but they did not seem to understand.

"Laure," said Daniel.

"Laure," said the winds.

Then Daniel's cousin opened the door and stuck his head in.  "Daniel, who are you talking to?"

"Do you hear that?" said Daniel.  The whispers had not ceased, paying no heed to the newcomer.

"Hear what?" said his cousin curiously.

"Forget it," said Daniel.

His cousin paused. "Daniel, are you all right?"

"Just thought I heard something," Daniel mumbled.  He fancied the winds were laughing at him.

His cousin withdrew.

Alone again, Daniel spoke - this time in whispers in every language he knew or half knew.  He wished he had a language nodule as his father did, but then he suspected that having the knowledge of every language on Earth would not be much help in this situation.

Suddenly there was a new whisper, perfectly articulated and in English.  It said, "Thirty-two degrees fifteen minutes three seconds north, sixty degrees fourteen minutes nineteen seconds west."

Coordinates.  Daniel assumed he was supposed to go there.  "When?"

"Oh five hundred."

Daniel groaned and lay back in the bed.  It was going to be a very short, very long night.