GRUBBER
Neal Barrett, Jr.

1
KHIRI remembered a round piece of cold. Far, far away, then chill-bone close. He shrank into the warmdark, back into the never, back into the no, but it was too late to run, too late to hide and he was thrust, rushed, into the born, into the terrible be ...
He sensed the bigger warms, sensed they were Mothers though they didn't have a name. They kept away the hunger, kept away the cold. There were others like himself nearby, but they were small and useless, too.
It was easy to tell when the Fathers came near. The Mothers became very still, their colors so low he could scarcely sense them at all. They would shiver, they would quiver, they would not-quite-be, they were somewhere Khiri couldn't see.
It was an awesome, wonderful thing to feel the Fathers about. They were big, rumbly, grumbly, their colors were black, vermilion, and blood. He couldn't understand why the Mothers tried hard to get away, tried hard not to be.
The first time a thought like this blinked into his mind, another came to chase it away. The new thought said it was not good to be when the Fathers were around. And, in an instant, he found out why. They saw him, knew he was there. Their colors screamed with anger, burned, seared, with a fierce and terrible heat. One, the biggest of them all, came so close he could feel its heavy sniff, feel its shuffle, feel its nuzzle-muzzle-breath.
Khiri didn't move, didn't think, didn't blink. Then, at once, he wasn't anywhere at all. He was there, in the not-place, though no one showed him where, no one showed him how.
He dared not show his fear. Now he knew what fear was for. Fear was to show the Fathers you were there. . . .
When the Fathers went away, he knew something else he hadn't known before. He knew about death. Death was not the same as the not-place, death was even farther off than that. The death hadn't happened to a Mother. It happened to one of the others like himself. It was torn, ragged, thick with a vile and fetid smell. He was curious about it, but the Mothers quickly nosed it away.

Sometimes Khiri would touch the others. The feathery brush of another was a new thing to do. Touching the others, he learned about himself. He learned he was hard with a softness underneath. He learned he could move from one place to the next. There were things in his soft that moved him this way or that. Some of the others were learning, too, and they darted all about until the Mothers made them stop, warned them they had to be still.

During the still, the Mothers would touch him with the slenders they kept beneath their soft. One of the touches meant danger. Others meant stop-come-go. Wake-sleep-bad. Food-wet-dry. And, as he grew, he learned you could string these touches together like a line of pebbles on the ground. When you strung them together, they meant much more than they ever meant alone.

Just as he was getting used to one set of slenders, another sprang from nowhere—and another, and another after that. Whenever something new broke through, he was certain he would die. The larger and thicker the new things became, the greater was the pain.
When it was done, and the new things were there, he learned how useful they could be. He could pick something up, hold it, carry it about. All he could find were pebbles and stones, but it was something new to do.

He began to know others like himself. One of the others was Ghiir. They learned how to fight. They learned how to play. The
best thing they learned was they didn't even have to rub slenders to give each other words. They could think about the words, and the words were simply there.
They learned they were not all the same. Phaen helped them learn about that. They would have learned more if the Mothers hadn't lashed them soundly and sent Phaen quickly away.
Going was Khiri's favorite thing to do. He had to go alone. Ghiir would go with him to the nears, but Ghiir would never venture to the fars. Khiri saw a number of strange and fearsome things. Colors he'd never seen. Places he could scarcely describe.
The things he would never go near were the lines. Whenever they appeared, he would choke up his food and get sick inside his head. The lines were too terrible to see.

2
For a while, he hardly knew the Mothers were gone. He could find his own food now and didn't really care. There seemed no end to the passageways and holes that led everywhere. Sometimes things were high, sometimes they were deep with no bottom at all. Nothing bothered Khiri. His slenders would take him wherever he wished to go.
The strangest thing he found was the thing. It wasn't a Mother, it wasn't a Father, it wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before. He ran his slenders across its dusty shell. To his great surprise, he found it was hard all over, with no soft at all.
"What kind of thing are you?" he asked it. "Soft is for inside, hard is for out. And you have no slenders to touch or feel or know."
"Foolish Khiri. Why do you speak to a thing that cannot speak to you?"
Khiri started. He was so intent on the creature he had not sensed the Mother at all.
"I know I am not supposed to be here," he said. "You don't have to tell me that."
"No. But you are. You are often where you are not supposed to be."
"I cannot understand what I have found. It is not like a Mother or a Father. It is not like me."
"It is dead, Khiri. It has no bloodsmell about it, for it died a long time ago."
"What was it, then? What was it called?"
"It was what you are," the Mother said. "It was just the same as you. It wandered off to a place it shouldn't be."

3
He was larger, now. Nearly as large as the Fathers. He feared them when they came, but knew how take himself where the Fathers couldn't see.
He was learning a great deal. Most of the things he learned were how to hide and stay alive.
Lately, he was learning to understand the lines. He could get much closer to them now. They seldom made him sick, seldom gave him dizzies in the head. He didn't know what the lines could be, but they didn't look at all like they had when he was small.

4
He couldn't remember when he stopped seeing Ghiir. He didn't miss him, didn't want to see him, didn't really want to see anyone at all.
He caught the scent of a Mother once, as he roamed through the endless passages and halls. She sensed his presence as well— tried to hide her colors, tried not to be. But Khiri knew she was there. He could sense the dark odor of her fear.
Why? What was she afraid of, why was she acting this way? For a moment, a new, peculiar kind of rage stirred within him. A picture of Phaen flicked through his head. Only this wasn't Phaen, this was a Mother down the hall.

The smell of the Fathers was heavy on the air. It had been like that all day. Their almost-presence made him tense, irritated, filled him with a hate he had seldom felt before.
When the Fathers finally came, he was so hot with anger he nearly forgot about the not-place, nearly forgot to get away. A great, rumbly Father nearly had him, a Father hungry for his bloodsmell, hungry for his life.
Khiri shook with rage, ashamed that he had run, that he had not stayed to fight. He knew he would have died, but how could that be worse than the way he felt now?
And, when the Father was out of sight, he looked around for something to make this feeling go away.
He found the Mother later in the day. He was nearly upon her before she knew he was there.
"Phaen. 1 remember you."
"I do not know you. I am Traea, not Phaen."
"You are Phaen," he said.

5
His encounter with the Father had changed him. He was no longer angry or afraid. Sometimes, he wished he could find that anger again. Anger was better than feeling nothing at all. He did not even try to find the Phaen who said it was a Traea.

There were others of his kind around. He did not want to see them. He waited, now, until the foodplace was clear, a thing he had never done before.
When the ache was too sharp in his belly, he scuttled to the foodplace, choking down his meal so he could quickly go away.
He heard the other coming up behind. The intruder was silent, but Khiri knew who it was.
"Ghiir. Go away. I am at the foodplace now."
"I am here as well," Ghiir said.
"Then you must wait until I am done."
"I do not have to wait for you."
"You will wait, Ghiir."
"No, I will not—"
Ghiir came at him. Without even thinking, Khiri sucked in his slenders and rolled away. Something whipped him sharply about the head. Khiri backed off, keeping the thick part of his shell very low to the ground, and always facing Ghiir. He and Ghiir had played at fighting, but this was not the same. This was bloodsmell fighting, and Ghiir knew it, too.
Ghiir began a slow half circle to Khiri's right. He watched Ghi-ir's thick, bony slenders stab the air. They curved in a sharp, wicked arc, like his own. He knew what Ghiir meant to do. He wanted to back Khiri in a corner. Khiri decided that was the thing to let him do.
Ghiir sprang, slashing in quick, vicious thrusts. Khiri blocked every blow, making no effort to strike back. There was a pattern to his foe's attack—the more Ghiir came at him, the better Khiri understood. When the time came, when Ghiir grew weary . . .
Only, Ghiir showed no sign of slowing down. He flailed at Khiri with one blow after the next. Khiri decided the defender's role was not as easy as he'd thought. Ghiir hadn't hurt him, but his fierce assaults were taking their toll. A dull ache had begun at the back of Khiri's head. Each time he countered Ghiir's thrust, he moved a little slower than before.
Ghiir sensed this at once and came in for the kill. He was certain he had Khiri now, and Khiri was not at all sure that he was wrong. He might not stop the next blow, or the one after that. If he made one mistake—
Suddenly, there it was again, Ghiir's familiar pattern. In an instant, Khiri knew what to do next. He moved, caught Ghiir's slenders against his own. Pressed himself against the wall and shoved with all the strength at his command.
Ghiir stumbled, caught off guard. Khiri slashed up at his enemy's soft underbelly. Ghiir jerked back, tried to right himself, but he was helpless now. Khiri found his mark again. Ghiir rolled on his back, quivered once, and lay still.
Khiri was too tired to move. Almost too tired to take himself to the not-place, but he knew he had to do that. Soon, the Fathers would come to see what the bloodsmell was about.

6
In the not-place, Khiri didn't think about Ghiir. He didn't think about anything at all. This was a place for being—it was not a place to do.
All he had to do was wait for the Fathers to go away. He knew they were there, for there was something, a shadow-part of himself, that always stayed behind. He didn't understand the shadow-part. He only knew it was there. It would tell him when the Fathers were gone.
He had never, ever stayed so long in the not-place. The longer he stayed, the more he sensed things he had never sensed before. Silent waves of color washed around him. Deep chords of silence hummed and thrummed about, quivered and shivered, whispered and sang.
It was something he had often sensed before, but never in the not-place, always in the real. Now, with a sudden, awesome burst of understanding, he knew what the hum and the thrum was all about. It was the lines. There was no mistake about that. But what were they doing in the not-place, what were they doing there?
The question had scarcely taken shape before the answer came:
The lines and the not-place were one and the same. That's what the not-place was about—if yon knew how to use it, it was the door, the pathway into the lines. . . .
Khiri was startled by this amazing new knowledge—so vibrant, so clear to him now, he wondered why he hadn't understood it all before.
And there was more, so much more—all the maybes, all the heres and theres, all the somewhens and the wheres.
He knew, too, that now he could not be Khiri-here and Khiri-there. If he followed the lines, he would have to let the Khiri-shadow go. And how could he dare to do that? The Khiri-shadow was the only thing that could take him back to real.
He remembered, then, the real was not all that safe just now. The Fathers were there. They were there for Ghiir's bloodsmell. If he went back now, there would be a Khiri bloodsmell, too.
He knew, with a fear that made him tremble within his shell, that he was slipping back, that he had stayed in the not-place much too long, that the shadow-self was desperately pulling him back.
And, if he could not go to the real, there was only one place to go. He would have to take that step from the not-place, into the I'nes, into a place that was nowhere at all. . . .

7
It was real, in a way, but not the real he knew. If he looked back at the not-place it was wavy and indistinct—a pale tracery that winked in and out. The world he saw before him was a thing he had never imagined before. High above him was a ball of every color, squeezed into a hotness so strong it seemed to burn through his shell.
There were other things to see. Prickly-colored things beneath his feet. Stone things, immense and unbelievably high. Things that were near. Things that were farther than anything could be.
"You are Khiri. I know who you are."
Khiri was so absorbed in the new things around him he didn't see the Father. He jerked up, nearly frightened out of his wits. He had never really seen a Father. Not like this!
The Father seemed unconcerned with his fear. "If you have found your way here, you are ready to go to work. You are not a child anymore. You cannot stand around and stare at the sky. I am busy, and have no time to show you what to do."

"You do not have to show me," Khiri heard himself say. "I know what to do."
The Father didn't answer. As suddenly as he had come, he was gone.

Khiri did know.
He was not a child anymore. He knew what he was, and he knew what to do. And, for the first time in his life, he was not afraid of the Fathers anymore. He was not afraid, for he was one of them too.

8
He worked with the others who were new. No one told him what the lines were for, or where they had to go. He knew, though, what was right and what was wrong. He knew if the no-colors felt the way they should. He knew if the silence, if the hum, if the song was the way it ought to be. If it wasn't, he told a Father who was always nearby, a Father who knew what to do.
That was his job. He was a Listener, because he was new. Later, if he learned his job well, he would be a Toner, working in the lines, working in the great, wondrous Pattern itself. The Pattern was what the lines were called, when they all came together exactly as they should.

Khiri came to know other Fathers, those who were new like himself. The older Fathers seldom spoke to him at all. He knew, now, onlv those who found their way out of the dark down below ever made it to the lines. He remembered Jhiril and Dhiss. He remembered Ghaan. He learned that very few from a single birthing found their way up to the lines.
He worked, and he learned. He learned what his kind were called. They were S'ai, and a S'ai was a grand thing to be, for only the S'ai could do what they could do.
He learned—to his surprise—there were other beings who were not like the S'ai. There were Sacar, great, heavy creatures built close to the earth. Their skin was on the outside, hard, mottled and the color of stone.
He didn't like the Sacar. He liked the Dri even less. Dn looked like brittle bundles of sticks. Sometimes, Khiri could catch the edge of their thoughts. When he did, he drew quickly away. The minds of the Dri were cold, colder than cold could ever be. The Sacar were often about, but the Dri kept to themselves.
Neither the Sacar nor the Dri worked on the Pattern. They knew it was there, but it was something they could only imagine, a thing they could never see. That was something only the S'ai could do.
Khiri learned about the stars. They were hot, fierce points of light, much farther than the one that warmed the world beneath him now. He learned there were other worlds, too, that one of those worlds was his own.
Finally, one of the older Fathers put pictures of that world inside his head. Khiri was stunned. He had never imagined such a place before. He longed to go there himself some day. Could that ever be? The Father couldn't answer, the Father didn't know.

One day, a horde of strange creatures swarmed out of the high, rocky places and tried to kill the Fathers. Khiri, like the others, simply winked into the Pattern and disappeared.
The creatures were two-legs like the Sacar, only not really like them at all. The Sacar tell upon the intruders, and tew of them got away.
"Why do they do that," Khiri asked a Father, who would sometimes speak to those who were new. "Why do they want to kill the S'ai!"
"This is their world," said the Father, whose name was Bhir. "It's theirs and they don't want us here."
"Why?" Khiri wanted to know "All the S'ai are doing is building a Pattern. A Pattern is not a thing to fear."
The Father made a noise, the kind of noise an elder makes to show what he thinks ot the young.

9
Sometimes, Khiri went with the other Fathers hack down in the dark. The Mothers tried to hide, to not-bc when they came. When they found a Mother who could not hide her color, she would shut down her senses, and pretend they weren't there. This was the way it had always been among the S'ai.
Often, he would search the dark for younglings, probing and snuffing for the scent of their fear. When he found one, he would rip it, shred it, tear it apart, until only the bloodsmell was there.
Khiri knew this had to be. Those who could not get away would never learn to leave the dark. They would never get past the not-place, never find the lines. They would never truly be S'ai.

10
Khiri knew he had been a Listener long enough. No one had to tell him, Khiri simply knew. He even knew what he would be. He would not be a loner, even though that was the next thing to be.
He was ready to be a Former now. He could feel the Pattern. He knew where it was going, knew how it should be. He could hear it quiver and sing. He could sense it folding in upon itself in endless wheres and whens. He could help it become the very best Pattern the S'ai had ever made,
Khiri found Thil. Thil was a Former. He had been a Former long before Khiri was born.
"Thil," Khiri said, "I am ready to take your place now. I must ask you to leave."
"Why would I want to do that?" Thil said. "You are only a Listener. Even if you were ready to be a Former, there are many ahead of you."
"I am better than they are now. 1 am better than you—" Thil winked out of sight. Khiri followed. The place Thil had chosen was a place Khiri had never been before, a place wild and shattered, a fearsome place to be. This was where the Formers came to gather the uncreated power for the Pattern. It was raw, unborn. Nowhere and no-when.
This was not a fight like Khin's tight with Ghiir. There would be no bloodsmell here. Khiri fought to lose, not to win. To win was to fade into the chaos of the uncreated void. To lose was to skirt the edge of being, to find that point, and leave Thil forever in what would never be.
Thil was good. But Khiri was right. He was better, and he alone returned to the real again.

11
Khiri learned quickly. Soon, he was setting the pace for many of the older, more experienced S'ai. They didn't like Khiri, but they knew what he could do.
Finally, only Dhin was above him in his skills. Dhin was Master Former. He knew even better than Khiri how good Khiri could be. He showed Khiri everything he knew.
Khiri didn't dream of challenging Dhin's position. You did not tight to become a Master Former. That was a thing for lesser S'ai.
When the time came, Dhin knew it. He had worked long and hard. He had gained great honor and respect among the S'ai. He did not even think about staying to finish his final Pattern. He had done what he could. Khiri would add richness to the firm foundation Dhin had begun. The S'ai would remember it was Dhin's Pattern.
When the next worktime began, Dhin was not there. Khiri knew he was not coming. He knew he was Master Former of the S'ai.

12
When the Pattern was nearly complete, Vhid himself came to see Khiri. Khiri was honored and showed his respect. Vhid was a Planner. There were less than half a hundred Planners among the S'ai, on all the worlds where the S'ai had built a Pattern. More than that, Vhid was a Grand Planner, one of the Eight.
Vhid glanced at the vast tracery of the Pattern, then studied Khiri with some amusement, an emotion rare among the S'ai.
"You are a good Former, Khiri. This is a fine Pattern. You do honor to the S'ai. However, in case it had crossed your mind— and I see that it likely has—you are not yet ready to take my place. You are a good Master Former, but you are not yet a Planner."
Khiri was horrified, and frightened as well. It was a thought he had kept very far back in his mind.
"Master Vhid, I hope you don't imagine—"
"Why not? You have clearly dreamed of becoming everything else a S'ai can be. You had best keep dreaming for a while. I will not remind you again. You may well be a Planner. Though not as quickly as you'd like."

Khiri was much too busy to think about being more than what he was. The Pattern was nearing completion, and there was more to be done than there were hours in the day. There were a thousand questions to be answered, a thousand more to be asked. And, in the end, it was up to the Master Former to be sure they were all answered right.
He was in the midst of a dozen tasks when word came that Vhid wished to see him again. Now? Khiri wanted to say, but of course he said nothing at all.
Instead, he followed a guide past the long, deep valley directly beneath the Pattern, a path that took him past a high stone place where the two-legs lived—past another to a broad and empty plain.
Khiri was astonished, frightened at the sight, for there lay the starship of the Dri. He knew the ship was there, but only the oldest of the S'ai had ever seen it before.
Khiri did not like the Dri, and wanted nothing to do with anything that was theirs. Still, he could not keep Vhid waiting. He could not tell a member of the Eight he was frightened of a star-ship of the Dri.

13
Vhid met him under the high, dull portal of the ship. Past Vhid, Khiri could see shadowy forms of both the Sacar and the Dri. This close, the Sacar looked enormous. Even the fragile Dri stood heads above the S'ai, but the Sacar were fearsome giants. How could they live that way, teetering above the ground like uprooted stones? How could they stand to be what they were? They could never imagine the not-place. They could never see the Pattern. They could do nothing the S'ai could do.
Yet, for all the things they were and were not, Khiri was frightened in their presence. And, because he feared them, he hated them all the more.

Khiri understood nothing that had been said at the meeting with the Sacar and the Dri. The Sacar croaked like mud-things. The Dri merely rattled like leaves. If Vhid wished to speak, he touched a shiny thing with his slenders. When he did, a sound came out, but it was not the voice of Vhid.
"I see you are in no great haste to become a Planner now," Vhid said later. "I see you understand it is not the same as working on the Pattern, or any of the things a S'ai was born to do."
"No," said Khiri, "it is not. It is truly like nothing I imagined. I do not see how I can ever become a Planner, for I can scarcely stand to deal with such strange, disgusting forms of life—if, indeed, those things are creatures at all."
"Oh, they are, Khiri. It is difficult to imagine, but they are."
Khiri was dismayed. Even though Vhid had told him much of what was said in the meeting, he understood very little at all.
Maybe there was nothing wrong with being a Master Former. Certainly, it was an honorable thing to be. Not everyone could hope to be a Planner. Why should he try to be something he was not?
While Khiri walked back across the plain with Vhid, two of the giant Sacar came out of the ship. Behind them came a train of the two-legs. They were gaunt and pitiful creatures. Some wore rags of cloth. Some wore nothing at all. Each of the two-legs carried a box upon its shoulders. The boxes were clearly heavy, and, as Khiri watched, one of the creatures staggered and fell.
The box dropped to the ground. The Sacar became very angry. They yelled in their mud-tongue, and beat the two-legs until it lay still. Then they made another of the beings pick up the box and move along.
"Why do they do that?" Khiri wanted to know. "The Sacar have devices that could carry much more. Using the two-legs is not the best way to get things from one place to the next."
"The Sacar use the creatures in this manner because they like to," Vhid said. "Because it shows they are stronger than the two-legs."
Khiri was puzzled. "Everyone knows the Sacar are stronger. If they were not, they would not have conquered this world. We would not be building a Pattern here."
"You are thinking like a S'ai, Khiri. This is why I took you to the meeting, so you would begin to see the things a Planner must understand. The S'ai fight among themselves, for only the best among us must survive.
"We show we are strong, but only to better the S'ai. The Sacar show their strength, because they imagine one day they could find some creature that is stronger than themselves. This has never happened, but it is something they will always fear. Do you understand what I say?"
"I must tell you I do not," Khiri said. "Perhaps I will never be a Planner, Master Vhid."
"You will. But you are not a Planner now."

14
He could not stop thinking about the great starship on the plain— about the strange worlds where the starship had been. He wondered what these worlds were like, and how many he himself might see.
More than anything, though, he thought about the two-legs. He could not forget how the Saear had beaten it until it was around into the dirt. Could Vhid be right in what he said? How could a fearsome creature like the Sacar be afraid of anything at all?

As work neared completion, he spent more and more time with Vhid. To Khiri's great relief, the Master Planner did not take him to any more meetings with the Sacar and the Dri. Instead, he set to work teaching Khiri a great many things he had no desire to learn. He learned about the scratches, marks, and see-things the Sacar and the Dri used to remember what they said. He tried to understand the noises they made with their faces when they spoke. He knew, now—though it was almost impossible to believe—that noises were the only way they could communicate at all.
"You will learn," Vhid told him more than once. "It simply takes time. You cannot understand other beings simply because you know what they are saying. That, I must tell you, is the easiest part. What they menu is something else.
"The Sacar do not like the Dn, and the Dri do not like them. One is stronger. One knows how to build machines. The S'ai do neither of these. Yet, we do something the others cannot. The S'ai can make a Pattern. That is why they need us. And that is why, young Khiri, they fear us and hate us more than they fear and hate each other, or any of the other creatures among the stars."
Vhid paused to let Khiri consider this. "Now you see why it is vital to learn their ways. Why it is so important to become a good Planner. It is the highest calling among the S'ai, the greatest thing you can ever hope to do. . . ."

15
In the days that followed, he had many talks with Vhid. One of the things a Planner had to do was learn to think like the Sacar and the Dri. Of course, this was impossible to do, but a Planner had to try.
The most dreadful, appalling thing he learned was how the Sacar and the Dri looked upon the S'ai. Each in their way, scorned the S'ai, and laughed at their manner and appearance. Each, in the tongue they used to speak to one another, called them The Grubbers, a name they had for ugly creatures that scurried about beneath the ground.
"They have no right to demean us like that," Khiri said, outraged at Vhid's words. "If we stopped building their Patterns, they would regret this attitude. They would value what the S'ai do then!"
For a moment, Vhid said nothing at all. Instead, he looked up into the dark night sky.
"As you know, Khiri, the S'ai have a world of their own. Though you have never seen it, you have been given the pictures in your head."
Yes, Vhid, 1 have."
"And you know what a starship can do to a world. You are aware of that as well."
"They would never do that. They cannot build a Pattern without the S'ai."
"This is so. And this is why the S'ai are free, and yet not free at all. The Sacar are a savage, thoughtless race. If they had their way, they would treat us no better than they do the creatures here.
"The Dri, though, are cunning and wise. They do not know us well—they can never be certain what these grubber things might do if we were faced with a terrible choice some day.
"And that is what a Planner is for, Khiri. Now you understand what I am—and what you, too, must be."

16
When the task was done, when there was nothing more to do, he stood with the others in the night and looked at the Pattern against the sky. Its perfection laced the stars from one horizon to the next. It bound this world in its delicate web of power. It sang a song that only the S'ai could ever hear. It glowed with a color that only the S'ai could see.
In the morning, the starship would rise above the plain and give itself to the Pattern. For a moment that never was, a time that could never be, it would touch the pale breath of forever. Then, it would wink along the Patterns of a thousand other worlds, trailing a wisp of nowhere in its wake.
Khiri wondered where this journey would take him, and what he might see. He knew, only, there would be another world, and another Pattern to build.
He thought about the two-legs, huddled in fear in their rocky hollows above the plain. For a moment, he imagined he could hear them, see the faint whisper of their minds. It was scarcely a sound, scarcely an image at all, for the two-legs were not the S'ai. They could never know the Pattern, never know the beauty he could see, for they were as blind to that great wonder as the Sacar and the Dri. . . .