The consul opened his mouth, then closed it. He silently waved Cameron out.

Ansari Farhal was this year's Master of the Hunt and therefore inheritor of the Alcaidan t.i.tle of kir. Kir-an Earthside drink of ca.s.sis and wine. Very cool and refreshing, as Cameron remembered it. Ansari kir looked cool. Refreshing, however, was not the word. n.o.ble was more it. n.o.ble in purpose, not in effete decay.

Ansari's eyes glittered. His clothes glittered. He shimmered as he moved. His motions were economical, smooth, purposeful. Nothing wasted. He used his hands, did not study them. He motioned Cameron to a chair.

"Would you like to join our Hunt?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Do you know what it is, what is its quarry, what it is about?"

"No."

Ansari kir turned from his desk to the window and looked out on the forest that began beyond his walls. No tended greensward, no formal gardens to the estate of this n.o.bleman. A local Schwarzwald seemed his estate.

Cameron studied his profile and thought of Roman coins.

Ansari kir turned back to look at Cameron full face. "We come to a gorge with an untried bridge over turbulent rapids. Someone must try the bridge-or the quarry escapes. You or a companion of the Hunt. How do you choose?"

Cameron turned and looked about him in studied scrutiny.

"I see no bridge, no rapids, no companions."

Ansari kir nodded. "You'll do."

"That answer did it?" the consul asked.

"Seems so."

The consul shook his head. "I don't see that this tells us much. I don't understand the mode of thinking, the allusion. Perhaps that's why I wasn't chosen. But, Peter-would you explain?"

"Explaining spoils it," Cameron said, then relented at the sight of the consul's visage. Nothing n.o.ble there. This was no longer the bureaucratic superior who had formerly plagued him, his officiousness to be combated with irreverent flippancy. "It's self-referential. The answer is part of the question. The question is rhetorical. All their questions are. And this was an interior joke, acknowledging our own idiom. A bridge that shouldn't be crossed till we get to it. Perhaps we never will."

Silence from the consul.

"They're telling us to stop making elaborate contingency plans," Cameron added gently. "Stay in the moment."

The Hunt was gathering in the courtyard when Cameron arrived, but Ansari kir disengaged himself from the preparations to meet his offworld guest. Gla.s.s in hand and with a lazy camaraderie that transcended n.o.blesse oblige, he placed his arms about Cameron's shoulder and escorted him up the broad steps and into his hall. A great punch bowl of crystal rested on a roughhewn trestle table covered by a damask cloth. A pleasing set of contrasts. Heaped on silver trays was an array of rolls and loaves, some with warmth rising from them. Several sportsmen busied themselves with cutting the breads and layering them with spreads from nearby bowls. All turned toward the master of the hall and the Hunt as he neared with Cameron in tow, and all raised their gla.s.ses in salutation.

"Mr. Peter Cameron," Ansari kir announced. He stepped back and raised his gla.s.s. "Our new companion of the Hunt!"

All the company swung gla.s.ses to lip in graceful parabolic arcs. The nearest took a crystal goblet chased in silver, filled it from the bowl and extended it to Cameron.

"The Hunt!" Cameron toasted. "And the Field!"

To an approving murmur all drank again. Cameron as well.

"Drink up and eat, gentlemen," Ansari kir said. "We mount up in ten tecors."

In that time, about fifteen minutes by his reckoning, Cameron learned the names to a dozen faces and had eaten a hunt breakfast that would have done for dinner at many an Earthside inn.

The company turned out again to the courtyard, where it met up with an a.s.semblage of mounts and trackers. Ansari kir again detached himself from the general preparations to see Cameron firmly in the saddle of a handsomely turned out gaffa, its trappings and harness gay and colorful in the early sun.

"Here," Ansari kir handed up a helmet of local design, its utilitarian plastsheen leathered and painted in the amber and green colors of the Hunt. "Wear it and be at one with your mount."

And with the world, he might have said. Cameron pulled the helmet on and found the colors about him jumping at him in augmented brilliance. He heard sounds of forest wildlife beyond the courtyard walls: timid ground rodents; arboreal creatures; raptors soaring. His gaffa's mind was strongest and closest to hand. It awaited not his commands but his impulses, and to foray with him as a companion, not as a mere beast of burden. The minds of the trackers, a feeling of all-consuming quest, impinged impatiently. And those of his companions-their swirl and energies flowed about him without words.

Cameron looked about him. If the company felt him, his alienness, they showed no sign. They wore no helmets.

"No need," said/thought Ansari kir. "And, yes, they see/feel your presence. With welcome and antic.i.p.ation."

He waved and the gates folded open. The eager parade flowed out, not into the forest but across a meadow of spring gra.s.s and wild flowers. Not at all as Cameron remembered it. He recalled the impinging forest just outside of every wall. Every wall? Were there more outlooks here, more points to the compa.s.s than the usual thirty-two?

Another question that held its own answer. It was the best kind. It went unasked.

"Ride!" Ansari kir commanded.

Cameron rode.

When Cameron looked back on it later, it seemed a timeless idyll. Perhaps it had been. Perhaps it had all been a nanosecond synaptic flash, a compression beyond words. Words. Words were seldom used. The helmet obviated the need for words, save those that held their own intrinsic and autonomous body and were to be held up and admired as they sparkled. Or words as shorthand for an abstract shard of thought. There were more of these than a morning of coursing through wood and field might be expected to produce.

The Hunt ranged across meadows wet with morning dew, then hot under a noonday sun. Early hour cricket sounds ceased as they rode through the gra.s.s, but the small internal hummings carried unabated through the helmet. The insect hummings of midday never stopped.

There were also dark copses of bay and laurel to be traversed, and forest trails that had to be taken at a slower pace and in single file. No matter that the quarry might not choose to hold to wooded paths.

As the day reached its hottest they emerged from the forest coolness to a gra.s.sy swale by the river. The sun was at its zenith, but an array of tents, striped with brightness, drew the eye and promised shade. The party dismounted and turned the gaffas loose to graze, drink, and dream. The tents were airy, the fabric ending several feet off the ground with only the guylines to tie them down. Within were trays of cheeses and breads, drinks in beds of ice, refreshing sorbets. All as if just laid out, though there were no retainers to be seen.

The company looked as if refreshment was in order. Though Cameron was warm, it seemed as nothing compared to Ansari kir and the others of the field. Perspiration flowed on their faces, seeming to melt the promontories of their features, flattening them visibly. Ansari kir's aquiline nose seemed to have broadened and spread, appearing almost squashy. Cameron looked closer at his companions. Their clothes, too, though they must have been designed for the Hunt, appeared to be too flimsy for the task. They seemed to be bursting at the seams and rent where twigs and branches had torn and snagged. Beneath appeared patches of mottled skin.

None paid any mind; all addressed themselves to the refreshments. Cameron did as well, till Ansari kir called a halt and led them to the largest tent of all. Before his eyes had adjusted to the shadowed light within, Cameron's feet and nose told him that he was in a dojo. He felt the firm springiness of tatami underfoot. The smell of fresh straw hung in the sunwarmed air. Cameron sat down on the edge of the mat and removed his shoes. When he looked up he saw his companions in a new guise. They were humaniform again, of varying statures and weights, all attired in judo gis. He recognized the faces of old friends and opponents, smelled their body odors around him, felt the rough softness of his often-washed gi on his shoulders. A faint breeze stirred the hairs on his naked chest.

"Your dojo, your art, Cameron," Ansari kir said. He alone kept his features as Cameron remembered them. "Lead us through the stretches and ukemi."

The crisp sounds of rollups and arm slaps permeated the air, rebounding off the tent walls. Uchikomi followed, as the judokas paired off and practiced repet.i.tions of step-ins, taking their lead from Cameron. Cameron's partner was Ansari kir, the player on the defensive. Cameron played tori, attacking with ogoshi in a reverse pivot, spiraling in and down to slam his hips in below his partner's belt. He slid his arm around Ansari kir's waist to pull him onto Cameron's back, and realized something was wrong. He was coming in too high, not breaking his partner's balance. And Cameron's arms were not succeeding in encircling a girth that seemed broader than met the eye.

Instinctively, Cameron pivoted out to stand face to face with his partner. Ansari kir bowed. "My apologies," he said.

Cameron looked again and saw the squatter and heavier form that Ansari kir had presented at the refreshment tent. Only the face remained as before. Cameron nodded in understanding. He took Ansari kir through a series of shorter players' moves-hip throws, mainly. The other judokas took their cue from the main pair and followed along in the repet.i.tions. In-out; in-out. The air became heavier and moister, overlaid with an exudation subtly different from human sweat.

They were fast learners.

Expectation also hung in the air, as palpable as these other aromas. At last Ansari kir voiced the collective desire. "Randori?"

Cameron nodded. He stepped to the center of the mat together with Ansari kir. They bowed, then grasped each other's lapels and sleeves and began.

Cameron took them in a wheel counter clockwise. He tried an ankle block. Ansari kir hopped over it. Cameron closed for a right side osoto gari and found his opponent pivoting away. They resumed their circling movement. Cameron tried using his tall man's leg reach into a tai otoshi, a good throw to use on a short, stocky opponent. He spun on his left foot, shot his right leg out to block Ansari kir's ankle, and tried to wheel him over his extended leg. Again, his opponent hopped over the block, then pivoted into a kubi nage, his hips coming in swiftly to break Cameron's balance, his arm going for a headlock. Cameron dropped his hips just in time to get his weight low enough to avoid being doubled over and to slip the encircling arm. Ansari kir was fast. Too fast.

They circled again and Cameron thought it over.

And then he had it. He stopped thinking, adopted a state of no mind. He let his body think, allowing no premeditation that could be read. When his body found the opening and moved in, it was with a hip throw of his own, unlooked for from a taller man. It was Ansari kir's turn to plant his legs and drop low to block Cameron's seoi nage. But as Cameron swung in he reversed his pivot, hooking his opponent's left leg with his right, catching it just below the knee. Cameron slammed his left shoulder into Ansari kir's, driving him back to his left corner. His opponent's right leg was off the ground, and Cameron kept driving, hopping on his left leg and hooking Ansari kir's remaining leg out from under till his opponent fell backwards on his back and slapped the mat hard.

Cameron helped him up. They disengaged to straighten their gis and bowed.

"The technique?" Ansari kir asked with raised eyebrow.

"Ouchi gari. Inside leg hook."

They made way for others to spar. They changed partners and reengaged again.

Time pa.s.sed. The sun lowered till its rays pierced the tent opening, illumining dust motes that danced about them as they sparred.

They were back at the refreshment tent. Cameron regarded his companions over the ices and the fruits. They were back in their clothing of the Hunt, and their transmogrification continued. To what end? How much of their reality could he and humankind accept?

What was reality and what was illusion? Could they be the same thing, different forms?

Cameron felt a wetness on his bare arm and looked up. A transfigured and no longer handsome Ansari kir stood over him, in his hand several pellets of ice. Between his hairy fingers and trickling onto Cameron's arm were droplets of cold water.

Same thing. Different forms.

The ride back was more leisured. The forest itself seemed less sylvan, more brushy and dotted with down wood and dead snags. Cameron watched with interest but no apprehension as the clothes seemed to tear off the huntsmen, leaving only rags to cover mottled skin blotched by almost random tufts of fur. But still the exhilarating mental byplay went on, a stimulating canopy to whatever was the corporeal underneath.

There continued a certain n.o.bility of thought. Another had said it before: an ordinary man is a Buddha; illusion is salvation. A foolish thought-and we are ordinary, vulgar, stupid. The next enlightened thought-and we are the Buddha.

Ansari kir pulled abreast of Cameron, his face a hairy and feral mask. But the mental clarity and fineness was there.

I would have put it differently: a foolish thought-and we are enlightened. An enlightened thought-and we are again ordinary creatures.

Ansari kir squeezed his mount with his thighs and pulled ahead. Enough talk. Enlightenment is an activity, not a state. Let us ride.

The consul's office was cluttered. Desk drawers open; containers on the floor. Wall hangings were down, leaning against boxes at floor level. The consul's desk was untypically empty, dotted only by a holocube of his family, and a single pad of scratch paper.

"The Alcaidans want you to stay," the consul said flatly. "They want me to go."

Cameron nodded.

"I don't understand much of this," the consul went on. "They ask that future teams include Zen pract.i.tioners. Also martial artists. Karate, judo, the business with the staffs-what's the word?"

"Kendo." Cameron did not bother to explain that the "staffs" were practice swords made of bamboo slats-shinai-or wood-bokut.

"Yes. I gather they're getting all this from you."

"From you, too," Cameron said. "From all of us. Don't plan on keeping many secrets. They keep us happy by talking to us, but they don't have to. They're telepathic."

The consul didn't seem as perturbed by this as Cameron had expected. Perhaps he was more focused on the damage of this a.s.signment to his career.

"What do they want with martial artists?"

"The mindset mostly," Cameron said. "A way of looking at things. That and the engagement, the sparring-physical and mental. That's what they value in every new culture they encounter, and that's how we earn what we want of them."

The consul was back to the habit of folding and steepling his hands. "I suppose they can adapt to the physicality of our martial arts, being shapeshifters."

"They're not shapeshifters," Cameron said.

The consul looked up.

"That's an a.s.sumption our contact party made when observing their artwork and contrasting it with the appearance they presented us," Cameron said. "But it's wrong. They can influence our minds, overlay them with their illusions. They give us a rea.s.suring image, what makes us comfortable."

Including an inventively useless amount of busy work for you. Cameron thought it, didn't say it.

"Do you know what they really look like, then?"

Cameron shook his head. Hopeless. "Perhaps. It doesn't matter, sir. To them that's all illusion."

"Well," the consul said, "I doubt I'll ever understand. But I do try."

"Perhaps you're trying in the wrong way."

"Is there a right way?"

Cameron looked surprised, then nodded his approval. "That's better."

"Do I want to go around asking your kind of questions?" The consul turned to Cameron with the first trace of self-directed humor that Cameron could recall. "And with you not there, whom do I ask?"

Cameron looked at the lacquered desktop for a moment, then reached across it for the scratch pad. Cameron eyed its thickness, then turned it on edge and rapped the desk sharply with it, producing a crisp wooden sound.

The consul started, then settled back in his chair.

Cameron reached out to return the pad. The consul regarded him with a raised eyebrow, then held out his hand to take it. Cameron turned the pad on edge and rapped the consul's hand smartly. The consul cried out, more in surprise than in pain.

"Why didn't the desk cry out?" Cameron asked.

The consul held his hand and looked at Cameron in bewilderment.

Cameron spoke into the silence.

"Learn to listen, and you can hear it."

Game shows have waxed and waned through several cycles of popularity since their introduction on radio in the 1930s. That they might garner intergalactic audiences some day is as valid a speculation as any other in fiction. True, these are games, and not sports, but the Olympic hendiatris Citius, Altius, Fortius (Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger") can certainly apply to intellectual ability as well as physical prowess. Elizabeth Ann Scarborough also presents us with a secret mission and a life-threatening mystery, as well as asking the eternal question: Will dinette sets exist in the far future? Oh . . . hendiatris? Let's Name That Noun! Is it: (a) three words used to express one idea; (b) a Roman motto coined by Julius Caesar; (c) the same thing as a tricolon? No fair googling! Have you made your final decision? You'll find the answer at the end of the story. If you answer correctly, you'll win . . . our sincere thanks for reading this introduction!

Name That Planet!