"Dead? Dismembered? Or delivered?"

McVane started to speak, but Briess reached through the opening to put a hand on his shoulder, silencing him.

"Delivered," said Briess. "It has to be done surreptitiously, no alarms, no havoc, no wreckage. She has to disappear, and she has to be in good condition. Call one of us when you've got her."

"Where is she?"

"If we knew that, we wouldn't need you," said McVane.

"Excellent," purred the voice, losing some of its mechanical edge. "We enjoy a challenge. She has family, perhaps?"

"A husband in Albuquerque. A son and daughter at school in California." He rumbled for a pocket notebook and read off Angelica's address, Carlos's address, Bert's address.

The voice purred again. "We may need to use her family as bait. We'll let you know when we have her, and we'll bring her here."

The voice went away. The other men sat silently while the technician fiddled with his dials and screens. "Here's something in infrared," he said at last, pointing at his monitor.

They got into the back to see what he had, an image of something or things tall and tangled, looming at the side of the ramshackle house. And something smaller but numerous on the ground between the armored car and the house. And something else, that they couldn't at all make out, more an absence than a presence.

Dink gulped, saying in a slightly panicky voice, "I'm not sure I like this . . ."

"We've made alliances before," said McVane. "Hell, we had an alliance with Stalin once."

"There's a difference," murmured Briess. "I doubt Stalin ever looked at us and imagined how we'd taste served rare, with sauteed mushrooms."

Dink started the car and eased it into motion, turning in a wide loop to put them back on the isolated road. "First thing we have to do is tell Morse about it," he murmured. "Let's see what he has to say."

From Chiddy's journal In a previous entry I have mentioned the Pistach colony on Quirk. It was only three or four years after our visit there that Pistach-home received astonishing news. The people on Quirk had rebelled against their sequestration, had seized a supply ship, no great feat as it was not armed or staffed to repel a boarding party, and subsequently had used that ship to ferry a large fraction of the planetary population to some unknown destination. What was most intriguing about the story was the name of the leader: T'Fees.

More exactly, T'Fees the Tumultuous, or so those remaining on Quirk averred. Those who had chosen to remain on Quirk included the lazy, the elderly, the infirm, and the quite mad, but even the maddest among them claimed T'Fees had taken the title of Tumultuous before leaving the planet.

Pistach-home was abuzz with rumor and speculation. Where could the Quirkers have gone that was any better suited to them than Quirk? Quirk had been designed for the eccentric, the unconventional, the idiosyncratic, the bizarre. Where else could such people go and be allowed to live in acceptance and peace? We assumed they would want peace. We always assume that living, breathing, sensible creatures want peace.

The Departure from Quirk became what you on Earth would call a Nine-Day Wonder, fascinating, but not enduringly interesting. There were some songs written, some artwork done, some poems composed with the rebellion of Quirk as the theme. None of them truly captured the event to make it live in our minds. People soon quit talking about it for though it was unusual, by our standards, it was also distant and it did not affect Pistach-home. It was a happening staged by the insane on a world the sane regarded little.

Even we who had known T'Fees did not worry over it long. There were too many other duties and responsibilities that required our attention. Since Vess and I had been away on missions for some time, we were scheduled to spend the next year or so in duty at the House of the Fresco. All athyci are expected to spend time there in order to renew our spiritual balance. Teachings by the commentators over the years stress the importance of infusing oneself with the aura of the Fresco, with the awe and reverence evoked by the rites conducted there.

It was while I was on Fresco duty that the House of Cavita, my ancestral house, was honored by a request to donate genetic material for a mating among the five imperial houses. When a child is planned among them, each house gives genetic material to the mating but, also, to prevent excessive inbreeding, one outside source is required, preferably an athyco from a blameless lineage. Our family records had been audited for the past twelve generations without revealing one misjudgment by a Cavita selector, one reversed decision by a Cavita athyco, one artwork created by a Cavita proffi that was considered inferior.

Our line seemed to be without stain. At the time, dear Benita, I confess that I had feelings of ebullience and self-regard over this matter. Since being here on Earth, I have become more likely to see humor in it.

I have the feeling, if I told you we had twelve generations without stain, you would say to me, Oh, poor thing, how dull!

It was, in fact, worse than dull. While the request to provide genetic material is a great honor, it requires an equally great interruption in one's life. Athyci are not physically able to reproduce. Therefore, an athyco asked to do so must undergo temporary transformation. This process is painful and lengthy, taking the better part of a year before one is restored to oneself. It was during this time that I became personally acquainted with breeding madness and clump lust and the other terrors and compulsions routinely faced by inceptors. They, so it is said, do it eagerly, without a qualm. For me, it was traumatic, not while it was going on, of course, but after it was over. As a matter of principle, I did not ask for memory deadening during the incidents. Athyci are expected to welcome all experiences as a way of learning what others experience and how they cope with events. I found the memories agonizing, however. If I had been Earthian, I would have blushed to recall them, wishing them gone, and worse: wishing dead all other individuals, the inceptors, the receptors, the nootchi, who had witnessed the events. It is a grave error to wish others gone, dead, passed over, but I committed it a hundred times during the following year on Pistach-home.

Since being here, I have learned to value the experience as it helped me understand Earth people better than I could otherwise have done. They, too, are often suffused by shame at what reproductive nature has compelled them to do. They are reminded, and they cringe. They wish to forget.

I know, for example, that your young people, and those of mid years, also, often cannot help the sexual foolishness they commit, and assisting them in this matter would be wise. I know your rapists cannot help what they do, but I also know they cannot be allowed to do it. Since the physically stronger half of your race are inceptors, and since they are disproportionately represented at various levels of government, they have elevated inceptorhood above all other states of being, holding it above even the right to live. Inceptorhood is so holy that it forbids changing rapists into campesi or even proffi, though they would be happier so. You may kill a rapist, but you may not change him into something noninceptorish. It is a great trouble in your society, one Vess and I are at present much concerned with.

Which is beside the point. After a period of convalescence, I continued my term at the House of the Fresco, and it was there that a second trauma occurred. I was reminded of it anew by something you said not long ago, Benita, about the Sistine Chapel.

I have spoken of the grime that covers the interior of the House of the Fresco, most of it deposited as soot from candles and oil lamps, thousands of which are burned by worshippers and seekers after truth and pilgrims from Pistach's far-flung worlds. It would be heresy to clean the Fresco, yes, but the room that contains it has to be cleaned at least annually. A large scaffolding is erected, and teams of proffi and athyci come in to wash down the inside of the dome, the pillars, the wall space above and below the Fresco, and finally the floor itself. At the time of which I speak, the Chapter of the Fresco House had recently ruled that the traditional cleaning utensils, animal skins and a ritual soap made from wax plants and scented with flowers, could be replaced by a more convenient and effective cleansing agent. The new stuff was a grime specific solvent, and we were given large jugs of it, each labeled Danger, do not drink, with a picture of a dried thorax and crossed leg armor.

The stuff stank, but it worked almost miraculously, needing little if any rinsing and leaving virtually no streaks. In half the usual time, we had the inside of the dome done, the pillars washed down, and it was time to do the walls above the Fresco, which had been carefully, so we assumed, draped to avoid any damage. As it happened, I was the one who committed the offense. I was working above the final depiction, The Martyrdom of Kasiwees, when someone tried to open the left-hand door from the outside, bumping the scaffolding and making me drop the cleaning cloth as I grabbed for support. The cloth dropped between my body and the Fresco, and in the effort to catch it, I pressed it against the drapery with a lower appendage. When I retrieved it, I saw to my horror that it had been pressed against the Fresco itself, through a gap in the drapery.

My cries brought assistance, and we carefully redraped the area, leaving no holes at all. It was not until the job was done and the drapes were removed that we saw, high on the Fresco of Kasiwees, a rag- sized area of blue sky dotted with figures we had been taught were flosti, returning from their wintering grounds. With the grime removed, one needed no magnification to see that the figures were not flosti.

They were Pistach, winged Pistach who, from their dress, were from the Imperial Houses, the house from which Mengantowhai had come. Also, the figures were not arriving,- they were departing.

The shock was palpable. The Fresco Chapter, all those currently charged with the care of the Fresco, met in lengthy sessions to determine what should be done about the disclosure. Whose fault was it?

Though they were kind enough not to blame me for dropping the cloth, they were thrown into great confusion by the contents of the Kasiwees commentary, the one that referred to symbols of springtime and renewal, i.e., flosti, when in fact the flosti were not there!

It was suggested that since the Fresco had sustained no damage, the entire Fresco or at least the entire Kasiwees panel should be cleaned, as the symbols of renewal would no doubt be found elsewhere on the panel. This was shouted down. Though the symbols might be elsewhere on the panel, possibly they might not, and no one wanted to deal with that eventuality. The Chapter felt such a discovery would undermine the entire structure of our society.

Another suggestion was that we go back and amend any of the commentaries that did not agree with the now disclosed reality. This was discussed for days, until everyone agreed we could not conform the commentaries to the disclosed reality because we did not know what the disclosed reality was! As our adage puts it, lum ek avotvl, ni lumek'aul. a tiny patch of blue is not heaven. (You would say, one swallow does not make a summer.) We would have to clean the entire Kasiwees panel, at the very least, in order to say what the tiny patch meant, and that might raise questions about other panels that had not been cleaned!

The anger and confusion finally settled into a determination to find out who had first misled the people and to cover up the patch of blue so the people would not be further confused. It was agreed that the only sensible thing to do was haze the patch with tallow smoke, that is, re-dirty it. That decision had the weight of tradition behind it, at least. Since I had dropped the cleaning cloth, I, personally, smoked the patch into illegibility, though I confess to putting every detail of it into memory as I did so.

A small committee was delegated the job of going through the archives starting with our earliest ancestors to determine who was responsible for this error, if, indeed, it had been an error. I volunteered to help and was accepted as one of the researchers. Though I had studied Pistach history prior to being accepted as an athyco, I had never actually looked at original documents. The thing I most wanted to see was the often-referred-to Compendium, the panel-by-panel drawing of the Fresco together with the notations on which our knowledge of the Fresco now depends. This Compendium was created long ago by Athyco Glumshalak who is known as "The Inceptor of Morality." It was Glumshalak who codified our beliefs and virtues,- it was Glumshalak who taught us that the Fresco was too holy to be cleaned.

Unfortunately, the Compendium was not available on Pistach-home, for it was on display in the Fresco House of one of the colony worlds. Though this was a disappointment, other documents were profuse.

I had no idea how much writing there had been prior to widespread use of electronic communication and the development of mind-scanners. Prior to modern times, we Pistach used sheets of stuff called thizzle, a kind of starch that dries into sheets, almost like your paper, and there are bales of it in the archives. Though there seemed to be a dearth of official documents prior to Glumshalak, there were uncountable items of personal correspondence. Back then, everyone wrote to everyone else, and all of it had been saved in stasis files, to prevent its being eaten by gniffles, even letters from people who were only remotely if at all connected to the building of the Fresco House.

I was sorting through old letters when I came across one from a proffe, one Merg'alos of Sferon, to his nootch. The letter concerned Merg'alos's visit to the Fresco, and it was dated only fifty years after the Fresco was completed. In the letter, Merg'alos, who was evidently an artist, wrote that he found the Fresco "undistinguished." He referred to Kasiwees as "abandoned," and to the (unnamed) figures in the sky as being, "like so many flosti, flying." The symbol conveying the word "like" or "similar to" came at the end of a line, at the very edge of the thizzle sheet, which had been slightly nibbled. As it was the first reference to flosti that I had seen, I set the letter aside. Days later, I came across a critique written by a proffe who was also of Sferon House, dated some seventy years after the Merg'alos letter was written.

The critique referred to "my ancestor's letter" and mentioned the possible symbolism to be found in the "flock of flosti either arriving or departing."

I found an entry in the Fresco House official commentaries, dated another hundred years after the critique, after the time of Glumsha-lak, referring to "the springtime symbolism of the arrival of flosti, flying in at the upper left." By that time, over two hundred years after the Fresco was painted, the Fresco had already disappeared behind its layers of soot and research had to have been done from the Compendium and commentaries alone. After that citation, the "springtime symbolism" was referred to again and again in the various commentaries, and other commentators found other springtime symbols in the panel as well. There were said to be bulbs scattered around Kasiwees's kneeling figure, plus worm jars and, that quintessential harbinger of spring, a bough of hisanthine in Kasiwees's hand.

Having just traced the origin of nonexistent flosti, I was of no mind to accept the bulbs, the worm jars, or the hisanthine. Many early sketches of Fresco panels were in the archives, in addition to Glumshalak's Compendium, most of them done by athyci and proffi who were not, unfortunately, artists.

Yes, there were some little bumps drawn around Kasiwees's kneeling figure, but it was impossible to say whether they were bulbs or rounded stones or unripe fruit or a clutch of pfiggi eggs. The same uncertainty applied to worm jars, and though Kasiwees definitely had something in his hand, whether it was a branch of hisanthine, I could not say. I commented to one of my fellow workers, a professional historian, that I thought there had been a conspiracy in those early years to destroy or hide all the documents that would be needed in the future. He commented that this was often the case, for in any situation with more than one side or opinion, only the winning side or opinion would be around to justify whatever it had done, no matter who had been right or wrong. He said, "Ones have always inferred that Glumshalak may have disposed of some material which did not accord with aisos view of Pistach purpose."

This was a new idea to me, and I confess that I was depressed by it, particularly since I was unaware there had ever been any other side or opinion than those we had been taught.

When I reported to the Chapter, other researchers had also found mentions of flosti subsequent to the first letter, and we agreed that the interpolation of flosti had indeed arisen in a casual letter from Merg'alos to a family member, a letter subsequently cited, inaccurately, by one of his lineage. Or, to put it baldly, our teachings regarding the content of the Kasiwees panel were in substantial error. I wondered at the time why the Compendium of Glumshalak had not prevailed over this error since it did not mention the flosti, or whatever.

I think it was at that point that I suggested using technology to penetrate the coating of grime and get an image of the original Fresco. This could be done without changing the Fresco in any way, and then the Chapter might, privately, take its time in assessing what changes in doctrine might be necessary.

I might as well have thrown a pfiggi haunch into a pool of hungry pfluggi, for the assembled Chapter ripped the suggestion to shreds. It was obvious the Chapter preferred preserving the current doctrine to changing doctrine, even though change might bring it into accord with Canthorel's divine purpose. No one, no one said exactly that, but that is what they meant. I did not say it either. I remember that my nootch told me many years before that I would know I had gained wisdom when I learned to keep my mouthparts quiet. I thought of her and was silent.

The head of Chapter set everything into the preferred perspective. "Tradition weighs as much as truth," the old one said. "What has existed for thousands of years as a support of goodness and peace has as much right to teaching as a painting done yesterday that has yet to prove itself." In other words, we'd been getting along fine with things the way they were, so leave them the way they were. One of your favorite Earth sayings, that one: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Though I was presumably acquiescent, I confess to being troubled about this matter. Truth has always mattered to me, dear Benita. You and I have discussed this from time to time. Even though we have agreed that real truth is hard to come by, we have also agreed that it is worth the effort. It seemed to me then, as it seems now, that we could have modified the teachings concerning Kasiwees. He might, for example, have been seeing a vision of Pistach in the guise or manner of flosti. Or a vision of the Pistach leaving the Jaupati in the future, as eventually they did. We could have admitted we did not know what the panel conveyed. The only thing at issue was whether the panel contains symbols of renewal. Does it matter whether it does or not? We believe in renewal! Must we assume our attributes are worthy only insofar as they are ancient? If we cling so tightly to the old that we do not allow ourselves to improve in both beliefs and behavior, of what value are we? Can we not say a newly achieved virtue is more worthy than a corrupted teaching?

The answer of the Chapter was that we could not. Rather than disturb the long-accepted teachings of our people, the Chapter chose to hide the bit of sky that had shown itself, and I, your friend Chiddy, was the one who hid it. For the first time in my life, I felt embarrassed, sick, vicariously humiliated at a decision of our people. I didn't make the decision, but it hurt me nonetheless. It seemed then, as it still does, wrong.

Senator Morse-TUESDAY When Senator Morse received Dink's report early Tuesday morning, he barely managed to maintain his usual glacial reserve.

"So you haven't found her."

"No, sir, we haven't, but believe me, these other ET's will. Arthur isn't sure about it, but Briess thinks it could make a lot of sense to throw in with this new bunch."

"Give them hunting rights? Dink, have you thought for even a moment how that would look on the evening news? 'Senator Approves Extra-Terrestrial Hunting Rights on Human Race!'"

"It wouldn't be publicized! The agreement will be secret. They won't make any noise about it if you don't."

"And the Pistach envoys? They'll keep quiet about it? I think not."

"According to this bunch, the Pistach won't be able to prove anything. I get the feeling this bunch is a lot quicker on the uptake than the Pistach are. It's like the difference between cats and cows. Or maybe goats,- the Pistach are some smarter than cows. And we could always deploy a little disinformation. Like, we claim the Pistach are doing it themselves while trying to throw suspicion on someone else."

"There are paranoids out there who would probably believe it. Unfortunately, most of them don't vote."

"Senator, take a minute. Think of what they offer. Selective hunting. You got a political enemy: Bammo, he's hamburger. You got some newsman on your tail: Zip, he's cube steak. You get somebody in as president, somebody who's politics-proof, like you-know-who, he meets with an unfortunate accident.

That's a good deal. Just think if we'd had this deal in the nineties! It's too good to pass up."

"Our polls say the public likes this Confederation idea."

"The predators don't care if we go ahead and join the Confederation. The predation agreement is under the table."

"And how do we keep the Pistach from finding out?"

"We tell the predators they have to hunt in places where it won't be noticeable. God knows there's plenty of places like that! Hell, every year a few million people starve here and there and nobody even blinks, providing it happens in Asia or Africa. Thirty thousand some odd kids starve every day."

"That's not something we accept!"

"Oh, hell, Senator. Don't feed me the party line. When was the last time any of your colleagues voted for overseas family planning programs? You guys claim it's to prevent abortion, but you know it's not.

You know damn well cutting family planning causes more abortions than it prevents, but you still do it.

Why? Because most of the pro-life people are anti-contraception, too. And anti-sex education. And anti- gay. And anti-women's-rights. But they're pro-gun, pro-hunting, pro-military. Killing's part of their lives.

So why not take advantage of what these critters offer?"

"And you think the Pistach won't notice? You think people won't?"

"So, if the Pistach notice we've got deniability. So people notice. We say, hey, sorry, we'll bring it up in the UN, but it's got nothing to do with us. Senator, it's no different from stuff we do all the time, here and there. They won't hunt here in the U.S."

The Senator growled to himself. "Next time you talk to them, I'm going along."

"They'll let us know when they're ready. When they've got the woman. Briess has already laid the groundwork for that. He says we have to ask them to do something for us, to prove it won't be one-sided.

Like always, one hand washes the other."

Pistach management-TUESDAY-THURSDAY The Tuesday afternoon papers said eighty percent of the population had filled out the questionnaires and the American Civil Liberties Union was screaming for blood, as were a number of people who had seen untruthful forms disintegrate under their hands. On Wednesday, Chad Riley called Benita to say in addition to completed forms there were a few dozen bags of mail for the envoys at the D.C. main post office.

Benita looked at the ceiling and said loudly, "You've got mail." Chad called back in ten minutes to say the bags were gone, and she said, "Fine, just let me know whenever you want a pickup."

Privately, she thought Chiddy and Vess might have simply vanished the mail, without bothering to read it or scan it or feed it into their machines, whatever.

She had underestimated them. Thursday night, without previous announcement, the envoys appeared on television again. They told jokes about how many Americans it took to fill out a questionnaire (all of them) or how many Afghanis (one, because there was only one right answer for everything). They said they'd heard they'd been given the nickname of Pistach-ios, because humans thought they were nuts.

Benita noticed that their appearance had been further refined. They looked subtly more cuddly than they had before. Their eyes were more glowing and kindly. The squidgy bits around the mouths were less tentacular and more like a mustache. Rather Santa Claus, altogether.

Since some people hadn't filled out their questionnaires, said Chiddy, in an admonitory voice very much like Mary Poppins as portrayed by Julie Andrews, progress in solving problems would have to wait. Thank you, Chiddy said, for all the mail. Yes, they could help the quadriplegic boy brought to their attention by the governor of Arkansas and others of like condition. Yes, they had already provided help for the housing project in California which was being turned into a war zone by local drug dealers. Yes, they could find the murderer of the young women in Seattle, as requested by the police of that city, and of the three black men in Texas, as requested by the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Yes, they were already analyzing the subject of education in the U.S., as suggested by one million two hundred twenty-three thousand six hundred and eighty-four correspondents. Just as soon as the last few people filled out their questionnaires, all these matters would be handled.

"In fact," said Chiddy, "we'll share with you some of our ideas about improving education, as so many of you have suggested. We have looked at the information on dropouts, and we believe the basic trouble is that no significant rite of passage occurs at high school graduation. It should be a goal, something to be achieved on the way to adulthood, but it isn't. So, we must make it so. Certain things that adults do, like driving cars, should not be available to people who haven't graduated from high school, and social graduation of the unqualified shouldn't count. A diploma doesn't mean anything unless the information is in the head. Adult liberties should not be entrusted to ignoramuses"

Then Chiddy did something with his face that made him look extremely stern. They would not, he said, be doing anything about drinkers, smokers, drug takers, or those who kept guns their children killed themselves with.

"Evolution must have a way to work among all races," said Chiddy in a serious voice. "Of any population, some will be born who are not survivors. Some are self-destructive or destructive of others.

Others cannot muster the effort to function at a viable level. Some cannot learn. Your society, instead of letting people either perish from stupidity or learn from foolish acts, protects them from themselves and allows them, even helps them, to blame others for the stupidities they have committed. If someone has a broken ladder, sees that it is broken, then climbs it, falls, and breaks a leg, he is allowed to sue the manufacturer without even having to pay the lawyer. If someone is not bright enough to stay in school, he or she drops out and becomes the parent of several children, and you support both the person and the children. I have seen in your papers accounts of drug addicts receiving fertility treatment at public expense. Of poor women being given treatments that result in the birth of multiple children! This is monstrous!

"Persons who are no longer babies should never be saved from themselves! Persons who are self- destructive should be allowed to do so, without hindrance, as otherwise you perpetuate the tendency generation after generation! I have read in a garden book that one saves labor by learning to love weeds.

This was written as a jest, but it is true of more enterprises than gardens. Weeds have their own purposes, and so do high death rates among alcoholics, drug addicts, violent persons, gun worshippers, and the perpetually angry. What we Pistach must help you do is to arrange that the fatalities happen inside these groups, rather than among innocent bystanders.

"We have a saying, we Pistach. 'Aul'a ek glusi ekfeplat num'ha ca ek athici ekfe num'h goff glusi.'

Loosely translated, this means that people wanting to kill should kill themselves rather than innocent bystanders. Remember the time of the Red Guard in China and of Pol Pot in Cambodia, when the competent were killed in their millions. This is not to suggest one should punish the incompetent. No, no.

Life has already done so, unfairly, as is the way of life and the universe. Let us, therefore, be kind to them. Buy them a drink or a pack of cigarettes. Wish them a nice day! Meantime, let us work together in devising ways to keep innocent bystanders from injury!"

Chiddy turned to Vess and smiled. Vess nodded, picked up a letter and displayed it.

"We have here a communique from your ACLU, complaining about the completion mark that shows on the hand of those who have filled out the questionnaire. We are unable to find any incursion upon your liberties attendant to this. You all have social security numbers, each one different, and you are asked to contribute to opinion polls all the time. We're taking a virtually one hundred percent poll on American opinion, the first of its kind. And we're being sure we count everyone, one time only, which means it's inclusive and honest.

"Parenthetically, you should know that we offered the results of our count to your census bureau, learning to our confusion that your Congress is not really interested in an accurate count of everyone, particularly minorities. Be that as it may, in our poll we are not interested in what sounds acceptable, or what the majority can be cajoled into supporting. Good government should take into account all points of view. People without the completion mark haven't filled out their questionnaires, so it's easy to tell who's holding up the works."

The morning papers recorded forcible detention of bare-palmed individuals by friends and neighbors who insisted they fill out the questionnaires so other people could get the help they needed. The papers also recorded a number of pedestrians in major cities were passing out cash, booze and cigarettes to street people they normally avoided.

From Chiddy's journal Dearest Benita, Vess and I have just learned that we must leave Earth for a short time. An emergency has arisen on Pistach-home, and all athyci are being mustered to consider the situation. The last time this occurred, about fifty years ago, the emergency turned out to be a minor problem of ego-assertion among two royal family inceptors. It took only part of one morning to solve, yet athyci had come from as far away as Fancher-the-Farmost. I feel this will no doubt turn out to be another of the same, though Vess is not so sanguine. Vess feels something wrong and has been feeling so for some time. Ai says there is a disturbance in the aura of Earth that stretches all the way to Pistach-home. This sounds to me like a late- life crisis. We all have them, Mengatowhai knows, that feeling that time is closing in and we have not yet made our contribution as fully as we had planned to do in giddy youth.

If Vess should be correct, however, what can it be? Has the rebel T'Fees done something new? Have the Xankatikitiki started pushing delegates around again? Are the Fluiquosm off on another of their nihilist excursions, or have we seen yet another failure in Wulivery communications? Any such thing would indeed be troubling.

You have wondered, I am sure, dearest Benita, why we have not given you or your people any details about the other members of the Confederation. If you ever read this, as I hope you will, you may even wonder why I had not given you this document as it was written, rather than as a going-away gift, only when we are ready to depart. When the time comes that you do see this, you will appreciate that there was a strong possibility you would never see it. Giving this writing to you is only a possibility, not a certainty. If your people should not come, as you so neatly put it, up to the mark, I will be forbidden to give you any information at all. If you do not achieve Neighborliness, you will be told as little as possible. Your people must want to join us for the right reasons, not out of fear at what may happen if they do not. So, I write, often and much, only in hope of a happy outcome.

Panel five of the Fresco, Civilization, in which the Jaupati order their world, shows what can be accomplished when peoples devote themselves to proper lives. Even the Jaupati, I am sure, were not told of the consequences of failure. No one wanted them to know that un-neighborly planets are free territory for the predators among us. On un-neighborly planets, predators are unrestrained in coming and going as they please, restricted only from causing an extinction.

Also, I will not tell you we are leaving on this trip, for you might then feel you had to tell the authorities and this might lead to inappropriate action on their part. We hope no one will notice we are gone, for we have left TV broadcasts and various interventions, including several for your school dropouts, to be implemented at intervals while we are away. We will, that is, I will, dearest Benita, look forward to seeing you again on our return.

Benita-FRIDAY When she came upstairs for lunch on Friday, Benita called Angelica on her cell phone.

"Oh, Mom, I'm so glad you called. There's some man hanging around here on the campus ... or he was a few days ago. He's been talking to Carlos, telling him you're in trouble, that you may be mixed up with some people who are dangerous. He wants Carlos to help find you, and he's offered Carlos money to help them."