"And since then?" asked the man with the gavel, his mouth remaining open as she replied.

"Since then, I have seen and talked with the president and his wife in company with Mr. Riley, who accompanied me on the expedition to Pistach-home and other worlds. During that journey we saw and were greeted by three other races besides the Pistach. These were the Flibotsi, the Thwakians, and the Vixbot. Our entire journey was recorded, and when the security people are through with the recordings, I'm sure they'll be shown to the American people, and to the world."

There was more whispering, more running back and forth, and finally the senator who had assumed the chair decided he didn't want it anymore. Sounding as severe and threatening as he was able to manage around the distractions, the chairman pro tem told her she was still under subpoena and would have to appear again later.

The big talk on the TV blather shows that night concerned the disappearance of all the pregnant men plus some others who had worked for them. Among them, it was alleged, was the intermediary's husband.

Much was made of the fact that Bert had been scheduled to appear before the same committee Benita had been subpoenaed for, that she had denied his allegations, and that he himself had disappeared. Benita smiled at this, saying a brief litany of thanks to the Inkleozese, who had removed him even though he wouldn't be useful as a breeder. Getting Bert out of circulation relieved her mind a good deal. If he couldn't get a drink for a year or two, it should do him a world of good!

Some TV channels were still showing interviews with him, but they were obviously old ones.

Though he didn't look drunk, precisely, he was definitely glassy eyed from something. The only hopeful item reported was that no further hearings were planned until Senator Morse could be found. Benita felt that by that time the situation would be either improved or lost. Either way, it would be long past crying about.

Next morning, the disappearances were still in the news. The Senate demanded an investigation.

Lupe Roybal-Morse suggested that Morse may have been so upset by being pregnant that he simply went off to be alone. His colleagues pretended to believe that was impossible, though she knew him better than they did. Within a few hours, it was reported on CNN that every man used as a brooder had vanished.

The president issued a statement saying he had been informed the Inkleozese had wanted to take them to a safe place, where they would not be harassed by the news media, that he was assured they would be returned.

Surprisingly, except for the religious far right (those who were left) nobody screamed much about it.

Comics had a field day, of course. Jay Leno did a Morse-travelogue, to Bee or not to Bee. Actually, Benita thought, the Inkleozese looked more like wasps, but it was close enough to be funny.

Benita called Angelica, who seemed to be coping all right, though she wanted to know where her father was. Benita said she didn't know where he was being taken, which was true, astronomy not being her forte. "However, I'm assured he's safe, just as Carlos is safe. You don't have to worry about either of them."

"I haven't been. But then, I feel guilty because I haven't been. You know?"

"Remember what I told you about drowning, Angel. Try to keep your head above water."

The following day the disappearances were replaced in the headlines by reports of massive slaughters in Northern Ethiopia, coastal Bangladesh, and among the Chinese settlers in Tibet, with lots and lots of gory pictures, enough to keep the media scrambling for the next few weeks, even if nothing else happened at all.

Chiddy and Vess took five days to make their trip, arriving back on Earth in what Star Trek would call a shuttle, except that it was morphable. The big ship, they said, was on the back of the moon, a considerable distance from those of the predators. Benita phoned Chad, as arranged, and within the hour a parade of long black limousines bearing dark-suited "spiritual advisors" began to arrive at Benita's back door. Benita didn't see any of them. They came in the door, got into the elevator, and vanished. The Reverend, the president's spiritual advisor, the Big Sa, wasn't scheduled to arrive until the President did.

The Inkleozese arrived by their usual form of transport: abrupt materialization. Her Exactitude arrived first. She provided Benita with both a tape and a disc of the recorded voice Benita had asked for, then suggested Benita go to the bathroom and stay there while they and their "baggage" transitted the living room. Since no one was willing to gamble on how things would turn out, everyone was being very careful of what Benita saw and didn't see, just in case she had to testify about it. She took the opportunity for a long, luxurious shower while poor Sasquatch, who'd tried a sniff at one of the Inkleozese and had been abruptly flattened for it, lay on the bathroom rug whining at her. Poor dog, he didn't know what to think or who to bark at or even who to smell.

Late that evening, right after the arrival of the Big SA and the president, it was Chad and Benita's turn. Benita had already arranged for Simon to do dog duty again, and he'd wished her well. She had hinted to him that something epochal was happening, so he'd feel better about all the bother she was causing him. She really didn't want to get back and find she had no job. She liked her job. Besides, if they were successful in their efforts, things would go back to more or less normal, on its way to being forgotten except by historians, and nobody would give her a pension for her part in it.

The shuttle delivered the last few of them to the larger ship on the moon, pausing there while the Inkleozese delivered cease and desist documents to the predator ships, denying their right to stay on Earth without decision by the Confederation. While they were waiting, all the Earthians had their pictures taken in front of the window wall of the big ship. The little "SAs" had been promised they could use the trip as a CV item later on, so pictures were absolutely essential, that and bits of moon rock and certificates signed by the president and by Chiddy or Vess. Chiddy protested at putting himself in the position of seeming to endorse the Earthian visit, when it was being required by the Inkleozese, so Chad suggested he write "Real moon rock,- best wishes" in Pistach. It was doubtful anyone would ever know the difference.

While everyone slept a good bit of the time, all the waking hours were spent working. Half a dozen animatronics people were working with the recorded voice Benita had obtained from the Inkleozese, and all the artists (who would pretend to be little SAs, when they arrived at Pistach-home) had copies of a Fresco panel or panels, copies that had been enhanced, enlarged, and had the colors corrected by the FBI labs from those Chad had recorded during the previous trip. The conversation that went on about them was constant and fascinating, or so Benita thought. She wouldn't have dreamed there were that many things to say about artworks that all the little "SAs" agreed could be compared, at best, to Grandma Moses on a very bad day. The talk about color and composition and message went on, deep into every "night" that they were aboard. (Both Chad and Benita were grateful that the larger ship was able to prevent the exhaustion they'd felt in the smaller one.) Though the humans occasionally encountered Chiddy and Vess, nothing was discussed where they would be able to hear it. The Inkleozese had assured Benita the Earthian quarters were strictly private, and the ship was large enough that the Pistach were encountered only at meals.

Each member of the group had been given a copy of Chiddy's journal also, as a guide to Pistach thought. At one point in the journey, the Big SA, looking very stern, asked Benita just what Chiddy meant when he wrote "dearest" Benita.

"Chiddy's an affectionate sort of person," she answered, after a moment's thought. "I assume he, or it, or ai, feels toward me pretty much the same way I feel about my dog, or perhaps, my dog about me, when I come home from work. I mean, that's a cross-species relationship, but we both have a sense of security and pleasure in it, and perhaps even rapture. Sasquatch does act rapturous sometimes."

"There is no physical . . . ah . . . ?"

"There is no physical ah," Benita confirmed. "Beyond what might amount to a scratch behind the ears. Not that intimacy would be impossible. Chad says he's fairly well convinced there's a point to point correspondence between their actual forms and any morphed form they adopt. Morphing isn't natural to them, you know. It's something they've discovered how to do, and it takes some kind of implanted electronic assist."

"Why do they do it?" he demanded.

"I think it has to do with exploration. If you're going to a planet that's all water, you need gills. If you're going to one that's all desert, you need a body that conserves moisture. And on any new planet, you need to be able to look like the natives while you're finding things out."

Though the Big SA had a very odd look on his face when she finished, Benita was quite satisfied with her analysis. It was probably as close to the truth as she could get.

The Big SA went on to ask her what she knew about the Pistach religion.

"Chiddy calls the Pistach god, Aitun. It means The one who is.' Chiddy says the Pistach don't presume to know what Aitun is up to or desires. They have a duty, however, to infer purpose from what they see and discover. They have inferred that as an intelligent race who can see that intelligence is a rarity among the stars, they must help spread intelligence throughout the galaxy. They read this as Aitun's possible intent without ever unequivocally saying it is Aitun's intent. They avoid saying what God wants or means. They regard races who do as prideful and arrogant.

"Chiddy also says there are over five thousand picky little gods among the races ai knows of," she said. "A lot of them inceptorish . . ."

"Inceptorish?"

"You've read the journal, Reverend. Inceptorish. Virile. Arbitrary, egocentric, and often belligerent.

Anyhow, Chiddy says none of the five thousand have sufficient universality to be the god of everyone.

Chiddy includes our Earthian gods in the five thousand."

"There is only one Earthian God," said the SA, in a ponderous tone.

"You are no doubt correct," said Benita. "But Chiddy says none of the ones humans talk about in the Western world are it, and none of the hundreds they talk about in the Eastern and undeveloped worlds are it, either."

They stopped on Inkleoza, to drop off the Inkleozese and their brooders and to pick up a couple of replacement assessors who were beyond breeding age. Chiddy said Inkleozese were needed on board, as they were the Confederation's accepted witnesses and attestors, but he thought the president and the male members of his entourage would be more relaxed with non-breeding Inkleozese. Even though the Inkleozese and their brooders had stayed in a separate section of the ship, Benita and Chad noticed a definite lowering of tension when they were in transit again. The new Inkleozese were very jolly, fatter than their predecessors and much less austere.

The balance of the trip was over far too soon. Each one of those playing the part of a little SA complained that he or she wasn't ready. Each one dithered, getting all his or her supplies packed into the smallest possible volume. When everyone was ready to disembark, each took his or her predetermined place in the procession. First the two Inkleozese, escorting the president, who was robed in blue with a blue headdress, looking like someone on a Mardi Gras float, but very dignified. Then Chiddy and Vess, escorting the Big SA, also clad in blue, also dignified, though more meditative. Then the little SAs in robes of a lighter and less piercing sapphire, two by two, thirty-six of them, including the specialists from Hollywood, carrying their special paraphernalia, all looking solemn and dedicated, some of them bearing "altars," large chests that held the equipment. Blue was a high caste color on Pistach planets, so Chiddy had told them, and the plan required that the Pistach realize these Earthians were very high caste and dead serious about the whole thing. Chad and Benita, being of infinitely lower rank, brought up the rear.

T'Fees and his group were there to meet them. Chiddy spoke to him while Vess translated to the humans. Then the Inkleozese spoke, very dignified, very stern. Then Chiddy spoke again. The gist of the whole thing was that T'Fees's interference with the way of life on Pistach-home was a matter for the Pistach to handle among themselves, but any philosophical changes that impacted upon the human race were outside Pistach's sole authority. Now that the members of the Confederation were involved, the Inkleozese were there to supervise the human race's attempt to get a grip on the situation.

T'Fees asked what they wanted.

The humans, said the lead Inkleoza, wanted to spend a night of meditation in the House of the Fresco, in the hope this would give them insight to aid their world in facing the grave tragedies which might be in the offing.

Benita was watching T'Fees. He turned slightly ocher.

"What tragedies are those?" he boomed.

"If the Pistach withdraw, Earth will be at the mercy of the predators, and Earth's leaders need to prepare for that eventuality," said the Inkleozese. "Certain other worlds, such as Pistach-home and Quirk, may also be at the mercy of the predators."

T'Fees looked startled. Benita thought he was surprised, as though aware for the first time that his own actions had consequences he might not have thought of. The surprise carried over to the crowd of his supporters, where there was a good deal of expostulation back and forth.

This was followed by a lengthy argument between the curators and the Inkleozese. Then the Big SA asked to speak, translated by Chiddy. He spoke of the necessity of working in accord with the single spirit of universal life and intelligence, but what he conveyed was mostly rhythm and elation. Vess had had an advance copy, so the translation was well worked out, and the humans had been coached. As the Big SA stayed strictly away from anything that could be considered a reference to any picky, inceptorish little Earth god, by the time he was finished, he had the whole crowd swaying and shouting either "Amen, hallelujah," or "Shavil, dashavil," which meant "Amen, hallelujah" in Pistach.

When that died down, the president spoke, again translated by Chiddy, saying that he and his advisors intended to pray for clarification of both the Earthian and the Pistach role in the galaxy. More talk followed, quite subdued, ending with the curators' permission to spend the night with the Fresco. A half dozen of them, not including Chiddy or Vess, would have to stay with the humans, however, just to be sure the Fresco came to no harm. T'Fees would come with them to be sure they were really interested in meditating, and the two Inkleozese would accompany the group. The humans bowed, the Pistach bowed, the Inkleozese bowed, T'Fees and his people bowed, and the whole procession went off up the stairs toward the House of the Fresco, lugging the altars containing, so Chiddy had informed the Pistach, their ritual materials. They had timed their arrival to coincide with the sunset, so they had to move very quickly.

Once inside, Benita and Chad shut the tall doors while the little SAs set up their altars, large carved wooden ones, upon which a ritual meal of cookies and root beer was set out in silver plates and faux crystal chalices. The Inkleozese and the Pistach, including T'Fees, joined in the ritual repast to be polite, for Chiddy had told them that human foods were all quite harmless. Which they were, of course, if one didn't count sarsaparilla-induced unconsciousness as a harm.

Benita and Chad watched both the Pistach and the Inkleozese. Within moments, T'Fees and the Pistach elders were nodding on their reclining boards, and shortly they were completely out of it. The Inkleozese were still quite wide awake.

"Not as close physiologically as we hoped," murmured Chad.

"Maybe even less close psychologically," murmured Benita in return. "It's a gamble, but they've cooperated so far. Let's get on with it."

The battery packs came out of the hollow altars, and bright lamps illuminated every line and surface of the Fresco. Powerful projectors were adjusted to show new outlines on each panel, the "spiritual advisors" took off their robes and put on their smocks, drop cloths were spread beneath the panels, and paint odors filled the House. There was at least one painter for each panel, more on the panels that needed the most help, and while Chad and Benita played endless rounds of poker with the president and the Big SA, all the artists who had pretended to be SAs went at the business of painting over the old Fresco to make it show precisely what the Pistach had thought it showed prior to the cleaning. The Inkleozese, without a word of protest, wandered around behind them, watching the work go on.

They used fast-drying paints. There was no display of artistic temperament. Each one of them was a professional artist who could work to a deadline, and each had already figured out exactly how he or she would proceed. They had agreed on a consistent style, more Diego Rivera than Michelangelo, and each artist had a pre-drawn overlay for his or her particular panel plus "character studies" of the main characters, so they'd be consistent from panel to panel. A great deal of attention had been paid to the figure of Canthorel, and great trouble was taken everywhere it appeared. Canthorel became three- dimensional, individual, recognizable. Since every painter had a fortune in spray cans and mini-rollers and a huge selection of sponges and brushes, large sections of the surfaces were covered quickly.

Meantime, the group of puppeteers put together their apparatus and began rehearsing.

When the four nonartists/nonactors got tired of poker (the Big SA was the big winner, fourteen dollars and twenty cents, and the president accused him of having had help), they watched, fascinated, as weapons disappeared from the Fresco to be replaced by symbols of peaceful progress, as Mengantowhai became a sage and guide instead of a bloodthirsty oppressor, and as the Pokoti race was differentiated from the Jaupati race. Since both races were extinct, it didn't really matter what they'd looked like so long as they were different from one another. Kasiwees was murdered all over again, this time by a vengeful Pokoti. Mengantowhai passed on his virtue and power to Canthorel, who now had a very high-caste blue aura painted around him. The wine jars that had turned into assaulted Jaupati turned back into wine jars being virtuously fractured by abstemious Pistach.

The level of artistry exhibited that night was very, very high, a little slick, Chad murmured, but very high. Chiddy had been quite right when he said humans excel in artistry. There was simply no comparison between these painters and the original painter of the Fresco. The earlier panels had had no composition, no perspective, they were deficient in color, and no Pistach had ever heard of chiaroscuro.

Perhaps it was the way the Pistach eyes interpreted their world, or perhaps representational art just wasn't their thing. Whatever talent the Pistach lacked, human people had had it from their infancy. Benita found herself imagining all those old Cro Magnons sitting around the fire talking about Ugh's lampsoot technique with mastodons, and how beautifully Glub used ocher to shade the flanks of the horse.

She also wondered what Chiddy would say when he saw it, as he eventually would. The president asked, "Will they understand what they see, or are their eyes too different?"

"They'll understand," Benita murmured. "They've been raving about the Sistine Chapel ever since they arrived."

Along a couple of hours before sunrise, the artists finished up their panels and began circulating, critiquing one another's work, catching little bits of this and that, symbols that weren't clear, and so forth.

Oddly enough, the Inkleozese did a fair bit of this too, suggesting a change here, an emphasis there.

Benita watched them closely, and if she had had to say what they were thinking, she would have guessed they were amused, interested, and approving.

When everyone was finished, anyone would swear the Fresco had always been that way. Panel number sixteen, where Canthorel leaves Jaupat, had been considerably modified. He still left Jaupat, but with him went a winged symbol of the future, fluttering at his shoulder, and from the winged figure's mouth came a ribbon lettered with the Pistach words that meant, In time I will return. There were also ideograms for the name Glumshalak, which Chiddy had included in his journal. As foreshadowing, it was neatly done.

It was, all in all, an excellent job, one so far above the original that its divine inspiration could hardly be doubted, particularly by Pistach who had never seen Earthly art. There was still a final step, however.

When all the supplies had been put away, Chad unpacked a sprayer that contained a mix of soot, grease, and odds and ends of other pollutants mixed with a chemical dispersant. Standing well back, he went from panel to panel, spraying goop into the air until they were all just slightly hazed, nothing completely veiled, but nothing looking new, either, about the way they would have been in a few more weeks of candle smoke. A second spray gun contained pifion smoke mist, to eliminate any lingering paint smells.

Benita had suggested pifion smoke, because it was one totally unfamiliar to the Pistach, or so Chiddy had told her.

When all the equipment was packed up, everyone got back into his or her robes. The actors assembled their devices and the Pistach were nudged into wakefulness among smells of incense and sounds of drums and chimes. The room was dimly candlelit.

"Oh, Canthorel, come to us," intoned the Big SA, in passable Pistach. "Show us the truth!"

T'Fees pushed himself higher on his legs. The Pistach elders shifted, staring at one another. One of them asked Chad, through his translator, "Is this evocation of the sacred persons of other races customary?"

"Only after hours of meditation," Chad responded. "Oh. Look there!" He pointed into the gloom.

In the dim glow of the candle flames the figure of Canthorel emerged from the darkness, garbed in a radiant blue aura, taller than a normal Pistach, an absolute replica of the Canthorel figures in the Fresco.

The figure bowed, only slightly, gestured widely, then opened its mouth and cried, in Pistach: "I have returned to restore my work and to reestablish the teachings of Mengantowhai."

The Pistach opened their eyes wide. T'Fees muttered in an ugly voice, and three of the more robust elders silenced him.

The image of Canthorel went on. "Into this place came an evildoer to change my works and cast doubt upon our purpose. The infamy of this evil-doer was foreseen. Glumshalak came to cover the false works so they might not hinder the spiritual progress of my people. Into this place, another evil-doer has come, and there the miscreant stands, the one who wished to negate Glumshalak's virtuous deeds. Now, I have returned to reassert the value of Pistach life, the work they do, the order they bring. Go forth and assist the worlds of the galaxy, remembering always the commandments given me by Mengantowhai: "Where you see an unfruitful tree, make it bear.

"Do as little as possible.

"Do it as painlessly as possible.

"Be responsible for having done it."

The voice dwindled away, the aura faded, the figure moved toward the altar. A smoke lit from within, as by blue fire, exploded in the House, and Chad and Benita ran to thrust open the doors to let in the first pale rays of dawn. When the smoke cleared, Canthorel was gone.

Half a dozen Earthians went about the room, extinguishing the few candles, leaving it virtually dark.

Tambourines and drums continued their tinka-tinka-tinka, bom bom bom.

The Pistach were soundless, speechless. T'Fees struggled with the three elders who were holding him down. The humans chanted, swaying in time to the drums, giving the Pistach time to recover.

Eventually, the leader of the Pistach elders asked the president, "Did you see Canthorel? Was he indeed present among us?"

The president nodded, saying truthfully, "I saw a marvelous figure emerge from the Ground of Canthorel. One moment he was not there, the next moment, he was."

"Did you hear him speak?"

The president said yes, he had heard the figure speak, but he was not sure he understood all that Canthorel had said. Would the elders explain it to him?

"Later," murmured the elder. "Oh, yes, but later." The sounds of drums and tambourines faded. The Pistach rose from their reclining boards, all of them still staring at the place Canthorel had been, before he disappeared. Since their sleeping position was no different from their resting or sitting position, there was no indication they had drifted off. Even T'Fees seemed unaware of having done so.

Through her own translator, Benita heard one say to another, "I'm afraid I dozed off there for a moment. Did I miss anything?"

The other answered, "Just sitting and meditating until Canthorel came. You saw that!"

"Oh, yes. I saw that."

The room was dim, the darkness broken only near the top of the dome where the clerestories admitted a pale glow. All the Pistach, including T'Fees, were so occupied with the vision of Canthorel that none of them glanced at the walls, and had they done so, it was still too dim to see anything. Benita remembered Chiddy's description of the first time he had seen it. People came in and went out, they didn't really look.

As the Pistach moved toward the door, she wandered toward the wall, peering at the Fresco, reaching with tentative fingers to stroke the dim figures that bright morning would disclose. The True Fresco of Canthorel.

The morning after The Pistach elders were on the stairs before the humans emerged in the same order as they had gone in, followed by the Inkleozese. All of them moved slowly downward toward T'Fees's supporters, who were gathered below. As T'Fees neared them, he hastened his steps to join his colleagues. The rest of the group paused not far away.

The elder Inkleozese, the Assessor Emeritus, turned to face the human delegation and cried: "Do you consider that your meditation has been successful?"

The crowd grew silent as Chiddy translated this question. The president nodded, smiled, and intoned, "We spent the night praying the meaning of the Fresco would be clear to us. When morning came, we saw a vision of Canthorel. All of us saw it. The human race is very grateful for Canthorel's return."

Chiddy turned pale green. His mouthparts trembled, as did his voice as he translated this statement.

The crowd around T'Fees stirred ominously. Several of them cried out in objection, but an elder silenced them with a sharp reproof, as though to say the translation was accurate.

When the crowd stilled, the president continued. "We are reassured that the Pistach may go on assisting the human race. As Canthorel said, it is their job. We are reassured to know that the previous misunderstanding was caused by an evil-doer in an attempt to obscure both Canthorel's great artistry and the authority that had been passed through him to the current athyci in a direct line of descent from Mengantowhai.

"The Fresco makes it perfectly clear," the president concluded. "There can be no question about it."

Chiddy, who was by now almost ashen, translated once more.