"I see nothing here of interest. Why do you show me these things?"

Lark expected the young urrish radical-leader of the rebel zealots-to answer, as both plaintiff and defendant, justifying her group's violence by diverting blame to the aliens. But the young dissenter kept well back, huddling with a crowd of humans and urs, consulting texts.

The hoonish sage, Phwhoon-dau, stepped forward to confront the Rothen emissary.

"We seek to ascertain whether these tools of high ac.u.men are yours. Tools which some of our children found, within the last turning of Jijo's axis. Tools which someone buried surrept.i.tiously, in close contact with our beloved Egg."

Lark watched Ling's reaction. Since he already knew her pretty well, no rewq was needed to translate her shock of recognition. Nor the embarra.s.sment that followed as she worked things out in her own head. That's all I needed to know, Lark thought.

Ro-kenn seemed nonchalant. "I can only guess that some among you natives placed it there-as your foolish rebels placed explosives under our station."

Now Ling's reaction was to blink in surprise. She didn't expect to hear him lie. At least not so baldly, with no time to prepare a smooth performance.

Glancing to one side, the star-woman noticed Lark's scrutiny and quickly looked away. Lark wasn't proud of the satisfaction he felt, over the reversal of their moral positions. Now it was her turn to feel ashamed.

"Use your instrumentalities," Phwhoon-dau urged the tall Rothen. "a.n.a.lyze these implements. You will find the technology far beyond anything we Six can now produce."

Ro-kenn shrugged with an elegant roll of his shoulders. "Perhaps they were left by the Buyur."

"In that place?" Phwhoon-dau boomed amus.e.m.e.nt, as if Ro-kenn had made a good-natured jest. "Only a century ago, that entire valley glowed white-hot from the Egg's pa.s.sage to the upper world. These tendrils would not have survived."

The crowd murmured.

Lark felt a tug on his sleeve. He glanced around to see that a short blond figure-Bloor the Portraitist-had slinked up behind, bearing a box camera and tripod.

"Let me shoot under your arm!" the photographer whispered urgently.

Lark felt a frisson of panic. Was Bloor mad? Trying this in the open, with the robots at their wariest? Even if Lark's body shielded that angle, people on both sides would see. Despite Phwhoon-dau's masterful performance, could they count on loyalty from everyone in the milling throng?

With a helpless sigh, he lifted his left arm enough for Bloor to aim at the confrontation on the Glade.

"Then I have no other explanation for these items, " Ro-kenn answered, referring to the snarled ma.s.s of gear. "You are welcome to speculate to the extent that you are able, until our ship arrives."

Ignoring the implied threat, the hoonish sage went on with an air of calm reason that made the Rothen seem edgy by comparison.

"Is speculation required? It's been a.s.serted that several sets of eyes observed your robots, on a recent foggy night, deliberately implanting these devices underneath our sacred stone-"

"Impossible!" Ro-kenn burst forth, temper once more flaring. "No life-forms were in any position to witness on that night. Careful scans beforehand showed no sentient beings within range when-"

The Rothen emissary trailed off midsentence, while onlookers stared, awed and amazed that an urbane star-G.o.d could be suckered by so obvious a ploy.

He must be awfully accustomed to getting his way, Lark thought, to fall for such a simple trap.

Then a strange notion occurred to him. Many Earthly cultures, from ancient Greece and India to High-California, depicted their G.o.ds as spoiled, temperamental adolescents.

Could that be racial memory? Maybe these guys really are our long-lost patrons, after all.

"Thank you for the correction," Phwhoon-dau answered, with a graceful bow. "I only said it was so a.s.serted. I shall rebuke those who suggested it. We will take your word that there were no witnesses on the night that you now admit your robots planted these strange, alien devices next to our Egg. Shall we leave that aspect now and proceed to why they were planted in the first place?"

Ro-kenn appeared to be chewing on his mistake, working his jaw like a human grinding his teeth. Lark's rewq showed a discolored swath that seemed to ripple across the upper part of the Rothen's face. Meanwhile Bloor whispered contentment as he took another picture, pushing a cover slide over the exposed plate. Go away, Lark silently urged the little man, to no avail.

"I see no further purpose to be served by this session," the alien finally announced. He turned and began to move away, only to stop when confronted by the gaping crater where his station once lay, recalling that he had no place to go.

Of course Ro-kenn could climb aboard a robot and simply fly off. But till either Kunn's aircraft or the star-ship arrived, there was only wilderness to flee to. No shelter beyond this glade filled with inconvenient questions.

A shout rose up from the cl.u.s.ter of urs and men over to the left. The huddle broke, revealing a beaming Lester Cambel, burdened by several large-format volumes as he hurried forward. "I think we found it!" he announced, kneeling with several a.s.sistants beside one of the spheroidal k.n.o.bs that ran along the tangled ma.s.s of cable. While an aide pried at the box, Lester explained.

"Naturally, none of us has the slightest idea how this device works, but Galactic tech is so refined and simplified, after a billion years, that most machines are supposed to be pretty easy to use. After all, if humans could pilot a creaky, fifth-hand starship all the way to Jijo, the things must be darn near idiot-proof!"

The self-deprecating jest drew laughter from both sides of the crowd. Pressing close to watch, the throng left no easy or dignified avenue for Ro-kenn or his servants to escape.

"In this case," Cambel continued, "we a.s.sume the gadget was meant to go off when all the pilgrims were in place near the Egg, at our most impressionable, perhaps as we finished the invocation. A good guess would be either a timer or some remote control trigger, possibly a radio signal."

An aide succeeded in getting the cover off, with an audible pop. "Now let's see if we can find something like the standard manual override switch they show on page fifteen-twelve," Lester said, crouching closer, consulting one of the open volumes.

Ro-kenn stared at the book, filled with crisp diagrams, as if he had just seen something deadly creep out of his own bedsheets. Lark noticed that Ling was looking at him once again. This time, her expression seemed to say, What have you been hiding from me?

Although she lacked a rewq, Lark figured a wry smile would convey his reply.

You a.s.sume too much, my dear. It blinded you, preventing you from asking sound questions. It also made you patronizing, when we might have been friends.

All right, maybe that was too complex to transmit by facial expression alone. Perhaps what his smirk actually said was-Such nerve! You accuse me of hiding things?

"I protest!" interjected the male sky-human, Rann, towering over all but the hoon and a few traeki as he stepped forward. "You have no right to meddle with the property of others!"

Phwhoon-dau crooned softly, "Hr-r-then you avow ownership of this invasive thing, placed without permission in our most sacred site?"

Rann blinked. Clearly he hated the present weakness of the aliens' position, having to fence words with savages. Confused, the tall sky-human turned to Ro-kenn for guidance. While they conferred, heads close together, Lester Cambel continued.

"The purpose of this contraption was what had us stymied for a while. Fortunately, I'd already been doing some research on Galactic technologies, so the texts were somewhat familiar. Finally, I found it listed under psi emitters!"

"Here's the switch, sir," an aide declared. "Ready when you are."

Lester Cambel stood up, raising both hands.

"People! This is a first and final warning. We've no idea what we're about to set off. I a.s.sume nothing fatal, since our guests aren't flying out of here at top speed.

However, since we've no time for careful experiments, I advise you to at least step back. The cautious among you may retreat some greater distance, perhaps twice the diameter of the Egg. I'll count down from ten."

Uthen wanted to stay and watch, Lark thought. But I made him go hide those library disk-things we found.

Did I actually do him a favor?

Cambel drew a deep breath.

"Ten!"

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

Lark had never seen a g'Kek outrace an urs before. But as the crowd dissolved, some of the Six showed surprising haste to depart. Others remained, tethered by curiosity.

Courage is one trait that binds any true union, he thought with some pride.

"Seven!"

"Six!"

Now Ro-kenn himself glided forward. "I avow ownership of this device, which-"

"Five!"

"Four!"

Ro-kenn hurried, speaking louder to be heard past the tumult. "-which consists merely of instrumentation, innocently emplaced- "

"Three!"

"Two!"

Faster, in frantic tones. "-to study patterns cast by your revered and sacred- " ' "One!"

"Now!"

Some humans instinctively brought their hands up to their ears, crouching and squinting as if to protect their eyes against an expected flash. Urs pressed arms over pouches. g'Keks drew in their eyes, while qheuens and traeki squat-hugged the ground. Rewq cringed, fleeing the intense emotions pouring from their hosts. Whatever a "psi emitter" might be, everyone was about to find out.

Lark tried to ignore instinct, taking his cue instead from Ling. Her response to the countdown seemed a queer mix of anger and curiosity. She clasped both hands together, turning to meet his eyes at the very moment Cambel's aide stroked a hidden switch.

Asx CONFUSION BRIMS OUR CENTRAL CORE, OOZING through the joint-seals that bind us/we/i/me, seeping bewilderment down our outer curves, like sap from a wounded tree.

This voice, this rhythmic recitation, can it be what we know it not to be?

The Egg's patternings have stroked us so many ways. This ruction has familiar elements, like the Sacred One's way of singing. . . .

Yet-there is also a metallic tang, simplistic, lacking the Egg's sonorous pitch and timbre.

One sub-cadence draws us toward it, clattering like a hasty quintet of claws, pulling our attention, as if down a dark underground funnel.

Suddenly, i/we coalesce, submerging into strange existence as a unified being. One encased in a hard sh.e.l.l.

Pentagonal resentment surges. This "me" is filled with rage.

How dare they tell me I am free!

What unnatural law is this Code of the Commons? This rule that "liberates" my kind from the sweet discipline we once knew, imposed by our gracious queens?

We who are blue-we who are red-surely we yearn to serve, deep in our throbbing bile nodes! To work and fight selflessly, a.s.sisting gray dynastic ambitions! Was that not our way among the stars, and before?

The native way of all qheuens?

Who dared bring an end to those fine days, forcing alien notions of liberty into carapaces too stiff for a deadly drug called freedom?

Humans dared impose these thoughts, breaking up the union of our well-ordered hives! Theirs is the fault, the sh.e.l.l-bound debt to pay.

And pay they shall!

After that, there will be other scores to settle . . .

i/we writhe, experiencing what it feels like to crouch and run on five strong legs. Legs meant for service. Not to a mere nest, crouched behind some puny dam, or to some vast abstraction like the Commons, but to grand gray matrons, n.o.ble, gorgeous, and strong.

Why does this vivid perception flood through our dazzled core?

It must be the Rothen artifice-their psi-device-part of their scheme to influence each race of the Six. Tricking us into doing their will.

Quivers of surprise shake our/my rings. Even after so many years of friendship, i/we had never realized-the qheuen point of view is so weird Yet no weirder than the next sensation that comes barging into our shared consciousness.

The feel of galloping hooves.

A hot breath of the dry steppes.

The burning flare of a psyche at least as egocentric as any human being.

Now I am urrish-ka! Solitary, proud as the day I emerged from the gra.s.s, little more than a beast. Nervous, but self-reliant.

I may join the tribe or clan that adopts me off the plain.

I may obey a leader-for life has hierarchies that one must endure.

Yet inside I serve one mistress. Me!

Can humans ever know how their gross smell sc.r.a.pes my nostril membranes? They make good warriors and smiths, it's true. They brought fine music to Jijo. These are valid things.

Yet one conceives how much better the world would be without them.

We had fought our way up high before they came. From the plains to fiery mountaintops, we stretched our necks over all others on Jijo-till these bipeds dragged us down, to be just another race among Six.

Worse, their lore reminds us--(me!)--how much we have lost. How much is forgotten.

Each day they make me recall how low and brief my life is doomed to be, here on this spinning ball of mud, with bitter oceans all around . . .

The indignant narration gallops past our ability to follow. Its resentful thread is lost, but another takes its place, imposed from the outside by a force that throbs through the little mountain vale.

This beat is much easier to follow. A cadence that is heavy, slow to anger-and yet, once roused, its ire seems hopeless to arrest short of death.

It is not a rhythm to be rushed. Still, it beckons us . . . Beckons us to ponder how often the quicker races tease we poor, patient hoon, how they swirl around us, how often they seem to talk fast on purpose, how they set us to the most dangerous tasks, to face the sea alone, although each lost ship wrenches a hundred loved ones, tearing our small families apart with wrenching pain.

Humans and their stinking steamboats, they have kept the skills, pretending to share, but not really. Someday they will leave us rotting here, while they go off on ships made of pure white light.