copyright 1994 Ron Merrill

First Serial Rights

About 23,000 words

The vestibule was cluttered by several knots of chattering women. Helvig Manderson nodded politely as she removed her slippers and stuffed them in her niche. The dormitory's sleeproom was only marginally more quiet, even at her bunk in the undesirable corner location. Wearily she tossed her reader on the bed. The red message light on the headboard was flashing, but she ignored it and headed immediately for the dining room.

She loaded a tray and sat down at an empty table, the seat unpleasantly cold against her bare skin. The first dinner shift, as usual, was sparsely attended. Even so, she was not alone for long. With an inward shudder she saw Alma Nellis make for her table.

"Helvig-ad! Eating early again tonight?"

She tried to keep to small talk, but she'd never been a skillful conversationalist and Alma effortlessly headed off her attempts to escape into the trivial. She soon saw where the tete-a-tete was heading, but could not turn the discussion aside.

"You know, Helvig-ad," said Alma finally, leaning forward, "I can't help but notice that you've been awfully withdrawn lately. I really like you a lot and I wonder if we couldn't spend more time together. How about going out to a show tonight?"

Helvig smiled sweetly. "That's very kind of you, Alma-'d. I have been a bit tense lately; you're so perceptive to notice. To tell you the truth, I was planning to stop in the recroom tonight."

"Oh? Well, I'm very glad to hear it. I'm sure it will do you a world of good." They finished their meals in silence.

Seething, Helvig strode down the corridor. She stopped at a mirror. The vicious little snitch must be getting hard up. At 48, Helvig was no blazing beauty, even after a life in Titan's kindly gravity. She forced herself to calm down. It was annoying that Alma had made her move tonight, but perhaps for the best after all. She hadn't been in the recroom for weeks, and she'd been self-indulgent in other ways too. At this rate she would soon have been called in for counselling, or maybe even another reprimand. She had to start keeping herself in hand a little better, and maybe this reminder would be helpful.

There were few of her dormmates in the recroom this early, but plenty of hopeful men. She picked one at random, caught his eye, and smiled.

Coming out of the shower, she admitted to herself that she did feel better. It was good for the morale, after all.

She surveyed the room she'd slept in for nine years. Women sat on beds, some reading, most talking. Their voices were politely low, but still the relentless soprano tones grated on her nerves. More than once she'd considered moving to a mixed dorm just to have some baritone voices around. She'd enjoyed living in Epictetus Four--but that was doubles, not mixed, and probably her happy memories had more to do with Gerald than with the living environment.

Her eyes drifted across the rows of beds. Half a dozen couples were making love. Alma had found a partner after all, she saw. Etiquette was different in a mixed dorm; to limit herself to monthly visits to the recroom would be intolerably rude instead of just moderately uncouth, as it was here. Maybe being forced into intimacy would be a good thing for her. Nine years here, and still not a single real friend . . . but face it, the fault was in her, not in her circumstances.

The message light was still flashing on her bed. Presumably it was junk mail; she hadn't heard from Clara or Hanako for years. But she might as well clean things up before going to bed. She opened her reader and called up the mail.

TO: Helvig Manderson 80u639kbt

FROM: Bureau of Trade, Office W/15

DATE: 10-16-45

REF: Subject Application for Emigration 03-17-43

An emigrant opening has become available, for which you may be eligible. Please contact this office for an appointment. If you do not respond by 10-18-45 it will be assumed that you are no longer seeking this opening and your application referenced above will be cancelled.

Jetta Norman 57q881rvm

Supervisor J-17

More than two years ago; she'd read an article about possible openings and sent in an application on the off chance. She'd received a routine acknowledgment, with an assurance that she'd be notified if a suitable opening appeared. Then there had been nothing. She had forgotten about the application. Now--

What did she have to lose? She opened a line to the office's answering machine and scheduled an appointment.

Jetta Norman was a grandmotherly woman with a pleasant voice, rather more sympathetic than other bureaucrats Helvig had met. Her chair was at the head of the office table where her clerks tapped busily at terminals. She waved Helvig to a seat.

"Let me tell you frankly at the outset that you weren't on our primary list of emigrant candidates for Fermi. We had all the available slots filled; then a few days ago one of the women we'd selected died in a transtube accident. We're now looking at replacements. The shipment process runs to an absolutely inflexible schedule. We therefore have very little time to select someone; and if you are the one selected, you will have to make your preparations and leave within a few days. So procedures have to be somewhat abbreviated."

Helvig nodded. "I see. But I'm curious how I got on the short list. When I applied, it was--well, just an impulse, I guess. It seemed like a real long shot, and I never really expected to be selected. I'm a pretty ordinary person, and I would think you'd be flooded with applicants. What's special about me?"

"Actually, there aren't so many applicants as you think. Still fewer who are likely to make a decision and pack up and go in the space of a few days. As for what's special about you--that will come out, I think, as we go through the interview process. Shall we begin?"

"All right."

"Let me just call up your file. Let's start by going over your background. Born in 2397 . . . both parents dead, I see."

"Yes. My father died of osteolysis while I was in college. My mother contracted memory disease six years ago and opted for euthanasia."

"How did that affect you? Were you close to your parents?"

"I was very close to my father. I took a term off from college to be with him for the last few months. His death was a shattering experience for me."

"What about your mother?"

"We got along all right, but she never really approved of me, I fear. She hadn't wanted to have a child at all, but my father insisted on putting it in the contract. So I was sort of a source of conflict, and it wasn't very pleasant."

"Why did she take early death? Memory disease can be treated."

"She was absolutely dedicated to her career. Drugs could have kept her functional, but not at the level she needed for her job as a Sector Group Coordinator. Being able to match names and faces and histories for thousands of people is a big part of the job. She would have had to retire, and she couldn't face that. I tried to talk her out of it. She said I didn't understand."

"Mmm . . . You studied botany, I see. How do you feel about your own career?"

"I enjoy it. I've had good jobs mostly. Still . . . well, you have my supervisors' reports there."

"Yes. Your performance has been more than adequate, but nobody seems to have regarded you as a dedicated careerist."

"That's true. Working as an agronomist is a source of satisfaction, but it's not the be-all of my life. I'm not like my mother." She grimaced. "Am I being too frank? Have I just disqualified myself?"

Jetta smiled discreetly. "No. Being a careerist would more likely be a disadvantage than an advantage, as a matter of fact. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's turn to your personal history. Your first marriage came when you were 26, I see. No children."

Helvig sighed. "No. We were just planning to start our first when Gerald was killed in the Hesperus blowout."

"You were very close, weren't you?" said Jetta quietly. "You waited almost eight years to marry again. I gather your second marriage was not so successful."

"No. It was really an act of desperation on my part. My repros were about to expire, of course. But Derek kept coming up with excuses to postpone having children. Finally I realized he wanted me to be his mother. Well, that's bitterness speaking. Anyway, we were divorced after three years. Suffocate it, this is all in the file, anyway."

"Yes," said Jetta. "But I have to make a decision on a person, not a file. It's important, very important, to evaluate you on more than the stored record. Still, there is one more part of the record we have to go over."

Helvig closed her eyes. Why had she thought she had a chance? "All right. Let's get it over with."

"Well. I see here that you've been put on restriction twice for aggravated isolationism. Then there are, let's see, eight formal reprimands and a couple of dozen counselling sessions. Looking over the assessments from your work supervisors as well as your dorm leaders, I find there's a strong consensus that you're a borderline antisocial."

Helvig glanced around, but the clerks remained absorbed in their work, paying no attention to her. She looked back at Jetta. "I can't deny it, obviously. It's all in the file. But it's also in the file that those restrictions were nearly twenty years ago. My record's been much better lately; I haven't been in trouble for over a year now. You should at least take that into account."

"Don't worry, I do. Still, your participation in group activities remains minimal. And I see that you not only accepted a corner bed in your dorm--you asked for one. Rather unusual, to say the least. Do you have any friends?"

She sighed again. "I had a couple of close friends in college, but over the years I've lost touch with them. When I was with Gerald, we had some other couples we spent some time with, but after he died, I drifted away from them, too."

Jetta made some notes. "Well, that takes care of your history. I'm sorry, I know it's unpleasant."

Helvig thought the interview must be over, but Jetta went on without pause to say, "The next step is for you to take a little test. Come with me, please."

Helvig picked up her reader and followed Jetta down a crowded corridor. She was led into a small room which contained nothing but a few chairs. She turned to Jetta.

The woman smiled at her. "The test is quite simple. You don't have to do anything. Just stay in this room until I return for you." And without further ado she walked out.

Stupefied with shock, Helvig at first could not move. Then she broke free of her paralysis and jumped to the door, drawing a deep breath to shout a denunciation to the people in the corridor. Her hand was almost on the latch when she stopped herself.

What could possibly be the point of this experiment? Did the woman expect her to incriminate herself? But she couldn't possibly be prosecuted; it was a clear-cut case of entrapment. And this was the Bureau of Trade, not the Bureau of Social Behavior. It didn't make sense.

Slowly she backed away from the door and sat down. Being alone was . . . not so bad. Almost more embarrassing than frightening, and there was even some of the excitement of the forbidden about it. She could stand it, at least for a few minutes.

So what was the test? Certainly her failure to immediately return to society and denounce Jetta Norman was proof that she was a borderline antisocial--but who needed proof? It was all in her record anyway. If she was still under consideration, in spite of her record--in fact, hadn't Jetta seemed rather undismayed by it? Maybe being a borderline antisocial wasn't such a bad thing for a colonist. A colony would be on a habitable planet, so society would be unspacerly--like Earth--except, that a colony would be uncrowded . . . She was suddenly aware that she had never taken her chances seriously enough to really investigate what would be involved in emigration. She opened her reader and called up the encyclopedia. She wouldn't be able to do much in a few minutes, but at least she could learn enough to avoid making a total fool of herself.

What colony had Jetta mentioned? Fermi, that was it. It was the fourth interstellar colony. Distance, 39 lightyears. First colonization 2183 in Sol frame. Latest population figure was as of 2400 in Sol frame--8,400,000 people. Nearly a third of them lived in a single city, Touchdown, on the southern shore of the Western Ocean. Map--she opened a window. An unusual planet, with more land than water. History--skip that for now--politics--customs. Not much text, unfortunately . . .

The sound of a throat being cleared startled her. Jetta Norman stood in the doorway. Helvig felt her face burning with humiliation. She turned away, the need to shut down and close her reader an excuse.

"It's been twenty minutes," said Jetta. "You seem to have found something to occupy yourself."

"I was looking up the planet Fermi," Helvig responded quaveringly. Still blushing, she looked up at the older woman. "You won't--"

Jetta smiled. "No, I won't tell anyone you were alone. Come, now that this little test is over with, let's continue our discussion."

Despite Helvig's feeling that her shame must be obvious to anyone who saw her, the clerks paid no more attention to her than they had before. She sat down in the same chair and waited in silence.

Jetta made some more notes at her terminal, then turned to Helvig. "I'm recommending that you be approved for emigration in the slot currently open," she said abruptly.

Helvig's eyes widened. "Why me?"

"Because you qualify. Basic health excellent. You carry a recessive for osteolysis, of course, but Fermi is a one-gee planet so that's of no importance. Intelligence good. Useful skills. Philoprogenative. 32% genetic orthogonality to Fermi population average. Personality ill-adapted to your current environment, but basically stable and well-suited to Fermi's society." She looked up from the checklist on her screen. "And it might surprise you to know, Helvig-ad, how few people could have passed the test you took. I've seen others, even though classed as borderline antisocials, who couldn't stay in that room five minutes. Not being able to get along with other people is not the same thing as being able to get along without them. You'll have some big adjustments to make on Fermi, but in my judgment you have the ability to make them."

"Tell me," said Helvig slowly, "why do you send emigrants?"

Jetta leaned back in her chair. "I hate to be so crude, but you are a source of foreign exchange. In spite of all our efforts, we still run a big trade deficit with Earth. We compensate for that with the surpluses we have with the oneills and with the younger colonies, particularly the interstellar colonies. Emigrants are a significant export for us."

"Can't Earth send emigrants directly?"

"They do. We're trying to get more slots for Titan, but we can't match the quality of Earth's--merchandise, if you'll excuse me. We keep the quotas we have only because the colonists want as much diversity as they can get."

"What about--" Helvig stopped. "Why am I asking about this, anyway? Tell me what's involved in emigration. What are the pros and cons for me?"

"Well, let's start with the negatives. I'm sure I don't have to tell you it's a one-way trip. You'll be leaving behind everyone you know. All right, you have no close family or friends, but that still may not be easy. You'll also be leaving behind everything you have. If you confirm your application, your entire credit balance and all your possessions will automatically revert to the government. You can take nothing with you and you will arrive not only penniless but in debt for your passage. You'll have to deal with that in an entirely strange physical and social environment. You'll be starting over from scratch--new behavior, new laws, new customs."

"What are their plans for me--on Fermi?"

"Stupid question. It's been 39 years, in their frame, since they placed the order for this slot. It'll be another 39 years before you arrive. There's no way to know what the situation will be or what kind of treatment you'll get."

"I really am a commodity, I see."

"That's true. You might keep in mind, though, that you are a valuable commodity. The Fermi Planetary Exchange is paying a lot of credit to get you. You'll be an expensive asset, and as such you're not likely to be abused. Still, there are no guarantees."

Helvig shook her head. "You're too honest to make a good salesperson. What about the good news? Surely you must have some reasons to offer why I should take this leap in the dark?"

"Certainly. Foremost, you'll be leaving a society to which you simply are not suited, and entering one that may be more congenial to you. On Fermi, isolationism is not a crime and individualism is not a sin. Think about it. Think about the alternative."

Helvig averted her eyes. The alternative, she knew, was to abandon her application and leave. Go home to the dorm. Wake up every morning to another day of loneliness in a society that wouldn't let her be alone. The same thing every day, for the rest of her life, with no hope for anything better. But--to jump into the unknown . . .

She looked up at Jetta. "Give me another reason."

"All right. Consider the transportation process. Helvig-ad, you're 48. How would you like being 18 again?"

Helvig stared at her. "Well, I'll be suffocated. That never even occurred to me." She grinned. "All right, I'll go."

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep on it?"

"No, I'm afraid I'll lose my nerve. Where do I sign?"

The room was surprisingly small and crowded with gadgetry. It had a disinfectant smell to it. One of the technicians looked up and came over to her.

"Helvig Manderson-ad? I'm Clem Jomer. All set for your trip?"

"I guess so."

He led her to what looked rather like a dentist's chair with extra attachments. "Sorry about the straps," he said, as he fastened her into it. "It's necessary, I'm afraid. The discomfort won't last long."

"Tell me what it's like," she said. He was immobilizing

her head, but she could still move her jaw. "I know roughly how it works, but what exactly are you going to do?"

He hesitated. "Sure you want to know?"

"Yes."

"All right. Tell me if you get queasy. Soon as we get you properly adjusted here, we'll put you under general anesthesia. Then Doctor Melvil, there, will open up your skull. He'll make a horizontal cut, right around here, and cuts here, here, and here to expose the entire cortex. Then he has to do some rather tricky work on the bone behind your eyes; we have to get the optic nerves and retinas, it turns out there's quite a bit of important information there."

Finished with the attachments, he came around the front again and prepared a needle. There was a momentary pain as it entered her arm.

"Then we'll push this chair back into that machine behind you. Sorry, I should have showed it to you before we strapped you in. It's quite a device. We're really proud of it, it's the only one in the Outer System. Its official name is 'Phase-Correlated Neutron Tomography Scanner'. We just call it 'the scanner'. Getting sleepy yet?"

"Maybe a little. Go on."

"Fine. The actual scanning takes just under two seconds. Any slower and breakdown products have time to diffuse into the next slice before you read it. Any faster and thermal effects become a problem. It's a destructive read-out, of course."

"Wha' happens to--"

"Your, uh, remains? To the Garden. There's no service, of course; you're not legally dead, just gone on a trip. Well, from there it's straightforward computer stuff. We encode your brain structure and memories for transmission, with plenty of redundancy, add your DNA code, and squirt all the data out to the big maser on Triton. They send you to your destination. At the receiving end, they'll start with your DNA code. Growing a clone takes about two years with forced-growth techniques and . . . read in your mind through . . . some tricky problems but . . .

There was a pattern, thin bars of light and shadow, on the ceiling; it was the first thing to enter her consciousness. She turned her head and saw a woman's face.

"Welcome to Fermi," she said. "I'm Barbra spo-Nelson."

"Helvig Manderson," she responded automatically.

"How do you feel?"

"All right . . . Funny . . . seems like a long time since I was--"

The woman smiled again. "It has been a long time. But the feeling is normal. There's always a little bit of data loss in the read-in process. Don't worry, it's less than one percent. Since memory is holographic, you experience it as an aging of your memories--as if it had been four or five months since your last experience. Nothing to be concerned about."

"Are you a physician?"

"I'm an adaptation specialist--sort of a cross between a psychologist, a sociologist, and an etiquette advisor."

"May I--"

"Sit up? Sure. You're in perfect physical health."

There were just the two of them in a small room with pale blue walls. Not a hospital room; the furniture was an ordinary bed and chair, and there was no medical equipment. One wall was covered with vertical slats; light shining between them accounted for the pattern on the ceiling.

Barbra spo-Nelson, she estimated, was in her late thirties. She was just slightly overweight. Her body was mostly covered by a garment that extended from her throat nearly to her knees. Her hair fell below her shoulders.

Helvig raised her hands and found that her own hair was just as long. She looked down at her body and saw that she too was covered with clothing. To her annoyance she found herself blushing.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know it's silly. Give me time to get used to it."

Barbra laughed. "Of course. Believe me, if I went to Titan and had to go around nude, I'd be just as embarrassed. Do you think you can stand up?"

"Why not? --Oh. It's a one-gee field. But it doesn't feel--"

"It's not a matter of strength. Your body is adapted to full gravity, but your brain isn't. You'll find it hard, at first, to keep your balance when you walk. Here, take my arm."

Helvig, with Barbra's help, staggered to the chair and lowered herself into it carefully. "My feet don't seem to know where to go yet. But I think I can get around as long as I have something to hang on to."

"You'll be walking normally in a few days. But I warn you it will be months before you stop breaking things. If you drop something in a one-gee field, it falls fast."

Helvig nodded. She turned to the wall with slats. "Is that a window? To the outside?"

"Yes. Do you feel up to it?"

"I have to sooner or later, right?"

"True enough. Turn that knob, then."

At first it was just a view, like pictures she'd seen of Earth. Then, suddenly, the reality of it clutched her and she gasped, turning away. Barbra, concerned, put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook her head and looked out again.

"I'll be all right. I know that is breathable air out there. I know that the temperature is livable. I know that it's normal for the sun to be that large. There's nothing to be afraid of. I refuse to be afraid."

Gradually the pounding in her ears subsided. She took a deep breath and stood triumphantly, wavering a little, with a hand on the chair. Slowly she scanned the landscape, the strange yellowish light, the unfamiliar flora, the small river, the mountains hazy in the distance.

"Like it?" asked Barbra.

"I'll learn to like it," she replied. "This is my home now." She turned back to the room, and for the first time saw the full-length mirror mounted on the door.

"Oh," she said, "could I--"

Barbra grinned. "Of course." She helped Helvig with the unfamiliar fastenings of her smock, then with the additional garments underneath.

Even with her ridiculous hair falling halfway to her waist, Helvig looked wonderful. She shook off Barbra's steadying hand and stared at herself in the mirror. Then she turned and, twisting her head to see, lost her balance and sat down hard on the floor. She started to giggle. Barbra helped her up.

"I'm sorry," she said, meaning it; she thought she'd seen a fleeting shadow cross those eyes. Barbra would never see 18 again. "It's just so wonderful. But I know I have responsibilities here, and I'm prepared to learn my role. Where do I start?"

"I'll teach you," said Barbra. "That's my job."

She began with the simple things. Food, on Fermi, was almost never the sticky balls she was used to, and it was permissible to eat with the fingers, but only with the left hand. Public nudity was forbidden, as she'd already known, and the sexes dressed differently, following complicated rules, and there was still another set of rules for children's clothing. There were no rank inflections on verbs and one said "Please pass the salt" in the same words whether speaking to a younger sister or to the Chairman of the Planetary Executive Committee (and the salt turned out to be a dry powder instead of a syrup). Extreme cleanliness was mandatory but special bathing techniques were customary to conserve water, which must never be wasted. It was not only permissible but polite to compliment a woman on her pregnancy, but one must never ask her how many children she had. A woman had to take her husband's family name at marriage, but children had the mother's name, not the father's.

She even had to change her given name to fit Fermi customs. "'Helvig' sounds almost like 'Helvik'--which would be a man's name," said Barbra. "How about 'Helva'? That's unusual but not unsuitable."

"Whatever you say. Just show me where to sign. It's only one more thing to remember. Suffocate it! I never expected an individualistic frontier society to have so many strict social rules."

"Does it surprise you? Think it through."

"Well, Spacer life is very regimented for obvious reasons. We--they--live in fragile ecosystems that are kept safe only with great difficulty and expense. One person acting on his own outside the normal parameters can cause a disaster. That's how the Hesperus catastrophe happened. And habitats are very crowded. Individualists are unpredictable and unsettling, and that causes friction that can't be tolerated when you're living cheek-by-jowl. So it makes sense to have strict rules. But the situation here is just the opposite; I thought customs would be more free and easy."

Barbra grinned. "Well, in Fermi's defense I have to point out that customs here, unlike on Titan, don't have the force of law. And you have a lot more personal freedom and options. But certain social rules are strict, for just that reason. This isn't really a frontier anymore, but people still have the attitude that they will do as they damned well please--within limits. The limits are wide--but firm. Nobody wants laws--that's what people came here to escape. So we have to make society work without coercion."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I came here of my own free will. From now on I'm Helva. Now, could you run over those clothing rules for children again? Shorts up to puberty, then--"

Several days blurred by as she practiced walking, dressing and undressing, and other routine tasks, while absorbing a crash course in Fermi geography, history, and culture.

At the same time she had to master the language. On Fermi, Standard had drifted considerably, in spite of information exchange with Sol. Or perhaps because of it; several puzzling idioms, she discovered, had their origin in century-old dramas imported from Earth. She practiced assiduously.

Barbra was impressed. "Your accent is already quite good; another few weeks at this rate and nobody would know you're not a native. Are you sure you're not a professional linguist?"

"Not a chance. But I had 48 years of training in fitting in, in being like other people. I guess that helps."

"Mmm. It will, I suppose--in some ways. But conformity isn't highly valued in this culture."

"Why not?"

"Uniformity is vulnerability. We're still pioneers here. There's safety in variety. That's why you're here, as a matter of fact. The Red-Eye Plague of Year 31 nearly wiped out the colony, simply because we didn't have enough diversity in our gene pool. So we import lots of immigrants, and we demand people with high genetic orthogonality to our averages."

"'Immigrants.' That reminds me, there's a question I want to ask . . ."

"Namely: What is in store for you, Helva Manderson?"

"Honestly, I don't want to break any taboos, but the suspense is killing me."

Barbra laughed. "No taboo involved. But it is a bit awkward, so I'd have been just as pleased if you picked up the information indirectly from your lessons on culture."

"'Awkward.' What? Telling me that I'm chattel?"

"Certainly not. Nothing of the sort. Here, sit down."

They'd been walking through a corridor of the building; Barbra led her to a window alcove overlooking the river.

"All right, here is your situation. It cost the Fermi Planetary Exchange 730 trade credits to import you. At that time--about 80 years ago in this frame--that represented about 1,800 adjusted terabytes."

Helva did some mental arithmetic. "Nearly a million . . . Say twenty years' salary for me."

"Is that so? Well, purchasing power parity isn't reached very efficiently in interstellar trade, so it didn't represent that much here; more like, say, two years' income for a mid-level professional. Still, it was a lot of money and it had to come from somewhere. Most of it, from a government subsidy. The remainder was raised on the market. No, wait a minute.

"What was sold was, essentially, your marriage license. For 80 years it's been traded on the market, with the price moving up and down. The government subsidy was gradually recovered over the years by a transaction tax--well, you can read up on how the market works later, if you're interested. What you want to know is that your license is currently owned by a man named Jemmik Targ."

"And I have to marry him?"

"No. But while he owns the license, you cannot legally marry anyone else."

Helva nodded thoughtfully. "And from my lessons I gather that for a woman to remain unmarried is not much of an option in this society. So do I really have a choice?"

"Well, to be frank, it depends. If he really has his heart set on it, he can effectively almost compel you to marry him. It's not polite to publicly acknowledge the fact, but that's how it can work. It is very rare, however, for things to go to such extremes. After all, if you get terminally stubborn and decide you'd rather starve as an outcast, his investment is lost. So, as a practical matter, if you decide you don't like him, you can look for another man, who can buy the license and marry you--if he can afford it, that is."

Helva stared out over the landscape. Finally she grinned. "Well, this is all getting horribly hypothetical, isn't it? I haven't even met this Jemmik Targ and for all I know he's Prince Charming reincarnated. What's he like? And when do I see him?"

Barbra stood up. "You'll have to wait for him to tell you about himself; he's entitled to that. And as for when--not until you've completed your training. I want you to make a good impression on him, too. Shall we get on with it?"

Jemmik Targ was a tall man--two meters or a bit more --with a full beard and large, strong hands. He acknowledged Barbra's introduction with a formal nod and Helva responded with the proper curtsey. They stood in silence for a moment, then turned to Barbra simultaneously.

"Don't look at me," she said. "You're legally engaged, you don't need a chaperon. However, if I may make a suggestion--"

"Please do," said Targ.

"Helva hasn't seen much of the city; she's been pretty much confined to the grounds here. Perhaps you'd like to give her a bit of a tour, then take her to dinner."

"Good idea. If you agree, Miss--"

"Helva," she said firmly. "Legally engaged, right? It sounds wonderful to me. Thanks, Barbra; see you later."

He led her first to the esplanade, then along the shore. The cool sea breeze tugged at her skirt, and she pulled her cloak around her shoulders.

He glanced at her, concerned. "Cold? Or--I guess winds are strange to you."

She laughed. "Not quite. The current in some corridors on Titan will blow you off your feet--literally, in that low gravity." She shook her head. "Forget it, that was another life. Tell me about the city. You live here, don't you?"

"What? No, this is only the third time I've visited Touchdown. I was born in Clarkeville, about 800 kilometers east of here. Now I live even further east; I'm homesteading in the Outback, near the Olympic Mountains. So I don't know much about the city, but I'll try to--"

"Don't. I'd rather know more about you. So you're a farmer?"

"Well, a little. I have a garden. But really I'm a miner. Silver is the bulk of my production, but the main value is in the palladium and rhodium."

"Do you do all this by yourself?"

"Yup. It's all mechanized, of course--except maintaining the machines, which is what I spend most of my time doing."

She continued to draw him out as they walked, only half noticing the shipyards and the short skyscrapers of the downtown business district along the way. By the time they were seated at a beachside restaurant, she was beginning to feel the strain of maintaining the conversation. A perfect view of the sunset gave her an excuse to be silent for a while and collect her thoughts.

She'd had to carry most of the weight of their discussion. Yet this man was no shy country rube. For all his professed unfamiliarity with the city streets, he'd walked with a confidence suggesting he felt quite at home. The quiet courtesy with which he spoke to the waitress reminded her that Jemmik Targ was, at age 28, a successful self-made businessman--a man who could buy her license without needing to borrow the money, no doubt. This was his society--he didn't have to strain every moment to be sure he wasn't saying something rude. Why was he making her do all the work?

The last sliver of the sun disappeared. After a moment he turned to her and asked, "No more questions?"

She looked down. "Was I being too inquisitive?"

"Not inquisitive enough. You haven't asked about anything really personal."

"Neither have you. In fact, you've hardly asked anything at all."

He looked surprised. "I haven't, have I? Cultural differences again. Don't worry, I won't rush you. We'll take as much time as you need to get to know me and make your decision."

The waitress arrived with their meals and she changed the subject to food for a while. But when dessert was set before her she looked up at him earnestly.

"Look . . . Jemmik. You're making too much allowance for my immigrant status. I came to Fermi of my own free will and I'm determined to live my life here as a responsible member of this society. I have to adapt to your customs; please don't coddle me. I know that marriage for love is not part of this culture. Arranged marriages are the norm here, isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"You say you'll give me time to make my decision. As far as I'm concerned, the decision is made. If I were a young woman who'd grown up on Fermi I'd be expected to accept the spouse recommended to me by my sponsor--Barbra, in my case--and make the best of the marriage. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. If you leave it up to me, we get married tomorrow."

"That's a very creditable intention--and I'm sure you have the will to carry it out. But why should you force yourself to marry a man you don't care for?"

"You don't yet realize that the problem is yours, not mine. You look at me and see a young girl. The reality is very different. I've been married for love. I've been widowed. I've married again, and gone through a nasty divorce. I've been to bed with dozens, hundreds of men--because I liked them, because I was lonely, and a lot of them just because it was expected of me. I'm no innocent, and getting married to a man I hardly know doesn't have any great terrors for me. The question is, how do you feel about marrying a woman like me?"

He looked at her and shook his head. "You said it yourself a while ago. That was another life."

Helva spo-Targ stood in her garden, looking at the peaks of the Olympic Mountains to the east. They were tall and spectacular, usually snow-capped. At least they made reliable landmarks so that it was nearly impossible for Sojik to get lost. As soon as she let the boy out of school he was off on one of his jaunts, but he never had any difficulty finding his way back before sundown.

Even with her relentlessly active son absent, Helva was usually busy with his sisters. A pioneer mother, she had found, had little time for idle introspection. In the last nine years there had been scarcely a dozen months in which she didn't have a baby either in her belly or at her breast. And of course there was a husband to take care of.

She considered Jemmik Targ dispassionately. An aggravating man in many ways, typically male. Self-centered, frequently inconsiderate, and a great deal less communicative of his feelings than she would have liked. On the other hand, he was even-tempered--no small consideration in a family living such an isolated life. He was gentle and kind with her and the children, a hard worker, and not intolerably bossy. Most of the time, anyway. He was not the grand passion of her life; he would never be to her what Gerald had been; but he was the father of her children, and she loved him. She was happy with him.

She considered next her garden, with which she was not so happy. She seldom had time to work on it properly. But today Anna had been fed, burped and put in the cradle for a nap. Lara was looking after Joella. Helva was free to get down to some serious weeding.

Efficient gardening was difficult at best in this arid climate, only a dozen kilometers from the margin of the desert. But the weeds were obnoxious. There were three species in particular, a sort of grass and two flowering plants, that constantly infested her garden, and all three were poisonous. They'd lost two cats, and she worried about the baby and the toddler. So she pulled them up conscientiously, bagging them for destruction, and always carefully inspected her crop after picking it. At first she'd worried a bit about hybridization of her crops with local toxic variations. But she'd found that none of the dangerous species had any close relation with useful plants. In fact, they all seemed quite unique, totally unrelated to any of Fermi's common flora, let alone imports from Earth. If she had some lab equipment, and time to study them . . .

"At it again?"

Helva stood up and accepted a buss from her husband. "What do you mean, 'again'? I haven't had a chance to get a minute out here for the last three days."

"If you worked out here twenty-eight hours a day you couldn't keep it free of those weeds, especially with this east wind."

"True enough, I'm afraid. Why don't we move somewhere a little more suitable for raising crops?"

"Anytime, if you can find a place with ores at least as rich as what I have here."

Helva knew better than to pursue the dispute. Even a large and prosperous farm on the best land would not bring in the kind of income they got from Jemmik's small mine.

"Well, how about drilling a better well, then? Do you know how much laundry four kids can generate? We need more water."

"That I can do. I'll start tomorrow. Then when I have that done, I want to do some prospecting."

"Getting greedy, eh?"

Jemmik chuckled. "Maybe. But this lode won't last forever. I think the reef surfaces again somewhere east of here, and I really should take a look at it."

"Would you want to move into the Olympics?" asked Helva, concerned.

"No. Too many poisonous plants there. And animals. I made a couple of trips across the desert stretch when I first came here. I shot something that looked sort of like a squirrel, cooked and ate it--I was short on supplies--and got hellishly sick. Damned stupid thing to do, but I was younger then. Anyway, that's an unhealthy place. But if I find something rich there, it may pay to sink a shaft."

They stood together a while, the setting sun warm on their backs. He put his arm around her.

"You are OK here?"

"Of course. Oh, it would be nice to have neighbors. But it doesn't bother me."

"We could go into town more often."

"That would be good--more for the kids than for me. They need more time with companions their own age. But really, I have no complaints. Except for the water ration."

"Shall I start drilling that well tonight?"

"No, let's do something else tonight . . ."

Sojik came racing out of the tree line, shouted a greeting, and ran into the house. Jemmik and Helva sat for a while on the porch and watched the sunset.

"Remember the first sunset we watched together?" he asked as the sky darkened.

"Yes . . . Jemmik, where is Sol?"

"You don't know?"

"I made a point of not knowing. I didn't want to wallow in sentimental memories of 'home'--which I hated, anyway."

"Mmm. Sol is over there, in the Camel, just below the hump. It's pretty dim, so you can't see it right now, but later, when it gets darker, you can make it out. Are you suddenly homesick?"

"Not at all. In fact, I was just thinking--"

Lara appeared in the doorway. "Mommy? Anna was wet so I changed her. But that was the last clean diaper. And I think she's hungry."

Helva kissed her husband and stood up, unzipping her blouse. "Better start thinking about where to drill that well. And if you don't want a late dinner, better start the potatoes yourself. I have to feed Little Greedy Guts."

Kleppu snapped her mandibles at him. "No. It's an insult to suggest it. Go out under the orders of a half-hardened whelp like you? I led the Gray Mountains Expedition when you were still crawling around the forests on all six."

Nalmo said nothing. Kleppu glared at him, then laughed bitterly.

"And if I didn't have such a temper, I'd be leading expeditions still, maybe even be appointed a Senior by now. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"

"What I'm thinking," he said quietly, "is that you're a very seasoned guide, with more years of experience than the rest of us put together. A very valuable asset to have along on the first expedition led by a half-hardened whelp like myself."

She turned away and looked out the window. As befitted an explorer, her quarters were located at the edge of the Institute hive on the top level, facing the outside. "Don't waste your time with flattery. It may work with old Dugap, but not with me. Let's break through the carapace. The Institute Seniors have issued a Suggestion, haven't they?"

Nalmo hesitated. "Yes, as a matter of fact. But I--"

"Then I'll go. I may be irascible, but I'm not stupid--or self-destructive. No, don't bother making excuses. You're teacher's pet for one of the most influential Seniors at the Institute, and he wants somebody experienced along on this outing to keep you from getting killed. If I refuse, he'll see to it that I get no more assignments."

"I think you misjudge--"

"No doubt. Skip it. Where are we going?"

"West. Way out, past Wingtip Bay, then over the West Spur of the Rolling Range. Skorap found some unusual flora there, but lost her samples on the way back."

"And her entire team. Another beginner. All right, who else have you recruited?"

"Polanak, Geologist and Navigator. Tukul, Botanist. Beffip, Zoologist."

Kleppu snorted contemptuously. "Three more soft-shells. And what are you doing bringing a young female along on an expedition? Beffip's what, two years out of the chrysalis?"

"About. And she's already recognized as brilliant."

"You're still asking for trouble. Never mind, I know you won't listen anyway. All right, you're Leader, and that leaves me as Guide and Huntress, I suppose. At least I'll be getting out of this stuffy Hive for a while. When do we leave?

"Well?" said Dugap.

"She agreed to join us. The team is complete."

"No trouble?"

"Well . . ."

Dugap laughed. "I can imagine. Don't worry, Kleppu is not nearly as bad as her reputation. She's not exactly respectful of authority, but she'll obey orders. Usually."

"Um. Senior, she brought up the matter of Beffip's--"

"Jealousy. Kleppu is a long way from being young herself, you know. I'll say a few words to Beffip before you go; she'll have to expect a bit of harassment from Kleppu, but I think she can handle it." He glanced up at the chronometer, then rose. "I have to be getting back to work."

Nalmo walked past a dozen classrooms on his way back to his quarters. Pupae hung in neat rows in each, their unblinking eyes aimed at whatever was placed in front of them. They would watch, with the same unwavering attention, a video course on the evolution of trees, the dullest of Seniors lecturing on ancient history, a physics demonstration, or the night cleaning crew gossiping about Institute politics. They would show not the slightest reaction to any of this, and when they awoke to adulthood they would have no memory of events. But they would have absorbed the knowledge presented to them.

Thoughtfully he walked up the ramp toward the surface. Only eight years ago he'd been hanging there in one of those classrooms. Now he had reached the level of Expedition Leader. It was an almost meteoric rise, enough to arouse jealousy in more people than Kleppu. But despite her stinging remarks, he had not advanced by flattering Dugap or the other Seniors. His potential had been obvious soon after he'd left the chrysalis. He'd shown a first-rate performance in his advanced studies. He'd served on three expeditions in supporting roles and had compiled an excellent record. He'd earned this post.

Still, it was his first taste of real responsibility. Lives would depend on his decisions. For a moment he wished his first assignment had been something less ambitious.

They did the first stages by boat. To trek on land past the active volcanoes of the East Rolling Range, or through the arid desert north of it, would be senseless. The small cargo vessel, which also carried a few passengers besides themselves, made landfall at a colony hive not far from Wingtip Bay. Their credentials brought them a dinner invitation from the hive's Fourth Senior.

"Hope you don't mind eating juvenile," their host said as he led them to a table in the dining hall. "We're eating a lot of it this year. Not enough, though, I'm afraid, to make things safe for you. If you're trekking northwest, you'll be heading right through the worst area."

"I'd heard you had a real problem with wilds here," responded Nalmo.

"Not here, but certainly in the forest," said the Senior. "The wilds have depleted the game to the point where they're eating one another pretty often. They even attack our parties sometimes."

Nalmo tore into the hot meat with his mandibles. The taste, as always, was mildly unpleasant, but he was hungry. The others of his party followed his example, except for Beffip.

"I hope, Beffip, that you aren't expecting gourmet food on this expedition," said Kleppu acidly. "Once we leave this Hive, we'll be eating whatever I can shoot, including juvenile."

Beffip's antennae snapped back and for a moment Nalmo thought she would respond in kind. Kleppu had been needling her from the start of the expedition. But after a moment Beffip turned to her food and began eating, though she swallowed with obvious difficulty.

Nalmo changed the subject before Kleppu could comment again. "What do you know about conditions out past the West Spur?"

"Not much more than you do, I suspect," their host replied. "Semi-arid forest, no inhabitants, not even wilds. Some game, but it's a bit scarce. And you have to be careful, many of the species are toxic, especially the vertebrates. Try not to eat anything that isn't familiar."

"What about those strange flora near the edge of the desert?" asked Beffip.

The Senior waved his antennae thoughtfully. "Skorap is the only one who's been that far--well, the only one that came back, and she was half-dead when we found her. You've seen her report, I suppose. She believed they'd found whole new phyla of plants, and that they originated on the other side of the desert."

"So," said Nalmo, "she tried to cross the desert, but it was so wide--"

Kleppu cut in. "Nonsense. If you look at her maps, it's clear that the desert extends hardly a day's trek if you cross it further north where it's narrower. But by the time she got her bright idea, she'd already taken her party further south. So she tried to take a short cut--even though her supplies were low--at the driest time of the year--total incompetence. Another soft-shelled young female--"

Beffip's antennae twitched, but she said nothing. Nalmo sighed. This was going to be a very long expedition.

They trekked through coniferous forest that gradually became drier and more open. They were only two days march from the hive when they began to encounter pupae hanging from the trees. They were easy to spot, of course; instinct made juveniles pick a position with a good view when they started metamorphosis. Dutifully they took the time to crack the chrysalis of every one they found, letting in the parasites that would kill them. Nalmo regretted the slowing of their march, but wilds were too dangerous to tolerate, and it was every true sapient's obligation to minimize them.

They saw no wilds, however, except for an occasional flicker of movement at a distance. Hunters from the colony hive had made the cunning creatures wary and Kleppu could not get a clear shot. She kept the expedition fed, however, on juveniles. The dull but swift creatures knew enough to fear adults--wild or sapient. However, they did not comprehend that a laser rifle could kill at a distance.

Gradually they gained altitude in the stony peaks of the West Spur, searching for Skorap's Pass. Her maps proved accurate, and from the crest they looked west to see forest gradually give way to savannah, with desert visible on the horizon. Nalmo took them down out of the mountains, then turned north. They skirted the edge of the forest, which ran north, then later northwest.

Tukul had been gloating over unusual flora ever since they crossed the pass, but at this point he hit the jackpot. "There!" he shouted, pointing at a scraggly bush.

"That?"

"Yes! It's exactly like Skorap's picture." Tukul crawled around the bush, examining leaves, branches, and roots. "There's no doubt about it, it represents an entirely new phylum. Amazing."

They made camp a little ways into the forest and began collecting specimens. Within a few days they had confirmed that Skorap's conclusions were correct. Tukul found plants of eight novel species belonging to three new phyla. One of them was the shrub, bearing enticing but toxic fruit, that had killed one of Skorap's party. They were careful to eat no species that was unfamiliar.

The same applied to the game Kleppu brought in. There were two odd species of ground-running vertebrates, completely unfamiliar to Beffip. Nalmo declared them off-limits as food with no dissent, though meat was limited in their diet. Beffip meanwhile was looking for unusual arthropods, and found half-a-dozen species with no clear relation to known organisms.

It was Beffip who finally realized the significance of their finds. "Look here," she said one evening. "I have a hypothesis."

"That's good," said Kleppu acidly. "I'd hate to think we brought you along just to collect samples for us to lug back."

Beffip ignored the comment. "All these radically new species--plant and animal--all of them seem to be toxic."

"How do you know?" asked Polanak, tactfully forestalling Kleppu.

"I don't know, for sure at least. But I never find insects or other arthropods on the unusual plants--except for the unusual arthropods. I don't see any of the unusual arthropods being eaten by normal predators. When I put them in the web of an ordinary spider, it ignored them. Also, I dissected the vertebrates Kleppu brought in and examined their stomach contents. They contained only material from the unusual plants; nothing from the common plants. So I conjecture that these peculiar species make up a distinct ecosystem of their own. They are toxic to normal species, and normal species are toxic to them. These rare species don't fit into the primary ecosystem at all, neither as predator nor as prey."

They digested this in silence for a while. "Not proved," said Nalmo finally, "but it's an interesting possibility. Certainly we're on to something big."

Kleppu was interested in spite of herself. "Skorap thought these new species came from the west, and certainly we seem to find specimens more common in that direction. Let's trek that way."

Nalmo considered. "Not yet," he decided. "I don't want to take the party too far from water till we have better knowledge of the topography there. Kleppu, you and I will work our way west tomorrow and check out the lie of the land. If it looks good, we'll bring up the rest of the party."

Kleppu's voice came over his radio suddenly. "Get down, you idiot! I don't want it to see you."

He dropped. "Where are you?"

"About southwest of you, by the long outcrop with the lichen on it. Come quickly, but stay low."

He dropped beside her, exhausted from the long crawl. "Now, will you tell me what this is all about?"

"Look over there. See it? Here, use the scope on my rifle."

He peered through the scope. For a moment his brain could make no sense of what he saw; then it hit him with a stunning shock. He jerked the rifle back instinctively and looked at the safety.

"Don't worry," said Kleppu. "I took the cell out."

He returned the scope to his eye and forced himself to calm observation, activating his notebook.

"Biped, about . . ." he glanced at the calibration on the scope, "eight flenks tall, two upper limbs. Single segment body, head about one eighth total length, legs nearly half. Face flat, eyes small and both set forward, clearly evolved for binocular vision. Cranium large and almost spherical. Something on the sides of the head, possibly hearing organs. Mandibles not evident, a small mouth with something above it, possibly a beak? Face is a very light brown, rest of head darker, and texture appears rougher, perhaps some sort of hard protective carapace . . ."

He fiddled with the scope, trying to get more detail. The picture remained maddeningly fuzzy. Increasing the magnification didn't help; the heat turbulence over the span of hot sand between him and the creature was the problem. He needed more resolution, not sensitivity--and he couldn't get it.

" . . . which extends below the jaw. Thorax is bright red, abdomen and legs black. Possibly to warn predators it's toxic? But what predator would tackle such a large animal?"

"Why would a sapient need toxicity coloring, anyway?" put in Kleppu.

"I was about to say, the creature is carrying in one hand something that definitely is a metal artifact. I can see the sheen, and the shape is not natural . . . but I can't quite make out what it is. An axe, perhaps? Uh . . . the creature is now turning sideways . . . there's something on its back, dark green, squarish in shape, almost certainly another artifact rather than a hump--probably a pack. There's something else at the junction of thorax and abdomen, can't make out what it is . . . The creature has now started walking. Gait is natural and easy, this animal is evolved for normal bipedal motion, it's not just a quadruped that can stand temporarily. One joint in the leg, and one in the upper limb. It's moving fairly fast . . . it's now out of sight." He noted the time of observation, then turned to Kleppu. He handed her the rifle.

"Congratulations. Your name is destined for the historical records."

"Rot. What do we do now?"

"You're asking me?"

"You're the Leader--and this is one time I'm happy to have you make the decision. Do we follow it? Try to make contact?"

"No contact. We try to find out as much as possible about it, then return and let the Seniors decide how to make contact. But we have to take back as much information as possible to them."

"Fine. In that case we'd better get back to camp and tell the others. We'll want to make sure we keep the camp well hidden in case there are more of those things wandering around the area. In fact, maybe we should call in immediately."

"Better not. We don't know how advanced these creatures are. What if they have radio? I think it would be wise to maintain radio silence from now on."

"Then we'd better start back immediately." She reloaded her rifle, then bent and picked up a small carcass. "I shot this before I saw the sapient. With the other meat, it should hold us till tomorrow."

When they entered the camp, they found Beffip in friendly conversation with the other two. She looked up and immediately her mood changed.

"Well, the mighty hunter returns. What a spectacular booty! Did your rifle get bent? Or have you decided to hunt with your mandibles just to make it more of a challenge? Did you need Nalmo to help you carry it?"

Nalmo cringed, waiting for Kleppu to explode. To his astonishment, she responded meekly, "I'm sorry, Beffip. Game is scarce around here. I'll go back out at once and see if I can get some more." She quickly hung the carcass from a branch and turned out from the camp with a significant glance at Nalmo.

He fell in beside her. "What--"

She glared at him. "You idiot. I told you not to bring her . . . Haven't you caught on yet? She's laying. Look at her abdomen; it's already half blue."

"But she's only two years out of the chrysalis."

"So? There's a lot of variation in a virgin's first laying. Two years is early, but it's not so rare as all that. Anyway, there's no use arguing about past mistakes. This little problem comes at a most awkward time, as you've no doubt realized. When you're older and more experienced, you'll learn that when you do something stupid, the consequences generally show up just when they'll cause maximum trouble. Now you'd better get back to camp. If she thinks you've gone off with me, she'll go into a rage and you'll have a devil of a time calming her down."

"What about you?"

"I'll stay out of the way, of course. There's hunting to be done--you four are going to need a lot of food for the next couple of days."

He hesitated. "Nothing else we can do, I guess. Be careful to stay away from any sapients, and don't use the radio unless there's a real emergency."

She grunted and strode off. He retraced his steps to the camp. Polanak was hurriedly cooking the meat already.

Beffip welcomed him happily, her mood suddenly changed again. "I'm very glad you're back, Nalmo." Her abdomen was clearly blue, and he noticed that her speech seemed a bit slurred. "I'm in the mood for a rest now." She looked around at them, one by one, then slipped into the tent.

Nalmo thought of telling the others about the sapient, but somehow it was hard to regain the excitement the discovery had generated. In fact, it was hard to think. He went over to the heater and took the meat. He felt a little dizzy, faint with hunger perhaps . . . except that he really didn't feel like eating, not just yet . . . Tukul moved toward the tent flap and Nalmo clicked his mandibles, hard, not knowing why he did so. But Tukul stopped, and Nalmo stepped into the tent himself.

Beffip was waiting. She said nothing, merely looked at him with a trancelike stare. He felt an irresistible urge to stroke her antennae with his own, and he bent forward and did so. Her eyes closed and she began to quiver. After a few minutes her mandibles began to open and close rhythmically, and when her eyes suddenly opened he was ready. He held the hot carcass in front of her face. Instantly she seized it and whirled around. She was tearing into it almost before she had her back turned to him. As the hot juices ran into her mouth, her ventral aperture dilated, and he moved forward.

He was resting outside when Kleppu returned. She'd been back the previous day, dropping off a large booty from her hunting, but he'd been with Beffip at the time and had missed her.

"Hello, Kleppu. Beffip seems to be--what's that?"

She didn't answer immediately, but knelt and deposited her burden on the ground. Then she looked up, her eyes dark, and asked, "Where are the others?"

"Polanak is asleep. Tukul is with Beffip; she laid her last clutch this morning. What--"

"Call them." Her voice was tense, on the ragged edge of control.

As the others came out, blinking in the sunlight, Kleppu unslung her rifle and handed it to Nalmo. She addressed him formally. "Leader of this expedition, I make confession. I have killed a sapient."

He had to respond in kind. "Kleppu, assigned Huntress. Inform me of the facts."

"Having supplied the camp with meat last night, this morning I decided to further investigate the alien sapients I had discovered." She glanced at the others; they tapped their heads. Nalmo had already told them.

"Disobedient to your orders, I crossed the Divide, looking for artifacts or other evidence. About midday, I saw movement at a distance. At first I thought it was one of the sapients, but on examination through my scope I saw that the size was much too small, and the coloring was quite different. I therefore concluded it was a juvenile of the species. Since a specimen would be of incalculable value to our investigation, I shot it. But when I came up to the body . . ." She wavered, then went on.

"I decided that to leave it there would be a worse choice than to bring it back to camp. Whether I was correct or not you must decide . . . That is my guilt. I have no more to say."

Nalmo set aside the rifle and looked at the others. "In view of the present emergency, I suspend my inquiry at this point. We must examine the body immediately and decide what to do. Tukul, get your equipment. Beffip, you too. I know you're still feeling woozy, and that's too bad, but get moving. Kleppu, pull yourself together."

He knelt by the body and the others crowded around. "It's only about . . . four and a half flenks long, much smaller than the one we saw. A natural mistake to take it for a juvenile. But . . ."

They could all see that the lower portion of the body was encased in some sort of flexible material, clearly artificial. A holster at the waist held a metal knife. No juvenile could possibly use tools, of course.

"Could it perhaps have picked them up and--oh, it's impossible," said Polanak. "That false skin was obviously made to fit it, and the knife is sized correctly for the hand. It must be a tool-user."

"But what is it?" asked Nalmo. "It's not an arthropod at all. Soft skin . . . and completely unprotected--that must be why it needs this." He examined the false skin, found a metal strip down the front. "This must be for loosening it so it can be taken off . . . yes. Help me, please."

They looked at the body, eyes avoiding the accusing black hole in the chest. "A mammal," said Nalmo.

"Can't be--no fur," objected Tukul.

"Definitely a mammal," said Beffip firmly. "Look at the chest. Vestigial in a male, of course, but unmistakable. And there is fur, on the head."

"That must be what we saw on the large one," said Nalmo. "I thought it was a hard protective carapace. But it covered more, a lot of the face and neck."

"There's only one explanation," said Beffip. "The one you saw was a female. Sexual dimorphism. That could account for the difference in size, and the coloring."

"But if the female is so much larger," objected Nalmo, "why would it have toxic coloration, when the smaller male, which would surely need it more, does not?"

"Maybe it isn't coloration!" said Polanak. "Maybe it was wearing false skin on the upper part of its body."

"Move aside, will you?" said Tukul. "Let me get some X-rays."

"Yes," said Nalmo, "I think that explains it. You thought it was odd at the time, right, Kleppu?"

"I suppose so," she responded wearily.

"But this would be extraordinarily large for a mammal, and the big one even more so. And there's fur, but only on the head. And I don't think there's any known case of a mammal with true binocular vision. Beffip?"

"True enough, but it's definitely a mammal . . . Let's see the pictures, Tukul."

Kleppu jerked up suddenly. "I just realized . . . mammals mate for life, don't they? Like birds?"

"That's an oversimplification for both classes. Some species do, some don't."

"If this is male, and the other was female," persisted Kleppu, "what if they were mates?"

"Sapients mating for life?" said Polanak.

"It's possible, and if they did . . ."

Beffip nodded. "We can't take anything for granted. An intelligent mammal would surely be very different from us. For one thing, they don't undergo metamorphosis."

"That's what I can't understand," said Tukul. "How could a vertebrate be intelligent? They have no developmental stage."

Beffip looked up from the X-ray photographs. "Kleppu, you were right after all. This thing is a juvenile."

"Really?"

"Look here. New teeth are pushing up here. And here--these plates of bone are clearly intended to knit together later. And here's the clincher. Look at this, and at this--that's characteristic of growing bones in vertebrates. This specimen is immature."

"But if it's a juvenile," objected Polanak, "what's it doing with artifacts?"

"An intelligent mammal would have to have a very long juvenile period," said Nalmo slowly. "That way it could spread the learning process over many years. A half-grown one like this would already have considerable intelligence, certainly enough to make rudimentary tool use possible."

"So it was a juvenile, after all," breathed Kleppu. "What a relief."

"Wait a minute," said Tukul. "Rudimentary use of tools, maybe. But these artifacts aren't rudimentary. It took more than slight intelligence to smelt metal for that knife, and fashion it. And what about the false skin? I've never seen anything like it; it must have taken a pretty good brain to make it."

"Well," said Nalmo, "they must have been provided by its parents. All known mammalian species are K-strategists; they have few young, and they provide resources to them. So presumably an intelligent species would make tools for--" He stopped. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"They're K-strategists. They must be. And K-strategists protect their young. They'll fight to defend them. An intelligent K-strategist . . ."

Beffip stared at him, paralyzed with horror. He stared back, his mind racing over the implications. "It's true, isn't it? The logical implication is inescapable. An intelligent K-strategist would have a powerful emotional attachment to its offspring. It would be totally dominating, just as laying or mating is to us. And we've killed one--not only a sapient, but a juvenile. Its parents will react with . . ."

Kleppu groaned. "Not 'we've killed'--'I've killed.'"

"That's of no importance at the moment. I'm the Leader, I'm responsible. We've got to decide what to do--and fast. This creature's parents are probably looking for it already."

The others were silent. He turned back to Beffip. "You confirm my analysis?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes. We're reasoning from insufficient data--but based on what we have, we must assume that this is a species of K-strategists, and that they will react with outrage to the killing of a juvenile. Remember, being intelligent they are probably social, so they are likely to have group taboos against such killings."

The burden of decision was heavy on him. The sun was setting, and he felt time evaporating from under his feet. Calm down, think logically . . .

"All right. Here's how I see it. To try to make first contact under these circumstances would be insane. We must return immediately, report, and hope the Seniors can figure out some way to retrieve the situation. Things are already bad enough, I'm afraid to try anything that might make the situation even worse. Break camp, we're leaving as soon as we're packed. Yes, I know it's a night march, but that's good, it may make us harder to spot."

Kleppu spoke up timidly. "What about--?" She pointed at the body.

"We leave it here. Yes, I know," he added as Beffip opened her mandibles. "There's more information to be had from it if we took it along, and the sapients might not react as strongly to a disappearance as to a murder. Sorry, Kleppu," he said as she gasped. "But we can't erase all trace of our presence. They'll know we're responsible, and sooner or later our species will have to inform theirs what happened. Better we should do it now than leave it as a complicating factor when the Seniors make contact. Here, Kleppu, help me. The rest of you get packing."

They restored the protective covering to its original position. "All right, let's put it on the drying platform. It may take some time for them to find it, and I don't want scavengers to get at it. Cover it with a tarp."

The others were striking the tent. He and Kleppu looked at the still bundle. "That's it, I guess."

"Wait a minute," she said. She picked up her rifle and carried it to a boulder. Wedging the barrel into a crack, she grasped the stock and with a savage wrench snapped the weapon in half. She set the two pieces gently atop the body.

"Maybe that message will appease them a bit," she said. She turned to her pack.

Rolok Drenner eased himself into his chair, suppressing a groan at the pain from his half-healed incision. He'd skipped his pain medication, not wanting his mind clouded at this crucial meeting. But now he wondered if the ache from his abdomen would interfere with his thinking even more than the opiate.

Quilla spo-Garth leaned over to him. "Are you all right? You shouldn't be out of bed so soon."

Drenner forced a grin. "Don't try to mother me, Quilla. I knew you before you wore skirts."

"Humpf. You shouldn't be bragging about it. You need a wife to take care of you."

"Are you sponsoring someone, Quilla?"

"Yes, but not for you, you old goat. She's a very nice girl, too good for a double widower."

Drenner chuckled. "You're so conscientious. Anyway, don't worry about me; the kids take good care of me."

He eased back in his chair, glanced at the clock, and picked up the gavel. Quilla sat back also, but she still looked concerned.

"The Fermi Planetary Executive Committee will come to order. Let the record show that all members are present. On the agenda we have some old business--"

"Move we dispense with the old business. We've got a major crisis on our hands and no time to waste on trivia. Why don't you get to the point at once?"

Drenner went on calmly, "I was about to say, in view of the current emergency I would like to ask the Committee to suspend these items until some future time. Is that agreeable to the Committee? Very well. Now, then--"

"Point of order!" interrupted the same voice again.

"Yes, Jak?"

"I move these proceedings be opened to the public, as is our normal procedure. I strongly disapprove of this secrecy when we're dealing with an issue that's life and death for the whole planet. And I'm surprised that our Chairman, who's always so concerned to avoid our overstepping the prerogatives of this Committee, would--"

"Excuse me, Jak, but the Constitution clearly states that Executive Committee meetings can be held in camera in an emergency," put in Gregorik spo-Norrish.

Drenner waited. "Motion fails for want of a second. Shall we proceed? Now, I suggest we begin by going over the facts of the situation to make sure we know what we're up against as well as possible. Then I'd like to release a statement to the public. I hope that will quell the kind of wild rumors that are going around. Finally, we should start getting together some action options."

"Options? Aren't we going to take action at this meeting?"

Drenner sighed, perhaps a bit too theatrically. Watch that, he thought; pain makes you irritable, and irritated men do stupid things. "As you've already pointed out, Jak, this is a major crisis. Don't you think we'd better at least sleep on it before we do anything irrevocable?"

Jak spo-Kelleran glanced around the table. His only ally, Bennek spo-Jamies, was silent. He settled back and smiled expansively. "All right. Let's proceed, then."

Drenner looked at his notes. "Very well. Eighteen days ago we discovered that Fermi was not, as we previously thought, uninhabited by native intelligence. Sojik Manderson, eight years old, son of Jemmik and Helva spo-Targ, was killed by aborigines near his home not far from the Olympic Mountains. His body was carried east several kilometers. Then apparently they thought better of it, left the body behind, and fled. At the same place they left the weapon, a laser rifle."

"Can we not take that as evidence that the killing was an accident?" asked Quilla.

"Very possibly, though their running away looks a bit bad. And it was awfully good shooting for an accidental kill."

"In any case, the reaction of this Jemmik spo-Targ has complicated matters badly," said Gregorik. "Is it true you know him, Rolok?"

"Well, a little, years ago. Our bank financed his mining machinery, and I was his loan officer. Good businessman. One of those quiet and calm types, unfortunately."

"Eh?"

Drenner grimaced. "He's one of those men who are very hard to anger. But I've noticed that if they ever do get really mad, they're deadly as a tornado, and about as possible to control. Spo-Targ seems to be one of them."

He consulted his notes again. "As soon as he'd found his son's body and brought it home, spo-Targ packed up some supplies, took his rifle, and went tracking the aborigines. He actually followed them clear across to the east side of the Olympics. He shot four aborigines before he had to turn back, and somehow packed one of them back as a trophy, arriving at home half-dead with hunger and thirst."

"So," said Bennek. "Whether or not the original killing was accidental, we now have a war on our hands. With a bunch of giant insects."

"They're not exactly insects," said Gregorik. "They are arthropods, and they do have six limbs. But phylogenetically they're quite distinct from the creatures we've named 'insects' on this planet, let alone Earth insects."

"To hell with that. Insects or whatever, the arths are obviously dangerous and we've entered a military situation. That calls for a new organization of our leadership." He looked at Jak. "Maybe it was acceptable to have a bunch of part-timers talking things over when there was nothing much doing but building farms and making babies, but now we need real, professional leadership--"

"Before we get into that issue, which I believe is further down the agenda," Quilla nodded at Drenner, "aren't there a couple of discrepancies we should clear up? I'm thinking specifically of the weapon that was used to kill young Manderson."

"What about it?"

"Well, it was a laser rifle. Pretty sophisticated technology, I'm told, at least equal to anything we have. Yet this fellow spo-Targ reports that the aborigines he killed were armed with sticks and stones. Not even flaked stone-axes, but ordinary rocks."

"So some arths are advanced, but there are also primitive tribes. Not impossible."

Drenner leaned forward incautiously, winced, but still got the floor. "That's true. But the real question is, how did we humans come to Fermi, land, settle, and live here for 251 years without realizing that the planet was inhabited?"

Jak shrugged. "They inhabit the Eastern Hemisphere, and we settled in the Western Hemisphere. The Western and Eastern Ocean ecosystems are completely separated by broad deserts except at this one place. It's not so surprising that we haven't encountered them before."

"Isn't it? Why do we know so little about the Eastern Hemisphere?"

"I looked into that a bit," said Quilla. "I did some digging in the library. It's kind of interesting, so bear with me. The entire planet was of course surveyed from orbit, at 20-meter resolution, by Galileo. Of the four unmanned probes that were sent down before landing, two were used for the Eastern Hemisphere. One malfunctioned. In the other, the test animals died. So Galileo set down here on the shore of the Western Ocean. As you know, Galileo was then broken up and every precious gram of its materials was used for essential functions. Powered transport was not one of them. Rolok, you're old enough to remember horse transport, right?"

"Yes. And even you, Quilla, can remember our first airplane. So exploring the Eastern Hemisphere was never a priority, especially with huge areas of ideal farmland available right here in the Anduin Delta. Still, I seem to recall some people have been to the East."

"That's right. A group of three families tried to homestead in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains in Year 122. Several members of the party got sick and died and they gave up after four months and came back. The area got a reputation as an unhealthy place and nobody tried again, so far as I can find. Some fliers took a plane across the desert in Year 219. They observed from the air, saw nothing much but trees, and came back. Half a dozen mountain men have explored eastwards at various times; two disappeared without trace and the others came back and reported nothing of interest except that the game was dangerous to eat."

"All this ancient history is pointless," objected Jak spo-Kelleran. "Let's deal with the current situation."

"I think this is very relevant to the current situation," insisted Quilla. "If the aborigines have a civilization in the Eastern Hemisphere, how could we not be aware of it? Cities, farms, radio transmissions--how did we miss them? And how did they miss us? It's damned strange."

"Well, Quilla," said Drenner reasonably, "strange as it may be, it happened. They are an alien species, after all. Maybe they don't live in cities. Maybe they use hydroponics instead of farming. As for radio, now that you mention it I wonder about that static that comes in on some frequencies. Nobody's ever accounted for it, but we've never paid much attention to it. Maybe we should have some experts record some and try to analyze it." He made a note.

Quilla went on stubbornly. "Even so, why didn't the original colonists find the aborigines here when they landed Galileo? Why did the aborigines leave half their planet uninhabited? It doesn't add up, and I for one don't like taking action when the situation doesn't add up."

Jak snorted. "And I for one don't like sitting around listening to pointless speculation at a time like this. Don't you realize there's a war on? Hostilities have already started! The arths could be launching a major attack any day, and we have nothing to resist with. No planes, no missiles, no trained troops, nothing. I've been telling you for years--"

Drenner broke in. "What, specifically, would you like us to do, Jak?"

"We have to organize military forces immediately. Build a real army. Right now you've got dozens of half-baked citizen militias forming with no control at all by the Planetary Government. And we need heavy weapons; that means taking over factories and converting civilian production to a wartime basis. And above all, we have to strengthen the Government. Get a full-time leadership in control, reorganize, and suspend some constitutional provisions that interfere with taking effective action. To begin with--"

"Wait just a minute, there," cut in Gregorik. "There's no need for anything that drastic, at least not yet. I certainly won't vote for suspending the Constitution, and I don't think the Committee will either."

Jak scowled at him. "But the Assembly can take action if necessary."

"With a three-fourths supermajority? I don't think you have the votes there, either, Jak."

"Why don't we set that issue aside for now?" said Drenner. "I think we can agree on at least some of Jak's program. Certainly it would be prudent to start developing some military options. Let me suggest that the Executive Committee authorize Jak spo-Kelleran to form a Special Task Force, as authorized under Article 8 of the Constitution. Let him draw up a charter of authority, for the specific objective of implementing military precautions in the current crisis, and present it to the Executive Committee for approval."

"I so move," said Gregorik.

"Second the motion," said Bennek.

Quilla stayed behind with Rolok after the end of the meeting. He fumbled in his pocket, and she silently helped him fish out his pills and take one.

"Are you all right?"

"To be honest with you, not really. But I'll be OK in a few minutes when this kicks in."

"You've got to take care of yourself. I didn't realize Bennek had gone over to the opposition. We can't afford to lose you."

"You won't . . . at least, not till after this crisis is over. I may be 83, but there's life left in me yet."

"The thought of Jak running the show appalls me. What made you let him have control of this military buildup? Isn't that dangerous, even if it is constitutionally authorized? Gregorik and I would have supported you."

Drenner smiled grimly. "I know it. But Jak has too much support in the Assembly."

"There's no chance he could get 38 votes for a suspension."

"True. But to remove me--or you, or Gregorik--from the Executive Committee he needs only a two-thirds majority. And he's pretty close to that now. Voting for removal wouldn't be nearly as controversial as voting for a suspension. If we'd stonewalled, he might have been able to switch enough votes to throw us out. This Special Task Force will take the pressure off for the moment. We've got to stall while we try to reach a settlement with the aborigines. A planetary war would be insane."

"My God, yes. I can't imagine what Jak and his supporters are thinking of. Don't they know any history? 'The secret of peace is freedom, and the secret of freedom is to be able to move away from people with whom you do not agree.'"

"A quotation?"

"Murray Leinster--the one the city is named after."

"Well, he was right. And as we cannot move away from the aborigines, we'd better learn to agree with them. Any suggestions?"

"I was thinking. What about Barbra and Wallik?"

"Mmm. Don't see how we could do better. Let's talk to them."

"Did you know that Barbra sponsored this Helva spo-Targ? That could be a problem."

"Could be . . . or maybe the opposite. Anyway, let's get it moving. We haven't got much time before Jak eliminates our options."

"Damn the man. Makes you see why the Founders tried so hard to prevent a professional political class from forming."

Drenner levered himself up out of his chair. "Well, if we amateurs can handle this crisis effectively, maybe it will do some long-term good on the political front, too."

Nalmo entered Dugap's office and saw with apprehension his mentor's laid-back antennae. Lamely, he began, "Let me congratulate you, Senior, on your--"

Dugap exploded. "On my unprecedented appointment as Planetary Singular. Unprecedented. Do you know why it's unprecedented?"

Nalmo cringed.

"Because there's never before been a crisis so disastrous as to justify such an appointment! Now there is, thanks to you--you, my student. If the other Seniors had been merciful, they would have merely expelled me from the Hive. Unfortunately, they weren't, so they've given me a punishment to fit the crime. Since I was responsible for sending an idiot--that's you, in case you're wondering--to totally mangle our first contact with another intelligent species, I've been given complete control of every Hive on the planet and made responsible for cleaning up the mess."

He glared at Nalmo, then went on. "And to break the last egg, I have to make decisions based on incomplete data--again, thanks to your incompetence. Do you call this an expedition record?" He waved a tape.

Nalmo was silent. Dugap sighed.

"All right. Tell me what happened."

Nalmo's voice was low. "Everything went wrong. I ordered a night march to get away from the location of the . . . incident as quickly as possible. Tukul tripped in the darkness and twisted a joint. I didn't dare slow down so we pushed on. But we had to leave behind most of his load, including some of the plant samples. Then there was Beffip. She'd just finished laying, you know, and she wasn't strong. She shouldn't really have done any major exertion for several days, but she didn't complain. Then, on the third day, a little short of the summit of Skorap's Pass, Beffip just collapsed and died in front of our eyes. We buried her quickly, and her specimens, because we couldn't carry any more. Once we were over the mountains, I thought we were safe. Then I woke up one morning and Kleppu had killed herself."

"Ah. Not surprising."

"No. I told her over and over again that we needed her knowledge; besides me she was the only one who'd ever seen an adult of the alien sapients. But she just couldn't live with the guilt.

"Well, that left three of us. Tukul's leg was really bad by now and that slowed us down. One night the wilds attacked us. We got 11 of them, but they killed Tukul before they withdrew and Polanak was badly hurt. We finally staggered into Wingtip Colony Hive. Polanak had picked up a nasty infection by then, so I left him under their care and came straight here."

Dugap clambered onto his restframe and swung back and forth for a while. "Well," he finally said, "I suppose you have some excuse. We certainly could have used more data from that dead juvenile alien, but you were right to leave it there, and I don't suppose you could have carried it back anyway, as it turned out. The loss of almost all your specimens is another serious blow, but it was a choice between carrying them and carrying food and weapons, wasn't it? And you had to get back with your information. Pity you didn't have a long-range radio with you. Yes, I know it was my recommendation to conserve on weight."

He considered further. "Still," he mused, "I wish we had those plant and animal samples. There's some idea about them I can't quite pin down. They've got some special significance, but what? Well, I suppose it will come to me."

Nalmo ventured a question. "Senior? What are you going to do?"

"Two things. First, I've already ordered the Hives to organize for systematic combat."

Nalmo was stunned. "You mean, intentionally killing sapients? Even though they're alien--"

"Aliens, exactly! Just because they're sapient doesn't automatically mean they're peaceable. Think! These are mammals. They're not like us; they're not even in the same phylum with us. What can we know about their behavior? Look how Kleppu mangled things by assuming they were r-strategists like us. It's hard enough just to imagine how vertebrates even could be intelligent, let alone comprehend how they think. And look at the variation in mammalian species we know about. These aliens could be as docile as gliffos, or as aggressive as vraks. Do we even know whether the alien sapients are carnivores or herbivores?"

Nalmo hesitated, thinking. "Hard to tell, since they're tool users. Judging from the teeth, though, I'd guess they're mainly carnivores, but with the ability to supplement their diets with plants."

"Right. And consider their size. And note that, K-strategists though they are, their juveniles are allowed to roam unprotected by adults. The only prudent assumption is that they're an aggressive species, at the top of their food chain. And that they're likely to be quite capable of violence against those who murder their young, even if we are sapient. So we prepare to fight."

"I see . . . You said you were doing two things."

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to go back and make contact with the aliens and hope we can avert conflict."

"We?"

"You and I. I've commandeered a boat, and also one of the new land transport vehicles. We leave day after tomorrow. Get packing. Any questions?"

"Just one, Senior, and I don't suppose you have the answer either. There's something I can't understand. When we colonized this planet 273 years ago, how is it we didn't notice it was already inhabited?"

It was only the third time in her life that Barbra spo-Nelson had heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter. Hastily putting down Joella, she ran out the door.

The chopper circled the house, then set down in the field south of Helva's garden. Barbra's husband jumped out. She ran to him.

"Wallik! What are you doing here? Are the kids all right?"

"No problem, they're staying with my mother. I've been sent here by the Planetary Government."

"Well! And in a helicopter! We can dine out on that for the next year. What's it like?"

"Confidentially, it scared the hell out of me."

"And what does the Government want you to do here?"

Their voices were drowned out as the helicopter, having dumped Wallik's luggage, took off again and flew west.

"Oh! Helva, you remember Wallik." Helva curtsied with one hand, the other holding Anna. "And this is Anna. And those are Lara and Joella. Forgive Joella, she's unused to strangers."

"Won't you come in?" said Helva. "My husband's at the mine, but he'll be back shortly. Just set your luggage there, we can take it upstairs later. And . . . Wallik, thank you for allowing Barbra to come to me. It was very kind of you, and of her."

"Think nothing of it. She's your sponsor, it was her duty, and mine to support her in it."

"Travelling 6,000 kilometers is more than simple duty. And now you've come too."

"Well, I can't claim credit for it. The government sent me."

"Still, I'm glad you're here, for Jemmik's sake."

"How is he? I never knew him well, you know."

"He's very bad. Worse than I am," she dropped her eyes, "and that's bad enough. With him it's not just grief but guilt. He can't live with himself, and I'm really worried about him."

Barbra put her arm around her. "I've told you, and him, that's silly. It's not his fault. Was he supposed to know that alien monsters would appear out of nowhere and attack his child?"

Her husband shook his head. "You don't understand. I'll talk to him. But right now let me take care of my luggage. I've got some expensive computer gear in there that ought to be checked."

The two men walked together through the sandy scrub. In the noonday heat the Olympic mountains seemed to shimmer.

"Well," said Jemmik, "I suppose you're going to tell me it wasn't my fault."

"No," said Wallik. "It must have driven you crazy, having to listen to those two women trying to reassure you. But you should make allowance for them. They can't comprehend it, any more than you or I can know what it's like to give birth."

"I don't blame Helva, or Barbra either. I didn't expect to come back, of course. I just wanted to kill as many of them as I could before they got me. But damn it! They outran me. I knew the ones I killed weren't from the same group; they were primitives. But I couldn't catch up with the murderers, and then I lost their trail, and there was nothing to do but come home."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I'm taking Helva and the girls to Touchdown." He stopped suddenly. "You know, right there is where I taught Sojik to-- No. I can't talk about it. Let's turn back."

After a while he spoke again. "Jak spo-Kelleran is setting up a military force. He needs my advice on how to attack the arths and wants me to come and join his staff. And I'm going to. If I have anything to say about it, we'll wipe them out. Make their species extinct."

"Helva, you've got to talk him out of it." Barbra's voice was low but urgent.

Helva folded a skirt and set it in her suitcase. "What makes you think I can?" she asked.

"You have to make him understand. Spo-Kelleran just wants him--and you and the girls--for propaganda. That man is going to start a planetary war just to pull himself into power! And he sees your husband as a tool."

"And are you completely objective about this, Barbra? Is this disinterested advice? Your mother is on the Executive Committee, is she not? A prominent Constitutionalist?"

"Do you think that of me, Helva?"

Helva went again to the closet. "No, as a matter of fact. I believe in your sincerity. But do you expect me to take an outsider's position against my husband? What if I asked you to talk your husband out of this project he's undertaken?"

"I'm sorry. I should know better; I taught you our customs. I won't ask for agreement. But I beg you, think about it. It's terribly important."

Helva closed the suitcase, put another on the bed. "I hear what you've said. All I can say is, be patient." She smiled wryly. "After all, you just have to figure out how to deal with the arths. It's men who are the real aliens, and they're much harder."

The ship was rolling slightly in the gentle swells outside Wingtip Bay. Dugap found Nalmo sitting in the landroller lashed to the deck, studying the instruction manual.

"Have you got it figured out yet?"

"I hope so," said Nalmo, climbing out. "I'd better, since I have to be driving it tomorrow. Anything new?"

"Yes indeed. A long radio message from the Hive. Come to my cabin."

He handed Nalmo a message tape. "I asked Gelmaf to look into the question of radio. He tuned into some of the unexplained static and analyzed it. Look at this sample."

Nalmo displayed the graph. "Looks like ordinary noise . . . no, there seems to be some regularity there--or is that my imagination?"

"Try the transform into the frequency domain."

"Ah. Definitely periodic. So presumably artificial; the aliens are broadcasting it. I don't suppose he can get any translation?"

"No. It's not clear that it's even speech; why would it have that periodic component? Maybe it's being used to control machinery or something. But it tells us something important."

"Yes. If the aliens use radio, they can listen to us, just as we listen to them. Since we plan to keep in touch by radio, we'd better be careful. Do you think they might eavesdrop on our messages?"

"Probably not. I should think they'd find it impossible to deduce our language, just as we can't deduce theirs. What worries me is that, in principle, the source of a radio transmission can be traced."

"In other words, they could locate us--and the Hives. But would that be so bad?"

"Think what would happen if they exploded an atom-kernel device over a Hive."

"Break my shell! You are getting paranoid, Senior."

"Maybe I am; being the Singular makes me hypersensitive to danger. But all fixed transmitters are being moved away from the Hives. And I've ordered immediate work on processing uranium."

Rolok Drenner came into the hearing room on his feet, though leaning heavily on his son's arm. He sat down cautiously next to Quilla.

"You should have come in a wheelchair," she whispered to him.

"No," he replied. "They're making my health an issue too. There are several Assembly members who don't want to publicly oppose me on policy; they'd welcome a chance to say they voted me out for my own good because of my health problems."

"That's all very well, but if you keep pushing yourself so hard, they won't have to vote you out. You'll be carried out feet first."

Drenner shrugged. "What choice do I have? If I concede I'm too sick to be grilled by the Assembly, they'll argue, rightly, that I'm too sick to function on the Executive Committee."

"So. What's our strategy?"

"Fabian tactics, as always. Stall it out to give Barbra and Wallik time. And a bit of harassment. I've got a bomb to drop that they don't know I know about."

"Your intelligence network is incredible."

"You'd be surprised what a bank knows, or can find out if it wants to. What do you hear?"

Quilla looked troubled. "Several of the most powerful Guilds are backing Jak strongly. The Steelworkers think conversion to a war economy will boost employment and wages. And of course the Airframers are drooling over Jak's plans for an air fleet. My own members are getting restless and I've lost a lot of support. This child-killing really resonates with women."

A gavel sounded. "This session will come to order. Clerk will read the roll."

Dugap looked out of the landroller at the forest. "We haven't seen any wilds."

"I wouldn't expect to," Nalmo replied. "Of course they've never seen a landroller before and it must scare the antennae off them."

"You're sure none of these wilds have crossed the Olympics? If they came into contact with the aliens . . ."

"Well, we didn't see any on the other side. In fact, we didn't see any even on this side, once we were above the foothills. The cold stops them, no doubt."

"If they ever learn to use fire . . . You know, I'm tempted, while I'm still the Singular, to order a stronger effort to deal with the wilds. But we can't spare the resources in the present crisis."

"Well," said Nalmo, "if it were a year from now we'd have to watch out for them on the west side of the mountains. Beffip's offspring will have gone through metamorphosis by then."

"You should have burned her eggs."

"We would have. But she was still blue when we had to leave. You know how irrational a laying female is. Anyway, we didn't have time."

Dugap was thoughtful. "We'd better get this settled somehow quickly or we'll have more incidents next year. I'll bet the aliens can't perceive any difference between a wild and a sapient. If wilds cross over the divide and eat their offspring, they'll blame us."

The vehicle lurched. "Sorry," said Nalmo. "Right now I just hope I can get this monster over Skorap's Pass."

". . . but I regret to admit that I cannot grasp the Honorable Member's objection. She accuses the Executive Committee of exceeding its authority. Yet yesterday on the Assembly floor she attacked the Committee for failing to take 'firm action' on measures that would clearly have exceeded the Committee's constitutional prerogative. The Executive Committee may be doing too little, or it may be doing too much, but it cannot be doing both."

"Speaker, the Chairman is evading the issue! The fact is that the Committee secretly dispatched a team to negotiate with the arths who murdered one of our citizens--a child, let me remind you. This was done over the opposition of Committeeman spo-Kelleran, who is responsible for our military preparations. If these people fall into enemy hands and tell what they know, it could be an intelligence bonanza for the arths. Certainly the concerns of our military leadership should have overriding authority at a time like this. And let me further note that the team sent consists of the daughter and son-in-law of Quilla spo-Garth, the Chairman's ally on the Committee. It certainly smells of nepotism, does it not?"

Drenner smiled calmly. "Once again the Honorable Member's concerns strike me as inconsistent. If my colleague wishes to use her position to benefit her relatives, why is she sending them into such allegedly grave danger? The fact is, these two are supremely qualified for the job. Wallik spo-Nelson is widely recognized as the planet's leading authority on semantics. Barbra spo-Nelson has an award-winning record in assimilating immigrants from a wide variety of human cultures. Finally, they were not sent to negotiate with the aborigines; they were sent merely to make contact and open communication. They have no negotiating authority. Oh, and one more thing. Barbra spo-Nelson sponsored Helva spo-Targ, the mother of the victim. She is hardly likely to show any undue consideration to the aliens."

"Speaker!"

"I recognize Jak spo-Kelleran."

"The question here is unity of command. The authority of the Executive must not be divided, especially at a time--"

The tractor crawled eastward into the sunrise. Barbra looked back one more time at the Targ homestead--and saw a speck in the sky. "Wallik!"

He turned and looked. "Damn! Here, take the wheel and keep moving. Love you."

"Love you," she replied, sliding over on the seat. But he had slipped out of the cab and was gone.

The tractor had scarcely covered another hundred meters when the helicopter roared overhead and landed in front of it. There was barely room for its rotor between two trees, but it blocked her path, and before she could go around three armed men jumped out and ran up to the tractor. She stopped.

One of the men, presumably the leader, came to the side of the cab. "I'm afraid you'll have to come--"

He stopped suddenly. The muzzle of Barbra's pistol was half a meter from his eyes.

"Please don't do anything precipitate," she said sweetly. "You know how nervous women are. If you startle me, I'm afraid this gun might accidentally go off."

He gathered his courage and spoke firmly--but he made no move. "We have orders to stop you from Committeeman spo-Kelleran. By the authority of the Fermi Planetary Government, I order--"

Barbra raised her voice slightly. "You know, I do have peripheral vision. If that man of yours keeps edging around that way, he's going to get behind me, and having someone behind me makes me very nervous, and when I get nervous my finger twitches . . . that's better."

She let some contempt into her tone. "'Orders,' eh? I take orders only from my husband, and he doesn't take orders from anyone. We are citizens going about our business without violating any laws, and you have no authority over us."

"Where is your husband?"

"Now you ask! He's somewhere behind you. With an automatic rifle."

The officer, still frozen, looked at his men; looked at the pistol; looked at her face. Then he decided.

"All right. We will immediately return and report you and your husband to higher authorities."

"You do that. Oh, and give my regards to Jak. Ask him if his daughter's found a sponsor yet."

The officer, keeping his hands well away from his holster, carefully walked back to the helicopter, followed by his men. Only after the aircraft had disappeared into the distance did Wallik come out of the treeline.

"'I take orders only from my husband,'" he quoted as he slid into the seat. "Tell me again what an obedient wife you are. I keep forgetting."

"Come, Wallik, you know I'm perfectly docile."

"Of course. I remember how you instantly obeyed me when I told you to go home instead of coming with me on this harebrained expedition."

"I couldn't let you go alone. You're a hopelessly lousy cook. And watch out for that rock."

"A back-seat driver, too. Maybe I should send you back to your sponsor."

". . . and as long as we're discussing limits of authority, I should like to know whence Committeeman spo-Kelleran got the authority to commandeer the fusion power plant to make tritium and plutonium."

Drenner's bombshell was effective. There was a collective gasp from the Assembly and Jak spo-Kelleran turned purple.

"That's a top military secret!" he shouted. "Revealing that information in open session is tantamount to treason!"

"Don't be silly, Jak," said Drenner. A wave of pain washed over him, but he forced himself to concentrate. "Galileo's engine powers half the planet. As soon as you start shutting down capacity to make the changeover, everyone would know. And tell me, how is it that an action of this magnitude was kept secret from the Executive Committee? Not to mention the Assembly?"

He saw something in spo-Kelleran's eyes and took a chance. "Or is it such a secret? Perhaps you've taken a few people into your confidence? Very selectively, of course. Just the leaders of the Professionalist Party, right?"

"Point of order! I protest . . ."

Quilla leaned over. "Rolok, I hate to distract you, but there's a pool of blood under your chair . . . Rolok . . . Rolok, are you all right? Speaker! I request a recess, we need help here . . ."

Nalmo brought the landroller to a sudden stop. "Look."

Dugap peered through the dusty windshield. He keyed the radio.

"We've encountered what clearly must be an alien vehicle. It's smaller than the landroller, four wheels. Looks like two of the alien sapients in it. They've stopped, too."

They waited. Nothing happened. "It looks like they are waiting for us to make the first move. I'm going to advance on foot. Nalmo will continue reporting."

Dugap clambered to the ground. He advanced very slowly, careful to keep the muzzle of his laser rifle pointed away from the alien vehicle. At the halfway point he stopped, set his rifle on the ground, and waited. From here he could see that one of the aliens was slightly smaller than the other, and had longer fur on the head. He strongly suspected that they were male and female, and feared they were the parents of the murdered juvenile. An intense urge to turn and run flowed over him. He suppressed it.

"My god, it's ugly," said Barbra. "Their pictures don't do them justice. What now?"

"Now I go meet it," said Wallik.

What if it's a trap? she wanted to ask. But the answer to that was obvious. And no sense saying Be careful. She settled for pressing his hand.

Wallik went forward till he was a couple of paces from the alien. Then he set his own weapon on the ground. He glanced at the other alien in the vehicle; no hostile move was evident. He started to open his reader, and the alien in front of him visibly jerked. He stopped, then continued very slowly. Equally slowly, he sat down, facing sideways so he could keep both vehicles in sight.

The alien sat down--or rather crouched--beside him. Wallik tapped some keys and a picture of the alien Targ had brought back (bullet holes airbrushed) appeared on the screen. He turned his head and looked at the alien, waiting.

"Click-hiss-clack-sputter," said the alien.

Wallik considered. "Somehow I don't think we're going to communicate verbally," he mused. "I doubt that a human throat could even approximate those sounds, and I'll bet you can't simulate human speech either. Surely you have a written language."

He typed on the keyboard and "ALIEN" appeared under the picture. The alien peered at it, then got up, moving very slowly, and went back to his vehicle. He returned with a black disk. His digits moved on the edge of it and a picture--just a stick drawing, not a photograph--of an alien appeared, with a caption under it.

"Hmm. Looks sort of like Braille. OK, I think we can do this with a little work. Let me scan your screen . . ."

"Don't keep him long," said the doctor. "He's very weak. Limit your visit to a few minutes."

Rolok Drenner turned his head slowly as she came in. "Quilla. How's it going? I'm sorry I let you down."

"Silly man. Look, they won't let me stay long, so let me fill you in on the situation."

"I'm out?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. 'Reasons of health.' But your bombshell took effect. We managed to get a compromise candidate for your replacement. Janna spo-Hender."

"Ah. A Professionalist, but not one of Jak's supporters. Fairly sensible woman. We could have done worse."

"At least she's letting Barbra and Wallik go ahead. Of course, the fact that they'd already crossed the desert and were out of contact helped. Jak was livid."

"Good. Now it's up to them. All we can do is try to keep any irrevocable hostile steps from being taken here."

The two parties were camped a few meters apart. Barbra and Wallik, eating dinner out of cans, watched the two aliens doing the same.

Barbra turned to look at her husband with concern. His face was haggard with exhaustion. "How do you think it's going?"

"I wish I were a real expert on languages. This isn't really my specialty. Still, they seem to be even worse at it than I am, so I've stopped trying to teach them Standard and we're concentrating on using their language to communicate. Considering the huge gap between us, we're making good progress. But it's so slow! I think their root grammar is non-Chomskian. What about you?"

"I'm even more out of my depth than you are. The Sol system has some pretty weird cultures, but real aliens are something else. I've been reading up on some biology looking for clues."

"They seem to live in large aggregations, but not real cities. I'm translating the word as 'hive'; do you think they're analogous to bees or ants?"

Barbra shook her head. "Insufficient data, but I don't think so. Wouldn't they have different castes then?"

"Maybe they--look."

The two aliens were crouching very still. A creature with six legs, about 20 centimeters long, was standing nearby. It scuttled across the ground--and one of the aliens suddenly jerked up and stomped on the creature with a foot. It tossed the carcass into the bushes and returned to its meal.

"What was that about, I wonder? I'm going to ask. If those things are dangerous we need to watch out for them." Wallik picked up his reader and went over to the aliens.

He picked out words from the limited vocabulary they'd developed and alien writing appeared on his screen.

[interrogative: identity creature you kill.]

The larger alien picked up his own computer. A word appeared on the circular screen. Wallik closed his eyes, the alien sign for incomprehension. The alien pressed some keys. A series of three stick drawings appeared, separated by the ellipses that indicated a movement or transition. The last figure was a stylized alien. A line appeared from the first figure to the word.

Barbra was looking over his shoulder. "Could it be a food chain? But he didn't seem to want to eat it."

"It would be the middle one that would be food for the alien, in that case . . ."

The sketch changed a bit. Now there were two words under each figure.

"Hmmm. The second word in each case is 'alien'. Six legs, then some sort of limbless thing, then the usual figure for alien. Beats me. Let's try something else."

[interrogative: alien eat creature.]

[possible. not pleasant.]

[interrogative: creature danger.]

[no danger. future: danger.]

[interrogative: type-of danger.]

[future: creature become alien not understand.]

Wallik stopped to scratch his head. "You see the difficulty of trying to communicate when you don't have a real grasp of the grammar. Does he mean he can't understand what the thing will change into? And does that word really mean 'become' in this context?" He tried again.

[interrogative: creature become alien.]

[yes. creature become alien. creature is alien.]

Wallik slowly turned to Barbra. Her eyes were wide.

"Barbra, am I crazy, or is he trying to tell us . . . ?"

"I think he is. Look at it. Larva; pupa; adult. But Wallik, why would they kill their own young?"

"Because they become dangerous . . . they grow up into aliens who can't understand . . . the primitives that Jemmik killed!"

Dugap and Nalmo returned to their interrupted meal as the two vertebrates withdrew and began an animated conversation in their strange sibilant speech.

"Looks to me like they got the idea," commented Nalmo. "Maybe they'll let us rest a while now."

"They certainly have been pressing hard," said Dugap. "It could be eagerness, of course. But I get a frightening impression that they're in a hurry for some reason--uh oh, what now?"

The two vertebrates stood up. They walked to their vehicle and the large one put its weapon inside. The smaller one unfastened what they had deduced was a smaller weapon from its waist and that also was placed in the vehicle. They returned and approached to resume communication.

"This is it," said Dugap quietly. "The symbolism is obvious. We'll do the same."

When Dugap and Nalmo had put away their weapons and returned, a sentence was ready to be read on the vertebrates' computer screen.

[interrogative: you understand past: human larva killed.]

[yes.]

[interrogative: not-understanding alien killed human larva.]

Dugap hesitated, tempted to lie.

[no. understanding alien killed. incorrect.]

[interrogative: incorrect.]

[past: not understand human larva not-like alien larva. human larva not larva. human larva small human. human larva understanding. past: alien not understand. present: aliens understand.]

[interrogative: which alien kill.]

[not here. dead. past: alien reflexive kill.]

This set off another bout of excited conversation. Dugap ventured a question of his own.

[small human dead. interrogative: your larva.]

[no. those humans not here.]

"That's a relief," muttered Nalmo.

"Maybe," said Dugap.

The large vertebrate produced another message.

[we understand. future: humans not kill aliens. future: aliens not kill humans. interrogative: correct]

[correct.]

"You've done it, Senior!"

"I hope so."

Helva spo-Targ watched her husband pacing back and forth across the hotel room like a caged tiger.

"They want us to testify for a joint session," he said finally. "Both of us."

"If you want me to," she replied quietly.

"I don't want you to. You've been through enough without having to put yourself on public display. But Jak thinks it's important to rally public opinion."

"You've been through a lot, too, Jemmik. In any case, if it is my duty to testify, I will do it."

"I wish I could be sure . . . You know, the more I see of Jak, the less I like him. But he's the one who's pushing through our military preparations. Without him . . ."

He resumed pacing. Helva watched him sympathetically. She knew now that she'd taken the wrong tack from the start. She had instinctively wanted to comfort him, and only made things worse. "Does he really plan to use nuclear weapons?"

"We haven't got much choice. We don't know much about arth technology, but judging from that laser rifle they're pretty advanced. And, as Jak says, sooner or later this has to be settled. After all, from their point of view we've invaded their planet. They're bound to try to destroy us."

"If it comes to nuclear war, the planet may not be much use to them or to us by the time it's over."

"I know it. But what can we do?"

He sat down on the bed, his head in his hands. She knelt on the floor and looked up at him.

"Jemmik . . . Jemmik. Do you acknowledge me as your wife?"

"What? Of course."

"Then listen. As your wife, as the mother of your children, I am the only person who can hold you responsible for Sojik's death. You are responsible to me, only me, for our children's safety, nobody else. Do you accept that?"

He dropped his hands, revealing the face of a man looking at a firing squad. "Yes."

"Then you must accept something else. I have a right--a right, Jemmik--to forgive you."

"You can't--"

"I can't excuse you. Nobody can. I understand that now--well, I don't understand, but I see that it must be so. But I can absolve you. Whatever you did or failed to do, it's done."

He could not answer. He slipped down beside her and they sat on the floor, holding each other, for a long time.

"Who else knows about this?" demanded Quilla.

"Just you and I," said the Director of the Institute for Biological Studies. "Except maybe--"

"Who?"

"Helva spo-Targ. She came in with some specimens she'd been saving of plants she'd found in her garden--apparently seeds had blown across from the East Ocean ecosystem. Then she wanted to see the alien. She asked some questions. She's a trained botanist, you know. She may see it if she keeps thinking about it."

"Hmm. If she does . . . and if she tells her husband . . . well, we'll open that fruit when it ripens. What about Jak's minions?"

"I don't think so. Gross anatomy was all they asked about--the vulnerable points, where to shoot, and so on. They didn't seem to care about biochemistry at all." He chuckled grimly. "The man is simply incompetent, even as a military leader. Apparently the idea of poison gas hasn't occurred to him."

"Make sure you don't suggest it!"

"No chance. My God, Quilla, do you realize what a scientific opportunity this is?"

"Did you get the data from Barbra and Wallik?"

"Yes. Fantastic!"

"Good. Now we have to break this news effectively. It's going to be touch and go at best. Jak is going to ask the Assembly for a declaration of war day after tomorrow."

"What? He can't do that. There's no constitutional provision for a declaration of war."

"Of course not; it never occurred to the Founders that there would be anybody to fight with. But that also means that there's nothing in the Constitution to forbid a declaration of war. So if Jak can get a simple majority--and he already has the votes--we're done for. This information--if we can bring it out at the right psychological moment--is our only chance."

"Do you want me to address the Executive Committee? Or the Assembly?"

"You know," said Quilla slowly, "I think not. No, I think I want someone else."

Jemmik and Helva walked along the Esplanade as they talked. After a while he stopped and they sat on a bench, watching in silence as the waves rolled up the beach.

Finally Jemmik spoke. "Is this what you want to do?"

"With your permission, yes. I feel it's my duty to do it."

"'A strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion.'"

"Jemmik! I didn't know you'd read Austen."

"So I can still surprise you after almost ten years? Anyway, you're right. You have to do it. But Helva, I think Quilla underestimates Jak. I know the man, better than I'd like, and I don't think he's going to let himself be beaten by this."

"She knows him too, you know."

"But I don't think she understands him as well as she thinks she does. No, you go ahead. But I think we'd better take some additional steps, just in case."

Quilla watched with distaste as the video cameras were set up in the Assembly Hall. Just more stimulus for posturing on the part of Members. But the public had a legitimate interest in this session. She thought of Rolok watching from his hospital room and sighed.

Gregorik slipped into his seat beside her. "The latest count is 28 for, 18 against, four undecided. Do you really think we can pull this off?"

"We have to."

"I was thinking--what if we can get up to a tie vote? Janna is the tie-breaker as Chairwoman of the Executive Committee. Which way would she go?"

"Too close to call. She is a Professionalist, but I think Jak has really rubbed her the wrong way, especially lately."

The practice of combining the hearing of witnesses with debate was one of the traditions of informality dating to the Founding. As always, it proved an irritant to the Professionalists. Jak spo-Kelleran, trying to combine the roles of Lead Witness for the Question and Executive Advocate, made his case clumsily, to Quilla's satisfaction.

"I'll bet that cost them a couple of votes," said Quilla as one of Jak's assistants began droning about aircraft production estimates.

"We need more than that," responded Gregorik.

As the suppertime adjournment neared, Jak took the floor again.

"Speaker, we have one more witness for the Question, Helva spo-Targ. However, I've just been informed that she is having some slight difficulty with an illness of one of her children, and she asks permission to testify later this evening. I therefore move a suspension of the rules to allow this witness to testify after the witnesses against the Question have finished."

As the motion was seconded Gregorik started to rise. Quilla put her hand on his arm.

"But it's a ploy," he protested. "This way Jak will put on her testimony after ours and use it to whip up an emotional storm at the last minute."

"Patience," said Quilla. "Jak wants to develop momentum by winning a vote on a procedural issue. And he would win it. So we don't give him the chance."

"Without objection," said the Speaker, "it is so ordered."

"I thought you were opposed to independent militias," the man said suspiciously.

"I was," said Jemmik. "But I've seen the light."

"How do I know this isn't a trick or a trap of some sort? Maybe the idea is to discredit us."

"Look," said Jemmik. "I'm not trying to get you to do anything illegal. All I ask is that you move your company into position. We'll watch the Assembly on video and you make your decision based on what you see."

Quilla watched Wallik spo-Nelson with concern. The man was clearly exhausted. He'd had only a few hours rest between his return to Touchdown and his appearance before the joint session. "Now, you say the arths claim the killing was an accident. Assuming you've interpreted their language--which you admit you don't properly understand--correctly, what reason do we have to believe they're telling the truth?"

Wallik replied as calmly as if he hadn't answered the same question four times already. "Of course we have no proof. But if the aliens wanted to make war on us, why start like this? I'm no expert on military matters, but surely it would be more effective to drop a nuclear weapon on Touchdown, say, than to pick a child at random and murder him. An accidental killing is plausible; an intentional attack on our species is not. And that's my reason for believing them."

Quilla requested the floor; Wallik needed a break, and besides it was time to start the debate moving in her direction.

"The real question here is why the aliens should make war on us at all? What reason do they have to threaten us?"

As Jak spo-Kelleran jumped up to respond, Gregorik whispered, "You've just given them an opening."

Quilla smiled at him. "Do you know the term, 'gambit'?"

"Let me assure the people of Fermi," Jak began, "that I am not a mindless chauvinist. I am quite capable of perceiving this conflict from the point of view of the alien species. To them, we are invaders of their native planet.

"But, as you know, we came here innocently and unknowingly. And we cannot go back. Whatever the rights and wrongs--and I think we had the right to occupy the empty hemisphere of the planet--conflict is now inevitable. We are blocking the expansion of their population. And, sooner or later, they will block the expansion of ours. We both want Fermi; we cannot both of us have it. Whatever deceptive statements the arths may make for tactical purposes, their real intent is clear: to wipe us off the planet.

"We face an enemy that is literally inhuman. They do not have human standards; they do not have human values. I ask you merely to note, that by the testimony of this witness himself, the arths routinely and casually murder their own offspring."

Suddenly he turned to survey the chamber. "Does anyone else have questions for this witness? Then, Speaker, I move that this witness be dismissed and the witness Helva spo-Targ be called."

Helva curtsied to the Speaker and took her seat. "I understand I am called to testify of my knowledge about the aliens," she said in a clear, calm voice. "With your permission, Speaker, I will state what I know, then answer any questions that may be put to me."

Helva narrated how Sojik had vanished one afternoon. When she described how her husband had returned from his search the next day with the dead body of their son in his arms, her voice broke, and a murmur of sympathy ran through the chamber.

Gregorik nudged Quilla. "This is killing us."

"Patience."

Helva recovered and went on, describing Jemmik spo-Targ's mission of vengeance and its results. Then, instead of stopping, she continued. A frown appeared on Jak spo-Kelleran's face.

"When we came to Touchdown, I brought with me specimens of three unusual species of plants which normally grow on the other side of the desert. I took these to Professor Lark spo-Fennan at the Institute for Biological Studies. After he'd had a chance to examine them, we discussed them. I believe I omitted to state that I was trained in botany. What he has found is very interesting--"

"Speaker, I'm afraid we are wandering into areas not relevant to the Question. I'd like to thank this witness and--"

"Excuse me, Speaker, but I feel my current testimony is of great relevance. Please note that Professor spo-Fennan examined and analyzed the body of the alien brought back by my husband. Analysis of my plant samples merely confirmed his conclusions. It has now been established that the aliens pose no threat to us, because they cannot live in this hemisphere."

"What!?"

"The biochemistry of the aliens, and in fact of the whole Eastern Ocean ecosystem, is based on D amino acids. You will of course recall that life on earth, and on about half of all known habitable planets, is based on L amino acids. On other planets, such as Tau Ceti 3, for instance, life is based on the mirror image D amino acids, and of course humans cannot live there.

"What we now understand is that Fermi is unique among known planets in having two entirely separate ecosystems, which seem to have evolved completely independently. In the Western Ocean, the earliest forms of life developed from L amino acids; in the Eastern Ocean, from D amino acids.

"We now know why the aliens have never inhabited the Western Hemisphere. They cannot live here. The plants and animals cannot provide nourishment to them; in fact, they are usually poisonous. In the same way, we humans cannot live in the Eastern Hemisphere.

"So, you see, there is no need for conflict between us. It is pointless for the aliens to war on us; they cannot live on this territory, even if they could take it from us. And it is equally pointless for us to war on them.

"Let me say, finally, that I believe the testimony of Barbra and Wallik spo-Nelson. I am convinced that my son was killed, not out of malice, but by mistake. It is a tragedy I will never forget. But I ask that it not be the cause of more tragedy, starting a senseless war that will kill the sons of other women."

The debate that followed was stormy but short. Jak spo-Kelleran made an impassioned plea against naive trust of the aliens; suddenly he cut himself short and sat down, as if sensing inevitable defeat. The vote was 27 to 23 against the declaration of war.

"Well, Quilla," said Janna spo-Hender, "it looks like our policy is now clear. We'll have to work out a procedure for appointing an ambassador, I suppose."

Wallik rescued Helva from a crush of admirers. "You were wonderful, Helva."

"You two didn't testify so badly yourselves. And if you hadn't established communication with the aliens, we wouldn't have had a chance."

"Anyway," said Barbra, "it's over now. Did you see Jak's--where's he gone?"

"He stalked out immediately after the vote," said Wallik. "You know, he's such a maniac, I hope--"

"Don't worry," said Helva. "Jemmik has things under control."

The wall of the fusion plant, a hundred meters tall, loomed over Galileo Park and the smaller museum building. Under the dim streetlights six trucks jammed with soldiers drove up.

Jak spo-Kelleran jumped out of the cab of the first truck and waved a command. Men poured onto the street. He turned back to the building--and found himself facing Jemmik spo-Targ.

"You! You've been a traitor all along."

Jemmik shook his head. "Actually, no. Only for the last few days."

Spo-Kelleran controlled himself with an effort, his fingers white on the stock of his rifle. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut you down right now."

"Jak, it's over. The Assembly voted against you."

Men were crowding around. Jak raised his voice.

"The Assembly didn't know what they were doing. They were caught up in a . . . in an emotional spasm. I have, we have, a responsibility to protect the people, regardless of what that herd of amateurs does."

"So you're going to take over by a coup."

"I'm going to make sure the city is secure until the government comes to its senses."

Jemmik sighed--a bit theatrically, for the sake of his audience. "Jak, you're not displaying good generalship. A general should think ahead and anticipate his opponent's moves. Didn't it occur to you that other people understood the importance of the reactor? There's a company of militia deployed to defend it."

Jak recovered quickly. "Militia!" he said contemptuously. "We'll take it in ten minutes."

"Really? You have no advantage in numbers."

"But we have heavy weapons."

"Just a minute," said one of the soldiers. "Are you thinking of shelling the reactor?"

Jemmik stepped into the silence. "You still have some support, Jak. But if you damage the fusion reactor, everyone will turn against you instantly. You've lost in the Assembly; you're not popular with the militias. If you'd been fast enough to occupy the reactor and the other key functions bloodlessly, you might have at least held out for a while. But if you're bogged down in a firefight here on the street . . ."

The soldiers standing around exchanged looks. They began to drift back to the trucks. Jak spo-Kelleran searched for words, found none, and turned away.

"Is this a joke?" demanded Dugap.

"No, Senior," said Nalmo. "They're not native to the planet. They haven't even been here as long as we have. In fact, they thought we were the aborigines."

"Amazing."

"And yet, Senior, when I think about it--where else could we have met them? The colonization spheres of our two species have interpenetrated for nearly a century, yet we were completely unaware of each other's existence. Only on an unusual planet like this could we both find a foothold."

"Well, it just goes to show how different they are. As our first envoy to another sapient species, you have your work cut out for you. Will we ever comprehend them, do you think? The more I see of them, the more I wonder if we have anything in common except intelligence."

"I worried about that, too. But there was an incident during my visit to the other side . . . You know I made a formal apology to the parents of the juvenile that Kleppu killed?"

"Yes."

"Well, the female of the pair acted very strangely. She and her mate formally accepted the apology. But then she insisted that we stand close together for the cameras of their video transmitters. Senior, I'd seen her cringe from the sight of me when I arrived. She hates us and fears us; it's so obvious it can't be missed. Apology or no apology, I'm sure she wants nothing more than to kill me. But she forced herself to approach me and even touch me--to show her people that she, even she, was ready to live in peace with us."

Nalmo looked at the hazy green line on the other side of the desert. "Thinking about that, I understood. There is something our species share that makes it possible for us to live together. A sense of responsibility."