The Ship Errant

Chapter Fifeteen

"Where is the other human?" Noonday asked, looking around, over, and under the party as they flew out of the capital city toward the northeast. "I would like to meet it."

"Perhaps later. Carialle stays with the ship at all times," Keff said. "She's… very attached to it."

Carialle blew a raspberry in his aural pickup, with the volume turned up just a little higher than was strictly necessary. She observed the neural monitor jump as Keff winced.

"I speak to her by means of small transmitter-receivers on my person," Keff said, pointedly ignoring her. "She hears our words, and sends her greetings to you."

"Ah, thank you and her. I know little of human customs. We in the Sayad do not interact with the Melange ourselves," Noonday admitted, flying ahead of his escort with Keff and Tall Eyebrow for a private word. His great wings beat the air a few times, then spread out to glide on a gusty updraft. "They visit Thelerie only irregularly. I myself only met humans once, very long ago. It was a great honor."

Watching from the camera eye on Keff's chest, Carialle admired the easy play of muscles. Noonday's wings were shaped like those of an eagle, but covered with plushy, golden fur like the body of a bat. The Thelerie were certainly a beautiful folk. She had had plenty of time to go over the anatomical studies and scans they had taken of the griffins left behind on the base, but this was her first time to see them in action, in their own habitat, stress-free. She was attracted to the grace of movement, the artistically right integration of six limbs. Their bodies seemed lithe and smooth, their velvet pelts almost caressing her visual receptors. Should time and circumstances permit, Carialle wanted to ask a few of them to sit, or rather, fly for her, so she could paint them. Carialle's brief glimpse of one of the guards suggested that it was carrying young right now. A scan showed a tiny, six-limbed creature in a thick caul like a soft eggshell inside the uterus. Carialle felt protective of the unborn young. In spite of her worries and misgivings, she was finding herself liking the Thelerie. She chided herself for her sympathies, remembering that these charming beings were responsible for countless deaths, and possibly her own long-ago peril.

"Who, then, is the primary interface with the Melange?" Keff's voice asked. Carialle saw that his pulse rate was up. She checked her telemetry, and found the group was flying at approximately twelve hundred feet, far above his comfort level.

"The Sayas of the Space Program meets with them," Noonday said. "We will ask if it is known when their next appearance is to be."

"Then, why do you all speak our language?" Keff asked, gesturing vaguely.

"Oh, that is in anticipation of when we reach out to the stars," Noonday said, and his eyes widened joyfully. "We want to be ready to communicate at once with the blessed humans who are there."

"Not an unbiased party, is he?" Carialle said, wryly. "I notice he doesn't consider it an honor to meet the Cridi, and they're just as alien as we."

"We're not blessed, Sayas, just another species like you," Keff said.

"Not to us," Noonday said, shaking his head. "It is from a legend that comes from the depths of our history, telling the story about the wingless ones who would come one day and take us where our wings cannot. A most beloved story, by children especially. And one day, you came, and made it true."

"Well, not us. This Melange, whoever they are… er, we are honored to have your assistance," Keff said, hesitantly, "and, forgive the discourtesy, but why are you taking us to meet this Sayas? Wouldn't this task be easily relegated to a junior Ro-sayo, or a guard?"

The elder's wings tilted back for just a moment, then he flapped hastily to catch up. His forehead was creased, ruffling the plush into furrows.

"Thunderstorm is my child," he said, then said defensively, "Where aptitude exists, should not responsibility follow? If there is any wrongdoing, I wish to know at once. We Thelerie are law-abiding folk. Our… moral life is strong. As you could see, my assembly was much distressed at the notion that Thelerie were involved with crimes against another people, especially a life-form so physically helpless."

"We are not helpless," Big Voice said indignantly, floating his travel globe close to the Sayas. "You have said that before, but see, we are capable."

Noonday reached out a claw hand to tap the globe. Big Voice ducked automatically. "That is true. By coming along on a flight with those believed to be enemies, I am also demonstrating a measure of trust in you for the assembly. I prove you can be friends and allies. As you say, we and the… Cridi are close neighbors. Neighbors should aid one another in time of need. And in spite of all, even if these charges against Thelerie be true, we must continue to trust in humans. So much of our culture over these last many years is involved intimately with this relationship. They gave us electricity, communication, many things."

"Heat exchangers, humidity controls…" Carialle chimed in. "The Thelerie should properly be in a pre-industrial age. The baroque decor is reasonably appropriate to the period, as it was on Earth before electricity. Humans brought all this to them, gave them machines, power, and then space travel, all in the space of fifty years. Strictly against the code of the Central Worlds."

"Well, these humans seem to be doing quite a lot against the code of the Central Worlds," Keff said, under his breath. "We'll know more when we've talked to Thunderstorm. How long until we get there, Noonday?"

"Soon," the Sayas said. The group passed over the ridge of the mountain range separating one great, yellow plain from another. Spare clouds riding the sky above them drew long lines that extended down over the mountaintops in both directions. Noonday directed them down into the narrow shadows between ragged, upthrust monoliths. "This way, for another eighth-arc of the sun at least."

"Plenty of time to get to know one another," Keff said cheerfully, stretching out on his side in the air beside the Thelerie. The Cridi continued to fly him along, and his pulses dropped toward normal as he became more involved in the conversation. Carialle flipped her image of the Sayas from horizontal to vertical to compensate for her brawn's change in position. "You say you're Thunderstorm's parent. Are you his mother or his father? And is he a he or a she?"

"Such differences are not known in our biology," Noonday said, beginning in a lecturer's tone. "Unlike you, we are all made the same way, only changing roles as we mate for offspring. I have borne or sired four children in my life. You would say I am Thunderstorm's mother, for I bore that child sixty-seven turns of the sun ago. We live a long time, here."

Carialle made certain the recording on Keff's signal was perfectly clear. She boxed in auxiliary memory to act as backup, to assure data redundancy. She knew her brawn wouldn't want to let a single erg of information get away.

It was a blow to him that the CK-963 team wasn't really the discoverer of the Thelerie, but he intended at least to be the documentarian whose data made the Encyclopedia Galactica, if not the Xeno files. Carialle wished she could have such easy short-term goals, but then, she'd never thought like a softshell. Keff had made her realize her humanity, even made her like it, but she knew they weren't very similar in their outlooks. He was ephemeral. One day, when their twenty-five year assignment was over, she'd be suddenly without him, and it would be a long and sad forever thereafter. It was times like this when she understood how very much she valued him. Keff, with his good humor, optimism, and his enthusiasm for diving into any task no matter how difficult or unsavory, was the best thing that had ever happened to her. He was so fragile, so easily injured, and she was so far away. If the Cridi allowed any harm to come to him…!

Realizing she was allowing herself to become melancholy, she gave her system a quick eighth-measure of carbohydrates. If her brain was playing such emotion tricks on her, she must be hungry. She had surely been ignoring the gauges that indicated her blood sugar was unusually low.

Carialle knew she'd been working her system hard. Ever since they hove into this part of space, old memories had been surfacing, giving her flashbacks during her rest-times, and intruding into her conscious mind while she was doing easy tasks like calculations. She saw visions of her first brawn, Fanine, relived the explosion and the rescue, even cast a critical mental eye on the early paintings she had done of space-scapes while in therapy. That should all be behind her, she thought. The interference had made her have to concentrate twice as hard.

Her sensors had been gathering information on the Thelerie ever since they had landed. It was time and past time to send another transmission to the Central Worlds, as a follow-up to the one she had sent from the Cridi system, but she was hesitant. Every event changed their perceptions of the situation. If she and Keff were wrong about the pirates, if the whole construct the two of them had made up about the location and origin of the raiders was incorrect, it was the end of her career, at least. Carialle hoped Keff wouldn't be held responsible-they were her incorrect perceptions based on her mistakes, arising from her disaster. She could always plead guilty to constructive kidnapping, if worst came to worst, to spare Keff an official reprimand. Not that it was likely she would face criminal proceedings, but it was best to be pessimistic where the odious M-C was concerned.

And yet, she found it difficult to believe that this charming and seemingly honest race was involved in piracy and illicit salvage. Of course it wouldn't be illicit for them to remove parts from a derelict ship; they wouldn't know it was a legal requirement to post a claim to a wreck with the space agencies. The Sayad had no rules dealing with space salvage yet. And yet, griffins-Thelerie-had been aboard the ships chasing them with mining lasers. Who was fooling whom?

She began to build up a dossier of facts to accompany her message. In it, she stressed the pre-electronic environment in which the Thelerie lived. The most intriguing fact about the modern developments that she and Keff had observed was the limitation of their use. It said clearly that the Thelerie did not understand the mechanisms or the physics behind them. Therefore… therefore, another agency was at work. Or was it? Couldn't there simply be a group of griffins who had demanded an education in practical science from spacegoing captives? Then, how had they reached into space in the first place? She and Keff needed that final link in the pattern. With luck, they'd have it before her message reached the CenCom.

On her screen, the Sayas stretched out his beautiful wings and dipped down toward a cluster of buildings on the open plain. Their body-harness glinting in the bright sun, the six guards flew into a protective formation around him. What a picture! Keff and the Cridi dropped back a hundred meters, allowing the Thelerie to approach the installation first.

"My, what a nice little fuel storage facility," Carialle said, just before the image of the square stone building with fluid transfer towers disappeared from Keff's camera eye.

"Isn't it, though?" Keff said. "Now our surmise has another leg to stand on."

Thunderstorm's office was very elegantly furnished, though the structure itself was little more than a stone roof on pillars. The walls consisted of corner-to-corner screens that let in the fresh breezes and bright, yellow sunlight. The cool wind felt so good to Keff after the dusty flight that he opened his filters a little more to allow the circulating air to touch his face. The atmosphere contained really very little ammonia, more of a far-off smell than an all-round stink. It might still harm tender Cridi hides, but exposed human skin might be able to last for longish periods. He thought he could almost take off his envirosuit, but then Carialle would probably go spare. Keff wanted to prevent anything from upsetting her during the investigation of this world. She had trials enough with the entire Mental Sciences division clamoring for brain scans, thanks to the Inspector General. Though it might put him in the brig, Keff would love to relieve the itch in his big toe by burying it halfway up the IG's excretory tract.

Keff occupied himself while they waited for Thunderstorm by studying his surroundings. This installation, at least, was accustomed to receiving humans. The doorframe was over two meters high, instead of the meter and a half that would be adequate for Thelerie to enter on four feet. That seemed to be the only structural consideration. The furniture was all made for griffin comfort-not that Keff would have found it onerous to stretch out on floor pillows, and the sling behind the desk was perfectly adequate as a backless chair. As in the government building, Keff saw very little wood, all of it used as ornament rather than in construction. Some of the small outbuildings around the office seemed to be built of adobe, others of fieldstone and concrete. The Thelerie might have had only one main building material, but they used it with imagination.

To his surprise, they also had paper. Keff grinned at himself. He'd been looking for computer terminals in a culture that still had open cesspits. The broad-topped desk was heaped with white, squarecut sheets, covered with the same square script he recognized from the attack ship's files. Those computers had been the aberration. This setting seemed more in line with their sociological development.

"Cari, there's hardly any trees here. What's this made of?" he whispered, moving close to the deskful of documents. His forefinger pointed at the paper, in clear view of the camera eye.

"Straw fiber," she replied at once. "A combination of rice and some native fiber; hard to tell which one without a closer molecular scan. The ink's a combination of an organic compound and finely ground mineral powder. Like India ink, it'd last for centuries. Here comes someone."

Keff looked around. Carialle must have detected the approach of a flying body on sensors. Yes, there… Keff saw a shadow, steadily growing in size as the body that cast it neared the ground. He heard voices, the Sayad guards calling out greetings, and a single mellow reply, as a Thelerie of middle years rounded the corner of a pillar, and entered.

Thunderstorm looked remarkably like his mother, but with a broader head and wider feet that lent him an endearingly awkward gait. His coat had only begun to show flecks of white. His smile, when he saw Keff, was an echo of Noonday's sweet expression. Thunderstorm looked suddenly wary as he came closer, and realized he did not recognize Keff. But the evidence was clear: this being interacted frequently and closely with humans.

"We've found our connection, Cari," Keff muttered under his breath.

"A… stranger?" Thunderstorm asked, in very good Standard, attempting to show surprise. "Forgive, I am rude. Parent, to what do I owe the honor of your presence?" He sat back on his haunches and made the gesture of respect to Noonday. The elder returned it. When he raised his eyes, they were worried.

"My child, I come on the gravest of errands," the Sayas said. "This human has told me many things that in- imm-?" he looked up at Keff apologetically, "favrekina Thelerieya."

"Implicate, parent," Thunderstorm said, smoothly, but Keff saw his tailtip switch. He was nervous. "Implicate Thelerie in what?"

"Crimes against other races of feings," Noonday said, so agitated she was unable to keep the upper halves of his lip together to pronounce the "b" in "beings."

"But I beg an explanation," Thunderstorm said, turning his head, to avoid making eye contact with his mother or Keff. He knelt behind the sling and lifted his upper body across it. With his right claw hand, he picked up a pen and made a few marks on a sheet of paper. "Why come to me?"

"I am told you are the head of the Thelerie space program," Keff said. "Is that true?"

"It is," Thunderstorm said. "It is wrong to lie."

"Then my business is with you. I come on a matter of peace. I am not alone. Perhaps you may have heard?"

The younger Sayas looked uneasy. "I have heard rumors."

"I won't conceal anything from you," Keff said. "Allow me to introduce my friends."

The globes sailed one by one out of the side of the pavilion, where they had been waiting out of the hot sun. Thunderstorm's pupils nearly spread to the edges of his eyes, and he sat up on his haunches at bay, his wings batting.

"I cannot believe you would bring them here," he gabbled out, staring. "Parent, what have they done to you?"

"Nothing at all," Noonday said, refusing to let Thunderstorm distract her. "What do you know about them?" She lifted her eyelids warningly.

"I have encountered them," Thunderstorm said at last, his wings wavering. "When I served my apprenticeship with the Melange. They are evil beings."

"Not evil," Tall Eyebrow protested.

"By the temple, it can speak!"

"You didn't know, did you?" Keff asked, leaning across the stone desk. "You never saw one alive. Did you assist in the ambush and destruction of one of their spacecraft?"

A Thelerie might not lie, but evidently it would fight to keep from telling a harmful truth. Thunderstorm stared silently down at the pen in his hand.

"Child, speak," Noonday commanded, sounding like the entire brass section of an orchestra. It took some time before Thunderstorm could bring himself to open his mouth.

"You recall our first friend, parent? Verje Bisman?" Thunderstorm asked, in a very low voice. Noonday nodded, still watching him carefully. The younger Thelerie turned to Keff. "I was so young, and full of awe for the strangers. Before a formal arrangement had been made between our two peoples, I begged to have him take me in his ship. He apprenticed me and my friend Autumn. He seemed fascinated with the Center, though he could not find it himself, and called us great assets because we could. We flew with him for some years, going from place to place, accomplishing missions for his ship. We gathered things no one wanted, or received them from donors who bargained hard for their goods," Thunderstorm said, looking ashamed. "So I thought. I was naive. On the cusp of the nearest star, we caught a ship that my friend, Verje's child, Aldon, said contained the greatest prize of all, and the Slime would not yield it. We were young and on fire, so we stopped the ship and took it. It was a great battle, for the Slime seemed to have mystic power to attack us without touching us. We were very frightened, but in the end we prevailed."

"How long ago?" Carialle's voice demanded.

"How long ago?" Keff echoed.

"Forty-three Standard years," Thunderstorm said, without looking up. "I knew then we committed crimes. It was the greatest shame of my life."

"Then he wasn't on any ship that touched me," Carialle said. Keff felt some of the tightness in his chest relax, but he grieved for the Cridi, who were only now discovering the truth about their losses.

"The second of our ships," Narrow Leg said, his wide lips flat with disapproval. "Fifteen Cridi lost in that one."

"Why did you never tell?" Noonday asked.

"I had vowed obedience and silence to the Melange," Thunderstorm said, looking up at his parent. "And I knew shame. I begged to be involved in no more assaults, and the humans agreed. After that, I came home to found the space program, finding apprentices for the Melange to train in the art of maintaining and flying craft. They do learn everything they are taught!" he cried, his eyes darting between Keff's and Noonday's. "We are good pupils, and we consider the trust sacred. When we were told these," he gestured at the globes, "were enemies, we believed. We believed, because the humans were the fulfillers of our dearest dream! Those of us who finished with our apprenticeships never speak of it, but some of us know we have done wrong. That is why some have left the space program. I stay. I am weak." The Sayas hung his head. "I thought some day when our own ships were spaceworthy, I would go back and see who the Slime were. I was Centered. I knew how to find my way. And now I am too old, and possibly weaker still."

"I am disgraced. What punishment would you demand of this one?" Noonday asked, turning to Tall Eyebrow, who deferred at once to Big Eyes and Narrow Leg. Keff could see the pain in her eyes, but she faced the Cridi without wavering.

"Only weeks ago we might have demanded his life," Narrow Leg said, eyeing his daughter and Big Voice, who rolled forward, bursting to talk. "We want cooperation. Such raiding must stop. We want peace. We want friendship. At what point in our requirements of reparation would such things be impossible?"

"I am the Sayas," Noonday said. "And Sir Keff is of the fourlimbs of the legends. Though Thunderstorm is my child, his life is in my gift. I would prefer to withhold such a gift, if I can. But in the name of peace, we will do anything you ask. We can't keep back one life when you have lost so many."

The two councillors rolled away from the group, followed by Narrow Leg and Tall Eyebrow. Long Hand, glancing over, decided she'd better be part of the discussion, paddled her globe into the circle, leaving Small Spot by himself, staring up at the Thelerie.

"We, too, have recently reconciled with a deadly enemy," the Ozranian said. "I know what I would say about you, but it is not my decision."

Thunderstorm went down on his belly and folded his wing-hands under his chin to the younger Cridi. "I do not deserve the consideration," he said. "I understand my crime, and I have abetted others. Time does not dull my shame."

"What are they doing?" Noonday asked, watching the Cridi sign furiously among themselves. "Is it a ritual? Why do they not talk?"

"They are talking," Keff said, always happy to teach. "They speak both with their mouths and their hands." He spread his arms, palms outward. "This is the first word of theirs I ever learned. It means 'help.'"

"Perhaps we shall learn this tongue, too, child," Noonday said, miming the symbol with his wing-fingers. "It has grace."

"I will do anything I can to make amends," Thunderstorm said earnestly, getting to his feet. "If I am given a chance."

"First, you will stop calling us Slime," Small Spot said, with emphasis.

The conference ended. Big Voice led the group back to the waiting griffins. Narrow Leg confronted Thunderstorm.

"We will not be guilty of spilling more blood," the Cridi captain said, "so we do not want yours. Our council will be made to agree that we are doing the right thing by sparing you. But until you learn what is right, you don't belong among the stars if you cannot respect those you meet there. We will dismember those ships we saw when we landed. They are unsafe anyhow. Your space program is cancelled as of now. One day you will learn right."

Thunderstorm's mouth fell open. "Don't take away my people's dream!" he exclaimed. He again dropped to his belly before the globes. "Take my life, here, now, honored ones, but don't let a foolish few close the door for all the others!"

"And yet, that is what you and your Melange have done to us," Narrow Leg said, severely. "We have colonies we have not visited in revolutions, nor have we been able to explore new systems."

"But the humans gave us this gift," Thunderstorm wailed. "If we had not been intended to fly among the stars, the humans would not have come!"

"Technically speaking," Keff put in unhappily, "the Central Worlds would forbid anyone giving a new species sophisticated systems until their own culture had developed the requisite sciences. Your own development would seem to be rather far below the minimum."

"This is terrible," Noonday said, clenching his hands. "I do not wish to lose the gift of flight, either. What can we do?" Everyone looked at Keff.

"Nothing at all until you've found the humans responsible," Carialle reminded her brawn.

"We need more detail on the Melange," Keff said. "Everything. How to find them, what they do when they're here, what their ships bring in, what they take with them. We need verification, first, for my government's information, whether this is the same group who destroyed the DSC-902 in the Cridi system."

"If it is in the Slime system, it was the Melange, I promise," Thunderstorm assured them, unhappily. "They are jealous of their territory. I am sorry to use the wrong name," he said bowing his head to Small Spot. "But I have known them fifty years, and you only minutes."

"I understand," Small Spot said.

"Do you believe them, Sir Knight?" Carialle asked.

"I think so," Keff said, tapping the desk with his fingers. "We can confirm to CW that those Thelerie that we left behind on the fifth planet were part of a network of pirates. They'll be on the lookout for more ships with the same modus operandi."

"But not all Thelerie are involved," Carialle said, with a sigh of relief. "I'll put that in my message to CW. They'll be very interested to hear about human involvement in this culture."

"Bets on whether the CenCom or Xeno gets back to us first?" Keff asked, playfully.

"Get back to the job," Carialle said, with a wry inflection. "We need data. We still haven't laid hands on the masterminds, and now we only have until the message reaches the CenCom."

"It's incredible that the secret of the Thelerie hasn't leaked to the rest of the Central Worlds in fifty years," Keff said. He settled on one of the spare slings in Thunderstorm's office. The Cridi stayed near him, not yet trusting their new acquaintances, but curious.

"We thought that it had," Noonday said, a little sadly. Thunderstorm could not meet his parent's eyes.

"Would you give up a free source of fuel?" Carialle asked. "This is a remote corner of the sector yet. If it wasn't for the bulk transport difficulties they might have been bootlegging it to exploration ships and miners. And here's an intelligent workforce who do complicated work without asking awkward questions. I think we ought to be amazed they weren't enslaved by this Melange. There's some vestige of morality in there, whatever else is going on."

"That brings me to another question," Keff said, looking from parent to child. "Why did the Melange take you into space in the first place? No offense, but I'd be afraid beings who had never known space travel might be a… liability."

Thunderstorm's upper lip parted in a smile. "I think to test a hypothesis. We are at the Center, and they wanted to understand Centering."

"Centering?" Keff asked.

"So you truly do not know," Thunderstorm said in surprise, settling down on a cushion in the sun with his wings on his back and his foreclaws thrust out before him like the Sphinx. "This is the heart of the universe." A wing claw rose to gesture from ground to sky to his own breast. "Its heart is our heart. Where we go, we can always return to here. It draws us. It is a part of us, and we a part of it."

"Extraordinary!" Keff exclaimed. "You mean that if I blindfolded you-covered your eyes-and took you anywhere on this planet, you could get home unaided?"

The sharp teeth showed in a quick smile. "Any child could. All do, to prove adulthood. We are never lost. Our legends of long ago said the Center would lead us home from anywhere, even the stars. But the wise ones of the past didn't provide us with the means to try the theory."

"An internal homing beacon. Whew!" Keff whistled. "But this Melange provided the means."

"Don't lead the witness," Carialle said in his ear. "If we give the CenCom this tape, we want it to be clear he is volunteering this information."

"Yes," Noonday answered, from another divan cushion. Her large eyes lifted skyward and turned dreamy. "One bright day in my youth, the humans came from the stars, and took some of our people away with them, including my child." A wingtip swept toward Thunderstorm. "The legends proved true. Those of our young people who travel far with the Melange learn to go other places with relation to our Center, but always return." The wing-finger twirled around but came to rest in front of Noonday's breast. "The Melange were fascinated by our natural talent, and said we could aid them. They find us worthy to travel with them, to fulfill our dreams of sailing where there is no air to tuck beneath our wings. It is a sacred destiny. One which, alas, has been defiled."

"And in return, you give them things of value," Keff said. "What besides innate navigators?"

"It is only fair to trade value for value," Noonday said with gentle conviction. "They have brought us electricity, useful machines such as distant talkers, knowledge, and the friendship of another race. We are pleased to know them. They have been benefactors to the Thelerie. Metal, ores, handworks, cut stones, smelly fuel-water, the use of a few years of a young Thelerie's time-all seem of little worth in comparison."

"So for fifty years someone's been cashing in on these people and giving them stolen spacecraft parts in return," Carialle said.

"The Interplanetary Revenue is gonna give us a rewaa-ard," Keff chanted in a sing-song under his breath.

"Don't count it yet," Carialle said. "Let's catch these brutes, first. We need the Thelerie to help us."

"I know," Keff said, and looked up at the two griffins, who eyed him curiously every time he stopped to talk to himself. He smiled at them, which seemed to make Noonday relax. Thunderstorm looked even more worried, his wingtips clattering together over his back.

"I represent the Central Worlds, an affiliation of thousands of planets, and many different species," Keff said. "We have rules against the introduction of technology to civilizations that have not yet developed it themselves. Still, there are immense benefits to membership, if you were interested in joining."

"Then we would really become one with humans?" Noonday asked.

"Much more so than with the Melange. From our point of view, they have interfered with your development." Noonday looked puzzled. Keff struggled to explain in Standard, then in pidgin Thelerie, and gave it up as a bad job. "Well, what was it like before the Melange came?"

"Colder at night without house heaters," Noonday said. "Less cohesive among our people."

"The coms," Thunderstorm explained. "Most families have one now."

Keff sighed. "The CW won't actually take something like those away from a people, would they, Cari?"

"Probably not. There's no destructive potential in personal communications or home furnaces. The spaceships, on the other hand, will have to go."

"All these are good things that the Melange shares with us," Noonday said, the beatific smile on her face. "We joined with them, and it has been of benefit to us all. They always assured us that the gifts they brought were traded from outposts, or scavenged from floating space debris."

"I was some of that debris," Carialle screamed.

Keff winced as his aural implant went into overload. "They couldn't know, Cari," he reminded her. It was the first crack in the reserve she'd shown since they had landed.

"How dare the Melange force this lovely people into piracy," Carialle said furiously. "It violates fifty-seven sections of interplanetary law, it's immoral, and it violates the Prime Directive."

"That's fictional," Keff pointed out.

"I don't care. It's still a good idea. I want these people, and I want to be the one who brings them in to Central Worlds. Now there's no excuse for having picked away at my exoskeleton: there isn't a spacer who flies in the Central Worlds who wouldn't recognize a shell capsule."

"We don't know what happened," Keff said, soothingly. "We'll find out. You must understand, Noonday, that spaceship parts don't just become available. Our evidence shows that at least some of them were the fruit of ambush and murder. Thunderstorm will admit he knows about that.

"To my shame," the Space Sayas said, covering his eyes. "Forgive me, parent." His voice was muffled behind the folds of his wings.

"Will you help us to stop such crimes?" Keff asked, looking intently at Noonday.

"We always wish to follow the laws," Noonday said, but the Thelerie was uneasy. Keff was convinced she never really knew that their gifts were stolen merchandise. He waited. He knew the griffins were fascinated by humans, and admired them, so he smiled his most charming smile. It worked. The rectangular pupil widened. "We will do anything we can."

"Thank you," Keff said.

Noonday's sweet smile was sad now. "We dreamed of space travel, and when it was given to us, that dream was fulfilled. But it is wrong to accept technology in advance of our understanding, as you say."

"But you don't understand," said Thunderstorm, rising to his feet. "Some of our greatest triumphs! Some of our most reknowned heroes…"

"… were flying in stolen ships," Noonday finished gently. "It is over. Sit down, child."

"Fifty years," Keff said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. He shook his head.

"Certainly long enough to be an established concern by the time I came to grief," Carialle said.

"We will stop taking from the traders, but you must convince your own kind to stop bringing it to us," Noonday said. "For as long as it continues to be available, someone will buy it. We cannot police everyone. But so long as there is no source, then no one can buy."

"Then we need to find this Melange, and stop the illicit trade," Keff said. "How do you know when they are coming?"

Thunderstorm rose and opened a low cabinet behind his desk. In it was a communications unit.

"I activate this once a day to receive messages, if there are any."

"Cari!" Keff said, hovering over it.

"Of course, Keff. Tell him to turn it on."

Keff conveyed the order, and the Thelerie tweaked an old-fashioned knob with his claw. He winced at the rising growl that came from the set as its tubes-tubes-warmed up. It was of ancient design, possibly of ancient manufacture as well. But it would last nearly forever in this environment, if not subjected to harsh treatment.

"I have the frequency. It's specific, and common, if you happen to hail from Central Worlds. It's in the educational transmissions band."

"Very sly," Keff said. "If a mysterious broadcast comes in over this band, most monitors will think it's kids playing pranks."

"Yes," Carialle said. "In the meantime, I can stay open on that frequency and hear the moment anyone in range uses it."

"Do you ever send a message yourself on this unit?" Keff asked.

"No, never," Thunderstorm said. "I speak to Zonzalo when he calls me, but I do not summon them."

"We have a name," Carialle said. "I can send to the nearest space station for criminal files. Zonzalo what?"

"Don," Thunderstorm said. "He speaks for the leaders, Aldon Fisman and Mirina Don. Mirina is senior sibling of Zonzalo."

"Fisman?" Keff asked. "Related to the first Fisman?"

"Child of that one," Thunderstorm explained. "He is my friend. Strong and fierce, with less warmth than the parent. Mirina embraces the apprentices. She is kindhearted."

"Kindhearted pirates," Carialle said ironically.

"Hush, Cari," Keff said, soothingly. "We have names. Get on to CenCom and let's see how far their records go back."

Carialle opened up her receivers on the frequency she had gleaned from Thunderstorm's unit. With so little on-air traffic on this planet, it should be easy to detect another transmitter. Yes, there it was. Carialle couldn't tell precisely where it was, but she could guess approximately how far away in the direction of the strongest signal, where the antenna lay. She triangulated the location on the maps she had made of Thelerie, and made her best guess. If she had to, she could make a flyover of that region to be certain.

"Got one," she said to Keff, interrupting another information dump from Thunderstorm. From being taciturn and cagey, the Sayas of the space program had become almost too eager to help.

"Only one?" Keff asked. She saw his hand go up in front of his chest with one finger raised, a request for the Thelerie to pause.

"Only one base," Thunderstorm said, as his newfound friend fell silent, communing with the internal voice again. "I will show it to you, if you wish."

"Only one, not too high powered, so our friends count on getting very close to this planet before making contact," Carialle said, running through a quick calculation. "It's north-northeast of you, probably a couple hundred klicks. They're very sure no one will sneak up on them."

"Well, they're wrong," Keff said, smacking one hand into another. "This time, we'll be lying in wait."

"And we freeze them in place," Big Voice said, extending his two fists out in front of him." He rose off the floor above everyone's head, and spun in a circle.

"No, no!" Keff exclaimed, diving for the councillor's globe before it crashed into one of the pavilion's supports. "We need information from them. We can only do that if they're free to move and speak."

"Oh," Big Voice said, looking disappointed as Keff put him back on the floor. "It would be simpler. But how can we do this?"

"I have a cunning plan," Keff said, grinning at the little party in the pavilion. "What do the Melange come here for?"

"To gas up, and to pick up a supply of natural navigators," Carialle said at once.

"Well, to trade," Keff said, clarifying for the others. He sat down in his sling again and held out both hands. "We don't want them to cut and run, we want to talk to them. We're unarmed, and besides, policing is not our job. We gather information. So, what if the next time they come, they find someone here in their particular, secret treasure house, ready to undercut any price they ask for better goods?"

Carialle sounded amused. "They wouldn't automatically identify traders as CW personnel."

"Exactly," Keff said, lifting himself into a pike position with his hands braced on the supports of the sling-chair. "They'd land and try to find out who we are and where we come from.

"They might try to destroy you," Thunderstorm pointed out. "There is no mercy in them."

"It doesn't matter," Keff said. "Once they're out of their ships, they're vulnerable." He plopped back onto the thick, black strap and swung back and forth, pleased with himself.

"We can capture them," Tall Eyebrow said, clamping an imaginary prey between his large hands.

"But you have no trade goods to attract attention," Narrow Leg said. "We have brought nothing."

"That's where you're wrong," Keff said, leaning forward with a grin. "We have some very fine trade goods. Now, listen closely."