The Ship Errant

Chapter Two

A few days later, Carialle interrupted the game and darkened the room to fill all the walls with views from her external sensors. The bright yellow-white, blue-white, and dull red dots of stars glimmered into view. Subtly, a white grid of low intensity divided the blackness into cubes.

"Gentleman and amphibians," she announced brightly. "Best visuals coming up. You see overhead on Y-vector the border between Sectors P and R. Imaginary, of course, visible only on benchmarking programs, but enhanced for your viewing pleasure. Beside us to starboard is a pentary of five stars known to Central Worlds as The Ring, a source of infernal radio interference to all space travelers hereabout. Below and to port, other constellations, brought in at treeemendous expense to the management. No shoving, please move along in an orderly fashion. And the entity ahead of us, frogs and sir, is star PLE-329-JK5, half of a binary otherwise known as your home system. And there, in that spot," she highlighted a single, dim yellow dot, two-thirds of the way around the ecliptic from them, "is your first real view of the planet Cridi. Welcome home, my friends."

"Hallelu!" Keff carolled, picking up datasheets and throwing them in the air.

Tall Eyebrow and Long Hand did a joyous dance together in midair around Keff's head. Small Spot bounded lightly from weight bench to wall to console and to Carialle's rack of paintings and back again, narrowly missing everyone else. They were all laughing in their shrill voices.

"How long until we make planetfall, Cari?" Keff called. He couldn't force himself to stop grinning. The corners of his mouth stayed glued up near his ears. He slapped his small friends on the back and shook their hands.

"A while yet," Carialle said. "I'm dumping velocity so I can drop into orbit at under 1,000 kilometers per hour. In the meantime, take a good look, folks. We made it."

The globe-frogs peeped and chirped to one another in high excitement, gesturing frantically at the holographic display.

"It is different from Ozran," Long Hand signed. "Orbit much wider. Cold?"

"Not recorded. We shall cope," Small Spot said. "See how warm the sun is! How lovely gold red."

"Who shall we meet?"

"Who indeed?"

Tall Eyebrow looked up at Keff in despair.

"What shall we say to one another? How different will we be from them?" he signed. "How will we interact?"

"Well," Carialle said, thoughtfully, "you've had a very small and limited gene pool to work with for ten centuries. I wouldn't be surprised if there hasn't been the beginnings of genetic shift, but it's unlikely to make any real difference. At worst you might need artificial assistance to interbreed with the majority population. We could offer Central Worlds' expertise in that department. Our scientists have no trouble fitting tab A into slot B, particularly with our knowledge of the confluent species that resembles yours in our biosphere. On the other hand, if you're just worried about your past experiences differing, I'd suggest you just be yourselves. They won't be expecting identical lines of development."

"Carialle!" Keff said in exasperation. Once a scientist, always a scientist. He turned to the aliens. "They'll just be glad to see you, TE."

"I do not know," Tall Eyebrow said, seeming dazed, staring at the tank. "It was not real until now."

"Well, it certainly is real," Keff said. He spotted an artifact ahead of them in the holoview. Its surface was too smooth to be natural. "What's that, Cari? Tracking stations? Signal beacon?"

"A little of each, I'd say. I'm getting a scan from it. Lots of subspace transmissions. I am recording them and attempting to translate."

"Feed it to me when you get something, please."

Keff sat down in the crash seat before the console and stared at the screen. He drummed his fingers on the console and tapped his toes in anticipation, feeling perfectly happy. This was a bonus, on top of the payoff for finding the civilizations on Ozran. To be able to observe an anthropological phenomenon heretofore unknown in human history: the first meeting of two different groups of the same race, divided for over a millenium. The linguistic diversity alone would provide him with the material for at least one blockbuster academic paper. Tall Eyebrow waddled over and hopped up to perch on the chair arm to watch with him.

"Anything yet?" Keff asked Carialle. "How about particle scans? How much activity is their spaceport seeing?"

"Patience, please. All I am seeing out there is a little debris, and some very old ion trails," Carialle said. The screen lit up with an overlay of green dust streaks that were scattered and stretched by the orbits of the planets in between. "I'd say no one's come through here in a long while."

"Always underfunded," Tall Eyebrow offered, with his hands turned slightly upward to show apology. "It is in the records. Resources small offered. Metal scarce. Volunteer work never enough, raw materials always short. Mission to Ozran one of three major projects to be funded in ten revolutions around the sun when my many-times ancestors had prepared for the journey to Ozran."

"Bureaucracy never changes anywhere," said Keff, sympathetically. Then he sat up straighter. "You don't mean you have memos dating from a thousand years back?"

"For every day," said the Frog Prince, with a satisfied gesture. "In all our troubles, that was never neglected. We have brought them with us for the perusal of the Cridi government."

Keff felt his jaw drop. The globe-frogs had loaded only a few containers into the cargo hold, and most had contained gifts. "In those little boxes you have a thousand years of records?"

"Communication system is kept frugally," Tall Eyebrow signed.

"I'm impressed with your systems," Carialle said.

"So am I," Keff said, with a whistle, promising himself a good rootle through the boxes when they were offloaded. "Talk about microstorage."

"Aha," Carialle announced. "It's sensed us. I'm receiving a hail from the orbiters."

She ran the data patterns through digital analysis, dividing the sum of on/not-on pulses by a range of prime numbers, formulae and logarithms, until she came up with a coherent 1028-unit wide digital signal. It wasn't a computer program, but a video transmission of an amphibioid wearing a glittering silver collar.

"Take a look at this," she said, and relayed it to the cabin screens. Keff was fascinated, but the three Ozranian globe-frogs were dumb with amazement.

"Not much obvious genetic difference, Cari," Keff said, staring at the image, looking at every detail. "Thank goodness for that."

The camera was centered on the Cridi's hands, rather than its face, which remained expressionless and still, staring at the video pickup with fixed, black eyes. The long hands snapped out signs in a quick sequence, then repeated it over and over again.

"I can read that. 'Identify yourself,'" Keff translated. " 'Do not proceed further.' "

"There's a spoken language, too," Carialle said. "Transmitted on either sideband of each copy of this signal on every frequency I tune into: wide band, narrow band, microwave, datasquirt, even a form of tight-beam. Very thorough. They want to make certain you don't miss it. Very musical, too. Listen." She put the sound over the cabin speakers. A pattern of peeps, creaks, chirps, and trills repeated over and over again. Keff squinted with concentration as he listened to the rhythmic squeaking.

"I bet it says exactly the same thing as the hand-jive." Keff's eyes gleamed. "Record it, please, Cari, and run it through the IT."

Keff's Intentional Translator program had been of assistance in learning the Cridi's sign language back on Ozran. He was constantly updating the system, which theoretically contained full grammar and vocabulary for every alien language that the Central Worlds had yet discovered. The program functioned with indifferent success most of the time. It rarely provided them with the key to an alien language when an explorer needed it. More often, someone found a key first, then used IT to build up a translation system from collected data. The IT was still full of bugs, Carialle thought cynically, but Keff never seemed to be bothered by them. Still, he had been improving its interpretation of the Cridi signs.

"Ah," Tall Eyebrow signed, his black eyes shining, "the language of science! We have all but forgone its use in the arid atmosphere of Ozran. The waters and the globes prevent sound from carrying, and we have had no amulets to broadcast it, so we let it drop except infrequently, in conclave."

"Interesting cultural redundancy," said Keff.

"Not at all. It makes sense for a technologically advanced race to develop some kind of oral language," Carialle said, thoughtfully. "Having to manipulate starship controls while signing home to mission control seemed to me like a difficult combination."

"But they had created remote power control," Keff protested.

Carialle's voice was sugared with sweet and insufferable reason. "What did they do before the amulets came along?"

"Sign is older," Long Hand explained, waving her hands for attention and interrupting the argument. "It was our first true trait of civilization. The small voice," here her hands went to her throat, and indicated diminuition with a finger and thumb, "does not carry as well as long sight. It came useful when science reached us, but not during our earliest years. Silence was essential to hunting together in the earliest days. We have good eyes and poorer ears. The wild food animals had good ears, but bad eyes. We must show silently to one another our intent. To us it meant survival."

"To which condition we were reduced on Ozran," put in Tall Eyebrow. "It has been so many generations since we did anything but survive. I am glad to see in the last year we have not forgotten how to think, how to invent with our hands. I shall not be ashamed to face my ancestors' other descendants." But the Frog Prince looked nervous all the same.

"But can you translate it?" Keff asked, almost bouncing with excitement. He gestured toward the screen where the silver-torqued amphibioid was still signing his message.

"If it has not changed since the mission to settle Ozran," Tall Eyebrow signed, "we may be able to." His hand waggled sideways to show uncertainty.

"This is a job for my all-purpose, handy dandy translating program." Keff flew to his console and opened the file. He sat listening avidly to the excerpt, keying in notes.

"But that trick never works," Carialle protested.

"Sure it does," Keff said with high good humor, purposefully ignoring her insult. "Especially, because this time I can cheat. I have a native speaker with me. TE, will you tell me what each of these sounds means?" He touched a control. "I'll slow it down, and you tell me where each phrase starts and stops, and then translate it for me."

"If I can," TE signed nervously. He slid his hand into his amulet to hover at the human's eye level.

They went through the recorded message together. Keff listened with his teeth clenched as the slowed-down chirrups grated through the speakers like chains being dragged up a gravel road. At the Frog Prince's signal, he tapped a computer key, designating the end of a word or phrase.

"It seems to be linear," he said to Carialle. "The IT is already beginning to crossmatch similarities between phrases on the tape. Multiple overlay of meaning beyond tense or gender would be more difficult to distinguish. Now, TE, what do they mean?"

Tall Eyebrow tried to translate each phrase into sign for them. He listened carefully, signing to Keff to replay each several times.

"The first is formula for diminishing forward velocity to zero, or 'halt,'" he said, holding up a skinny palm. "These next four I do not know. Some familiarity, but not enough. The first three are in command tense, but with certainty I cannot tell you their meanings."

"So there has been some linguistic shift," Keff said, nodding to Carialle's Lady Fair image on the wall. "It moves a lot faster than genetic or geographic alterations. Your ancestors might have used a more complex, extended phrase to mean whatever these do."

The globe-frog nodded, and tilted his head again to listen to the tape. "This is X=N, 'identify.' Three unknowns. This is the formula for no forward motion, 'not-proceed,' a command. More unknowns." Keff watched the small aliens hopefully as the tape ran out.

"Well, that's enough to go on," Carialle said. "It's very much what I comprehended from the visual portion of the signal. 'Stop, tell us who you are before you proceed.' Precisely what you'd expect from one of our own security beacons."

"Expressed entirely in mathematical concepts," Keff said. "Very interesting. TE, will you sing me the numerical sequence, and all the variables for IT?"

"With pleasure," the amphibioid said, still bobbing lightly on the air, "but what to do now about message heard?"

"Well, then, we reply as best we can," Keff said. "TE, do you want to do the honors?" He made way before the communications console, and courteously bowed the globe-frog into his own chair. "It's your home."

"I do not know what to do," the small alien said, looking up at Keff uncertainly. "What does one say to one's cousins after a thousand years?"

"Take one step at a time," Keff said. "Tell them who you are, where you're coming from, and ask permission to land. Mention us as your friends and allies. We don't want to have to explain anything more complicated than that at these long-distance rates. I'll stand behind you so they can see me. We'll answer their other questions when we arrive."

Following Keff's instructions, Tall Eyebrow made a brief translation. Carialle could see on close magnification that the small green male's hands were trembling, but his signing was perfectly clear and precise as he identified himself. The long part, the explanation of his people's long absence from Cridi, he alluded to with some quick symbols and a few chirps, mentioning Keff and Carialle as their rescuers and allies. At the end, he asked for instructions.

"Good, TE, good," Keff said soothingly, patting the globe-frog on the shoulder as soon as the camera went off. Tall Eyebrow's shoulders collapsed inward with relief. His two companions crowded in to comfort him.

"It is difficult," he signed.

"Good job. It's going to be a big day for you," Carialle said, signing through her globe-frog image. "That was just fine."

"And now, what?" Tall Eyebrow asked, stepping out into the air from Keff's chair, which was a meter too high for him.

"And now, we wait," Keff said, reclaiming his seat and throwing himself back with his hands behind his head. "Remember, they said, 'halt and not-proceed.' In the meantime you can sing me the symbols for each number, sign, and modifier."

They didn't have long to wait. Within a few hours, Carialle picked up a new transmission from the beacon. A harried-looking frog, not the silver-torqued one, appeared with a new message, which consisted of a single, short trill, and the screen went blank.

"What was that?" Carialle asked, replaying the transmission. "Welcome? Go away?"

Tall Eyebrow's hands flew. "It means 'proceed to the second planet from the sun, listen on this frequency for beacon, and follow in great-circle, equatorial orbit for landing procedure.' It would seem procedure does not change."

"That little ding-a-lingle meant all that?" Keff laughed.

"No stranger than the 'beep-a, beep-a'," Carialle imitated the communication-line busy signal, "which means, 'the party to whom you wished to speak is engaged on the line. Please disconnect and try again later.'"

"True," Keff said, his eyebrows raised in amusement.

"It is an abbreviation," TE acknowledged. "Such a sign is phonetically recorded in our archives. I am surprised to hear that it really does sound like it is written."

"It's a pity you didn't continue the use of your verbal language on Ozran," Carialle said. "Humans are geared toward spoken dialects. The mages might have realized sooner that you were sentient."

"Things might have gone faster with us, too," Keff agreed. "My IT program is geared more toward aural reception and translation."

"Yet inside our globes," Tall Eyebrow said gravely, "no one could have heard us cry out."

The second planet from the sun, behind a scorched clay rock and an insignificant asteroid belt where an unstable planet used to be, was large and beautiful and wet. As she swept into orbit above the equator, Carialle read her spectroanalysis monitors and discovered high relative humidity, due to a respectably thick and variable cloud cover in a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.

"I'll have mold galore, and possibly rust in my drawers when I lift off."

"Don't worry, lady," Keff said, cheerfully. "If TE's cousins have the magic technology, they can keep you as dry as you want."

"Oh, I want, I want," Carialle said. "That's one application of the technology I would look forward to using."

Within minutes, Carialle had picked up the signal from the landing beacon on the largest landmass in the planetary-northern hemisphere. She oriented herself to it, following a great circular route that would pass directly over it.

Beneath them, peeping through the cloud cover, half a dozen small continents floated on the surface of a vast, blue-green ocean. Small, blue ice caps appeared, then fell off to either side of the globe as Carialle descended. As the clouds parted, they could see how very green the low-lying lands were. Small Spot and Long Hand looked positively awed. They had never imagined the existence of so much water. Hazel-brown islands dotted the seas like freckles. Carialle opened megachip memory to record every detail and gave full visuals to those in the control room.

There was some minor particulate matter in the atmosphere, probably a sign of industrial activity, and creating a beautiful sunset half a world behind them. She caught the occasional sunspark as tiny airborne craft speeding below her reflected the yellow star's light. The whole scene reminded her of any one of hundreds of the Central Worlds, but everything was in such small scale compared to those in a human settlement. Her sensors told her that the flyers were only a meter square by less than two meters in length.

"How could we not have known they were here?" she wondered aloud.

Keff, never moving his eyes from the screen, shook his head slowly from side to side and clicked his tongue in agreement.

"This is the race, all right," Keff said, happily.

The partners' dream had always been to discover a sentient race equal to humanity in technological advancement and social development. There was no doubt about the well-established civilization below them, and their guests were living proof of the culture's prowess in space exploration.

The globe-frogs became agitated as the ship neared the stratosphere. Carialle picked up signals that were almost certainly what was arousing their senses.

"Take a look at the readings for the enormous power source down there," she told Keff. "Much larger than the Core of Ozran. The frequency hash is even greater. I'm reading controller codes in tiny bandwidths that I doubt could sustain what's necessary for one of the older amulets. Your machines will undoubtedly need tuning," she told Tall Eyebrow.

"It is true," he said, placing his long fingers on his belt buckle. "I can feel the great power source, but I cannot focus in on it to draw from it. My amulet frequency is already in use here."

"Well, you can stay on my engines for the time being," Carialle said. "Our hosts should give you a guest frequency when we land."

"But where are we going to land?" Keff asked. "The instructions didn't give a location."

As if in answer, the ship shuddered. Carialle felt a forcefield surround her firmly, but gently, like a velvet envelope. She tried to accelerate out of its grasp, but it was everywhere. It swept her out of her orbital path and rerouted her, drawing her into a side-to-side sine-curve path that led toward the surface. Her passengers were thrown off their feet. The surprised globe-frogs missed slamming into the wall only by swift use of their amulets. Keff, without technological assistance, was knocked to the floor. He grabbed for the base of the control chair as he slid towards the bulkhead, and hoisted himself up toward the seat. The three hovering amphibioids looked down at him sympathetically.

"That's why," Carialle said simply. "They're going to put us down on the landing pad themselves. Damn it! I hate being manhandled-I mean, froghandled, when I'm perfectly capable of doing this myself."

"Do you mean you didn't make that course adjustment?" Keff asked, hauling himself up to his feet by grasping the arms of his crash couch. He sat down and pulled the impact straps around his body.

"Look, ma, no hands!" Carialle said, feeling somewhat bitter, but at the same time admiring the expertise and technology required to take over her landing. "You know I don't drive that badly. They've taken complete control of my vector and speed. I could shut off my engines right now and probably land very nicely, thank you, but I don't trust strangers that easily."

"They're holding us like an egg," Keff said, looking at the exterior pressure monitors. "It doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No," Carialle admitted, with the sound she used for a sigh. "However much I despise it, I have to admit they're doing a competent job. The Cridi are light-years beyond the skills of the mages of Ozran. It's more like a pillow than pincers. Chaumel the Silver and the other mages could only pin me down with their controllers. They couldn't catch me in flight."

"Lucky for us," Keff said, with a nod.

"And for us," Tall Eyebrow added, staring at the screen that monitored the continents over which they were flying. "Else we would not be returning home now."

"I'm shutting down thrusters," Carialle informed them.

At the same time the force was guiding her downward through the troposphere, Carialle had the sense she was being probed. The "mind" penetrated her hull, through her shielding, into and around her engines, her memory banks, the cabins and cargo hold, and into the shell which held her body. She stilled all life support activity except for respiration, wondering if she would be interfered with by curious technicians, but the touch passed on and out of her ship. She forced her circulatory system to excrete the unnecessary adrenaline produced by her anxiety, and added nutrients and serotonin from her protein and carbohydrate tanks. She disliked being out of control of her functions, but at least this time she could see everything and, to a minor extent, move herself slightly in the soft, invisible grasp.

"I will not panic," she told herself firmly. "I will not panic. I am in control. I can veer upward out of here at any time. I can. I can."

Of all the softshells in her cabin, only Keff was unaware of the scan. The frogs, whether through latent telempathic sensitivity or the offices of their amulets, knew someone was examining them. Tall Eyebrow put his hand to his face with his fingers parted: a question to her.

"Yes, I feel it," she said, verbally and with sign through her frog image. "We're being given the look-see to find out who we really are."

"We come in peace," Tall Eyebrow said, worriedly.

"They must know that," Carialle commented, "or they could have dashed us all over the scenery by now."

"They may still," said Long Hand, cynically. "Are they waiting until we are over a certain point to pull us down?"

The velvet envelope absorbed the inertia as it slowed Carialle's velocity down to about a third. Gradually, she dumped more speed as her course destination became more evident. The northern continent appeared over the rim of the planet. The ship was whisked over jungles and rivers and a network of small cities, all looming larger and larger as they dropped. Carialle focused in tightly on the terrain, judging by the angle of descent and speed where the invisible hand would eventually set them down. The datafile she'd gathered of Cridi geography during her spiral told her that ahead on the eastern edge was a broad, flat plain. Most likely the spaceport lay there.

Traveling at only a few thousand kilometers per hour Carialle had time to record more detail of the land below as well as speculate on the welcoming committee. Most definitely the Cridi held all the reins on access and communication. Keff was looking forward to airing his sign language and the smatterings he'd already picked up of cheeps and twitters. Carialle just hoped that she wouldn't have to face one of her worst fears: seeing parts of her original hull being used by humanity's newest allies as chip and dip trays.

The land dished upward into low, rounded, green-backed mountain ranges as a broad river valley spread out beneath her. Carialle's aesthetic sense was pleased by the cities she could see now in greater detail, integrated fully with the rainforests that covered most of the continent. Blue and bronze-metal skyscrapers poked up through clumps of trees that were like giant date palms. Tributaries that eventually led to the great river wound among residential areas, passing under innumerable small bridges. Much of the broad, green plains were uninhabited. Carialle guessed that the Cridi preferred to live in a jungle environment, and leave the open spaces to the ruminants. It was all unimaginably pretty.

"Brace yourselves!" Carialle announced, feeling the restraint around her tighten. Tall Eyebrow and his two companions buckled themselves into the second crash couch, their staring eyes grim as the ship seemed to skim right over the tops of the trees. Carialle widened the view out to give them an accurate picture of their descent. They were actually still hundreds of kilometers above the ground.

Now she could see a landing strip appearing in the extreme range of her sensors. The huge, open field was lined with rows of low buildings. Ragged heaps of undifferentiated junk, half-grown over with vegetation, lay at the edges of the field, but two nearly complete spacecraft stood proudly on the wide, green plain. Perfect miniatures, the graceful spires measured about a sixth of Carialle's height.

"Not much current use," Keff commented. "I guess what Tall Eyebrow said about sparse government funding holds true even ten centuries later."

Their speed lessened again, this time sharply. The passengers surged forward in their crash seats. Keff clutched the arms of his couch and ground his molars together. Forward propulsion was down to a few hundred kilometers per minute, then a few tens, then diminished entirely. Keff had an uncomfortable feeling of weightlessness for a moment.

"I'm upending," Carialle said. And she began to drop. Keff felt his heart slide upward to his throat. He gulped. The frogs, lifted momentarily upward against their straps, exchanged nervous glances among themselves, but none made a sound. The ship fell like a stone.

"If they drop us now, we're scattered components," Carialle said. "I couldn't ignite to full burners in time to save us."

Groaning against the gravity-force upthrust, Keff huddled back in his impact couch against the thrust, his heart racing.

"The question of the day," Carialle said in Keff's ear, her voice sounding sharp with panic regardless of her calm choice of words. "Would a culture with a technology this advanced be reduced to performing manual salvage on a space-marooned hulk?"

"Doubt it," Keff gritted, trying to keep his stomach from forcing its way up his throat and out of his mouth. His heart was in the way, and they'd all come out at once. He tried to sound definite. "Hope not." He closed his eyes and clutched harder, his fingers denting the upholstery of his crash couch, hoping the chair wouldn't have to live up to its name.

The red-painted ship descended gracelessly from high atmosphere onto the junk-strewn Thelerian plain. It landed with a boom that echoed into the surrounding mountains like a bark of divine laughter and sent yellow dust swirling up toward the hot, golden-white sun. Thunderstorm and Sunset waited until the roar of the engines died away, then approached the cylindrical tower.

"Almost a temple," Sunset said, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. He was very young. Thunderstorm smiled, his bifurcated upper lip parting to show the upper row of his fiercely pointed teeth.

"But the godhead is served by strange priests, Sunset," he warned. "Remember that."

A final deafening blast of fire spread out from under the tail of the red ship, making Sunset jump, then the engines shut down. Heat haze spread out from the hull, obscuring the tall cylinder in a shimmer. A tongue-shaped portion of the ship's wall separated and swung down on hinges until the tip touched the ground. A ramp, Sunset thought, trying out the human's word in his mind. Figures appeared in the opening. Sunset would have run ahead to meet the descending aliens, but Thunderstorm rattled a wingtip at him.

"With dignity, youngster!"

Chastened, Sunset dropped behind to follow his elder. Three upright figures walked down the ramp. Two of them stopped a half dozen body-lengths short, but the tallest one came up within a single length.

"Greetings, honored ones," Thunderstorm said. He bowed low, then introduced himself, his assistants, and Sunset. "As always, we are pleased to have you here, Fisman. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

So these were humans! Sunset thought, very excited. The tallest alien, whose V-shaped torso lacked mammary protuberances, meaning that it was a male, grinned, meaning the corners of its mouth lifted, but the lip did not part in the center. What hair it had was mixed black and white. Its bare face was a narrow wedge, point down. Its mouth showed flat, white teeth like those of a rodent. He wore a smooth, slightly shiny tunic over thin covers that concealed his abdomen and limbs. Around his neck was a chain bearing many strange devices, among them a curly piece of metal with a sharpened point mounted at a perpendicular angle on a short stick, a bulbous construction mainly consisting of white glass with a shiny gray metal screw-shaped end, and a rectangular plate with characters on it in the human tongue. Sunset leaned a little closer to read it, and jumped back when the tall male made an impatient sign with his manipulative extremity-his hand.

"It's Bisman, damn it, Thunder, but after all these years I ought to know you still can't say your b's. Sunset, glad to meet you. This is Mirina and Zonzalo Don, brother and sister. My partner and her younger sibling. We bring you more parts, Thunder. Is this the apprentice you promised us?"

"Yes, sir."

The younger male approached only a few paces and looked down at Sunset haughtily. "Does he know his stuff?" Zonzalo asked.

Thunderstorm nudged Sunset forward.

He answered in the biped's language, carefully rehearsed for this moment. "I've memorized every component in the manuals. I know how to repair each one according to its rite. I obey orders."

"Very good," Mirina said, with a smile for Sunset. She was slightly wider in frame than her brother, and she had the proper protruberances, both front and side, of a human female. Sunset was glad. He'd been afraid he wouldn't be able to tell, and Thunderstorm had been firm about the etiquette of addressing humans correctly.

"Thank you, ma'am," Sunset said, which won him another smile from Mirina. Sunset noticed with a shock that the human had eyes of two colors arranged concentrically, with the pupil a round dot in the center. How incredibly strange. Yet, her eyes were the color of loamy soil: a warm, light brown, with a black ring separating the tan from the white; and her teeth, though flat, were very white. Sunset ducked his head to keep from staring. Humans were not so unattractive after all, even though they lacked proper haunches, tails, and wings.

"Has he taken the Oath?" the younger male asked.

He had. Thunderstorm had adminstered it himself. Sunset remembered all the grand-sounding phrases. They came to his mind as he stood, waiting as his elders discussed him over his head: obedience, silence, competence, humility, striving towards perfection in all things, and always keeping oriented to the Center of Thelerie.

"Yes," he piped up, realizing that Zonzalo expected him to say something.

"Do you know what it means to be a member of the Melange?" Bisman asked Sunset, for the first time looking him square in the eyes. That strange round stare was disconcerting. The younger Thelerie nodded several times to recover himself.

"I do. Humans and Thelerie together form the basis of trust. Since we are different, we may blend together only those things sacred and invisible such as trust and knowledge. But in that partnership we are indissoluble, and must remain loyal to one another throughout all time. Where our travels may lead us is a test of that trust."

It was practically quoting the Manuals, but the human didn't seem to mind. He nodded, bobbing his small round head up and down.

"Good. Well, there's no time like the present. Come on, lad," Bisman said.

"Now?"

Bisman glanced at Thunderstorm with an expression that Sunset could not translate. "Yes, now. We haven't got all day. My people are ready to unload and go as soon as we're refueled. Do you want a chance to serve, or not?"

"Of course I do," Sunset said, realizing he had made a mistake. "I am eager to serve. My skills are ready, and my center is sure."

That must have been the appropriate response, because the adults turned away from him then and chatted low among themselves. Bisman tapped himself on the manipulative extremity and spoke into his wrist. From the red ship, a crew of bipeds emerged. Part of the hull peeled away to reveal a huge storage bay full of containers.

At Thunderstorm's signal, many Thelerie came forward with the heavy lifting equipment they brought from the capital city. The human crew unloaded all the goods onto the pad, well away from where the fire would lick out and consume them when it departed. The cargo consisted of spaceship parts, and Sunset recognized all of them. Only the largest one, which had to be hoisted by derrick onto a flat car, he had never seen except in the manuals. It was a primary space drive, probably the first one on Thelerie in many years. Each one was numbered, he had been told, in over a hundred places, on each of its many components. So interested was he that he didn't hear the final transaction between the elders, Thunderstorm on behalf of the Thelerie, and Bisman, the spokeshuman.

"Come on, lad," Bisman said, coming over to tap Sunset on the wingjoint above his vestigial hand. "As a member of the Melange you've got to prove yourself now. This is your quest. We're looking at another opportunity to build onto your people's space fleet, but it takes time to get to where we're going to get more parts. Can't spend time jawing." He looked at the Thelerie and their wide faces. "You've got plenty of that."

It seemed to be a joke. At least, all the humans laughed. Sunset attempted to emulate the grin, keeping the centers of his lip together. He followed his new captains toward the ship. Sunset stared at it in fascination, seeing the joints of each part interlocked with the ones on every side. And within, the components working together in harmony like… like the Melange. All was as he had studied for the last three years.

On the side of the great, red ship were hieroglyphs of the human tongue. Sunset couldn't quite make out all of them, but he recognized the word "Central."He extended his wingtip to Thunderstorm, to ask him what they were, and touched no one. Startled, he looked back over his shoulder to see his elder standing at the side of the field, not moving. Sunset opened his great wings and glided back. It was almost the last time he'd be able to do that for a while, so he enjoyed the sensation of air under his pinions.

"Come on," he urged his mentor.

"I am not coming, youngster," Thunderstorm said, with a shake of his great head.

"Why not?"

The older Thelerie reared back onto his muscular haunches and touched Sunset with a foreclaw. "My reiving days are over, lad. Go with good grace. Come back with honor."