“Not Rebka.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s not his aircar.” Perry was running comparisons with his signal templates. “Not any of ours. Wrong frequency, wrong signal format. Looks like a portable send unit, low power.”

“Then it’s the Carmel twins! And they must be in terrible trouble, if they’re willing to ask for help. Can you take us there?”

“Easy. We just home on the beacon.”

“How long from here?”

“Six or seven hours, top speed.”

As he spoke Perry was looking at the car’s chronometer.

“How long?” Graves had followed his look.

“A bit more than eight Quake days to Summertide; say, sixty-seven hours from now.”

“Seven hours to Thousand Lakes, eight more back to the Umbilical. Then up and away. Plenty of time. We’ll escape from Quake long before the worst.”

Perry shook his head. “You don’t understand. Quake is inhomogeneous, with a variable internal structure. The earthquakes can pop up anywhere, long before Summertide. We’re not seeing much activity here in the Uplands, but the Thousand Lakes area could be a nightmare.”

“Come on, man, you’re as bad as Rebka. It can’t be all that unpleasant, if the Carmel twins are still alive there.”

“You said it right. If they’re still alive there.” Perry was at the controls, and already the car was turning. “There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Councilor. Radio beacons are made tough — a whole lot tougher than human beings.”

The weapons sensors had been tracking the car for a long time. When it came within line-of-sight range, Louis Nenda placed the starship’s concealed arsenal on Full Alert.

The approaching aircar slowed, as though aware of the destructive power poised a few kilometers in front of it. It moved sideways, then sank to a vertical landing on a seamed shelf of rock, well away from the ship.

Nenda kept the weapons primed for action, watching as the car’s hatch eased open.

“Who’s it gonna be, then?” he said softly in Communion patois, more to himself than to Kallik. “Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Name them visitors.”

A familiar pair of figures climbed out onto the steaming, rubble-strewn shelf. Both wore breathing masks, but they were easily recognizable. Louis Nenda grunted in satisfaction and flipped every weapon to standby mode.

“They’ll do fine. Open the hatch, Kallik. Show the guests some hospitality.”

Atvar H’sial and J’merlia were steadily approaching, picking their way carefully past rounded blue-gray boulders and across a scree of loose gravel. Louis Nenda had chosen his landing site carefully, on the most solid-seeming and permanent surface that he could find; still there were drifts of blown dust and signs of recent earth movement. A deep, jagged crack ran from the shelf where the aircar had just landed, halfway to the much bigger ship. Atvar H’sial was following the line of the fissure, occasionally peering over the edge to sniff the air and estimate the bottom depth. That trench was her only possible refuge. Nothing lived in this region of Quake, and there was no shred of cover within ten kilometers. The ship’s weapons, thirty meters high in the dome of the vessel, enjoyed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree prospect.

Atvar H’sial entered the lower hatch, bowing low — not from any idea of respect for Louis Nenda, but because she was squeezing in through an entrance designed for something half her height. Inside, she pulled off her breathing mask. J’merlia followed, with an odd little whistle of greeting to Kallik, then scurried forward to crouch in front of his owner.

The Cecropian straightened and moved closer to Nenda. “You chose not to use your weapons on us,” J’merlia translated. “A wise decision.”

“From your point of view? I’m sure it was. But what’s this talk of weapons?” Nenda’s voice was mocking. “You’ll find no weapons here.”

“You may be right,” Atvar H’sial said through J’merlia. “If the inspection facility on Opal could not find them, it may be that we could not.” Atvar H’sial’s broad white head turned up to look at the ceiling. “However, if you will permit me half an hour for inspection of your starship’s upper deck…”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Louis Nenda grinned. “It might be fun, but we really don’t have half an hour to play around. Not with Summertide breathing down our necks. Suppose we stop fencing for a while? I’ll not ask what tools and weapons you’re carrying on you, if you’ll stop worrying about what’s on this ship. We’ve got more important things to talk about.”

“Ah. A truce, you suggest.” The words came from J’merlia, but it was Atvar H’sial who held out a long foreleg. “Agreed. But where do we begin? How do we discuss cooperation, without revealing too much of what we each know?”

“For a start, we send them” — Nenda pointed at J’merlia and Kallik — “outside.”

Atvar H’sial’s yellow trumpet-horns turned to scan the Hymenopt, then moved down to the Lo’tfian crouched beneath her carapace.

“Is it safe there?” J’merlia translated.

“Not specially.” Nenda raised bushy eyebrows. “Hey, what do you want, carnival time on Primavera? It’s not safe anywhere on Quake right now, and you know it. Is your bug extrasensitive to heat and light? I don’t want to fry him.”

“Not particularly sensitive,” J’merlia translated, with no sign of emotion. “Given water, J’merlia can survive heat and bad air for a long period, even without a respirator. But the communication between you and me…”

“Trust me.” Nenda pointed to J’merlia and Kallik and jerked a thumb toward the hatch. “Out. Both of you.” He switched to Communion talk. “Kallik, take plenty of water with you for J’merlia. We’ll tell you when to come back in.”

He waited until the two aliens were outside and the hatch was closed, then moved forward to sit in the shadow of Atvar H’sial’s carapace. He took a deep breath and opened his shirt, revealing a chest completely covered with an array of gray molelike nodules and deep pockmarks. He closed his eyes and waited.

“Be patient.” The coded pheromones diffused slowly into the air. “It is not easy… and I lack… recent practice.”

“Ah.” Atvar H’sial was nodding her blind head and pointing her receptors to the chest array. “A Zardalu augmentation, I assume? Heard of but never encountered by me. May I ask, at what physical price?”

“The usual.” Louis Nenda’s face showed a harsh ecstasy. “Pain — the going rate for every Zardalu augment. That’s all right, I’m getting there. I’m going to talk in human style as we go, if you don’t mind. It helps me frame my thoughts.”

“But there is no need for this!” In addition to the literal meaning, Louis Nenda’s pheromone receptors picked up Atvar H’sial’s disdain and contemptuous amusement. “J’merlia is totally loyal to me, as I assume Kallik is to you. They would die before they would reveal any conversation of ours.”

“They certainly would.” Louis Nenda managed to chuckle. “I’d make sure of that. But I don’t know how smart J’merlia is. Things can always come out by accident, specially if someone tricky asks the questions. Only way to be really safe is if they’re not here to listen.” The laugh changed to a grunt of discomfort. “All right, let’s get down to business and finish this as quick as we can. It’s hard on me.”

“We need a protocol for the exchange of information.”

“I know. Here’s my suggestion. I’ll make a statement. You can agree, disagree, or make a statement of your own, but no one is obliged to answer any question. Like this. Fact: You have no interest at all in environmentally stressed life-forms on Quake. That’s all bull. You came here because you are a specialist on the Builders.”

“To you, I will not deny it.” Atvar H’sial reared up to full height. The red-and-white ruffles below the head expanded. “I am more than a specialist. I am the specialist on the Builders in the Cecropia Federation.” The pheromones carried a message of pride more powerful than words ever could. “I was the first to fathom the mystery of Tantalus; the first — and only — Cecropian to survive a transit of Flambeau. I realized the significance of Summertide before Darya Lang was foolish enough to publish her findings. I—”