Husathirn Mueri took a deep breath. His mind was suddenly awhirl with ideas.

“I offer you a position midway between those of Puit Kjai and Prince Thu-Kimnibol. Let us accept this treaty with the hjjks, as Puit Kjai suggests, in order to buy ourselves some time. But let us also send an envoy to King Salaman of Yissou, yes, and enter into an alliance with him, so that we will be all the stronger when the time to make war against the hjjks finally is at hand.”

“And when will that time be?” Thu-Kimnibol demanded.

Husathirn Mueri smiled. “The hjjks fight with swords and spears and beaks and claws,” he said. “Although they are an ancient race, actual survivors of the Great World, that is the best they can do. They have fallen away from whatever greatness must have been theirs in those ancient times, because the sapphire-eyes and the humans are no longer here to teach them what to do. Today they have no science. They have no machinery. They have only the most primitive of weapons. And why is that? Because they are nothing but insects! Because they are mere mindless soulless bugs!”

He heard an angry intake of breath from somewhere directly in front of him. Nialli Apuilana, of course.

“We are different,” he said. “We are discovering — or rediscovering,” he amended, with a diplomatic glance toward Hresh — “new things every day, new devices, new secrets of the ancient world. You have already seen, those of you who remember the battle of the City of Yissou, how vulnerable the hjjks are to such scientific weapons. There will be others. We will bide our time, yes; and in that time, we will devise some means of slaying a thousand hjjks at a single stroke — ten thousand, a hundred thousand! And then at last we will carry the war to them. When that day finally comes, we will hold the lightning in our hands. And how then can they stand against us, no matter how much greater than ours their numbers may be? Sign the treaty now, I say — and make war later!”

There was another uproar. Everyone was standing, shouting, gesticulating.

“A vote!” Husathirn Mueri shouted. “I call for a vote!”

“A vote, yes!” This from Thu-Kimnibol. And Puit Kjai, too, was calling out for a decision.

“There will be one more speaker, first,” said Taniane, her voice cutting through the clamor like a blade.

Husathirn Mueri stared at her, amazed. Somewhere in the last few moments Taniane had actually placed the Mask of Lirridon over her head; and now the chieftain stood beside him at the high table like some figure out of nightmare, stiff and solemn and erect, with that appalling hjjk-face commanding the attention of everyone. She looked both foolish and frightening, all at once: but rather more frightening than foolish, a weary aging woman no longer but now some supernal being of tremendous imperious force.

For a moment, though he had no more to say, Husathirn Mueri held his place at the podium as though he were rooted to the floor. Then Taniane gestured commandingly, a gesture that could hardly be disobeyed. With that mask on, she was unanswerable, a fount of power. He went numbly from the speaker’s platform to resume his seat beside Thu-Kimnibol.

Nialli Apuilana came forward to take his place.

She stood stock-still, staring at the blur of faces before her. At first everyone was indistinct; but then a few individual figures stood out. She looked toward Taniane, hidden behind the startling mask. Toward Hresh. Toward the stolid massive figure of Thu-Kimnibol, sitting front and center, odious little Husathirn Mueri beside him. A swirl of conflicting thoughts ran through her head.

That morning she had gone to Taniane to confess failure: she hadn’t been able to find out any more about the hjjk treaty than Hresh had already learned with the Barak Dayir. Not that she was holding anything back: communicating with Kundalimon had proven more difficult than she — or Taniane — had expected. And so she had been a poor spy. On the subject of the treaty, she had nothing useful to report. It was the truth. And Taniane seemed to accept it as the truth.

That should have been the end of it, her vital mission fizzling away in anticlimax. But instead of dismissing her, Taniane had waited, as though expecting something more. And then there was something more. Nialli Apuilana listened, astonished, as words broke loose inside her and leaped unexpectedly to her own tongue.

Let me speak to the Presidium anyway, mother. Let me tell them about the hjjks. About the Queen, about the Nest. Things I’ve never been able to say. Things I can’t keep to myself any longer.

Bewilderment. You want to speak to the Presidium?

The Presidium, yes. During the debate over the treaty.

She could see the turmoil in Taniane. It was craziness, what she was proposing. Send a girl like her up to the podium? Allow her to contaminate the high legislative body of the city with her capricious, erratic, impulsive flights of fantasy? But it was tempting. The moody Nialli Apuilana finally breaks her silence. Speaks at last, reveals the mysteries of the Nest. Pours forth the awful details. In Taniane’s eyes temptation gleams. To know, at last, a little of what’s in her daughter’s mind. Even if it has to be spilled forth in the Presidium itself. Let me, mother. Let me, let me, please let me. And the chieftain nods.

And, unreal as it may seem, here she is. At the high table, all eyes upon her. The real story at last. The great revelation, after nearly four years. Did she dare? How would they respond? For a moment she was unable to find her voice. They were waiting. She felt their impatience, their hostility. To most of them she was nothing but a freak. Would they laugh? Would they jeer? She was the chieftain’s daughter. That would restrain them, she hoped. But it was so very hard to begin. Turn and run? No. No. Speak to them. Get the show started, Nialli.

And at last she did, speaking quietly, so quietly that she wondered if she could be heard even in the front row.

“I thank you all for this privilege. I stand before you now because there are things you must know, which I alone can tell you, before you decide how to respond to the message of the Queen.”

Her heart was racing. Her tongue was thick with fright. She forced herself to be calm.

“Unlike any of you,” she went on, “I have actually lived among the hjjks. As you are aware. You haven’t forgotten that I was a captive. Certainly I can never forget it. I know them at first hand — these vermin of which you speak, these hideous bugs, whom you think are fit only for extermination. And I tell you this: that they are nothing at all like the mindless hateful monsters you make them out to be.”

“They came to kill us when we founded Yissou,” Thu-Kimnibol burst in. “There were only eleven of us, and a few children. A scruffy little village, hundreds of leagues from their territory. Not exactly a serious threat. But they came by the thousands to destroy us. And would have wiped us out if we hadn’t—”

Calmly Nialli Apuilana overrode his full resonant voice. “No. They hadn’t come to kill you.”

“It certainly looked that way to us, an army like that, screeching, waving their spears around. Well, anyone can make a mistake, I suppose. It was just a little social visit.”

The great room echoed with laughter.

Nialli Apuilana gripped the edge of the podium. In a crackling voice she said, “Yes, kinsman, it was a mistake. But how could you have known what they were doing there? Do you have the slightest understanding of why they do the things they do? Do you have the least bit of insight into their minds?”

“Their minds?” said Puit Kjai, with heavy scorn.

“Their minds, yes. Their thoughts. Their wisdom. No, let me finish! Let me finish!” All fear was gone from her. Nialli Apuilana was defiant now. There was passion burning in her. “You know me, I think. You think of me as a rebel, a godless one, a wild child. Maybe you’re right. Certainly I’ve been unconventional. I won’t deny that I have no feeling for the Five Heavenly Ones, or for Nakhaba, or for the Five and the One, or any other combination of those gods you might want to name. To me they are nothing at all, they are only—”