Arable gardens encircled every tower, trellises and stakes supporting the grasping yellow confusion of native Tyrathcan vegetation. Fruit trees lined the paved roads, huge leaves providing ample shade.

Smaller rounded silos and workshops were spaced between the towers, each with a single semicircular door. Carts and even small power trucks were parked outside.

“I don’t know who is jumpier, us or them,” Kelly subvocalized into her neural nanonics memory cell. “The Tyrathcan soldiers are clearly immensely capable, to say nothing of the hunter caste. Yet the possessed have hurt them badly. The vassal-caste bodies you can see half buried in the rubble of the outer towers have been left untended in the haste to fortify Coastuc-RT. A large breach of the Tyrathcan internment ritual, they obviously consider the threat humans present to be of more pressing importance.

“But now we are inside the village I can see very little activity apart from those vassals working on the rampart. The roads are empty. No breeder has appeared. The soldiers seem certain of their destination, leading us deeper into the village. I can now hear a great many Tyrathca away towards the park at the centre of Coastuc-RT. Yes, listen, a whistle that rises and falls in a slow regular beat. There must be hundreds of them doing it in unison to achieve that effect.”

The soldiers led them out onto one of the village’s radial roads, cutting straight down past the tower houses into the central park. Right in the middle was a vast impossible dull-silver edifice. At first glimpse it looked like a hundred-metre-wide disc suspended fifty metres in the air by a central conical pillar whose tip only just touched the ground; another, identical, cone rose from the top of the disc. It was perfectly symmetrical, shining a lurid red-gold under the sinking sun. Six elaborate flying buttresses arched down from the rim of the disc, preventing the top-heavy structure from falling over.

The three humans stared in silence at the imposing artefact. Big builder-caste Tyrathca walked ponderously along the buttresses and over the surface of the disc. The pinnacle of the upper cone wasn’t quite finished, showing a geodesic grid of timber struts which a rank of builder caste clung to as they slowly covered it with their organic cement. Another team were following them up, spraying the drying cement with a gelatin mucus that shimmered with oil-slick marquetry until it hardened into the distinctive silverish hue.

Kelly took the structure in with one swift professional sweep, then focused on the park. It had been reduced to a shallow clay quarry in the haste to extract soil for the disc and its buttresses. This was where the Tyrathca breeders had gathered; several thousand of them, circling round the outside of the disc. They sat on their hindquarters in the mud, short antennae standing proud, whistling in a long slow undulation. It sounded poignant, imploring even. Entities that had been needlessly hurt questioning the reason, the same the galaxy over.

Kelly’s didactic memory didn’t have any reference to a Tyrathcan religion. A more comprehensive search program running through her neural nanonics said the Tyrathca didn’t have a religion, and there was no explanation for the disc, either.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were at prayer,” Reza datavised.

“Could be the local version of the town meeting,” Ariadne suggested. “Trying to decide what to do about us wild humans.”

“They’re not talking about anything,” Kelly said. “It’s more like a song.”

“The Tyrathca don’t sing,” Reza replied.

“What’s that disc for? There’s no way in at the bottom of the cone pillar, not from this side, but it’s definitely hollow. Nothing solid like that would be able to stand up, it’s almost like a mock-up. I can’t find any record of them ever building anything like it before. And why build it now for Christ’s sake, when they need all the builder caste to construct defences? Something that size has taken a hell of a lot of effort to put up.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Looks as if you’ll be able to ask in a minute.”

The soldiers halted when they came level with the innermost ring of house towers. All of the buildings had been sealed up, black lids capping the windows, cement slabs erected over the door arches. Colourful flowering plants swamped their gardens.

A lone breeder was walking towards them from the park. Male or female, Kelly couldn’t tell, not even comparing it to the images stored in a memory cell—females were supposed to be slightly larger. It was bigger than the soldiers by about half a metre, the scale hide several shades lighter, dorsal mane neatly trimmed. Apart from its stumpy black antennae, the one physiological aspect which most distinguished it from the vassal castes was a row of small chemical program teats dangling flaccidly from its throat like empty leather pouches, although the long supple fingers intimated it was a sophisticated tool user.

She saw an almost subliminal hazy film twinkling briefly on the road behind it. Superfine bronze powder, similar to the dusting on a terrestrial moth, was sprinkling down from its flanks.

The Tyrathca breeder stopped beside the soldier carrying the processor block. Its outer mouth hinged back, allowing it to whistle a long tune.

Flute music, Kelly thought.

“I am Waboto-YAU,” the processor block voice translated. “I will mediate with you on behalf of Coastuc-RT.”

“I’m Reza Malin, combat scout team leader, under contract to the LDC.”

“Are you able to assist in our defence?”

“You’ll have to tell me what happened, first, give us some idea of what we’re up against.”

“Starship Santa Clara arrived yesterday. Spaceplane landed, bringing new Tyrathca, new equipment. Much needed. Collect rygar crop. Amok elemental humans attacked; stole spaceplane. No provocation. No reason. Twenty-three breeder-caste killed. One hundred and ninety vassal castes killed. Extensive damage. You can see this.”

Reza wondered how he would react if it was xenocs who had attacked a human village in a similar fashion. Allow a group of those same xenocs in afterwards to talk? Oh no, no way. The human response would be far more basic.

He felt mortally humbled as the breeder’s glassy hazel eyes stared at him. “How many humans took part in this attack?” he asked.

“Numbers not known with accuracy.”

“Roughly, how many?”

“No more than forty.”

“Forty people did all this?” Ariadne muttered.

Reza waved her quiet. “Did they use a kind of white fire?”

“White fire. Yes. Not true fire. Elemental fire. Tyrathca have not been told of human elemental ability before. Many times witnessed delusion of form on attacking humans. Elemental changes of colour and shape confused soldier caste. Some amok humans stole Tyrathca hunter-caste form. Much damage before repelled.”

“On behalf of the LDC I apologize profoundly.”

“What use apology? Why not told of human elemental ability? Breeder ambassador family assigned to Confederation Assembly will be informed. Denouncement of humans in Assembly. Tyrathca would never have joined Confederation if had known.”

“I’m sorry. But these humans have been taken over by an invading force. We don’t normally possess this ability. It’s as foreign to us as it is to you.”

“Lalonde Development Company must remove all elemental humans from planet. Tyrathca will not inhabit same planet.”

“We’d love to. But right now it’s all we can do just to stay alive. These elemental humans now control the entire Juliffe basin. We need somewhere to stay until a starship can lift us off and we can inform the Confederation what is happening.”

“Starships battle in orbit this day. Double sun in sky. No starships left.”

“One is coming back for us.”