Cliff scrambled out onto a thick limb and looked around. His team was intact, making for higher altitude. The badger hadn’t gone after Irma, not after she hit its muzzle with a laser bolt. Aybe had been light on his feet and was now far up a big tree.

They were spread out but safe. The badger jerked and snarled when Irma and Aybe gave it some encouragement to leave. Cliff could see the laser bolts spouting puffs of gray smoke from its fur. They could not get through the thick mat.

Impasse. It prowled around their base trees for hours, spitting mad. Their laser bolts made it angry, but it didn’t go away. Maybe it was used to a waiting game, Cliff mused. And didn’t like to climb trees.

The badger seemed mammal-like, but that was just appearances. Convergent evolution fitted life to niches. Like marsupials compared to placental mammals: similar forms but completely different physiology.

Finally, after much shouted talk, they started to quiet down. Fatigue, again. At least it was shady here. He took a deep, moist breath from the twilight air beneath the trees, and let himself relax. He could feel the tension ease from his back and legs. This was the first real rest he’d had since coming through the lock. A long time ago, yes. His stomach growled. He fetched out stiff blocks of protein/carb mix and munched them thoughtfully. Their taste burst with lemony richness in his mouth and he carefully let himself have a gulp of water. Ah.

Then, resting despite the badger, he heard this world. It buzzed (insects?) and barked (predator pack signaling, territory assertion?) and twanged (what the hell?). The symphony of life, singing strange in a colossal zoo …

He fell asleep without meaning to. And dreamed of Beth—dark images, fraught with lurid worry.

PART III

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

—M ULLA N ASRUDIN

THIRTEEN

A Serf-One brought Memor a delicious skreekor, fragrant with the scent of its own fear. She ate it with lip-smacking pleasure while she watched the invaders.

The skreekor was an ample beast, about the size of the new invaders, but certainly far more tasty. This one was lightly spiced and big enough for a midwake meal, six or seven bites. It had been preserved by radiation; its taste was savory but slightly stale. It did not wriggle, in a final gesture of its knowledge of the right order of things. Memor paid no attention to the smaller bones that snapped as she ate. She would disgorge them later.

She’d wondered if the invaders could do magical things, tricks beyond known science. This was most unlikely. They had not presented any real problems, though the Folk had responded slowly. The aliens now seemed safely confined. One was injured or dying. Their gear was unfamiliar, but it seemed crude. They fumbled with their toys and jabbered endlessly. Primates always seemed to do that, as ancient Bowl records showed from similar adaptations of the four-limbed. In their simple forms, it made them easier to hunt, though they never seemed to learn that.

The group that escaped had shown not cleverness, but panic. Mere luck had aided them. But luck was occasional. No matter what their strange origins might be, their frenetic movements showed intelligences not able to deal with new elements. Or incapable of planning, an even worse sin. Perhaps, indeed, the only true sin.

They were dull creatures, as well. They had no coloration feathers—indeed, no feathers at all. Camouflage was therefore beyond them. How simple! From what odd world had they descended?

They seemed incapable of conveying meaning with even their elementary skin signals—and so incapable of nuanced speech. Talk from their wiggly mouths, and antic hand gestures, had to somehow suffice. The females displayed mammal signatures, bumps and curves, and lesser mass. Curious. How did sexual selection occur? Through such constricted pathways? What sour, diminished channels they used! And so tiny! Memor wondered how to teach them to speak the Tongue.

Of six Astronomers and twice that many Serf-Ones, only Memor had been trained in TransLanguage. She had long thought there would never be a chance to use her training. Vast time would pass before the world came near Target, where they expected to find their first intelligent species in many million-folds of time. Now Memor’s TransLanguage and neurological sensing arts would advance her prospects. Her pulse quickened agreeably.

The Target Folk were powerful; that much was obvious to any telescope array. But they had never shown interstellar ambitions, judging by the lack of visible fusion torch signatures near their star, or large constructions.

Still less likely was this startling appearance of visitors. Such were discussed in the Long Records, but none had come for a countless time. Until now, suddenly, from behind. A crafty approach. The Astronomers were plainly disconcerted by their drawing near. A vast failing, really. Yet now that Memor was female, all seemed somehow clearer. This was an opportunity!

But at first it was not Memor’s, for it had not been Memor’s watch for many, many Turns. Plus, she had been he in those times, and thus had less judgment. Yet she, in the racked torture of the Change, had seized the moment, banding with others of the Dancers, and so now could show her newfound abilities in judgment. This would surely help her career. The prospect warmed her, beyond the pleasure of anticipation. She was on the cusp of a great era; of that, she was sure.

Memor had been trained long and diligently in TransLanguage, because one of every generation must be educated, to pass on the skills. She’d never hoped to use those elaborate methods of transcending ordinary language, designed in antiquity for speaking with these Target species, these candidate Target Folk. The Bowl’s beamed transmissions at the approaching ship and at the Target had never been answered, but that did not reflect a failing of TransLanguage. There could be many reasons why the Target Folk did not reply.

Or … Were these aliens Target Folk at all? The thought struck her, apparently from her Undermind. She would have to trace its origin.

No doubt they might be from the Target sun, still scores of light-years ahead. Memor’s great heart thumped agreeably at the very idea—but their big ramship had come from behind the World. Unless, of course, they thought to conceal their origins. But Memor was sure routine Astronomer observations would have picked up their fusion plume, had they approached from the Target direction.

Call these chattering things something else for the moment, then. Call them Late Invaders.

There were feeds from cameras in Sector 1126. Memor watched in hope of learning more. A second group of Late Invaders was running loose there … but for five wakes they never came near a camera. Perhaps they were more clever than they seemed at first?

There must be living invaders in the big ramship, too. Memor watched it on her input screen as it now arced around the sun, shedding momentum, grasping its way forward with magnetic claws. She had wondered if it would come back, if it would attempt rescue of its small invaders. But in over five wakes, it did nothing but maintain its almost-orbit, thrusting a little against the pressure of stellar gas. Perhaps they were benign. For now.

Memor bristled her feathers, air humming richly through them in a darting pride-song, to match her thumping heart. Joy of life, that brings such opportunities.

She opened her Undermind, a narrow window for now. This could refresh her thinking. It was like a sudden shaft of crimson light, startling to her Overmind. She could feel thoughts and emotions wrestling endlessly there, combining and mating. A rich bed of vibrant murk. She thought of these roiling notions as a sort of food for her Overmind, endlessly wriggling. So different, so oceanic, as female …