“For short times.”

“Why are you here?”

“To achieve consensus with you. We must bond to our joint cause.”

“Which is?” Cliff said, bouncing quickly up from his squat to see the platform. Robots moving, no life-forms.

The alien made a short, soft, snorting sound. “Return to full sharing life.”

To Irma’s puzzled look—had it learned how to read human faces?—it said, “For all the Adopted.”

“Which are—?” she asked.

“Many species, low and high. We are bonded here. We seek-wish to return-voyage our home worlds.”

“You are from—?”

It made a sound like a soft shriek. In its large round eyes Cliff saw a kinship, an instant rapport that he did not need to think about. For one who dwelled in his head so much, this was a welcome rub of reality. The sensation of connection unsettled him. Why did he feel this way?

Then he had it—this was a smart cat.

“We will help you, if we can,” Irma said. He saw at a glance that she felt the same as he.

“But we are only a few,” Cliff hedged.

“You share-voyage with many in a ship that can damage-share the Astronomers.” This came out as a fast, hissing statement, eyes widened.

A forward lurch came then, rocking them all on their haunches. Cliff stood up with some relief. Nobody on the platform. The train surged into its heavy acceleration again, pressing at them.

“Oops! Let’s get into some chairs,” Irma said. “And tell Howard and Aybe and Terry. Breakfast!” She broke into a broad grin that cheered him up, out of his confusion.

FORTY-FOUR

Memor was glad she had not brought her friend, Sarko, for this was a rude and joyless place.

From their vantage here, she could see the long flanks of composite rock, carved by ancient rivers. This was bare country, left behind when topsoil had fled downhill in the far past. Now its canyons had a certain majestic uselessness for habitation, which made it perfect for an assembly of search parties. They could survey the low gravity forests that began at the canyon mouths below—a blue green ocean. Long, undulant waves marched across that plain of treetops, stretching into the distant dim oblivion. Those lofty reaches ranked among her favorite natural wonders, the gift of low gravity. There, one could “swim” in the trees, buoyed up by their fragrant multitude. The vast trees stood impossibly tall, swaying in the warm breezes that prevailed here at high latitudes. And the aliens lurked among them, surely.

“Do you have any amenities?” Memor asked the attendant, one of the lesser forms known as the Qualk, who sported an absurd headdress. Perhaps it was meant to impress her? That seemed unlikely, but one never knew.

The Qualk fluttered in tribute for the attention paid to him and gestured with an obliging neck-twirl toward the refreshments. Memor moved forward with grave energy, aware that all those in this field station watched her.

A Savant approached. “Astronomer, we have heard stories, ones we cannot believe—”

“Inability to believe is no insurance,” Memor said, but laconic irony was lost on this small, squirming one with anxious eyes.

They were assembled for her. More fretful eyes, from a variety of the Bird Folk and some minor members of the Adopted. Memor allowed suspense to build as she quaffed a tangy drink and munched a crunchy thing.

“You are all here, leading your teams, to find the escaped aliens. How is that proceeding?”

Some restless shuffling, sidewise glances. The governing Savant moved to the fore. “The Packmistress sent us—”

“Never mind your prior instructions. What did you encounter?”

The Savant flicked looks around but could not avoid Memor’s gaze. “Of course, we have not found the aliens. By the time we hear of them, they are gone. We could follow—after all, we have mobile troops, total air cover, local sensors—but they elude us.”

“Why?”

“They seem able to move across terrain without regard for borders or the ancient constraints we all feel. They came over our regional boundaries, moving in natural terrain with concealment. We backtracked them and saw that they skirted our settlements and found ways around our checkpoints.”

“You are not alone. There are two of their parties, far across our lands, and they both seem better at this than we.”

The Savant nodded, said nothing.

They would come to her, this murderous band of Late Invaders, Memor thought. She had set upon the mirrors a portrait of the leader of the primary group, a face many worlds wide. “Come to me.” The leader would certainly know that she had not sent that message, but the others would not. They had every motive to link somehow, and then they could all be caught.

But there was no certainty in this, and a worse danger loomed. So Memor persisted, “Is it the Adopted?”

“What—what do you imply?”

“Do they speedily report?”

“Well—” More furtive glances. No escape.

“I take it your reply is no?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“You mean no?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

“The Adopted somehow—I have no idea why!—do not obey. They have heard of these aliens.”

“And so?”

“They somehow…” The local Savant cast more anxious eyes. “These primates are unAdopted. Many ages have passed since the last invasive intelligences gained a foothold on the Bowl. This I truly do not understand—but many of the Adopted see them as … admirable.”

A voice nearby said, “Improper genetic engineering, then. Or else there has been a slide in the Adopted’s conditioning, occasioned by genetic drift.”

An image from their Underminds, more likely, Memor thought. An ancient archetype running free, from the times when the Adopted were on their own. She huffed, worried, but gave no other sign of her true reaction. She had read and seen images of alien invasions, far back—many twelve-cubed Eras ago. No Astronomers now living were alive then. Though Astronomers were the longest-lived of all the Folk, even they faced a hard fact: The Bowl swam by life-rich worlds seldom. Still rarer were those planets inhabited by sentients—those who could perceive and know—which were of use to the Folk. Still more rare were aliens of sapience—entities who could act with appropriate judgment. The universe gave forth life reluctantly, and wisdom, far more so.

These alien primates, alas, had both—in quantities they surely did not deserve, given their primitive levels of development. Plainly some harsh world had shaped them, and cast them out into the vacuum, untutored.

But she was forgetting her role here. She snorted out anger, spat rebuke, and gave a reproaching feather display of brown and amber. “Admirable!”

“I regret to deliver such news.”

“I had no such reports before.”

“This was a regional problem, noble Astronomer.”

“It is now a global one. These are dangerous aliens, afoot in our lands.”

Murmurs of agreement erupted. But Memor did not want agreement; she wanted action. “We do not know what they want. We cannot allow them to remain loose.”

The Savant caught her tone and lifted her head. “We shall redouble our efforts.”

Memor supposed that was the best she could expect of these rural provinces. They slumbered, while mastering the Bowl fell to their betters. She sniffed, gave a flutter display, and was turning away when the Savant asked quietly, “We hear tales of the alien’s excursions.…”

Obviously a leading question. How much did this minor Savant know? “You refer to—?”

“One of the alien bands, these tales say, discovered a Field of History.”

“I believe the primary group stumbled upon one, yes. So?”

“Then they know our past. And can use it against us.”

“I scarcely think they are so intelligent.”

“They have eluded us.” Short, to the point. This Savant was brighter than she looked.

“You worry that they will know we once passed by their world? These primates were not even evolved when we were nearby.”