Striding forward, clumping with big solemn feet, Memor took note of this new Her-name: Zetasa. In time this new She could, and so might, bring a new, vital stabilizing element to their colloquy—a wise method evolved by the Folk over many, many twelve-millennia in the truly ancient past. This was the essential, time-honored, and stabilizing truth. She relished it.

“Memor!” came Asenath’s solemn, deep bass voice. “We have not greeted in longtimes, I do say.”

Untrue, but perhaps useful. “I greet in tribute, and wish to confer on present problems,” Memor said in long sliding tones, with a penumbral, light-yellow feather display. This drew an attendant twitter of speculation. As tradition demanded, Memor ignored the light trilling soprano chorus of conjecture.

“Which have multiplied, I gather.”

“I captured one of the primates and am learning much from her,” Memor said. “As we speak, skyfish descend upon the Sil lands, to either capture the primates remaining on the Bowl, or else kill them.”

“Ah! As Governors, we must attend to the dismay of the Bowlcrafters, who do not relish such punishments.” Asenath made a flutter-rush of red and gold to signal concern, but Memor thought it was only a pretense. Something else was in play.

“Please lead me,” Memor said to place the conversation in the right ranking order. Asenath had to take the lead.

“You showed us results of your neural net and brain interrogations of these primates, I recall. Eukaryotic multicellular bilaterians, they are, with unexposed Underminds—fascinating, I am sure. You then estimated their capacities as well below we Folk, and perhaps somewhat above others of the Adopted. Yet they continue to elude us, and now half of them have fled the Bowl.”

The attendant minor figures drew in their collective breath at this. To escape! was their clear, unspoken message. Memor made a half turn to block most of them from Asenath’s piercing gaze. She was saying, “Now they have returned to their plasma scoop starship. Do you still feel they can be integrated into our Way?”

Making a ritual humble-flush, Memor said, “Apologies most firm indeed, for my failure to retain or recapture these strange primates. I believe their curious gait—a continual, controlled toppling upon those hind feet that have thick, artificial coverings—must be a key clue to their ability to improvise. They can hop to new ideas far more readily than we anticipated. Their ability to form a quick bond-alliance with the Sil is an example—another two-footed species, I remark, which perhaps helps explains their rebellion. The primates arrived on train transport, and immediately engaged with the Sil in a battle against our skyfish. How this came about with such speed is a puzzle. Perhaps there is a species-signal here that may explain it in part.”

“I would think their two-legged forms were adaptive on a more aggressive and quick-fighting world.”

“So … you would urge extermination.”

Asenath saw she had been maneuvered into a hasty conclusion, always a mistake. “Perhaps not immediately. Their ship has interesting features of magnetic control I and others feel would be useful to examine.”

“Ah, wise. Perhaps a consultation, then?” Memor motioned Asenath into a speaking cloister. She took the feather-flush hint. They made it seem they were merely strolling as they spoke. Memor dropped the shimmering, electric-blue sonic cloak behind them once in the narrow confines, where luminous walls gave a warm green glow.

“I did not want to refer to our continuing trouble with the jet flare guidance,” Memor said.

“You venture that primates could help somehow?” Asenath’s neck fringe fluttered with skepticism.

“They are inventive—”

“Surely you do not imagine that we could allow them to touch what is most sacred and vital to the Bowl!”

“I was trying to—”

“The very idea would be transparent heresy to some of the Folk.” A slow, studied gaze, no feather signals at all. “Perhaps … including me.”

There was surely danger here. Asenath’s feather tones shifted from bright attentive colors of rose-purple and olive into hues tending toward pewters and subdued solemn blues. They rustled, too, with an air of menace. Betrayal by Asenath could take several avenues, all hard for Memor to counter. So—admit failure, and do so quickly and first.

“I mention that possibility only because my own narrow escape—when they and the Sil attacked my starfish—was essential. I had learned that the primates could quickly use the chemically driven Sil weaponry. Our assault teams needed to hear that. The primates are swift, original, unpredictable. I wished to report this firsthand—”

“Your death at their hands would have carried the same message,” Asenath said dryly.

Without hesitation at this sally, Memor said, “I brought recordings, Wisdom Chief, to analyze—”

“Which show that these Late Invaders are erratic, impulsive, volatile, capricious—yes, all qualities we Folk have suppressed, in order to preserve the Bowl of Heaven. Yet these very same Late Invaders you now propose to use, to harvest, to—”

“No, no! I think they could show us new technologies, aid us—and perhaps bring word of a world we do not know, have never visited.”

“And then?”

“Of course, if they cannot be Adopted into our society, then they and their odd ship must be erased.”

Asenath gave a subtle fan-salute, undercut with a skeptical throat-wash of dubious red. “I must say, Attendant Astute Astronomer, that you maneuver well here in chambers, though alas, not on the battlefield.”

“I was not commanding the skyfish!”

“I hear otherwise.…”

Too late, Memor recalled giving orders to the skyfish Captain. She had been unnerved while the simple Sil artillery hammered loud and strong at the great beast’s walls. There was some panic then, before the hydrogen vaults were breached. Only her own quick commands had gotten her into her pod. Her parting sally to the doomed Captain had been, Soon we shall have no further disputes. I will have my pod now. The Captain had of course not appreciated the ironic tone. Memor had not looked back as she quickly departed. The Captain had gone to his proper reward.

Memor had been a bare short distance from the lumbering gray-skinned beast when a Sil shot struck a girder-bone and ricocheted into a hydrogen vault, then through the outer wall. Surely that had been a lucky shot, which Memor witnessed at a distressingly close distance. The hard slam of the exploding hydrogen had very nearly thrown her fleeing pod into a fatal yaw and tumble. She had shuddered as the skyfish bellowed a long, hoarse cry, realizing its imminent death.

Memor sensed she had been silent too long, reflecting on the sudden memory welling up. Her Undermind had not processed those harrowing moments then. But now was not the time to dally over the past. “I made a few suggestions to the Captain, all in the heat of the moment.”

“It became even more heated as you escaped,” Asenath said with brittle brevity, eyes narrowed.

“Had I not, you would know little of the engagement.”

“You are aware that you are already in disfavor?”

“I know that my efforts have not been widely recognized. These primates are difficult to reason with, for their mental structures suffer primitive modes we have not dealt with for a great while.”

“At least you recaptured one of those who escaped in the original party. Yet the others now divide into two groups: those ones we have never captured, somewhere among the Sil, and as well a party of four, who escaped the Bowl entirely, and now return to their ship. This last is most infuriating. Their ship somehow glides just below the firing field of view of our gamma ray lasers on the Rim.”

“Yes, most regrettable.” Memor made an apologetic display of amber and blue gray, rippling her feathers to convey remorse. “I did note that our defenses are deliberately unable to be aimed downward at our Bowl, and this decision was made by Elders long ago, after the Maxer Rebellion.”