“Honey, I need the cloak for a minute. We may not have much time.”

Laurel did not respond.

Asach gently peeled away the garment, warm from its days soaking in the sun, and quickly set up the transmitter. There was no way to know direction, let alone azimuth. There was no external power source. That meant short message, multiple burp, and hope something got through. The line-of-sight angle out of the windows was bad. There was no telling what the glass was made of, or how it would refract the beam. There was nothing to stand on. Asach composed the message. Minimum words, one precedence character, one encryption character, one validation character.

“Laurel, I need you to do something for me.”

The girl just sat, immobile, sullen.

“Laurel, ‘It is the duty of every island to give aid and support to the Seers, that they may be of aid to all pilgrims.’ Right now, I’m it. I’m your only island. I am trying to help you. I’m trying to help your Uncle Collie. I’m even trying to help Agamemnon.”

At that, Laurel began sobbing. Great, racking sobs, like to tear her heart from her chest.

“It’s just so hard. So hard. I’ve lost everyone. And now—oh, poor Agamemnon.”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

She shook her head. “No. He’ll be left, hobbled, for my return. Only…only…”

She was broken in grief.

Asach walked over, physically pulling her to her feet, Laurel a rag doll hanging by her arms.

“Come on then! On your feet, girl! Help me send a message of revelation. And an instruction for Agamemnon.” It was a blatant lie, but they were running out of time.

Laurel smeared her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.

“Hold this.” Asach handed her the transmitter cowl. Laurel nodded.

“Come here. Climb on my shoulders.” Asach squatted down, facing the wall.

“Good, now, on three, I’m going to stand. Then, you stand too. Then I want you to do this: Point the middle of that low out the window, then say now. Then point it middling out the window, and say now again. Then high. Can you do that?”

Laurel nodded.

“Good. Show me.”

Laurel demonstrated. Around the room Asach sidled, three bursts per stopping point, approximately every fifteen degrees. The cloak was depleted. It would need hours to recharge. Asach had just finished packing everything away; re-wrapping the girl with aquamarine eyes, when the door opened. Two Warriors stepped inside. Then, down the steps, with a bearing unmistakable in any species, strode the biggest, whitest Motie that Asach had ever seen. Meaning, bigger than Ivan, the only Master in the newsreels. It entered alone.

Damn, thought Asach. Where are the Mediators? The Newsreels all show Mediators who learn fluent Anglic in no time. But there was just the big white one.

Blaine Institute, New Caledonia

The Blaine Institute for Advanced Motie Studies had found itself in more-or-less constant uproar during the year since Sinbad’s explosive return from the Mote System with a Khanate fleet on its tail. After defeat, the Khanate had thrown their lot in with the Traders, and to ensure that they no longer posed a threat, the genetically modified C-L worm was pumping anti-maturation hormones into the digestive tract of every Khanate member. Whether Bury’s will had cemented, or thrown a spanner into, the Motie trading alliance that now policed the blockade still remained to be seen.

But with their lines now doomed, would the Khanate remain true? Unless the Institute could engineer a way to regulate the worm: to make it possible for Moties to reproduce at will, instead of at necessity, there seemed little hope that the Mote System could ever be stabilized. With the worm, Moties could live out a natural lifespan—whatever that proved to be—but at the cost of becoming sterile. Without the worm, Moties had to breed or die. Their alternatives were at present stark indeed.

The only beneficiaries were Motie Mediators. Diplomats; linguists; social engineers, those brown-and-white crosses between Masters and Engineers were sterile anyway, and as such doomed to radically truncated lives. With the worm, they might gain the advantage of actually living long enough to become elder statesmen. Yet even among Mediators, the assessment was universal: to a Master, the C-L solution was anathema.

 So, the Blaines’ immediate take on Barthes’ New Utah business was: theoretically interesting, but not of immediate concern. However much the Founder’s-Era frieze might look like Moties, it was centuries old, and the accompanying historical report was very clear. It described an indigenous animal, not some space-borne infiltrating wave from Mote Prime. Sadly, an apparently extinct animal, as well. Had there been an immediate danger to the Empire, given their voracious reproductive rates, Moties would already have overrun the planet. Just to clarify this enigmatic message from the past, there was no point in diverting any Naval vessel from the blockades, where there were definitely Motie vessels—some days, hundreds of them—attempting to break through to human space.

Of course, any input that might bear on Motie reproductive physiology was important. After the Accession talks, one way or another, they would get a copy of all the historical data on Swenson’s Apes now “classified” in the True Church archives. Until then, while C-L work continued around the clock, a couple of bright graduate students played with the implications for various models of convergent evolution and panspermia.

They tried sending to Barthes, but received no reply, which was unsurprising. So they sent a courier via the next outbound ship, and settled in to wait.

Then Quinn’s terse communication arrived, and all Heaven broke loose.

FLASH Renner Eyes Only.

Motie presence confirmed. Communications, translator, critical. Locator on. Contact Barthes. All Due Haste. Quinn.

Lord Blaine himself called the emergency session, pulling in his Motie-raised daughter, every available Mediator, and the linguistic team in charge of the Motie Alexandria Library. They worked late into the night. The questions were simple: Who or what should they send, and how?

“Focus on the who and what,” instructed Blaine. “I’ll worry about the how.”

Renner’s head and shoulders, floating holographically at the end of the conference table, was even more succinct. “Focus on the what,” he said. “You work out the details. Meanwhile, I want Ali Baba here, now.”

Glenda Ruth opened her mouth to interject. Lord Blaine waved her down. “His ship, his ward.”

Ali Baba was impassive. “As you say, Sir Kevin,” and rose to prepare for departure. Inwardly, Ali Baba’s heart was on fire. Outwardly, he showed only mannered calm. The meeting wore on.

House of Sargon, Mesolimeris

“Enheduanna says that you can Speak. Enheduanna reports that you may be an Accountant.” Unfortunately, these words were not spoken in any language that Asach could understand. Sargon regarded the pair without emotion. It was regrettable that the manna-eyed one had been separated from its red, four-legged Porter. But Sargon had given orders that it be brought unharmed, and that was proving to be problematic. The thing fought like a Warrior, ran like a Runner, and had the senses of a Farmer. It has struck out with its forefeet, and a young, inexperienced Warrior had accidentally severed its restraints. Short of killing it, they could not catch it. It had disappeared into the wastes.

Asach was an anthropologist, not a xenobiologist, and certainly not an expert on Moties. But these were clearly social animals, and in all social colonies ever known, only three rules of organization applied: schools, swarms, and hierarchy. Indeed, the closer one looked at the former two, the more they broke down into the latter. These were clearly sentient beings, and apparently hierarchical, so in some fashion status was important. The great unknowns were: how do you get it, and how do you show it? Anything from give it all away to keep it all for yourself; from hide it if you’ve got it to if you’ve got it, flaunt it applied in human societies.