“Has there been another transmission?” asked Osmium.

Washen glanced at the head of security.

Pamir shook his head, a grim smile dissolving with a heavy shrug. “They promised a second transmission in thirty hours,” he said to the harum-scarum. “But that deadline came and went thirty hours ago.” Then he walked through the Pak’kin dignitaries, telling everyone, “We did manage to catch two little squawks of modulated noise before the scheduled broadcast. Then our largest mirror field spotted what might have been the detonation of a nuclear charge above the Pak’kin home world.”

“These are dead faces,” Aasleen remarked, looking straight into Lorkin’s famished eyes.

“Obviously,” the Master declared.

Then with a survivor’s instincts, she added, “They should have lied about their origins. Given themselves a stronger position to bargain from. If someone thinks you’re a god, you’d better let them believe it.” She broke into a wild laugh, knowing that grim lesson from her own spectacular life. “Lorkin’s first officer had the only good set of instincts,” she argued. “It’s a shame we can’t bring her back. A little prison stay as an example, then give her a small commission—”

“But what lives inside the Inkwell?” half a dozen Submasters asked, their faces gazing up at the vast Inkwell.

Just the Calamus signal had mentioned four candidate species: a giant cetacean, and a thinking machine, and a giant hydra, and perhaps some sort of Pak’kin queen. And that was in addition to transmissions filtering in from other far-flung worlds. Dozens more species had been described as originating from somewhere inside the Inkwell. Each description was suspiciously similar to the species offering the testimony; but in every case, the nebula’s inhabitants had been physically larger, and always made a lasting impression on their neighbors.

Washen wasn’t certain they yet had any clue about what was waiting ahead of them. She walked back through the holo to join her colleagues, but unlike the rest of them, she stared down at her feet.

“We’re running out of time,” she muttered.

Eyes focused on the barren alien rock, she reminded everyone, “We’ve got less than a hundred years to get ready … and we still don’t have any clear idea what we’re getting ready for …”

Six

She was tiny and boyish and by most measures quite plain. Her hair was long and spiderweb-thin, her skin an impoverished yellow left thin and smooth by life. Eyes the color of roiled water were much too large for the narrow, sharp-boned face, while her mouth was a thin, inexpressive line almost lost beneath the simple long nose. Yet those big eyes had a watchful quality and an obvious intelligence, the slight body possessed a surprising strength, and on those rare occasions when she spoke, she had a musical and memorable if somewhat sad little voice.

“Hello,” she quietly sang out.

Half a dozen harum-scarums were sitting together, enjoying a communal meal in a small open-air cafe that catered to predators. Six mouths chewed while the other six quietly gossiped. The remnants of the shared meal lay in the middle of their table, assorted bones and hooves and a long black skull still lashed together with fat pearly ligaments. Five of the diners glanced at the newcomer. Even sitting, they were considerably taller than the little human—grayish bipeds with thick hides and spikes jutting from their elbows—and with a smooth, malicious ease, the nearest alien remarked, “A monkey girl for dessert. What a fine treat!”

Four of her companions laughed at the insult.

“Here, monkey girl,” she continued, shoving a long hand between the human’s sticklike legs. “Let me help you onto our table.”

Any other human would have screamed and galloped off. Or wept. Or shown some other equally offensive reaction. But this human simply went limp, as if she anticipated the hand and hard words, and with an amused glint in her doelike eyes, she clung to the long forearm, a whispery little voice begging, “Please help me, please?”

What could the harum-scarum do?

Match the creature’s bluster with your own bluster, naturally.

The woman threw the little human into the middle of the table. Passersby stopped and stared at the odd scene, alarm mixed with curiosity. But when the tiny human refused to flinch or beg, the harum-scarum had no choice but to stand tall and tear off one of the legs of the creature’s simple brown trousers. The bare flesh beneath barely covered the sticklike bones. Even for a human, the creature was scrawny, sickly-looking, and unappetizing. Suppressing her revulsion, the harum-scarum began to insert a knobby foot into her eating mouth, followed by the ankle and shin and the big pale lump of a knee.

Even as the pressure of teeth and the muscular throat gripped tight, the human smiled at her assailant.

And it wasn’t a human smile, either.

The human mouth was a dirty orifice, air and food sloppily mixed into a gruesome shared mush. Yet somehow that thin and exceedingly alien opening had acquired the scornful, belittling expression of a harum-scarum. Even as her bare leg was being squeezed hard, a thousand teeth dimpling the helpless skin, there was a real and unnerving sense that this alien—this stupid ape—almost welcomed the miseries to come.

With a deep retching sound, the harum-scarum threw up her dessert.

But the game wasn’t finished. The human continued to lie beside the stripped carcass, and with a mocking delight, she offered her bare leg to each of the diners. With her own throat, without the aid of any translator, she said, “Please,” in their native tongue. Somehow she managed to make the appropriate deep grunt, mocking one after another with a brazenness that appalled most of her audience.

“I am nothing,” she told them, in nearly perfect harum-scarum.

“I am a baby,” she whined. “A newcomer to space and the stars. Human, I am. Undeserving of my fortune. And you—you are ten million years older than I—and I am barely worthy to serve as your meat’s own meat.”

Throughout the whole performance, the sixth harum-scarum remained silent. When the bare leg was offered to him, he said nothing, staring at the little alien with a face scrubbed free of emotion. His companions assumed that he was furious, but unlike the rest of them, he couldn’t afford to show his rage. He was considerably older than they, and he was a hero from the recent war, and for reasons political and proper, he had been welcomed into the ranks of the ship’s captains, then swiftly promoted to become one of the very few Submasters.

“Osmium;” the human said, reading the name riding on the bright uniform. Then with a laugh, she mocked him.”Have you ever wished to? Eat a little human whole, maybe? I would be honored to feel my bones shatter in your brave throat, my flesh boiled away by your brave acids, my remnants shit out of your glorious ass … I would feel like such a fortunate little girl … !”

At last, the Submaster reacted.

With a wet cough, the offered foot was thrown out of his eating mouth. Then the other mouth broke into a deep, deeply amused laugh, and displaying a casual respect that took his companions by surprise, Osmium said, “Hello, friend,” in the human language.

“Hello, Mere.”

MERE WAS INVITED to sit with them. Without explanation, Osmium gave her an equal status, their table reconfiguring itself, the hexagon growing a matching seventh side. Then with barely two glances at the tiny soul beside him, he turned to the woman across the table, saying, “What you were telling us? Continue with your confession, please …”

“I am not a coward,” the woman replied. “I am brave enough to be honest, and honesty only sounds cowardly.”

“You wish to leave the ship,” Osmium pressed.