The next day she got up. Creaking unsteadily, she walked to the stream, where she lay facedown and drank for a long time. One finger was missing from her left hand, but she insisted on helping the creature forage for berries and edible leaves. She spoke little. They took shelter when silvery ships flashed across the sky, but this time there were no rolling booms of distant explosions, as she remembered from before. She did not speak of what had happened and her companion did not ask.

             They came upon three humans crisped to ashes and she wept over each. "I never saw weapons before," she said. "Like Hving flames."

             "Your enemy took care to thoroughly burn each."

             She sifted through the shattered bones. "They had strange flyers. Cast down bolts, explosions . . ."

             At evening meal she sang again the hypnotic slow song she had pushed up out of her dream-state before, her somber voice hanging on the long notes. Then her eyes abruptly filled and she rushed off into the bushes. Later she sheepishly returned, her mouth attempting a crooked smile, knowing that the need to cover emotion was a quirk of humans and would mean nothing to the raccoon-creature.

             On the morning of the third day she broke a long silence with, "I am Cley. Do you use names?"

             The creature did not use names among its own kind but knew that humans did, and the animals who mimicked them. "I have been called the Seeker After Patterns."

             "Well then. Seeker, I thank you for—"

             "Our species are allies. Nothing need be said." Seeker dipped its large head in a way that seemed unnatural to it. Cley realized with a pang that Seeker had studied humans enough to attempt this gesture, invoking humbleness.

             "Still, I owe so much."

             "My species came long after yours. We benefited from your struggle."

             "I doubt we did you much good."

             "Life builds upon life. Your kind were but fossils and dust when we walked."

             They gathered berries in silence. Seeker could rear up. Centaurlike, or even stand entirely on its hind legs, using its midpaws like clumsy hands. This aided in scooping many small fish from the cold stream rushing over black pebbles. They ate the yellow-green fish without using a fire and stayed well back among the trees. Cley had processed her deep sense of loss through several nights now and the pain of it ebbed, permitting the color to return to her cheeks and no longer robbing her of her sharpness. She and Seeker set out to search the forest further for bodies and this gave her strength despite what she dreaded finding.

             She was not married to anyone, male or female, but she knew each person in her tribe intimately. The anonymous charred remains were a blessing, in a way. Apparently some had rotted, then been burned.

             They searched systematically through the afternoon, finding only more scorched bodies. Finally they stood looking down into a broad valley, tired, planning where to go next.

             "I trust you are all right," a voice said behind them.

             Cley whirled. Seeker was already dashing with liquid grace among the nearby trees. A tall, blocky man stood on the outer deck of a brass-colored craft that balanced silently in the air. He had come upon them from behind without even Seeker noticing and this, more than his size and the silent power of his craft, told Cley that she had no chance of getting away. Blinking against the sun glare, she saw that this was a Supra.

             "I . . . yes, I am."

             "One of our scouts finally admitted that it was not sure all the bodies it saw were dead. I am happy I decided to check upon its work."

             As he spoke his ship settled gently near Cley and he stepped off without glancing at the ground. Despite his bulk he moved with unconscious lightness.

             "My friend saved me."

             "Ah. Can you induce him to return?"

             "Seeker! Please come!"

             She glimpsed a bulk moving through the nearby bushes, closer than Cley thought the creature could be and coming opposite from the direction Seeker had left. It must be quicker than it looked. There was scarcely a ripple in the foliage but she knew it was there, still cautious. The man smiled slightly and shrugged. "Very well."

             "You came to bury my kind?" Cley said bitingly.

             "If necessary. I would rather save them."

             "Too late for that."

             A sadness flickered in his face as he nodded. "The scouts reported some bodies, but all have been burned. You are all I have found— delightfully alive."

             His calm mildness was maddening. "Where were you Supras? They hounded us, tracked us, killed us all!"

             His face showed a quick succession of emotions, each too fleeting for her to read before the next crowded in. Still he said nothing, though his mouth became a tight line and his eyes moistened. He gestured at the pall of smoke that still climbed on the far horizon.

             Cley followed his movement and said severely, "I guessed you had to defend your own, but couldn't you have, have . . ."

             Her voice trailed away when she saw the pained twinge that constricted his face as her words struck home. Then his mouth thinned again and he nodded. "They attacked new work and old alike. We could not divine what they were about, and when we did, it was too late."

             Her anger, stilled for a moment by his vulnerability, returned like an acrid burn in the back of her throat. "We had nothing to defend ourselves!"

             "Did you think we had weapons?"

             "Supras have everything!"

             He sighed. "We protect through our laboring machines, through the genius of our past."

             "There was fighting in the past. I have heard—"

             ''The far past. Well before your time. We—"

             "But they knew how. Why didn't you?"

             His expression changed again several times with a speed she found baffling. Then a grave sourness shaped his mouth with a sardonic twist. "Tell me who they were and perhaps I can answer you."

             "They?" She felt sudden doubt. "I thought you would know. They . . . well, they looked more like us . . ."

             "Than like me?"

             She studied him for a long moment. He was twice her size, with an enormous head. Yet his ears were small and his nose was stubby, like an afterthought. "Yes, they were more our size. Their heads were human and—"

             "Ur-human," the man corrected absently, as though he was distracted.

             "What?"

             "Oh, I am sorry. We term your kind Ur-human, since you are the earliest form available."

             Her mouth whitened. "And what do you call yourselves?"

             "Ah, humans," he said uncomfortably.

             "Well," she said pointedly, "those who burned your city and killed us, they were Ur-human, too."

             "Did they have earlobes?"

             "I, I can't remember. Things happened fast and—"

             "Were their teeth widely spaced, like yours? That was an early modification of the even earlier hominid forms, I gather from my studies with the Keeper of the Records."