The gathered onlookers absorb this silently.

Knife-Bright Insight demands — “Can you prove this?”

“Solid (irrefutable) evidence is on the way. But first, should you not hear (supportive) testimony from your own (highly revered) fellow sage?”

Confusion reigns, until Phwhoon-dau steps forward to speak. Our hoonish colleague has been strangely silent, taking little part in events, save to carry Vubben downhill from the ill-starred pilgrimage. Now his long, scaly spine unbends, as if glad to pass a heavy burden.

“It is too short a time that I have had to ruminate upon these matters,” he demurs.

“You would ruminate a geologic age, dear friend,” Lester Cambel jests in a gentle way. “Even your most tentative wisdom is greater than any other, except the Egg’s. Please share it with us.”

A deep, rolling sound emanates from Phwhoon-dau’s pendulous, vibrating sac.

“Hr-r-rm… For almost two jaduras, I have kept careful records of statements made by our guests from space, especially those spoken formally, as if written by someone else for the sky-humans to say aloud. I had several linguistic reference works from Biblos, which I sometimes consult when judging disputes between individuals of different races, speaking different tongues. Despite our local dialect devolution, these works contain useful charts regarding syntax and variable meaning. I do not claim great expertise — just a backwoods practicality — in scrutinizing the aliens’ statements.”

“But you reached conclusions?”

“Hr-r. Not conclusions. Correlations perhaps. Indicating a possible pattern of intent.”

“Intent?”

“Intent… r-r-rm … to incite divisiveness.”

Ur-Jah comments from the wallow where she curls in exhaustion from the futile rescue effort, scratching for survivors amid the smoky ruin of the aliens’ station.

“This is not the first tine such a susficion has veen raised. We all have anecdotes to tell, of innocent-sounding renarks which sting gently at first, like a shaedo-fly, laying eggs that fester a wound that never heals. Now you say there is a consistent fattern? That this was vart of a deliverate flan? Why did you not sfeak of this vefore?”

Phwhoon-dau sighs. “A good scholar does not publish provisional data. Also, the aliens seemed unaware that we have retained this skill, charting the meaning in phrases. Or rather, that we recovered it with the Great Printing. I saw no reason to leak the fact too soon.”

He shrugs like a traeki, with a left-right twist. “I finally became convinced when Ro-kenn spoke to us all, during the pilgrimage. Surely it occurred to some of you that his aim was to strike sparks of dissension with his words?”

“It sure did!” Lester Cambel growls. Assent echoes loudly from many humans present, as if to convince others of their sincerity. Hoofed urs stamp uncertainly, their hot tempers clearly frayed from the long enervating night. Only hard-won habits of the recent Peace have kept things calm till now.

Phwhoon-dau continues. “The formal dialect of Galactic Six used by the Rothen star-god allows little room for ambiguity. Ro-kenn’s disconcerting words can have but two possible interpretations. Either he is tactless to a degree beyond all stupidity, or else the objective was to incite a campaign of genocide against human-sept.”

“Against their own veloved clients?” Ur-Jah asks, incredulous.

“That is irrelevant. Even if the Rothen claim of patronhood is true, why should they care about one small, isolated band of feral humans, long cut off from the race as a whole, genetically inbred and several hundred years out of date, perchance even defective, psychologically backward, polluted by—”

“You’ve made your point,” Lester interrupts testily. “But in that case, why pick on us?”

Phwhoon-dau turns to our human peer, umbling apologetically. “Because among the Six, man-sept is greatest in its technic lore, in its imperfect-but-useful recollection of Galactic ways, and in its well-remembered skill at the art of war.”

There rises a muttering from some qheuenish and urrish listeners, yet no actual disagreement. Not from anyone who knows the tale of Battle Canyon, or Townsend’s Ambush, or the siege of Tarek Town.

“All of these factors make your kind the obvious first target. Moreover, there is another reason. The effect your race has had upon the rest of us. As newcomers, when your rank was lowest, still you opened your sole treasure, your library, to all. After your great victories, when your status towered highest, you refused many privileges of dominance, instead bowing to the sages, accepting limits called for by the Great Peace.

“It is this record of restraint that makes you dangerous to Rothen plans. For what good is it to incite war, if your intended victims choose not to fight?”

Yes, my rings, we observe/note the crowd’s reaction. A hush as Phwhoon-dau evokes images of reconciliation, gently dousing still-simmering sparks of resentment. It is a masterwork of mediation.

“Once men-sept is gone,” Phwhoon-dau goes on, “it would prove simple to goad disaffection among the rest, pretending secret friendships, offering assistance. Handing over tailored plagues, for instance, letting each race come up with clever ways to deliver death bugs to their foes. Within less than a generation the job would be complete. The sparse record left in Jijo’s soil would show only that six sooner races once sank low here, never reaching redemption.”

Uneasy silence, greets this scenario painted by our hoonish sage.

“Of course, none of this is proven,” Phwhoon-dau concludes, rounding to stab a finger toward the zealot chieftain. “Nor does it justify the horrors we have seen this night, perpetrated rashly, without consulting the sages or the Commons.”

The urrish rebel lifts her head high, in order to peer over the crowd toward the east. With a glad snort, she turns back to Phwhoon-dau.

“Now arrives your proof!” She whistles jubilantly, helping shove an opening through the ranks of spectators, as dawn reveals dusty figures galloping down the trail from the Holy Glade.

“Here, also, is your justification.”

Harullen called down from the crater’s edge. “You two had better come up now!” the heretic shouted. “Someone’s going to catch you and it’ll mean trouble. Besides — I think something’s happening!”

Physical and emotional exhaustion had taken their toll of the gray aristocrat’s polished accent. He sounded frantic, as if serving as reluctant lookout were as risky as poking through perilous wreckage.

“What’s happening?” Uthen shouted back. Though a cousin to the qheuen above, Lark’s fellow biologist looked like a different species, with his scarred carapace streaked by gummy ash. “Are they sending a robot this way?”

Harullen’s leg-vents fluted overtones of worry. “No, the machines still hover protectively over Ro-kenn, and the two servant-humans, and the cadavers, all surrounded by a crowd of local sycophants. I refer to a commotion over where the sages have been holding court. More zealots have arrived, it seems. There is ferment. I’m certain we are missing important news!”

Harullen may be right, Lark thought. Yet he was reluctant to leave. Despite the stench, heat, and jagged stubs of metal — all made more dangerous by his own fatigue — dawn was making it easier to prowl the ruins of the buried station in search of anything to help make sense of it all.

How many times had he seen Ling vanish down a ramp into these secret precincts, wondering what lay inside? Now it was a blackened hell.

I aided the zealots, he recalled. I gave them copies of my reports. I knew they were going to do something.

But I never figured anything as brutal as this.