The data banks also make it clear that, despite the independence of the Cecropian and Zardalu clades, all these species recognize the superiority of humans of the Fourth Alliance. They defer to them, acknowledging the higher nature of human intellect and achievements, and regarding Earth and surrounding Alliance territories as the cultural and scientific center of the spiral arm.

That is not the case! I, a Fourth Alliance human in outward appearance, received no preferential treatment whatsoever. In fact, quite the opposite. In the great terminus of Bose Access Node 145, I emerged to find an overcrowded transit point. To reach my required departure zone it was necessary for me to pass close to a group of other travelers, Cecropians, Zardalu humans, and Hymenopts prominent among them. My request for prompt passage was ignored. More than that, a Cecropian pushed me out of the way as though I did not exist!

When I remonstrated to another human traveler, he said, “Your first trip, is it? You’re going to run into a lot of things that aren’t in the travel guides. Or they’re going to run into you, like that Cecropian.” He laughed. “As far as she’s concerned, you don’t exist, you see. Humans are missing the right pheromones for Cecropians to detect, so they consider we’re hardly there. And anyway, since they’re an older civilization than humans, they kind of look down on us. Don’t ever hope for politeness from a Cecropian. She knows you’re an upstart little monkey. And get out of the way if she pushes; she’s a lot bigger than you.”

I do not believe that I could have received such information, except directly from a human source. It is totally inconsistent with the perspective offered by the central data base.

Item two: The Fourth Alliance central data bank indicates that Alliance science is superior to that of the other clades, and that Alliance technology is even more so.

I am forced to dispute that notion.

The first three Bose Transition Points that I passed through after leaving Sol-space were constructed and operated by Fourth Alliance humans. The fourth one, as I learned upon my arrival, was built and is maintained by the Cecropia Federation. With time to spare before my shuttle ship to Dobelle, I studied this transition point in some detail. It is obvious that the facility is technologically at least the equal of the Fourth Alliance nodes; operationally it is far better designed. Moreover, it is cleaner, safer, and less noisy.

The data bank is again misleading, for a reason I cannot conjecture. Alliance technology is not universally superior, and in at least some instances is inferior. But direct observation was necessary to draw that conclusion.

Item three: The data base indicates that humanity reached the stars employing carefully constructed and logical theories of the nature of the physical world. The laws of physics, mathematics, and logic underpin all human activities, says the data base, no matter how diverse the application.

I believe those facts may be accurate, as they relate to human history. But they seem irrelevant to current human actions on Opal. Indeed, from recent conversations I deduce that they apply little anywhere in the Phemus Circle. Either humans here are deranged, or they operate with a subtlety of logic beyond anything to be found in the files of the central data base.

These disturbing conclusions are drawn from my own direct observations, supplemented by discussion with natives concerning the recent traumatic events known as Summertide, as follows:

The dangers of Summertide were enormous. Death and destruction were planetwide and appalling. A logical race would have concluded that Opal is not a world suitable for human occupation and would have begun birth-limitation procedures in preparation for relocation to some new planetary environment. Such action would be consistent with the profiles of a logical humanity, as described in the central data banks.

And what did the people of Opal do, once Summertide was over? They embarked on a reproductive orgy, one guaranteed to raise the population in a few years’ time and thereby make it far more difficult to evacuate the planet. They justify this by professing — and perhaps, in truth, feeling — a powerful affection for the very place that recently killed so many of their friends and families.

And to “celebrate” their own survival, they have been inhaling and ingesting large quantities of addictive drugs and powerful carcinogens, thereby substantially shortening their already diminished life expectancies. Suspecting that for some reason the natives might be misleading me, as a newcomer, about the effects of these substances, I ingested a small amount myself on an experimental basis. My metabolism was seriously impaired for several hours.

Those ill effects were not, I should add, a consequence of my different background and origins. Indeed, I find that a similar impairment is common among the natives. And far from being puzzled by their own contralogical activities, they actually proclaim them to one another — unashamedly, and often in boastful terms.

Item four: The central language banks claim to be complete, with a full and idiomatic representation of every form of written and spoken communication in the spiral arm.

That cannot be true, for this reason: Upon my arrival on Opal, I met with a human male who identified himself as Commissioner Birdie Kelly. He informed me that of the names given to me as potential contacts, all but one were either presumed dead, or away exploring other parts of the Mandel system. The single exception is Councilor Julius Graves, and I will be meeting with him in a few hours’ time. That was good to know, and I said so.

I had no trouble understanding every word of my conversation with Commissioner Kelly. Certainly there was no reason to assume that recent language changes on Opal might be causing miscommunication between us.

However, after a meeting of a little less than twenty minutes, the commissioner told me that he had another appointment. I left. And once I was outside the room he spoke, presumably to himself. He must have believed me to be out of earshot, but I was grown from first-rate genetic stock and my hearing is more sensitive than that of most humans.

“Well, Mister E. C. Tally,” he said. “ ‘May I speak,’ indeed. May I babble, more like. You’re a funny duck, and no mistake. I wonder why you flew in.”

A duck is an animal indigenous to Earth, imported to Opal where it thrives. Clearly, a human being is not a duck, nor does a human closely resemble one. And since I resemble a human, I cannot therefore be mistaken for a duck. It is not easy to see how Commissioner Birdie Kelly could make such an error, unless the language banks themselves contain errors.

These matters call for introspection.