Of course there were no agents or other, more imaginative Tymbrimi here on Garth when the crisis hit. He had been forced to come up with the best plan he could.

Uthacalthing wondered about the other half of his jest. It was clear the Gubru had fallen for his ruse. But how deeply? How much trouble and expense had it cost them? More importantly from the point of view of a Galactic diplomat, how badly had they been embarrassed?

If the Gubru had proved as dense and slow as Kault…

But no, the Gubru are reliable, Uthacalthing reassured himself. The Gubru, at least, are quite proficient at deceit and hypocrisy. It made them easier enemies than the Thennanin.

He shaded his eyes, contemplating how the morning had aged. The air was getting warm. There was a swishing sound, the crackle of breaking foliage. Kault strode into view a few meters back, grumbling a low marching tune and using a long stick to brush shrubs out of his path. Uthacalthing wondered. If our peoples are officially at war, why is it so hard for Kault to notice that I am obviously hiding something from him?

“Hmmmph,” the big Thennanian grunted as he approached. “Colleague, why have we stopped?”

The words were in Anglic. Recently they had made a game of using a different language every day, for practice. Uthacalthing gestured skyward. “It is almost midday, Kault. Gimelhai is getting fierce. We had better find a place to get out of the sun.”

Kault’s leathery ridge crest puffed. “Get out of the sun? But we are not in … oh. Aha. Ha. Ha. A wolfling figure of speech. Very droll. Yes, Uthacalthing. When Gimelhai reaches zenith, it might indeed feel somewhat as if we were roasting in its outer shell. Let us find shelter.”

A small stand of brushy trees stood atop a hillock, not far away. This time Kault led, swinging his homemade staff to clear a path through the tall, grassy growth.

By now they were well practiced at the routine. Kault did the heavy work of delving a comfortable niche, down to where the soil was cool. Uthacalthing’s nimble hands tied the Thennanin’s cape into place as a sunshade. They rested against their packs and waited out the hot middle part of the day.

While Uthacalthing dozed, Kault spent the time entering data in his lap datawell. He picked up twigs, berries, bits of dirt, rubbed them between his large, powerful fingers, and held the dust up to his scent-slits before examining it with his small collection of instruments salvaged from the crashed yacht.

The Thennanin’s diligence was all the more frustrating to Uthacalthing, since Kault’s serious investigations of the local ecosystem had somehow missed every single clue Uthacalthing had thrown his way. Perhaps it is because they were thrown at him. Uthacalthing pondered. The Thennanin were a systematic folk. Possibly, Kault’s worldview prevented him from seeing that which did not fit into the pattern that his careful studies revealed.

An interesting thought. Uthacalthing’s corona fashioned a glyph of appreciated surprise as, all at once, he saw that the Thennanin approach might not be as cumbersome as he had thought. He had assumed that it was stupidity that made Kault impervious to his fabricated clues, but…

But after all, the clues really are lies. My confederate out in the bush lays out hints for me to “find” ana “hide.” When Kault ignores them, could it be because his obstinate worldview is actually superior? In reality, he has proven almost impossible to fool!

True or not, it was an interesting idea. Syrtunu riffled and tried to lift off, but Uthacalthing’s corona lay limp, too lazy to abet the glyph.

Instead, his thoughts drifted to Athaclena.

He knew his daughter still lived. To try to learn more would invite detection by the enemy’s psi devices. Still, there was something in those traces — trembling undertones down in the nahakieri levels of feeling — which told Uthacalthing that he would have much new to learn about Athaclena, should they ever meet again in this world.

“In the end, there is a limit to the guidance of parents,” a soft voice seemed to say to him as he drifted in half-slumber. “Beyond that, a child’s destiny is her own.”

And what of the strangers who enter her life? Uthacalthing asked the glimmering figure of his long-dead wife, whose shape seemed to hover before him, beyond his closed eyelids.

“Husband, what of them? They, too, will shape her. And she them. But our own time ebbs.”

Her face was so clear… This was a dream such as humans were known to have, but which was rarer among Tymbrimi. It was visual, and meaning was conveyed in words rather than glyphs. A flux of emotion made his fingertips tremble.

Mathicluanna’s eyes separated, and her smile reminded him of that day in the capital when their coronae had first touched… stopping him, stunned and still in the middle of a crowded street. Half-blinded by a glyph without any name, he had hunted the trace of her down alleyways, across bridges, and past dark cafes, seeking with growing desperation until, at last, he found her waiting for him on a bench not twelve sistaars from where he had first sensed her.

“You see?” she asked in the dream voice of that long ago girl. “We are shaped. We change. But what we once were, that, too, remains always.”

Uthacalthing stirred. His wife’s image rippled, then vanished in wavelets of rolling light. Syullf-tha was the glyph that hovered in the space where she had been… standing for the joy of a puzzle not yet solved.

He sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

For some reason Uthacalthing thought that the bright daylight might disperse the glyph. But syullf-tha was more than a mere dream by now. Without any volition on his part, it rose and moved slowly away from Uthacalthing toward his companion, the big Thennanin.

Kault sat with his back to Uthacalthing, still absorbed in his studies, completely unaware as syullf-tha transformed, changed subtly into syulff-kuonn. It settled slowly over Kault’s ridge crest, descended, settled in, and disappeared. Uthacalthing stared, amazed, as Kault grunted and looked up. The Thennanin’s breath-slits wheezed as he put down his instruments and turned to face Uthacalthing.

“There is something very strange here, colleague. Something I am at a loss to explain.”

Uthacalthing moistened his lips before answering. “Do tell me what concerns you, esteemed ambassador.”

Kault’s voice was a low rumble. “There appears to be a creature… one that has been foraging in these berry patches not long ago. I have seen traces of its eating for some days now, Uthacalthing. It is large… very large for a creature of Garth.”

Uthacalthing was still getting used to the idea that syulff-kuonn had penetrated where so many subtler and more powerful glyphs had failed. “Indeed? Is this of significance?”

Kault paused, as if uncertain whether to say more. The Thennanin finally sighed. “My friend, it is most odd. But I must tell you that there should be no animal, since the Bururalli Holocaust, able to reach so high into these bushes. And its manner of foraging is quite extraordinary.”

“Extraordinary in what way?”

Kault’s crest inflated in short puffs, indicating confusion. “I ask that you do not laugh at me, colleague.”

“Laugh at you? Never!” Uthacalthing lied.

“Then I shall tell you. By now I am convinced that this creature has hands, Uthacalthing. I am sure of it.”

“Hm,” Uthacalthing commented noncommittally.

The Thennanin’s voice dropped even lower. “There is a mystery here, colleague. There is something very odd going on here on Garth.”

Uthacalthing suppressed his corona. He extinguished all facial expression. Now he understood why it had been syulff-kuonn — the glyph of anticipation of a practical joke fulfilled — that penetrated where none had succeeded before.

The joke was on me!

Uthacalthing looked beyond the fringe of their sunshade, where the bright afternoon had begun to color from an overcast spilling over the mountains.