Out there in the bush his confederate had been laying “clues” for weeks, ever since the Tymbrimi yacht came down where Uthacalthing had intended it to, at the edge of the marshlands far southeast of the mountains. Little Jo-Jo — the throwback chim who could not even speak except with his hands — moved just ahead of Uthacalthing, naked as an animal, laying tantalizing footprints, chipping stone tools to leave in their path, maintaining tenuous contact with Uthacalthing through the blue Warder Globe.

It had all been part of a convoluted plan to lead the Thennanin inexorably to the conclusion that pre-sentient life existed on Garth, but Kault had seen none of the clues! None of the specially contrived hints!

No, what Kault had finally noticed was Jo-Jo himself. . . the traces the little chim left as he foraged and lived off the land!

Uthacalthing realized that syulff-kuonn was exactly right. The joke on himself was rich, indeed.

He thought he could almost hear Mathicluanna’s voice once again. “You never know…” she seemed to say.

“Amazing,” he told the Thennanin. “That is simply amazing.”

Every now and then she worried that she was getting too used to the changes. The rearranged nerve endings, the redistributed fatty tissues, the funny protrusion of her now-so-humanoid nose — these were things now so accustomed that she sometimes wondered if she would ever be able to return to standard Tymbrimi morphology.

The thought frightened Athaclena.

Until now there had been good reasons for maintaining these humaniform alterations. While she was leading an army of half-uplifted wolfling clients, looking more like a human female had been more than good politics. It had been a sort of bond between her and the chims and gorillas.

And with Robert, she remembered.

Athaclena wondered. Would the two of them ever again experiment, as they once had, with the half-forbidden sweetness of interspecies dalliance? Right now it seemed so very unlikely. Their consortship was reduced to a pair of signatures on a piece of tree bark, a useful bit of politics. Nothing else was the same as before.

She looked down. In the murky water before her, Athaclena saw her own reflection. “Neither fish nor fowl,” she whispered in Anglic, not remembering where she had read or heard the phrase, but knowing its metaphorical meaning. Any young Tymbrimi male who saw her in her present form would surely break down laughing. And as for Robert, well, less than a month ago she had felt very close to him. His growing attraction toward her — the raw, wolfling hunger of it — had flattered and pleased her in a daring sort of way.

Now, though, he is among his own kind again. And I am alone.

Athaclena shook her head and resolved to drive out such thoughts. She picked up a flask and scattered her reflection by pouring a quarter liter of pale liquid into the pool. Plumes of mud stirred near the bank, obscuring the fine web of tendrils that laced through the pond from overhanging vines.

This was the last of a chain of small basins, a few kilometers from the caves. As Athaclena worked she concentrated and kept careful notes, for she knew she was no trained scientist and would have to make up for that with meticulous-ness. Still, her simple experiments had already begun to bear promising results. If her assistants returned from the next valley in time with the data she had sent for, she might have something of importance to show Major Prathachulthorn.

I may look like a freak, but I am still Tymbrimi! I shall prove my usefulness, even if the Earthmen do not think of me as a warrior.

So intense was her concentration, so quiet the still forest, that sudden words were like thunderclaps.

“So this is where you are, Clennie! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Athaclena spun about, almost spilling a vial of umber-colored fluid. The vines all around her suddenly felt like a net woven just to catch her. Her pulse pounded for the fraction of a second it took to recognize Robert, looking down at her from the arching root of a giant near-oak.

He wore moccassins, a soft leather jerkin, and hose. The bow and quiver across his back made him look like the hero of one of those old-time wolfling romances Athaclena’s mother used to read to her when she was a child. It took longer to regain her composure than she would have preferred. “Robert. You startled me.” He blushed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to.” That wasn’t strictly true, she knew. Robert’s psi shield was better than before, and he obviously was proud of being able to approach undetected. A simple but clear version of kiniwullun flickered like a pixie over Robert’s head. If she squinted, she might almost imagine a young Tymbrimi male standing there…

Athaclena shuddered. She had already decided she could not afford this. “Come and sit down, Robert. Tell me what you have been doing.”

Holding onto a nearby vine, he swung lightly onto the leaf-strewn loam and stepped over to where her experiment case lay open beside the dark pool. Robert slipped off his bow and quiver and sat down, cross-legged.

“I’ve been looking around for some way to be useful.” He shrugged. “Prathachulthorn’s finished pumping me for information. Now he wants me to serve as sort of a glorified chim morale officer.” His voice rose a quarter octave as he mimicked the Terragens Marine’s South Asian accent. “We must keep the little fellows’ chins up, Oneagle. Make them feel they’re important to the Resistance!”

Athaclena nodded, understanding Robert’s unspoken meaning. In spite of the partisans’ past successes, Pratha-chulthorn obviously considered the chims superfluous — at best useful in diversions or as grunt soldiery. Liaison to childlike clients would seem an appropriate cubbyhole to assign the undertrained, presumably spoiled young son of the Planetary Coordinator.

“I thought Prathachulthorn liked your idea of using digestion bacteria against the Gubru,” Athaclena said.

Robert sniffed. He picked up a twig and twirled it deftly from finger to finger. “Oh, he admitted it was intriguing (hat the gorillas’ gut critters dissolved Gubru armor. He agreed to assign Benjamin and some of the chim techs to my project.”

Athaclena tried to trace the murky pattern of his feelings. “Did not Lieutenant McCue help you persuade him?”

Robert looked away at the mention of the young Earth-ling woman. His shield went up at the same time, confirming some of Athaclena’s suspicions.

“Lydia helped, yeah. But Prathachulthorn says it’d be next to impossible to deliver enough bacteria to important Gubru installations before they detect it and neutralize it. I still get the impression Prathachulthorn thinks it a side issue, maybe slightly useful to his main plan.”

“Do you have any idea what he has in mind?”

“He smiles and says he’s going to bloody the birds’ beaks. There’s been intelligence of some major facility the Gubru are building, south of Port Helenia, and that may make a good target. But he won’t go into any more detail than that. After all, strategy and tactics are for professionals, don’t y’know.”

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about Prathachulthorn. I brought something to show you.” Robert shrugged out of his pack and reached inside to pull out an object wrapped in cloth. He unfolded the coverings. “Look familiar at all?”

At first sight it appeared to be a pile of wrinkled rags with knotted strings hanging off the edges. On closer examination, the thing on Robert’s lap reminded Athaclena of a shriveled fungus of some sort. Robert grabbed the largest knot, where most of the thin fibers came together in a clump, and extended the strings until the filmy fabric unfolded entirely in the gentle breeze.

“It … it looks familiar, Robert. I would say it was a small parachute, but it is obviously natural … as if it came from some sort of plant.” She shook her head.