The intermittent wind helped keep Fiben cool as long as he was on the eastward slopes, but the westward side faced the afternoon sun and was sheltered from the breeze. The effort of maintaining his rapid pace made him feel as if he were wearing a thick coat, even though a chim’s sparse covering of body hair was technically not fur at all.

The parklike hill was neatly landscaped, and the trail paved with a soft, resilient surface. Nevertheless, through his toes he sensed a faint trembling, as if the entire artificial mountain were throbbing in harmonies far, far below the level of hearing. Fiben, who had seen the massive power plants before they were buried, knew that it was not his imagination.

At the next station a Pring technician with huge, glowing eyes and bulging lips looked him up and down and noted something in a datawell before allowing him to proceed. Now some of the dignitaries dotting the slopes seemed to have begun to notice him. A few drifted nearer and accessed his test results in curiosity. Fiben bowed courteously to those nearby and tried not to think about all the different kinds of eyes that were watching him like some sort of specimen.

Once their ancestors had to go through something like this, he consoled himself.

Twice Fiben passed a few spirals below the party of official candidates, a gradually dwindling band of brownish creatures in short, silvery robes. The first time he hurried by, none of the chims noticed him. On the second occasion, though, he had to stand under the scrutiny of instruments held by a being whose species he could not even identify. That time he was able to make out a few figures among those up above. And some of the chims noticed him as well. One nudged a companion and pointed. But then they all disappeared around the corner again.

He had not seen Gailet, but then, she would likely be at the head of the party, wouldn’t she? “Come on,” Fiben muttered impatiently, concerned over the time this creature was taking. Then he considered that the machines focused on him might read either his words or his mood, and he concentrated on preserving discipline. He smiled sweetly and bowed as the alien technician indicated a passing score with a few terse, computer-mediated words.

Fiben hurried on. He grew more and more irritated with the long distances between the stations and wondered if there wasn’t any dignified way he could run, in order to cut down on the gap even faster.

Instead though, things only started going slower as the tests grew more serious, calling for deeper learning and more complex thought. Soon he met more chims on their way back down. Apparently these were now forbidden to talk to him, but a few rolled their eyes meaningfully, and their bodies were damp with perspiration.

He recognized several of these dropouts. Two were professors at the college in Port Helenia. Others were scientists with the Garth Ecological Recovery Program. Fiben began to grow worried. All of these chims were blue-card types — among the brightest! If they were failing, something had to be very wrong here. Certainly this ceremony wasn’t perfunctory, as that celebration for the Tytlal, which Athaclena had told him about.

Perhaps the rules were stacked against Earthlings!

That was when he approached a station manned by a tall Gubru. It did not help that the avian wore the colors of the Uplift Institute and was supposedly sworn to impartiality. Fiben had seen too many of that clan wearing Institute livery today to satisfy him.

The birdlike creature used a vodor and asked him a simple question of protocol, then let him proceed.

A thought suddenly occurred to Fiben as he quickly left that test site. What if the Suzerain of Propriety had been completely defeated by its peers? Whatever its real agenda, that Suzerain had, at least, been sincere about wanting to run a real ceremony. A promise made had to be kept. But what of the others? The admiral and the bureaucrat? Certainly they would have different priorities.

Could the whole thing be rigged so that neo-chimps could not win, no matter how ready they were for advancement? Was that possible?

Could such a result be of real benefit to the Gubru in some way?

Filled with such troubling thoughts, Fiben barely passed a test that involved juggling several complex motor functions while having to solve an intricate three-dimensional puzzle. As he left that station, with the waters of Aspinal Bay falling under late afternoon shadows to his left, he almost failed to notice a new commotion far below. At the last moment he turned to see where a growing sound was coming from.

“What in Ifni’s incontinence?” He blinked and stared.

He was not alone in that. By now half of the Galactic dignitaries seemed to be drifting down that way, attracted by a brown tide that was just then spilling up to the foot of the Ceremonial Mound.

Fiben tried to see what was happening, but patches of sunlight, reflected by still-bright water, made it hard to make out anything in the shadows just below. What he could tell was that the bay appeared to be covered with boats, and many were now emptying their passengers onto the isolated beach where he had landed, hours before.

So, more of the city chims had come out to get a better look after all. He hoped none of them misbehaved, but he doubted any harm would be done. The Galactics surely knew that monkey curiosity was a basic chimp trait, and this was only acting true to form. Probably the chims’d be given a lower portion of the slope from which to watch, as was their right by Galactic Law.

He couldn’t afford to waste any more time dawdling, though. Fiben turned to hurry onward. And although he passed the next test on Galactic History, he also knew that his score had not helped his cumulative total much.

Now he was glad when he arrived on the westward slope. As the sun sank lower, this was the side on which the wind did not bite quite as fiercely. Fiben shivered as he plodded on, slowly gaining on the diminishing crowd above him.

“Slow down, Gailet,” he muttered. “Can’t you drag your feet or somethin’? You don’t haveta answer every damn question the very second it’s asked. Can’t you tell I’m comin’?”

A dismal part of him wondered if she already knew, and maybe didn’t care.

She found it increasingly hard to feel that it mattered. And the cause of her depression was more than just the fatigue of a long, hard day, or the burden of all these bewildered chims relying upon her to lead them ever onward and upward through a maze of ever more demanding trials.

Nor was it the constant presence of the tall chen named Irongrip. It certainly was frustrating to see him breeze through tests that other, better chims failed. And as the other Sponsors’ -Choice, he was usually right behind her, wearing an infuriating, smug grin. Still, Gailet could grit her teeth and ignore him most of the time.

Nor, even, did the examinations themselves bother her much. Hell, they were the-best part of the day! Who was the ancient human sage who had said that the purest pleasure, and the greatest force in the ascent of Mankind, had been the skilled worker’s joy in her craft? While Gailet was concentrating she could block out nearly everything, the world, the Five Galaxies, all but the challenge to show her skill. Underneath all the crises and murky questions of honor and duty, there was always a clean sense of satisfaction whenever she finished a task and knew she had done well even before the Institute examiners told her so.

No, the tests weren’t what disturbed her. What bothered Gailet most was the growing suspicion that she had made the wrong choice after all.

I should have refused to participate, she thought. I should have simply said no.

Oh, the logic was the same as before. By protocol and all of the rules, the Gubru had put her in a position where she simply had no choice, for her own good and the good of her race and clan.