And yet, she also knew she was being used. It made her feel defiled.

During that last week of study at the Library she had found herself repeatedly dozing off under the screens, bright with arcane data. Her dreams were always disturbed, featuring birds holding threatening instruments. Images of Max and Fiben and so many others lingered, thickening her thoughts every time she jerked awake again.

Then the Day arrived. She had donned her robe almost with a sense of relief that now, at least, it was all finally approaching an end. But what end?

A slight chimmie emerged from the most recent test booth, mopped her forehead with the sleeve of her silvery tunic, and walked tiredly over to join Gailet. Michaela Nod-dings was only an elementary school teacher, and a green card, but she had proven more adaptable and enduring than quite a few blues, who were now walking the lonely spiral back down again. Gailet felt deep relief on seeing her new friend still among the candidates. She reached out to take the other chimmie’s hand.

“I almost flunked that one, Gailet,” Michaela said. Her fingers trembled in Gailet’s grasp.

“Now, don’t you dare flake out on me, Michaela,” Gailet said soothingly. She brushed her companion’s sweaty locks. “You’re my strength. I couldn’t go on if you weren’t here.”

In Michaela’s brown eyes was a soft gratitude, mixed with irony. “You’re a liar, Gailet. That’s sweet of you to say, but you don’t need any of us, let alone little me. Whatever I can pass, you take at a breeze.”

Of course that wasn’t strictly true. Gailet had figured out that the examinations offered by the Uplift Institute were scaled somehow, in order to measure not only how intelligent the subject was but also how hard he or she was trying. Sure, Gailet had advantages over most of the other chims, in training and perhaps in IQV but at each stage her own trials got harder, too.

Another chim — a Probationer known as Weasel — emerged from the booth and sauntered over to where Irongrip waited with a third member of their band. Weasel did not seem to be much put out. In fact, all three of the surviving Probationers looked relaxed, confident. Irongrip noticed Gailet’s glance and winked at her. She turned away quickly.

One last chim came out then and shook his head. “That’s it,” he said.

“Then Professor Simmins… ?”

When he shrugged, Gailet sighed. This just did not make sense. Something was wrong when fine, erudite chims were failing, and yet the tests did not cull out Irongrip’s bunch from the very start.

Of course, the Uplift Institute might judge “advancement” differently than the human-led Earthclan did. Irongrip and Weasel and Steelbar were intelligent, after all. The Ga-lactics might not view the Probationers’ various character flaws as all that terrible, loathsome as they were to Terrans.

But no, that wasn’t the reason at all, Gailet realized, as she and Michaela stepped past the remaining twenty or so to lead the way upward again. Gailet knew that something else had to be behind this. The Probies were just too cocky. Somehow they knew that a fix was in.

It was shocking. The Galactic Institutes were supposed to be above reproach. But there it was. She wondered what, if anything, could be done about it.

As they approached the next station — this one manned by a plump, leathery Soro inspector and six robots — Gailet looked around and noticed something for the first time, that nearly all of the brightly dressed Galactic observers — the aliens unaffiliated with the Institute who had come to watch and engage in informal diplomacy — nearly all of them had drifted away. A few could still be seen, moving swiftly downslope and to the east, as if drawn by something interesting happening off that way.

Of course they won’t bother telling us what’s going on, she thought bitterly.

“Okay, Gailet,” Michaela sighed. “Yo’ti first again. Show ’em we can talk real good.”

So, even a prim schoolteacher will use grunt dialect as an affectation, a bond. Gailet sighed. “Yeah. Me go do that thing.”

Irongrip grinned at her, but Gailet ignored him as she stepped up to bow to the Soro and submit to the attentions of the robots.

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon strutted back and forth under the flapping fabric of the Uplift Institute pavilion. The Gubru admiral’s voice throbbed with a vibrato of outrage.

“Intolerable! Unbelievable! Impermissible! This invasion must be stopped, held back, put into abeyance!”

The smooth routine of a normal Uplift Ceremony had been shattered. Officials and examiners of the Institute — Galactics of many shapes and sizes — now rushed about under the great canopy, hurriedly consulting portable Libraries, seeking precedents for an event none of them had ever witnessed or imagined before. An unexpected disturbance had triggered chaos everywhere, and especially in the corner where the Suzerain danced its outrage before a spiderlike being.

The Grand Examiner, an arachnoid Serentini, stood relaxed in a circle of datatanks, listening attentively to the Gubru officer’s complaint.

“Let it be ruled a violation, an infraction, a capital of-fense! My soldiers shall enforce propriety severely!” The Suzerain fluffed its down to display the pinkish tint already visible under the outer feathers — as if the Serentini would be impressed to see that the admiral was nearly female, almost a queen.

But the sight failed to impress the Grand Examiner. Serentini were all female, after all. So what was the big deal?

The Grand Examiner kept her amusement hidden, however. “The new arrivals fit all of the criteria for being allowed to participate in this ceremony,” she replied patiently in Galactic Three. “They have caused consternation, of course, and will be much discussed long after this day is done. Still, they are only one of many features of this ceremony which are, well, unconventional.”

The Gubru’s beak opened, then shut. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that this is the most irregular Uplift Ceremony in megayears. I have several times considered canceling it altogether.”

“You dare not! We should appeal, seek redress, seek compensation …”

“Oh, you would love that, wouldn’t you?” The Grand Examiner sighed. “Everyone knows the Gubru are overextended now. But a judgment against one of the Institutes could cover some of your costs, no?”

This time, the Gubru was silent. The Grand Examiner used two feelers to scratch a crease in her carapace. “Several of my associates believe that that was your plan all along. There are so many irregularities in this ceremony you’ve arranged. But on close examination each one seems to stop just short of illegality. You have been clever at finding precedents and loopholes.

“For instance, there is the matter of human approval of a ceremony for their own clients. It is unclear these hostage officials of yours understood what they were agreeing to when they signed the documents you showed me.”

“They were — had been — offered Library access.”

“A skill for which wolflings are not renowned. There is suspicion of coercion.”

“We have a message of acceptance from Earth! From their homeworld! From their nest-mothers!”

“Aye,” the Serentini agreed. “They accepted your offer of peace and a free ceremony. What poor wolfling race in their dire circumstances could turn down such a proposal? But semantic analysis shows that they thought they were only agreeing to discuss the matter further! They obviously did not understand that you had purchased liberation of their old applications, some made more than fifty paktaars ago! This allowed the waiting period to be waived.”

“Their misunderstandings are not pur concern,” clipped the Suzerain of Beam and Talon.

“Indeed. And does the Suzerain of Propriety hold with this view?”