Down, down Irongrip’s head went. Fiben got his feet around the chim and kicked the other’s legs out from under him.

The Probationer’s solar plexus landed on Fiben’s heel. And while a flash of pain probably meant several of Fiben’s toes were broken, there was also no mistaking the whistling squeak as Irongrip’s diaphragm momentarily spasmed, stopping all flow of air.

Somewhere he found the energy. In a whirl he had his foe turned over. Gripping in a tight scissors lock, he brought his forearm around and applied the same illegal-but-who-cares strangulation hold that had earlier been used on him.

Bone ground against gristle. The ground beneath them seemed to throb and the sky rumbled and growled. Alien feet shuffled on all sides, and there was the incessant squawking and chatter of a dozen jabbering tongues. Still, Fiben listened only for the breath that did not flow through his enemy’s throat… and felt only for the throbbing pulse he so desperately had to silence…

That was when something seemed to explode inside his skull.

It was as if something had broken open within him, spilling what seemed a brilliant light outward from his cortex. Dazzled, Fiben first thought a Probationer or a Gubru must-have struck him a blow to the head from behind. But the luminance was not the sort coming from a concussion. It hurt, but not in that way.

Fiben concentrated on first priorities — holding tightly to his steadily weakening opponent. But he could not ignore this strange occurrence. His mind sought something to compare it to, but there was no correct metaphor. The soundless outburst felt somehow simultaneously alien and eerily familiar.

All at once Fiben remembered a blue light which danced in hilarity as it fired infuriating bolts at his feet. He remembered a “stink bomb” that had sent a pompous, furry little diplomat scurrying off in abandoned dignity. He remembered stories told at night by the general. The connections made him suspect…

All around the plateau, Galactics had ceased their multi-tongued babble and stared upslope. Fiben would have to lift his head a bit to see what so captivated them. Before he did so, however, he made certain of his foe. When Irongrip managed to drag in a few thin, desperate breaths, Fiben restored just enough pressure to keep the big chen balanced on the edge of consciousness. That accomplished, he raised his eyes.

“Uthacalthing,” Fiben whispered, realizing the source of his mental confusion.

The Tymbrimi stood a little uphill from the others. His arms opened wide and the capelike folds of his formal robe flapped in the cyclone winds circling the gaping hyperspace shunt. His eyes were set far apart.

Uthacalthing’s corona tendrils waved, and over his head something whirled.

A chim moaned and pressed her palms against her temples. Somewhere a Pring’s tooth-mashies clattered. To many of those present, the glyph was barely detectable. But for the first time in his life, Fiben actually kenned. And what he kenned named itself tutsunucann.

The glyph was a monster — titanic with long-pent energy. The essence of delayed indeterminacy, it danced and whirled. And then, without warning, it blew apart. Fiben felt it sweep around and through him — nothing more or less than distilled, unadulterated joy.

Uthacalthing poured the emotion forth as if a dam had burst. “N’ha s’urustuannu, k’hammin’t Athaclena w’thtanna!” he cried. “Daughter, do you send these to me, and so return what I had lent you? Oh, what interest compounded and multiplied! What a fine jest to pull upon your proud parent!”

His intensity affected those standing nearby. Chims blinked and stared. Robert Oneagle wiped away tears.

Uthacalthing turned and pointed up the trail leading toward the Site of Choosing. There, at the pinnacle of the Ceremony Mound, everyone could see that the shunt was connected at last. The deeply buried engines had done their job, and now a tunnel gaped overhead, one whose edges glistened but whose interior contained a color emptier than blackness.

It seemed to suck away light, making it difficult even to recognize that the opening was there. And yet Fiben knew that this was a link in real time, from this place to countless others where witnesses had gathered to observe and commemorate the evening’s events.

I hope the Five Galaxies are enjoying the show. When Irongrip showed signs of reviving, Fiben gave the Probie a whack to the side of the head and looked up again.

Halfway up the narrow trail leading to the pinnacle there stood three ill-matched figures. The first was a small neo-chimpanzee whose arms seemed too long and whose ill-formed legs were bowed and short. Jo-Jo held onto one hand of Kault, the huge Thennanin, ambassador. Kault’s other massive paw was grasped by a tiny human girl, whose blond hair flapped like a bright banner in the whirling breeze.

Together, the unlikely trio watched the pinnacle itself, where an unusual band had gathered.

A dozen gorillas, males and females, stood in a circle directly under the half-invisible hole in space. They rocked back and forth, staring up into the yawning emptiness overhead, and crooned a low, atonal melody.

“I believe …” said the awed Serentini Grand Examiner of the Uplift Institute. “… I believe this has happened before… once or twice… but not in more than a thousand aeons.”

Another voice muttered, this time in gruff, emotion-drenched Anglic. “It’s no fair. This was s’pozed t’be our time!” Fiben saw tears streaming down the cheeks of several of the chims. Some held each other and sobbed.

Gailet’s eyes welled also, but Fiben could tell that she saw what the others did not. Hers were tears of relief, of joy.

From all sides there were heard other expressions of amazement.

“—But what sort of creatures, entities, beings can they be?” One of the Gubru Suzerains asked.

“. . . pre-sentients,” another voice answered in Galactic Three.

“. . . They passed through all the test stations, so they had to be ready for a stage ceremony of some sort,” mumbled Cordwainer Appelbe. “But how in the world did goril—”

Robert Oneagle interrupted his fellow human with an upraised hand. “Don’t use the old name anymore. Those, my friend, are Garthlings”

lonization filled the air with the smell of lightning. Uthacalthing chanted his pleasure at the symmetry of this magnificent surprise, this great jest, and in his Tymbrimi voice it was a rich, unearthly sound. Caught up in the moment, Fiben did not even notice climbing to his feet, standing to get a better view.

Along with everyone else he saw the coalescence that took place above the giant apes, humming and swaying on the hilltop. Over the gorillas’ heads a milkiness swirled and began to thicken with the promise of shapes.

“In the memory of no living race has this happened,” the Grand Examiner said in awe. “Client races have had countless Uplift Ceremonies, over the last billion years. They have graduated levels and chosen Uplift consorts to assist them. A few have even used the occasion to request an end of Uplift … to return to what they had been before. …”

The filminess assumed an oval outline. And within, dark forms grew more distinct, as if emerging slowly from a deep fog.

“. . . But only in the ancient sagas has it been told of a new species coming forth of its own will, surprising all Galac-

tic society, and demanding the right to select its own patrons.”

Fiben heard a moan and looked down to see Irongrip beginning to rise, trembling, to his elbows. A cruor of blood-tinted dust covered the battered chen from face to foot.

Got to hand it to him. He’s got stamina. But then, Fiben did not imagine he himself looked a whole lot better.

He raised his foot. It would be so easy. … He glanced aside and saw Gailet watching him.

Irongrip rolled over onto his back. He looked up at Fiben in blank resignation.