“Very well, then.” Kault looked visibly relieved. “I shall await you here.”

Uthacalthing stepped through the shallows, feeling for his footing in the tricky mud. He skirted the swirls of leaked ship-fluid and made toward the bank where the broken back of the yacht arched over the bog.

It was hard work. He felt his body try to alter itself to better handle the effort of wading through the muck, but Uthacalthing suppressed the reaction. The glyph nuturunow helped him keep adaptations to a minimum. The distance just wasn’t worth the price the changes would cost him.

His ruff expanded, partly to support nuturunow and partly as his corona felt among the weeds and grass for presences. It was doubtful anything here could harm him. The Bururalli had seen to that. Still, he probed the surrounding area as he waded, and caressed the empathy net of this marshy life-stew.

The little creatures were all around him, all the basic, standard forms: sleek and spindly birds, scaled and horn-mouthed reptiloids, hairy or furry types which scuttled among the reeds. It had long been known that there were three classic ways for oxygen-breathing animals to cover themselves. When skin cells buckled outward it led to feathers. When they buckled inward there was hair. When they thickened, flat and hard, the animal had scales.

All three had developed here, and in a typical pattern. Feathers were ideal for avians, who needed maximum insulation for minimum weight. Fur covered the warm-blooded creatures, who could not afford to lose heat.

Of course, that was the only surface. Within, there was a nearly infinite number of ways to approach the problem of living. Each creature was unique, each world a wonderful experiment in diversity. A planet was supposed to be a great nursery, and deserved protection in that role. It was a belief both Uthacalthing and his companion shared.

His people and Kault’s were enemies — not as the Gubru were to the humans of Garth, of course, but of a certain style — registered with the Institute for Civilized Warfare. There were many types of conflict, most of them dangerous and quite serious. Still, Uthacalthing liked this Thennanin, in a way. That was preferable. It was usually easier to pull a jest on someone you liked.

His slick leggings shed the greasy water as he slogged up onto the mudbank. Uthacalthing checked for radiation, then stepped lightly toward the shattered yacht.

Kault watched the Tymbrimi disappear around the flank of the broken ship. He sat still, as he had been bid, using the paddle occasionally to stroke against the sluggish current and keep away from the oozing spijls. Mucus bubbled from his breathing slits to drive out the stench.

Throughout the Five Galaxies the Thennanin were known as tough fighters and doughty starfarers. But it was only on a living, breathing planet that Kault and his kind could relax. That was why their ships, so resembled worlds themselves, solid and durable. A scout craft made by his people would not have been swatted from the sky as this one had, by a mere terawatt laser! The Tymbrimi preferred speed and maneuverability over armor, but disasters such as this one seemed to bear out the Thennanin philosophy.

The crash had left them with few options. Running the Gubru blockade would have been chancy at best, and the other alternative had been hiding out with the surviving human officials. Hardly choices one lingered over.

Perhaps the crash had been the best possible branching for reality to take, after all. At least here there was the dirt and water, and they were amid life.

Kault looked up when Uthacalthing reappeared around the corner of the wreck, carrying a small satchel. As the Tymbrimi envoy slipped into the water, Uthacalthing’s furry ruff was fully expanded. Kault had learned that it was not as efficient at dissipating excess heat as the Thennanin crest.

Some groups within his clan took facts like these as evidence of intrinsic Thennanin superiority, but Kault belonged to a faction that was more charitable in outlook. Each lifeform had its niche in the evolving,Whole, they believed. Even the wild and unpredictable wolfling humans. Even-heretics.

Uthacalthing’s corona fluffed out as he worked his way back to the boat, but it was not because he was overheated. He was Grafting a special glyph.

Lurrunanu hovered under the bright sunshine. It coalesced in the field of his corona, gathered, strained forward eagerly, then catapulted over toward Kault, dancing over the big Thennanin’s crest as if in delighted curiosity.

The Galactic appeared oblivious. He noticed nothing, and he could not be blamed for that. After all, the glyph was nothing. Nothing real.

Kault helped Uthacalthing climb back aboard, grabbing his belt and pulling him into the rocky boat head first. “I recovered some extra dietary supplements and a few tools we might need,” Uthacalthing said in Galactic Seven as he rolled over. Kault steadied him.

The satchel broke open and bottles rolled onto the fabric bottom. Lurrunanu still hovered above the Thennanin, awaiting the right moment. As Kault reached down to help collect the spilled items, the whirling glyph pounced!

It struck the famed Thennanin obstinacy and rebounded. Kault’s bluff stolidity was too tough to penetrate. Under Uthacalthing’s prodding, lurrunanu leapt again, furiously hurling itself against the leathery creature’s crest at just the moment Kault picked up a bottle that was lighter than the others and handed it to Uthacalthing. But the alien’s obdurate skepticism sent the glyph reeling back once more.

Uthacalthing tried a final time as he fumbled with the bottle and put it away, but this time lurrunanu simply shattered against the Thennanin’s impenetrable barrier of assumptions.

“Are you all right?” Kault asked.

“Ohv fine.” Uthacalthing’s ruff settled down and he exhaled in frustration. Somehow, he would have to find a way to excite Kault’s curiosity!

Oh well, he thought. I never expected it to be easy. There will be time.

Out there ahead of them lay several hundred kilometers of wildlands, then the Mountains of Mulun, and finally the Valley of the Sind before they could reach Port Helenia. Somewhere in that expanse Uthacalthing’s secret partner waited, ready to help execute a long, involved joke on Kault. Be patient, Uthacalthing told himself. The best jests do take time.

He put the satchel under his makeshift seat and secured it with a length of twine. “Let us be off. I believe we’ll find good fishing by the far bank, and those trees will make for good shelter from the midday sun.”

Kault rasped assent and picked up his oar. Together they worked their way through the marsh, leaving the derelict yacht behind them to settle slowly into the endurant mud.

In orbit above the planet the invasion force entered a new phase of operation.

At the beginning, there had been the assault against a brief, surprisingly bitter, but almost pointless resistance. Then came the consolidation and plans for ritual and cleansing. All through this, the major preoccupation of the fleet had been defensive.

The Five Galaxies were in a turmoil. Any of a score of other alliances might have also seen an opportunity in seizing Garth. Or the Terran/Tymbrimi alliance — though hard beset elsewhere — might choose to counterattack here. The tactical computers calculated that the wolflings would be stupid to do so, but Earthlings were so unpredictable, one could never tell.

Too much had been invested in this theater already. The clan of the Gooksyu-Gubru could not afford a loss here.

So the battle fleet had arrayed itself. Ships kept watch over the five local layers of hyperspacBi over nearby transfer points, over the cometary time-drop nexi.