News came of Earth’s travails, of the desperation of the Tymbrimi, and of the tricksters’ difficulties in acquiring allies among the lethargic Moderate clans. As the interval stretched it became clear that no threat would come from those directions.

But some of the other great clans were busy. Those who were quick to see advantage. Some were engaged in futile searches for the missing dolphin ship. Others used the confusion as a convenient excuse to carry through on ancient grudges. Millennia-old agreements unraveled like gas clouds before sudden supernovae. Flame licked at the ancient social fabric of the Five Galaxies. From the Gubru Home Perch came new orders. As soon as ground-based defenses were completed, the greater part of the fleet must go on to other duties. The remaining force should be more than adequate to hold Garth against any reasonable threat.

The Roost Masters did accompany the order with compensations. To the Suzerain of Beam and Talon they awarded a citation. To the Suzerain of Propriety they promised an improved Planetary Library for the expedition on Garth.

The new Suzerain of Cost and Caution needed no compensation. The orders were victory in themselves for they manifested caution in their essence. The chief bureaucrat won molt points, badly needed in its competition with its more experienced peers.

The naval units set forth for the nearest transfer point, confident that matters on Garth were well in beak and hand. The ground forces, however, watched the great battleships depart with slightly less certitude. Down on the planet’s surface there were portents of a minor resistance movement. The activity — as yet hardly more than a nuisance — had started among the chimpanzee population in the back country. As they were cousins and clients of men, their irritating and unbecoming behavior came as no surprise. The Gubru high command took precautions. Then they turned their attention to other matters.

Certain items of information had come to the attention of the Triumvirate — data taken from an enemy source — information having to do with Planet Garth itself. The hint might turn out to be nothing at all. But if it were true the possibilities were vast!

In any event, these things had to be looked into. Important advantages might be at stake. In this, all three Suzerains agreed completely. It was their first taste of true consensus together.

A platoon of Talon Soldiers kept watch over the expedition making its way into the mountains. Slender avians in battle dress swooped just over the trees, the faint whine of their flight harnesses carrying softly down the narrow canyons. One hover tank cruised ahead on point and another guarded the convoy’s rear.

The scientist investigators in their floater barges rode amidst this ample protection. The vehicles headed upland on low cushions of air. Perforce they avoided the rough, spiny ridgetops. There was no hurry, though. The rumor they chased was probably nothing at all, but the Suzerains insisted that it be checked out, just in case.

Their goal came into sight late on the second day. It was a flattened area at the bottom of a narrow valley. A number of buildings had burned to the ground here, not too long ago.

The hover tanks took positions at opposite ends of the scorched area. Then Gubru scientists and their Kwackoo client-assistants emerged from the barges. Standing back from the still stinking ruins, the avians chirped commands to whirring specimen robots, directing the search for clues. Less fastidious than their patrons, the fluffy white Kwackoo dove right into the wreckage, squawking excitedly as they sniffed and probed.

One conclusion was clear immediately. The destruction had been deliberate. The wreckers had wanted to hide something under the smoke and ruin.

Twilight came with subtropical suddenness. Soon the investigators were working uncomfortably under the glare of spotlights. At last the team commander ordered a halt. Full-scale studies would have to wait for morning.

The specialists retired into their barges for the night, chattering about what they had already discovered. There were traces, hints of things exciting and not a little disturbing.

Still, there would be ample time to do the work by day. The technicians closed their barges against the darkness. Six drone watchers rose to hover in silent, mechanical diligence, spinning patiently above the vehicles. Garth turned slowly under the starry night. Faint creakings and rustles told of the busy, serious work of the nocturnal forest creatures — hunting and being hunted. The watcher drones ignored them, rotating unperturbed. The night wore on.

Not long before dawn, new shapes moved through the starlit lanes underneath the trees. The smaller local beasts sought cover and listened as the newcomers crept past, slowly, warily.

The watcher drones noticed these new animals, too, and measured them against their programmed criteria. Harmless, came the judgment. Once again, they did nothing.

“They’re sitting ducks,” Benjamin said from his vantage point on the western hillside.

Athaclena glanced up at her chim aide-de-camp. For a moment she struggled with Benjamin’s metaphor. Perhaps he was referring to the enemy’s avian nature?

“They appear to be complacent, if that is what you mean,” she said. “But they have reason. The Gubru rely upon battle robots more extensively than we Tymbrimi — We find them because they are expensive and overly predictable. Nevertheless, those drones can be formidable.”

Benjamin nodded seriously. “I’ll remember that, ser.”

Still, Athaclena sensed that he was unimpressed. He had helped plan this morning’s foray, coordinating with representatives of the Port Helenia resistance. Benjamin was blithely certain of its success.

The town chims were to launch a predawn attack in the Vale of Sind just before action was scheduled to begin here. The official aim was to sow confusion among the enemy; and maybe do him some harm he would remember. Athaclena wasn’t certain that was really possible. But she had agreed to the venture anyway. She did not want the Gubru finding out too much from the ruins of the Howletts Center.

Not yet.

“They’ve set up camp under the ruins of the old main building,” Benjamin said. “Right where we expected them to plant themselves.”

Athaclena looked at the chim’s solid-state night binoculars uncomfortably. “You are certain those devices aren’t detectable?”

Benjamin nodded without looking up. “Yes’m. We laid instruments like these out on a hillside near a cruising gasbot, and its flightpath didn’t even ripple. We’ve narrowed down the list of materials the enemy’s able to sniff. Soon …”

Benjamin stiffened. Athaclena felt his sudden- tension.

“What is it?”

The chen crouched forward. “I see shapes movin’ through the trees. It must be our guys gettin’ into position. Now we’ll find out if those battle robots are programmed the way you expected.”

Distracted as he was, Benjamin did not offer to share the binoculars. So much for patron-client protocol, Athaclena thought. Not that it mattered. She preferred to reach out with her own senses.

Down below she detected three different species of biped arranging themselves around the Gubru expedition. If Benjamin had spotted them they certainly had to be well within range of the enemy’s sensitive watch drones.

And yet the robots did nothing! Seconds beat past, and the whirling drones did not fire on the shapes approaching under the trees. Nor did they alert their sleeping masters.

She sighed in increased hope. The machines’ restraint was a crucial piece of information. The fact that they spun on silently told her volumes about what was happening not only here on Garth but elsewhere, beyond the flecked star-field that glittered overhead. It told her something about the state of the Five Galaxies as a whole.