"It is this way," Piltariab said, heading eagerly forward. His broad shoulders brushed past Cavanagh, trailing soy-sauce aroma in their wake. Either he had completely missed his own companions' aromotional cues, or else he was just as completely ignoring them. Offhand, Cavanagh wasn't sure which possibility bothered him more.

Considering the lateness of the hour, Puerto Simone's streets were still surprisingly crowded with pedestrians. The large NorCoord cities Cavanagh was familiar with were similarly active, of course, but in those places most of the traffic was vehicular, with the majority of pedestrians merely making the short trek from mart or restaurant to their parked ground- or aircars. Perhaps in the island's more tightly knit community and culture, nighttime crime wasn't as big a problem as it was on some of the Commonwealth's more advanced worlds.

Or perhaps the island's narrow streets simply discouraged groundcar traffic. The Parra vine, of course, discouraged anything else.

The Parra. Cavanagh looked up as they walked along, peering past the lights at the dark branches of the thick vine lattice arching over the city only meters above the taller buildings around them. Centuries earlier in the leisurely herbaceous war going on all over Granparra, the Parra vine had won the battle for Puerto Simone Island, choking out the other, more deadly forms of plant life that still held sway on the continent across Sereno Strait. That victory had made the island livable for human beings; but at the same time the Parra's dominating presence had presented challenges all its own. The lattice was home to thousands of monkey-sized grooma, living in an only partially understood symbiosis with the vine, who swarmed to screaming attack against anyone who attempted to cut or sometimes even just move a section of the Parra. Livestock who chewed on the vine got the same treatment, a problem that was aggravated by the groomas' unexplained fondness for investigating, playing with, and ultimately wrecking the fences the herd keepers used to keep their livestock away from the Parra.

And hanging over it all was the dark, unpleasant question of whether the Parra was in fact sentient. Whether it was listening or watching everything these upstart humans were doing on its island. And if so, what it was thinking.

The group had walked for perhaps fifteen minutes when they finally reached Piltariab's landmark. "There," he said, waving a hand and soy-sauce aroma toward a cross street fifty meters ahead of them. "There—just past the spice market. To the right, down at the end of that street, is Moo Sab Bokamba's home."

"Great," Kolchin said. "I hope he's in tonight." He brushed up against Cavanagh; and out of sight of the three Avuirli, he caught the older man's wrist and gave it a brief but sharp squeeze.

Cavanagh caught the cue. "Ow!" he grunted, lifting his supposedly injured left wrist.

"What is it, Moo Sab Stymer?" Piltariab asked, stepping close to Cavanagh, a rush of baking-oat-bread concern momentarily supplanting the soy sauce. "Is your injury worse?"

"I brushed it against that vegetable stand," Cavanagh said, wincing for effect as he cradled his left wrist protectively with his right hand. "I'll be all right."

"I'd better take a look," Kolchin said, shrugging his backpack off as he eased Cavanagh to the side of the street. "This will only take a minute, Moo Sab Piltariab," he added, opening the pack and rummaging through it. "Why don't you and your friends go on ahead, make sure Moo Sab Bokamba is home and willing to see us? We'll be right with you."

"There is nu need fur haste," Mitliriab said. "We can wait fur yu tu finish with him."

"No, no, let us not wait," Piltariab said, his solicitude lost again to his eagerness. "They will be all right. Come—Moo Sab Bokamba's home is close at hand. Come."

Mitliriab and Brislimab exchanged glances, and again Cavanagh caught a whiff of that unidentified aromotional scent. "As yu insist," Mitliriab said, looking at Kolchin. "Yu will catch up with us, Mu Sab Plex."

"Of course," Kolchin assured him.

For a handful of heartbeats the Avuire stared at him. Then, without further comment, he turned away. With Piltariab at the lead the three Avuirli rejoined the pedestrian flow and continued down the street.

"That sounded like an order," Cavanagh muttered as Kolchin pulled their medkit from the backpack.

"It certainly wasn't a question," Kolchin agreed, pretending to treat Cavanagh's wrist. "There's something about all this that Mitliriab and Brislimab are definitely not happy with."

Cavanagh chewed the inside of his cheek. "You think it has something to do with us?"

"I don't think so," Kolchin said slowly. "At least not directly. Annoyed Avuirli usually aren't very subtle—if they were mad at us, we'd have heard about it by now."

Cavanagh shivered. As a species, Avuirli were pretty even-tempered; but all sentient creatures could get angry, and Avuirli had the muscle power to make anger a distinctly unpleasant experience for everyone in the vicinity. "Something about Piltariab, then?"

"That's getting closer," Kolchin said, returning the medkit to the backpack and pulling out the binoculars. "But that's not quite it, either," he added, handing the binoculars to Cavanagh and sealing the backpack again. "Let me know when they've turned into that side street."

"Right." Cavanagh peered over his shoulder as he looped the binoculars' strap around his neck. "They're going in now."

"Good." Kolchin slung the backpack up onto one shoulder. "Let's go."

They hurried ahead, ducking around and between unhurried shoppers to the side street Piltariab had indicated. Instead of turning right, though, Kolchin led them to the left, into the street branching off in the opposite direction. Unlike the right-hand branch, which Cavanagh could see now was narrow but basically residential, this side seemed to be a cross between an alley and a garbage-storage facility. A half-dozen highly aromatic chest-high garbage bins lined each side at this end, with random bits of broken boxes and decaying refuse scattered around. Like most of the streets they'd been on since leaving the docks, the alley's surface consisted of closely fitted flagstones; unlike those other streets, no one here had seen fit to put much effort into maintenance. "What now?" he asked as Kolchin positioned them on opposite sides of the alley, behind the last of the garbage bins.

"We see what kind of reception the Avuirli get," Kolchin said. With his left hand he lowered his backpack to the ground; with his right he drew his flechette pistol from beneath his jacket and clicked off the safety. "We also see how good your memory for faces is."

Cavanagh grimaced as he turned on the binoculars and held them up to his eyes. He'd met Bokamba only once, back at the Parliament's Copperhead hearings. Whether he could recognize the man now, several years later, was going to be problematic.

The three Avuirli were about three quarters of the way down the street, approaching the house at the end. "They're almost there," he told Kolchin, adjusting the light-amplification contrast slightly. "Piltariab must really be anxious to get there—he's practically running."

"Interesting," Kolchin said thoughtfully. "I can't remember ever seeing an Avuire run before."

Cavanagh frowned, searching his memory. Now that Kolchin mentioned it, he couldn't either. Avuirli were built for strength, not speed. "You're right," he agreed, an odd feeling starting to twist through his stomach. "What could Bokamba have said to him to spark that much enthusiasm in coming back?"

Kolchin never had a chance to answer. At that moment, from behind them in the alleyway, came a quiet voice, barely audible over the noise from the nearby shops. "Hold it steady, both of you. Kolchin, lose the gun."