A surrealistic picture flashed across Pahli's mind: the alien ship transformed into a giant beehive, its corridors filled with buzzing insects. He shook the vision out of his mind and again cut off the link.

"Ahmar, do we have a mistranslation here?"

"Doesn't look like it, sir. Cryptography reports that the grammatical structure of the Drymnu language seems compatible with this sort of hive mind thing they're describing." He shook his head. "A hive mind.

I've read about such things, but only in fiction. To actually find one..." He trailed off, still shaking his head.

"Doesn't look like it, sir. Cryptography reports that the grammatical structure of the Drymnu language seems compatible with this sort of hive mind thing they're describing." He shook his head. "A hive mind.

I've read about such things, but only in fiction. To actually find one..." He trailed off, still shaking his head.

Pahli nodded slowly. That burst of emotion when the alien realized the nature of humanity could have been surprise, fear, or hatred. Best to err on the cautious side. "No problem. I'll tell him about Earth.

Even if he could find it, it's too far away to bother with." If it hadn't blown itself out of existence by now and saved any hostile aliens the trouble, he added silently. On Earth, even more than on Kohinoor, problems were solved with animal reflexes.

Thumbing the switch, he settled more comfortably into his chair and began telling the strange creature called Drymnu about the equally strange creature called Man.

The sun was just setting behind the tall buildings of Missai Gem when the formation of six fighter jets streaked by overhead, heading south toward the Missai-Baijan border. A handful of grain still clutched in his hand, Shapur Nain looked up as they were briefly framed by the city park's trees. He twisted his head to follow them with his eyes, feeling the initial tension drain from his old body. Only a single wing, and not climbing with anything near attack speed, unless his eyes were failing as fast as his legs. That meant it was only a routine patrol, or perhaps that the border forces were being beefed up. The war with Baijan hadn't started. Not yet, anyway.

He watched the jets vanish into the distance and then turned back to the birds and small animals milling around his bench. Tossing them the grain, he watched with interest as members of the different species jockeyed for position. The scavenger rusinh, armed with needle-sharp ridges on beak and wing coverts, had all the obvious physical advantages over the relatively defenseless treemice. To compensate, the furry mammals had developed a strategy where two of them would distract a rusinh with lightning-fast feints while a third made off with some of the grain. Each threesome worked in rotation, giving all its members a chance at the food.

Cooperation-that was the secret of survival. Tossing out another handful, Shapur wondered if mankind would ever learn that lesson. He tended to doubt it. Kohinoor had started with the cleanest sheet humanity had ever had-and what had they done with it? The legends said Earth had been worse, but Shapur no longer really believed that. Three wars in his lifetime alone, including one world war... his left leg throbbed with the memory. And now this Enhoav Basin problem could close the books on the whole thing permanently. Emotions and rhetoric were running high and hot, especially between Hasar and Lorikhan, and there were no signs that either side was ready to back down.

Shapur shook his head in frustration. Even he, who'd been pretty well cured of foolish nationalistic sentiments by his wartime experiences, had found himself being caught up by the polarizing forces around him. Logically, he could agree that Hasar was entitled to the rewards of its billion-ryal gamble-but the Hasarans were so damned insolent about it! And as for Missai playing mediator, that was laughable in the extreme. With the water-rights issue at the southern border on the verge of boiling over again, Prima Simin had little credibility as a peacemaker even among his own people, let alone the rest of Kohinoor.

The shadows of evening had fallen across him, and Shapur shivered with the sudden chill. His bag of grain was nearly empty now; scattering the remaining kernels, he waited until the birds and animals had finished their feeding. Then, grasping the cane that rested against the bench beside him, he got carefully to his feet. For a moment he stood there, waiting stoically for the sudden agony in his leg to subside. Then, keeping the use of the cane to a minimum, he began the slow walk to the edge of the park and his apartment a block away. Someday, he thought, they'd come up with a genuine pain-regulating prosthesis and he wouldn't have to go through this every time he wanted to stand up.

keeping the use of the cane to a minimum, he began the slow walk to the edge of the park and his apartment a block away. Someday, he thought, they'd come up with a genuine pain-regulating prosthesis and he wouldn't have to go through this every time he wanted to stand up.

The preliminary reports were all in, and most of the senior officers had left the Susa's briefing room to continue their work. Only First Officer Cyrilis remained behind, seated quietly at the small table.

"Something else on your mind?" Pahli asked, collecting the report disks into a neat pile in front of him.

"Yes, sir. I want to know why you refused my suggestion earlier that we disable the alien ship when we had the chance. We had the drive units pinpointed; a single seeker torpedo in each would have-"

"Would have been a totally unwarranted act of aggression," Pahli interrupted him stiffly. "What did you want to do, start an interplanetary war? Don't we have enough trouble on Kohinoor as it is?"

"It's precisely because of our problems on Kohinoor that I made the suggestion. It may or may not have occurred to you, Commander, but the Drymnu ship presents us with a rare opportunity. Even a partial mastery of an alien technology could give the Hasar Nation a vital military edge over our enemies."

"I don't recall the Drymnu offering us any of their technology. In fact, it seemed to me that they were inordinately eager to get away from us, and weren't in any mood to open trade relations."

Cyrilis shook his head impatiently. "I wasn't suggesting we beg or barter for the items we could use."

"I know what you were suggesting. Ignoring the moral issue for a moment, suppose we'd attacked and found them better armed than we thought?"

"The Susa's a warship. It's our job to take risks when necessary."

Pahli was suddenly tired of this conversation. "Well, the subject's academic now, anyway. The Drymnu's gone, and we can't follow him."

"Yes, we can." Standing up, Cyrilis walked over to Pahli, moving with practiced ease in the tenth-gee the Susa's rotation was providing. "I took the liberty of launching two sensor drones a few hours before the alien left. We got his para-Cerenkov rainbow from three directions." He handed Pahli a disk. "Here are his course and speed figures."

Pahli took the disk mechanically, looking up at the lieutenant with new eyes. To do something like that without Pahli's permission skated uncomfortably close to insubordination.

"I'd guess we have no more than a couple of hours to give chase before he gets too far ahead of us,"

Cyrilis continued. For a moment he locked eyes with his commander. "The decision is yours, of course. I trust you won't take too long about it." Saluting, he left the room.

Pahli was still seated at the table, fingering the disk, when Ahmar came in. "I just saw Lieutenant Cyrilis heading toward the bridge, looking like an angry jinn. What did you say to him?"

Pahli brought his gaze back from infinity and focused on his aide. "Actually, he did most of the talking. He thinks we should go after the Drymnu, blow him to bits, and then take any of his equipment that's still in one piece."