They halted, and one of those pointing a weapon at me buzzed and clicked, "Should we kill it?" accompanying this question with one-handed signing almost too fast to follow: interrogative, myself plus two names, consensus request in rhetorical mode.

The one with the manacles replied, "Not yet."

"It must be a splicing, but it talks," added the gunman.

"Not yet," said another gunman.

"It talks," added the last.

It took me a moment to realise 'splicing' meant 'gene-splicing'—something which, judging by their decidedly odd pet and the pump and the lights in the tunnel behind me, they obviously knew how to do quite well. I also noticed how their speech seemed to be blending together, and realised this was a sign of underlying pheromonal communication which had to be slower than sound.

"Do—you—understand—us?" asked all four of them together, speaking that language of stones in a food processor nice and slow for this retarded creature. The sentence seemed to slide from each to each of them, all of them speaking the words but emphasis on each separate word coming from different individuals.

"I understand," I signed, "but for obvious reasons can only use hand signals."

They needed to discuss this:

"Could it be a splicing—"

"— from the Sudorians?"

"We doubt it. They couldn't splice a grug—"

"— with a froud—"

"— without making shollops."

No equivalent translation in any language I knew. The first two items mentioned I vaguely recollected as being some kind of mollusc, though I did not know what a shollop might be. This equally shared comment was obviously amusing, for they near split their cheekbones with their clattering and buzzing laughter that followed.

"Or gloms," one added, obviously slow on the pheromonal uptake. The laughter became tentative—there's always one who tries to stretch a joke too far, even when shared so closely.

"Do you think he'll put on the manacles voluntarily?" asked one gun-waver, surprising me by speaking this entire sentence alone.

"Will they work?" asked two others. The one holding the manacles wound up the connecting wires and hung them from a belt hook. They turned and eyed their pet, which seemed to have now taken a special interest in a nearby tree and commenced some kind of strange backwards and forwards dance beside it, before finally raising its leg and urinating copiously, raising dense clouds of steam. Its eyes crossed as it missed its target entirely. The two turned back to me, the one with the manacles now drawing his gun.

"You will first remove your belt. You will walk between us, then ahead of us," said he.

The others added, "If you try to run we will shoot you."

"If you try to attack us, we will shoot you."

"And if you disobey an order we will shoot you."

That seemed to cover all bets, so I removed my belt and let it drop, then, while holding up my ragged trousers with one hand, I signed with the other, "I am a Consul from the Polity."

"Polity?" all four again. "And when did you come up with that idea?"

My problem here was that the word 'Polity' in their language came across as 'political unit not of Sudoria or Brumal', hence my difficulty in signing it. And now that they were parting ranks and waving me ahead of them, I could not explain, since even doing the hand signs with both hands before my chest was difficult enough.

As I strode ahead of them, the dog thing moved through the trees off to my left and occasionally bark-growled ferociously as if to cover its embarrassment at its earlier pitiful performance. My captors meanwhile chatted amongst themselves.

"He's a big splicing, and very strong."

"Yes, but increasing muscle mass like that you always lose out in the cerebral area."

"Did you see the way he threw Tozzler?"

"Is that why he thinks he has no loyalty to either world?"

"We should think so."

"Probably escaped from some secret breeding programme."

"Yeah, some idiot trying to make quofarl again."

"No use in a space war."

"You need brains for that, not brawn."

It was easier for me not being able to see them, for I could pretend to myself that each comment found its source in a separate individual, despite this not being the case. I noticed how infrequently they used the word 'I' as in that 'We should think so'. The first question probably found its source in one or more of them and the answer came back the same. Communication was going to prove difficult for me, and that same difficulty was perhaps one of the underlying reasons for the war between them and the Sudorians.

After trudging through yet another rainstorm, which turned into lime-coloured hail that beat at the trees like falling gravel, we eventually reached the edge of a lake. By a jetty was moored a fan-powered boat. I halted before reaching the shore, and turned round carefully. The one carrying the manacles now placed some kind of com device below his ear so it lay along his jawbone. His mandibles clattered and I recognised segments of the communication: code language, like Morse, but rattled out so fast I could barely pick up the occasional word or vague meaning.

"I am surprised," he finally said in speech I could understand.

"We are surprised," the others added, putting away their weapons.

"This Polity—"

"— is real—"

"— but remained Consensus-denied until the information reached proving threshold."

The four moved closer to me, and one of them held out a bag made of some material similar to canvas. I accepted it and nodded my thanks—not being able to sign my gratitude since if I did that what remained of my trousers would end up around my ankles. Shaking the bag open I found it contained my belt, its caches open, and my gun, palm screen and spare ammo clips. The belt still seemed okay, so I used it for what it was designed. Surprisingly the gun remained gleaming and pristine, as did the clips—probably designed for warfare down here in this acidic environment. The screen, however, was warped and stained, and when I tried to turn it on it made a buzzing sound, part of the screen then melted, and the device emitted a puff of smoke. I tried detaching the control baton, since that might still be workable, but it just snapped in half. With great reluctance, since these devices had been an invaluable source of information, I tossed them on the ground, then passed the bag back to its owner.

"We will await Consensus Speaker," two of the Brumallians informed me.

"So my story been confirmed?" I signed.

"Sudorian individuality," they decided, "from Earth. We are out of Consensus until update. Part of the job. You will not be shot. Go full speak—one individual." What followed I could only assume to be some chemical debate in the air, then the one with the manacles spoke alone: "Why are you here?"

"To establish relations between the Polity and the humans living in this system," I replied.

"All humans?"

"Yes."

"But why are you here?"

"Because the ship taking me to Sudoria was hit by a missile. I landed in an escape-pod—incidentally one that was sabotaged."

"Fleet?"

"Quite possibly."

All four now said, "We must await the Consensus Speaker. An update is imperative for us. We cannot communicate with you while uninformed, since this encounter is too important."

Four sets of mandibles snapped shut, then all four of these…individuals? Difficult to decide really… all four of them abruptly sat down cross-legged on the ground. I realised I would get nothing more from them and so sat down too. Tozzler edged his way over from the trees, came and paced around me stiff-legged, then abruptly sank down between me and his masters. Thus we remained for about an hour—the only sound being a rustling from the trees, the lapping of waves in the lake behind me, and the occasional thunderous rumbling of my stomach.