*GYU = Galactic year unit (approximately fourteen Earth months)

Uplift Ceremonies are now more than perfunctory celebrations. They serve two other major purposes. First, they allow representatives from the client race to be tested — under rigorous and stressful circumstances — to satisfy the Institute that the race is ready to assume the rights and duties appropriate to the next Stage. Also, the ceremony allows the client race an opportunity to choose a new consort for the subsequent Stage, to watch over it and, if necessary, to intercede on its behalf.

The criteria used in testing depend upon the level of development the client race has reached. Among other important factors are phagocity type (e.g., carnivore, herbivore, autophagic, or ergogenic), modality of movement (e.g., bipedal or quadrupedal walker, amphibious, roller, or sessile), mental technique (e.g., associative, extrapolative, intuitive, holographic, or nulutative)…

Slowly she worked her way through the “remedial” stuff. It was fairly heavy plodding. This Library branch would need some new translation routines if the chim-on-the-street in Port Helenia was going to be able to use the vast storehouse of knowledge. Assuming Joe and Jane Chim ever got the opportunity.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderful edifice — far, far greater than the miserable little branch they’d had before. And unlike back at La Paz, there was not the perpetual hustle and bustle of hundreds, thousands of frantic users, waving priority slips and arguing over access timeslots. Gailet felt as if she could just sink into this place for months, years, drinking and drinking knowledge until it leaked out through her very pores.

For instance, here was a reference to how special arrangements were made to allow Uplift among machine cultures. And there was one brief, tantalizing paragraph about a race of hydrogen breathers which had seceded from that mysterious parallel civilization and actually applied for membership in Galactic society. She ached to follow that and many other fascinating leads, but Gailet knew she simply did not have the time. She had to concentrate on the rules regarding bipedal, warm-blooded, omnivorous Stage Two clients with mixed mental faculties, and even that made for a daunting reading list.

Narrow it down, she thought. So she tried to focus on ceremonies which take place under contention or in time of war. Even under those constraints she found it hard slogging. Everything was all so complicated! It made her despair over the shared ignorance of her people and clan.

. .’. whether an agreement of co-participation is or is not made in advance, it can and shall be verified by the Institutes in a manner taking into account methods of adjudication considered traditional by the two or more parties involved…

Gailet did not recall falling asleep on the beanbag. But for some time it was a raft, floating upon a dim sea which rocked to the rhythm of her breathing. After a while, mists seemed to close in, coalescing into a black and white dream-scape of vaguely threatening shapes. She saw contorted images of the dead, her parents, and poor Max.

“Mm-mm, no,” she muttered. At one point she jerked sharply. “No!”

She started to rise, began to emerge from slumber. Her eyes fluttered, fragments of dreams clinging in shreds to the lids. A Gubru seemed to hover overhead, holding a mysterious device, like those which had probed and peered at her and Fiben. But the image wavered and fell apart as the avian pressed a button on the machine. She slumped back, the Gubru image rejoining the many others in her disturbed sleep.

The dream state passed and her breathing settled into the slow cycle of deep somnolence.

She only awoke sometime later, when she dimly sensed a hand stroke her leg. Then it seized her ankle and pulled hard.

Gailet’s breath caught as she sat up quickly, before she could even bring her eyes to focus. Her heart raced. Then vision cleared and she saw that a rather large chim squatted beside her. His hand still rested on her leg, and his grin was instantly recognizable. The waxed handlebar mustache was only the most superficial of many attributes she had come to detest.

So suddenly drawn out of sleep, she had to take a mo-ment to find speech again. “Wh… what are you doing here?” she asked acerbically, yanking her leg away from his grasp.

Irongrip looked amused. “Now, is that the way to say hello to someone as important as I am to you?”

“You do serve your purpose well,” she admitted. “As a bad example!” Gailet rubbed her eyes and sat up. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you bothering me? Your incompetent Probies aren’t in charge of guarding anybody anymore.”

The chen’s expression soured only slightly. Obviously he was relishing something. “Oh, I just figured I ought to come on down to th’ Library and do some studying, just like you.”

“You, studying? Here?” She laughed. “I had to get special permission from the Suzerain. You’re not even supposed^—”

“Now those were the exact words I was about to use,” he interrupted.

Gailet blinked. “What?”

“I mean, I was gonna tell you that the Suzerain told me to come down here and study with you. After all, partners ought to get to know each other well, especially before they step forward together as race-representatives.”

Gailet’s breath drew in audibly. “You… ?” Her head whirled. “I don’t believe you!”

Irongrip shrugged. “You needn’t sound so surprised. My genetic scores are in the high nineties almost across the board… except in two or three little categories that shouldn’t ever have counted in the first place.”

That Gailet could believe easily enough. Irongrip was obviously clever and resourceful, and his aberrant strength could only be considered an asset by the Uplift Board. But sometimes the price was just too great to pay. “All that means is that your loathsome qualities must be even worse than I had imagined.”

The chen rocked back and laughed. “Oh, by human standards, I suppose you’re right,” he agreed. “By those criteria, most Probationers shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near chimmies and children! Still standards change. And now I have the opportunity to set a new style.”

Gailet felt a chill. It was just sinking in what Irongrip was driving at.

“You’re a liar!”

“Admitted, mea culpa.” He pretended to beat his breast. “But I’m not lying about being in the testing party, along with a few of my fellow donner boys. There’ve been some changes, you see, since your little mama’s boy and teacher’s pet ran off into the jungle with our Sylvie.”

Gailet wanted to spit. “Fiben’s ten times the chen you are, you, you atavistic mistake! The Suzerain of Propriety would never choose you as his replacement!”

Irongrip grinned and raised a finger. “Aha. There’s where we misunderstand each other. You see we’ve been talking about different birds, you and I.”

“Different …” Gailet gasped. Her hand covered the open collar of her shirt. “Oh Goodall!”

“You get it,” he said, nodding. “Smart, aristophrenic little monkey you are.”

Gailet slumped. What surprised her most was the depth of her mourning. At that moment she felt as if her heart had been torn out.

We were pawns all along, she thought. Oh, poor Fiben!

This explained why Fiben had not been brought back the evening he took off with Sylvie. Or the next day, or the next. Gailet had been so sure that the “escape” would turn out to have been just another propriety and intelligence test.

But clearly it wasn’t. It had to have been arranged by one or both of the other Gubru commanders, perhaps as a way to weaken the Suzerain of Propriety. And what better way to do that than by robbing it of one of its most carefully chosen chim “race-representatives.” The theft couldn’t even be pinned on anybody, for no body would ever be found.