Then the pair came under the scrutiny of the Critics from the Galactic Uplift Institute.

Thus far it had been a perfunctory version of the Fourth Stage Test of Sentience. But now there was one more chance for the Tytlal to fail. One of the Galactics focusing sophisticated instruments on Sustruk and Kihimik, was a Soro… no friend of Athaclena’s clan. Possibly the Soro was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to embarrass the Tymbrimi by rejecting their clients.

Discreetly buried under the caldera was equipment that had cost Athaclena’s race plenty. Right now the scrutiny of the Tytlal was being cast all through the Five Galaxies. There was much to be proud of today, but also some potential for humiliation.

Of course Sustruk and Kihimik passed efasily. They bowed low to each of the alien examiners. If the Soro examiner was disappointed, she did not show it.

The delegation of furry, short-legged Tytlal ambled up to a cleared circle at the top of the hill. They began to sing, swaying together in that queer, loose-limbed manner so common among the creatures of their native planet, the fallow world where they had evolved into pre-sentience, where the Tymbrimi had found and adopted them for the long process of Uplift.

Technicians focused the amplifier which would display for all those assembled, and billions on other worlds, the choice the Tytlal had made. Underfoot, a deep rumbling told of powerful engines at work.

Theoretically, the creatures could even decide to reject their patrons and abandon Uplift altogether, though there were so many rules and qualifications that in practice it was almost never allowed. Anyway, nothing like that was expected on that day. The Tymbrimi had excellent relations with their clients.

Still, a dry, anxious rustling swept the crowd as the Rite of Acceptance approached completion. The swaying Tytlal moaned, and a low hum rose from the amplifier. Overhead a holographic image took shape, and the crowd roared with laughter and approval. It was the face of a Tymbrimi, of course, and one everyone recognized at once. Oshoyoythuna, Trickster of the City of Foyon, who had included several Tytlal as helpers in some of his most celebrated jests.

Of course the Tytlal had reaffirmed the Tymbrimi as their patrons, but choosing Oshoyoythuna as their symbol went far beyond that! It exclaimed the Tytlal’s pride in what it really meant to be part of their clan.

After the cheering and laughter died down, there remained only one part of the ceremony to finish, the selection of the Stage Consort, the species who would speak for the Tytlal during the next phase of their Uplift. The humans, in their strange tongue, called it the Uplift Midwife.

The Stage Consort had to be of a race outside of the Tymbrimi’s own clan. And while the position was mostly ceremonial, a Consort could legally intervene on the new client species’ behalf, if the Uplift process appeared to be in trouble. Wrong choices in the past had created terrible problems.

No one had any idea what race the Tytlal had chosen. It was one of those rare decisions that even the most meddlesome patrons, such as the Soro, had to leave to their charges.

Sustruk and Kihimik crooned once more, and even from her position at the back of the crowd Athaclena could sense a growing feeling of anticipation rising from the furry little clients. The little devils had cooked up something, that was certain!

Again, the ground shuddered, the amplifier murmured once more, and holographic projectors formed a blue cloudiness over the crest of the hill. In it there seemed to float murky shapes, flicking back and forth as if through backlit water.

Her corona offered no clue, for the image was strictly visual. She resented the humans their sharper eyesight as a shout of surprise rose from the area where most of the Earthlings had congregated. All around her, Tymbrimi were standing up and staring. She blinked. Then Athaclena and her mother joined the rest in amazed disbelief.

One of the murky figures flicked up to the foreground and stopped, grinning out at the audience, displaying a long, narrow grin of white, needle-sharp teeth. There was a glittering eye, and bubbles rose from its glistening gray brow.

The stunned silence lengthened. For in all of Ifhi’s starfield, nobody had expected the Tytlal to choose dolphins!

The visiting Galactics were stricken dumb. Neo-dolphins… why the seeond client race of Earth were the youngest acknowledged sapients in all five galaxies — much younger than the Tytlal themselves! This was unprecedented. It was astonishing.

It was…

It was hilarious! The Tymbrimi cheered. Their laughter rose, high and clear. As one, their coronae sparkled upward a single, coruscating glyph of approval so vivid that even the Thennanin Ambassador seemed to blink and take notice. Seeing that their allies weren’t offended, the humans joined in, hooting and slapping their hands together with intimidating energy.

Kihimik and most of the other assembled Tytlal bowed, accepting their patrons’ accolade. Good clients, it seemed they had worked hard to come up with a fine jest for this important day. Only Sustruk himself stood rigid at the rear, still quivering from the strain.

All around Athaclena crested waves of approval and joy. She heard her mother’s laughter, joining in with the others.

But Athaclena herself had backed away, edging out of the cheering crowd until there was room to turn and flee. In a full gheer flux, she ran and ran until she passed the caldera’s rim and could drop down the trail out of sight or sound. There, overlooking the beautiful Valley of Lingering Shadows, she collapsed to the ground while the waves of enzyme reaction shook her.

That horrible dolphin…

Never since that day had she confided in anyone what she had seen in the eye of the imaged cetacean. Not to her mother, nor even her father, had she ever told the truth… that she had sensed deep within that projected hologram a glyph, one rising from Sustruk himself, the poet of the Tytlal.

Those present thought it was all a grand jest, a magnificent blague. They thought they knew why the Tytlal had chosen the youngest race of Earth as their Stage Consort… to honor the clan with a grand and harmless joke. By choosing dolphins, they seemed to be saying that they needed no protector, that they loved and honored their Tymbrimi patrons without reservation. And by selecting the humans’ second clients, they also tweaked those stodgy old Galactic clans who so disapproved of the Tymbrimi’s friendship with wolf-lings. It was a fine gesture. Delicious.

Had Athaclena been the only one, then, to see the deeper truth? Had she imagined it? Many years later on a distant planet, Athaclena shivered as she recalled that day.

Had she been the only one to pick up Sustruk’s third harmonic of laughter and pain and confusion? The muse-poet died only days after that episode, and he took his secret with him to his grave.

Only Athaclena seemed to sense that the Ceremony had been no joke, after all, that Sustruk’s image had not come from his thoughts but out of Time! The Tytlal had, indeed, chosen their protectors, and the choice was in desperate earnest.

Now, only a few years later, the Five Galaxies had been sent into turmoil over certain discoveries made by a certain obscure client race, the youngest of them all. Dolphins.

Oh, Earthlings, she thought as she followed Robert higher into the Mountains of Mulun. What have you done? No, that was not the right question. What, oh what is it you are planning to become?

That afternoon the two wanderers encountered a steep field of plate ivy. A plain of glossy, wide-brimmed plants covered the southeastward slope of the ridge like green, overlapping scales on the flank of some great, slumbering beast. Their path to the mountains was blocked.