It certainly would be less costly if the expeditionary force could simply ignore the insolent wolflings below until the hostage gas forced them to surrender. Or, with a simple order, their redoubt could be reduced to slag. But the Suzerain of Propriety refused to accept either option. Such actions would be catastrophic, the priest insisted.

The bureaucrat was just as adamant not to waste good soldiers on what would be essentially a gesture.

Deadlocked, the two other commanders eyed the Suzerain of Beam and Talon as they circled and squawked, fluffing their glowing white down. Finally, the admiral ruffled its own plumage and stepped onto the dais to join them. 

The issue was decided. A stoop-colonel of the Talon Soldiers saluted and hurried off with the order.

Of course with this resolution Propriety’s perch position would rise a little. Caution’s descended. But the quest for dominance had only just begun.

So it had been for their distant ancestors, before the Gooksyu turned the primitive proto-Gubru into starfarers. Wisely, their patrons had taken the ancient patterns and shaped and expanded them into a useful, logical form of government for a sapient people.

Still, part of the older function remained. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon shivered as the tension of argument was released. And although all three of them were still quite neuter, the admiral felt a momentary thrill that was deeply, thoroughly sexual.

The two rescue parties encountered each other more than a mile into the high pass. It was a somber gathering. The three who had started out that morning with Benjamin were too tired to do more than nod to the subdued group returning from the crash site.

But the battered pair who had been rescued exclaimed on seeing each other.

“Robert! Robert Oneagle! When did they let you out of study hall? Does your mommy know where you are?”

The’ injured chim leaned on a makeshift crutch and wore the singed remains of a tattered TAASF ship-suit. Robert looked up at him from the stretcher and grinned through an anesthetic haze.

“Fiben! In Goodall’s name, was that you I saw smokin’ out of the sky? Figures. What’d you do, fry ten megacredits’ worth of scoutboat?”

Fiben rolled his eyes. “More like five megs. She was an old tub, even if she did all right by me.”

Robert felt a strange envy. “So? I guess we got whomped.”

“You could say that. One on one we fought well. Would’ve been all right if there’d been enough of us.”

Robert knew what his friend meant. “You mean there’s no limit to what could’ve been accomplished wjth—”

“With an infinite number of monkeys?” Fiben cut in. His snort was a little less than a laugh but more than an ironic grin.

The other chims blinked in consternation. This level of banter was a bit over their heads, but what was more disturbing was how blithely this chen interrupted the human son of the Planetary Coordinator!

“I wish I could’ve been there with you,” Robert said seriously.

Fiben shrugged. “Yeah, Robert. I know. But we all had orders.” For a long moment they were silent. Fiben knew Megan Oneagle well enough, and he sympathized with Robert.

“Well I guess we’re both due for a stint in the mountains, assigned to holdin’ down beds and harassing nurses.” Fiben sighed, gazing toward the south. “If we can stand the fresh air, that is.” He looked down to Robert. “These chims told me about the raid on the Center. Scary stuff.”

“Clennie’ll help ’em straighten things out,” Robert answered. His attention had started to drift. They obviously had him doped to a dolphin’s blowhole. “She knows a lot … a lot more’n she thinks she does.”

Fiben had heard about the daughter of the Tymbrimi ambassador. “Sure,” he said softly, as the others lifted the stretcher once again. “An Eatee’ll straighten things out. More Hkely’n not, that girl friend of yours will have everybody thrown in the clink, invasion or no invasion!”

But Robert was now far away. And Fiben had a sudden strange impression. It was as if the human mel’s visage was not entirely Terran any longer. His dreamy smile was distant and touched with something… unearthly.

A large number of chims returned to the Center, drifting in from the forest where they had been sent to hide. Frederick and Benjamin set them to work dismantling and burning the buildings and their contents. Athaclena and her two assistants hurried from site to site, carefully recording everything before it was put to the.torch.

It was hard work. Never in her life as a diplomat’s daughter had Athaclena felt so exhausted. And yet she dared not let any scrap of evidence go undocumented. It was a matter of duty.

About an hour before dusk a contingent of gorillas trooped into the encampment, larger, darker, more crouched and feral-looking than their chim guardians. Under careful direction they took up simple tasks, helping to demolish the only home they had ever known.

The confused creatures watched as their Training and Testing Center and the Clients’ Quarters melted into slag. A few even tried to halt the destruction, stepping in front of the smaller, soot-covered chims and waving vigorous hand signs — trying to tell them that this was a bad thing.

Athaclena could see how, by their lights, it wasn’t logical. But then, the affairs of patron-class beings often did seem foolish.

Finally, the big pre-clients were left standing amid eddies of smoke with small piles of personal possessions — toys, mementos, and simple tools — piled at their feet. They stared blankly at the wreckage, not knowing what to do.

By dusk Athaclena had been nearly worn down by the emotions that fluxed through the compound. She sat on a tree stump, upwind of the burning clients’ quarters, listening to the great apes’ low, chuffing moans. Her aides slumped nearby with their cameras and bags of samples, staring at the destruction, the whites of their eyes reflecting the flickering flames.

Athaclena withdrew her corona until all she could henn was the Unity Glyph — the coalescence to which all the beings within the forest valley contributed. And even that under-image wavered, flickered. She saw it metaphorically — weepy, drooping, like a sad flag of many colors.

There was honor here, she admitted reluctantly. These scientists had been violating a treaty, but they couldn’t be accused of doing anything truly unnatural.

By any real measure, gorillas were as ready for Uplift as chimpanzees had been, a hundred Earth years before Contact. Humans had been forced to make compromises, back when Contact brought them into the domain of Galactic society. Officially, the tenancy treaty which sanctioned their rights to their homeworld was intended to see to it that Earth’s fallow species list was maintained, so its stock of Potential for sentience would not be used up too quickly.

But everyone knew that, in spite of primitive man’s legendary penchant for genocide, the Earth was still a shining example of genetic diversity, rare in the range of types and forms that had been left untouched by Galactic civilization.