The blue beam sliced through a small stone near his instep, cutting it precisely in half. Every instinct in Fiben screamed for him to jump again, but he concentrated on leaving the foot in place and taking one more leisurely step.

Normally, one would think that a defensive device like this would be programmed to give warnings at long range and to start frying in earnest when something came nearer. By such logic what he was doing was stupid as hell.

The blue globe throbbed menacingly and cast forth its lightning. Smoke curled from a spot between the lingers and tumb of his left foot.

He lifted the right.

First a warning, then the real thing. That was the way an Earthling defense drone would work. But how would a Tymbrimi program his? Fiben wasn’t sure he should wager so much on a wild guess. A client-class sophont wasn’t supposed to analyze in the middle of fire and smoke, and especially not when he was being shot at!

Call it a hunch, he thought.

His right foot came down and its toes curled around an oak twig. The blue globe seemed to. consider his persistence, then the blue bolt lanced out again, this time a meter in front of him. A trail of sizzling humus walked toward him in a slow zigzag, the crackle of burning grass popping louder as it came closer and closer.

Fiben tried to swallow.

It’s not designed to kill! he told himself over and over. Why should it be? The Gubru could have blasted that globe at long range long ago.

No, its purpose had to be to serve as a gesture, a declaration of rights under the intricate rules of Galactic Protocol, more ancient and ornate than Japanese imperial court ritual.

And it was designed to tweak the beaks of Gubru.

Fiben held his ground. Another chain of sonic booms rattled the trees, and the heat from the conflagration behind him seemed to be intensifying. All the noise pressed hard against his self-control.

The Gubru are mighty warriors, he reminded himself. But they are excitable…

The blue beam edged closer. Fiben’s nostrils flared. The only way he could take his gaze away from the deadly sightwas by closing his eyes.

If I’m right then this is just another damned Tymbrimi…

He opened them. The beam was approaching his right foot from the side. His toes curled from a deep will to leap away. Fiben tasted bile as the searing knife of light tore through a pebble two inches away and proceeded on to …

To hit and cross his foot!

Fiben choked and suppressed an urge to howl. Something was wrong! His head spun as he watched the beam cross his foot and then commence leaving a narrow trail of smoky ruin directly under his spread-legged stance.

He stared in disbelief at his foot. He had bet the beam would stop short at the last instant. It hadn’t.

Still… there his foot was, unharmed.

The beam ignited a dry twig then moved on to climb up his left foot.

There was a faint tickling he knew to be psychosomatic. While touching him, the beam was only a spot of light.

An inch beyond his foot, the burning resumed.

His heart still pounding, Fiben looked up at the blue globe and cursed with a mouth too dry to speak.

“Very funny,” he whispered.

There must have been a small psi-caster in the cairn, for Fiben actually felt something like a smile spread in the air before him … a small, wry, alien smirk, as if the joke had really been a minor thing, after all, not even worth a chuckle.

“Real cute, Uthacalthing,” Fiben grimaced as he forced his shaking legs to obey him, carrying him on a wobbling path toward the cairn. “Real cute. I’d hate to see what gives you a belly laugh.” It was hard to believe Athaclena came from the same stock as the author of this little bit of whoopee cushion humor.

At the same time, though, Fiben wished he could have been present when the first Gubru approached the Diplomacy Cache to check it out.

The blue globe still pulsed, but it stopped sending forth pencil beams of irritation. Fiben walked close to the cairn and looked it over. He paced the perimeter. Halfway around, where the cliff overlooked the sea only twenty meters away, there was a hatch. Fiben blinked when he saw the array of locks, hasps, bolts, combination slots, and keyholes.

Well, he told himself, it is a cache for diplomatic secrets and such.

But all those locks meant that he had no chance of getting in and finding a message from Uthacalthing. Athaclena had given him a few possible code words to try, if he got the chance, but this was another story altogether!

By now the fire brigade had arrived. Through the smoke Fiben could see chims from the city watch stumbling over stick-figure aliens and stretching out hoses. It wouldn’t be long before someone imposed order on this chaos. If his mission here really was futile, he ought to be getting out while the getting was still easy. He could probably take the trail along the bluff, where it overlooked the Sea of Cilmar. That would skirt most of the enemy and bring him out near a bus route.

Fiben bent forward and looked at the hatchway again. Pfeh! There were easily two dozen locks on the armored door! A small ribbon of red silk would be as useful in keeping out an invader. Either the conventions were being respected or they weren’t! What the hell good were all these padlocks and things?

Fiben grunted, realizing. It was another Tymbrimi joke, of course. One the Gubru would fail to get, no matter how intelligent they were. There were times when personality counted for more than intelligence.

Maybe that means…

On a hunch, Fiben ran around to the other side of the cairn. His eyes were watering from the smoke, and he wiped his nose on his handkerchief as he searched the wall opposite the hatch.

“Stupid bloody guesswork,” he grumbled as he clambered among the smooth stones. “It’d take a Tymbrimi to think up a stunt like this … or a stupid, lame-brained, half-evolved chim client like m—”

A loose stone slipped slightly under his right hand. Fiben pried at the facing, wishing he had a Tymbrimi’s slender, supple fingers. He cursed as he tore a fingernail.

At last the stone came free. He blinked.

He had been right, there was a secret hiding place here in back. Only the damn hole was empty!

This time, Fiben couldn’t help himself. He shrieked in frustration. It was too much. The covering stone went sailing into the brush, and he stood there on the steep, sloping face of the cairn, cursing in the fine, expressive, indignant tones his ancestors had used before Uplift when inveighing against the parentage and personal habits of baboons.

The red rage only lasted a few moments, but when it cleared Fiben felt better. He was hoarse and raw, and his palms hurt from slapping the hard stone, but at least some of his frustration had been vented.

Clearly it was time to get out of here. Just beyond a thick wisp of drifting smoke, Fiben saw a large floater set down. A ramp descended and a troop of armored Gubru soldiery hurried onto the singed lawn, each accompanied by a pair of tiny, floating globes. Yep, time to scoot.

Fiben was about to climb down when he glanced one more time into the little niche in the Tymbrimi cairn. At that moment the diffusing smoke dispersed briefly under the stiffening breeze. Sunlight burst onto the cliffside.

A tiny flash of silvery light caught his eye. He reached into the niche and pulled on a slender thread, thin and delicate as gossamer, that had lined a crack at the back of the little crevice.

At that moment there came an amplified squawk. Fiben swiveled and saw a squad of Gubru Talon Soldiers coming his way. An officer fumbled with the vodor at its throat, dialing among the auto-translation options.

“…Cathtoo-psh’v’chim’ph…

“…Kah-koo-kee, k’keee! EeeEeEE! K… “…Hisss-s-ss pop crackle!…