“There is no need for sarcasm. And we can take no credit for our nature. It is built into us, from first meiosis. It is the very reason that I am here, alone and deformed, many lightyears from home and mates. But humans are not so. You are dominated by individual desires and urges. Even you.” Skrynol began to flex her legs, lifting her body higher. “So which is it to be, Esro Mondrian? Do you expose me now, or do we continue your treatment.”

Mondrian stood up also. “What is your name? Your Pipe-Rilla name?”

“I will say it to you. It is no secret. But you will not be able to say it, unless you propose to learn to stridulate.” The Pipe-Rilla rubbed two of her legs together briefly, to produce the wobbly, singing tone of a vibrating saw blade. “There. I think you must still call me Skrynol. That is similar to a word in our speech that means, ‘the insane one.’ A mad Pipe-Rilla, living deep in Madworld.”

“Giving Fropper treatment to a mad human.”

“What could be more appropriate? Commander Mondrian, we have a stalemate. You know my secret — ”

“One of them.”

“One of them. And I know one of yours. What now?”

“I will keep your secret, and you will continue my treatment. And one other thing.”

“Always something new.”

“Not really. I intended this when I came here today for treatment. Why else would I bring those pictures? We agree that we both have needs?”

“We agree.”

“Very well. Then let us … negotiate.”

Chapter 12

The offices of Dougal MacDougal, Solar High Ambassador to the Stellar Group, formed a huge and perfect dodecahedron. Two hundred meters on a side, it sat deep beneath the surface of Ceres. Access to it was provided by a dozen entrances on every one of its twelve faces.

The private office of Dougal MacDougal lay at the very center of the dodecahedron. It had just one entrance, approached along a great spiralling corridor. Halfway along the corridor and opening onto it was a tiny office, barely big enough for one person.

In that office, seemingly present for twenty-four hours a day, sat Lotos Sheldrake. A diminutive child-like woman with the face of a porcelain doll, she guarded access to the spacious inner sanctum like a soldier ant protecting the queen’s chamber. MacDougal saw no one unless she approved; nothing entered his office, not even cleaning robots, unless she had performed her inspection.

Luther Brachis walked slowly down the approach corridor, entered Sheldrake’s cramped office, and sat down uninvited on the single visitor’s chair.

Lotos was reviewing a list of supplicant names, crossing off more than half of them. She did not look up until her analysis was complete. “A surprise visit, Commander,” she said at last. She raised pencil-thin eyebrows. “You desire an audience with the Ambassador? We are honored. I believe that this is the first such request.”

“Don’t give me that, Lotos. When you see me come in here to meet with old numbnuts, you’ll know it’s time to cart me off for recycling.”

“That is no way to refer to His Excellency the Ambassador.” But Sheldrake made no attempt to inspect the contents of Brachis’s uniform. She had known when he entered that he was planning to go no farther than her office. “So what’s your business?”

“You know about the Morgan Constructs?”

An imperceptible nod.

“And the decision made by the Stellar Group Ambassadors?”

A hint of a smile on the doll’s face. “With Ambassador MacDougal, shall we say, abstaining? I heard. Poor Luther. After all your efforts, to report to Esro Mondrian … my heart bleeds for you.”

“I’m sure of it. Bleeds liquid helium. But let me get right to business. Do you know what actions it would take to reverse the decision of the Ambassadors — to provide me with at least an equality of rank with Mondrian?”

“Suppose I did know. Why should I discuss it with you?”

“Still the same sweetheart.” Luther Brachis pulled a slender pencil from his pocket. “Take a look at this, Lotos, and then let’s continue the conversation.”

Sheldrake dimmed the lights and pointed the viewer away from her. When she turned it on, a three-dimensional image sprang into existence. At its center hovered a silver-blue cylinder with a tripod of stubby legs and a lattice of shining wing panels.

“Shahh-sh!” Sheldrake hissed. “Commander Brachis, I hope for your sake this is an old holograph. If you have located an intact Morgan Construct, and failed to reveal that fact to us … remember, we do not share the rest of the Stellar Group’s softness of heart regarding death as punishment. Assure me that this is an old holograph or a computer simulation, Luther — for your own sake.”

“To the best of my knowledge, the only functioning Morgan Construct is the one that got away. On the other hand, what you are looking at was recorded less than one week ago, and it is not a computer simulation.” He waited, until her hand was no more than an inch or two from a button set into the top of her desk. “A few moments more before you call the guards, Lotos. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself.”

“Speak, Luther. Quickly.” The tiny hand hovered over the button.

“What you are looking at is not a Construct. You will have proof of that. What it is, as I can readily prove, is an Artefact from one of Earth’s Needler labs. But examine it as closely as you like, and I am sure that you will be unable to detect any difference — except, of course, that this is completely safe, without a Construct’s destructive potential.”

The hand hesitated, then withdrew from the button. “Artefacts are not allowed anywhere except on Earth. You’re still in trouble, Luther, if that thing is anywhere up here.”

“You don’t have it quite right. Artefacts are not allowed into space unless the situation involves a Stellar Group emergency. That’s the catch-all clause applying to just about everything that’s normally forbidden.”

“And the Anabasis is operating within a condition of Stellar Group emergency? Clever so far, Commander. But nothing to do with me. Two more minutes.”

“Lotos, you’re still missing the point. I’m here to help you.”

“And the Sargasso Dump guards are going to win this year’s Mastermind contest. What’s the pitch?”

“One minute will be enough.” Brachis put his pencil viewer back in his pocket. “Mondrian and I have the responsibility for training the Pursuit Teams. If we do a bad job, and the Morgan Construct wipes out the teams, we get the blame. But not just us — all humans, in the minds of the Stellar Group. The training responsibility will not really be Dougal MacDougal’s fault, or yours. But as ambassador, he’ll feel the worst heat, and you are next in line. Do you want that?”

“You’re sneaky as Mondrian.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t one.”

“And my two minutes are up.” Brachis was glancing at his watch. “I guess I have to stop and get out.”

“Don’t bait me, Luther. Get on with it. You’ve never seen me nasty.”

“I dread the day. The big problem is this. How do you train a group to seek out and destroy a Morgan Construct, when you don’t have one and they’ve never seen anything like one? Build another, to use for training?”

“Never. That idea would be vetoed by the Ambassadors instantly.”

“Right. Even if we knew the complete construction methods, which we don’t. So we have to go with the next best thing. We use some other form, something that looks and acts like a Morgan Construct, but isn’t one.”

“Logical. But still nothing to do with me.”

“Suppose that you, and you alone, were in possession of such a thing? An Artefact, or rather, a set of ten identical ones, for use in Pursuit Team training. Unable to harm a human or other intelligent life form.”