“All the other Stellar Groups seem to think of humans in the same way.”

“I am afraid that we do. Why else would I be here on Earth, alone? In the case of tine Tinkers, their feelings are partly a consequence of your appearance. The human form resembles that of a small carnivore on their home world of Mercantor. It is not dangerous to them, but it is mindless, ferocious, and annoying. Such associations are of course irrelevant to a creature of perfect intellect, but to most of us such factors carry large weight. I would say all, except that one can never be sure of the Angels. To the rest of us, small points can be very important. For example, to a human a Pipe-Rilla’s voice sounds cheerful. And even this gesture” — Skrynol bowed her head, and placed her forelimbs high on top of it -

“which to us indicates shame or embarrassment, to you appears amusing. To humans, the worries and sorrows of a Pipe-Rilla look and sound comical, no matter how deeply felt.”

’They do. But I certainly do not think of you as comical.”

“In this as in many things, Commander Mondrian, you are an exception. I respect your opinions, but I would be more interested to Know how other humans regard us.”

“I think you know. As you pointed out, neither humans nor Pipe-Rillas form a uniform group. There is diversity of opinion among us. But the popular view of Pipe-Rillas is that you are conscientious, self-deprecating, and a little dull. In human terms, you also lack initiative.”

“Initiative for the warfare that you find so popular?”

“For more than that. As most humans will tell you, we found you in our exploration, you did not find us. And there is an old story that summarizes the general human view of all species of the Stellar Group.”

“A true story?”

“Only in the sense that all parables are true, because they reveal a group’s common perspective. According to the story, a ship carrying a human, a Pipe-Rilla, a Tinker and an Angel made an emergency planetary landing.”

“Aha!”

“You have heard the story?”

“I think not. Continue.”

“They did not have time to send out a distress signal, and no one had any reason to search for them. The four sat down and reviewed the situation. Their onboard food supply was small, their communication equipment damaged beyond repair. If any other ship visited the planet, it would almost certainly not be for years.”

“A grave problem indeed. What did they do?”

“The human asked for suggestions. The Pipe-Rilla said that she was of course sorry that they were in such a fix, but a mere Pipe-Rilla would not be able to solve the problem when another species had already failed. She left the ship and went on alone into the wilderness. “The human asked the Tinker for ideas. The Tinker said that there was really no problem. The planet had abundant winged insect life, so there was no food shortage. All one had to do was resolve into individual components, fly off, and catch as much as one wanted.

“The human turned to the Angel. It agreed with the Tinker: there was no problem. The soil of the planet was very fertile. All one had to do was settle in and put down a root system.”

“And what, Commander Mondrian, was the human suggestion?”

’The human made no suggestion. After hearing the others, the human set to work. In ten months the crippled ship was repaired enough to fly home. What others see as aggression, we see as human diligence and initiative.’

“You have a poor opinion of your fellow-members of the Stellar Group.”

“Not as bad as the story would suggest. Like many parables, this tale exaggerates to make its point. Humans like Tinkers. We enjoy their sense of humor, though we find them — if you will pardon a human joke — ‘flighty’ and ‘scatter-brained.’ Angels we regard as accurate and precise, but almost totally incomprehensible. As for your species, humans think that Pipe-Rillas sound amusing, look terrifying, take their responsibilities seriously — and worry too much.”

Skrynol had listened in silence. Now she settled far back on her hind limbs and began to rock gently from side to side. “Fascinating. I said that I had not heard your story, and that was true. But I had heard something very like it. Did you know that we have our own tale of a similar shipwreck, and that the Tinkers and the Angels acted just as you describe? But in our version the human wanted to hunt, kill, and enslave the native animals.”

“And the Pipe-Rilla?”

“Repaired the ship — naturally! — and made the escape from the planet possible.”

Mondrian stood up and buttoned his jacket. “I would like to hear what version of the story is told by the Tinkers and the Angels. But now I am truly exhausted. I would like to go.

Skrynol nodded and moved in front of him. She insisted on changing the meeting-place every time, escorting Mondrian to and from it through a dark maze of tunnels.

“Someday we must discuss what each of us means by intelligence ,” she said as they moved into a stygian corridor. “I suspect that there too we will find surprises. I think we can agree that, whatever our differences, humans, Tinkers, Angels, and Pipe-Rillas are all intelligent — perhaps of comparable intelligence. But equality does not imply identity. We are different, for this reason: we did not follow the same road to the light.

“Humans evolved from a rather small and weak animal, on a planet with powerful predators. You had to be clever, inventive and aggressive or you would have died out. That is why you conquered fire, made tools, changed the face of Earth, and went to space. But compare that with the others of the Group, who never thought of leaving their home worlds until humans arrived. We Pipe-Rillas are twice the size of any other life form on our planet. We are strong, and we had no natural competition for living space and food. We did not need intelligence to avoid or neutralize our enemies. But a few million years ago, our planet S’kat’lan went through a major change in its climate. Our intelligence developed in response to that need. Only through drastic changes in our life-style and habitat were we able to survive. But the forces that we faced were all impersonal ones, of winds and weather and earthquake. We learned early to cooperate, and to control our population. But we never learned to hate. We never fought each other, nor were we ever threatened by another species.”

Skrynol extended a tough and whiskery palp behind her for Mondrian to hold on to, and led the way up a thirty-degree slope. “As for the Tinkers, at the level of individual components they know aggression, and they fight over food, living space, and mates. But a Tinker Composite has no such needs. It does not eat, drink, or mate in the Composite form. It is in some sense immortal, and in another sense it has no permanent existence at all. It has no sense of danger at the Composite level, because at the first sign of danger its instinct is simply to disperse. And resolved to elements, the Composite no longer exists to feel fear or danger. Mercantor is a cold world, and to a Tinker ‘intelligence’ is a synonym for ‘closeness and warmth.’

“As for the Angels, their form of intelligence remains as much of a mystery to us as I suspect it does to you. The Chassel-Rose will live and bud and die, and know little more than a yearning for light and fertile soil. But the Singers live a long, long time, and no one knows how they came to be intelligent, or what purpose that intelligence evolved to serve. Perhaps some day, after another few hundred years of interaction and mutual effort …”

Skrynol’s musings in the darkness had occupied only half of Mondrian’s attention. He had a new problem to worry about. The Pipe-Rilla had told him to roam Earth and seek his early childhood. But where was he supposed to begin the search? In the Gallimaufries, up in the polar resorts, on the open ocean, or out in the great equatorial nature preserves? Mondrian had vague childhood memories of all those areas. The crucial experience that Skrynol was seeking could have happened anywhere. Worst of all, how could Mondrian spare time for any of that when the Pursuit Team operations were moving ahead at an increasing tempo?