He waved an arm-fan at Tananareve. “You have said your ship did not receive messages from your home world for a long time, then did. Why?”

“Political instability, we think. We did send reports, but apparently our people went through a phase of no interest in the interstellar expeditions.” She sat stiffly, Memor noted, as though reluctant to admit this.

Bemor looked skeptical, his eyes turned upward derisively—though Memor knew Tananareve could not interpret this. “Why this lack of concern?”

Bemor saw this primate was unable to follow their discourse, and so waxed prolific in his remarks. Memor cocked a scarlet at him in ironic interest, for this was unusual for him. Bemor said, “We have only a few long-flight expeditions, such as this one. Most are from stars we pass nearby, who see us in their night sky. Those mount an expedition, those who have interplanetary abilities. In that sense, we inspire progress among slumbering civilizations, simply by appearing to them in passing. Those that have arrived had great trouble living in the biospheres they found. Microbial mismatches, food-production difficulties, and some unknown health problems.”

“But we did receive a message about the time we discovered your … Bowl.”

Tananareve was still edgy, and yielded this information only, Memor saw, because she feared Bemor. Something about an inherent caution with males? Bemor’s rank musk was a bit overpowering. Or had the earlier pain gun incident made this primate more willing to cooperate? If so, it had been a good move.

“Ah. The primates did not expect to receive signals from Glory, suggesting that this is their first attempt to reach that star. So—” Bemor turned to Tananareve and whispered in her tongue. “—I hope you are telling true?”

She returned his gaze. “Right, we’re the first expedition. Your Bowl … We knew none of this.”

“You had no plan when you invaded our paradise?”

Tananareve snorted. “The team I was in, Beth Marble’s team—until we escaped, we had as much control over what happened as a kitten does in a clothes dryer. Cliff’s team is showing you what we can do, I hear.”

Bemor gave a bemused eye-flutter with his delicate purple fringe. “I saw in your vessel a high level of ingenuity, more than expected of First Stage intelligences.”

“Which is…?

“Curiosity, as you display in that admirably simple phrase. Artifice in magnetic engineering, particularly the ingenious flux conservation mechanism in your scoop. We have studied it, following the fluorescence of decaying ions, and so mapped your magnetic artifice. Your configuration can navigate on the skimpy ion density gathered from our star. Admirable!”

Tananareve blinked, unsure how to respond. Memor began, “I, too, am surprised that you manage to—”

“Moving on,” Bemor said, turning away from Tananareve and Memor alike, “I believe you, Asenath, have questions for the primate?”

Asenath fluttered forward—glad of some attention, finally, Memor guessed. She questioned Tananareve, with Memor supervising occasionally, and learned nothing new. Bemor became bored. They were still close enough in manner—since, after all, they shared the same genetics—for Memor to know that Bemor was remaining politely present, but in fact was importing signals from elsewhere in the Citadel. Perhaps from superiors?

“This Late Invader is most useful for studies of the structure of her mind,” Memor said, trying to introduce what was for her the most original Late Invader trait, their submerged and unreachable unconscious.

But Asenath went on, her agenda becoming apparent. “The message from Glory is aimed at primates. The Glorians think primates are running the Bowl!”

Cackles, hoots, coughs, and murmurs. General hilarity, even among the assistants, who normally suppressed any show. “Good!” Asenath said. “Let them keep that misapprehension. Make the true rulers, ourselves, unpredictable.”

“We surely are that,” Bemor said sardonically. Yet something in his tone conveyed ironic skepticism.

Asenath made a submission-display flutter, but it was unconvincing. “Ideal setting for an entire suite of deception-maneuvers, yes. We will need cooperation of the primates to bring this off.”

Bemor turned to the primate and said in its tongue, “You follow this?”

Memor was surprised that Bemor articulated the alien fricative consonants quite well, directing breath with his tongue over the sharp edge of the teeth and into the capture hollows of his cheeks. It gave Bemor a solemn, echoing way of pronouncing the rather simple constructions the primates could manage. Memor had taken several sleep-times to master that, and her words still came out reedy and thin. Worse, the primate understood Bemor immediately, saying, “I don’t know your language.”

So Bemor gave a guarded version of their conversation, keeping it minimal, giving away nothing, omitting of course anything the primate could use. Artfully done, Memor had to admit.

Tananareve’s first comment was a question. “What about the light-speed problem?”

Bemor said, “We think long. Perhaps few of us will live to arrive near Glory.”

“So you want to reply to their signal? Deceive them?”

Memor felt the primate showed insufficient respect for their company, but Asenath chose that moment to recover some role in the conversation. “My team is putting together a response for Glory. No great hurry, but there may be a time limit.”

Tananareve shot back, “What if the Glorians send out an exploring expedition of their own?”

“We can surely see it well in advance and defend properly,” Asenath said with a fan-flutter in ivory that said, Such is obvious.

“You know about the gravity waves, right?”

Bemor said, “You imply, we should be wary of what weapons might they have?”

Tananareve stood, stretched, plucked some sweatfruit from an ample bowl. A show of indifference? Perhaps this was all the primate could do, since it could not give feather displays or more subtle signals. With a mouth partly full of the fruit—a grave social error for the Folk—she said, “Well, I sure would be.”

“I believe,” Asenath said, “and Contriver Bemor may amend this, that the Lambda Spear can be revived?”

Bemor made a ring-show of blue and green, meaning “yes,” for he knew the primate could not grasp this.

“What’s that?” Tananareve said.

“It is a truly terrible device, able to alter the fundamental constants of a small region of space-time, upon command,” Memor put in.

Her eyes widened. “You use this … how?”

“With great care, obviously,” Bemor said. “We can project such an effect only over long distances, so to avoid being in the realm affected. It is appropriate for defense on a system-wide scale.”

“It comes to us,” Memor added, “from the Time of Terror.”

“I’d love to hear the story,” Tananareve said.

“I can show you a worked example of how we avoid such dark times, soon enough,” Asenath said with a mild feather-rustle. “I have an appointment at a Justice Rendering. Duty summons.”

TWENTY

Cliff and the others were glad to get back into the warmer precincts of the Bowl underground. They rested in a large view space that gave them warmth, yet through a broad portal gave a closer view of the “vacuum flowers,” as Irma termed them. They ate the food they carried, and the Sil leading them brought water from a small delivery system lodged in the hard rock walls. The Bowl’s outer hull was intricately woven through with passages, rooms, narrow little living quarters, and shops for what looked like repairs. As well, they passed by warrens that seemed to be where the finger snakes lived and worked. In some of the shops, snakes wearing harnesses labored at rack arrays, doing metal and electronics work. They were intense little creatures of glistening, gunmetal blue skin, beady eyes focused at close range on implements usually smaller than a finger—a human finger, not the bigger boneless ones the snakes used.