“I was impressed with his handling of the caucus, Synapo.”

“And so was I.”

“I'll leave you now. May Petero guide your deliberations.”

“You agree that the alien proposal for cohabitation should be given a fair trial?”

“I'll not argue that,” Sarco said, “not after what you've been through. Yes, we'll postpone closure of the weather node compensator indefinitely. “

He glided away. Synapo balled and immediately closed and inflated his reflector to its full extent, suitable for high-altitude cerebrations.

Although his storage cells were still critically low, and though his cerebrations in reflection mode would use a modest amount of juice, he could recharge to full capacity as he leisurely beat his way back from wherever the gentle air currents would take him during his silvery ruminations.

His first step in the direction of those ruminations had been taken when he reached stable altitude, and with only his hook, eyes, and primary vent protruding beneath the balloon, he surveyed the vast panorama.

The Ceremyons were far below him at optimum charge altitude, replenishing their juice stores in random flight circles that covered the globe in a loosely dispersed pattern up to the dusk band.

The dusk band was creeping toward him from the east-powered by the natural rotation of his world and his slow easterly drift-delineating day from approaching night that was just barely visible as a thin black crescent sliced from the edge of the globe.

From such high altitude, he appeared to have drifted very little from the point where he had ballooned. The compensator with the pie-cut sector lay only a small way to the west.

He closed his eyes, purging his mind of stress and strain which gradually faded away to a calm serenity.

And he slept.

He awoke to a star-studded frame surrounding the jet black circle of the planet. And his mind went immediately to Axonius, and to the answer to the question posed by Sarco as they parted that afternoon.

He would keep Axonius as his second in command. To discard a competent aide who was now all the more valuable for the lesson he had just learned, and all the more loyal for the gratitude he could not help but feel, would be to exercise a petty vengeance that was not characteristic of the statesman Synapo.

That resolved the tribe's hierarchical question, and the aliens had proposed a course that they felt promised harmonious cohabitation. He had no more problems at that moment, questions perhaps, but no problems, for he did not consider Neuronius a problem apart from the day-to-day governing of the Cerebrons; and the only worthy question that remained-the question of the possible superiority of the aliens-he could do nothing to answer right then.

Their small leader would make a friendly pet but was in no wise a threat, no more so than the servants, the Avery robots. The only question that remained was how did the small leader fit into the alien hierarchy, that part that still lay off-world.

He could do nothing to answer that question now. With a serene mind, he went back to sleep.

He awoke with his back to bright sunlight as he tossed quietly in the gentle turbulence created at the juncture of land and sea. Far to the west he could see the large node compensator with its pie-cut sector visible only as a small departure from perfect sphericity on the right side.

He deflated then, contracting the outer silvery surface of the six gores, and by that contraction, rolling the paper-thin hide into tight black rolls as the gores unsnapped at the continuous tongue-and-groove that kept them locked to one another while inflated.

The fluttering of the hide as he dropped through the thin air of the stratosphere was no competition for the powerful pull of the thin layer of smooth muscle that lay just below the silvery surface. Soon, all that was left of the balloon was a six-segment collar, visible only as a small bump in the black silhouette.

The ocean was still far below when he spread his wings at optimum charge altitude and started flapping with powerful strokes toward the compensator. Despite the night's metabolic cleansing-the destruction and purging of waste products that constitutes rest-he felt stale and overworked. He missed that fresh shot of juice he had become accustomed to during the construction of the compensator, when he dipped his cold-junction into the icy water of the brook upon deflating in the early morning.

That was the only aspect of Sarco's normal Myostrian routine that he would like to adopt as a permanent part of the Cerebron daily regime. The nomadic Cerebrons were never in one place long enough to find the icy brooks hidden in the forests scattered over their globe.

As he stroked west, his thoughts returned to Sarco's warning the previous afternoon concerning the danger posed by his deposed lieutenant, Neuronius. He had been quick to dismiss Neuronius as an empty threat when there were more important things to think about, but now, with those other issues either decided or in a dormant state awaiting further data, he considered the unhappy plight of Neuronius. What, if anything, could he do to help him? Extreme irrationality like that exhibited by Neuronius was rare, almost nonexistent, among the Ceremyons. And being so rare, their society had not developed any truly effective remedies for want of suitable subjects to study.

Being sensitive and compassionate, indispensable qualities of a true statesman, Synapo had difficulty viewing the problem dispassionately. He put himself with his feelings in Neuronius's position, trying to imagine how despondent Neuronius must feel at that moment. In his ignorance of the true nature of that irrationality, with his compassion clouding his judgment, he failed to appreciate the machinations possible by someone like Neuronius.

By dusk he was over the vast Forest of Respose, but still fifty kilometers from the Plain of Serenity. Despite the exertion of flight, he had recharged his cells to eighty percent of full capacity, so he tethered that night in the treetops with a feeling of satisfaction. He had been so empty and so hungry for such a long time he felt almost like a glutton, nearly sated.

He arrived over the compensator early the next afternoon and took up his station circling above the center of the shimmering dome. Far below he could see the golden Wohler-9 standing on the west side of the dome opening. The small alien leader and her personal servant were sitting in the creation Wohler-9 called a lorry.

Synapo kept Axonius in suspense for another four hours, and then just before dusk he summoned him by radio.

“I'll want you to accompany me to a meeting with the aliens at the usual time tomorrow morning. And notify Petorius that he is now a member of the elite.”

Saying nothing more, Synapo dropped to tether for the night in The Forest of Repose. That was how Axonius learned of his promotion and who would be the lucky Cerebron to come in at the bottom in the moves that would bump Neuronius from the top.

The next morning, Synapo was standing on the west side of the opening in the compensator with Axonius on his right, facing the small alien and her servant, the robot Jacob Winterson.

“My government has reconsidered your proposal for cohabitation of our planet, Miss Ariel Welsh,” Synapo said, opening the discussion, “and I am pleased to report that they reversed the position taken by our representatives during the last meeting with you.”

“That is good news, indeed,” the alien replied. “The dome will remain open then, so we may use it as a communications and transportation base?”

“If that is what you wish. What else is involved in this new proposal?”

“The Avery robots-like Wohler there-must be reprogrammed. That is no small undertaking. However, a task force I have summoned for that purpose will arrive late this afternoon.”