“What do we want to say?” asked Digger. “Keep in mind that I can’t write the language very well.”

“I don’t see why we should write anything,” said Kellie. “All we want to do is find out where she lives.”

Sounded reasonable to him. He twisted the caps and opened both cylinders, but stopped to wonder whether the messenger might look inside. “Better put something in there,” he said. He sat down at the table, pulled one of the sheets toward him, and opened his ink pot. Challa, Macao, he wrote. And, continuing in Goompah: We’ve enjoyed your work. He signed it Kellie and Digger.

She smiled and shook her head. “First written interstellar communication turns out to be a piece of fan mail.”

He inserted the message, twisted the cylinder shut, put the caps on, and reached for a second sheet. Please deliver to Macao Carista, he wrote.

They found an inner office occupied by a Goompah who seemed to have some authority. He was installed behind a table, talking earnestly to an aide, describing how he wanted the auditorium set up for that evening’s performance. They were staging a show titled Wamba, which rang no bells for Digger.

Shutters were closed against the cool air. A pile of rugs was pushed against one wall, and a fire burned cheerfully in a stove. A pipe took the smoke out of the building.

While the Goompahs were engaged in their conversation, Digger moved to the side of the table, keeping the cylinder inside his vest, where it remained invisible.

“Up there, Grogan,” said the Goompah behind the desk.

Grogan? Another peculiar name for a native. Kellie snickered. The sound was loud enough to escape the damping effect of the suit and attract the attention of the Goompahs. Puzzled, they looked around while she held one hand over her mouth, trying to suppress a further onset. Grogan. Digger, watching her, felt a convulsion of his own coming on. He fought it down and took advantage of the distraction to slip the tube onto the table, along with three of the coins he’d taken. With luck, it would look like a piece of outgoing mail.

“It must have been the fire,” said Grogan.

The one behind the table scratched his right ear. “Sounded like a chakul,” he said.

That brought a second round of snorts and giggles from the corridor, where Kellie had retreated. Digger barely made it out of the office himself before exploding with laughter. They hurried through the nearest doorway into the street, and let go. A few passersby looked curiously in their direction.

“This being invisible,” said Digger, when he could calm down, “isn’t as easy as it’s supposed to be.”

WITH JACK’S DEATH, they’d shed the policy of not splitting up. Their increasing familiarity with the cities of the Intigo might have caused them to become careless, but Kellie had pointed out that they had commlinks, that if either of them got into trouble, help was always nearby.

So they divided forces. Digger would stay near the office, watching to see what happened to the message they’d left, while Kellie would post another one at a second likely location. Eventually, they hoped, one or the other would get delivered.

But the prospect of hanging around the nearly empty building all day did nothing for his state of mind.

When she’d left, and he’d gone back inside, he saw that the coins had vanished and the message had been moved to the edge of the table. That was encouraging. But the cylinder remained untouched through the balance of the morning, and he began to wonder whether he should have marked it URGENT.

There were several other visitors, including a female who exchanged sexual signals with the office occupant and then, to Digger’s horror, closed the door and proceeded to engage him in a sexual liaison. All this occurred despite the fact there were others immediately outside who could not possibly have misunderstood what was happening.

Digger, unhappily, was forced to watch.

There was much gasping, clutching, and slobbering. Clothes went every which way, and the combatants moaned and laughed and sighed. There were protestations of affection, and when, midway through the proceedings, somebody knocked, the manager politely told him to come back later.

When it was over, and the female gone, the message remained. The occupant of the office, whose name Digger now knew to be Kali—unless Kali was a derivative of lover or darling—threw some wood on the fire and settled back to his paperwork.

Digger opened a channel to Kellie and told her what had happened. “Valor above and beyond,” she said.

She had planted her message, she told him, only to see it get tossed aside. She’d recovered it, and the coins, and had gone to a third location.

Kali left several times to wander through the building. Digger stayed with the cylinder, and was leaning against the wall, bored, when Kellie called to say her message was on the move.

“I’ll let you know what happens,” she reported. “Meantime I think you should stay put.”

Kali came back and went out again. Kellie was by then following the messenger, who’d been given one of the three coins. “I guess we overtipped,” she said.

“Crossing the park. Headed north.

“Messenger’s a female. Really moves along. I’m having all I can do to stay up with her.

“Threatening rain.

“Uh-oh.”

Digger was watching Kali trying to stay awake. “What do you mean ‘uh-oh’?”

“She’s gone into a stable. Talking to somebody.”

One of the workers came in and began straightening up the office, working around Kali. Digger waited in the corridor, but he kept an eye on the cylinder.

“Digger, they’re bringing out a berba. One of those fat horses.

“She’s getting on.”

“The messenger?”

“Yes. And there she goes, trotting off into the park. Bye-bye.”

“How about grabbing one of the critters for yourself?”

“You think anybody would notice?”

Digger had a vision of a riderless berba galloping through the park. “I don’t know.”

“Believe me, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“If you can keep the animal in sight, Kellie, I’ll try to have Bill follow her.”

“The park is the one immediately west of where you are. She’s headed north.”

“Okay. Hang on. I’ve got a channel open to Bill now.”

Bill acknowledged his instructions. Meanwhile, the cleaning person finished up and left. It was a perfunctory effort. Kali never stirred.

Bill was on the circuit to Kellie: “Can you describe the animal?”

“It’s got big jaws. It waddles when it runs. And it looks like all the rest of them.”

“Color. What color is it? There are a lot of Goompahs down there riding around.”

“Green. It was green. With a big white splash across its rear end.”

“Wait one.”

Kali shook himself awake, wandered outside, looked at the sundial that dominated the area in front of the main entrance, and came back in.

“I can’t find the animal,” said Bill.

“Damn.”

“I need more information. Several of them look like the one you describe. How about the messenger? Any distinguishing characteristics?”

“She’s a Goompah.”

“Good. Anything else? What color’s her jacket? Her leggings?”

“White. White jacket. No, wait. Yellow. I think it was yellow.”

“Leggings?”

“White.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” But she’d hesitated.

BILL INSISTED THERE was no rider wearing yellow and white atop a beast of the description Kellie had given. But it didn’t matter. Near the end of the afternoon, Kali bundled up the cylinder with some other papers, glanced curiously at it, shrugged, picked up a bell to summon an assistant, and handed him everything. The assistant made a further distribution. The cylinder and a couple of other items ended in the hands of a young Goompah with a bright red hat.

Digger, having learned from Kellie’s mistake, noted his clothing, noted also that Kali kept the three coins, and followed the creature out of the building.

“Mine’s on the way,” he reported. The big items in the description were the red hat and a violently clashing purple scarf, a combination that should be easily visible to the naked eye from orbit.

The messenger stopped for a cup of the heated brew that passed locally for tea. He engaged in a loud conversation with a couple of others. He wasn’t anxious to go home, he told them. His mate, wife, zilfa, was still angry. They laughed and took turns offering advice on how he should handle it. One of the comments translated roughly to “Show her who’s boss.” When he’d finished, they agreed to meet tomorrow, and he picked up his deliveries and headed across the street into a stable. Minutes later, he saddled up and headed north.

“I’ve got him,” said Bill.

MACAO LIVED IN a brick cottage on the northern side of the city. It was a long walk, mostly uphill, and they were exhausted when they arrived. By then, Bill reported, the cylinder had been delivered.

The cottage was one of several set at the edge of a dense forest. There was a small barn in the rear, and a modest garden probably given over to raising vegetables. The sun was down, and the first stars were in the sky. An oil lamp flickered through closed, but imperfectly fitted, shutters. Black smoke rose out of a chimney.

Something yowled as they approached, but nothing challenged them. A gentle wind moved against the trees. They heard voices farther along the crest, sporadic, sometimes laughing or shouting. Digger could make out only part of it. “Kids,” he said.

Goompah kids.

They paused under a tree facing the house. Something moved against the light.

“I think it should be just one of us,” said Digger.

Kellie agreed. “Has to be you,” she added.

“My personality?”

“Right. Also your language skills.” He felt her hand on his wrist, restraining him. “Maybe you should kill the lightbender.”

Digger took a deep breath and thought of the demonic, foul creatures being dispatched by the god with the sword. They all looked like him and Kellie. So how best approach her? Demon or disembodied voice?

He turned off the device. “I don’t look so terrible, do I?”

“You look ravishing, love.”

“All right. Let’s try it this way. She is, after all, enlightened.”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Can’t go wrong.” He walked up to the front door, which was a bit low for him. It was constructed of planks laid side by side, painted white, and polished with a gum of some sort. “First contact,” he told Kellie. And he knocked.

“Who’s there?” He recognized Macao’s voice.