The Ship Errant

Chapter Four

For an interminable third day, Keff sat crosslegged on the floor of the Cridi assembly hall. He sat with his chin braced on one palm, elbow on knee, his wrist held to one side so Carialle could see everything that was going on from the miniaturized video pickup on his shirt front.

"Another day of flapping lips and hands in the Main Bog," Keff murmured behind his hand. "I feel like Gulliver in Lilliput."

The humidity was so uncomfortable that in direct countermand of orders from Central Worlds, Keff had stopped wearing uniforms. Instead, he was clad in his least disreputable exercise clothes, fabric made for sweating in. His hair had wound itself into curls, as it always did when it was damp, and he smelled musty. No one else seemed to notice the odor; perhaps his hosts simply couldn't distinguish it in the swamp miasma that hung over everything on this soggy world. Nor did the Cridi pay any attention to the drops running down his face. Like Tall Eyebrow and the others in the ship, some of them made a practice of wearing a film of water to keep their delicate skins from drying out. Others just counted on the ambient humidity, which, Keff thought, was more than sufficient.

The room's decor reflected the possibility of wet delegates. The ceiling rolled back as easily to allow a passing downpour into the chamber as the view of a sunset or a rainbow. Low, comfortable seats shaped for either sitting upright, crouching, or lounging had soft, water-repellent covers; bright white light came from thick, enclosed bubbles hanging overhead; wooden tables were sealed in plastic, or perhaps made of a naturally resinous wood-Keff hadn't had a chance yet to examine one closely. Every time he approached a sitting group, perforce on hands and knees in the low-ceilinged room, stone-faced security frogs came out of the woodwork and herded him back to his spot.

"At least they're allowing you to stay," Carialle said. "It's a foot in the door. You could be stuck out here with me, watching the swamp gurgle, and listening to the security guards babble formulae at each other."

"I'm getting no forrader in advancing the cause of the Central Worlds," Keff said, forlornly watching Tall Eyebrow and the others, separated among three huge groups of Cridi, answering questions. Long Hand was perched in one of the chairs, waving her hands to get the attention of a pair of natives who were squabbling in high-pitched voices. "All during that muddy tour yesterday and the day before, I kept trying to tell them about the Central Worlds, but Big Voice over there kept saying the conclave hadn't yet discussed whether to allow input from an outworlder that would result in any kind of social engineering, when they've never met an outworlder before. Once they've discussed the topic, we have to wait until they've had input from every other city on the planet before proceeding. The final decision rests with the Council of Eight. I'm not allowed to influence anyone, particularly not with the fact of my being an alien. It's a bureaucracy. Our mission, to encounter strange new holdups and fascinating new ways to tie red tape where no frog has gone before."

"Isn't anyone talking to you?"

"Oh, yes, on and off, but more out of curiosity than diplomatic interest. I think," Keff said, smiling and making a seated bow to a passing delegate, "I'm serving a function all the same. The Cridi are learning not to be afraid of us. That's good. If they see me as a clown, I just have to coddle my own ego. The problem is they treat me rather like a talking dog, a non-sentient that is a wonder because it can pronounce recognizable words. I would be most concerned that they wouldn't take the Central Worlds seriously enough. There's no future alliance possible without respect."

"Respect comes with knowledge. They are getting used to you. They've never seen anything like you-or me. As with humans, it sounds like they've run into very few, if any, sentient species beside their own. It would be like one of their dogs starting to talk, if they have dogs. So far I've only seen those blobbies and lizardings they keep for pets. In time, they'll get used to the idea that you do think for yourself. Be thankful that they don't think you're a monster. I was a little worried after that first group took off screaming. They could have burned out Frankenstein and his castle with Core power."

"So they could." Keff shifted uncomfortably, pulling the folds of his sweatshirt away from his back. "I'd just prefer to be in the midst of things instead of merely observing. It looks like Tall Eyebrow could use my help." He glanced over at the group surrounding the Ozranian Frog Prince.

"Tch, greedy. Look, they're friendly. You're getting an unprecedented privilege to have the first peep at an entirely new world, something anyone in Xeno would kill for."

Keff brightened, sitting up straighter, ignoring the smell and the sog. "That's true. Alien Outreach chose us. It's us, partner, first and foremost, no matter what. I want to see everything. And I need to look sharp. I keep missing details."

"Well, that's what I'm here for," Carialle said complacently. "My drives haven't stopped humming for the last eighty hours. Just ask your friendly neighborhood shellperson for a free, money-back guaranteed review."

Keff grinned. "If only it was that easy. It has to be in my head, too. I wish I had extended memory banks." There was so much that was different in the way the Cridi lived on their homeworld than on Ozran. Isolated as he was, he felt as if he was only one more fact away from sensory overload.

At first he had wondered if the Cridian amphibioids had abandoned their amulet power system, since no amulets were in evidence. Carialle had been the first to point out the circuits, like fine gold filigree, that were either worn on, or bonded to the ends of the Cridi's long fingers. It was a tremendous advancement in the technology. To access Core power, the user merely positioned his or her hand, as if inserting the fingertips into the niches on a device, the way humans would use a virtual-reality glove, and they were in touch, so to speak, with the Core. Keff knew that Tall Eyebrow and the other Ozranian visitors were uncomfortable using their antique amulets in front of the homeworlders, but he'd assured them that they should be proud to display them, as symbols, if nothing else. The amulets represented hard-won equality after years of deprivation. Besides, their race had a natural prediliction for telekinesis, unlike their newfound allies, the humans. That was an advantage that no archaic equipment could devalue. It didn't dispel the Ozranians' discomfort entirely, but it helped. Keff would have given anything to be able to use an amulet, archaic or no, to be dry just for an hour. His boots were beginning to smell moldy. He considered hiking back to the ship through the rain to get a pair of sandals.

Carialle broke into his reverie.

"Oh, look. Company's coming. One of the 'eight great.' "

Keff glanced up. One of the dignitaries from the Cridi delegation made her way through the crowd and stopped before Keff. She wore a red cloak that was secured at her throat and wrists with gold bands instead of the silver bangles she had worn to meet the ship. Keff guessed from his limited knowledge of Cridi biology that she was fairly young, but still considered an adult. He tried to straighten the crumples out of his shirt.

The hands moved swiftly. "Can your mind reach me?"

Keff responded, "I sign your language, gentle-female."

She gestured a little impatiently. "Why you here?"

"To make a bridge between your world and ours. To make friends with another race who has its own science, its own space system. We have met many new peoples, but have always had to help them develop…"

He would have gone on, but he sensed that the female was getting bored. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Too long," she replied, emphatically. "Old. Like three." She swung around to point at the Ozranian delegates in turn, lingering briefly on Tall Eyebrow. She turned again and fixed her beady gaze on him. "Old."

"Old? How would she know how old I…" Keff repeated, bewildered, then was enlightened. "Ah! You mean the language we are using is old. Antiquated." The concept was just out of the reach of his Cridi hand-vocabulary, so he had to reach for it. Encouragingly, the female frog watched him struggle with his explanation, nodding when he made sense to her. "We sound like ancestors to you?"

She tipped her little face up and stretched her neck slightly three times, like she was bobbing her head against something from underneath.

"Yes."

"Whew! So that's the problem," Keff said, running his hand back through his hair, and remembering just in time that the gesture wasn't going to offend the Cridi, having a neutral meaning like "low ceiling." "Hey, Cari, that's wonderful!"

"Ah," she said, sardonically. "You're not a monster. You're just dull."

"Yes, but think of it. This would be just the same as if I went back to Old Earth and addressed them in Latin. But you see," he continued, dropping back into Cridi for the female, "that is what I learned from Tall Eyebrow, and his society has had none of the global changes of your people. You must help us to learn the new way of speaking. We are willing."

His visitor launched into a flurry of hand signals that Keff could tell had been abbreviated from the ones he knew, plus complicated overtones in the language of science. He was glad he'd learned the long form first, or he'd never have recognized some of the subtleties. He prayed that his translation program was picking up all of her spoken words. Later he'd commune with the Intentional Translator and see what it would make of all the murmurs, squeaks, chirps and trills.

"Ah. See," she signed in her clipped style. The trills translated to a formula for condensing large numbers into small. "I apologize, but it boring watch the long forms. That is why none speaks you."

"That tells me something," Carialle said quietly in his ear. "It means that the Cridi weren't as dependent upon the power controller system when TE's progenitors left for Ozran. Otherwise they'd have had more voice and less hands then, too, the easier to communicate over remote frequencies. I predict that in another thousand years their language will be all verbal. Hand-sign will just be a topic for some doctoral dissertation."

"I'd love to take you up on a bet, Lady Fair," Keff said, wryly. "You'll just have to remember to check in another millenium for me."

"Ah, Sir Knight, I shall." Carialle's voice was tender.

"Who speak to?" Big Eyes asked.

"To Carialle," he said. "She's my partner. She lives in the ship that brought us here."

"Curious," she said. "Have scanned. Life support absolute?"

"Yes. Very efficient, too."

"Interested in engineering. Degreed."

"Really? What branch?" Keff was starting to get the hang of her abbreviated conversation.

"Aerospace," said her hands, and she added a long vocal trill. IT translated it as a complex navigation formula.

"There's luck," Carialle said in Keff's ear.

"I'll say. You must be the person we've been waiting for. Tell me about Cridi's space program," Keff said eagerly. Big Eyes waved away his request nonchalantly.

"None talk right now," she said.

"Won't she talk about it, or isn't there anything going on?" Carialle asked.

"I don't know," Keff said. "Listen to IT babbling about two potential meanings. Could it be another one of those 'don't tell the alien' subjects?" He broached this suggestion gently to Big Eyes, who openly ignored the question. In fact, she seemed impatient.

"Not now. I worst tell. Father. Much else to see now I know." She pointed at Long Hand, who was giving a dissertation on the farming techniques used on Ozran. "Observe. You asked. I help. Cut middles," she signed to him, lifting an imaginary section out of something with her flattened hands held parallel. Big Eyes repeated key phrases with sign language, and interspersed them with verbal signs that tightened up the long strings of symbolism to the few necessary. Keff had thought the Ozranian version of Cridi sign language was terse and to the point. Big Eyes reduced it still further, to the essence of meaning.

"Very efficient," Keff said, trying to match her gestures. "Cari, I can reprogram IT to give me two choices of expression-dialects, if you will, depending on which planet I'm on, Cridi or Ozran. This is worth at least one paper for Scientific Galactican or Linguistics Today."

"If Xeno will let you declassify this data so soon. Remember we're the diplomatic advance scout. You'll probably have to teach the combination languages to the reps yet to come."

"All part of the service." He glanced over at Tall Eyebrow again, who was trying to answer questions from three delegates at once, all of whom were clamoring for his sole attention. "He looks as confused as I feel." He turned to Big Eyes. "Excuse me. Talk to my friend."

"Stay," she said, with an urgent gesture and a high-pitched peep that indicated an exponent of urgency. "Elders."

Keff looked around. Two more of the eight, Smooth Hand and Big Voice, were making their way toward him, followed by the usual entourage of aides and flunkeys. Like Big Eyes, they wore modified capes of various colors and lengths attached at throat and wrists.

"You are here already," Smooth Hand said to Big Eyes. "Have you broached discussion with him yet?"

"No," Big Eyes said briefly. "We acquaint."

"Good," Smooth Hand signed. "Here are six of the eight members of the conclave council representatives, so our discussion may be of significance."

"Now's your big chance to impress them," Carialle said.

"Maybe they've made a decision on joining Central Worlds," Keff said, wishing he'd sacrificed comfort for dignity and worn the uniform after all. "How serve, gentle-ones?" he asked, keeping the signs as short as he could. The young female up-nodded encouragingly toward him.

Always a quick study, but unwilling to sacrifice courtesy for speed, Keff tried to incorporate his new friend's lessons in his handspeech. Working from discussions he had had with Tall Eyebrow about traditional protocol, he gave Smooth Hand the respect due the oldest member of the conclave, then greeted the others, ending with Big Eyes. She gave him a quick gesture of approval with joined thumb and long forefinger.

"That was a hash," Keff murmured to Carialle without moving his lips. "The Minute Waltz in eight seconds."

"Looked fine from here," Carialle said. "And they seem happy."

"In return," Smooth Hand said, "we greet you." Keff bowed his head as deeply as he could, and waited.

As usual, Big Voice took the lead in the discussion. The stout amphibioid pushed forward to the center of the group and glared at Keff, who glanced at Smooth Hand for direction. Instead of attempting to overbear the pompous councillor, the old one stood back with an air of indulgence. Keff assumed an air of respectful attention that made Big Eyes's eponymous features twinkle with amusement. Big Voice began his dissertation with exaggerated movements of his elbows designed to clear away anyone standing within half a meter of him. Everyone edged away. Keff carefully pulled in his knees.

"Stranger to this world, we are grateful that you return to us lost descendants of our ancestors," Big Voice gestured hugely. "From the far reaches of the void they come, never thought to have been seen again…" The language of diplomacy appeared to be rooted in both the new and old forms, comprising more sign than was used by Big Eyes-which bored her and the other young members of the council-and more verbiage than Keff's version, which confused the brawn. Keff paused and nodded and smiled in between the flowery statements, waiting for IT to cycle back translations to him utilizing the growing catalog it was picking up of the spoken language. Keff hoped that he would look thoughtful, rather than lost. His brief and polite replies, made when Big Voice stopped for breath, seemed to please his audience.

"… And that is how our cousins' journey ended, here on beautiful Cridi."

"We are grateful for your welcome of us."

"You say that you did not know of the Cridi who inhabited Sky Clear?"

"No," Keff said. "We had lost track of some of our own people many hundreds of years ago. They settled on, er, Sky Clear, and thereafter dropped out of communication with us. As it was with your ancestors."

"So, they have been self-governing all this time?" Big Voice asked. "Without the approval of your Central Worlds?"

"Well, not without the approval of the government, but certainly without its knowledge. We lost touch, you see." Keff tried the phrase a couple of ways and hoped they understood.

"So, it is not your Central Worlds who holds the half of Sky Clear?" Big Voice asked.

"Not precisely," Keff said carefully, settling in for a long explanation. "Our people, descendants of my ancestors who set out many hundreds of years ago, settled the world alongside yours. To encounter them, we-and they-were as surprised to see one another as you are to meet Tall Eyebrow and his companions."

"But they did not set down upon this world at the same time, nor before the Cridi?"

"He's going somewhere," Carialle said, in between sound bites from IT in Keff's aural implant. "I don't like what I think he's getting at."

"Neither do I. Not to my knowledge," Keff said out loud, sensing he was treading on tricky ground. "The humans who live on Oz-Sky Clear were not as good recordkeepers as the Cridi." Mentally he crossed his fingers, knowing he was eliding the truth. The early settlers had kept good tape archives of their settlement, and none of it included references to the Cridi except as a curious life-form they thought was indigenous to Ozran.

"Are we to understand that you came to our world only to convey our lost children?" Smooth Hand inquired, interrupting Big Voice by standing in front of him.

Keff was grateful to have a respite from Big Voice's pointed questioning. "That and to ask your people to join the great conclave of planets and beings we call the Central Worlds." Keff had worked out a set of handsigns he found symbolic of those concepts of unity and cooperation. The elder picked it up without a demur, and repeated it to the others. "This organization boasts members from many species besides humanity. We are proud of our diversity. I am instructed to convey the compliments of our government and say that they, and we, would be delighted if you would join."

"Beginning to think no intelligent life existed outside our own," Smooth Hand said, with dry humor. "How many are there?"

"Thousands of inhabited planets, hundreds of intelligent species with uncounted subgroups, millions of non-sentient protected species in various stages of development," Keff said, hoping he was placing the exponents correctly in his voiced phrases.

"Most impressive," Smooth Hand gestured, thoughtfully.

The other councillors chattered formulae at one another, speculating on the size of Central Worlds' sphere. Keff waved politely for attention.

"I can give you star charts, if you want."

"Yes! Occasional talk of ships passing through our system," Big Eyes said, describing the decline of an arc across the sky. "Believed to be myths. Not know. You?"

"Maybe," Keff said. "Maybe another race. There are countless others out there that we've never met. You might even have neighbors and not know it."

"Maybe the salvage squad," Carialle sputtered in his ear.

"Not in system," Big Voice protested. "That known of old."

"Meteors or myths," the elder said, indulgently. "If not myths, why not land before now? Why were they not curious? All ground control has ever retrieved is rocks. Fly-by saucers are mythical. System has very strange and strong anomalies."

"You can say that again," Carialle said. "That trash heap at the binary end of the heliopause, whew!"

"Shh, Cari," Keff said softly, nodding and smiling at the delegates.

Big Voice hovered above everyone's head and waved for attention. "The presence of so many other worlds containing humans shall then pose no difficulty in moving those off Sky Clear in favor of Cridi."

"Aha!" Carialle said.

"What?" Keff sputtered. "This is a long-established society, sir. It might have been different if you had made such a demand within say, three years of the discovery. Not after a thousand years. That's like saying that dinosaurs have a permanent claim on Burbank, California, on Old Earth just because some of their relatives are buried in the La Brea tar pits."

Big Voice paid no attention to his simile.

"Yes, after a thousand years. If you want the approval of the conclave to join your Central Worlds, you will cede Sky Clear to the Cridi. We have prior landing rights. You have said so yourself." Keff wouldn't have believed it, but Big Voice's shrill cheeping did manage to sound menacing. Two of the six council members present, and a few among the entourage bobbed up their heads in agreement.

"That's blackmail," Carialle said. "I wonder how much power he really holds in the conclave. Smooth Hand looks a little shocked at the tactics."

"We can't afford to find out," Keff said sublingually. "If, good sir, you would care to examine the records, you would see that when humans landed on Ozran-or Sky Clear, if you prefer," he corrected himself, seeing that Big Voice was swelling fit to pop, "they were unaware of the presence of the Cridi, owing to the subterfuge of the Others. See here. Do not ask only me. Tall Eyebrow himself will explain that the current generation of Cridi have no objections to sharing the planet with humans. Small Spot is the archivist. He can direct you to the correct records."

Another male, wearing a green cape, pushed forward to get the conclave council's attention. "I withhold approval because I still do not believe in this story of a lost colony. These three Cridi must come from another part of our own world. This is a hoax. A ship built in secret." A chorus of agreement, plus wild signing came from a portion of the group, obviously this male's supporters.

"Uh-oh," Carialle said. "Shades of Ozran."

"Snap Fingers, your data is faulty," Smooth Hand said patiently, shaking his head.

"I would suggest," Keff signed patiently, "that the internal evidence in the archives, added to the fact that we humans are here with the Sky Clear delegation, will prove otherwise."

"Fabricated!"

"But the aliens…?" Smooth Hand began, with a glance at Keff.

"Random chance met!"

"But where?' Big Eyes asked, innocently, "when no whole ship has come in or out of atmosphere for fifty years?"

Big Voice glared fiercely at her.

"Fifty years?" Carialle repeated. "Why hasn't their space program been active for fifty years?"

Keff tried to interrupt the argument to ask, but no one was paying attention to him. The air was full of Cridi. The male in the green cape tapped Smooth Hand's shoulder and flung angry gestures in the old one's face. Big Voice addressed Big Eyes and Snap Fingers alternately, spinning to confront each of them in turn. Creaking broke out all over, making the group sound like a marsh pond in mating season. In spite of the seriousness of the subject, Keff had to try hard not to smile. He hoped fervently that the recording mechanism in IT would be able to distinguish between thirty different Cridi voices when it tried to translate this mess.

Big Voice interrupted with a shrill whistle ordering them to diminish volume. "No decision can be made now! It will take much time for all the archives to be read," he signed.

"Then, please read them," Keff said, sitting up very tall so they had to look up at him. "No decision of any importance should be made in haste."

There was general approval for such a wise suggestion. Big Voice looked upset, as if Keff had stolen his thunder by being reasonable. "We shall read them, you may be assured," he signed, his face grim. "In the meantime, no assurances can be made for or against membership. I shall withhold approval until then myself."

"As you will, gentle-male," Keff said, describing a sitting bow with the flourishes born of long practice.

"Whew!" said Carialle. "At once thrust into the fire and pulled out of it again by the same frog."

"Hot air," signed Big Eyes, merrily. "I am in favor of membership. Many advantages."

"Brash youngster," Smooth Hand said fondly. "Do not decide without all facts."

"Facts dull," Big Eyes said. "Still, should like to see Ozran." She glanced over toward Tall Eyebrow with an approving look. Keff made a mental note to mention the young female's interest to his friend. Then she stood up on her toes and whistled a shrill signal as a tall, thin frog with a mottled skin of a pleasant brownish green entered the big chamber. Keff could tell that he was very old, but he still walked upright. He saw Big Eyes and waved back.

"My father," Big Eyes signed, as the male joined the group. "Narrow Leg I, seventh offspring," Big Eyes offered, presenting the human and the Cridi to one another.

"Seventieth?" Keff asked, singing the number carefully in the highest voice he could muster.

"No," she gestured, and repeated the fluting snatch of song, making sure he saw and heard no decimal multiplier.

"Oops!" Keff exclaimed. "This is an old, thin lad, Big Eyes' dad," he said, playfully to Carialle, noticing the twinkle in the elderly Cridi's eye and deciding at once that he liked him. "No, tad. Tad Pole."

"Oh, Keff," Carialle groaned. Keff snickered. Big Eyes explained Keff to her father with a few gestures, then turned to the human.

"Narrow Leg is head of current space program. Answer questions."

"At last," Keff said, happily. "How do you do, sir?"

"Pleased to meet you," said Narrow Leg. "Wanting to converse on spaceships." He described with a few graceful signs the contours of craft much like Carialle's. Keff stared. Even for a race that had unusually large and long hands, Tad Pole's were extraordinary. When his hand was closed the tips of the fingers seemed to reach partway down the wrist. The gold filigree amulet circuitry looked like an ancient Chinese aristocrat's fingernail stalls. "May I hope for some increment of your time?"

"At some point, I would love to compare our programs with yours," Keff said. "I expect that we'll be discussing the possibility of Cridi joining the Central Worlds for a while longer."

"Ah!" Narrow Leg squeaked. "A unity of many peoples. Will there be a vote?" he asked the councillors.

"No. Nothing will be settled today," Smooth Hand signed.

"Why not?" Narrow Leg asked.

His daughter made an impatient gesture. "They say reading of archives takes time, then the conclave must discuss everything to death. We and Keff shall be hauled back here again and again. Negotiations held up because there are factions who don't believe Tall Eyebrow and Keff are who they say they are. non-ex-planetary."

"Nonsense!" Narrow Leg gestured definitely. "Of course they are! To what purpose, to what end to create an elaborate charade of this nature? Do you think such a creature as this," he indicated Keff, "arose from primordial ooze without us noticing? He is from beyond atmosphere, and, if you will believe your beacons-and you should-from beyond our system. Human," he turned to the brawn. "Will you take me to your spaceship? I would like to see it."

"I should be honored, gentle-male," Keff replied.

"Bring him," Carialle said. "He's one of the few so far who is making sense."

"And my partner will welcome you, also," Keff added. Narrow Leg looked gratified.

"Not settled yet the questioning about sharing Sky Clear," Big Voice interrupted with an alarming shriek meant to regain the floor. "Do you not realize the offense given by involuntary sharing of Sky Clear?"

"Offense?" Keff asked. "Hadn't you better ask Tall Eyebrow about the cooperative colony? Right now humans and Cridi are coexisting rather well. And without much consultation you could abort an experiment that has the possibility of breaking new ground in interspecies cooperation."

Big Voice wasn't interested. "We explored that sector. It is the first of our colonies we have heard from for fifty years. We want it to revert to Cridi, with no interference."

"Fifty years again," Carialle said urgently. "Ask why it's been so long since there's been contact outside the system."

"Yes," said Keff. "Why isn't space program running?"

All the elders except Narrow Leg turned to glare at Big Eyes.

"I have told nothing," she signed indignantly. "He is not stupid. He sees negative indications."

Smooth Hand shook his head, and turned to Keff. "Too many problems, too little funding."

"Too many natural resources are used up," Snap Fingers added. "We have few heavy metals. Send to colonies in centuries past, get no return." He chattered a complex series of descending notes which Keff didn't need IT's help to translate as a losing program. There were outcries of protest, and the brawn kept turning his head to see everyone who wanted his attention.

"Don't think of it in terms of immediate return," Tad Pole complained, pursing his wide lips distastefully. He turned to the crowd. "See here, my friends, you have no respect for the world as it was fifty years ago, when we had a working program. You're ignorant of your own history. So many strides forward were made as a result over hundreds of years of space study! You forget your past!"

"You do not look to the real future! Program failed. Bad use of funds, of the best minds!" signed Snap Fingers. "I and other members of Cridi Inward see no reason to continue burying good food under the swamp. It's a waste of time. Equipment doesn't work properly."

Big Voice took immediate umbrage. "The equipment is properly made and maintained!"

"Well, we keep seeing anomalies on scopes, like other spacecraft," Snap Fingers said, seeing that he had offended the blustering councillor.

"Well, now we know that those could be true," Smooth Hand signed, with a polite nod to Keff.

"That is true. Yet it does not change facts." With less bombastic gestures, Snap Fingers continued. "Our economy could not support any more failures."

"Yes!" Smooth Hand said. "We would like to recoup losses from space program."

"And that is why laying sole claim to Sky Clear is important to Big Voice," Narrow Leg's daughter said, making a distasteful moue. Big Voice emitted his shriek of protest once again, this time with a five-times multiplier attached. Keff winced.

"There is nothing wrong with honest profit!" Big Voice said.

"If profit does not come at the expense of lives," Snap Fingers retorted.

"Gentles, gentles," Keff said, and held up his hands, "please. Facts? I know nothing of your recent history."

Through the confused mixture of Cridi music and gesture, Keff managed to discover that the last successful launch of a spacecraft had been fifty years past. Several tries had been made thereafter, but no vehicle had managed to clear the system since then.

"Have received no messages, no artifacts from other colonies," Narrow Leg added, spreading his hands at shoulder level. "Abandoned? Destroyed? Technological setbacks like Sky Clear? We do not know."

"Three launches, three expensive disasters," indicated Snap Fingers. "I blame the equipment."

"As do I," Narrow Leg said.

"No," Big Voice said emphatically. "Not in the last one! It must be because of radiation or ion storms or some unknown natural menace!"

Narrow Leg turned to Keff. "Our space program is crippled. There is something wrong with the drives, or the shielding, that it cannot carry a craft swiftly enough out of the way of space storms, or protect them well. Once out of range of the Core of Cridi, have to rely upon actual machinery, and it has been shoddy."

"How dare you?" Big Voice demanded, embarrassed.

Narrow Leg pointedly turned his back on the other. "The technicians who built can ignore small faults, like badly fitting seals or insufficiently tightened components. Astronauts don't know about them, can't guard using their own devices because range of power is limited to atmosphere of Cridi. Fault-boom! Again and again, just out of atmosphere."

"Storms have become more virulent," Snap Fingers said. "Can we trade with the humans for better technology? We have much to offer."

"There is nothing wrong with the technology!" Big Voice said furiously.

"No," Narrow Leg said, coolly, watching the yellow-brown Cridi swell until he looked as if he might pop. "Only with the construction management."

Keff, ever the diplomat, wanted to follow upon Snap Fingers's suggestion. This was much more of what he hoped would happen in council. "Yes, of course we'd be happy to offer machinery or advice, or whatever you need. I know we'd love to exchange goods and ideas with you. We are fascinated with your power control system. We've never seen anything like it. Our, er, brothers and sisters on Ozran have learned to use it, and I know our government has shown an interest in what we've told them."

"And you?" Big Eyes asked.

"Well, at present I can't use it," Keff said, trying to explain his lack of the necessary telekinetic spark.

"Modification?" One frog signed quickly to another. The topic spread around the room, even superseding the discussions in which the three Ozranians were involved.

The room filled with the cheeping of formulae and wild signing of hands.

"There is virtue in the notion of trade, Core technology for superior Central Worlds spacecraft," Smooth Hand said, stroking his jaw with his long fingers.

Big Voice protested once more, but his argument was losing ferocity as he was ignored by everyone around him. "No, not superior! I tell you, it is the ion storms!"

"Sounds unlikely to me," Carialle told Keff, after running her telemetry. "I didn't notice any undue amounts of radiation, or that much floating debris on the outskirts of this system. I'll contact Central Worlds about ion storms in this area. Warn the council I'm about to launch a message probe. Ask them to let it out of atmosphere. I don't want it returned to sender."

Keff conveyed Carialle's information. At once, there was a fresh flurry of argument, which Smooth Hand quickly put down.

"Of course you may communicate with your government," he said genially. "Convey our compliments, and thank them for their assistance."

Tad Pole perked up. "I should still like to witness the launch of your message rocket," he said. "In fact, may I not have a tour of your ship?"

"Tell him he's very welcome," Carialle said. "I'll tidy up. I might even bake a cake."

"I'll tell him," Keff said. "Cari, do you know what it means that the Cridi have lacked a space program for the last fifty years?"

"Yes," Carialle said with such gusto that Keff winced. "Nothing out of system in all that time. It means the Cridi weren't my salvage squad. I can't tell you how glad that makes me. That only leaves me wondering all the more who they were."

"Don't worry about that now, Cari. We're doing so well with the Cridi. Let's tackle one problem at a time. When this is all shipshape and Bristol fashion, to everyone's satisfaction, I still say we should go out looking for your boojums."

"You bet we will," Carialle said. "But I'm so relieved about the Cridi, I love them all, even that squeaking blowhard, Big Voice."

"I'll tell him so, although I don't think he'll appreciate your description very much."

"Well, think of some diplomatic way to tell him. I'm recording the message to CW now. See you in a few nanos."