Chapter 14

The reaction to his information was not exactly what he’d expected. If he didn’t know that the reply came from a personal representative of the Council of Eight he might have suspected that the individual was somehow in Loo-Macklin’s service.

They were resting in a comfortable room, which the university repository on Jurunquag had provided for its distinguished psychologist guest. Outside it was dark and wet, a lovely day. Inside, the bright sunshine of disbelief seemed to be burning Chaheel’s eyes.

“The Council simply doesn’t believe that there is anything sinister behind these revelations and suspicions of yours, Chaheel Riens.” The representative seemed bored and anxious to get away from the dour, moody scientist she’d been ordered to report on. She was a handsome female with eyes alive with iridescent green flecks and the flashes of purple light from her flesh were more frequent than most.

Though not mating season, Chaheel found her attractive. He would have been more than just professionally interested in her save for two preventatives: his hormone level would allow nothing beyond visual admiration and she was obviously uninterested in him.

Her attitude was making her rapidly less desirable anyway, even though she was only reporting the opinions of others.

“But don’t they see the connection?”

“They see no connection,” the representative replied coolly. “Lewmaklin the human remains a vital element in the overall Plan to subvert and control the sphere of worlds dominated by humankind. Perhaps, I was told, the most crucial element. No indication has he given us, truly, that there is any reason for us to doubt his sincerity.

“What you have given us,” she went on, forestalling Chaheel’s incipient protest, “is a tale founded on personal suspicions, an unhealthy position for a scientist to put himself in. It is known that you personally dislike and mistrust the man.”

Chaheel’s lids snapped half together. “Are you saying to me that I have been the subject of observation?”

“The Si are a prominent family because they have spent ten thousand years exemplifying the meaning of caution. Yes, you have been watched, Chaheel Riens.”

“And exactly what have my watchers decided?”

“That you are no less brilliant than ever, but that you have allowed your obsession with this particular human to cloud your judgments where he is involved. Your obsession has made you valuable because it has compelled you to work hard. Now, however, it has affected your professionalism.”

“Truly think they this?”

“Truly. Can you deny it?”

“I am obsessed by nothing and no one. Certainly not a mere human. This Lewmaklin is, as you say, vital to the future plans of the Families. He is an interesting specimen. I would hardly call my interest an obsession, and while I truly suspect the human’s motives, because I cannot puzzle out his motivations, I do not hold personal dislike for him.”

“That is not the opinion of others.” She seemed to soften slightly. “I am not privy to the details of the case, of course.

“We digress. The facts are these, as I am aware of them. Twenty years ago one of this human’s exploration vessels contacts an alien race of new type. Two years ago the commander of your support vessel intercepts and descrambles a communication between an alien and this Lewmaklin. The communication takes place on an unused frequency and via a beam also of new type.

“One: we have no proof the aliens of twenty years ago and those the human talked with two years ago are the same. Two: as long as the lehl functions, and periodic checks indicate it is healthy and intact, we have no reason to suspect Lewmaklin’s intentions. We have only your word that his minions attempted to harm or restrain you.”

“If the Council doubts my word …” he began furiously.

“Not your word, truly,” she said calmingly, “but your motivation. Much as you doubt this Lewmaklin’s motivations. It is not enough, psychologist. Do you not see that?”

“Of sight speaking,” Chaheel said tiredly, “doesn’t anyone see that if Lewmaklin is running a lucrative and secret trade with these Tremovan—for I am convinced they are the golden-scaled aliens of the intercepted communication—that there would be some evidence of ship movement in the region of space marked by the communications beam? And that the human’s business empire would show evidence of such trade in the form of large shipments of rare ores or new technology, or something? There is no hint that twenty years of secret commerce with a new race has been taking place!”

“Such trade could be small, difficult to detect signs of, and still quite valuable,” she argued. “Some trade in rare gems, for example, or in the tiny components of advanced intelligence machines. You would have to destroy expensive and bulky equipment to discover the latter.”

“In twenty years even gems or componentry would make itself known to the marketplace,” Chaheel shot back.

“Perhaps,” the representative suggested with infuriating indifference, “he is stockpiling them for saturation release at some still future time.”

“For twenty years? You do not understand this human. No one does. Not even I, who have studied him for years. That is not the manner in which he operates. He does not waste anything, least of all time. Certainly not twenty years.”

“Certain economists would regard such a stockpiling not as a waste of time but as a shrewd business move,” she told him confidently.

“Is it important enough to try and intercept me to prevent me from telling you all this?”

“Again, we have only your insistence that the humans were attempting to do so. You say that you observed a group of suspicious-looking humans waiting to assault you prior to your departure from Evenwaith. You say that because of this the captain of the starship on which you were traveling resisted your departure.

“Those humans, even if they were the type you believe, could have been waiting for someone else. They might have been Clurian police watching for a fleeing Evenwaith criminal. As to your starship captain’s reaction, it is only logical that he would be upset to have a booked passenger removed in midspace from his vessel. Particularly if that passenger was a member of an alien and sensitive race.”

“Rationalization!” Chaheel was surprised at the violence of his outburst. He was beginning to despair. “None of you sees what this human is up to. None of you want to see. He has made blind cave crawlers of you all!”

“Rationalization,” replied the government representative, unperturbed by the psychologist’s outburst, “is an excellent defining of your own theories. You have built implication of betrayal out of your own personal suspicions and deductions. Proof you have naught of. I begin to believe,” she added grimly, “that you are indeed obsessed with this human. Unhealthy are you, psychologist.”

All the resistance, the will to argue, went out of him.

“You don’t know of him, what he’s capable of. No one does.”

“Even admitting truth to all that you have declaimed,” she said placatingly, “what would that leave us with? You admit you’ve no idea what he ‘supposedly’ works with these Tremovan.”

“No,” said Chaheel exhaustedly, “I do not.”

“He provided you with a position close to his base of operations,” she went on, “openly and without concern for what you might discover. You had access to sensitive information. Are those the actions of one with much to hide?”

“He had no reason to suspect that I suspected his intentions,” Chaheel replied. “I expressed such misgivings once and he thoroughly disarmed me of them. Besides, by offering me a position near him, he could have his people keep an eye on me.”

“You say he disarmed your suspicions. Now you say they returned.”

“We must find out what business he has with these Tremovan! Twenty years, representative. Twenty years of secrecy.”

She rose on her cilia and prepared to depart. “Truly, Chaheel Riens, I would expect less hysteria from one of your learning and experience. Think a moment. Who has given us more reason to doubt his intentions? Lewmaklin … or yourself? You have worked long and hard for the Families, Chaheel Riens. Too long and too hard, perhaps. Too much time spent away from home, too much time living among bipeds. Time perhaps to be concerned about yourself and not aliens whose loyalty has been proven many times over.”

She left him, scuttling out through the diaphragm entryway.

Chaheel rested there, surrounded by all the comforts of a family world yet coldly terrified.

It was clear now, oh yes, quite truly clear. They didn’t want to think that Lewmaklin might be up to something. Didn’t want to believe the possibility that their valuable ally might be somewhat less loyal than he appeared to be.

As for myself, I am not obsessed. My decisions are reached on the basis of calm examination of the evidence. Admittedly much is based on personal experience, but that is what a psychologist must draw upon when hard facts are lacking. We interpret the subjective as well as the objective. If they insist on ignoring my findings. …

Lewmaklin, Lewmaklin. The name haunted … no, no, it did not haunt him! Was the representative right? Should he forget all about Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin, forget about secret intentions and deceptions?

He could not do that, any more than he could wipe his mind clean of all thoughts. Lewmaklin had wormed his way so deeply into Nuel society that he now had as many friends among the families as among his own kind.

Very well then, he thought, making a sudden decision. If the Council is not interested in my opinions then perhaps the Board of Operators on Terra may be. For it was evident that the human government was as ignorant of Lewmaklin’s association with these Tremovan as were the Nuel. And if men and Tremovan were locked together in some ploy, then possibly the death of one suspicious psychologist might alert one or two among the Si to probing a little deeper into the records he would carefully leave behind. He prepared himself for a return to the eighty-three worlds of the UTW. …

Loo-Macklin walked into the massive bedroom and studied the figure napping on the bed. The circular canopy was an imaginarium, a specially coated metallic cloth sensitive to the thoughts of anyone resting beneath it. It was activated by dreams as well as by conscious imaginings.

At the moment it was filled with stars, unreal constellations, the clusters too close to one another for astronomical veracity. He watched them for awhile, then moved close to the bed and whispered to the supple woman recumbent upon it.

“Tambu. Tambu, wake up.”

The woman stirred sleepily, rolled over, and stretched. Her tone was languorous. “Ah, lord and master of the big mouth. What is on your mind?”

He turned away from her. “I am about to embark on important work.”

She made a face. She believed that in knowing him she had softened him somewhat. That in coming to understand him a little she had made him more human. Not that they’d grown close. The true Him remained always hidden from her and she could not pry it open. But for her, at least, the marriage consummated in jest on Terra had become real. He might be distant, but he was kind.

She was about to learn how little she knew him.

“You woke me up to tell me that?”

“That and one other thing, Tambu. We are separating.”

Her inviting smile vanished. She seemed to age a dozen years in the space of a moment. The last star cluster flickered out overhead, leaving the marvelous canopy again only a sheet of silvery metal cloth, cold and empty. Cold and empty as the man hovering near her.

She sat up, propping herself with her hands and swinging her long legs over the side of the bed. “That’s not funny, Kees.”

“It’s not meant to amuse you.”

“You’re lying to me. Testing me for some reason. You’re always testing people, Kees.”

“Not you, Tambu. Not this time, anyway.”

“Then what the hell are you talking about?”

“We are separating. To go our different ways, proceed individually with our lives.”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t … what have I done?”

“You’ve done nothing … overtly. This is necessary.” His expression was grim. “You’re gaining control over me, Tambu. Long ago I vowed I would never, ever permit that. Would never let another being gain the slightest control over my life.”

“I’ve left you alone,” she argued. “I never questioned where you went or what you did, even when you were gone months at a time. I’ve followed your lead in everything because I saw instantly how important it was to you. How have I exerted the slightest control over you? I don’t understand.”

He continued looking away from her, though whether to spare himself or her she could not tell. “Tambu, I believe I may be falling in love with you.”

“Damn.” She sat there silently, beneath the unfocused canopy. A desire had come true, a feeble wish neared fulfillment. This grand, unknowable, empty man had warmed to her at last. Because of that it seemed she might lose him.

“Is that so terrible that you can’t cope with it? Can’t you survive with love as well as without it, Kees?”

He made a curt, angry gesture with one hand, slicing the air. “Love is the most powerful kind of control. I will not permit it anymore than I would any other form of control.”

“Kees, it’s not weak to love another.”

Now he turned to stare down at her, anguish mixing with determination in those penetrating blue eyes. “It is for me. Why do you think I’ve avoided children? Because that much love, that much control would ruin me forever.”

Her fingers moved aimlessly, entwining, relaxing. “I know that tone of voice. There’s nothing I can say to change your mind, is there?”

“No. I’m … sorry. This is my fault. I ought not to have done this to you.”

Her smile was crooked. “Done this to me? You flatter yourself. I did this to me. I accepted you, not the other way around. You were a challenge, Kees. I thought I saw something else, something more in you where others see only ruthlessness and ugliness. I guess I was wrong. Or else I failed. Either way, it seems that I’m destined to lose.”

“I’ll see that you’re amply provided for for the rest of your life.” This was making him more uncomfortable than he’d believed possible. End it now, he told himself.

She laughed at him. To his very considerable surprise, he discovered that it hurt.

“The marriage seemed advisable at the time,” he went on. “Certain important outside elements found it mollifying. And I was curious myself, never having tried it before. I did not expect … did not expect myself to be so threatened. It frightens me.”

“Kees, Kees.” She sighed tiredly. “Do you think that makes you unique?”

“That is part of the trouble, Tambu. I am unique.” He stated it flatly, without pride. “I will not risk all that I have done.”

“Of course you won’t. Since I can’t change your mind, I will abide by your wishes, Kees. Because you see, regardless of how you feel about me, I’ve come to love you.”

He started to comment, decided not to, and strode from the room. He did not look back.

Two weeks later the word arrived that Tambu Tabuhan Loo-Macklin had died on Terra, in her new crag house, of a carefully measured overdose of narcophene. Loo-Macklin accepted the information quietly and said nothing further about it to anyone, including Basright, though that sensitive old man noticed a slight slumping of his master’s shoulders from that day on.

He’s no normal man, the aged assistant thought. He’s not Nuel either. He’s made himself something else, something that partakes of both races and yet of something more than that. He’s a prisoner, a prisoner of himself, and I don’t know what he’s done it for, or what it is.

But he had a feeling he was soon to find out.

On Twelfth Day Eighth Month Loo-Macklin entertained a visitor. The man who was wheeled into the audience chamber overlooking the ocean was wasted away beyond reach of medication, withered beyond hope of transplant redemption. He breathed only with the assistance of a respirator, which forced air into his exhausted lungs. His eyes were glazed and dry.

He dismissed his two nurses and was left alone with Loo-Macklin. They chatted for a while, interrupted only by the rasping, hacking bouts which shook a once vital body.

Then the ancient visitor bid Loo-Macklin come near with a wave of one crooked, weak finger. Loo-Macklin politely bent over the bed, admiring the tenacity of purpose which had brought this man across the gulf between the worlds simply so that his curiosity might be satisfied.

“A long time have I watched you, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin. One last thing would I ask you.”

“If I’m able to answer I will, Counselor Momblent.”

“Come closer.” Loo-Macklin bent over the thin body and listened intently. He nodded, considered a moment, then whispered a reply.

“Louder. My hearing is not what it used to be, along with the rest of me.”

So Loo-Macklin spoke more clearly into the counselor’s ear. Momblent strained to make sense of the words. Then a smile spread across his parchment face and he began to cackle delightedly. The cackle became a cough and the nurses had to be summoned in haste.

Counselor Momblent died six hours later, only partway back to the city. But he died happy.

Making contact was hard. The problem was that Chaheel Riens had no intention of unburdening himself to anyone lower than a personal representative of the Board, if not an actual Board member. The Board of Operators was the supreme programmer, the highest human level of UTW government. Trying to gain an audience with one of them was like trying to meet with a member of the Council of Eight, or a Family Matriarch.

He could not settle for anyone of lesser status for fear that an underling might be part of Loo-Macklin’s extensive network of personal contacts. Surely the word was out to keep watch for a particular Nuel scientist, though in a sense Chaheel was protected by Loo-Macklin’s own high opinion of him. He would think that Chaheel was too intelligent to come back into the UTW. Only a complete idiot would do a fool thing like that.

At least enough Nuel now moved freely through the eighty-three worlds so that Chaheel’s mere presence was not cause for comment. His thoughts and remarks might give him away, but not his shape.

Prior to departing for the UTW, Chaheel had undergone a change of eye color. Additional surgery had removed the characteristic wisdom folds from his abdominal skirt. Loo-Macklin’s minions would be searching for a psychologist named Chaheel Riens. With luck they would never look twice at a minor family functionary named Mazael Afar, on loan to the Board of Operators Research Foundation from the Varueq family.

Surgery and fabrication had to be carried out in secret. So powerful was Loo-Macklin’s influence among the families that Chaheel didn’t doubt they would forcibly restrain him if they knew of his plans.

It was his first trip to Terra, also called Earth, also Gaea, mother world of humanity. It was a measure of how deeply the Nuel had penetrated human society and how extensively shape-prejudice had been overcome that Chaheel was even permitted to travel there.

He was certainly not the first Nuel to visit that blue planet. Clearly the Plan was moving ahead nicely. Praise and glory to the Families … and to their allies, like one Kees vaan Loo-Macklin.

Subsequent to arrival Chaheel made certain he was not being followed or watched. Then he initiated inquiries. Who was accessible, whom might he talk with?

Eventually he was able to arrange a meeting with a programmer of eighth status. Though hardly a member of the Board of Operators, it was still something of a coup for Chaheel to have secured a meeting with someone so high in the computer hierarchy.

He insisted that the meeting take place in the man’s home and not a government office. Oxford Swift found the request, not to mention the insistence, peculiar, but then what else but perversity could you expect from a Nuel? Already he regretted agreeing to the meeting.

His home was a rambling falsewood structure, which ambled along the south bank of the Orinoco. Similar residences were strung like beads along both sides of the mighty river, carefully stained to blend into the thick vegetation.

Chaheel arrived by marcar early in the morning. The meeting was to take place before Swift was required at his office. It gave the man an excuse to cut the interview off early should the alien’s presence prove disagreeable.

“Greetings, uh, Mazael Afar.” The human did not extend a greeting hand to the creature, which flowed down the ramp leading into a curved room overlooking the river. “It’s nice to meet you,” he lied. “I’ve worked with the Nuel on one or two other occasions, though never before in person.

“I understand you have some questions you want to ask me that involve your projected work for the department?”

Chaheel replied by removing a small instrument from a pocket. The man eyed it curiously as Chaheel turned in a slow circle. Insofar as he could tell this residence was not being monitored. The conversation could proceed without fear of detection.

“My name,” he said as he slipped the device back into his pocket, “is not Mazael Afar but Chaheel Riens. I’m a psychologist, not an economic programmer.”

Oxford Swift digested this silently. He was of middle age, with long black hair tied back in a single fall. Thin puce suspenders held up blue and white trousers. His wife glanced curiously into the room from the food preparation area, vanished hastily when Chaheel turned a single huge eye on her.

“I expect you have an explanation for this subterfuge,” Swift murmured. He thought about the little ceremony with the strange device. “Let’s go out on the porch. It’s a nice place to chat.”

At least this individual is perceptive, Chaheel thought. Perhaps I have made a lucky choice.

“My reasons are of the utmost importance,” he told the man. “I was informed that you were more honest than most.” The man made a little gesture with his head, which Chaheel knew to signify modesty.

“What I have to tell you is possibly vital to both my own people and to mankind. I will tell you truly that my government ignores my pleas. I am hoping that your own will prove more receptive.”

“Why come to me?” Swift wanted to know. “Surely not because I have the reputation of being an honest man?”

“Partially that, and because of your position. You have access, albeit limited, to the highest level of UTW government. That is more than I could hope to gain in the short time I believe may remain to us.”

“You’re afraid of something.”

“Yes, truly. I fear the intentions of a man named Keeyes …” he struggled with the syllables, “Kees vaan Loo-Macklin.”

“Loo-Macklin.” Swift did not have to think long. “The one who opened commerce with the worlds of the Families?” Chaheel indicated assent. “That’s a man many people are probably afraid of. I take it your reasons are more than petty.”

“I will tell them to you.” He eyed the opposite bank of the river and its string of half-concealed expensive homes uneasily. “Is there still a safer place where we might talk?”

“Come downstairs.” Swift looked toward the kitchen. “We’re going into the den, honey. Be a few minutes.”

The woman looked out of the area. “I have to be at the airport in a couple of hours, but I’ve time to fix you something if you want it.” She hesitated, forced herself to face Chaheel. “Can I prepare anything for you, sir?”

“Thank you, I have already eaten this morning.” He allowed for her obvious ignorance. To the Nuel the majority of human food, consisting largely of dead animal parts, was inedible.

They descended a staircase. It required all Chaheel’s courage and skill to negotiate the descent. Cilia were not adapted to steps.

Downstairs was barely above river level. A large glass window shaded by the porch they’d been standing on earlier opened onto a screened-in swimming area. Without waiting for an invitation, Chaheel divested himself of his attire and slid gratefully through the arched entrance into the warm water. After a moment’s uncertainty, Swift copied him.

Chaheel did not worry about parasites. As for other waterdwellers, he was sure the man had the area screened in for a reason, and stayed carefully within the protected area. Outside, a few piranhas watched his gray bulk hungrily.

“What sort of information is so important that you have to hide it from your own people, Chaheel Riens?” the man asked him.

The psychologist considered how to begin, staring curiously at the human. He’d never seen one in water before. They moved awkwardly but did not sink as he suspected they might.

Now that his chance had arrived he was unsure how to proceed. He’d been unable to convince his own kind. How could he convince these bipeds?

This particular human, this Oxford Swift, seemed receptive enough. If he failed with him he would have to try another human, perhaps in a different branch of the government.

Might as well begin, truly, he told himself, and see what happens. “It began, Oxford Swift, some years ago. At that time I was …”

He was interrupted before he could say anything of importance by a noise from above. Both man and Nuel turned in the water to look toward the stairs. The man’s wife was standing there, looking disheveled and concerned.

Flanking her and rapidly filing into the den were a considerable number of heavily armed humans. They wore legal uniforms. To Chaheel’s surprise they wore complexion armor in addition to their weapons. The thin mylar flashed in the dim light of the den.

Too late, forever too late, he told himself in despair. Loo-Macklin had discovered his return to the UTW, penetrated his carefully concocted disguisings, and tracked him down.

I shall be escorted to some quiet section of wild jungle where I will meet an accidental and carefully engineered death, Chaheel told himself grimly. It should not be too hard to cover up. Nuel psychologist traveling under alias meets unfortunate termination in the wilds of Terra. Or perhaps they would simply report Mazael Afar’s death.

After a while, the Science Registry of his home world would wonder what had happened to the brilliant psychologist Chaheel Riens. They would list him as missing. And of course he would be difficult to trace. He’d seen to that himself. I do hope Loo-Macklin appreciates how easy I’ve made this for him, he thought bitterly.

One eye swiveled to study the metal net barring access to the open river. He was a better swimmer than any human and not burdened by weapons or armor. If he could get over the net …

Alas, the Nuel are not constructed for climbing any more than they are for jumping. He could probably pull himself over the metal mesh, but not quickly enough.

Actually, the only real surprise was that he’d managed to get this far without being discovered. He noted the look of puzzlement and mild fear on the face of his human host. Have a thought for this poor human who might have helped you, he ordered himself.

“They are here for me,” he told Oxford Swift.

The leader of the clustered invaders stepped into the water’s edge, stared at him. “Are you the psychologist Chaheel Riens?”

“You know that I am as truly as I know the reason for your presence here.”

The man seemed surprised.

“I had been expecting you, in fact,” Chaheel continued. Now Oxford Swift’s momentary fear had given way to bewilderment.

“They just broke in,” his wife said from atop the stairs. “I tried to tell them you were in conference, darling, but they just pushed past me.”

Oxford Swift was beginning to recover some of his aplomb. He was an eighth-status citizen, after all.

“This is outrageous, whoever you are. Unless you have a warrant for entry I suggest you take your pack of armed monkeys and …”

The officer in charge frowned but held his temper. “My armed monkeys and I are operating on an Interworld Government Priority class Over-A. Until this morning I didn’t even know there was such a thing, sir.” He looked back and up at the unhappy Ms. Swift.

“I apologize for all this, ma’am, but you’ll know the reason for it soon enough.” He looked back toward Swift. “You too, sir.” He turned a puzzled look on Chaheel, who bobbed easily in the water.

“I’m glad that we found you, visitor, but how did you know to expect us?”

“Don’t play word-games with me, human,” snorted Chaheel. “I am a student long-time of your culture, in case they did not tell you that. It’s obvious that even though you wear the trappings of officialdom you are here at the direction of Kee-yes vain … Kees vaan Loo-Macklin. You are to see that I have an accident before I can unburden myself of certain information. Truly.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re raving about, slimeskin,” said the obviously upset officer. “All I know is that Caracas Intelligence received word you might be in this area. We’ve been scouring the whole Orinoco Basin trying to locate you. Apparently someone remembered processing your communications with Mr. Swift here,” he gestured toward the human, who had left the water and was dressing himself, “and so we came straight away to check out the possibility you might be with him.

“We’re to escort you to Caracas immediately where you’re to be put on a suborbital transport for São Paulo. There’s some kind of emergency brewing down there.”

Now it was Chaheel’s turn to suffer bewilderment. “You mean you are truly not here by order of Loo-Macklin? You are not to kill me?”

“Hell, no. I don’t even know the guy you’re babbling about.”

“São Paulo is headquarters for the Board of Operators.”

“Our orders have that seal,” the officer admitted, “but didn’t come from them. The request for your presence was put out by the Nuel ambassador to Terra.”

The officer paused as one of his subordinates whispered to him. He nodded once, looked toward Swift.

“I think you’d better come along too, sir.”

“Me?” The programmer took a step backward. “I haven’t done anything. I haven’t even been told anything.” He looked askance at his alien visitor. Chaheel felt sorry for him. “He came here saying he had some information he wanted to give me. You broke in on us before …”

“Please calm down, sir. It’s only procedure. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“But I have work to attend to today, and tomorrow my presence will be required at …”

“They don’t tell guys like me much, sir,” said the officer, “but from some of the word coming down, there are people high up in the government who think there may not be a tomorrow.”

Chaheel noted that they brought along the man’s mate, too. Outside the house was a small, if decorously dispersed, army. Someone was badly worried about something.

Down the river and then by marcar tube to Caracas. From there, via superfast suborbital aircraft, to the capital city of São Paulo. Chaheel’s mind was spinning as fast as the turbines in the aircraft’s engines.

The Nuel ambassador wanted him, not Loo-Macklin, not the Terran government, not the Board of Operators. If Loo-Macklin was not involved in this business somehow then what did the ambassador want with Chaheel Riens? And why bring along two ordinary, innocent humans? On the chance they might have heard something? Heard what? What was going on?

His thoughts were still unsorted when the aircraft touched down on the broad landing plain outside the megalopolis of São Paulo. Ground transport whisked them at dangerous speed into the heart of the immense city. The Board of Operators functioned here, overseeing the decisions of the Master Computer, which made critical civic decisions for every one of the eighty-three worlds.

Machine and attendants were housed in a gigantic pyramidal structure overlooking the distant Mato Grosso. By satellite relay the Master Computer was tied to two dozen other massive computing installations scattered across the surface of Terra. The capacity of the two dozen exceeded that of the Master Computer. Their job was to work in unison to compose the questions, which were to be put to the Board of Operators.

Somewhere inside the bowels of that tower of knowledge worked the thirty men and women, operating in shifts of ten, who composed the Board of Operators. They were chosen by competitive testing every two years and held their positions for four-year terms. They were the decision-makers, or so the population thought of them. Actually they were no more than nurses, or perhaps glorified mechanics, attending to the needs of the Master Computer. But even in this day and age there were those who grew uncomfortable at the thought of having their lives run by a machine, however capable. So responsibility was attributed to the Board, which accepted it as simply another duty.

Chaheel began to grow excited. There were possibilities here. Never mind poor, confused Oxford Swift. Here he might have the chance to corner and unburden himself to a truly important human, perhaps even one of the thirty Operators themselves. If the opportunity presented itself he would certainly seize it, no matter how his armed escort might react.

The pyramid rose three hundred and twenty stories into the subtropical sky. Its crown vanished into the clouds that swirled in off the Atlantic. They entered via a back service entrance so as not to disturb the usual crowds at the main entryways with the sight of armed men.

High-speed elevators lifted them to rarified heights. At the two hundred and eightieth floor they slowed and stopped, exiting into an endless room dominated by half a dozen multistory-high viewscreens. Currently each was filled with complex plottings and mathematical readouts. Humans in multihued uniforms wandered busily through the auditorium. There was an air of expectancy as well as confusion among them.

The armed party, which had been shedding personnel step by step, was met by a high officer. He exchanged military gestures with the officer in charge and they conversed for a few minutes. The man and woman were shunted politely but firmly off to one side.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Oxford Swift was yelling. “I have to be at work … I want to see my attorney! I’m an eighth status …!”

No one paid him the least attention. Chaheel still felt sympathy for the biped. He’d been unwittingly drawn into something he did not understand. Well, he had company.

Suddenly, his skirt jouncing impressively as he oozed forward, and his exquisite silver and purple tunic being woven by no less than a dozen el working at such speed that he appeared to be covered by steadily changing pictures, there was Piark Triquelmuraz, ambassador to Terra and special envoy to the Board of Operators of the eighty-three worlds of the UTW.

He was overbearingly large, no taller than Chaheel but much wider. The Nuel had a tendency to grow out instead of up. Their cartilaginous internal supports could not handle great height, but did very well with distributed weight. His cilia were invisible beneath the many folds of his abdominal skirt, and green-flecked eyes both focused appraisingly on Chaheel.

Two assistants accompanied him; one a Nuel subambassador, the other a human. “Chaheel Riens,” Piark huffed importantly.

“First Father Ambassador,” replied Chaheel, executing the greeting one reserves for a much-honored elder. “I would know why I am brought here, truly?”

“Shortly you shall. We have been searching for you for some time, ever since you unexpectedly fled the worlds of the Families. Fortunately, there are not even today all that many of us working within the UTW and most of us are located on the large industrial worlds. Your alias did not slow us, but your surgical alterations did. Providential that you were so near, yet that doubtless cost us time. I did not think to look for you under my skirt.”

“I had reason to be there,” Chaheel replied tersely. “No reason longer to conceal my purpose. I expect you know of it already?”

“You came here to apprise the human government of possible collusion between Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin the industrialist and an alien race known as the Tremovan.”

“I could not have better said it myself, First Father Ambassador.”

“You see, psychologist, though your accusations were disregarded when you made them, they were not completely forgotten. They were properly filed and stored. When the present situation began to develop, there were those entrusted with such esoteric information who went a-searching for explanations for it. Your report was among the vast volume of material scanned.

“Reluctant conclusions were arrived at. Given our present circumstances, I am instructed to offer you at least a conditional apology plus reinstatement of all honors and privileges … and to solicit your advice, which we are badly in need of.”

“You mean there is an alien race called the Tremovan?” Chaheel struggled to readjust his thoughts. He’d come here expecting death, not vindication. “One that Kees vaan Loo-Macklin truly is involved with in other than commercial endeavor?”

“Still we have no proof of the latter,” the ambassador informed him anxiously. “We have proof of nothing save what exists incontrovertibly. That, and your wild tale which is all that correlates with what is happening.”

“What is happening?” Chaheel demanded to know.

“Come with me.” He turned and led Chaheel across the floor of the great room. Of the Swifts there was no sign. The psychologist hoped nothing had happened to them. Little people swept up in great affairs are easily damaged.

A circular depression in the floor was lined with glowing, buzzing consoles. At least two dozen technicians manned the battery of instrumentation. The ambassador’s human assistant leaned over and spoke to one of the techs. The woman nodded, her bony fingers dancing over controls.

Instantly one of the huge viewscreens lost its array of symbols and abstract graphics. In their place showed the darkness of deep space, occasionally interrupted by lines of interference. Lights moved against the darkness. Chaheel suspected that they were ships because the starfield behind them remained constant. The picture varied from fair to barely viewable.

A small craft of unfamiliar design hove into view. Its silhouette was unique. Tiny objects swirled insectlike around it, their purpose unimaginable. They could be cleaning it, or they could form part of the drive system.

A soft yellow-bronze glow emanated from their surfaces.

The ambassador saw the start of recognition from Chaheel, quickly murmured something to his human assistant who in turn removed a remote communications unit from his waistband and began speaking into it. The assistant’s eyes were on Chaheel.

“Something familiar?” the ambassador whispered, his voice carefully neutral.

“Perhaps. A minor technological device.” Chaheel indicated the screen. “I may have seen photic metal like that somewhere before.”

“It is involved with the Tremovan?” the ambassador pressed him.

“Possibly. Possibly, very likely. The emission hue is familiar, truly.” The vessel moved out of pickup range, and once more Chaheel saw only moving lights against the starfield. “There is more than one ship? A secret trade exchange, perhaps, between these Tremovan and Kees vaan Loo-Macklin?”

“Quite an exchange would it be,” said the Nuel subambassador, speaking for the first time. He indicated the viewscreen. “Coming there are five hundred of them.”

Chaheel thought back to the half-forgotten image of the quadrupedal, golden-scaled alien. “Five hundred Tremovan?”

“No,” murmured the ambassador. He was staring with both eyes at the poor image on the viewscreen. “Five hundred starships. …”