Shan

27

Shan

    “Hullo, darling,” he said mildly. The slanted blue eyes sparkled.

    Jhl swallowed, in spite of herself. If this was an illusion it was a plasmo-blasted convincing one. He seemed to have got back, if that was the expression, all of his personality and most of his memory—oh, not the technical stuff. Not yet. Well, given that Trff and The Old Woman were the ones working on him, that was hardly surprising.

    “Pity one can’t safely access the Encyclopaedia. A good stiff Third School course of study in astrophysics is indicated, I think. Not to say, Space Fleet Tactical,” he murmured, smiling.

    “Trff has done Third School engineering,” she pointed out limply. What in the name of the two galaxies was this conversation about? Given that when last seen he’d been a drooling infant, and before that she hadn’t seen him for—

    Drivelling, wasn’t it?

    “Shut UP, BrTl! And presumably Trff was made to do tactics, though I admit I’ve discerned no evidence of it.”

    It did take tactics, it objected.

    The Admiral sent a short, pithy order and Jhl’s two ship-companions hurriedly retreated and, in the case of one, physically restrained a pseudopod from saluting.

    The Collector had already tactfully retreated, so that left Jhl and Admiral Vt R’aam, face-to-face on a plasmo-blasted grassy slope on the Isle of Slrw. With a funny smell.

    “It is aromatic, isn’t it?” he agreed. “It’s some little herb that’s native hereabouts; there isn’t an Intergalactic word for it.”

    “Say it in Old Rthfrdian, then,” said Jhl sourly in that language, overriding both her own translator and his without effort.

    “What?” he said blankly in Intergalactic.

    Well, possibly that proved that he really was Shan, or that Vvlvanian-cursed Collector Athlor Raj Kadry was a cursed sight better illusionist than Captain Marvel ever had been, or—or—

    “Don’t cry, darling Jhl,” he said, still with that so-familiar faint laugh in the voice, coming to put an arm round her. “I really am me. Apart from the technical stuff.”

    Abruptly Jhl gave way and bawled all over the Admiral’s almost-familiar hard shoulder. “You’ve lost weight,” she concluded, sniffing.

    “Have I? You mean old S-B’rtha didn’t stuff me with mush until I looked like a Whtyllian sausage?”

    “What? Oh, um, no. She can’t have.”

    “Blow your nose,” he said, smiling, offering her a senso-tissue.

    Groggily Jhl blew her nose. “Sorry,” she growled. “Ugh—what is this?”

    “Mm? Oh, it’s the primmo equivalent of senso-tissue. A piece of cloth.”

    “Oh, yes, we had those on Old Rthfrdia,” she recalled groggily.

    “Mm. Sit down.”

    Groggily Jhl sat down on the short, aromatic turf.

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam sat down beside her and hugged his knees, gazing dreamily at a view of purple-blue hills and deep blue sea under a cloud-scattered pale blue sky. “Pretty, isn’t it? Rather like Whtyll.”

    “Very. Bits of Bluellia, too. Up near the snow line where they’ve built the plasmo-blasted nirvana palaces for the off-world tourists.”

    “Uh-huh.” His hand covered hers where it lay on the aromatic turf. Jhl swallowed, in spite of herself, and said nothing. They were both silent for a long time.

    “Cousin Raj,” said Shank’yar at last, “is generally held to be a very good sort of fellow.”

    “You would say that, if you were an illusion he was maintaining.”

    “Possibly not, if he’d thought it through. Hasn’t the it-being told you loud and clear that none of this is in your mind?”

    “It would do, if it was only in my mind! No, all right,” owned Jhl with a sigh. “BrTl and I have long since agreed to act as if it was all real. The alternative being a Mullgon’ya nursing-home for life,” she added politely.

    The long mouth twitched. “Quite. What do you think of Raj?”

    “Can’t you see that, Shan?” said Jhl sourly.

    “I could, but to tell you the truth it’s rather tiring, and I’d rather save my strength for the stiff courses in astrophysics and tactics you’re about to give me.”

    “Me?”

    “Who else is there?” he replied placidly. “Go on: what do you think of Raj?”

    “Um… Perhaps BrTl could help with the tactics. …Um, what I can see I can’t help liking. And admiring, if that’s germane. But as his powers are a lot stronger than mine, I may only be seeing what he wants me to see,” she ended sourly.

    He hesitated, then said: “You’re likening him to Rh’aiiy’hn? No, I think you’re wrong: he has a kind of probity, but it’s a much harder, more uncaring sort of thing than Rh’aiiy’hn is capable of. We-ell… Put it like this: no quarter.” He looked cautiously at her scowl. “No, more than that: no pity. Principles—no, perhaps I mean ideals—ideals always come before individuals, with Raj.”

    “Makes you wonder why he went into the IG M.C.,” she said lightly.

    “Didn’t he explain— Yes, he did,” discovered Shank’yar with a little sigh.

    Jhl bit her lip. “I can’t help it if your plasmo-blasted aromatic hillside is reminding me— And anyway, those grass slopes weren’t aromatic. Um, not like this.”

    “No; the Whtyllian grass slopes have their own grassy smell,” he said mildly.

    “Do you like grass-sledding?” asked Jhl tightly.

    “Of course.”

    There was another long silence.

    Then Shank’yar Vt R’aam said very, very mildly: “Don’t trust him, Jhl.”

    “What, because he puts ideals before individuals?” replied Jhl in a hard voice.

    “That’s partly it, yes. I’m not claiming I can read him now, but—Has he spoken to you of his plans?”

    “No!” shouted Jhl. “No-one’s spoken to me of anything except Vvlvanian-cursed Old Rthfrdian politics for the last ten IG millennia, and I’m FED UP! I don’t give a flaming Vvlvanian cptt-rvvr’s fart for them or anyone involved in them!”

    “That’s good to know,” he said mildly.

    “I thought you wanted me to— Never mind.”

    Shank’yar hugged his knees and gazed dreamily at the Old Rthfrdian view. After a while he said: “You would always have the option of returning to Space Fleet.”

    “What, once the pwld muck’s put an end to intergalactic freight haulage as we know it?” returned Jhl nastily. “What a delightful prospect. What would it be, Shan: demotion to sub-lieutenant and an appointment as aide on a primmo on the Outer Rim?”

    “No, no, a delightful pleasure-planet at the very least.”

    “Very funny,” she said grimly.

    “Seriously, I could get you a decent commission,” he said mildly.

    After a moment Jhl replied feebly: “Thanks. Uh—this is assuming that they don’t know anything about any of this, is it? Admiral,” she ended pointedly.

    “Haven’t you noticed the lovely shield”—the long, mobile mouth twitched slightly—“surrounding this island?”

    “Oh, sure. But are the combined powers of The Old Woman and the it-being sufficient to deceive the whole of Space Fleet Command?”

    “Supposing they were interested in you in the first place? Yes.”

    “Oh, good,” she croaked feebly. “And—uh—dare I breathe this—the IG M.C.?”

    “Yes. Possibly the M.C. and the Full College of Full Surgeons in combination might, if not penetrate it, perceive that there is a shield—I grant you that. But the likelihood of their acting in combination is—well, I didn’t bother to retain the precise figure that the Trff suggested. Let’s just say it’s very unlikely. The Full College,” he said with a little grimace of distaste, “is, as perhaps you may not have had the opportunity to realise, limited.”

    “Limited?” croaked Jhl.

    He smiled slightly. “Yes. And—ah—limited vision.”

    Jhl was about to rubbish this soundly. Then she thought better of it. Her brow creased. Eventually she said very slowly: “Limited in what way, Shank’yar?”

    “I do like the way you mispronounce my name,” he said dreamily.

    Jhl went very red. “I do not!”

    “Yes, you do, darling, your Whtyllian’s dreadful, thought you knew that? ‘Shank-yah’,” he quoted dreamily.

    “So?”

    “Shan-k’-yar,” he said carefully.

    “Stop laughing at me, you mok lover! Shan— Vvlvanian curses,” she muttered. “All right, I can’t do those Vvlvanian-cursed Whtyllian hiccups.”

    “Glottal stops,” he murmured.

    “Shut UP! And stop trying to change the subject! In what way is the Full College vision’s limited?”

    Slowly he rubbed his pointed chin. “Limited to the two galaxies, Jhl.”

    “Very fun— You mean that literally,” she discovered weakly.

    “Mm.”

    “But—” Jhl stared at him.

    “The position of Head of Space Fleet Exploration Corps is available, if I want it.”

    “But it’s a joke. They’ve never done anything in the last ten megazillion IG years except point at undefended—relatively undefended—primmos that the M.C. might like to exploit,” she objected limply.

    “True. Don’t you believe a job is what one makes of it?”

    “No. I don’t believe, and never have believed, anything so plasmo-blasted simplistic!”

    “Nor you have,” he murmured.

    She gave him a baffled glare.

    “Well, let us say that when one is in a position of power, one can make of a job more or less what one wills.”

    “And?”

    He rubbed his chin again. “Pwld will put an end to intergalactic freight haulage—yes. But more than that: in the end it will probably revolutionise all forms of transport.”

    “What?”

    “Mm. No ships. Well, apart from pleasure vehicles, I suppose,” he said with a slight shrug.

    “Do me the immense favour of not shrugging, if you would,” said Jhl through her pearlized teeth.

    “Oh, did you think they hadn’t restored that?”

    “Shut up. How many thousand beings have died so far, while you and your pwld miners explored this lovely little theory, Shan?”

    “Not even a thousand. No, well, all the beings we tried did die, certainly. According to the engineers, however, it’s just a matter of time and of culturing up the right blobs.”

    “Engineers always say that!”

    “Nevertheless.”

    Jhl licked her lips uneasily. “Well, let’s say they’re right. No ships. Instantaneous travel throughout the two galaxies. Where does that leave you and the Exploration Corps, Shan?”

    His lips twitched. “Oh, well beyond the Outer Rim, darling.”

    She stared at him, frowning.

    “Yes. The Third Galaxy. Once the engineers have worked out a way to use pwld to transport living beings complete with their—er—life, how long do you think it will be before certain entrepreneurial beings decide to hop over to see what opportunities the Third Galaxy offers?”

    “Three IG microseconds,” admitted Jhl limply.

    “Yes, quite. I,” said Shank’yar Vt R’aam, the slanted blue eyes sparkling, “intend to get there first!”

    Jhl swallowed. Her brain whirled with speculation, not to say questions, so much so that she was incapable of uttering even one of them.

    “Let me answer them in semi-logical order,” he said primly. The blue eyes twinkled and his shoulders shook slightly, but the long mouth refused to laugh.

    “Go on,” said Jhl feebly, unable to kid herself that she wasn’t very, very glad to see that again.

    “Firstly, I did grasp the implications for intergalactic travel almost as soon as I knew of pwld’s capabilities, yes. About three IG microseconds after I’d figured out that I could make several intergalactic fortunes out of the right perishable commodities, yes. Which was about a split IG microsecond after I’d figured out that possession of the rights to mine the stuff would also net an intergalactic fortune. –I think I’m up to thirdly?” He looked at her blandly.

    “Fourthly, if there’s more,” she said limply.

    “Thank you. Fourthly, I did realise that the M.C. might just be interested in the stuff, yes—don’t scowl like that, darling, it wrinkles your pretty forehead and utterly ruins the effect of those lovely pinkish-shlaa cheeks—and that certain brains in the Commission might just be capable of grasping its full implications.”

    “Yes. –I never heard anyone call it ‘the Commission,’ before,” said Jhl weakly.

    “That’s because you haven’t been moving in those exalted circles. After that I had to think very, very carefully about whom it might be advisable to let in on the thing.”

    “Assorted sons, wasn’t it?” she said nastily. “Uh—no, hang on, that fat old Mklontian.”

    “Yes, Wppy is one of my oldest allies.”

    Jhl goggled at him. “Wppy?”

    “Wrong circles, darling,” he reminded her.

    “Thank the Federation,” she muttered. “So how much did you tell him? –As if I needed to ask.”

    “Only as much as he needed to—”

    “YES! Um, sorry. All right, he was in on the pwld shit and the cornering-the-commodities-market shit and the assorted intergalactic fortunes but not the Third Galaxy shit. Is anyone in on that?”

    “In on the exploration idea: yes,” he said on such an airy note that Jhl looked in spite of herself.

    “You’ve told Space Fleet about this?” she shouted terribly.

    “It is their Exploration Corps, sweetheart. Not that I couldn’t have outfitted the ships myself, I suppose. But this way it’s more… official.”

    “And very much cheaper for the Vt R’aam family!”

    “Yes,” he agreed blandly. “I first broached the idea quite some time back: before we’d discovered pwld. There are very few substantial opportunities for trade and development left in the two galaxies, and the Third Galaxy is, after all, the next logical step. They were open to the idea, especially since I did offer, at that stage, to put a considerable part of my private fortune into the venture.”

    “Right, and to keep the M.C. well out of it,” she agreed, nodding.

    “No! Darling, who is teaching whom tactics?” he said with a laugh.

    “I never offered,” muttered Jhl sourly. “All right, go on. I can stand it. –I suppose.”

    Tranquilly Shank’yar went on. Jhl more or less listened, more or less sourly. Of course, quote unquote, the Commission, quote unquote, had been in on the Third Galaxy idea from the start, for reasons not unconnected with a megazillion tons of diplo mok shit that she closed her ears to—though apparently not offering to subsidise the whole venture, but only to supply certain personnel. Gee! A whole fleet of IG M.C. beings with their little probes in their little appendages, fancy that! Just in case anybody else in this expedition took it into their heads or whatever they used for heads, not to be anything-ist, that other beings besides the M.C. might have a right to anything they might discover in the Third Galaxy. Leaving aside any beings that might be discovered in the Third Galaxy, poor unfortunate beings. Yes, well, apparently at this stage it was settled that when he made Admiral (not if, in those aforesaid circles) all this would come off. Then the pwld muck was discovered and then, but only after he’d made sure the rights to the stuff were safely in the appendages of the Vt R’aam family and its old Mklontian mate forever and a day, fancy that, he allowed it to penetrate to the great minds of Space Fleet and the M.C. that the matter might be rather more urgent than they had at first assumed.

    Jhl’s mouth tightened. “The IG M.C. know it all, then.”

    “Well, not all. They know about the pwld, of course—you recall that they issued us a licence. They didn’t know that Rh’aiiy’hn and Drouwh are my sons, however.”

    Jhl drew a deep breath.

    “And if they had known, it would have given them considerable leverage over me. So you were quite right to be in fear and trembling, Jhl, darling.”

    “I just about bust myself stopping assorted junior beings from broadcasting the word ‘pwld’, you mok lover!” she shouted.

    “Good. The Commission might have wondered why they were broadcasting it, and investigated. Down to the sub-cellular level, quite possibly, in which case—” He shrugged. “Aforesaid leverage. And they certainly didn’t know that I was incapacitated. If they had done—well, who can say? Plans for the expedition are well advanced, and it’s more than likely they’d have decided they didn't need my further services.” He shrugged again. “Or possibly not. But it’s not a risk I’d have cared to take.”

    Jhl breathed heavily.

    “You did very well, sweetheart,” he said tranquilly.

    “Thank you so much, Great Lord!” she shouted, bounding up. “Is that all? May I have your lordly permission to leave the presence?”

    “Don’t be silly. And it isn’t all, no. Sit down. And do try to stop shouting, you’re making me lose my thread.”

    She breathed heavily, but did sit down.

    Slowly Shank’yar rubbed his high golden forehead. “I certainly don’t seem to have the clarity of mind that I seem to recall I used to. Though it is a complicated story. No, well, Space Fleet Exploration and the M.C. began planning for an expedition, keeping the whole thing under wraps, of course, more especially in the wake of the pwld business, and I put in my application for leave.”

    “Uh—oh,” she fumbled. “I see. You wanted to sort out things here before you left.”

    “Mm. I wanted to, shall we say, settle my family affairs. In the nature of things,” he said calmly, “I wouldn’t expect to see Whtyll again.”

    Jhl swallowed. “No. Shan, had you thought that, even if you hyperdrive all the way, it’ll take so long that, um, it is just possible that the engineers will have got their act together and that you’ll arrive at the Third Galaxy to find the rest of the Federation there before you?”

    The blue eyes sparkled. “Ah! But we’ll have a certain advantage that you don’t know about.”

    “Oh, ho! Now we’re coming to it,” she said grimly. “Go on.”

    “Pwld, when handled by the right sort of hyperblob in the care of the right sort of engineer, can vastly improve the performance of a hyperdrive. More especially in the very advanced ships that we’ll be taking.”

    Jhl was forced to take a deep breath. “Great splintered shards of quog! I might have known! How vastly?”

    “Oh, it’s exponential,” he said airily.

    “Show me the maths, Shank’yar!” she shouted.

    Smiling just a little, he showed her the maths.

    “That’ll mean you’ll get there in just over twenty IG years!” she gasped.

    “Mm. The it-being calculates that the chances of instantaneous living-being transportation’s being developed in so short a period are about five thousand to one against.”

    “Then I’d go,” said Jhl limply.

    “I am.” He rubbed his chin slowly. “There are certain problems, though. Mainly, pwld becomes unstable in hyperdrive, unless very carefully managed.”

    “Well, hyperblobs become unstable in hyperdrive unless very carefully managed, for that matter. Won’t Space Fleet give you your choice of the best Pilots?”

    “Ye-es. The Pilots aren’t the problem, so much as the engineers. The stuff needs to be managed at that level. And while the majority of Pilots naturally enjoy risk-taking—not all, before you mention your tiresome cognate,” he sighed, “engineers don’t. Not physical risks.”

    “No, they enjoy sitting over their plasmo-blasted drives communing with their plasmo-blasted blo— Great steaming piles of mok droppings,” she croaked. “You want me to persuade Trff to go, don’t you? You devious MOK LOVER, Shank’yar! And I thought—” She choked.

    “You thought I’d have changed,” he stated calmly. “No. The point of the exercise was to restore me, Jhl, not to make me into something impossibly pure and high-minded to suit some impossibly pure ideal you’ve got in that stubborn Bluellian head of yours. Like,” he said with precision, “your idiotic picture of Cousin Raj. Which I think, if I haven’t lost the thread entirely, is about where this conversation started, isn’t it?”

    “No!” she choked.

    Shank’yar just waited.

    “You changed the subject,” said Jhl sulkily.

    “Did I? Possibly I did, because I didn’t really want to talk about him, either. But I think we’d better. I suppose he is more like Rh’aiiy’hn than he is like me, in spite of having my sense of— Not humour, is it? No: sense of fun.”

    “Yes,” said Jhl tightly.

    “I wouldn’t call it that. He enjoys physical challenges—yes. But only those he knows he’ll meet well.”—Jhl’s cheeks went very red and she glared at him.—“And he certainly enjoys other sorts of danger than the physical—with the same caveat. That’s not the same as a sense of fun.”

    “You’re not convincing me, ” she said tightly. “Your dislike of him’s coming over good, though.”

    “I can see that. Where was I? Oh—yes. We haven’t mentioned ambition, have we? Raj was always ambitious, and I’ve had the impression of late years that he’s driven by it almost to the exclusion of other considerations. As to—uh—moral probity, he’s always had a version of it, yes. But as I tried to tell you, it’s a much harder, much less caring—”

    “Boring moral probity, in your terms, isn’t it?” she interrupted in a hard voice.

    Shank’yar shrugged slightly. “If you like. And he’s more like Drouwh than you think. His superiors at the Commission know about the expedition, but he doesn’t, because,” he said slowly, “he won’t want to come.”

    “Mok shit, Shan.”

    “Jhl, he won’t want to come because that sort of thing—reaching beyond the known, if you like—is not what he wants and not something he has ever wanted. Believe me, his ambition is bounded by his family, his world, and the Commission.” He sent her a little picture and watched with a very wry look on his handsome face as Jhl reacted to it.

    “Head of the IG M.C.? The Minerals Commissioner? What absolute mok shit!” she choked.

    “No. His aim is Minerals Commissioner and head of the Vt R’aam family,” he said, not expressing his long-felt conviction that Raj wouldn’t care how he achieved the latter goal. This had most certainly influenced his decision to hide the fact of his sons’ existence from him. But if he said that, she’d only accuse him of jealousy—quite justly, he recognised with an inner grimace.

    “Look,” said Jhl heatedly, “I may not be able to read him but I’d bet my cursed shlaa-tinted cheeks, fore and aft, that he doesn’t have any ambition to be a plasmo-blasted Lord of Whtyll!”

    “Yes, he does,” said Shank’yar grimly. “Not because of the perks, no—though he doesn’t despise those as much as you seem to think. Because of the power it would give him.”

    “Compared with the discovery of a new galaxy?” she scoffed angrily.

    “Mm,” said Shank’yar at his wriest.

    After that there was silence on the aromatic hillside of the Isle of Slrw.

    Finally Jhl said, her hands shaking a little: “This is only your version.”

    And he was jealous: right. “Yes,” he said flatly. “Try asking him what he wants. Mention the expedition, by all means.”

    “I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to serve under your command!”

    “Evidently not, no. Ah… just try not to let your emotions cloud your judgement, and ask yourself what his motives are for helping us. –Given that he’s always loathed me,” he added lightly.

    “I think you can see perfectly well that I’ve been asking myself that for some time. There are only two likely answers, really: One, he wants to see you safe, or Two, he wants to have you in his clutches rather than those of the Full College. To do what, given he’s letting Trff and The Old Woman restore your powers, Blerrinbrig alone knows.”

    “Mm. If the first answer is correct, why does he want to see me safe?”

    “You might just as well spell it out,” she said grimly.

    “Very well. Having discovered Drouwh and Rh’aiiy’hn are my sons—don’t look like that, darling Jhl, if he didn’t get it from you he most certainly got it from the inept BrTl—he deduced that my feelings about their suitability for the position of my heir would be precisely what they are, and decided to put himself forward, tacitly, of course, as the best candidate to replace them. –No, well, you know as well as I do that Drouwh’s not interested in anything outside Old Rthfrdia, and that Rh’aiiy’hn…” He sighed a little. “That he’d carry out the duties scrupulously, and loathe every minute of it. –Well?” he said as she just sat there.

    Jhl’s mouth tightened. She got up. “If you’re serious about hyperdriving off to the Third Galaxy, you’d better get down to some solid study without delay. Or do you intend to let these highly qualified Pilots you’ve been going on about set your course for you?”

    “No. But I haven’t got a notebook,” he said on a plaintive note.

    “Uh—oh. No, drooling infants don’t usually have them. Here you are.” Sighing, she handed over her notebook, not bothering to say it probably wouldn’t work for him because it was her ship’s notebook. “The blob’s a bit tired, but it was originally a hy— Uh, never mind.”

    “Strictly IG-illegal,” he murmured. “Astrophysics, Second School Entrance level,” he said tranquilly to it, ignoring Captain Smt Wong’s audible gulp.

    Certainly, Admiral, it replied happily, so Jhl concluded that the pair of them deserved each other. She stomped off, scowling. What absolute mok shit! Of course Raj was a risk-taker and not a stay-at-home, limited FW like Drouwh Mk-L’ster! And of course he’d want to—what was the fatuous phrase? Reach beyond the known? Of course he would! Any being with half an IG fluid ounce of adventurousness in its blood, or whatever it used for blood, not to be anything-ist, would! Flaming Vvlvanian magma pits, what else was sentient life about?

    The two ship-companions sat on a sort of bump—or hump, or something—quite high up, one of those bumps—and gloomed at a very blue view. A view with not nearly enough green in it and far too much pink. Purple, Trff corrected calmly. BrTl just sighed. After a considerable period had passed in glooming it sent: What are these bumps?

    Huh?

    These bumps on this planet. Piece of this planet.

    “You-it’s getting worse,” he said aloud. “Grass. You-it’s seen it before. It’s a plant. The pink—pardon me, purple—bits are some other plant.”

    Yes. It meant the very large bumps, BrTl, it sent meekly.

    “Huh? Oh, good grief, Trff! These humps? Hills! If this is what days on end of concentrating on Y-K-W’s mind does for you-it, you-it can give it up now! –If not yesterday,” he added incautiously.

    There was an appreciable IG microsecond’s pause. Then: Not in terms of the commonly perceived—?

    “No!” howled BrTl. “All right! It was a figure of speech!”

    “Sorry,” it hooted sadly.

    “No, I am,” he said glumly. “Poor old you-it, having to concentrate on Y-K-W. Are you doing it now?”

    “No, it’s having a break,” it hooted sadly.

    If it wasn’t such a fragile being, not to be anything-ist, BrTl would have given it a kind pat. As it was, he just emanated kindliness and patting.

    Thank you-it, BrTl.

    “Any time. Um, how’s it going?” he asked cautiously.

    “Oh, very well!” it replied, cheering up immensely. “Very well indeed! The Old Woman has excellent powers! Complementary, if one can imagine the concept, to those of the it-being, in fact! At least, insofar as this particular humanoid problem is concerned,” it amended quickly.

    Right: no grasp of anything to do with humanoid psychology; he’d known it all along, acknowledged BrTl silently. “Good,” he said kindly.

    “But now he-it has to learn, it means relearn, Space Fleet Tactical. Oh, and that other stuff.”

    “Ye-es?” he said warily.

    “Pilot stuff,” it said with an unconvincing attempt at jauntiness.

    BrTl winced. “Do you perchance mean astrophysical navigation?” he asked delicately.

    “Does it?” it asked itself wildly. “Um, it thinks so. But broader than that, BrTl.”

    “Two galaxies,” he muttered. “Astrophysics? That it?”

    “That’s it!”

    “Well, um, couldn’t— No, I think I see what you mean. If The Old Woman doesn’t know anything about the subject, she won’t know if she’s recalling the right stuff for him, will she? On the other appendage, not to be anything-ist,” he added in a pointed voice; “what about the great it-being?”

    Trff had extended a tentacle to pick a bit of the purple plant.—Purplish, it had a bit of green in it, too, but not enough; BrTl gave the sprig a look of dislike.—“Yes, quite aromatic; at least— Are these particles this plant’s emitting a scent to your-its noses, BrTl?”

    “What? Yes! What are you on about? Particles?”

    “Can’t you-it see them?” it said sadly.

    “No, but I can smell them, and they don’t strike me as particularly pleasant, and can we get back to the subject? Why can’t the great it-being, not necessarily the individual Trff, bring back all Y-K-W’s knowledge of astrophysics, astrophysical navigation and associated subjects?”

    “Not interested,” it admitted.

    BrTl winced. “That’s putting it in my humble Slaetho-Xathpyrian terms, is it?”

    “Yes,” it said succinctly.

    Goddit, right. He sighed and asked without hope: “Who’ve you put up for the job, then, Trff?”

    “Not you-it,” it said kindly.

    BrTl sagged all over the hill. Phew! He’d really thought— Phew! “Ooh, sorry!” he said quickly, hurriedly extending a pseudopod and retrieving it.

    Trff dusted off its fluff. “These hills are slippery,” it said severely.

    “Yeah. Sorry.”

    “Jhl can teach him-it, if he-it really wants to learn. He-it’s got her-its notebook, that’ll start him-it off.”

    “It isn’t her noteb— YOU MEAN HE’S GOT THE SHIP’S NOTEBOOK?” he bellowed.

    “Yes! These plants aren’t very strong!” it gasped, as the five plants that five of its tentacles had grabbed at gave way and it lost its balance on the slippery hill.

    “Sorry.” BrTl retrieved it before it could roll off like—well, like a ball of pale green fluff, really.

    “There’s nothing in it that the Fleet Commander, it means the Admiral, wouldn’t know, BrTl,” it reminded him. “If he-it was him-itself, that is.”

    “That’s very comforting, Trff.”

    “No, it isn’t,” it hooted glumly.

    BrTl entirely concurred, so they gloomed at the view for a while.

    “Some o-breathers have nice green skies,” he noted evilly.

    It knows. It began to list them but realised BrTl wasn’t listening. “BrTl, you-it knows that bond-partnering stuff of Jhl’s that at one stage you-it and it thought was dissipating?”

    Fleetingly BrTl thought of pretending he hadn’t heard that, but he knew Trff wouldn’t take the hint, engineers were impervious to hints. Well, didn’t recognise them, more like. And anyway, it was reading him. “With him, you mean?” he said sourly. “Y-K-W, or in your terms, the Fleet Commander, you-it means the Admiral? Yes, if you-it means the desire to bond-partner with him, and not just bond-partnering in general, or a certain desire that some of us thought we might have discerned to bond-partner with certain other cognates.”

    “We did,” it said, very puzzled.

    See? Anything even approaching a hint was Uncharted Space to it! “Yes. If you’re trying to say, do I think that this specific desire to bond-partner with Admiral Vt R’aam,”—he bared his crunchers but as of course Trff had long since seen this coming, got no reaction—“has come back, the answer’s yes. As I thought you might long since have seen, actually.”

    “It hoped it was wrong,” it admitted glumly. “Well, mok shit!”

    “Mok shit, indeed.” BrTl eyed it sideways. “What does the great it-being as a whole think of it?”

    After a split IG microsecond Trff admitted: “There is a certain, not to say a conflict, but a certain dissimilarity between the view of the individual Slp-Og V. Trff and the collective mind, it uses the terminology loosely, in this particular matter.”

    BrTl had sort of thought there might be—yes. No wonder it was so glum, poor old Trff! Not that the thing was particularly uncommon, with many collective beings.

    No, it reassured him.

    Huh? Oh, not go raving paranoid and disconnect from the collective mind and have to be committed to a Mullgon’yan nursing-h— No. Er, sorry. “Sorry,” he said aloud.

    It put a kind tentacle on his forearm. “Not at all, BrTl. To you-it it was a natural analogy. But these things, um, disparities, it uses the term loosely, are not so very common in the case of the it-being.”

    A sort of sinking feeling came over BrTl, the same sort of sinking feeling that came over one when one realised that one’s blaster’s blobs were very, very tired and that yes, that was a full-grown Gervaynian kryy, a female, what was more, descending from the sky just over there. Yellow, it being the sky of your actual Gerv— “Eh?”

    “There have been such cases before.”

    “That’s good,” he conceded.

    “Ye-es. Well, not good, BrTl.”

    “Huh? Er—no. Um,” he said, trying to see the thing in its terms, hah, hah, what a hope, “could anything make it sort of goodish for you-it, Trff?”

    “Yes.”

    BrTl coughed slightly, though thoughtfully restraining it with a pseudopod as he did so. “No—sorry. I put that the wrong way. What could make it sort of goodish for you-it, Trff?”

    “It thinks that if Jhl truly wanted to bond-partner with him-it, and to cooperate in his-its enterprise, that might be goodish, BrTl. Because the it-being as a whole, it uses the terminology very loosely, does approve, it uses the term loosely, of the enterprise. As an enterprise.”

    “Yes—got that.”

    “No, you-it hasn’t, BrTl. But it isn’t supposed to tell you-it,” Trff admitted sadly.

    BrTl came quiveringly alert. “Says what being?” he demanded tightly.

    “Admiral Vt R’aam,” it admitted.

    “Him!” he scoffed.

    “Also The Old Woman, though it perceived she-it was just… Not entirely a humanoid concept; what is the word? Oh, yes: just humouring him-it.”

    “Then let’s stop humouring him, Trff,” he suggested, baring the crunchers.

    “Also the whole of the IG M.C., though they haven’t communicated individually, it uses the term loosely, with this it-being.”

    “With the Slp-Og V. Trff?” replied BrTl cautiously.

    “Correct.”

    “Got it. Now, Trff,” he said very cautiously indeed: “you-it has been overdoing it a bit, what with days on end concentrating on—”

    “That’s why it’s having a break.”

    “Yes. Um… When you say the whole of the IG M.C.—”

    “Sorry, it used the term loosely,” it said quickly. “Governing Board level only. Not lesser M.C. beings.”

    That wasn’t the reply that BrTl had wanted, at all. Oh, dear: it was a lot sicker than he’d thought, poor old Trff!

    It isn’t. This is all part of what it’s not supposed to tell you-it.

    “Look,” he said, starting to get heated, “you’d better tell me before my xathpyroid paranoia takes over entirely!”

    “The IG M.C. is not out to get you-it, personally, BrTl. Not collectively. Though there are certain individuals within its ranks—”

    “YES!” he shouted.

    Trff gave a startled whistle as the echoes reverberated round the purple-blue peaks of the Isle of Slrw.

    “It’s all right, Trff,” said BrTl very weakly indeed. “This is one of those planets, well, one of those parts of them, that do that. Remember O-rb III?”

    “That was a lot colder. Its FW pack had trouble—” It broke off, very evidently remembering, somewhat too late, that that FW pack had been a sort of temporary or replacement FW pack that it had had to use until they got back the one that a certain inhabitant of the nearby O-rb V had stolen from off its very fluff, the body inhabiting the fluff being at the time in a sort of narcosis induced by the consumption of far too much fermented laa nicely mixed with yub, a proscribed substance on most worlds and extremely poisonous to most c-based species, but irresistible, they had discovered too late, to the average Ju’ukrterian. And BrTl’s xathpyroid and Jhl’s humanoid bodies having at the time been similar, for similar reasons. “Um, yes,” it said lamely. “They’re echoes, is that right?”

    “Yeah.”

    “A purely auditory phenomenon.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, not pointing out the associated emotional phenomenon.

    Hah, hah! it sent crossly. Does you-it want to hear this, or not? –All right, then! The IG M.C. is not out to get you-it—it ignored BrTl’s smothered sigh—and in fact not out to get Admiral Vt R’aam, though most of the members of the Governing Board dislike him-it and—what’s that other one? Oh, yes: envy him-it. Or does it mean jealousy?

    Both, he sent glumly, almost giving in.

    Thank you-it, BrTl, it thinks you-it’s right: both. They would be quite glad to get him-it, but this wouldn’t be a judicious time to do it, because they need him-it. He-it’s going to the Third Galaxy for them.

    It waited, but received only stunned silence. That was what it wasn’t supposed to tell you-it, BrTl. The Old Woman did point out that you-it’d react like this.

    BrTl went on emanating stunned silence for quite some time. Eventually he became aware that one of Trff’s tentacles had taken a tight grip on his forearm and this was because, he realised instantaneously, he was about to clear his throat. He did. When the echoes had ceased reverberating and Trff had let go, he croaked: “He’s in cahoots with the IG M.C.?”

    “Oh, yes! That’s the word!” it said happily. “Cahoots. It couldn’t remember it. The Old Woman doesn’t use it, in fact she-it doesn’t really communicate verbally, and the Admiral doesn’t use it, though now it comes to think of it, he-it does know it, and Rhan-son does communicate verbally, but has never used it in his-its— Sorry. It’s burbling.”

    “Any small being, to be merely literalist, might burble when positioned close to a xathpyroid endeavouring to incorporate a totally monstrous notion, that makes nonsense of his entire course of action for the last several IG millennia, into his already paranoid consciousness,” said BrTl very, very carefully indeed.

    “Oh, absolutely!” it whistled anxiously.

    “I'm not going to shout, I’m past that stage,” he said limply.

    “So you-it is,” it recognised in some relief.

    BrTl thought it all over very, very carefully. “It all becomes strangely clear,” he noted.

    Trff could see that. “Yes,” it agreed anxiously. “Jhl didn’t know— You-it can see that.”

    A perceptible period passed in terms of the commonly perceived space-time etcetera and then BrTl said feebly: “What about all that cognate stuff, though?”

    “What? Oh! Drouwh-son and Rhan-son and all that stuff? That was just Whtyllian mammalian stuff, BrTl.”

    “Oh, was it? –So it was. Don’t bother to clarify it any more for me, thanks,” he added hurriedly, as the picture started to become very murky indeed.

    “It isn’t its conception of mammalian humanoid behaviour and psychology that’s clouding the picture,” it pointed out huffily, starting to fluff itself up.

    “Possibly not, no,” he groaned. “Don’t go on.”

    Silence reigned on the bump, hump, or hillside of the Isle of Slrw. And as far as BrTl could tell, no being was emanating much, either. Not in this immediate vicinity, at any rate.

    Finally he groaned: “Can I ask— No, don’t bother.”

    “It was only the mammalian cognate stuff that the Admiral didn’t want the M.C. to know about. Or Space Fleet Command,” it added kindly.

    BrTl winced, but acknowledged: “Got it.”

    “They could have used the knowledge against him-it,” it added less certainly.

    “Yeah. Let’s just take that as a given, shall we?”

    “Yes. Good,” it agreed in relief. “It could go on having a break now, BrTl, unless there’s more you-it wants to know?”

    “No, have a break, Trff,” he groaned.

    To all intents and purposes it was just a ball of pale green fluff perched on the darker green grass with those unfortunate purplish bits in it, but after a while BrTl began to get peaceful emanations of having a break, so that was presumably all right…

    “Wha—?” he gasped.

    “You-it was asleep,” it said, waving an anxious antenna perilously near his left eye.

    “Don’t do that!” BrTl realised his head was on the ground, which was why its antenna could do that. He raised his neck carefully but that blue sky up there wasn’t an illusion and his head didn’t connect with anything solid and painful— Oh. “Old Rthfrdia, right? Where The Old Woman lives, right?”

    “Yes.” It waved the antenna anxiously.

    “How long was I asleep for?” he said suspiciously.

    “Not long, in terms of— Sorry. One IG hour.”

    BrTl sagged; he’d sort of been afraid it might have been one IG year. “Oh. Um—didn’t dream all that, did I?”

    “No.”

    No. Right. “He really is going, is he?”

    “Yes. Very new ships. Maxi-cruisers. Mark XIV.”

    “Uh—Mark XII, old Trff,” he said kindly.

    “No, they scrapped prototypes XII and XIII.”

    “Maxi-cruisers. Mark XIV,” said BrTl with a smothered sigh.

    I’d like that, First.

    BrTl jumped ten IG fluh.

    “That was the ship,” explained Trff redundantly.

    “It wants to be a maxi-cruiser? But they’re ten times its size!” he croaked.

    “It’s possible... ” it replied vaguely.

    “Trff, what are you doing?” he hissed in horror.

    “Only looking… Well, not very much can be done about its size, but a certain amount of refitting will bring it up to maxi-cruiser power,” it announced happily.

    “Er—good. Maxi-cruiser weaponry?” he said hopefully.

    “Not quite; that would require too much power from the blobs.”

    BrTl had thought it might. Oh, well. Not that the whole thing wasn’t academic, no being had invited them to go along on jaunts to the Third Galaxy.

    “They have invited it,” Trff admitted.

    He jumped those ten IG fluh again. “What?”

    It launched into a long and involved explanation but BrTl pretty soon stopped listening, it was all engineering stuff, ugh, yuck. At the end of it he asked pointedly why it, and it must have sunk in, because it explained quite succinctly that it was because it was a Ju’ukrterian and could communicate very well with blobs and the other muck.

    “Got it. This’ll mean a promotion to Full Commander, equivalent pay to Full Pilot, will it, Chief Engineer?” he said snidely.

    “No being’s suggested that,” Trff admitted. “Except this it-being,” it added.

    BrTl choked but conceded. “Good for you-it. Will they wear it?”

    “No, but it’s academic, because Federation credits won’t be of any use in the Third Galaxy.”

    “You never know, and better safe than sorry, and couldn’t the it-being as a whole use a raft of credits in igs all nice and safe in its New Rthfrdian bank account?”

    “Mklontian. Not really,” it said vaguely.

    “The we-it banks with Mklontia? Pooh, ugh, argh—”

    “The igs don’t smell unless the bank sends them physically from Mklontia.”

    “Or transfers them while in hyper-hop,” replied BrTl courteously.

    “Yes,” it agreed tranquilly.

    He gulped, and desisted. After a while he said weakly: “If you-it does go, I suppose you-it realises that all the other beings you-it sets off with, except possibly a load of Mklontians in a giant maxi-Bhylloblaster all by themselves half a light-year from the rest of the fleet, will long since have died by the time you get there, in terms of the commonly perceived Y-K-W? Light-years since,” he added grimly.

    “Using the pwld makes it much faster, it just explained all that, BrTl!”

    Uh—did it? Oh, must’ve been mixed in with the engineering muck. “Oh, yes? How much?” he asked in a bored tone.

    Promptly Trff showed him the maths.

    “Er, think you might have got a decimal point— No?” he said groggily.

    No! Twenty point zero three IG years, at a consistently maintained speed of F to the power of bracket z minus P1, close bracket, where P1 represents the influence of the pwld on the blobs! It’s a very simple formula!

    “To an engineer, maybe. I should ask what P1 in fact represents, mathematically, but I won’t, because I don’t want to be here until Vvlvania freezes over. Look, can you-it state it in simple Intergalactic, pardon my crudeness: twenty point zero three IG years or twenty point zero three light-years?”

    “Twenty point zero three IG years.”

    BrTl just gaped at it.

    “Yes, BrTl. It’s exponential, once the blobs are—um, fired up, it thinks is the way you-it’s conceptualising it.”

    “Exponential? It must be,” he croaked. “And fired up is right. Fired up as in flaming Vvlvanian magma-pits! Can ordinary blobs stand that?”

    “Not ordinary blobs, no,” replied the engineering mind happily. “But of course they’ll be hyperblobs, specially cultured to—”

    BrTl let it rattle on. Good old Trff; after all, it hardly ever got a chance to talk about its subject, being as how it was the most boring topic in the Known Universe. …Twenty IG years? Great steaming piles of mok droppings!

    “Point zero three,” it reminded him.

    “Never mind the plasmo-blasted point zero three. You-it could go and come back!” he said numbly.

    “It could do that in any case, BrTl. Oh—while you-it’s still alive. So it could.”

    BrTl began to do sums but it said helpfully: “If Jhl went, she-it’d be about the age the Admiral is now by the time she-it got there. And about his-its mother’s age by the time she-it got back. That is quite old in mammalian terms.”

    He took a deep breath. “Will she?”

    “It doesn’t know,” it hooted sadly.

    “No,” said BrTl glumly. “No… ”

    “Lunch?” it suggested kindly.

    Something in the tone… BrTl took a look. It tried to shield it from him, but too late. “I see,” he said grimly, getting up and extending a pseudopod to it. “Come up; I’ll lope back. And tell certain beings,” he added as Trff allowed itself to be swung onto his back, “that they’ve been feeding you the wrong muck for the last megazillion IG years!”

    “Just days,” it said sadly.

    Baring his crunchers at the Old Rthfrdian view, BrTl agreed feelingly: “Days. Right.” And began to lope.

    All the Old Rthfrdians were terribly overcome at the news that they’d been feeding Trff the wrong muck, though on later and cooler reflection BrTl was to admit this could have had something to do with the shouting. That water started to come out of the eyes of several of them but he ignored that, it was one of those things that humanoids did, he remembered that perfectly well, S’zzie did it a lot.

    “It won’t eat MEAT!” he shouted terribly as a small one brought in a platter of it.

    “Um—no!” it squeaked, about to retreat.

    BrTl retrieved the platter with a casual pseudopod and engulfed the contents. “Not a bad snack,” he said graciously to the being.

    “Mum, he’s eaten a whole leg of hggl!” it squeaked.

    It wasn’t Mum at all, though it was a larger one. Oh, yes, female: gender-dressing, right, right. She came forward and put an arm round the small one and told it to never mind, dear. BrTl implanted a suggestion in the mush between her round mammalian ears and she immediately told the smaller one to bring several more of whatever the meat was. Good. After that some more, or possibly the same ones, rushed in and out with ever more unlikely suggestions but he finally forced Trff to give up the diplo manners and admit that an evil-smelling vegetable drink would appeal.

    “If it goes into its nest more or less straight after we’ll know it’s only being polite,” he warned them.

    “We thought it just liked a nap after its meals,” said one of them weakly.

    BrTl was just about to blast it but The Old Woman came in—no, she didn’t, physically—oops, yes, she did, some time behind the personality—and blasted it and all of them for him. Telling them that she had been almost sure Trff was only being polite and why hadn’t they listened to her?

    “Khyai’llh tea and nothing else,” she said severely to them. BrTl could see she meant the evil vegetable soup or drink muck, so he nodded. And after they’d scampered out of the way of the bits of falling rock coming off their ceiling, they all came back very meekly and watched Trff siphon the muck up.

    “Very nice, very suited to its metabolism,” it said kindly.

    “It’d say that anyway,” warned BrTl, monitoring it narrowly.

    Ooh, it feels much better!

    BrTl sagged. “I think that was genuine.” Then he realised that only The Old Woman and the small one who’d brought him the meat snack had caught it. Oh, well, primmos were all the same. Laboriously he translated: “It’s feeling much better. It was hungry,” he explained pointedly. Making squeaking noises, the small one shot out, it was to be hoped, hoped BrTl sincerely, in the direction of the culture-pans.

    He sat down with a sigh. “How does it imagine,” he said to Trff, “that it’s going to cope as the only Ju’ukrterian in a great huge fleet of giant maxi-cruiser Mark XIVs lumbering off to the Third Galaxy, if it can’t even manage to get some nourishment into itself on a pathetic FW primmo? Oops, did I say that aloud?” he said, as the emanations from the humanoids mind-deafened him.

    “It would make sure the ship could provide the correct nourishment,” it assured him. “If it went.”

    “The engineering mind. Literal,” BrTl explained heavily to their audience.

    “Of course. Trff’s been a great help in assisting Admiral Vt R’aam to relearn mathematics and logic,” said The Old Woman briskly. “Now, please give our guests some space.”

    The humanoids all vanished.

    “Thank you, Old Woman,” said BrTl, sagging.

    There is no need to communicate aloud. Nor to thank me. And I apologise for the ineptitude of my people.

    “Uh—not at all.” Not at all, he sent hurriedly. And don’t worry, if the it-being was being diplo, no being in the two galaxies could have seen that it didn’t like the muck you were feeding it on.

    Thank you, she replied drily. What about the Third?

    BrTl gave a short bark of laughter, in spite of himself. There was quite a lot of good in that Old Woman. Bit of a pity she couldn’t go with—

    And shall you go, Lieutenant BrTl?

    BrTl could feel Trff emanating gratitude at her. It hadn’t dared to ask him? Poor old Trff! The pwld muck will mean the end of intergalactic freightage, Old Woman, don’t know if you— You do; good. So there’ll be nothing much left for me, it won’t take long for the stuff to get as far as the Outer Rim. So if Trff goes, I’ll go, so long as they’ll have me. Uh—Space Fleet things, technical things, you won’t— Oh, you do. Well, they might overlook them. Depends how many volunteers they get.

    It won’t go unless you-it goes, BrTl! sent Trff happily.

    BrTl felt the Old Woman’s start of surprise. Yes, it has cheered up a lot, hasn’t it? –Silly old Trff, he sent it affectionately. It could fancy another shot of the vegetable muck, he told her, but the small one had already come rushing in with another bowl of it.

    But of course neither of you will go if Jhl doesn’t go, stated The Old Woman.

    No, I won’t, agreed BrTl.

    No, of course it won’t, agreed Trff.

    BrTl sagged, but it didn’t matter, because The Old Woman had expected it, and Trff was sagging, too. Um, won’t you-it really? he sent cautiously.

    No, it just told you that, it replied calmly.

    Literal-minded engineering asteroid-brain! “Oops, sorry! That was a Slaetho-Xathpyrian hum; I won’t do it again,” he said quickly as bits of the ceiling began falling off again.

    The Old Woman got up, emanating dryness. No, don’t. It isn’t a ceiling, it’s a cave roof, and there’s a substantial amount of rock above us. She sent him a picture of the rock. BrTl cringed. Well, now all you have to do is persuade her to go, isn’t it? She went out.

    BrTl eyed Trff cautiously. “Look, couldn’t you implant a teeny-weeny— Yes, of course you-it could. But you won't.”

    “Free will,” it said glumly. “She-it’d never forgive it. –Us, then. Though it would have been its responsibility.”

    “I do outrank you, Chief Engineer.”

    Don’t be silly!

    BrTl stopped being silly. Several rafts of the meat were then brought in by several panting humanoid beings and after quite some time he admitted: “That’s better. Almost like lunch. Shall we just put it to her straight?”

    “If you-it likes. But it thinks that may not be enough: she-it wants something from him-it—the Admiral. And possibly from the Collector, too.”

    BrTl waited but it didn’t elaborate. After a bit he realised it couldn’t. “Um, shall I ask The Old Woman what she thinks Jhl wants, Trff?”

    “It’ll all be humanoid stuff. But why not? Um, she-it isn’t sort of here,” it said uncertainly.

    “Uh—Jhl? Where is she, then?”

    “Sort of floating?” it offered dubiously. It sent him a picture.

    That’s floating, all right. What’s all that wet stuff? A laa bath? No.

    “Water. Floating,” it said in Slaetho-Xathpyrian.

    “Yes, I can see it, Trff. That’s not Y-K-W with her on that raft thing, is it?”

    The picture clarified.

    BrTl gulped. Collector Kadry. He didn’t dare to say which of them did she really want, because he could feel that that was exactly what Trff was wondering, too.

    The rowboat bobbed gently on the sheltered surface of a deserted little bay. The Collector had had to explain to his companion that the tide was just off the turn: she had ridden in many types of boat but knew almost nothing about the sea and its habits, her expectations of sailing, in fact, having been formed by a bit of mild canoeing on a very placid lake in the middle of the Bluellian plains. As he rowed he had ascertained that she was impressed by his skill but not about to admit it, and also that she was, once again, comparing his thighs to those of his half-brother and his half-brother’s sons.

    “Raj,” said Jhl at last: “what are your plans?’

    “My plans? Immediately, or for the future?” he said nicely. Adding, for good measure, a nice smile. He had yet to encounter a heterosexual woman who was immune to it.

    “Well—all of them. Including your ultimate ambitions,” she said, frowning—though at the same time, not immune to the smile.

    “Immediately, I intend to see Shank’yar safely back home on Whtyll without the knowledge of my superiors,” he said lightly.

    “That would probably be sensible—yeah.”

    “Ye-es.” He gave her the smile again. “I can see you know something that I don’t, though I can’t see what it is.”—Not because her shield was strong enough to keep him out; but cursed Shank’yar and the cursed it-being were both reinforcing it.—“Shank’yar’s revealed his plans to you, is that it? His—what did you call them? Ultimate ambitions?” he said with the suggestion of a shrug that he knew was very like Shank’yar’s shrug.

    “Don’t shrug!” She bit her lip. “Sorry. No, well, I doubt he’d reveal his ultimate ambitions to any sentient being in the Known Universe, but he has told me his plans for, um, the foreseeable future. But I’d like to know what yours are.”

    And also, she’d like to see if he was willing to reveal them to her. “Well, I have told you a good deal about my career, haven’t I? In spite of its entrenched hierarchy and the corruption it’s riddled with, I do believe the M.C. could be a force for good.”

    “Bring justice in the matter of land ownership and mining rights throughout the two galaxies?” she croaked, since he was broadcasting it loud and clear. “Mok shit!”

    “There would have to be a radical switch in the organisational mind-set, yes,” he murmured.

    “The organisational mind-set and a half!” said Jhl with feeling. “And to achieve  this, you personally will have to have what sort of power?”

    “Minerals Commissioner, of course,” he said lightly. Shank’yar had told her that: she was broadcasting it loud and clear.

    Jhl took a deep breath: Shan was right about that, then. “Yeah. How many beings will have to be zapped in order for you to get that many step-ups, Collector?”

    She thought she caught the suggestion of another shrug, and then he said levelly: “No innocent beings will be zapped. Certain beings who abuse their positions of power will, however, be exposed.” The chiselled nostrils flickered with distaste, just a very little, and Jhl involuntarily thought of what Shan had said about his version of probity: no quarter and no pity was right.

    “I see. No wonder you didn’t want the M.C. to have an inkling of what you were up to, down here.”

    “Ye-es. You’re broadcasting ‘Whtyll family mok shit’ very loudly,” he said on an apologetic note.

    “Oh, am I?” said Jhl lamely. “Okay, look, just let’s get one thing clear. Shan suggested that you’d like to replace him as head of the Vt R’aam family. Is that true?”

    “Yes. I think I’d do a much better job of it than he ever has,” he said lightly. “He has as much pride in his name as any Whtyllian—it’s all right, I know it’s a concept you can’t affectively relate to—but he takes almost no interest in the day-to-day administration of the very large enterprises he has on Whtyll, or of the Federation-wide enterprises in which he employs his—er—clanspeople?” he said in Old Rthfrdian.

    “Clanspeople!” replied Jhl, very startled.

    “They’re not quite that, as we don’t have the same concept of blood clans that the Old Rthfrdians do. Free Whtyllians born on his estates or who work for his family interests.”

    Jhl received a rapid mind-sketch of the way in which a proper Lord of Whtyll, i.e. him in the rôle, would act. Er—yeah. All right, yeah, he probably would do a much more conscientious job than Shan ever had.

    Trying very hard not to broadcast anything with even the suggestion of a suspicion or a doubt about it, she said as lightly as she could: “You probably would do a much better job, yes. But it’s academic, isn't it? You’re not in line for it. On Whtyll it’s male primogeniture, isn’t it? Shan has got sons, and since they live off-world all he has to do—unless I’m totally muddled—all he has to do is acknowledge one of them as his son and leave the lot, the um, lordship stuff as well as the megazillion rafts of super-igs, to him.”

    It was now very clear that she didn’t have the slightest idea how he really felt about cursed Shank’yar and his cursed full sons. Athlor Raj Kadry smiled nicely and corrected her terminology nicely to: “Name one of them as his heir—yes. When I found out why he’d sent you on this mad venture I was quite sure that he was going to; and that, as you correctly assume, would have put paid to one of my ambitions. But has he indicated that he will?”

    Jhl stared at him, frowning. So this was why he’d decided to help rescue Shan! Finally she said: “I know he very much approves of Drouwh becoming Protector of Old Rthfrdia: he feels it’s worthy of his son, I think—something about living up to the family name. Well, that was the phrase floating about, but it’s genetic, if you analyse it. He won’t name him as his heir, though, because he’s not interested in anything outside Old Rthfrdia.”

    Athlor Raj Kadry had deduced as much—though he hadn’t been absolutely sure he was reading Shank’yar aright. He nodded, shielding his immense relief. “And Rh’aiiy’hn?” he said very, very lightly.

    Jhl stared across the bay, trying to look as if she wasn’t putting all her strength into maintaining her shield. “Shan hasn’t said so, but he’s disappointed in him. Well, they never have seen eye to eye, have they? Um, not so much disappointed by anything he’s done, though in his place he would have ignored all the tradition mok shit and taken advantage of his position as Regent to force through what he wanted. He doesn’t much care which system of government they’re for: he’s not interested in political theory, only in the practicalities of power, though he is predisposed for… absolute monarchy? Yeah, with him at the top of the heap. Or for anything with him at the top of the heap. That’s why he can’t help approving so much of Drouwh. But with Rh’aiiy’hn… The fundamental objection for Shan is that he lacks ruthlessness,” she said, grimacing. “He can see that in him as clearly as you or I, Collector.”

    “Mm,” he agreed, the nostrils flickering a little as she again addressed him by his rank instead of his name.

    She took a deep breath. It felt plasmo-blasted unfair to both Shan and Rh’aiiy’hn, but if the Collector was as bad as Shan carefully hadn’t said, then it might be very much safer for Rh’aiiy’hn to tell him this. “He hasn’t said so in so many words, but I don’t think he’ll name Rh’aiiy’hn as his heir: he knows he’d do a conscientious job, but he’d hate it.”

    The Collector stared at her.

    “Can’t you see that in him? Hate the formality and the diplo mok shit that goes with being a Lord of Whtyll. Rh’aiiy’hn’s had more than enough of that in his lifetime. I doubt if Shan will inflict another dose of it on him.”

    Inflict? By the Federation! Didn’t the woman realise how patronising that sounded? Well, no: she didn’t, and one of these days he hoped very much to be able to teach her better. “That,” said Raj Kadry very lightly indeed, “doesn’t sound like the Shank’yar I’ve known all my life!”

    “I—No, perhaps it doesn’t,” said Jhl slowly, frowning over it. “Well, maybe all this mind-blowing stuff he’s been through has changed him more than he thinks it has. Never thought I’d see the day!” she admitted.

    “I think that must be the inescapable conclusion—though I can’t read it in him.”—He was monitoring her closely, but she didn’t react.—“And yes, he must see that Rh’aiiy’hn hasn’t got the sort of drive and ruthlessness that’s needed to keep a Lord of Whtyll in power and to maintain and enlarge the commercial enterprises.”

    “He’s not entirely without drive,” said Jhl on a weak note.

    “Oh, I agree. But what you or I think is not the point, is it?”

    “No.” She eyed him doubtfully.

    Raj made a sour grimace and sent her a carefully calculated picture of some of the things that his own drive and ruthlessness had led him to do in the past.

    “Don’t go on,” she said grimly. “What about those beings that weren’t going to get zapped?”

    “Innocent beings,” he corrected calmly.

    Yeah. Well, he had more in common with Shank’yar Vt R’aam, and less in common with Rh’aiiy’hn, than she had thought. Funnily enough it didn’t make much difference.

    The Collector was reading this quite clearly. “Well, if you have it quite straight that I would like to step into Shank’yar’s shoes, and that it has always been one of my ambitions to do so, if it could be accomplished honestly, perhaps we can move on to another point?”

    “What? Um, yes,” said Jhl lamely. He certainly wasn’t giving her time to think about it, was he? Was that deliberate, or not?

    “Why is hiding Shank’yar from the M.C. no longer a matter of urgency to you?” he asked coolly.

    Jhl’s fists clenched. “If you were offered the chance to go on the first exploratory expedition to the Third Galaxy, would you give up the aforesaid Whtyll family mok shit and the Commissioner stuff?”

    “What? Don’t change the subject!” he said with a cross laugh.

    “I'm not, you intergalactic fool. That’s the whole point. He’s going, the IG M.C.’s in on it, and the reason he didn’t want them to find out about Drouwh and Rh’aiiy’hn was that it would have given them too much leverage over him. Likewise if they found out he was incapacitated.”

    He stared at her, his mouth slightly open. Scowling, Jhl let him see the whole load of pwld mok shit. There was quite a long silence, during which the powerful mind was completely veiled from her.

    Eventually he said slowly: “Twenty-odd years to get there, twenty-odd to get back, supposing one could… It would be a matter of giving up all one’s other plans, for the average humanoid.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Do I have the chance of— Yes,” he said on a limp note. “I see. …You realise, if the engineers do develop instantaneous personal transport, it may all be for nothing?”

    “Part of the fun,” said Jhl with a shrug.

    “Uh-huh…” He rubbed his pointed chin. “You’re asking me to give up a very real chance of becoming Minerals Commissioner and making a real difference in the Federated Worlds of the Two Galaxies, for a risky expedition that may not even reach its goal? –Especially if your Ju’ukrterian engineer loses interest in making pwld and blobs work together, or if the said engineer loses touch with the rest of the collective being—yes, I thought you hadn’t thought that one through. Or simply if the stuff is more unstable than they think. And if the expedition does reach its goal, then what? Settle down to farming on a pioneer world? Attempt to trade with unknown beings with whom you have no hope of communicating? Be zapped by the unknown beings’ superior technology before you even know they’re there? Or, worse: find a galaxy of empty rocks and blazing or freezing masses of gas, with no life in it at all?”

    “Puts it well.”

    “Look,” he said with a little protesting laugh, “I can see the attraction, but it’s a mad dream! I might be tempted if I were a younger man, but— And Shank’yar seriously intends giving up everything he’s got, for this?”

    “I’d call it a mad gamble rather than a mad dream, but yes, he does. Possibly he is mad. Possibly all explorers are mad. Possibly Athlor Kadry was mad.”

    “He was certainly irresponsible,” said his descendant grimly.

    Jhl shrugged. “The expedition will be as well fitted out as— Never mind. No, well, in your terms, I dare say Shan is irresponsible: gallivanting off to parts unknown and leaving his old mum to get on with looking after the estates. So what’s new? –Can we take this primmo vehicle back to the land, please?”

    “To shore,” he corrected with a sigh. “Very well.” He bent to the oars.

    “Don’t go with him,” he said as they neared the beach.

    “Huh!”

    “Look, there are other sorts of gamble, Jhl!” He sent her an urgent picture.

    “Mineral Commissioner’s bond-partner? You’ve got to be joking!”

    The Collector was very flushed, in spite of himself. “No, I’m not! Look, you’re a Bluellian: you grew up with the concepts of equality and social justice! This would give you a chance to do good!”

    Jhl’s nostrils flared. “Yes. But I’m not cut out for that.”

    “Listen, you’re throwing away everything, and for what? For him?”

    The keel grated on the sand, and Jhl stood up. “No. For the greatest adventure that a humanoid will ever be offered in my lifetime. I’d go with or without him.”

    He swallowed, and took another look. So she would. All right, he’d miscalculated badly. The stormy grey eyes darkened for an instant, and then cleared. Her loss. And after all, one woman was much like another, when all was said and done.

    “Good luck with it. You’ll make a good Minerals Commissioner, if any being can,” said Jhl tightly. “And I think Shan will see the sense of naming you as his heir. He doesn’t expect to be back.” She stepped out of the boat into the chilly shallows of the waters round the Isle of Slrw. Her Space Issue boots objected, and then readjusted to the chill, and Jhl splashed grimly to shore. Well, Shan had been right all along about Vvlvanian-cursed Raj Kadry and his limited little humanoid vision!

    You’re humanoid, too! said the so-familiar voice with that faint laugh in it.

    GET OUT OF MY MIND, SHANK’YAR!

    Will you join the expedition? he replied blandly.

    You’ll wangle the Wavey-Spacey call-up for me, will you, Admiral? she sent nastily.

    No, he replied serenely. Reinstatement of your commission. Command of your own ship. Coming?

    Jhl gave in. Yes. –But Trff and BrTl ship aboard with me, not on your plasmo-blasted flagship!

    Of course, he replied serenely.

    She waited for him to ask what she really felt about Raj, or how the man had reacted to the news that neither Drouwh nor Rh’aiiy’hn seemed to be in line for Lord of Whtyll and head of the Vt R’aam family— Nothing. Typical! Him all over! Never mind the softness with regard to his eldest son: that was clearly a very, very minor aberration, and Shank’yar Vt R’aam, curse his vacuum-frozen Whtyllian eyes, was to all intents and purposes himself again!

    Would you love me so much if I wasn’t? he asked dulcetly.

    WILL YOU GET OUT OF MY MIND? screamed Jhl again.

    This time the only reply was that mocking little laugh of his.