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  Watching her step easily alongside him, he tried to admire the play of her muscles, obscenely visible beneath the semitransparent epidermis. Diplomat or no, he found he could not do it. There was simply too much movement, too much visible play within the anatomical structure. In this it resembled that of the AAnn, but the reptiloids' internal composition was concealed by tough, reflective, leathery scales. If a person peered closely at a human, individual blood vessels could be seen not only beneath the skin but forming rills and ridges above it. Their entire corporeal structure was, inarguably, turned inside out.

  He forced himself not to look away. It would be impolite. This female was his hive counterpart. Much as the sight unsettled his stomachs, he was determined to maintain visual contact. As to the sharp, distinctive, and wholly unpleasant smell that emanated from the biped, he steadfastly refused to dwell on it. No matter how their future relations evolved, he realized that there were some things that could not be changed through negotiation.

  He worked to pay attention, realizing that the tottering upright stinking blob was speaking. No, he corrected himself resolutely: It was a graceful, fluid biped who was addressing him. Formal diplomacy aside, the thranx were exceedingly polite: a consequence of having evolved in surroundings so confined that humans could not even conceive of the social forces that had been at work. To the thranx, of course, they did not seem confined at all, but perfectly normal and natural. It was wide-open aboveground spaces that tended to occasionally make them nervous. Consequently, their conquest of space had been a more impressive feat than that of humans. Psychology was harder to engineer than spacecraft.

  Anjou was deep in thought as they turned a bend in the trail. Eint Carwenduved was Haflunormet's superior. Because of the rigid thranx chain of diplomatic command, only she could properly accept a formal proposal from the Terran government and pass it on to the Grand Council for discussion and consideration. It had taken a select group of forward-thinking statespeople from half a dozen human settled worlds almost two years to finally hammer out a preliminary proposal for establishing closer ties between their respective species. This had not even been voted on by the Congress on Terra, yet the signatories felt that opening negotiations with their thranx counterparts at the same time as the details were being debated on the human homeworld would, if nothing else, serve to accelerate mutual consideration of the delicate issues involved.

  It was an acknowledged diplomatic ploy, a means of forcing reluctant individuals on both sides to consider politically highly sensitive issues they might otherwise prefer to ignore. Easy enough for the executive director of the colony world of Kansastan to ignore the question of closer human-thranx relations - but not if he felt that his thranx counterpart on Humus was ready to vote on the matter. Merely having the proposals presented for contemplation forced those to whom they were delivered to deliberate their possible ramifications. A good deal of the work of real diplomacy consisted of engaging such individual uncertainties.

  Just agreeing on what was technically a compilation of informal suggestions was a triumph for those thranx and humans involved. Others, they knew, were actively working to discourage the implementation of even one of the proposals. One way to do this was to persuade those in positions to actually make decisions to simply ignore anything relevant that crossed their desks. Hence Anjou's intense desire to have a face-to-face meeting with Eint Carwenduved. Haflunormet's superincumbent could not only present proposals to the Grand Council; she could go so far as to make recommendations.

  Through Haflunormet, Anjou had been trying to arrange such a meeting for more than six months. Patience or pessimism, whatever one chose to call it, the seemingly endless procrastination was driving her crazy. She could not give vent to her true feelings, however - not in front of Haflunormet. The xenologists had been firm on that from the beginning. She had yet to meet a thranx who would not recoil in distaste at what was to them an often explosive human outburst of emotion.

  Anyway, she told herself, diplomats do not do that sort of thing. So the fact that she wanted to stop right there and then in the middle of the domesticated alien jungle and scream out her frustration to curious qinks and any other exotics within range of her voice had to remain nothing more than a passing fancy. But the desire did not wane quickly, she realized.

  The delay was not Haflunormet's fault. She knew that. Thranx diplomacy made the human equivalent appear to progress at lightning speed. There was nothing to be done about it but persist, stay polite, and keep her hopes up.

  "Why the continuing reluctance?" She gazed over at glittering compound eyes that were more advanced than that of any terrestrial insect. "It's just a meeting. It needn't even last very long."

  Haflunormet stepped, one set of legs at a time, over an artfully positioned zell root. "Eint Carwenduved continues to study the proposals."

  "I know that - she's been 'studying' them for the better part of a year." At once, Anjou regretted her tone, even though it was unlikely that Haflunormet was aware of its significance. His knowledge of human gestures, facial expressions, and linguistic peculiarities was improving rapidly, however, so she was more concerned than she would have been a few months ago.

  He did not react as if he detected any bitterness, however. "You must understand, Fanielle, that such things take more time to be resolved among my kind than they seem to among yours. Carwenduved must be certain of herself before she commits to any course of action because she will inevitably be held responsible for relevant consequences."

  Which was a fancy and not altogether alien way of saying that the eint was stalling, Anjou knew.

  "The eint marvels at your earnestness," Haflunormet continued. "She sees no need for a 'face-to-face,' as you call it." As the thranx diplomat spoke, he absently employed a truhand to preen his left antenna.

  "My people believe strongly that personal contact is an important component of diplomacy."

  Haflunormet indicated understanding. "You do realize that not all my kind take pleasure from being in your physical presence." He hastened to qualify his comment. "I did not mean you personally, of course! I meant humans in general."

  "I know what you meant." Anjou was not naIuml;ve. She was fully aware that most thranx, especially those who had experienced little or no contact with humans, found the presence of her kind physically unappealing. It was something she had worked hard to overcome, in everything from her attire to her manner of speaking. "But as a diplomat, I am entitled to certain accommodations." This time her tone was firm. "Eint Carwenduved realizes this as well."

  "I know that she does." Haflunormet sighed, the air wheezing gently from the breathing spicules that lined his b-thorax. "Your patience gains you merit in her eyes as well as in mine, Fanielle."

  What patience? she thought. I'm going crazy here, hanging around up at Azerick waiting for your mommy bug to deign to see me. She promptly shunted the undiplomatic and very unthranxlike thought aside.

  Instead of thinking antithranx thoughts, what might she make use of that the thranx themselves would react to? Perhaps she had been stalking the impasse from the wrong direction. Perhaps she had been thinking too many human thoughts.

  How would a thranx diplomat gain speedier access to a counterpart? It would have to be something informal, she knew. The delicate intricacies and involved traditions of thranx hive government were still largely a mystery to the human researchers charged with interpreting them. More was known about thranx culture and society in general. Mightn't there be something there she could apply?

  She halted so suddenly that Haflunormet was momentarily alarmed. Both antennae fluttered in her direction. "Is something the matter, Fanielle? If you are feeling stressed by the local conditions, we can find you a climate-controlled chamber in which to revitalize - though I personally find the weather outside today a bit on the cool side."

  "Yes," she told him. "Yes, I am feeling a little - a little faint." She put the back of one hand to her forehead in a melodramatic gesture any
human would have found amusing, but which the anxious thranx could only view as potentially alarming. "It happens to us - at such times."

  He indicated confusion. "Of what 'times' are you speaking?"

  "Oh, that's right. You don't know. I haven't told you before now, have I? An oversight on my part. You see - I'm pregnant, Haflunormet. With, um - " She thought of the dancing qinks. " - quadruplets." Unfamiliar with the nature or frequency of human birthing, the anxious diplomat ought to accept her admission at face value. He did.

  "Srr!lk! You should have told me!" Setting aside his instinctive distaste for such contact, he took her free hand in both his foothands. "Do you want to lie down? Can I get you fluid? Do you wish an internal lubrication?"

  "Uh, no thanks," she replied hastily, dropping the hand from her forehead even as she wondered what an on-the-spot internal lubrication meant to a thranx female.

  In a determined gesture of interspecies concern, Haflunormet continued to hold her hand, doing his best to ignore the unnatural warmth that radiated from the pulpy flesh. He realized how much he had come to like this particular human. If something were to happen to her while she was in his company, not only would it reflect on his individual and family history, he would regret it personally.

  "How are your eggs? Excuse me," he corrected himself, "your live feti. Fetuses?" Despite his disquiet, he could not bring himself to contemplate the wriggling, unshelled larvae that must even now be jostling for room within her womb. He tried to lighten the moment. "As you possess no ovipositors that I could observe going into pre-laying spasm, I had no visual clue to your condition."

  "It's all right. I'll be fine." Meeting his gaze, which she assumed reflected his concern even though his compound eyes could not convey anything like such a complex emotion, she announced firmly, "Tell Eint Carwenduved that the pregnant human Fanielle Anjou is making a formal Bryn'ja request."

  Haflunormet started, his antennae twitching. Then he simultaneously whistled his amusement and understanding. "The news will place the eint in a difficult position."

  That's the idea, she thought, wincing perceptibly for effect. If she understood the pertinent aspect of thranx culture correctly, no adult could refuse a first Bryn'ja request from a female who was about to lay. Such a compunction applied equally to ordinary citizens, respected poets, noted teachers, and everyone within the hive irrespective of function. It even applied to diplomats.

  Of course, it was a blatant lie. Surely, she told herself, the first time in history one had been employed in the service of diplomacy. She would have to make sure her colleagues at Azerick were informed of her "condition" lest the always thorough thranx decided to check on it with a second source. Once her rather abrupt pregnancy was verified, it would be interesting to see how the thranx would react. Time would at last become a factor. To refuse a first Bryn'ja request from a gravid female until after she laid her eggs would earn the refuser significant opprobrium. Her only real concern was whether or not the custom would apply across species lines. And if it did, would it be subject to the same onerous, lingering deliberation as every other communication she had asked Haflunormet to pass along to the chamber of the eint? Could any thranx authority move at more than a sluggard's pace, no matter the incidental circumstances?

  The official response was as revealing as it was gratifying. So much of successful diplomacy was not about knowing how to do something, or when, but how to step just ever so slightly outside the boundaries of traditional, formal negotiation without falling into the pit of cultural transgression.

  Within thirty-two hours, she received acknowledgment of her long-sought-after appointment.

  2

  The Bwyl were furious. They had been ever since the revelation of the presence on Willow-Wane of the covert human outpost there, with its clandestine attempts to bring humans and thranx closer together, had been divulged to an unknowing hive public more than eighty years earlier. It was bad enough, from the standpoint of the Bwyl, that humans and the thranx had cooperated in a war against the Pitar that was no hive's business. The disclosure that the soft-bodied, bipedal mammals had been allowed to establish what amounted to a de facto colony on a developed thranx world amounted to cultural sacrilege. The purity of the Great Hive had been defiled.

  Worse still, the vast majority of thranx had reacted indecisively at best, indifferently at worst, to the announcement. Now that the war against the Pitar lay nearly in the receding past, where humans were concerned the average burrower seemed to hold little in the way of strong opinion. So long as the humans posed no overt threat to the Great Hive and did not ally themselves with the bellicose AAnn, the typical worker was content to ignore them. And if the respective life tunnels of the two species happened to intersect now and then, why, it would only be polite to pause and allow those traveling crosswise to pass without confrontation.

  It was all very bewildering to the Bwyl. What about the sanctity of the hive? Where was traditional deference to poetic purity? Bad enough to allow these red-blood-pumping creatures access outside the usual restricted diplomatic missions. To allow ordinary citizens to mix with them at will, without proper safeguards or preliminary acculturation, was to invite cultural degradation and worse. What was a newly metamorphosed adolescent to think when confronted with sophisticated sentients who wore their skeletons on theinside and peered at the universe out of single-lensed eyes?

  It was not to be tolerated. But the Bwyl, though a multihive fellowship, were few in number. They could not influence the councils proportionately. They did have many who were sympathetic to their aims, but who were afraid to express their beliefs openly. The Bwyl base of support was large, but diffuse.

  It did not matter. They could wait no longer. Already, there was talk at significant hive levels of formalizing a much closer alliance with the humans. True, such talk had been rampant since the end of the Humanx-Pitar War. Lately, though, it had taken on a certain urgency. Important eints who believed they could make use of the humans as a bulwark against the adventurism of the AAnn had been pressing for more than talk. Regrettably, they found sympathetic hearing organs among traitorous members of the lower councils. Now dialogue threatened to become action, and action, decision. For the sake of the Great Hive, this had to be prevented.

  Which was why the Bwyl had called the meeting on Willow-Wane. Its members were not alone in their stand. There were two other interhival societies that had on more than one occasion expressed similar sentiments. Representatives of the S!k and the Arba had arrived on Willow-Wane only days before to participate in the critical discussion.

  Now the twineight gathered on the shore of the River Niivuodd, chattering amiably among themselves. To passersby they looked for all the world like a group of taskmates out for a day's relaxation. They carried food and drink and humming amusements, and talked of inconsequentialities. But their intentions were far more serious than an afternoon's casual distraction. They had not joined together beneath Willow-Wane's searing sun for purposes of frolic.

  When all had assembled by the river's shore and settled themselves in a half circle facing the water and one another, and when assurance came from posted sentries that no patrollers, first class or otherwise, were lingering in the vicinity, Tunborelarba of the Arba waved all four hands for quiet and proceeded to open the solemn convocation with a pugnacious, if not downright martial, paean to the virtues of the Great Hive. His fine words and whistles encompassed them all, from outworld visitors to their resolute Willow-Wane hosts.

  Then Beskodnebwyl of the Bwyl rose on his four trulegs and declaimed what all of them were thinking. Overhead, a flock of silvertaiax flew past, dipping and looping to snap in unison at the smaller arthropods that filled the steamy afternoon air. Their sedateke-uk ,chitt-chitt ,ke-uk-uk did not interrupt the flow of the charismatic speaker's words.

  "We are gathered here because we agree that anything deeper than the traditional, polite, formal relations that exist between sentients of different species is an abom
ination that is not to be tolerated." Attentive antennae and glittering compound eyes were focused in his direction. Near the back, the ovipositors of a young female S!k as fanatical as she was attractive contracted in response to the forcefulness of the Bwyl's words.

  "There are those among the hives of several of the burrowed worlds who believe that a stronger relationship can be forged with these humans. These fools dwell in the nursery of delusion. The bipeds are too different - not only in appearance, but in culture, actions, psychohistory, and every other standard that is used to take the measure of another species. Our alliance with them for the duration of the latter part of the Pitarian War was superficial and designed to achieve maximum diplomatic benefit in a limited period of time."

  "Principally to forestall the designs of the AAnn," an Abra could not refrain from pointing out.

  Beskodnebwyl did not upbraid his impassioned listener for the discourteous interruption. All were allies in this place: supporters of a similar philosophy. He had no intention of alienating a collaborator over a point of etiquette.

  "That is so. Yet despite what appears to us to be the obvious, there are among our own kind those who are sufficiently deluded to desire to place the security and sanctity of the Great Hive itself at risk. They intend to do this by forging ties with these humans of a nature so intimate I can scarcely bring myself to contemplate it. You will understand my feelings when you receive the detailed reports that will be provided to all of you at the close of this gathering. All I can say without going into further particulars is that there are varieties and types of corruption not even new larvae can dream of."

  "They must be blind!" someone chirruped above a chorus of lesser clicking.

  For a second time, Beskodnebwyl deferred his right to criticize an outburst. "There are all kinds of blindness, many of which have nothing to do with the sense of sight. It is these we must correct, even at the risk of carrying out bitter antisocial behavior. The very ancestral integrity of the Great Hive is at stake." Reaching back into a thorax pouch, he withdrew a compact projector and spurred it to life. Immediately, a semitransparent globe appeared before the body of thranx assembled by the river. It was a representation of an attractive world even the most galographically sophisticated among them did not recognize.