“Please, listen to me.” The King rose from his throne and stepped down one of the levels of his dais, closer to the emissary’s containment sphere. He gripped his scepter as if it were a cane. “On behalf of our entire population and all governments of the Hansa worlds, allow me to express my deepest regrets and my most sincere apologies.” There, that sounded good.

“You must understand that this has been a terrible mistake. Our test of the Klikiss Torch at Oncier was not meant as an attack against your people. We had absolutely no knowledge of your hidden empire. I give you my word as King that we will never undertake another such test. Surely there can be some reparations made?” His voice had a pleading tone, and he stood straighter, tried to sound firmer.

“Rock dwellers have nothing the hydrogues want or require,” the emissary said. “You could not possibly provide reparations.”

The King felt more desperate. He tried to sound benevolent, to play upon any glimmer of feelings these aliens might experience. “You do not understand just how much damage such an embargo would cause. Without stardrive fuel, commerce across the Hanseatic League will grind to a halt, and our colony worlds will starve. Think of the suffering! There must be room for negotiation. Please, let us find some compromise.”

Wearing the silvery face of a dead Roamer, the alien emissary stared straight ahead. “I was not sent here to negotiate, merely to deliver my message. Has the statement been recorded and transmitted, so that all may hear my words?”

King Frederick looked over at OX, who would be preserving every nuance of the encounter. On the other side of his throne, the green priest finished sending his summary through telink to Basil Wenceslas and the Mage-Imperator on Ildira. Local media representatives broadcast these events as they happened, uploading signals to widespread information networks for eventual distribution via commercial spacecraft across the Spiral Arm.

Frederick felt defeated. “Emissary, your words have already been heard by millions. An account of this meeting will spread to the other worlds of the Terran Hanseatic League as well as the Ildiran Empire.”

“Then my mission is complete.” The hydrogue sank back into his thickening opal clouds. His liquid-crystal humanoid form became fluid again, dispersing.

One of the royal guards touched a transmitter pickup to his ear, listened to a report, and quickly took a step closer to the throne. “Sire! The main warglobe has just withdrawn from Earth orbit.”

Frederick couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Then how will the emissary get back to his mothership?”

The green priest suddenly jerked his head up, looking away from his tall treeling, as if he’d been burned. “Sire, Chairman Wenceslas expresses extreme concern. He advises your highest level of caution.”

OX spoke, his words overlapping the green priest’s. “The emissary does not expect to return.”