“It is possible, but they did not say that this was the case.” Aroo came back and sat down, as expressionless as ever.

“We were about to vote on the established plan to tell the new arrivals of our divine origins in such a way as they will believe them to be a myth, and believe that this planet was truly settled by spaceships.”

Aroo looked down. We had followed the plan when we met the Saeli, but those of them who lived here had inevitably seen things that couldn’t be explained away. Aroo was a Gold. I wondered what she believed about Pytheas and the Relocation. The Saeli have their own gods, and a little closed circular temple down in the harbor district. Permission to build temples in the other cities was one of the terms of the new agreement. But they didn’t like to discuss religion. It always seemed to make them uncomfortable.

“I have no new information, and no objection,” she said, her eyes veiled behind her lilac and beige outer lids.

We voted, and to my relief there was a clear majority for following the plan. Aroo abstained. I set up the committee on investigation of other cultures, then formally closed the session for the day. Halius proposed an emergency meeting for the next morning, when we’d have more information from the ship. We voted, and it passed overwhelmingly. I knew I could count on Crocus to count the votes and analyze them, but I could tell at a glance that these votes cut across our usual party lines.

So we were to follow the plan, and the plan called for us to squeeze out as much from the humans as we could before they came down. Crocus rolled down to join me and Dad where we were talking with Klymene and Aroo.

“I’m going back to talk to the ship,” Klymene said. “Will you come out to the spaceport?”

“I think that we should go to Thessaly first,” Dad said, including me in his glance.

“I ought to go to Thessaly to pay respects too,” Aroo said. “First I will hurry home, and tell our ship that you will teach us the space human language. Perhaps I can find a volunteer to begin learning it immediately. Then when I have dealt with that, I will go briefly to Thessaly, and then out to the spaceport.”

“We’ll call for you on our way,” Dad said.

“Thank you,” Aroo said, giving a Saeli sideways head-bow, and left.

“Who can we send to take a message to Porphyry?” I asked Dad.

“He’ll be here already, at Thessaly,” he said.

Here for Pytheas’s wake, of course. “We should go and talk to him now,” I said. I was tired but excited.

“You did well in the chair,” Dad said. I glowed in his approval.

“Can this really be human recontact, at last?” I asked, hardly able to believe it even now.