“So do I. Like everything else, though, that’s up to you.”

So while the humans waited and watched their instruments, Ryo thought. Of Fal waiting on Willow-wane. Or was she? Of his comfortable and unpressured position with the Inmot, which had once seemed so dull and pointless and which now seemed unbearably inviting. Of his sisters and their families.

What would Ilvenzuteck advise me to do? he wondered. What would the hivemother say? He wished desperately he could consult with both those wise matriarchs. But there was no one to consult; not a clanmother, not a poet, not a larva. He stood alone in an alien ship, surrounded by five monsters who meant him well and who would do his bidding.

That trust was not to be exploited. And what of the human Loo who had died protecting him? Which would be the best way to insure that no additional deaths would result? Which way, which way, to allay the mindless hate that festered among the less intelligent members of both species?

Sanchez was right. He badly wanted to return home. But to what? To prison and reconditioning? His own kind had left him with no promises. Here at least he had gained something of a commitment. As to whether that commitment would be honored, well … If he returned home, five humans whom he’d come to like very much would return here to suffer. If he remained to work and cajole and fight for contact, only he could lose.

As so many things did, it came down to simple mathematics.

Captain Sanchez’s hand was poised over the control console, he noticed. A screen showed the small ship that was coming toward them from the station.

He executed a multiple gesture indicative of fifth-degree sardonicism, with fourth-degree resignation and just a flavoring of irony. No one, including Bonnie, was sufficiently well versed yet in Thranx to interpret it Perhaps someday they would be.

“Let us return. If all of you are willing to trust this Dr. Rijseen, then so am I.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him that” Bhadravati said. “I’ll make it a point to tell him to his face.”

“You can tell him yourself, Ryo.” Sanchez’s fingers danced on the controls.

The Seeker pirouetted gracefully on its latitudinal axis. Systemwise it was facing inward once again. The thoughts and spirits of its inhabitants were soaring in a different direction entirely.

XIV

XIV

“You don’t change the destiny of an entire people that quickly. It takes time.”