They need us, these poor bipeds, he told himself. He watched as an energy bolt seared the wingtip of one shuttlecraft. They need us far more than we need them. They are the ones who should be crying for alliance.

The earth erupted and he ducked below the harvester’s roof for protection. A shot had struck something more than volatile within the body of the farther AAnn ship. It disintegrated in a storm of flaming plastic and flying metal shards. The explosion knocked the other shuttle over on its side, crumpling landing gear and one of the four wings.

Several of the humans had been shot, but the damage had been done. The startled AAnn who had not perished grouped themselves into a surrender formation, threw down their weapons, and linked arms in a gesture of defiant submission. They glared through slit pupils at the peculiar beings surrounding them.

Ryo watched and wondered what the commander of the AAnn base ship orbiting somewhere above must be thinking. He did not know if the AAnn suffered from panic. Other AAnn were staggering from the intact shuttlecraft Those returning hastily from the underground corridors of Paszex took note of the submission ceremony their fellows were performing and joined in.

Tt was not until evening that it dawned on the invaders how greatly they outnumbered their captors. By then it was too late to organize any resistance. Besides, they had performed the submission ceremony. Regardless of their anger, they had committed themselves. So they contented themselves with much internal grumbling, intense study of the alien victors, and disparaging comments about their officers, who’d mistaken strangeness for superiority.

By then the inhabitants of the stricken community had begun to emerge. The local Servitors were joined by ordinary citizens who’d armed themselves with utensils and manufacturing implements. The captured AAnn regarded them with unconcealed disdain, their tails twitching listlessly as they shuffled about under the watchful gaze of the humans. Meanwhile the hivefolk kept their distance, their curiosity focused more on their fearful saviors than on the belligerent AAnn.

Eventually someone noticed Ryo standing among and conversing with the bipeds. He reluctantly made his way to the strangely garbed Thranx, striving to get no nearer the monstrous aliens than was absolutely necessary.

“I am Kerarilzex,” the Elder announced. His antennae were withered, but not his voice. “I am Six on the Hive Council of Eight. We would give our thanks to these peculiar visitors”—he’d been about to use the Thranx word for monster and at the last minute thought better of it—“but I would not know how to do so. It appears you can converse with them.” Then he made a slow gesture of third-degree uncertainty coupled with one of rising amazement. “I believe—I believe I may know you, youngster. Can it be that you are of the Zex?”

“I am called Ryozenzuzex, Elder.”