Ryo was formally relieved of his long-neglected agricultural duties and assigned to the permanent contact group. This was placed outside Paszex, which now assumed an importance beyond the export of vegetable products and handicrafts. Many of the latter, incidentally, were traded to the humans of the Project. Once again the pioneers had stolen a march on the official planners. Trade had begun.

The airfield was hastily enlarged so it could handle shuttlecraft. First official visitors were exchanged, and as a few handicrafts and mechanisms traversed the gulf between the stars, it was discovered that the profit motive was another characteristic human and Thranx shared.

So it was that contact was not forged so much as hastily cobbled together. But it was a beginning, the most important part of understanding.

Even Fal eventually reconciled with her now famous premate, though he was still regarded as a traitor among some of his own kind and an enemy spy in certain unrelentingly paranoid human circles. Wuuzelansem was brought from Ciccikalk, still suspicious of humankind but more flexible than most Thranx. His conversion came rapidly when some of the humans became fluent enough to admire his poetry.

“I don’t know how we did without them for so long,” he once muttered to Ryo after a recital. “Their appreciation of true art seems as boundless as their enthusiasm. The government may acquire an ally, but I have acquired something far more valuable.”

“Which is?”

“A new audience!” and Wuu returned to the display chamber to acknowledge the humans’ peculiar form of applause.

Ten years passed. A day arrived when several of the original Project members had to return to their homes. Two would travel to Centaurus, one to New Riviera, and several to Earth.

Jahan Bhadravati was one of them. Bonnie was another. They stood next to the Paszex shuttleport’s human-service area, still clad in Willow-wane duty uniform, which was to say practically nothing, and waited for departure call. It was a lovely midseason day. The temperature was 35° C and the humidity hovered near 92 percent.

No officials saw them off with speeches. In the intervening decade the coming and going of humans at Paszex had ceased to be worthy of special notice. There was a farewell party, however. Ryozenzuzex was there, accompanied by a young Thranx adult named Qul and a tall, skinny human named Wilson Asambi. They were working together to help develop gentler strains of a hybrid fruit.

Bonnie took a last look around the surface of Willow-wane. The distant lines of orchard and jungle, the little thickets of air-intake stacks, the shuttleway, all were old friends to be left behind but retained in memory. She looked much the same as she had when she’d first set foot on Willow-wane ten years before. The world was a fine place for keeping fit There was gray in her hair now, and contentment in her expression.

“I suppose you’ll continue at your post” she said to Ryo.