“It will not tell them your whereabouts or intentions, but that you are well and thinking of them. If what you’ve told me so far is true, the last thing they will believe is that you’ve succeeded in making your way off-planet It will be something of a shock to them when you return with the truth, but until then they will at least not consider setting a burial service for you.”

Ryo watched the poet instead of the scene beyond the window. “You do realize what you’re doing?”

“What’s that?” asked Wuu. He’d settled himself before a beautifully inlaid computer console and was busily running his fingers across the square touchboard.

“You’re breaking at least four laws on my behalf.”

“Oh, laws” Wuu made a shockingly rude sound. “What do you think the task of poets is if not to break laws?” Information rippled across the console screen. “A transport departs from Hivehom in three days. I think we can be ready by then, my boy.”

“So soon? But don’t you have things to prepare, affairs that need to be tidied up before you can leave? We’ve no idea how long we’ll be gone.”

“My affairs always need tidying up,” said Wuuzelansem, adding a third-degree twinkle. “Ryo, there are three great excuses one can use in life. To say that one is mad, drunk, or a poet It makes amends for a great many delightful outrages one can safely perpetrate upon society.

“As to the preparation of your new identification, admittedly that will require something of a rush job on the part of the lady I have in mind, but I believe she can manage. She is a true artist Wait until you see her work. She uses all four hands simultaneously with a flow nothing short of erotic. A thing of beauty—as your eventual identification will surely be. Beautiful and believable both.

“I will book passage for us on the transport Not upper class, not lower, but middle. We don’t want to be pushed around as we might be in lower and we don’t want to attract the attention that upper would bring.

“We’ll travel with the average this time ’round, in search of distinctly unaverage discoveries, and if no alien monsters should be skulking about on Hivehom—well, it’s been a while since I’ve been off my home world. While the local and familiar are soothing to the soul, the mind requires somewhat more extensive stimulation. The journey itself will be worthwhile. I take it you have never been to Hivohom?”

“I’ve never been outside Paszex until my journey here.”

“It will be something for you to see. A bucolic lad like yourself. Yes, three days should be enough.”

“I don’t know what to say or how to thank you for this,” said Ryo, adding a little click and gesture of amusement, “‘Father.’”

“Good. You’re beginning to get into the spirit of subterfuge. Treat me with respect, call me always as you would a real adoptive sire. We will surely gain acceptable verse from the drama.”