Paszex was nearly taken by the time the first military transport arrived from the north. Startled by the strength of the attacking AAnn, the relieving thranx promptly called for reinforcements of their own. Analysis of sounding data revealed the presence of not merely an outpost, but an entire complex of AAnn settlements located beneath the innocent surface of the extensive lake. Excavating, quarrying, building, the AAnn had made a comprehensive and expensive effort to establish a permanent presence on Willow-Wane before the thranx became aware of their intent. The subsurface lines the late, lamented Worvendapur had detected and recorded on his instrumentation had been tunnels, not geologic faults.

Eventually, the AAnn were driven out of and away from Paszex. But their underground installation proved too extensive and well fortified to be taken. Diplomatic, if not military, attrition led to the AAnn being granted a portion of their claim to Willow-Wane, allowing them to maintain and expand the settlement in an area not seriously coveted by the thranx but forbidding them to establish any others. This compact was wildly unpopular on Willow-Wane itself, but larger factors were at work. Better to concede the existence of a single settlement, however far-ranging and illegal, than to risk war over a world already extensively settled and developed.

So the intruding AAnn were tolerated, the least of their specious claims accepted. Such are the workings of broad-scale diplomacy, in which assorted small murders are ingenuously subsumed into what professional diplomats euphemistically refer to as the "overall picture." In its inert, and hypocritical shadow, the pain of those who have lost friends and relations is conveniently overlooked.

Revenge was not a prominent passion among the thranx, but there were more than a few feelings of loss and betrayal among the survivors of Paszex. Among these were what remained of the family Ven. Comprising a sizable portion of the settlement's population, they had nearly been wiped out in the first assault. The survivors struggled to carry on the family name, but ever thereafter not many were to be found who could boast of the patronymic Ven among the hive Da and the clan Pur. Acutely conscious of their loss and their responsibility to keep the family line from dying out, these few became more insular than was normal among their kind. Their offspring were inevitably inculcated in these same aberrant traits, and in turn passed them on to the next generation.

To one in particular.

It had been a long day, and the members of the Grand Council had retired, as was their custom, to the hot, steamy quiet of the contemplation burrow deep beneath the council chamber, there to relax and relieve the stress of governance. Solitude was not sought, and conversation turned to more pleasant, less weighty matters.