We gave him no answer, but we were, one and all, as we know now, astonished. He went on talking. He seemed to enjoy talking, opening up, surprising us, and paralyzing us with his revelations.

“Look, I’ve known who you are from the moment you arrived on the planet,” he said. “I don’t know how the transmitters of Bravenna work, or how they broadcast film streams to their home planet and throughout the ‘Realm of Worlds.’ If I did, I’d hunt down every transmitter and destroy it.” He smiled and shook his head. He seemed absolutely honest and authentic. “But I can tap into their film streams,” he said. “I can monitor them and marvel at their lust for collected images of suffering and pain, and I did indeed see you arrive and begin your journey across the Wilderness lands. Would you like to know why I allowed you to proceed?”

“Please,” I said, “if you would, tell us.”

“I wanted you to see the planet for yourselves,” he said. “I wanted you to see human beings for themselves, or human mammals as the Parents so devoutly love to call them. I wanted you to see what prevails. And of course, I wanted you to find your own way to Atalantaya, to see how easy it is for anyone from the Wilderness lands to come here.”

“I see,” I answered. “Are we to infer from what you’ve said that the Parents have lied to us?”

“Kapetria,” he said, laughing again, “that is an understatement. Haven’t you concluded for yourselves that they lied to you?” He sighed and collapsed against the back of the couch, his eyes moving over the translucent ceiling.

“Do I take this slowly?” he asked. “Or do I come out with it all at once?” He sat up and putting his elbows on his knees he looked me directly in the eye. “What did they tell you to do, exactly? No, wait, let me take another guess, now that I’ve met you and I see how sophisticated you are, how refined you are compared to most of their earlier clumsier emissaries. Are you to persuade me to return to Bravenna with you for a conference? Are they eager to support life on the planet now and stop trying to kill it and manipulate it and use it?” His face was flushed red.

“All right,” I said. “I will tell you exactly what they told us.” I glanced to my companions. No one spoke against this idea. Derek was smiling as if he found this moment supremely interesting and satisfying.

“Well then?” said Amel.

“They told us to ask you to come outside the dome, yes, and to tell you that they want to see you and speak to you outside the dome. But they also told us you would never do it. And therefore that our purpose is to stand before you together, to tell you that you have disobeyed and failed the Parents, and that you are being punished and the world is being returned to a primal cellular level so that life can develop all over again. This is to correct the ascent of mammals on this planet, and return the planet to a point from which a reptilian or avian species, or presumably even an insect species, can attain self-consciousness and become responsible beings.”