I admit this is rhetoric in pursuit of reason. Such is needed here. As usual, in our Flock-whisper after, there arrived on wings of song, dark disagreement. Those masters of flabbergast talk, the scissorbill faction, brayed. With their distinctive uneven bills goes a lispy speech and opposition to any differing views.

I struggled to not erupt at them. Our rule in this expedition is the most fundamental: Be curious, not furious. Be still, shun thrill.

But I am imperfect. I find irksome those Yth of uneven bills, their lower mandibles longer than the uppers. They sport this remarkable adaptation as a brag. It allowed them to fish in a unique way, flying low and fast over streams and lakes. Their lower mandible skims or slices over waters, ready to snap shut any small fish unable to dart clear. These skimmers sometimes have slit-shaped eyes, are agile in flight, and once gathered in large flocks along rivers and coastal sand banks.

To my mute astonishment, I have found that such skimmers exist here—widespread on the grounder world they name Earth, despite their oceans’ size. Coevolution parallels! We had expected flight to be uncommon on such a heavy world. Yet evolution finds its way. Called “birds” in the native flat tongue, they are like us yet far distant in ability. They have beaks, not toothed mouths—because they are not far from vegetarian. Even their meat-seekers strike with beaks, and swallow the flesh their claws have snagged and pierced. They have no teeth so cannot chew, and indeed, know not fire at all—so cannot harvest the nutrients flesh holds.

They are a sad lot.

The flyers here are so shaped with wings that, alas, cannot grasp—the grip of gravity is too strong to allow that mass loading of their bodies. Their heads are small, eyes sharp. They manifest song in myriad, though repetitive and simple, ways. They have not known an uplift to intelligence, as we enjoyed. They, too, sprang forth from former simpleton reptiles.

Coevolution is miraculous, though ponderous, too.

Yet I have flown among them. They flee, of course. We share with these “birds” an instant alarm fear of snakes, for example. So, too, do these “humans.” Convergent evolution, even among different bio Kingdoms, light-years apart.

Also, we are most like their “eagles”—which appear in the flapping flags of many groundling “nations”—that is, of lands owned by grounders, who treasure dirt higher than the wondrous air. Eagles are majestic, skimmers less so.

Their speech-song, these skimmers of we Yth, is as if sandpaper could sing. They object to any idea that does not seem immediately right. Those of my sort, the artful plungers, and even the scavengers, tolerate the scissorbills. I reply that biologically, we all, Yths and these “humans” alike, are opportunistic generalist species, with highly evolved intelligent behavioral flexibility. So we must parallel our practices to theirs, to fathom them. More important—the purpose we Yth demand—we must enlist their aid. To find the Mouth we lost, and use it for our main cause.