Then, in 2079, we found out they had another job—in fact, the primary job of the entire manufactured Martian race: to serve as intermediaries between the Others and Earth’s human race. The Others couldn’t predict with any certainty when, if ever, the humans would develop spaceflight, so they created the Martians and put them on the planet that came closest to the Earth. When a member of the yellow family was taken to Earth orbit, he went into a trance and recited a complex message in a language he couldn’t understand; a language only comprehensible to the Martians’ leader, whom we called Red. He had been studying the language since childhood, knowing, like all his predecessors, that it might be extremely important but not knowing why.

The Others’ message to Red was ambiguous and disturbing. They had the ability to destroy life on Earth but might not do it. Depending on various factors.

Red was supposed to keep this threat to himself, but wound up passing it on to me, and I told Paul. We were overheard, and everything unraveled.

So here we were again, with Fly-in-Amber speaking in a mysterious tongue, but instead of Red, we had Spy to decipher it for us.

Fly-in-Amber had babbled on for about ten minutes, Spy paying close attention. Then the Martian shook himself all over and groggily got to his feet.

“Did I do it again?” he said. “Talk in the leader language?”

Spy confirmed that he had. It was all recorded, and he could hear it back in the relative comfort of the starfish, whenever Fly-in-Amber felt strong enough to move. “Two minutes,” he said, and did some kind of breathing ritual or exercise routine. Then we made our way across the uneven ground, Snowbird shuffling alongside Fly-in-Amber, supporting him.

The interior of the starfish had been reconfigured. There were enough comfortable couches for all of us and, amazingly, a deep pool of water for the Martians. They stripped with comical haste and slid into it. We helped one another out of our suits, too.

There was a table with pitchers of water and plates of what looked like cubes of cheese. Namir picked one up and sniffed it.

“It is food,” Spy said. “Rather bland, I suppose.”

Namir bit into it and shrugged. “Won’t kill us. How long?”

“That partly depends on the message, and your reaction to it.” It sat on the couch nearest to the Martians. “Sit down if you want.”

I ate a couple of the cubes. They had the texture of tofu but less flavor. I wished for salt. And wine. Maybe a whole bottle of wine, and a big steak.

Spy waited until everyone was seated. “As you may have deduced, this planet is where the Others came from, and the people, or creatures, you saw in the displays are their ancestors, in a manner of speaking.”