“In cancer was the secret of the new energy which would never die. And they made rituals to grow horns on their flesh, and tumors that spilled from their orifices, and some of them even had horns of tumor that grew beneath their eyes so that they had stalks like snails.

“And they made drugs and compounds with the hot water, they played with rabies and disease, and all this drove them into frenzy, saying, a ut li-en, we grow in us, we must grow and fill up the whole world! And for a long time they came very close, they ran rampant across the face of the world, for they were very clever and very fierce. Until the mbo rose up and stopped them.”

Cosgrad had cracked his pencil again. His hands were trembling. “Ah,” he said, “goodness. How radical, how extreme. They altered their flesh? And the changes, were they inherited?”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Tau-indi insisted. “It’s bad for our trim, to bring this knowledge up into the community.”

“Just that one question, Tau, please—these changes induced by their special cancer, did they go into the germ line? Were the Cancrioth able to pass on their mutations?”

“I won’t speak of it!” Tau snapped.

Later they asked Farrier, trying to be sly, “Does Falcrest think of my people as … tumorous? Do they associate us with cancer and disease?”

“It is a prejudice some hold,” Farrier said, tying a ribbon around his latest effort at a proper calligraphic scroll. “Will you help me with this knot? In Falcrest the belief is that all the Oriati live in a sort of humid quilt of jungles and savannas, full of tsetse and malaria and stranger disease. Lions and tigers everywhere, and whales in the rivers. An ignorance I hope to correct.” He winked at Tau. “Why? Do you associate yourselves with cancer and disease?”

“No,” Tau said, shuddering, “we are proud, most of all, of turning away from that path; just as we remember slavery, and take pride in eradicating it. And if some of us went back to that path, I think the Mbo would have to rise up to stop them, or give up all claim of goodness forever.”

*   *   *

SO Cosgrad could be uncomfortable, at times.

But he also told Tau-indi all about Falcrest, and that was a weapon Tau-indi needed. They’d show Abdumasi, with all his money and his griots. They’d show Kindalana, with all her guests and her diligent studies. Tau-indi, too, could bring a great gift to Prince Hill!