“Look there,” Ikemei said, pointing high on the wall. Kerrick looked up and saw nothing. When he looked back he saw that while he had been distracted she had used a stringblade to slice away a thin layer of his skin. There was no sensation of pain. The small drops of blood that began to well up were covered by the adhesive bandage of a nefmakel.

Kerrick could not contain his curiosity any longer. “You have taken some of my skin and my blood. Why?”

“An ustuzou with curiosity,” Ikemei said, signing him to lie flat on a low bench. “There is no end to wonders in this world. I am examining your body, that is what I am doing. Those colored sheets there will make a chromatographic examination, while those precipitating columns, those transparent tubes, will discover other secrets of your chemistry. Satisfied?”

Kerrick was silent, understanding nothing. Ikemei placed a lumpish gray creature on his chest and prodded it to life.

“And now this thing is generating ultrasound to look inside your body. When it is finished we will know all about you. Get up. We are done. A fargi will show you the way to return.”

Ikemei looked on and marveled as the door closed behind Kerrick and Inlènu*. “A talking animal. For the first time I am eager to get to Alpèasak. I have heard that ustuzou lifeforms are varied and interesting there. I look forward with great interest to seeing them for myself. Orders.”

“I hear, Ikemei,” Essag said.

“Do a complete series of sera tests, all the metabolic tests, give me a complete picture of this creature’s biology. Then the real work begins.”

Ikemei turned to the workbench and almost as an afterthought said, “We must find out all we can about its metabolic processes. We have been ordered to find parasites, predators, anything that will cause specific damage to this species.” She wriggled with distress as she said this and her assistant shared her discomfort. Ikemei gestured her to silence before she could speak.

“I know your thoughts and share them. We build life, we don’t destroy it. But these particular ustuzou have become a menace and a danger. They must be driven away. That is it, driven away. They will leave and not bother the new city when they see they are in danger. We shall not kill them, we will just drive them away.”

She spoke with all the sincerity that she could muster. Yet she and Essag shared a growing fear that darker things were being planned. Their respect for life, all life, warred with their sense of survival and their muscles twitched spasmodically with the silent conflict.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO