Spinneret

"We're pleased to have you here," Meredith told him, easing back a few centimeters. The alien's spacesuit was noticeably hot; Meredith wondered what the internal temperature was. "I regret we ca

"I will not require accommodations; my visit will be brief. And your lack of complete information is per our instructions to the Ctencri."

Not much for the odd polite lie, Meredith thought. That'll be a welcome change. "I see. Would you care to explain why? After all, we're neighbors now, and either of us might someday crash a ship in the other's territory."

"Your argument is unidirectional. Should a Rooshrike ship be distressed in this system a rescue team from the i

"You have a colony in this system?" Meredith asked carefully. The Ctencri hadn't mentioned that.

"A mining base only; the surface is too dry for practical colonization. The base is adequately defended against attack, however."

Meredith let the implication pass without comment; a stiff denial that Astra had any militaristic intentions might be misconstrued. "I see. May I ask how long you intend to stay here? I would like to give you a tour of our colony and the facilities we are setting up to mine the mineral deposits near here." A sudden thought struck him. "I take it you referred to liquid sulfur when you spoke of your mining base being too dry. Our analysis indicates that sulfur is the third most common element in our soil. Perhaps when we get our mining and separating equipment going you'd be interested in purchasing some of the sulfur from us."

There was a long pause—so long, in fact, that Meredith wondered if the translator had hit a snag somewhere. He was trying to come up with a complete rephrasing when Beaeki spoke. "Forgive our breach of understanding," he said, slipping his hands momentarily behind his back. "I am named Beaeki nul Dies na. We did not realize you were of equal status with your home planet. We assumed you were a vassal world, or possibly a detention center. We apologize."

"It's all right," Meredith assured him. Now what brought that on? he wondered.

The business about selling them our sulfur! He wished desperately the Ctencri had given them a little more data on Rooshrike psychology. "Human political and organizational structures can be pretty hard even for humans to understand, let alone outsiders. I take it the Ctencri didn't tell you very much about us?"

"The Ctencri do not give information away free. We ascertained you would be no military threat to us, even if you were outcasts, but could afford no more."

"Mm. The Ctencri charge too much, you think?"

"The Ctencri are usurers," the Rooshrike said flatly. "They perhaps appear generous to you at this time because you are newly contacted and they do not yet know what they want from you. But you will learn, as we did, that their only interests are building their own power and influence."

"Well, we have a long history of that ourselves. Once we find our feet the Ctencri may find us harder to fleece than they expect." Meredith suddenly remembered his duties as host, and gestured back toward the cars. "May I offer you that look around now? I'm sure the Ctencri didn't tell you what we had pla

"I will accept." If Beaeki had caught the attempt at humor he gave DO sign of it.

"I would prefer we use my vehicle, though. If you have no objection."

Meredith shrugged, trying hard not to read anything sinister into the suggestion.

"No objections at all. Whenever you're ready."

It took only a few minutes to offload the vehicle, a sort of cross between a hovercraft and a powerboat with stubby outriggers; but once he and Beaeki were inside, Meredith understood the alien's reluctance to rough it in Astra's more primitive cars. The passenger compartment was large, comfortable, and whisperquiet, with a climate control Beaeki had thoughtfully set to match the outside air temperature. The ground effect cushion, which seemed both more powerful and less dust-making than those of the military ground-effect vehicles Meredith was used to, handled even boulder-sized obstacles with ease. Meredith's escort, confined as they were to cars and the water-only hovercraft, had a hard time keeping up, but Meredith wasn't overly concerned. Beaeki didn't seem bothered by the possible breach of protocol, and as their conversation was being monitored via Meredith's phone, the colonel didn't feel nervous when out of sight of his men.

What he did feel was surprise. Beaeki, he'd judged, was only mildly interested in what the humans were building on Astra, and he'd accordingly been thinking along the lines of a half-hour trip to Unie and back. But the Rooshrike, with no trace of his earlier official coolness, asked question after question, and before he knew it Meredith had launched them on a grand tour.

They began at the continental shelf due east of Martello Island, where the mysterious mineral deposits lay clearly visible a few meters beneath the water.

Crossing the narrow strip of land that separated the ocean from the northernmost finger of Splayfoot Bay, they came to the village of Wright, where the mined minerals would eventually be separated and purified. The road from there to Unie bordered both the bay and the Wright-Unie fa

"You go to great lengths for such a useless world," Beaeki commented as they headed toward Ceres.

"It may be the only other one we ever have," Meredith said sourly, "if the Ctencri are to be believed. Besides, we humans are very big on challenges."

They made a fast circuit of Ceres—where, thankfully, the workers were sticking to business today—looked at Teardrop Lake, and then headed south to Crosse, at the junction of whose rivers a second fish nursery was located.

And through it all, Meredith learned a great deal about the Rooshrike.

They were a young race, relatively speaking, technologically anywhere from eighty to three hundred years behind the other starfaring races of the region. As junior members of the six-nation trading association, they had chafed somewhat under the perceived condescension of the older races, particularly that of the Ctencri, and while they had rapidly built an empire of twenty colonies and bases, they had always had the feeling none of the others really took them seriously.

Though Beaeki never actually said so, Meredith got the distinct impression the Rooshrike were relieved that the beings from Earth were taking their former place at the bottom of the pecking order.

"Nice that at least no one's all that much more advanced technologically than all the others," Meredith noted at one point. "Still seems sort of odd, though, considering all the time that's been available for life to develop in."

"An accident of nature," Beaeki said, gazing out the side window as he drove.

"Approximately one hundred forty million years ago a supernova saturated this part of space with enhanced cosmic radiation, resulting in rapid mutation of disease organisms, destruction of high-atmosphere protective regions, and direct large-creature destruction via tissue damage. Those peoples capable of survival lost nearly all technology; the few who survived are more primitive now than even your people."