Suppose we abandon carbon as the major component of the giant molecules of life. Are there any other elements which have the almost unique property of carbon — that of being able to form long atomic chains and rings — so that giant molecules reflecting life's versatility can exist?
      The atoms that come nearest to carbon in this respect are boron and silicon, boron lying just to the left of carbon on the periodic table (as usually presented) and silicon just beneath it. Of the two, however, boron is a rather rare element. Its participation in random reactions to produce life would be at so slow a rate, because of its low concentration in the planetary crust, that a boron-based life formed within a mere five billion years is of vanishingly small probability.

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      That leaves us with silicon, and there, at least, we are on firm ground. Mercury, or any hot planet, may be short on carbon, hydrogen and fluorine, but it must be loaded with silicon and oxygen, for these are the major components of rocks. A hot planet which begins by lacking silicon and oxygen as well, just couldn't exist because there would be nothing left in enough quantity to make up more than a scattering of nickel-iron meteorites.
      Silicon can form compounds analogous to the carbon chains. Hydrogen atoms tied to a silicon chain, rather than to a carbon chain, form the "silanes." Unfortunately, the silanes are less stable than the corresponding hydrocarbons and are even less likely to exist at high temperatures in the complex arrangements required of molecules making up living tissue.
      Yet it remains a fact that silicon does indeed form complex chains in rocks and that those chains can easily withstand temperatures up to white heat. Here, however, we are not dealing with chains composed of silicon atoms only (Si-Si-Si-Si-Si) but of chains of silicon atoms alternating with oxygen atoms (Si-O-Si-O-Si).
      It so happens that each silicon atom can latch on to four oxygen atoms, so you must imagine oxygen atoms attached to each silicon atom above and below, with these oxygen atoms being attached to other silicon atoms also, and so on. The result is a three-dimensional network, and an extremely stable one.
      But once you begin with a silicon-oxygen chain, what if the silicon atom's capacity for hooking on to two additional atoms is filled not by more oxygen atoms but by carbon atoms, with, of course, hydrogen atoms attached? Such hybrid molecules, both silicon- and carbon-based, are the "silicones." These, too, have been developed chiefly during World War II and since, and are remarkable for their great stability and inertness.
      Again, given greater complexity and high temperature, silicones might exhibit the activity and versatility necessary for life. Another possibility: Perhaps silicones may exist in which the carbon groups have fluorine atoms attached, rather than hydrogen atoms. Fluorosilicones would be the logical name for these, though, as far as I know — and I stand very ready to be corrected — none such have yet been studied.
      Might there possibly be silicone or fluorosilicone life forms in which simple forms of this class of compound (which can remain liquid up to high temperatures) might be the background of life and complex forms the principal character?

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All known life on Earth is built upon carbon and carbon-based compounds. Yet the possibility has been discussed that life elsewhere may have a different chemical foundation – one based on the element silicon.

Early speculation

In 1891, the German astrophysicist Julius Scheiner became perhaps the first person to speculate on the suitability of silicon as a basis for life. This idea was taken up by the British chemist James Emerson Reynolds (1844–1920) who, in 1893, in his opening address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science,¹ pointed out that the heat stability of silicon compounds might allow life to exist at very high temperatures (see thermophiles). In an 1894 article,² drawing on Reynolds's ideas and also those of Robert Ball,³ H. G. Wells wrote:

One is startled towards fantastic imaginings by such a suggestion: visions of silicon-aluminium organisms – why not silicon-aluminium men at once? – wandering through an atmosphere of gaseous sulphur, let us say, by the shores of a sea of liquid iron some thousand degrees or so above the temperature of a blast furnace.

Thirty years later, J. B. S. Haldane suggested that life might be found deep inside a planet based on partly molten silicates, the oxidation of iron perhaps providing it with energy.

Silicon biochemistry?

At first sight, silicon does look like a promising organic alternative to carbon. It is common in the universe and is also a p-block element of group IV, lying directly below carbon in the periodic table of elements, so that much of its basic chemistry is similar. For instance, just as carbon combines with four hydrogen atoms to form methane, CH₄, silicon yields silane, SiH₄. Silicates are analogs of carbonates, silicon chloroform of chloroform, and so on. Both elements form long chains, or polymers, in which they alternate with oxygen. In the simplest case, carbon-oxygen chains yield polyacetal, a plastic used in synthetic fibers, while from a backbone of alternating atoms of silicon and oxygen come polymeric silicones.

Conceivably, some strange life-forms might be built from silicone-like substances were it not for an apparently fatal flaw in silicon's biological credentials. This is its powerful affinity for oxygen. When carbon is oxidized during the respiratory process of a terrestrial organism (see respiration), it becomes the gas carbon dioxide – a waste material that is easy for a creature to remove from its body. The oxidation of silicon, however, yields a solid because, immediately upon formation, silicon dioxide organizes itself into a lattice in which each silicon atom is surrounded by four oxygens. Disposing of such a substance would pose a major respiratory challenge.

Life-forms must also be able to collect, store, and utilize energy from their environment. In carbon-based biota, the basic energy storage compounds are carbohydrates in which the carbon atoms are linked by single bonds into a chain. A carbohydrate is oxidized to release energy (and the waste products water and carbon dioxide) in a series of controlled steps using enzymes. These enzymes are large, complex molecules (see proteins) which catalyze specific reactions because of their shape and "handedness." A feature of carbon chemistry is that many of its compounds can take right and left forms, and it is this handedness, or chirality, that gives enzymes their ability to recognize and regulate a huge variety of processes in the body. Silicon's failure to give rise to many compounds that display handedness makes it hard to see how it could serve as the basis for the many interconnected chains of reactions needed to support life.

The absence of silicon-based biology, or even silicon-based prebiotic chemicals, is also suggested by astronomical evidence. Wherever astronomers have looked – in meteorites, in comets, in the atmospheres of the giant planets, in the interstellar medium, and in the outer layers of cool stars – they have found molecules of oxidized silicon (silicon dioxide and silicates) but no substances such as silanes or silicones which might be the precursors of a silicon biochemistry.

Even so, it has been pointed out, silicon may have had a part to play in the origin of life on Earth. A curious fact is that terrestrial life-forms utilize exclusively right-handed carbohydrates and left-handed amino acids. One theory to account for this is that the first prebiotic carbon compounds formed in a pool of "primordial soup" on a silica surface having a certain handedness. This handedness of the silicon compound determined the preferred handedness of the carbon compounds now found in terrestrial life. An entirely different possibility is that of artificial life or intelligence with a significant silicon content.

Silicon-based life in science fiction

Notwithstanding the gloomy prognosis from chemists, silicon-based life has flourished in the imaginary worlds of science fiction. In one of its earliest outings, Stanley Weisbaum's A Martian Odyssey, the creature in question is half a million years old and moves once every ten minutes to deposit a brick – Weisbaum's answer to one of the major problems facing siliceous life. As one of the watching scientists observes

Those bricks were its waste matter... We're carbon, and our waste is carbon dioxide, and this thing is silicon, and its waste is silicon dioxide-silica. But silica is a solid, hence the bricks. And it builds itself in, and when it is covered, it moves over to a fresh place to start over.

More recently, a silicon-based life-form, the Horta, is discovered by miners on Janus VI in "Devil in the Dark" (original Star Trek series, episode 26). Every 50,000 years, all the Horta die except for one individual who survives to look after the eggs of the next generation.⁴

References

1. Reynolds, J. E. Nature, 48, 477 (1893).

2. Wells, H. G. "Another Basis for Life," Saturday Review, p. 676 (December 22, 1894).

3. Ball, R. S. W. "The Possibility of Life in Other Worlds," Fortnightly Review, 62 (NS 56), 718 (1894).

4. Alison, A. "Possible Forms of Life," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 21, 48 (1968)

I am rather doubtful that the cruder substitutions suggested by various writers, such as that of silicon for carbon, would actually work, though of course I cannot be sure that they wouldn’t. We have the fact that on Earth, with silicon many times more plentiful than carbon, life uses the latter. The explanations which can be advanced for this fact seem to me to be explanations as well of why silicon won’t work in life forms. (To be more specific: silicon atoms are large enough to four-coordinate with oxygen, and hence wind up in hard, crystalline, insoluble macromolecular structures—the usual run of silicate minerals. The smaller carbon atom, able to react with not more than three oxygens at once, was left free to form the water-reactive carbon dioxide gas.) True, some Earthly life such as scouring rushes, basket sponges, and foraminifera use silicon compounds in skeletal parts; but not, except in trace amounts, in active life machinery.

To understand why dwarfs and trolls don't like each other you have to go back a long way.

They get along like chalk and cheese. Very like chalk and cheese, really. One is organic, the other isn't, and also smells a bit cheesy.

Dwarfs make a living by smashing up rocks with valuable minerals in them and the silicon-based lifeform known as trolls are, basically, rocks with valuable minerals in them. In the wild they also spend most of the daylight hours dormant, and that's not a situation a rock containing valuable minerals needs to be in when there are dwarfs around.

And dwarfs hate trolls because, after you've just found an interesting seam of valuable minerals, you don't like rocks that suddenly stand up and tear your arm off because you've just stuck a pick-axe in their ear.

We've all heard it before. Predators have eyes facing the front of their face to gauge the distance to their prey, for accurate pouncing. Prey animals, meanwhile, have sideways-facing eyes so they can see in all directions to make it hard for predators to sneak up on them. It makes sense, and all we have to do is look at our favorite furry friends to confirm our belief.

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Therefore, we can confidently predict that if you find an animal with forward facing eyes, it will be a predator, and all herbivores will have sideways-facing eyes. Like this Diana monkey:

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Oops. It seems that there are a lot of animals out there that are herbivores and have their eyes set squarely in the front of their face. All primates, for example, including lemurs, bushbabies, tarsiers, old-world monkeys, new-world monkeys, and the great apes, have forward facing eyes. With two exceptions, none of these are primarily predators. Many are entirely herbivorous, others will opportunistically take small animals for food but these are usually encountered at close range while foraging, or otherwise under conditions that don't require accurate pounces, and the meat thus gained is but a small contribution to their diet. Do the predatory primates, at least, have eyes that are more forward facing than the herbivores?

For this discussion, I will rely on photographs. I will try to use photos with a perspective that gives a reasonable idea of the degree of binocular overlap, but judging this is tricky. The ideal photo for this purpose would be from overhead, but such photos are hard to find (and may not be public domain or creative commons). A serious study would go and take actual measurements on preserved specimens in a natural history museum, but that's a bit beyond the level of detail I want to go in to.

So, about those primates ... are predators more binocular-capable than non-predators?

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Umm, nope. Not really. Although the eyes of the tarsier are really freaky looking.

But wait, you say. Primates are an exception. They live in trees and need binocular vision to jump from branch to branch. They also need to make accurate pounces, just they are grabbing boughs rather than squirming victims.

So what about the primates that don't live in the trees? Humans, of course, laze about in living rooms, not jungles — but they get a pass for also being predators. Patas monkeys, on the other hand, live in open savanna and are not very predatory. See the picture of the patas monkey above? With eyes as forward facing as all the other primates? There doesn't seem to be much selective pressure to push this prey animal to evolve wide angle vision.

All right, so we have one group of animals that are plant eaters and often prey. Surely all the other animals conform to our initial expectations?

Except what are those animals that are predators and have forward facing eyes? Lions. Wolves. Mongooses. Wolverines.

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Like primates, all these animals belong to the same taxonomic order, the carnivorans. Maybe the forward facing eyes of the carnivorans are just a relic of their ancestry, a quirk of fate that left the major mammalian predators with binocular vision? How can we test this? By looking at carnivorans that are not dietary carnivores, of course!

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Note that all these carnivorans also have front-facing eyes, regardless of dietary preference. Compare the brown bear where vegetable matter comprises the majority of its diet (in most locations) with the almost entirely carnivorous polar bear, and you don't see much difference in binocular overlap.

So, just because you're not a predator doesn't mean you don't have binocular vision. What about the other way around? Surely all animals that are predators do have binocular vision? The carnivorans are the rock-star predators of the mammalian world, but there are other predatory mammals out there. We'll ignore bats and cetaceans, because they hunt by sound rather than sight. Likewise, shrews and moles use touch and smell rather than eyesight for hunting.

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The highly carnivorous grasshopper mouse does not seem to have any greater binocular vision than other herbivorous or omnivorous mice or hamsters. The grey squirrel is a curious case because you would expect that if similar sized primates had binocular vision because they were arboreal, you would get strong binocular overlap among arboreal squirrels which also need to accurately judge distances when leaping from branch to branch - but you don't. So arboreality might not be a good explanation either

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Carnivorous marsupials seem to generally have less binocular overlap than do carnivorans. This is particularly evident when comparing Thylacoleo carnifex to a lion. They do have more binocular overlap than ruminants like goats, and about the same as that of rodents. Compared to other marsupials, however, there is no obvious difference between fully terrestrial large prey herbivores (kangaroos), arboreal herbivores (koalas, ring-tailed possums), arboreal omnivores (brush-tailed possums, Virginia opposum) and the carnivores (quolls, Tasmanian devils, various large extinct carnivorous marsupials).

But why focus only on mammals, I hear you ask. Let's look at some birds. There are certainly predatory birds with extreme binocular overlap: the owls.

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Ah-ha! Surely other predatory birds also have a lot of binocular overlap! Let's also look at some other major groups of predatory birds: Accipitriformes (hawks and eagles), falcons, shrikes, kingfishers, herons, and storks.

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Compare these to some common herbivorous and omnivorous birds

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It's hard to tell without actually going to a natural history museum and measuring their specimens, but it looks like the emu has greater binocular overlap than falcons and hawks. The falcon and hawk are roughly on par with the largely herbivorous crane, and predatory herons, kingfishers, shrikes, and storks have eye placement similar to the rest of the herbivore and omnivore birds.

Of course, just comparing within the birds alone is like only considering a subsection of the mammals — say, bats. The birds are just one branch on the evolutionary tree of a much larger group of animals — the dinosaurs. So lets look at some predatory dinosaurs and see how they stack up in the peepers department. Tyrannosaurus rex is famous for having good binocular vision, but good ol' T. rex was not the only predatory dinosaur out there. Lets also look at Allosaurus, Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus, Carnotaurus, Ceratorsaurus, and Torvosaurus, to capture most of the major branches of predatory dinosaurs.

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So we see that except for the tyrannosaurs, predatory dinosaurs had pretty crap binocular vision - on par with the worst of the birds. Both early, primitive tyrannosaurs like Alioramus and later derived tyrannosaurs like T. rex had pretty good binocular vision. Hmm, not looking so good for the hypothesis of binocular predators.

So lets expand our phylogenetic net just a bit farther to encompass all the archosaurs. In addition to the birds, we have another group of archosaurs living among us today, and they are very predatory:

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Here again — large predatory animal that needs good depth information for its lunging ambush strikes, with little binocular overlap.

Shall we compare predatory turtles to herbivorous turtles?

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No matter how predatory they are, they all have about the same level of binocular overlap.

Or should we compare predatory squamatates with herbivorous squamatates?

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The herbivorous skink has more binocular vision than any of the predators, including the über-active pursuit predatory argus monitor.

We don't have any plant-eating amphibians, but the predatory amphibians can be investigated

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They've got a bit of binocular overlap — about on par with many birds, reptiles, and marsupials, whether predatory or not, but nothing spectacular. It's still not looking good for our binocular predator hypothesis.

Going out onto more distant branches of the tree of life, we can examine other vertebrates:

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Again, here, among all the bony fish and cartiligenous fish, we see little binocular overlap, regardless of whether the fish is a fierce predator or prefers to munch on plants.

I'm going to stop with the vertebrates, since so many invertebrates either don't use eyes or have lots and lots of eyes or huge eyes that point in all directions (allowing simultaneous binocular and wide-angle vision).

In conclusion, there seems to be little correlation between good binocular vision and diet or means of acquiring food. Some binocular animals are predatory, some are not. Some predators have poor binocular vision and thrive. Some plant eaters have adapted to have forward facing eyes. What explains the distribution of binocularity we see among the animal kingdom? I don't know. I don't have an explanation. I do, however, see that the explanation of binocular vision being a result of predatory behavior does not seem to be supported by the facts.

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(ed note: After the Rim Wars, the former planets of the human empire are trying to re-connect. The bumbling idiots of the Rediscovery & Reeducation Service discover lost settlements and attempt to add them to the empire. And behind them the Investigation-Adjustment service follows and tries to clean up the mess that R&R makes.

Things get worse on Gienah. The I-A stumbles over a new inhabited planet first for a change. But it isn't a human planet, it is aliens. What's worse it that I-A intercepted a routine request sent to R&R for an instructor to be sent to Gienah. The request was seemingly sent by a officer named Riso.

Except that Riso was on a R&R starship called the Delphinus Rediscovery. Which was lost eighteen months ago.

I-A realizes that the aliens of Gienah have captured the Delphinus Rediscovery, and forged the routine request. The aliens are dangerous. But this could be a valuable contact. So I-A sends their new hot-shot recruit, a man named Orne. He will have five days to try and make an alliance with the aliens and find out where the Delphinus Rediscovery is being held. If he fails, I-A is going to wipe out the aliens with a planet-buster bomb. Orne knows that the aliens are pretending to be genetically mutated humans. As a precaution, they have surgically implanted a radio in Orne's neck so that I-A can listen in.

As the scene opens, Orne is being briefed by his boss, Umbo Stetson)

      (Orne askes) "What do we know about them?"
     (Stetson says) "Not much. They look something like an ancient Terran chimpanzee, but with blue fur. Face is hairless, pink-skinned." Stetson touched a button at his waist. The translite map above him became a screen with a figure frozen on it. "This is life size."
     "Looks like the famous missing link (halfway between ape and human)," Orne said.
     "Yeah, but you've a different kind of link to find."
     "Vertical slit pupil in their eyes," Orne said. He studied the figure intently. The Gienahn had been recorded from the front by a mini-sneaker. The figure stood about a meter and a half tall. The stance was slightly bent forward, long arms hanging. The nose was flat with two vertical slits. The mouth was a lipless gash above a receding chin. Four ringers on the hands. It wore a wide belt from which dangled neat pouches and what appeared to be tools, although their use was obscure. Perhaps they were weapons. There appeared to be the tip of a tail protruding from behind one of the squat legs. The creature stood on lawn like greenery and behind it towered the faery spires of the city they'd observed from the air.
     "Tails?" Orne asked.
     "Right They're arboreal. Not a road on the whole planet that we can find. Lots of vine lanes through the jungle, though." Stetson's face hardened. "Match that with a city as advanced as the one there."

     "Slave culture?"
     "Probably."
     "How many cities do they have?"
     "We've found two. This one and another on the far side. The other one's a ruin."
     "War?"
     "You tell us. Lots of mysteries here."
     "How extensive is the jungle cover?"
     "Almost complete on the land surfaces. There are polar oceans, a few lakes and rivers. One low mountain chain follows the equatorial belt about twothirds of the way around the planet. Continental drift scars are old. The surface has been stabilized for a long time."
     "And only two cities. Are you sure of that?"
     "Reasonably. It'd be pretty hard to miss something the size of that place." He pointed to the city behind the figure on the screen. "It must be two hundred kilometers long, at least fifty wide. It's swarming with these creatures. We've a good zone-count estimate; it places this city's population at more than thirty million. In population, it's the biggest single city we've ever heard of."
     "Whee-ew," Orne breathed. "Look at the size of those buildings. What these Gienahns could tell us about urban living."
     "And we may never hear what they have to say, Orne. Unless you bring them into the fold, there'll be nothing but ashes for our archaeologists to pick over."

     "Stet, what're my chances?"
     "Slim. Maybe less than that. These goons probably captured the Delphinus. Our best guess is they want you just long enough to get your equipment and everything you know."

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(ed note: Orne is in an antigravity sled, disguised as an R&R officer. He heads to the alien city when his sled is abruptly surrounded by aliens who leaped down from the trees.)

     Orne braked to a creaking stop that shifted the load behind him. He found himself staring through the windshield at a native of Gienah. The native crouched on the hood, a Mark XX exploding-pellet rifle in his right hand directed at Orne's head. In the abrupt shock of meeting, Orne recognized the weapon: standard issue to marine guards on all R&R survey ships.
     "Who are you?" the Gienahn demanded.
     Orne dropped his hand, said: "I'm Lewis Orne of the Rediscovery and Reeducation Service. I was sent here at the request of the First-Contact officer on the Delphinus Rediscovery."
     "What do you carry in your … vehicle?"
     "The R&R equipment, the things a fieldman requires to help the people of a rediscovered planet restore their civilization and economy. When do we go?" Orne asked.
     "The great sun goes down soon," Tanub said. "We can continue as soon as Chiranachuruso rises."
     "Chiranachuruso?"
     "Our satellite … our moon."
     "What a beautiful word," Orne said. "Chiranachuruso."
     "In our tongue it means 'The Limb of Victory,'" Tanub said. "By its light we will continue."
     Orne turned, looked back at Tanub. "Do you mean to tell me you can see by what light gets down here through those trees?"
     "Can you not see?" Tanub asked.
     "Not without the headlights."
     "Our eyes differ," Tanub said. He bent toward Orne, peered at Orne's eyes. The Gienahn's vertical slit pupils expanded, contracted.

     "Why do you have just the one big city?" Orne asked. Silence. "I said, why do you …"
     "Orne, you are ignorant of our ways," Tanub growled. "Therefore, I forgive you. The city is for our race, for the foreverness. Our young must be born in sunlight. Once, long ago, we used crude platforms on the tops of the trees. Now … only the wild ones do this. The ones who control the birthing sites control our world," Tanub said. "Once there was another city. We destroyed it, shattered its towers and sent it crashing into the dirty mud where the jungle can reclaim it."
     "Are there many … wild ones?" Orne asked.
     "Fewer each season," Tanub said. His voice sounded boastful, confident.
     "There's how they get their slaves," Stetson said (secretly to Orne through the implanted radio).
     "Soon, there will be no wild ones left," Tanub said.

     Orne said. "Your city — I saw very tall buildings. Of what do you build them?"
     "In your tongue, glass," Tanub said. "The engineers of the Delphinus said it was impossible. As you saw, they are wrong."
     Stetson's voice came hissing on the carrier wave: "A glassblowing culture! That'd explain a lot of things."
     The disguised air sled crept down the jungle aisle as Orne reviewed what he had heard and what he had observed. Glassblowers. High Path Chief. Eyes with vertical slit pupils. An arboreal species. Hunters. Warlike. Slave culture. The young must be born in sunlight. Culture? Or physical necessity? They learned quickly. They'd had the Delphinus and her crew only eighteen standard months.

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     "We have not deceived you, Orne, have we?"
     Orne felt his stomach contract. "What do you mean?" The furry odor of the Gienahn was oppressive in the cab.
     "You have recognized that we cannot be mutated members of your race," Tanub said.
     "That's true," Orne said.
     "I like you, Orne," Tanub said. "You shall be one of my slaves. I will give you fine females from the Delphinus and you will teach me many things."
     "How did you capture the Delphinus?" Orne asked.
     "How do you know of this?" Tanub drew back and Orne saw the rifle muzzle come up.
     "You have one of their rifles," Orne said. "We don't pass around weapons. Our aim is to reduce the numbers of weapons throughout the …"

     "Weak ground crawlers!" Tanub said. "You are no match for us, Orne. We take the high path. Our prowess is great. We surpass all other creatures in cunning. We shall subjugate you."
     "I am of the I-A," Orne said. "I came here to find out where you'd hidden the Delphinus."
     "You came to die," Tanub said. "We have hidden your ship in the place that suits us best. In all of our history there has never been a better place for us to crouch and await the moment of attack."
     "It's too bad you feel that way," Orne said. "When two cultures meet as ours are meeting they tend to help each other. Each gains. What have you done with the crew from the Delphinus?"
     "They are slaves," Tanub said. "Those of them who still live. Some resisted. Others objected to teaching us what it is we must know." He pointed the Mark XX at Orne's head. "You will not be foolish enough to object, will you, Orne?"
     "No need for me to be foolish," Orne said. "We of the I-A are also teachers. We teach lessons to people who make mistakes. You have made a mistake, Tanub. You have told me where you have hidden the Delphinus."

     "Go, boy!" Stetson shouted on the hissing carrier wave. "Where is it?"
     "Impossible!" Tanub snarled. The gun muzzle remained centered on Orne's head.
     "It's on your moon," Orne said. "Dark side. It's on a mountain on the dark side of your moon."
     Tanub's eyes dilated, contracted. "You read minds?"
     "No need for the I-A to read minds," Orne said. "We rely on superior mental prowess and the mistakes of others."

     "Two attack monitors are on their way" Stetson's voice hissed. "We're coming in to get you. I'll want to know how you figured this one out."
     "You are a weak fool like the others," Tanub gritted.
     "It's too bad you formed your opinion of us by observing the low grades of R&R," Orne said.
     "Easy, easy," Stetson cautioned. "Don't pick a fight now. Remember he's arboreal, probably as strong as an ape."
     "You ground-crawling slave," Tanub grated. "I could kill you where you sit."
     "You kill your entire planet if you do," Orne said. "I'm not alone, Tanub. Others listen to every word we say. There's a ship above us that could split open your planet with one bomb—wash everything with molten rock. Your planet would run like the glass of your buildings. Your entire planet would be one big piece of ceramic."
     "You lie!"

     "I'll make you an offer," Orne said. "We don't want to exterminate you. We won't unless you force our hand. Well give you limited membership in the Galactic Federation until you've proven you're no menace to other —"
     "You dare insult me," Tanub growled.
     "You'd better believe me," Orne said. "We —" Stetson's voice interrupted: "Got it, Orne! They caught the Delphinus in a tight little mountain valley right where you said it'd be! Blew the tubes off it. We're mopping up now."
     "It's like this, Tanub," Orne said. "We've already recaptured the Delphinus."

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(ed note: the Gienahns give up, mission accomplished. Later, Orne is debriefed)

     (Stetson asks) "Tell me, Orne, how'd you tumble to where they'd hidden the Delphinus? We'd already made a quick scan of the moon and it didn't seem possible they'd try to hide it up there."
     "It had to be there. Tanub's word for his people was Grazzi. Most sentients call themselves something meaning 'The People.' But in his tongue, that's Ocheero. There was no such word as Grazzi on our translation list. I started working on it. There had to be a conceptual superstructure here with direct relationship to the animal shape, to the animal characteristics — just as there is with us. I felt that if I could get at the conceptual models for their communication, I had them. I was working under life-and-death pressure and, strangely, it was their lives and their deaths that concerned me."

     "Yes, yes, get on with it," Stetson said.
     "One step at a time," Orne chided. "But on solid ground. By that time, I knew quite a bit about the Gienahns. They had wild enemies in the jungle, creatures much like themselves who lived in what might be enviable freedom. Grazzi. Grazzi. I wondered if it might not be a word adopted from another language. What if it meant 'enemy'?"
     "I don't see where this is leading," Stetson said.
     "It is leading us to the Delphinus."
     "That … that word told you where the Delphinus was?"
     "No, but it fitted the creature pattern of the Gienahns. I'd felt from our first contact that the Gienahns might have a culture similar to that of the Indians on ancient Terra."
     "You mean with castes and devil worship, that sort of thing?"
     "Not those Indians. The Amerinds, the aborigines of wilderness America."
     "What made you suspect this?"
     "They came at me like a primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right onto the rotor hood of my sled. It was an act of bravery, nothing less than counting coup."
     "Counting what?"
     "Challenging me in a way that put the challenger in immediate peril. Making me look silly."

     "I'm not tracking on this, Orne."
     "Be patient; we'll get there."
     "To how you learned where they'd secreted the Delphinus?"
     "Of course. You see, this leader, this Tanub identified himself immediately as High Path Chief. That wasn't on our translation list either. But it was easy: Raider Chief. There's a word in almost every language in our history to mean 'raider' and deriving from a word for road or path or highway."
     "Highwayman," Stetson said.
     "'Raid' itself," Orne said. "It's a corruption of an ancient human word for road."

     "Yeah, yeah, but where'd all this …"
     "We're almost home, Stet. Now, what'd we know about them at this point? Glassblowing culture. Everything pointed to the assumption that they were recently emerged from the primitive. They played into our hands then by telling us how vulnerable their species survival was dependent upon the high city in the sunlight."
     "Yeah, we got that up here. It meant we could control them."
     "Control's a bad word, Stet. But we'll skip it for now. You want to know about the clues in their animal shape, their language and all the rest of it. Very well: Tanub said their moon was Chiranachuruso. Translation: 'The Limb of Victory.' When I had that, it all fell into place."
     "I don't see how."
     "The vertical slit pupils of their eyes."
     "What's that mean?"
     "It means night-hunting predator accustomed to dropping upon its prey from above. No other type of creature has ever had the vertical slit in its light sensors. And Tanub said the Delphinus was hidden in the best place in all of their history. For that to track, the hiding place had to be somewhere high, very high. Likewise, dark. Put it together: a high place on the dark side of Chiranachuruso, on 'The Limb of Victory.'"
     "I'm a pie-eyed greepus," Stetson whispered.

      (Beowulf Shaeffer said) “I’m all for caution. Discretion is the better part of valor and like that. You can even be good businessmen, because it’s easier to survive with lots of money. But you’re so damn concerned with various kinds of survival that you aren’t even interested in something that isn’t a threat. Nobody but a puppeteer would have turned down my offer to describe the Core.”

     (the herbivore alien Puppeteer said) “You forget the kzinti.”
     “Oh, the kzinti.” Who expects rational behavior from kzinti? You whip them when they attack; you reluctantly decide not to exterminate them; you wait till they build up their strength; and when they attack, you whip ‘em again. Meanwhile you sell them foodstuffs and buy their metals and employ them where you need good games theorists. It’s not as if they were a real threat. They’ll always attack before they’re ready."

     “The kzinti are carnivores. Where we are interested in survival, carnivores are interested in meat alone. They conquer because subject peoples can supply them with food. They cannot do menial work. Animal husbandry is alien to them. They must have slaves or be barbarians roaming the forests for meat. Why should they be interested in what you call abstract knowledge? Why should any thinking being if the knowledge has no chance of showing a profit? In practice, your description of the Core would attract only an omnivore.”

     “You’d make a good case if it were not for the fact that most sentient races are omnivores.”
     “We have thought long and hard on that.”
     Ye cats. I was going to have to think long and hard on that.

• 

      The Centaurs (they call themseles K'kree) are among the most massive of the major races and are the only example of a major race to be descended from herbivores. An adult Centaur stands about 1.5 meters at the shoulder and between 2.0 and 2.4 meters tall when standing erect. Weight averages 550 kilograms. They are bilaterally symmetrical, hexapedal, and homeothermic. They bear some resemblance to the centaurs of ancient Terran myth, a trait noted by the earliest explorers. There are two sexes.

     Smell is the sharpest of the K'kree senses. Their works of art concentrate upon olfactory rather than visual or auditory elements (although these are often present). Perfumery is as valid an art form for them as sculpture and music are to humans. K'kree differentiate other beings by scent more than by sight or sound, and can detect the approach of enemies at considerable distance. A K'kree with experience in dealing with humans (and other races) can detect certain basic emotions (fear, sexual desire, anger, etc.) from their smell. Due to their sensitive noses they are uncomfortable on worlds with tainted atmospheres, even with filter masks, but this does not prevent them from operating on such worlds.

     Centaurs are extremely conservative in all aspects of their culture. Ceremonial military units (such as bodyguards) are armed with equipment which K'kree military technology outdated centuries ago, and (aside from modifications made necessary by the discovery of spaceflight) K'kree government has not changed significantly in centuries.

     Because of their plains origins, the Centaurs are claustrophobes; they cannot stand to be enclosed. Centaur cities are clumps of low, broad, transparent domes, the buildings inside being never more than one story in height and open to the sky. Partitions inside buildings are achieved with curtains or tapestries. Through training and discipline, some individuals (AFV crews, starship pilots, and so on) are able to overcome this phobia.

     Centaurs are extremely gregarious. They are rarely (if ever) found alone, and will quickly sicken and die if removed from other K'kree for any length of time. A lone K'kree is either deathly ill, and has been exiled by the herd to die, or is dangerously insane. Receiving a trade or diplomatic delegation from the centaurs means entertaining the entire family (one or more wives, servants, scribes, assistants, etc) of the merchant or the ambassador. The K'kree word for "my" refers to a possession of an individual's herd or family, not to that of an individual. Privacy and individuality are exotic and little understood concepts for the K'kree.

     The K'kree are vegetarians, and (understandably) have an instinctive hatred of meat-eating creatures. The K'kree are very uneasy anywhere their sensitive noses detect the smell of cooking meat, any place where meat has been cooked recently, or in the presence of anyone who has eaten meat within the last two or three days (they smell it on the body oils and breath).

• 

Archaeological sophontology

Evolution

The K'kree developed as a plains herbivore, who developed intelligence to thwart carnivorous predators. K'kree quickly achieved dominance and, convinced of the righteousness of their ways, committed genocide against a number of meat-eating carnivorous species, called "G'naak" in K'kree speech.

At least one species of G'naak was intelligent and possessed rudimentary spaceflight technology, which they used to escape the K'kree to the Kirur's, the K'kree homeworld, moon. However, the K'kree were determined to wipe out this species and soon followed them to the moon of Kirur and wiped them out to the last sophont. Not even the name of this intelligent "G'naak" species is known any longer. However, non-K'kree sophontologists refer to this "G'naak" species as the Kirrixurians.

Another big evolutionary influence was a planetary holocaust caused by a supernova that caused a great extinction wave on their homeworld. Intelligence was one of the evolutionary responses to this planet-wide disaster.

First Contact & Empire

K'kree expansion into space progressed very slowly after the discovery of the jump drive in -4142. The conservative nature of society and the technical limitations placed upon space flight by that society (K'kree spaceships must be very large, for example (because they are claustrophobic and gregarious)) combined to inhibit early exploration and colonization.

The discovery of other sophonts caused a xenophobic reaction in K'kree society. The realization that intelligent carnivores might exist somewhere in space sparked the K'kree obsession to convert the universe to herbivorism. This obsession stimulated the growth of the Two Thousand Worlds to its present size and still dominates K'kree culture. Local cultures are tolerated and other aspects of K'kree society are not heavily enforced, but all races within the Two Thousand Worlds are herbivorous.

The K'kree Empire eventually stopped in its expansion. Increasing problems of administration over interstellar distances and contact with other starfaring races, such as Hivers and Humaniti, have stabilized the Two Thousand Worlds at its present size.

Hiver-K'kree War of (-2029 to -2013)

K'kree history is one of constant triumph until the K'kree of the Two Thousand Worlds encountered the Hivers of the Hive Federation. K'kree contact with the Hive Federation was soon followed by the Hiver-K'kree War of -2029 to -2013. The military technology of the K'kree proved superior in the first stages of the war. The war ended due to nonmilitary considerations, however, when the Hive Federation demonstrated a plan to radically alter the K'kree social order through the use of psycho-historical techniques and threatened to implement it. The K'kree withdrew to the antebellum borders, and the border between the two states has remained stable to this day.

Cultural sophontology

K'kree are highly social animals with an intense respect for their elders. Their love of nature and the outdoors is legendary manifesting itself in large, open forms of architecture that display the surrounding countryside and optimally create a view of the horizon. K'kree have little concept of private ownership and whenever possible go in for large, public infrastructure shared by large communities.

Belief system and philosophy

K'kree have a compulsory practice of ancestor worship. They venerate their ancestors to a degree that makes the ancient Terran Chinese look like amateurs. This obsession with one's forbears leads to many interesting K'kree art forms as well as a very widespread level of appreciation for history and chronicling.

Morality and ethics

Perhaps the most visible and outwardly visible sign of K'kree philosophy is their incredibly welcoming social behavior. K'kree openly welcome guests and have a long tradition of hospitality. If a K'kree is your friend, he will be your best friend... However, if one steps over one of the lines of K'kree propriety, a K'kree will just as quickly become your worst enemy.

K'kree have an average level of socio-plasticity (tolerance) about most matters except for that of diet. The eating of animals (carnivory), is an overwhelming taboo and will quickly offend a K'kree as well as possibly invoking a vendetta. Foreign merchants, ambassadors, and visitors are advised to avoid meat consumption while in K'kree space.

Cultural hierarchies

The K'kree having a strong interventionary stance balanced by a competing trend towards tribalism, somewhat focused by the herd and steppelord hierarchies.

• Most K'kree have a general agreement that the "meat-eaters" should be brought to justice to protect herbivorous kind.
• On the other hand, while gregarious, most K'kree want to protect their culture from outside influences in an isolationist stance.
• Somehow, it all works to a somewhat successful degree for the K'kree although cultural schisms sometimes produce offshoots such as the Lords of Thunder.
• After all, the K'kree are known for having one of the most stable, least overtly quarrelsome, and long-lasting societies in Charted Space.

Motivation

K'kree society is very different than what loose norms exist for Humaniti:

• K'kree find any kind of carnivory or meat consumption to be both offensive and an extreme taboo. K'kree are not only willing to go to war over such matters, but have actually done so.
• K'kree find the great diversity of Human societies to be incredibly strange. K'kree societies are far more uniform and basic K'kree values and sensibilities are far more standard upon K'kree systems and worlds.
• K'kree find the human penchant for argument and tolerance very strange compared to K'kree ideas on the same matters. What humans most often call "dissent", the K'kree call "heresy". They do not believe in any but the most limited tolerance for a lack of respect for elders or for unrestrained dissent. The human ideal of "freedom of Speech" practically doesn't exist within mainstream K'kree societies.
• K'kree are extreme monophobes. They harbor a near suicidal fear of being alone. K'kree are almost never depicted alone within the visual arts. Even great leaders are always appeared with several colleagues nearby. K'kree sculpture almost never depicts a singular K'kree physical form.

Traditions

K'kree have a vast variety of traditions and cultural practices including:

The K'kree believe in ecological preservation and practically worship the environment. They bring their nature with them on their starships or at least as much of it as their technology can permit. This idea of reverence for life does not extend to carnivores, which are to be eliminated at all costs.

This believe in the value of ecological preservation causes great feelings of guilt and some schisms within K'kree society as many early K'kree settlements suffered from unregulated industrial development early in K'kree interstellar expansion and colonization. Some think of this as an ideal that many leaders do not adhere to.

• 

• 

(ed note: Chee Lan is a Cynthian, an alien resembling an angora cat. Adzel is a Wodenite, resembling a cross between centaur and a dragon. The team is trying to figure out the psychology of the Shenna of Dathyna, who are like minotaurs without horns.)

He drained his beer. Soothed thereby, he lit his pipe, settled back, and rumbled, "We got our experience and information. Also we got analogues for help. I don't think any sophonts could be total unique, in this big a universe. So we can draw on our understanding about other races.

"Like you, Chee Lan, for instance: we know you is a carnivore—but a small one—and this means you got instincts for being tough and aggressive within reason. You, Adzel, is a big omnivore, so big your ancestors didn't never need to carry chips on their shoulders, nor fish either; your breed tends more to be peaceful, but hellish independent too, in a quiet way; somebody tries for dictating your life, you don't kill him like Chee would, no, you plain don't listen at him. And we humans, we is omnivores too, but our primate ancestors went hunting in packs, and they got built in a year-around sex drive; from these two roots springs everything what makes a man a human being. Hokay? I admit this is too generalistic, but still, if we could fit what we know about the Shenna in one broad pattern—"

---

On Dathyna, the predicament was worse. The solar bombardment was always greater than Earth receives. At the irregular peaks of activity, it was very much greater. Magnetic field and atmosphere could not ward off everything. Belike, mutations which occurred during an earlier maximum led to the improbable result of talking, dreaming, tool-making herbivores. If so, a cruel natural selection was likewise involved: for the history of such a planet must needs be one of ecological catastrophes.

The next radiation blizzard held off long enough for the race to attain full intelligence; to develop its technology; to discover the scientific method; to create a worldwide society which was about to embark for the stars, had perhaps already done it a time or two. Then the sun burned high again.

Snows melted, oceans rose, coasts and low valleys were inundated. The tropics were scorched to savanna or desert. All that could be survived. Indeed, quite probably its harsh stimulus was what produced the last technological creativity, the planetary union, the reaching into space.

But again the assault intensified. This second phase was less an increase of electromagnetic energy, heat and light, than it was a whole new set of processes, triggered when a certain threshold was passed within the waxing star. Protons were hurled forth; electrons; mesons; X-ray quanta. The magnetosphere glowed with synchrotron radiation, the upper atmosphere with secondaries. Many life forms must have died within a year or two. Others, interdependent, followed them. The ecological pyramid crumbled. Mutation went over the world like a scythe, and everything collapsed.

No matter how far it had progressed, civilization was not autonomous. It could not synthesize all its necessities. Croplands became dustbowls, orchards stood leafless, sea plants decayed into scum, forests parched and burned, new diseases arose. Step by step, population shrank, enterprises were abandoned for lack of personnel and resources, knowledge was forgotten, the area of the possible shrank. A species more fierce by nature might have made a stronger effort to surmount its troubles—or might not—but in any event, the Dathynans were not equal to the task. More and more of those who remained sank gradually into barbarism.

And then, among the barbarians, appeared a new mutation.

A favorable mutation.

Herbivores cannot soon become carnivores, not even when they can process meat to make it edible. But they can shed the instincts which make them herd together in groups too large for a devastated country to support. They can acquire an instinct to hunt the animals that supplement their diet—to defend, with absolute fanaticism, a territory that will keep them and theirs alive—to move if that region is no longer habitable, and seize the next piece of land—to perfect the weapons, organization, institutions, myths, religions, and symbols necessary—

—to become killer herbivores.

And they will go farther along that line than the carnivora, whose fang-and-claw ancestors evolved limits on aggressiveness lest the species dangerously deplete itself. They might even go farther than the omnivora, who, while not so formidable in body and hence with less original reason to restrain their pugnacity, have borne arms of some kind since the first proto-intelligence developed in them, and may thus have weeded the worst berserker tendencies out of their own stock.

Granted, this is a very rough rule-of-thumb statement with many an exception. But the idea will perhaps be clarified if we compare the peaceful lion with the wild boar who may or may not go looking for a battle and him in turn with the rhinoceros or Cape buffalo.

The parent stock on Dathyna had no chance. It could fight bravely, but not collectively to much effect. If victorious in a given clash, it rarely thought about pursuing; if defeated, it scattered. Its civilization was tottering already, its people demoralized, its politico-economic structure reduced to a kind of feudalism. If any groups escaped to space, they never came back looking for revenge.

A gang of Shenna would invade an area, seize the buildings, kill and eat those Old Dathynans whom they did not castrate and enslave. No doubt the conquerors afterward made treaties with surrounding domains, who were pathetically eager to believe the aliens were now satisfied. Not many years passed, however, before a new land-hungry generation of Shenna quarreled with their fathers and left to seek their fortunes.

The conquest was no result of an overall plan. Rather, the Shenna took Dathyna in the course of several centuries because they were better fitted. In an economy of scarcity, where an individual needed hectares to support himself, aggressiveness paid off; it was how you acquired those hectares in the first place and retained them later. No doubt the sexual difference, unusual among sophonts, was another mutation which, being useful too, became linked. Given a high casualty rate among the Shenn males, the warriors, reproduction was maximized by providing each with several females. Hunting and fighting were the principal jobs; females, who must conserve the young, could not take part in this; accordingly, they lost a certain amount of intelligence and initiative. (Remember that the original Shenn population was very small, and did not increase fast for quite a while. Thus genetic drift operated powerfully. Some fairly irrelevant characteristics like the male mane became established in that way—plus some other traits that might actually be disadvantageous, though not crippling.)

At length the parricidal race had overrun the planet. Conditions began to improve as radiation slacked off, new life forms developed, old ones returned from enclaves of survival. It would be long before Dathyna had her original fertility back. But she could again bear a machine culture. From relics, from books, from traditions, conceivably from a few last slaves of the first species, the Shenna began rebuilding what they had helped destroy.

But here the peculiar set of drives which had served them well during the evil millennia played them false. How shall there be community, as is required for a high technology, if each male is to live alone with his harem, challenging any other who dares enter his realm?

The answer is that the facts were never that simple. There was as much variation from Shenn to Shenn as there is from man to man. The less successful had always tended to attach themselves to the great, rather than go into exile. From this developed the extended household—a number of polygynous families in strict hierarchy under a patriarch with absolute authority—that was the "fundamental" unit of Shenn society, as the tribe is of human, the matrilineal clan of Cynthian, or the migratory band of Wodenite society.

The creation of larger groups out of the basic one is difficult on any planet. The results are all too likely to be pathological organizations, preserved more and more as time goes on by nothing except naked force, until finally they disintegrate. Consider, for example, nations, empires, and world associations on Earth. But it need not always be thus.

The Shenna were reasoning creatures. They could grasp the necessity for cooperation intellectually, as most species can. If they were not emotionally capable of a planet-wide government, they were of an interbaronial confederacy.

Especially when they saw their way clear to an attack—the Minotaur's charge—upon the stars!

• 

(ed note: WARNING: Spoilers for "Prey" by Paradigmblue

The League of Species High Council, Messier 18 Cluster, Carina-Sagittarius Arm, is planning to send their grand fleet to the home system of a new upstart race called the Rashan, and put them in their place. There were rumors that the Rashan species developed from predator stock. However, everybody knows that is just science fiction. All known interstellar races are descendants of herbivore prey species. It is impossible for predators to develop the cooperation required for civilization.

So the League fleet will use standard herbivore tactics which have brought victory time and time again against upstart herbivore species...

The foolish League is fortunate indeed that the secretive new species who just joined the League are concealing a useful secret. The new species called "Humans". The ones who always wear full environment suits with opaque helmets, so that nobody knows what they look like.

At the council of war, the voting member species are shocked when the Dreeden ambassador yield their speaking time to the Human delegation.)

      “Thank you, Admiral.” The ambassador passed his speaking stone to a delegation directly to their right. “The Dreeden yield their time to representatives of the Terran People. May I introduce to you Ambassador Baden Woods and Admiral Patricia Davies of the Associated Republics of Terra.”
     Another bipedal figure accepted the Dreedle’s speaking stone. This “Terran” stood twice the height of Ambassador Dreeden. Other than the species possessing two limbs for locomotion and two arms for grasping, not much else was discernible to Nuryaw, as the entire Terran delegation seemed to be wearing full environmental suits with entirely opaque helmets. Nonetheless, there was something about their appearance that made Admiral Nuryaw uneasy, as if these Terrans tickled a half-forgotten memory.

     “Honorable Species of the League, Admiral Nuryaw, we thank you for your time. You do our young species honor to have our words heard by species as wise and as powerful as yours. You have fought many wars, and won many victories.” The human ambassador took a long pause. “Unfortunately, we do not believe this strike against the Rashan will be one of them.”
     If the spectacle unfolding on the security council chamber floor didn’t have every delegation’s attention before, it certainly did now. Nuryaw’s hackle-spines raised along her back. “You presume too much, calfling.” While the information about the Terrans she had been able to pull up on her screen was surprisingly sparse, with remarkably little about the physiology of the creatures beneath their environmental suits, the entry about how recently they became a space-faring species told her enough. “The Bonth were fighting interstellar war while your species was using stone tools. You jeopardize your future membership in the league by presuming you have a superior military analysis of the situation.” Around the Security Council chambers, [assent] was signaled by most of the delegations.
     “You are correct, of course, Admiral, with the Bonth leading its fleets, the League has prospered for millennia. We do not assume to question your tactical analysis, but only to suggest that it was made with incomplete information.” Ambassador Woods replied. “We have reason to believe that the Rashan will not wage war in the manner that you expect. We believe that they are a predator species.”

     Nuryaw stifled a laugh. “A predator species? A sentient, space-faring predator species? Don’t waste our time with that horror story.” Other security council members were not as successful at containing their laughter. “Simple calfing,” Nuryaw sighed, “Three thousand years this League has policed this corner of the Galaxy. Over a thousand sentient species under its protection,” she gestured over the gathered delegations with her fore-hoof. “And never has any of them encountered a sentient — or even close to sentient — predator.”
     “Surely you have access to the League’s database. It is the struggle against simple predators that evolves sentience! That forces species to use tools! It was our ancestral struggle as prey that was the crucible that forged every species in this League. Predators? Flesh eaters? Capable of space travel? I’m afraid you are mistaken, Terran.” Nuryaw moved once more to adjourn the session, only to hear the Terran speak once more. Her hackle-spines rose again in agitation, but Ambassador Woods didn’t seem to notice.
     “As implausible as it may seem, it is the truth Admiral. Our intelligence sources managed to find visual records of Rashans outside of their combat armor during one of their recent incursions into league space. Those records show that the Rashans have forward-facing eyes, and we believe teeth-analogs that indicate a carnivorous diet. They are predators, and they will wage war like them. Admiral Davies can elaborate, but their tactics will be nothing like those you have fought against before, and if you use the battle plan proposed today, your fleet will not survive.”

     Despite the Terran Ambassador’s opaque helmet, Nuryaw felt his gaze on her and again repressed a feeling of unease. What was it about this creature that created that reaction? She brushed the thought aside. “Enough! This council will not be distracted by scientific impossibilities!” Nuryaw once again raised the gavel-stone to adjourn, and grunted with frustration as the symbol for [dissent] blinked insistently above Ambassador Nesh’s head. “You and your pets are trying my patience, Ambassador Nesh.” Nuryaw’s hackle-spines were now fully raised.
     “If it may please the security council, we would like to suggest an addendum to the battle plans. It is obvious that our Terran friends are terribly ignorant in the ways of war-making, and have let superstition guide their analysis. Surely they have misinterpreted the data. We believe that this could be a learning experience for such a young species, however. What better way for the Terrans to see that there is nothing to fear than to see the League in action?”, the Dreeden Ambassador implored. “Let the Dreeden military escort a small contingent of Terran ships to observe the battle to see for themselves that the mighty League fleet led by the Bothian vanguard will easily route the Rashan from the field.”
     Nuryaw waved a fore-hoof in exasperation. “If that is what it will take for the Dreeden to quit interrupting these proceedings, then so be it. I will not have their ships interfering with my line of battle, however.”
     “Of course not, Admiral,” Nesh bowed in the direction of the table. “We would only ask that our escorts and Terran calflings be allowed to engage any targets of opportunity, so that we may have the honor in fighting alongside a League battlefleet.”
     “You ask for much, but I see no reason to deny your request. How votes the council?”
     [Assent] appeared across the council chambers, and finally, Nuryaw was able to bring the gavel-stone down. As the delegations filtered out of the meeting hall, however, Nuryaw pondered her screen. Of course, the Terran’s claims were preposterous, but what was it about their appearance that bothered her so much, and why wasn’t she able to find any information on what they looked like under those suits?

(ed note: because Humans are indeed descendants of predators, and of all the League species only the Dreeden know)

---

(ed note: Later, in secret, Nesh the Dreeden ambassador consults with the human delegation. The humans are disgusted that the League did not listen to reason, and the entire League fleet will probably be destroyed by the Rashan. They have to figure out how to save the League fleet in spite of themselves)

     “I can’t help wonder if it would have helped for us to take our helmets off, to show them what we were,” Patricia mused, taking a slow sip.
     Nesh shook his head sadly. “We’ve been over this Admiral Davies. You know the reaction that my species had when you made contact with us. Predators in space! You’re the very things that our science-fiction authors have used for imaginary villains for centuries, and that swarm-mothers frighten their hatchlings with. I’m not sure if you can ever understand the instinctual reaction that we experienced when we encountered your species. We killed the last predator that preyed on our kind thousands of years ago, but still, we felt nothing but fear when we first saw you.
     “If you had taken off your helmet in that council session, the only thing you would have accomplished was to start a stampede that would have killed delegates, which isn’t a good opening argument. Gods knows where our relations would be if it weren't for the Vert slavers posing a common threat. Even then, after your fleet rescued our people held captive by the Vert when the League wouldn’t lift a finger, we still had those among us who wondered if you had eaten a few Dreeden on the way back.” Nesh sighed. “No, they are not ready for the Terran's secret yet, and even if they were, it would not have swayed them from their plan.”

---

(ed note: in the League fleet)

     “Line of Battle transit complete Admiral Nuryaw!”
     Nuryaw nodded to the over-enthusiastic Vice-Admiral. “Status report please.” It felt good to be away from the security council chamber and back on the bridge of her flagship, Flashing Hooves. Three million tons of warship vibrated beneath her, and it was hers to command. The battle-couch conformed to her carapace as she leaned toward her tactical screens, watching the other ships in her fleet pop into existence as light from their arrival reached the Hooves. 14 other Bothian dreadnaughts like her own made up the vanguard of the fleet, while the rest of the primary security council species contributed their own dreadnaught contingents. Less dominant species contributed battleship squadrons, while the least powerful among them made up the fleet train of tenders and supply ships.
     “I read the briefing packet as well,” Nuryaw said icily. “What is the disposition of Rashan forces in the system?”
     “We’re showing a large Rashan fleet between the orbits of the third and fourth planets. Direct line intercept takes us within 2 million miles of the gas giant.”
     “Make it so.” Nuryaw pointed a grasping-hoof forward, toward the waiting Rashan Fleet.
     The ships of the League crawled forward, moving into a wall of battle as they did. Behind the fleet, more vessels blinked into existence.

     A new mass of ships blinked into existence on Nuryaw’s holo-screen. “That’s not the fleet train.”
     “No Admiral, it appears to be the Dreeden contingent with their human observers.” The vice-admiral squinted at a tactical screen. “Their jump spacing is surprisingly tight.”
     Nuryaw grunted. She had noticed how tightly packed the ships were as well, exiting jump-space in neat formation, rather than scattered over several million kilometers like the rest of the Security Council joint fleet. “It could be the Dreeden kept some of their jump technology from us when they joined the League — make a note for an investigation committee once we return.”
     The Dreeden-Human fleet was an odd composition. Instead of battleships and dreadnaughts, the force was comprised of many smaller ships, not fit for the League battle-line. There were two larger vessels, but they appeared to be support vessels rather than warships, with few weapons visible to Naryaw’s dreadnaught’s powerful scanners. Lighter spacecraft that appeared to Nuryaw to be only frigates and destroyers, some with Dreeden ID codes, screened the two support ships. Near the center of the formation, two cruiser-sized ships joined the massive support craft.
     “Hmmph,” Naryaw flicked a grasping hoof dismissively. “It is no wonder the humans thought this battle was lost. They don’t even know how to form a proper wall of battle. Vice-Admiral, it’s time to show them and the Rashan why the Bonthan battle-fleet has not been bested in millennia. Plot an intercept with the Rashan fleet and take us in.”

---

(ed note: in the Human fleet)

     Their conversation was interrupted by the Admiral’s flag-lieutenant. “Ma’am, the League fleet has begun to accelerate well-ward (toward the planet's gravity well). Estimates show that they will cross the orbit of the gas giant in 13 hours.”
     “Thank you, lieutenant.” Admiral Davies manipulated her console, patching her through to the captains of her small fleet. “All ships, set condition three. Maintain current relative position. No flight ops from any ships without my direct orders.” In the flag bridge, the red lights that had bathed the room were replaced with standard lighting as the ship stood down from condition one.
     “Why not launch the fighters Admiral? In every operation I’ve observed before, your carrier's launch their CAP as soon as they exit their jump.” Nesh asked.
     “Currently, the Rashan don’t know we use small craft. I’d like to keep it that way as long as we can.” The admiral ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “Get some rest Ambassador. I just hope that we’ll be able to save some of them.”

---

(ed note: in the League fleet)

     The battle-wall of the League fleet closed with the Rashan forces arrayed to face them. From Naryaw’s view-screens, a small, orange disk came into view, the outermost planet of the system.
     “Has there been any changes in the disposition of the Rashan fleet Vice-Admiral?”
     “No admiral Naryaw, they are still arrayed in a small wall of battle, facing our approach.” The vice-admiral switched the main view screen to a representation of the Rashan fleet. "We count five dreadnaughts and 18 battleships, plus a surprisingly large amount of cruiser and destroyer sized vessels.”
     “Re-broadcast our demand to surrender, vice-admiral. While I’m impressed such a minor species can field that many dreadnaughts, if they fight, it will be a short engagement.”
     Naryaw hoped they didn’t surrender. It had been too long since she had led the Flashing Hooves in battle. She also took some satisfaction in knowing that she would be showing those impertinent Dreeden and Humans how a league battle-fleet waged war.

     “Admiral, we’re receiving a transmission from the Dreeden-Human joint fleet.”
     Naryaw turned to the communications officer. “Well, what is it?”
     “It’s from the human Admiral. It’s is a warning. They believe that there is a second Rashan fleet hidden in the gas giant. They advise that we adjust course to veer away from the planet, and then re-approach so that our wall of battle faces both the Rashan fleet and the planet.”
     Naryaw snorted angrily. “Remind the human admiral,” Naryaw chewed out each world, “That they are here as observers, not tactical advisors. If they offer any more unsolicited advice, their participation in this battle even in observer capacity will be terminated.” The gall! Naryaw realized that her hackle-spines were nearly fully extended, and made a conscious effort to retract them. It wasn’t seemly for her to seem agitated in front of the crew. “And ask what possible reason the human admiral would have to suspect there to be another Rashan force hidden in the gas giant.”
     Naryaw fumed as they waited for a reply. Without FTL communication, the delay was maddening.
     “Admiral Naryaw, the humans conveyed their apologies, and have said that they will not make further tactical suggestions.” The comm officer paused, as the remainder of the message was received. “As to why they suspect a second Rashan fleet, the human admiral has replied with “Because that is what I would do.””
     “And that is why they are with the supply ships, and we are with the battlefleet.” The vice-admiral chuckled.
     “They are cowards,” Naryaw scoffed. “Tell them to watch the fleet carefully. We will show them what honor looks like.”

---

     “That was one of their battleships, Admiral. The first kill is ours.”
     “And their response?”
     “None yet admiral, they are holding their position and have not yet returned fire.”
     “Strange,” muttered Naryaw. “If they can’t match our weapons range, I would expect them to attempt to close the range as quickly as possible. Are we close enough for a visual of a Rashan ship? Put it on screen. It’s time we see what we’re dealing with.”

     The main holo-screen flared to life, with an image of one of the Rashan dreadnaughts. Naryaw felt a chill go through her bones, and her hackle-spines began to extend unconsciously. She was not the only one on the Flashing Hooves’ bridge with that reaction, she noticed. The Rashan ship was shaped like a blunted wedge, with numerous forward facing weapon placements. The rear of the wedge tapered slightly until the taper reversed as it met huge engine cowlings at the anterior of the ship. Where League ships were almost always shaped like half-spheres, presenting a hedgehog-like array of defenses and weaponry to the enemy while the flat portion of the flat sphere contained their engines, the Rashan ship appeared to be designed for pursuit.
     Unbidden, the memory of the council meeting flashed in Naryaw’s mind: We believe they are a predator species.
     Naryaw shook herself, metals ratting on her carapace. She was a Bonthan! Leader of the combined fleet! She would not let herself be unnerved by this opponent, especially one that had not even drawn blood. Still, she didn’t want to look at the ship on screen any longer. “That’s enough, vice-admiral.”

---

(ed note: in the Human fleet)

     Icons on the holographic tac-plot showed the League fleet closing with the Rashan battle-wall, which held its position.
     Admiral Davies sighed. “It’s as I feared. They’re letting the League fleet come to them, drawing them core-ward. Once they League fleet is fully committed, they’ll make their move.”
     “Isn’t there something we can do Admiral?”
     Admiral Davies shook her head. “I don’t think there is, Ambassador. Every attempt at warning Admiral Naryaw has been rebuffed. I’m afraid if we press the issue we’ll be ordered to jump out of the system. All we can do now is try and ensure that some of the League fleet lives through the day.”

     Suddenly, the tac-plot shifted. The Rashan battle-wall dissolved in space, reforming into arrow-shaped formations that began to accelerate toward the League ships. From each Rashan battleship and dreadnought, more icons emerged, hundreds of tiny contacts on the tac-plot.
     “They’ve released skirmishers (large space fighters), Admiral.” Davie’s flag-lieutenant reported.

---

(ed note: in the League fleet)

     Aboard the Flashing Hooves, Admiral Naryaw was at a loss to explain the Rashan’s behavior. Their entire wall of battle had disintegrated and reformed, and now instead of facing a traditional battle-wall, the League fleet instead was closing with five Rashan formations that were angling to the sides of the League battle wall, each formation lead by one of the Rashan’s dreadnaughts. What’s more, the Rashan’s cruisers and destroyers had formed up into these formations, and hundreds of tiny craft had emerged from the Rashan capital ships.
     “Vice Admiral, report!”
     “Yes Admiral.” The vice admiral's voice strained as he struggled to keep up with the new flood of data coming in. “It seems like the Rashan fleet is comprised of five squadrons of one dreadnaught and 3-4 battleships each, with approximately twenty cruisers and destroyers. They also have launched hundreds of what appear to be parasite craft. Each Rashsan squadron is headed spinward on a different heading.”
     “Could they be running?”
     “Unlikely, vice-admiral. The Rashan squadrons are estimated to meet the edges of our wall of battle. If they wished to run, they would have avoided us all together.’
     “Noted.” Naryaw was perplexed. Space battle was fought by bringing your wall of battle to the enemy, locking horns with them to determine the stronger force. The weaker fleet then surrendered. That was the way every space battle the League had fought in its history. These Rashans, they were doing something different, and Naryaw didn’t like it. “All ships, divide fire by sectors, bring them down before they close. Vice Admiral, divide our wall of battle into five smaller units — each one will maneuver to face one of the Rashan thrusts.” Naryaw tried to exude as much calm as possible, but inside, she was nervous. She hadn’t been nervous since her first command.
     “Yes Admiral Naryaw. Re-forming fleet now.”

     In space, the million-mile wide formation of the League fleet clumsily fractured into five square planes, each one attempting to angle their mushroom-cap shaped vessels toward the approaching Rashan. The reorganization was clumsy, ship captains reacting slowly to the unfamiliar orders. Some of the squares were larger than others, with individual League species choosing to keep their ships together rather than splitting them between multiple battle-walls.
     “Admiral, we’re beginning to take fire. Lasers, and particle beams.” The view-screens flashed white. “That was one of the Queel battleships. It appears that the each Rashan squadron is focus firing on one of their targets at a time. The Queel ship’s shields were overwhelmed.
     Naryaw clenched her grasping hooves in frustration. “Continue maneuvers; we still outgun them by a significant margin.” As if on cue, a Rashan battleship winked off the display, victim to Bonthan lasers.
     “Admiral, the Rashan are accelerating. Two of our five battle-lines will not reform before the Rashans reach them. Readings show that Rashan ships can accelerate nearly twice as fast as ours.”
     The five Rashan squadrons poured on the speed, lancing toward the League battle-walls. Re-formed League formations met three of them, raining laser fire onto the approaching ships. Two of the Rashan squadrons, however, reached the League vessels before they could turn and face them. Racing along the edge of the League formations, they picked off ship after ship as they brought their entire squadrons firepower to bear on one ship at a time, while the League ships struggled to keep their rounded half-spheres faced toward the Rashan.

     Then, unthinkably, the Rashan cruisers and destroyers separated from the rest of their squadrons and penetrated the wall of battle itself.

     The League wall of battle was designed to face other similarly arrayed formations; trading blows across space. Victory went to the fleet that blinked last. For thousands of years, this was how the League joined battle. For thousands of years, it’s crews and ships had been trained and designed for this kind of fighting. No one, it appeared, had informed the Rashans that this is how things were done.

     As the smaller Rashan vessels raced through the heart of the League formations, the battle-walls disintegrated. Each ship struggled to keep its armored facing pointed toward the Rashan cruisers and destroyers that sliced through their ranks. What’s worse, hundreds of Rashan skirmisher craft joined the battle, weaving and corkscrewing between the League capital ships. The League fleet was caught completely unprepared. With their massive, well-armored capital ships designed for engagements against other capital sized combatants, none of them possessed significant point defense, allowing the Rashan skirmishers to make strafing runs all but unmolested.
     Individually, these small craft were nothing but an annoyance, but in numbers they were deadly. There were too many and too fast to keep the armored mushroom-caps of the League ships pointed toward them, and the small Rashan craft exploited this mercilessly, raking fire across the vulnerable anterior of the League ships, where their armored half-sphere shell did not protect. As a ship was damaged and fell out of formation, the Rashan fighters swarmed the disabled vessel, like so many piranhas that smelled blood.
     Admiral Naryaw gaped as her command fell apart around her. Sirens sounded through her ship as it rocked from explosions and particle beam impacts. Acrid smoke from fried circuitry filled the bridge as the air handlers struggled to keep up. On her holo-screen, she watched helplessly as more and more League ships winked out. Closing her eyes, she uttered words that had not been said by a Bonthan admiral in living memory. “All ships, retreat.”

---

(ed note: in the Human fleet)

     “Why are we not meeting the League fleet along their retreat path?” He managed to squeeze out between labored breaths.
     “I thought I said no questions.” Admiral Davies wheezed in reply. A moment later, she relented. “That won’t be able to retreat that way. Any moment now, they will pass near the gas giant, and when they do…”
     “Admiral, we’re receiving a full spectrum transmission, it appears to be originating from the fourth planet. Audio and visual.” It was a testament to the communication tech’s high-g training that they were able to get the strained report out through clenched abdominal muscles.
     “Patch it through.”
     “Oh my gods.” Nesh gasped. .

     An image of a Rashan replaced the tac-plot on the bridge's holo-screen. Its appearance was vaguely vulpine, but with smooth, hairless skin and four, forward facing eyes. Even with the creature's mouth closed, Nesh could see sharp, serrated teeth. Its head sat upon a long, lean bipedal body. Two powerful arms ended in three mandibles, each tipped with a thick claw. From the creature’s chest, two smaller arms emerged, each ending in six delicate manipulators. It wore a uniform of iridescent purple, with what appeared to be rank insignia or awards across the breast. Nesh quivered in his acceleration couch. It felt like its eyes were looking directly at him, and age-old instincts screamed at Nesh to do what his people had done when a predator looked at you for millions of years. You run. Nesh glanced over at Admiral Davies, who appeared unphased.
     “I have to say,” the Rashan spoke in galactic basic. “It is... convenient when prey comes to us. You have more fight than most, and it seems that you have many systems. We look forward to our new hunting grounds.” The broadcast cut off, and the flag-bridge was silent for a moment.

     “Admiral Davies! Contacts reported rising from the atmosphere of the gas giant. It’s a second Rashan fleet.”

---

• 

     Naryaw could not believe her eyes. Hundreds more Rashan ships rose from the surface of the gas giant, moving to cut off their retreat to the edge of the system where they could jump to safety.
     The broadcast replayed in her mind, those four, forward-facing eyes that seemed to look directly at her, paralyzing her with fear. The eyes of a predator. She had dismissed the humans so easily in council, so sure of her success, but now...
     Her vice-admiral was reduced a blubbering wreck, eyes rolling in terror. The rest of the bridge crew were no better, all of their hackle spines fully extended in agitation and fear. From the smell, at least one of them had wet themselves.
     Around the Flashing Hooves, ships were dying, each one taking thousands of crew-members with them, and now their escape to the jump point was cut off. Throughout the fleet, the transmission from the Rashan had dissolved all semblance of fleet discipline. Some ships sat still in space, paralyzed by their captains fear. Others fled the battle in random directions, as Rashan ships followed them and picked them apart one by one. Naryaw felt the eyes of her bridge crew on her, waiting for her leadership, waiting for her to save them, waiting for an order. Naryaw had never felt like this, paralyzed by fear, incapable of thinking clearly. For the first time she could remember, she did not know what to do.

     “Ma’am, incoming transmission from the Dreeden-Human fleet, audio only.” Her comm officer at least had managed to maintain his discipline. “It’s the human admiral again. She says that she has moved their combined fleet to these coordinates,” an icon flashed on the holo-screen, showing the location. “She urges you to rendezvous with her fleet, where she can cover our escape. She says if you don’t move to do so in the next five minutes, you’ll be trapped between the Rashan fleets.”

(ed note: and then the Rashan fleets learn the hard way that instead of a medium swarm of multi-crewed skirmisher ships, the human fleet has a huge swarm of two-crewed space fighters. All the human ships have massive point-defence suites. And the humans are predators too.)

(ed note: Chee Lan is a Cynthian, an alien resembling an angora cat. Adzel is a Wodenite, resembling a cross between centaur and a dragon. The team is trying to figure out the psychology of the Shenna of Dathyna.)

He drained his beer. Soothed thereby, he lit his pipe, settled back, and rumbled, "We got our experience and information. Also we got analogues for help. I don't think any sophonts could be total unique, in this big a universe. So we can draw on our understanding about other races.

"Like you, Chee Lan, for instance: we know you is a carnivore—but a small one—and this means you got instincts for being tough and aggressive within reason."

"You, Adzel, is a big omnivore, so big your ancestors didn't never need to carry chips on their shoulders, nor fish either; your breed tends more to be peaceful, but hellish independent too, in a quiet way; somebody tries for dictating your life, you don't kill him like Chee would, no, you plain don't listen at him."

"And we humans, we is omnivores too, but our primate ancestors went hunting in packs, and they got built in a year-around sex drive; from these two roots springs everything what makes a man a human being. Hokay? I admit this is too generalistic, but still, if we could fit what we know about the Shenna in one broad pattern—"

• 

(ed note: On the dying planet t'Kela is a small base established by idealistic humans from the planet Esperance. They think that with a big investment and a alot of technology the decay of the ecosphere can be reversed and the native aliens rescued from extinction. Joyce Davisson has been working at the base for about a year

Nicholas van Rijn, the pragmatic but erudite owner of the Solar Spice And Liquor company, is visiting the base. He was in that section of space and heard rumor about some local product that could be a lucrative trade item. Aliens living on the planet Throra think the spices on t'Kela are delicious. Side note: "Rijn" rhymes with "Fine".

But one night the base is attacked by the natives.)

      An explosion went crump. She (Joyce) heard small things rattle on her desk top and felt her bed shaken. Suddenly the glissandos were louder in her head, and a snarl of drumtaps accompanied them, a banging on metal and a crashing as objects were knocked off shelves. The attackers must have blown down the door of the machine section and swarmed through. Only where could they have gotten the gunpowder?
     Where but in Kusulongo the City?
     That meant the Ancients had decided the humans were better killed. The fear of death went through Joyce in a wave. It passed on, leaving bewilderment and pain, as if she were a child struck for no reason. Why had they done this to her, who came for nothing but to help them?

---

(ed note:van Rijn and Joyce are knocked down by an explosion, and the rest of the Esperancian leave them for dead and flee the planet in their starship. van Rijn and Joyce try to figure out their options. Which are few on a planet where they cannot even breath the atmosphere.)

     "Where we go now?" he (van Rijn) demanded. "To yonder town on the mountain? You said they was local big cheeses."
     "The Ancients? No!" Joyce stiffened. "They must be the ones who caused this."
     "Ha? Why so?"
     "I don't know, I don't know. They were so helpful before … But it has to be them. They incited … No one else could have. W—we never made any enemies among the clans. As soon as we had their biochemistry figured out, we synthesized medicines and—and helped them—" Joyce found suddenly that she could cry. She leaned her helmet in her hands and let go all emotional holds.

---

• 

(ed note: they escape in a groundcar, a mobile base with life-support, food, and a range of several thousand kilometers)

     "What he say?" van Rijn asked. Joyce translated. "So. What use to us, making league with savages out here? We only need to wait for rescue."
     "If it comes," Joyce said. She shivered. "When they hear about this at Esperance, they'll send an expedition to try and learn what went wrong. But not knowing we're alive, they may not hurry it enough."
     "My people will," van Rijn assured her. "The Polesotechnic League looks after its own, by damn. So soon as word gets to Earth, a warship comes for full investigation. Inside a month."
     "Oh, wonderful," Joyce breathed. She went limp and sat down again.
     Van Rijn scowled. "Natural," he ruminated, "they cannot search a whole planet. They will know I was at that bestinkered Kusulongo place, and land there. I suppose those Oldsters or Seniles or whatever you call them is sophisticated enough by now in interstellar matters to fob the crew off with some story, if we are not nearby to make contact. So … we must remain in their area, in radio range. And radio range has to be pretty close on a red dwarf's planet, where ionosphere characteristicals are poor. But close to our enemies we cannot come so well, if they are whooping after us the whole time. They can dig traps or throw crude bombs or something … one way or other, they can kill us even in this car. Ergo, we must establish ourselves as too strong to attack, in the very neighborhood of Kusulongo. This means we need allies. So you have right, we must certain go along to your friend's peoples."
     "But you can't make them fight their own race!" Joyce protested.
     Van Rijn twirled his mustache. "Can't I just?" he grinned.
     "I mean … I don't know how, in any practical sense … but even if you could, it would be wrong."
     "Um-m-m." He regarded her for a while. "You Esperancers is idealists, I hear. Your ancestors settled your planet for a Utopian community, and you is still doing good for everybody even at this low date, nie? Your mission to help this planet here was for no profit, except it makes you feel good …"
     "And as a matter of foreign policy," Joyce admitted, under the honesty fetish of her culture. "By assisting other races, we gain their goodwill and persuade them, a little, to look at things our way. If Esperance has enough such friends, we'll be strong and influential without having to maintain armed services."
     "From what I see, I doubt very much you ever make nice little vestrymen out of these t'Kelans." "Well … true … they are out-and-out carnivores. But then, man started as a carnivorous primate, didn't he? And the t'Kelans in this area did achieve an agricultural civilization once, thousands of years ago. That is, grain was raised to feed meat animals. Kusulongo the City is the last remnant. The ice age wiped it out otherwise, leaving savagery—barbarism at most. But given improved conditions, I'm sure the autochthones could recreate it. They'll never have unified nations or anything, as we understand such things. They aren't gregarious enough. But they could develop a world order and adopt machine technology."
     "Except, from what you tell me, those snakes squatting on top of the mountain don't want that." (the Ancients living in Kusulongo the City on top of the mountain. The ones who ordered the attack on the human base)
     Joyce paused only briefly to wonder how a snake could squat, before she nodded. "I guess so. Though I can't understand why. The Ancients were so helpful at first."
     Van Rijn clicked his tongue. "Not so promising materials, that," he said. "You civilize them if you can. I am content to get home unpunctured by very sharp-looking spears, me." He rekindled his pipe and sat down beside her. "To do this, I must understand the situation. Suppose you explain. Some I have heard before, but no harm to repeat."

• 

     "Well, to begin with, this is a very unusual planet. Not physically. I mean, there's nothing strange about a type M dwarf star having a planet at a distance of half an A.U., with a mass about forty percent greater than Earth's."
     "So much? Must be low density, then. Metal-poor."
     "Yes. The sun is extremely old. Fewer heavy atoms were available at the time it formed with its planets. T'Kela's overall specific gravity is only four-point-four. It does have some iron and copper, of course … As I'm sure you know, life gets started slowly on such worlds. Their suns emit so little ultraviolet, even in flare periods, that the primordial organic materials aren't energized to interact very fast. Nevertheless, life does start eventually, in oceans of liquid ammonia."
     "Ja. And usual goes on to develop photosynthesis using ammonia and carbon dioxide, to make carbohydrates and the nitrogen that the animals breathe." Van Rijn tapped his sloping forehead. "So much I have even in this dumb old bell. But why does evolution go different now and then, like on here and Throra?" (Throra is an alien inhabited planet in a nearby star system with a similar ecosystem)
     "Nobody knows for sure. Some catalytic agent, perhaps. In any event, even at low temperatures like these, all the water isn't solid. A certain amount is present in the oceans, as part of the ammonium hydroxide molecule. T'Kelan or Throran plant cells have an analogue of chlorophyll, which does the same job: using gaseous carbon dioxide and 'dissolved' water to get carbohydrates and free oxygen. The animals reverse the process, much as they do on Earth. But the water they release isn't exhaled. It remains in their tissues, loosely held by a specialized molecule. When an organism dies and decays, this water is taken up by plants again. In other words, H-two-O here acts very much like nitrogenous organic material on our kind of planets."
     "But the oxygen the plants give off, it attacks ammonia."
     "Yes. The process is slow, especially since solid ammonia is denser than the liquid phase. It sinks to the bottom of lakes and oceans, which protects it from the air. Nevertheless, there is a gradual conversion. Through a series of steps, ammonia and oxygen yield free nitrogen and water. The water freezes out. The seas shrink; the air becomes poorer in oxygen; the desert areas grow."
     "This I know from Throra. But there a balance was struck. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria evolved and the drying-out was halted, a billion years ago. So they told me once."
     "Throra was lucky. It's a somewhat bigger planet than t'Kela, isn't it? Denser atmosphere, therefore more heat conservation. The greenhouse effect on such worlds depends on carbon dioxide and ammonia vapor. Well, several thousand years ago, t'Kela passed a critical point. Just enough ammonia was lost to reduce the greenhouse effect sharply. As the temperature fell, more and more liquid ammonia turned solid and went to the bottom, where it's also quite well protected against melting. This made the climatic change catastrophically sudden. Temperatures dropped so low that now carbon dioxide also turns liquid, or even solid, through part of the year. There's still some vapor in the atmosphere, in equilibrium, but very little. The greenhouse effect really dropped off!
     "Plant life was gravely affected, as you can imagine. It can't grow without carbon dioxide and ammonia to build its tissues. Animal life died out with it. Areas the size of a Terrestrial continent became utterly barren, almost overnight. I told you that the native agricultural civilization was wiped out. Worse, though, we've learned from geology that the nitrogen-fixing bacteria were destroyed. Completely. They couldn't survive the winter temperatures. So there's no longer any force to balance the oxidation of ammonia. The deserts encroach everywhere, year by year … and t'Kela's year is only six-tenths Standard. Evolution has worked hard, adapting life to the change, but the pace is now too rapid for it. We estimate that all higher animals, including the natives, will be extinct within another millennium. In ten thousand years there'll be nothing alive here."
     Van Rijn blew foul clouds of smoke a while in silence. Finally he rumbled almost gently, "But you have a cure program worked out, ja?"
     "Oh … oh, yes. We do. The research is completed and we were about ready to summon engineers." She found comfort in proceeding.
     "The ultimate solution, of course, is to reintroduce nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Our labs have designed an extremely productive strain. It will need a suitable ecology, though, to survive: which means a lot of work with soil chemistry, a microagricultural program. We can hasten everything—begin to show results in a decade—by less subtle methods. In fact, we'll have to do so, or the death process will outrun anything that bacteria can accomplish.
     "What we'll do is melt and electrolyze water. The oxygen can be released directly into the air, refreshing it. But some will go to burn local hydrocarbons. T'Kela is rich in petroleum. This burning will generate carbon dioxide, thus strengthening the greenhouse effect. The chemical energy released can also supplement the nuclear power stations we'll install: to do the electrolysis and to energize the combination of hydrogen from water with nitrogen from the atmosphere, recreating ammonia."
     "A big expensive job, that," van Rijn said.
     "Enormous. The biggest thing Esperance has yet undertaken. But the plans and estimates have been drawn up. We know we can do it."
     "If the natives don't go potshotting engineers for exercise after lunch."
     "Yes." Joyce's blond head sank low. "That would make it impossible. We have to have the good will of all of them, everywhere. They'll have to cooperate, work with us and each other, in a planet-wide effort. And Kusulongo the City influences a quarter of the whole world! What have we done? I thought they were our friends …"

• 

     "Odd, when you come here to help them. By damn, but you was a bunch of mackerel heads! You should have begun with depth psychology first of all. That fool planetography could wait … Rotten, stinking mackerel, glows blue in the dark …". "You must tell me much, but we begin with going back to why the natives are not so polite to anybody who works for your mission." (natives like Uulobu who work for the Esperancian are treated with scorn by the other natives)
     "Well … as nearly as Uulobu could get it across to me, those who came to us were landless. That is, they'd stopped maintaining themselves in their ancestral hunting grounds. This means a tremendous loss of respectability. Then, too, he confessed—very bashfully—that our helpers' prestige suffered because we never involved them in any fights. The imputation grew up that they were cowards."
     "A warlike culture, ha?"
     "N-no. That's the paradox. They don't have wars, or even vendettas, in our sense. Fights are very small-scale affairs, though they happen constantly. I suppose that arises from the political organization. Or does it? We've noticed the same thing in remote parts of t'Kela, among altogether different societies from the Horde culture."
     "Explain that."
     "As I said, we never did carry out intensive xenological research, even locally," she told him. "But we do know that the basic social unit is the same everywhere on this world, what we call the pride. It springs from the fact that the sex ratio is about three females to one male. Living together you have the oldest male, his wives, their offspring of subadult age. All males, and females unencumbered with infants, share in hunting, though only males fight other t'Kelans. The small—um—children help out in the work around camp. So do any widows of the leader's father that he's taken in. The size of such a pride ranges up to twenty or so. That's as many as can make a living in an area small enough to cover afoot, on this desert planet."
     "I see. The t'Kelan pride answers to the human family. It is just as universal, too, right? I suppose larger units get organized in different ways, depending on the culture."
     "Yes. The most backward savages have no organization larger than the pride. But the Kusulongo society, as we call it—the Horde people—the biggest and most advanced culture, spread over half the northern hemisphere—it has a more elaborate superstructure. Ten or twenty prides form what we call a clan, a cooperative group claiming descent from a common male ancestor, controlling a large territory through which they follow the wild herds. The clans in turn are loosely federated into Hordes, each of which holds an annual get-together in some traditional oasis. That's when they trade, socialize, arrange marriages—newly adult males get wives and start new prides—yes, and they adjudicate quarrels, by arbitration or combat, at such times. There's a lot of squabbling among clans, you see, over points of honor or practical matters like ammonia wells. One nearly always marries within one's own Horde; it has its own dress, customs, gods, and so forth."
     "No wars between Hordes?" Van Rijn asked.
     "No, unless you want to call the terrible things that happen during a Völkerwanderung a war. Normally, although individual units from different Hordes may clash, there isn't any organized campaigning. I suppose they simply haven't the economic surplus to maintain armies in the field."
     "Um-m-m. I suspect, me, the reason goes deeper than that. When humans want to have wars, by damn, they don't let any little questions of if they can afford it stop them. I doubt t'Kelans would be any different. Um-m-m." Van Rijn's free hand tugged his goatee. "Maybe here is a key that goes tick-a-lock and solves our problem, if we know how to stick it in."
     "Well," Joyce said, "the Ancients are also a war preventive. They settle most inter-Horde disputes, among other things."
     "Ah, yes, those fellows on the mountain. Tell me about them."
     "The Ancients are survivors of the lost civilization," she said. "They hung on in their city, and kept the arts that were otherwise forgotten. That kind of life doesn't come natural to most t'Kelans. I gather that in the course of thousands of years, those who didn't like it there wandered down to join the nomads, while occasional nomads who thought the city would be congenial went up and were adopted into the group. That would make for some genetic selection. The Ancients are a distinct psychological type. Much more reserved and … intellectual, I guess you'd call it … than anyone else."
     "How they make their living?" Van Rijn asked around a mouthful.
     "They provide services and goods for which they are paid in kind. They are scribes, who keep records; physicians; skilled metallurgists; weavers of fine textiles; makers of gunpowder, though they only sell fireworks and keep a few cannon for themselves. They're credited with magical powers, of course, especially because they can predict solar flares."
     "And they was friendly until yesterday?"
     "In their own aloof, secretive fashion. They must have been plotting the attack on us for some time, though, egging on the Shanga (the native group who actually attacked the base, while the Ancients watched from their mountain) and furnishing the powder to blow open our dome. I still can't imagine why. I'm certain they believed us when we explained how we'd come to save their race from extinction."
     "Ja, no doubt. Only maybe at first they did not see all the implications." Van Rijn finished eating, belched, picked his teeth with a fingernail, and relapsed into brooding silence. Joyce tried not to be too desperately homesick.
     After a long time, van Rijn smote the control board so that it rang. "By damn!" he bellowed. "It fits together!"
     "What?" Joyce sat straight.
     "But I still can't see how to use it," he said.
     "What do you mean?"
     "Shut up, Freelady." He returned to his thoughts. The slow hours passed.

---

• 

(ed note: They meet a local tribe. The tribe is trying to protect their herd animals. The sun often has solar flares which can lethally sunburn the animals. A flare had been predicted by the Ancients to happen at this very moment. While the animals are restrained, the head of the prides sound brass horns, shake their weapons, and launch arrows at the sun.)

     "What they doing?" van Rijn asked. "Exorcising the demon?"
     "No," said Joyce. "They don't believe that's possible. They're defying him. They always challenge him to come down and fight. And he's not a devil, by the way, but a god."
     Van Rijn nodded. "It fits the pattern," he said, half to himself. "When a god steps out of his rightful job, you don't try to bribe him back, you threaten him. Ja, it fits."

---

     "You see," van Rijn lectured, "I am not on this world long, but I been on a lot of others, and read reports about many more. In my line of business this is needful. They always make parallels. I got enough clues about these t'Kelans to guess the basic pattern of their minds, from analogizings. You Esperancers, on this other hand, has not had so much experience. Like most colonies, you is too isolated from the galactic mainstream to keep au courant with things, like for instance the modern explorer techniques. That was obvious from the fact you did not make depth psychology studies the very first thing, but instead took what you found at face valuation. Never do that, Joyce. Always bite the coin that feeds you, for this is a hard and wicked universe."
     "You seem to know what you're about, Nick," she admitted "Well, tell me, what pattern did you deduce? How do their minds work?"
     "You assumed they was like warlike human primitives, in early days on Earth," he said. "On the topside, that worked hokay. They is intelligent, with language; they can reason and talk with you; this made them seem easy understood. What you forgot, I think, me, was conscious intelligence is only a small part of the whole selfness. All it does is help us get what we want. But the wanting itself—food, shelter, sex, everything—our motives—they come from deeper down. There is no logical reason even to stay alive. But instinct says to, so we want to. And instinct comes from very old evolution. We was animals long before we became thinkers and, uh—" van Rijn's beady eyes rolled piously ceilingward—"and was given souls. You got to think how a race evolved before you can take them … I mean understand them.

(ed note: van Rijn's changing his sentence is due to his remembering who he is talking to. "Take" means "take advantage of them", which is an important interstellar trader skill. But this would shock an idealistic Esperancian such as Joyce, so he amends his sentence to "understand them")

     "Now humans, the experts tell me, got started way back when, as ground apes that turned carnivore when the forests shrank up in Africa for lots of megayears. This is when they started to walking erect the whole time, and grew hands fully developed to make weapons because they had not claws and teeth like lions. Hokay, so we is a mean lot, we Homo Sapienses, with killer instincts. But not exclusive. We is still omnivores who can even survive on Brussels sprouts if we got to. Pfui! But we can. Our ancestors been peaceful nut-pluckers and living off each other's fleas a long, longer time than they was hunters. It shows.
     "The t'Kelans, on the other side, has been carnivores since they was still four-footers. Not very good carnivores. Unspecialized, with no claws and pretty weak biting apparatus even if it is stronger than humans'. That is why they also developed hands and made tools, which led to them getting big brains. Nevertheleast, they have no vegetarian whatsolutely in their ancestors, as we do. And they have much powerfuller killing instincts than us. And is not so gregarious. Carnivores can't be. You get a big concentration of hunters in one spot, and by damn, the game goes away (this is why carnivores are so territorial. A second carnivore in a territory could mean starvation for both, as all the prey animals flee. An intruder carnivore must be fought and driven off or it may mean death)."
     "I begin to see," she said with growing excitement. "That's why they never developed true nations or fought real wars. Big organizations are completely artificial things to them, commanding no loyalty. You don't fight or die for a Horde, any more than a human would fight for … for his bridge club."
     "Um-m-m, I have known some mighty bloodshot looks across bridge tables. But ja, you get the idea. The pride is a natural thing here, like the human family. The clan, with blood ties, is only one step removed. It can excite t'Kelans as much, maybe, as his country can excite a man. But Hordes? Nie. An arrangement of convenience only.
     "Not that pride and clan is loving-kindness and sugar candy. Humans make family squabbles and civil wars. T'Kelans have still stronger fighting instincts than us. Lots of arguments and bloodshed. But only on a small scale, and not taken too serious. You said to me, is no vendettas here. That means somebody killing somebody else is not thought to have done anything bad. In fact, whoever does not fight—male, anyhow—strikes them as unnatural, like less than normal."
     "Is … that why they never warmed up to us? To the Esperancian mission, I mean?"
     "Partly. Not that you was expected to fight at any specifical time. Nobody went out to pick a quarrel when you gave no offense and was even useful. But your behavior taken in one lump added up to a thing they couldn't understand. They figured there was something wrong with you, and felt a goodly natured contempt. I had to prove I was tough as they or tougher (van Rijn beats the local pride's champion in single combat). That satisfied their instincts, which then went to sleep and let them listen to me with respects."

• 

     Van Rijn put down his empty cup and took out his pipe. "Another thing you lacked was territory," he said. "Animals on Earth, too, has an instinct to stake out and defend a piece of ground for themselves. Humans do. But for carnivores this instinct has got to be very, very, very powerful, because if they get driven away from where the game is, they can't survive on roots and berries. They die.
     "You saw yourselfs how those natives what could not maintain a place in their ancestral hunting grounds but went to you instead was looked downwards on. You Esperancers only had a dome on some worthless nibble of land. Then you went around preaching how you had no designs on anybody's country. Ha! They had to believe you was either lying—maybe that is one reason the Shanga attacked you—or else was abnormal weaklings."
     "But couldn't they understand?" Joyce asked. "Did they expect us, who didn't even look like them, to think the same way as they do?"
     "Sophisticated, civilized t'Kelans could have caught the idea," van Rijn said. "However, you was dealing with naive barbarians."
     "Except the Ancients. I'm sure they realize—"
     "Maybe so. Quite possible. But you made a deadly threat to them. Could you not see? They has been the scribes, doctors, high-grade artisans, sun experts, for ages and ages. You come in and start doing the same as them, only much better. What you expect them to do? Kiss your foots? Kiss any part of your anatomy? Not them! They is carnivores, too. They fight back."
     "But we never meant to displace them!"
     "Remember," van Rijn said, wagging his pipe stem at her, "reason is just the lackey for instinct. The Gaffers is more subtle than anybody else's. They can sit still in one place, between walls. They do not hunt. They do not claim thousands of square kilometers for themselves. But does this mean they have no instinct of territoriality? Ha! Not bloody likely! They has only sublimed it. Their work, that is their territory—and you moved in on it!" (That is why the Ancients engineered the attack on the Esperancian base, right after the Esperancians figured out the t'Kelan biochemistry and synthesized medicines. This encroached on the Ancient's territory of being physicians)
     Joyce sat numbly, staring out into night. Time passed before she could protest. "But we explained to them—I'm sure they understood—we explained this planet will die without our help."
     "Ja, ja. But a naturally born fighter has less fear of death than other kinds animals. Besides, the death was scheduled for a thousand years from now, did you not say? That is too long a time to feel with emotions. Your own threat to them was real, here and now."
     Van Rijn lit his pipe. "Also," he continued around the mouthpiece, "your gabbing about planet-wide cooperation did not sit so well. I doubt they could really comprehend it. Carnivores don't make cooperations except on the most teensy scale. It isn't practical for them. They haven't got such instincts. The Hordes—which, remember, is not nations in any sense—they could never get what you was talking about, I bet. Altruism is outside their mental horizontals. It only made them suspicious of you. The Ancients maybe had some vague notion of your motives, but didn't share them in the littlest. You can't organize these peoples. Sooner will you build a carousel on Saturn's rings. It does not let itself be done."

• 

(ed note: Flint is a human, Tsopi is a female Polarian. As an emissary, Flint has had his mind transferred into the body of a male Polarian on the Polarian home planet)

      (Tsopi said) "Thus I, as a basically planet-bound creature, am Solid or Ground, while you, as a highly mobile off-planet creature, your essence expressed wholly by your Kirlian aura, are Gas or Air. In the archaic Solarian terms, I'm a Coin and you're a Sword."
     "You certainly are a coin," he (Flint) agreed. "You roll and you're precious."
     "Thank you," she said, vibrating her ball against his trunk in a most stimulating way.
     "And I have seen some combat in my time, so I'm a Sword. In fact, I'm a flintsmith—I make weapons. Good ones, too."
     "I am aware. I knew you then. Remember?"
     "So you did." He paused. "You knew me as a human being. So to you I'm a stick figure, all angles and bones. Doesn't it bother you?"
     "No. We believe in outside contacts, in exogamous cooperation. It's part of our nature. We have known of the nature of Solarians for many centuries. The Tarot itself has prepared the way, for we associate ourselves with the circular Coins and Solarians with the thrust of Swords. The message of the Tarot is that all systems are valid, no matter how strange some may seem at first. I know you are a fine person in alien guise. And we have a common debt. And now you are here in rotary form, visiting my Suit of Solid as it were, and it is good."
     "Yet you will not let me—the Big Wheel will not let me complete my mission."

     She drew up on a fine expanse of hard foliage overlooking a flowing stream. Paddlewheeled waterfowl disported on its surface, and two-wheeled animals moved away, alarmed by the intrusion of sapients. Originally all creatures of the Polarian home planet had been bicycled, but in time the sapients had lifted one wheel, becoming unicycled, freeing the other to become the communicatory ball. The pattern seemed familiar to Flint; human beings had progressed similarly, from quadruped to biped status.

     "Try to understand," she said. "To us, the individual is paramount in the circuit. Government exists only to serve the needs of the citizens. Where the interests of a single entity conflict with that of society, the entity takes precedence."
     "That's backwards! Government must always serve the good of the greatest number."
     "In a thrust-culture, perhaps that is so. Here, no." She made a little gesture with her tail, much as a human used hands to augment a difficult point. "What is good for the individual is good for the society."
     "But centralized society would collapse!" Flint was not used to debating economics or political science, yet his point seemed irrefutable.
     "Well, it is true we lack the straight-thrust dynamism of your muscle-and-bone mode. But we have achieved the equilibrium of the turning wheel. We accomplish much by accommodation and mutual respect, rather than force."

     "And your Sphere (interstellar empire) is twice the diameter of ours," Flint said. "I don't claim to comprehend it, but I admit I like it. But what happens when the interests of individuals conflict?"
     "This is the heart of our system. It is a form of mutual debt (since their culture is symbolized by coins). They must work it out together."
     "Debt. There is the key I don't have. How do you—"
     "Divergent interests must be reconciled. Factions must unify. The interest of one entity must merge with the other, so that no dichotomy exists. You might call it love."
     "Love thine enemy?" Flint remembered another of the fragments of wisdom of the Shaman that had not come clear.
     "There can be no enemy. Only debt to be expiated."
     Flint pondered. "Let me see whether I have it straight," he said at last. "Or curved, as the case may be."
     "Circular," she supplied. "At Sol, a straight line may be the solution to most problems; here it is a spiral."
     "Yes. You and I saved each other's lives, and so we owed each other our lives. A mutual debt, very hard to repay. You can't take back a life, after all. Now in our thrust-culture, we'd call that self-canceling. Equal and opposite forces. But I suppose if you plotted it on a spiral, it could start quite a spin. Equal and opposite thrusts applied to the two sides of a wheel can make it roll twice as fast. So—" But he stopped, beginning to realize. "Pleasant news from a lady...."

     "I'm aware that different conventions obtain in your culture," she said. "You tend to be indrawn, perhaps as the natural consequence of your outward thrust."
     "That's what I was saying! The Shaman explained it to me, back when I hardly understood and had to stretch my mind to take it in. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
     "Yes. So you are an expansive, extroverted species—but also strongly introverted, alienophobic. Your mating pattern reflects this. You seek a stranger for the purpose of procreation, then establish lifelong liaison with that stranger. To us that seems extreme. We prefer familiar matings—but we form no restrictive relation."
     "You're saying you're polygamous?"
     "No, that would be the wrong connotation. We mate for social or economic reasons, but our love is intense while it endures. At the end, there is a child—and all debts have been expiated by that act of creation, all differences reconciled in that child. The chapter is finished; we never mate again with the same partners."
     "To us that would be frivolous," Flint said. "Mating is tantamount to marriage—a permanent commitment. This is my relation to Honeybloom, the Queen of Liquid. Or Water, Cups, or Hearts, by the cards. When I return to (planet) Outworld, I'll marry her."
     "I understand that, and I wish you well. It is your system," Tsopi said. "But at the moment you are part of the Polarian culture, and you cannot complete your technical mission until our debt is expiated. There is no conflict between me and Honeybloom"—she had used his term, for there were no parallel concepts in Polarian, no flowers, hence no blooms and no bees and no honey—"so love me now, and never again. You may regard this in the line of duty, since the Big Wheel is anxious to have our debt abated, and will meet with you immediately afterward."

     So, circuitously, politics had become sex. "On Planet Earth, that would be called prostitution," he said.
     "I do not understand the term."
     Indeed, there had been no concept for this either; he had had to use the human word. "Allow me to be a bit finicky," he said. "I can indulge in sex on a purely casual basis, or as a necessity of my mission, or I can marry. You seem to be offering something in between. Short-term love. And I don't even know how it is done here. You have no—do you know how Solarians do it?"

     "Yes," she said, glowing with distaste. "It is linear, again. The male pokes his little stick into the female's—
     "All right. You have the idea. Now how do Polarians get the male seed together with the female egg?"
     "I propose to show you," she said.
     "I could learn faster if you told me first," he said with developing exasperation. This reluctance to speak directly to the point—but of course, that was Polarian nature. (speaking directly to the point is a characteristic of thrust cultures, reluctance to speak to the point is characteristic of a circularity culture)
     "Why did you stop me from describing the Solarian act?" she inquired in return.
     "Solarian act?" For a moment he was baffled.
     "How the male makes his stick stiff and—"
     "Oh. That sort of thing isn't discussed openly among humans. Not in mixed company." Then he did a double-take. "I see. Some things are better performed than described."
     "Yes. Also, your human viewpoint might cause you as much distress as our own viewpoint causes us in contemplation of the Solarian act, which seems aggressive and unnatural to us. Why, if the male poked too hard, or missed the opening—"

(ed note: on the mineral-rich planet, the miners make contact with the alien energy-creatures native to the place (the Loarra). They receive permission to mine. After mining for four years, the Loarra show up and kill everybody outside of the mountain and destroy all the mining equipment)

After a while I sent out a fourth “eye.” One of the Loarra came over, flitted around it like a firefly, blinked through the spectrum, and settled down to hover in front for talking. It was Pura Pur who was a thousand million billion life cycles removed from the Pur we know and love, of course, but nonetheless still pretty much Pur.

I sent out a sequence of lights and movements that translated, roughly, as, “What the hell did you do that for?”

And Pur glowed pale yellow for several seconds, then gave me an answer that doesn’t translate. Or, if it does, the translation is just “Because.”

Then I asked the question again, in different terms, and she gave me the same answer in different terms. I asked a third time, and a fourth, and she came back with the same thing. She seemed to be enjoying the variations on the Dance; maybe she thought we were playing.

Well … We’d already sent out our distress call by then, so all we could do was wait for a relief ship and hope they wouldn’t attack again before the ship came, because we didn’t have a chance of fighting them, we were miners, not a military expedition. God knows what any military expedition could have done against energy things, anyway. While we were waiting, I kept sending out the “eyes,” and I kept talking to one Loarra after another. It took three weeks for the ship to get there, and I must have talked to over a hundred of them in that time, and the sum total of what I was told was this:

Their reason for wiping out the mining operation was untranslatable. No, they weren’t mad. No, they didn’t want us to go away. Yes, we were welcome to the stuff we were taking out of the depths of the Loarran ocean.

And, most importantly: No, they couldn’t tell me whether or not they were likely ever to repeat their attack.

• 

The wheat and chessboard problem (sometimes expressed in terms of rice grains) is a mathematical problem expressed in textual form as:

If a chessboard were to have wheat placed upon each square such that one grain were placed on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on (doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square), how many grains of wheat would be on the chessboard at the finish?

The problem may be solved using simple addition. With 64 squares on a chessboard, if the number of grains doubles on successive squares, then the sum of grains on all 64 squares is: 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ... and so forth for the 64 squares. The total number of grains equals 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (eighteen quintillion four hundred and forty-six quadrillion seven hundred and forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred and nine million five hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and fifteen)—about 2,000 times annual world production—much more than most expect.

This exercise can be used to demonstrate how quickly exponential sequences grow, as well as to introduce exponents, zero power, capital-sigma notation and geometric series. Updated for modern times using pennies and a hypothetical question such as "Would you rather have a million dollars or a penny on day one, doubled every day until day 30?", the formula has been used to explain compound interest. (Doubling would yield over five million dollars, and twice that the following day.)

• 

(ed note: screenplay by David Gerrolds. Novelization by James Blish)

      Nobody seems to know where tribbles come from, though obviously they are comfortable in oxygen-bearing air at Earthlike temperatures and pressures. Newborn tribbles are about an inch long; the largest one ever seen, about sixteen inches.
     A tribble looks a little like a cross between an angora cat and a beanbag. It has no arms or legs, no eyes, and in fact no face—only a mouth. It moves by rolling, by stretching and flexing like an inchworm, or by a peculiar throbbing which moves it along slowly but smoothly, rather like a snail. It does, however, have long fur, which comes in a variety of colors—beige, deep chocolate, gold, white, gold-green, auburn, cinnamon and dusky yellow.
     Tribbles are harmless. Absolutely, totally, completely, categorically, inarguably, utterly, one hundred per cent harmless ...

---

     Freeman looked at Kirk. "I don't have any objections to pets on this ship," Kirk said. "Within reason. But if these tribbles want to stay on the Enterprise, they'd better be a little less prolific."
     The tribbles, however, did not seem to get the message. Visiting sick bay the next day—another prolonged shouting match with Baris had given him a headache—Kirk found that McCoy had what seemed to be a boxful of the creatures.
     "I thought Uhura gave you only one of those things, Bones. It looks more like you've got ten here."
     "Average litter. I had eleven, but I dissected one. The nearest thing I can figure out is that they're born pregnant."
     "Is that possible?"
     "No, but it would be a great timesaver, wouldn't it? I can tell you this much: almost fifty per cent of the creature's metabolism is geared to reproduction. Do you know what you get if you feed a tribble too much?"
     Kirk's mind was not really on the subject. "A very fat tribble?"
     "No. You get a whole bunch of hungry little tribbles. And if you think that's a boxful, you should see Uhura's. She's got about fifty, and she gave away five."
     "Well, you'd better find homes for this batch before you've got fifty, too." Kirk swallowed the headache pill.

---

     It was worse on shipboard. The corridors seemed to be crawling with the creatures. On the bridge, Kirk had to scoop three or four of them out of his chair before he could sit down. They were all over the consoles, on shelves, everywhere.
     "Lieutenant, how did all of these tribbles get onto the bridge?"
     "Through the ventilator ducts, I expect, Captain. They seem to be all over the ship."
     "They certainly do. Mr. Spock, have a maintenance crew come up here to clean out this bridge. How many of them are there now, anyhow?"
     "Assuming one creature—the one Lieutenant Uhura brought aboard—with an average litter of ten," the First Officer said, "every twelve hours. The third generation will total one thousand, three hundred thirty-one. The fourth generation will total fourteen thousand, six hundred and forty-one. The fifth generation will..."
     "That's already enough. I want a thorough cleanup. They've got to go."
     "All of them?" Lt. Uhura said protestingly. "Oh, Captain …"
     "Every last one."
     "A logical decision," Spock said. "Their breeding rate is beyond our control. They are consuming our supplies and returning nothing."
     "Oh, come on now, Mr. Spock. I don't agree with you at all. They're giving us their love. Cyrano Jones says that a tribble is the only love money can buy."
     "Lieutenant," Kirk said, "too much of anything—even love—is not necessarily a good thing. And in view of the fact that this all started with just one tribble, clearly the only safe number is none."
     "And since feeding them is what makes them breed," Spock added, "one need only imagine what would happen if they got into the food processing machinery, or the food storage areas."
     Kirk stared at the First Officer, thunderstruck. "Storage areas!" he said. "Great thundering fireballs! Storage areas! Lieutenant Uhura, contact Commander Lurry, and Nilz Baris. Have them meet us at the station mall. Mr. Spock, we're beaming over. Lieutenant, have Doctor McCoy join us in the transporter room—on the double!"

---

     There were two guards before the warehouse door. "Is that door secure?" Kirk demanded.
     "Yes, sir. Nothing could get in."
     "Open it."
     The guard produced a magnetic key. Nothing happened. "Don't understand it, sir. It seems to be . .."
     What it seemed to be will never be known, for at that moment the door slid open. There was a sort of silent explosion. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tribbles came tumbling out, cascading down around them all, wriggling and seething and mewling and writhing and throbbing and trilling and purring ...
     They stood aghast as the mountain of fur grew. Spock recovered first. Scooping up a tribble, he examined it with clinical detachment. "It seems to be gorged," he observed.
     "Gorged!" Baris gasped. "On my grain! Kirk! I'll hold you responsible! There must be thousands—hundreds of thousands!"
     "One million, five hundred and sixty-one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three," Spock said, "assuming, of course, that they got in here three days ago, and allowing for the maximum rate of grain consumption and the volume of the warehouse."
     "Beggin' your pardon, Captain," Cyrano said, "but a certain amount of the blame might be lyin' in sheer ignorance of the little creatures. If you keep their diet down below a certain intake per day, why sure and they don't breed at all. That's how I control mine."
     Kirk stared at him. "Why didn't you tell us that before?"
     "Nobody asked me. Besides, Captain, any man's common sense should tell him that it's bad for little animals to be overfeedin' 'em."

• 

(ed note: When the good ship Rolling Stone arrives at Phobos, the familiy starts looking around Marsport. Would-be teenage entrepreneurs Castor and Pollux Stone are examining the goods at Mr. Angelo's store. )

      "Say, Mr. Angelo, what is this? At first I thought it was a fur cap; now I see it's alive." Castor pointed to the furry heap on the counter. It was slowly slithering toward the edge.
     The shopkeeper reached out and headed it back to the middle. "That? That's a 'flat cat.'"
     "'Flat cat?'"
     "It has a Latin name but I never bothered to learn it." Angelo tickled it with a forefinger; it began to purr like a high-pitched buzzer. It had no discernible features, being merely a pie-shaped mass of sleek red fur a little darker than Castor's own hair. "They're affectionate little things and many of the sand rats keep them for pets—a man has to have someone to talk to when he's out prospecting and a flat cat is better than a wife because it can't talk back. It just purrs and snuggles up to you. Pick it up."
     Castor did so, trying not to seem gingerly about it. The flat cat promptly plastered itself to Castor's shirt, fattened its shape a little to fit better the crook of the boy's arm, and changed its purr to a low throbbing which Castor could feel vibrate in his chest. He looked down and three beady little eyes stared trustfully back up at him, then closed and disappeared completely. A little sigh interrupted the purrs and the creature snuggled closer.
     Castor chuckled. "It is like a cat, isn't it?"
     "Except that it doesn't scratch. Want to buy it?"
     Castor hesitated. He found himself thinking of Lowell's anxiety to see a "real Martian." (Lowell is Castor's toddler little brother) Well, this was a "Martian," wasn't it? A sort of a Martian. "I wouldn't know how to take care of it."
     "No trouble at all. In the first place they're cleanly little beasties—no problem that way. And they'll eat anything; they love garbage. Feed it every week or so and let it have all the water it will take every month or six weeks—it doesn't matter really; if it isn't fed or watered it just slows down until it is. Doesn't hurt it a bit. And you don't even have to see that it keeps warm. Let me show you." He reached out and took the flat cat back, jiggled it in his hand. It promptly curled up into a ball.
     "See that? Like everything else on Mars, it can wrap itself up when the weather is bad. A real survivor type." The shopkeeper started to mention another of its survival characteristics, then decided it had no bearing on the transaction. "How about it? I'll make you a good price."
     Castor decided that Lowell would love it—and besides, it was a legitimate business expense, chargeable to good will. "How much?"
     Angelo hesitated, trying to estimate what the traffic would bear, since a flat cat on Mars had roughly the cash value of still another kitten on a Missouri farm. Still, the boys must be rich or they wouldn't be here—just in and with spending money burning holes in their pockets, no doubt. Business had been terrible lately anyhow. "A pound and a half," he said firmly.
     Castor was surprised at how reasonable the price was. "That seems like quite a lot," he said automatically.
     Angelo shrugged. "It likes you. Suppose we say a pound?"
     Castor was again surprised, this time at the speed and the size of the mark-down. "I don't know," he murmured.
     "Well … ten per cent off for cash."

---

     Meade picked Fuzzy Britches up; it immediately began to buzz—whereupon Lowell demanded to hold it. Meade passed it over. "I don't see," she remarked, "why anything as helpless as that would have such bright colors."
     "Think again, honey lamb," advised (grandmother) Hazel. "Put that thing out on the (Martian) desert sand and you would lose it at ten feet. Which might be a good idea."
     "No!" answered Lowell.
     "'No' what, dear?"
     "Don't you lose Fuzzy Britches. He's mine." The child left carrying the flat cat and cooing a lullaby to it. Fuzzy Britches might lack legs but it knew how to win friends; anyone who picked it up hated to put it down. There was something intensely satisfying about petting the furry thing. Hazel tried to analyze it but could not.

---

     Fuzzy Britches took to free fall as if the creature had been born in space; if it was not being held and stroked by someone (which it usually was) it slithered over wall and bulkhead, or floated gently around the compartments, undulating happily.
     Castor maintained that it could swim through the air; Pollux insisted that it could not and that its maneuvers arose entirely from the air currents of the ventilation system. They wasted considerable time, thought, and energy in trying to devise scientific tests to prove the matter, one way or the other. They were unsuccessful.
     The flat cat did not care; it was warm, it was well fed, it was happy. It had numerous friends all willing to take time off to reward its tremendous and undiscriminating capacity for affection. Only one incident marred its voyage.
     (Father) Roger Stone was strapped to his pilot's chair, blocking out—so he said—a chapter in his book. If so, the snores may have helped. Fuzzy Britches was cruising along about its lawful occasions, all three eyes open and merry. It saw one of its friends; good maneuvering or a random air current enabled it to make a perfect landing—on Captain Stone's face.
     Roger came out of the chair with a yell, clutching at his face. He bounced against the safety belt, recovered, and pitched the flat cat away from him. Fuzzy Britches, offended but not hurt, flipped itself flat to its progress, air-checked and made another landing on the far wall.
     Roger Stone used several other words, then shouted, "Who put that animated toupee on my face?"
     But the room was otherwise empty. (Mother) Dr. Stone appeared at the hatch and said, "What is it, dear?"
     "Oh, nothing—nothing important. Look, dear, would you return this tail-end offspring of a dying planet to Buster? I'm trying to think."
     "Of course, dear." She took it aft and gave it to Lowell, who promptly forgot it, being busy working out a complicated gambit against Hazel. The flat cat was not one to hold a grudge; there was not a mean bone in its body, had it had bones, which it did not. The only emotion it could feel wholeheartedly was love. It got back to Roger just as he had again fallen asleep.
     It again settled on his face, purring happily.
     Captain Stone proved himself a mature man. Knowing this time what it was, he detached it gently and himself returned it to Lowell. "Keep it," he said. "Don't let go of it." He was careful to close the door behind him.
     He was equally careful that night to close the door of the stateroom he shared with his wife. The Rolling Stone, being a small private ship, did not have screens guarding her ventilation ducts; they of course had to be left open at all times. The flat cat found them a broad highway. Roger Stone had a nightmare in which he was suffocating, before his wife woke him and removed Fuzzy Britches from his face. He used some more words.
     "It's all right, dear," she answered soothingly. "Go back to sleep." She cuddled it in her arms and Fuzzy Britches settled for that.
     The ship's normal routine was disturbed the next day while everyone who could handle a wrench or a spot welder installed screens in the ducts.
     Thirty-seven days out Fuzzy Britches had eight golden little kittens, exactly like their parent but only a couple of inches across when flat, marble-sized when contracted. Everyone including Captain Stone thought they were cute; everyone enjoying petting them, stroking them with a gentle forefinger and listening carefully for the tiny purr, so high as to be almost beyond human ear range. Everyone enjoyed feeding them and they seemed to be hungry all the time.
     Sixty-four days later the kittens had kittens, eight each. Sixty-four days after that, the one hundred and forty-sixth day after Phobos departure, the kittens' kittens had kittens; that made five hundred and thirteen.
     "This," said Captain Stone, "has got to stop!"
     "Yes, dear."
     "I mean it. At this rate we'll run out of food before we get there, including the stuff the twins hope to sell. Besides that we'll be suffocated under a mass of buzzing fur mats. What's eight times five hundred and twelve? Then what's eight times that?"
     "Too many, I'm sure."
     "My dear, that's the most masterly understatement since the death of Mercutio. And I don't think I've figured it properly anyway; it's an exponential expansion, not a geometric—provided we don't all starve first."
     "Roger."
     "I think we should— Eh? What?"
     "I believe there is a simple solution. These are Martian creatures; they hibernate in cold weather."
     "Yes?"
     "We'll put them in the hold—fortunately there is room."
     "I agree with all but the 'fortunately.'"
     "And we'll keep it cold."
     "I wouldn't want to kill the little things. I can't manage to hate them. Drat it, they're too cute."
     "We'll hold it about a hundred below, about like a normal Martian winter night. Or perhaps warmer will do."
     "We certainly will. Get a shovel. Get a net. Get a barrel." He began snagging flat cats out of the air.
     "You aren't going to freeze Fuzzy Britches!" Lowell was floating in the stateroom door behind them, clutching an adult flat cat to his small chest. It may or may not have been Fuzzy Britches; none of the others could tell the adults apart and naming had been dropped after the first litter. But Lowell was quite sure and it did not seem to matter whether or not he was right. The twins had discussed slipping in a ringer on him, while he was asleep, but they had been overheard and the project forbidden. Lowell was content and his mother did not wish him disturbed in his belief.
     "Dear, we aren't going to hurt your pet."
     "You better not! You do and I'll—I'll space you!"
     "Oh, dear, he's been helping Hazel with her serial!" Dr. Stone got face to face with her son. "Lowell, Mother has never lied to you, has she?"
     "Uh, I guess not."
     "We aren't going to hurt Fuzzy Britches. We aren't going to hurt any of the flat kitties. But we haven't got room for all of them. You can keep Fuzzy Britches, but the other kittens are going for a long nap. They'll be perfectly safe; I promise."
     "By the code of the Galaxy?"
     "By the code of the Galaxy."
     Lowell left, still guarding his pet. Roger said, "Edith, we've got to put a stop to that collaboration."
     "Don't worry, dear; it won't harm him." She frowned. "But I'm afraid I will have to disappoint him on another score."
     "Such as?"
     "Roger, I didn't have much time to study the fauna of Mars—and I certainly didn't study flat cats, beyond making sure that they were harmless."
     "Harmless!" He batted a couple of them out of the way. "Woman, I'm drowning."
     "But Martian fauna have certain definite patterns, survival adaptations. Except for the water-seekers, which probably aren't Martian in origin anyhow, their methods are both passive and persistent. Take the flat cat—"
     "You take it!" He removed one gently from his chest.
     "It is defenseless. It can't even seek its own food very well. I understand that in its native state it is a benign parasite, attaching itself to some more mobile animal—"
     "If only they would quit attaching to me! And you look as if you were wearing a fur coat. Let's put 'em in freeze!"
     "Patience, dear. Probably it has somewhat the same pleasing effect on the host that it has on us; consequently the host tolerates it and lets it pick up the crumbs. But its other characteristic it shares with almost anything Martian. It can last long periods in hibernation, or if that isn't necessary, in a state of lowered vitality and activity—say when there is no food available. But with any increase in the food supply, then at once—almost like throwing a switch—it expands, multiplies to the full extent of the food supply."
     "I'll say it does!"
     "Cut off the food supply and it simply waits for more good times. Pure theory, of course, since I am reasoning by analogy from other Martian life forms—but that's why I'm going to have to disappoint Lowell. Fuzzy Britches will have to go on very short rations."
     Her husband frowned. "That won't be easy; he feeds it all the time. We'll just have to watch him—or there will be more little visitors from heaven. Honey, let's get busy. Right now."
     "Yes, dear. I just had to get my thoughts straight."
     Roger called them all to general quarters; Operation Roundup began. They shooed them aft and into the hold; they slithered back, purring and seeking companionship. Pollux got into the hold and tried to keep them herded together while the others scavenged through the ship. His father stuck his head in; tried to make out his son in a cloud of flat cats. "How many have you got so far?"
     "I can't count them—they keep moving around. Close the door!"
     "How can I keep the door closed and still send them in to you?"
     "How can I keep them in here if you keep opening the door?"
     Finally they all got into space suits—Lowell insisted on taking Fuzzy Britches inside with him, apparently not trusting even "the code of the Galaxy" too far. Captain Stone reduced the temperature of the entire ship down to a chilly twenty below; the flat cats, frustrated by the space suits and left on their own resources, gave up and began forming themselves into balls, like fur-covered grape fruit. They were then easy to gather in, easy to count, easy to store in the hold.
     Nevertheless the Stones kept finding and incarcerating fugitives for the next several days.

• 

     

They say you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance every time you go out. That makes it one chance in eight that you’ll live to see your third furlough; the one I’m on now.
     Somehow the odds don’t keep people from trying to join. Even though not one in a thousand gets through the years of training and examination, there’s no shortage of cannon fodder. And that’s what we are. The most expensive, best-trained cannon fodder in the history of warfare. Human history, anyhow; who can speak for the enemy?
     I don’t even call them snails anymore. And the thought of them doesn’t trigger that instant flash of revulsion, hate, kill-fever—the psyconditioning wore off years ago, and they didn’t renew it. They’ve stopped doing it to new recruits; no percentage in berserkers. I was a wild one the first couple of trips, though.

     We hit the atmosphere of Anomaly at an oblique angle and came in passive, like a natural meteor, until we got to a position where we were reasonably safe from detection (just above the south polar sea), then blasted briefly to slow down and splash. Then we spent a few hours in slow flight at sea level, sneaking up on their settlement.
     It appeared to be the only enemy camp on the whole planet, which was typical. Strange for a spacefaring, aggressive race to be so incurious about planetary environments, but they always seemed to settle in one place and simply expand radially. And they do expand; their reproduction rate makes rabbits look sick. Starting from one colony, they can fill a world in two hundred years. After that, they control their population by infantiphage and stellar migration.
     The snails populate ten planets for every one we destroy.

• 

      Almost anybody else knew more about how the war was going than we did, even though we were in it. This was the period, of course, after the Bugs had located our home planet, through the Skinnies, and had raided it, destroying Buenos Aires and turning "contact troubles" into all-out war, but before we had built up our forces and before the Skinnies had changed sides and become our co-belligerents and de facto allies. Partly effective interdiction for Terra had been set up from Luna (we didn't know it), but speaking broadly, the Terran Federation was losing the war.

     We didn't know that, either. Nor did we know that strenuous efforts were being made to subvert the alliance against us and bring the Skinnies over to our side; the nearest we came to being told about that was when we got instructions, before the raid in which Flores was killed, to go easy on the Skinnies, destroy as much property as possible but to kill inhabitants only when unavoidable.

     What a man doesn't know he can't spill if he is captured; neither drugs, nor torture, nor brainwash, nor endless lack of sleep can squeeze out a secret he doesn't possess. So we were told only what we had to know for tactical purposes. In the past, armies have been known to fold up and quit because the men didn't know what they were fighting for, or why, and therefore lacked the will to fight. But the M.I. (Mobile Infantry: powered armor troopers) does not have that weakness. Each one of us was a volunteer to begin with, each for some reason or other—some good, some bad. But now we fought because we were M.I. We were professionals, with esprit de corps. We were Rasczak's Roughnecks, the best unprintable outfit in the whole expurgated M.I.; we climbed into our capsules because Jelly told us it was time to do so and we fought when we got down there because that is what Rasczak's Roughnecks do.

     We certainly didn't know that we were losing.

     Those Bugs lay eggs. They not only lay them, they hold them in reserve, hatch them as needed. If we killed a warrior—or a thousand, or ten thousand—his or their replacements were hatched and on duty almost before we could get back to base. You can imagine, if you like, some Bug supervisor of population flashing a phone to somewhere down inside and saying, "Joe, warm up ten thousand warriors and have 'em ready by Wednesday … and tell engineering to activate reserve incubators N, O, P, Q, and R; the demand is picking up."

     I don't say they did exactly that, but those were the results. But don't make the mistake of thinking that they acted purely from instinct, like termites or ants; their actions were as intelligent as ours (stupid races don't build spaceships!) and were much better coordinated. It takes a minimum of a year to train a private to fight and to mesh his fighting in with his mates; a Bug warrior is hatched able to do this.

     Every time we killed a thousand Bugs at a cost of one M.I. (single human soldier) it was a net victory for the Bugs. We were learning, expensively, just how efficient a total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it by evolution; the Bug commissars didn't care any more about expending soldiers than we cared about expending ammo. Perhaps we could have figured this out about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance; however the trouble with "lessons from history" is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins.

• 

(ed note: the Human/Revain alliance is fighting an interstellar war with the Nerne. The latter species has a breeding rate which makes rabbits and cockroaches look like pikers. They use soldier-wave tactics, Nerne life is less than worthless, they store millions of their newborn offspring in vats under suspended animation.)

      He (Captain Randall) waited with ill-restrained impatience and then began to turn the hand control of the periscope. When the instrument cleared the surface, he was pleased to see that shadows were gathering on the horizon; it was close to darkness. He made a complete sweep with the periscope and saw that the current had carried them at least six miles from the point of attack. Three to four miles ahead, the black outline of the alien (Nerne) city stretched backwards from the sea. Here the cliffs gave way to long grey beaches. The aliens had built their city almost to the water’s edge.
     He made another half sweep and stopped, becoming aware of something he had noticed but failed to remark on before. On the green choppy sea were slowly drifting patches of — no it wasn’t weed. It looked more like froth, but thicker, brown froth. Yes, he had it now: frog spawn! Where the hell had it come from? There had been none of it when he had attacked. Something dislodged from the seabed by the explosion, perhaps? Hell of a lot, wasn’t there? Some of the patches must be a hundred feet across.
     He became aware of some close at hand and swivelled the periscope quickly to catch it. He was lucky. He caught the nearest patch on the crest of a wave with the light behind it. Jelly, exactly like frog spawn, only the jelly-like transparent eggs were almost as big as a normal hen’s egg. In the centre of each transparent egg or jelly sack was a tiny black humanoid figure, like a tadpole, but with legs and arms. It wasn’t human, of course; probably was a sort of sea tadpole peculiar to this planet. Yes, that was it; no doubt about it, none whatever.

     At the back of his mind, however, there was doubt and he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was trying to convince himself.

---

     Through his binoculars Randall could see a large deputation waiting on the pier but before he was close enough to distinguish features a single robot came racing above the smooth sea to greet him.
     Randall read the white lettering on the hive-shaped body and asked, ‘Well, Ford, good news?’
     ‘Excellent, sir.’ The voice was so enthusiastic that a smile was implied.
     ‘Let’s hear it, in order, and summarise, please.’
     ‘Yes, sir. Well, in order, three days after your departure there was a heavy explosion. Subsequent checks confirmed the destruction of a second Mluck ship. It ran afoul of the minefield, sir. Continual monitoring of the enemy communication systems were entertaining, sir. The enemy area commander was publicly deleted within an hour and his successor barely installed before you made your highly successful and paralysing blow at the installations.’
     ‘Paralysing?’

     ‘Yes, sir. I must explain that. By a careful check on enemy communications and working in close conjunction with the master computers of the Department of Biology we think we have arrived at the basis of the aliens’ war motivation, sir. Would you care to hear about it?’
     ‘Yes, I would, but briefly please, I’m very tired.’
     ‘The enemy is a bisexual humanoid, sir, and the species has found no method of controlling reproduction. Consequently their early history was ravaged by wars for living space. When, however, they expanded to the stars, they thought the problem was solved. They considered it their divine right to seed every habitable planet with their own kind. This went on until a race called the Revain took exception to the aliens’ methods and a war began. This war has now been raging for several centuries and our friends have taken, despite continual advances, some really horrible beatings in their many theatres of war. Unfortunately, the aliens regard these colossal leases with contempt; their grotesque manpower situation is such that these losses only ease the pressure behind them. So immense is this pressure that vast areas of their territory, conquered and otherwise, are covered with “freeze vats”.
     “The aliens spawn like an Earth frog, you see, sir, and, so intensely overpopulated are his worlds already that he must, from necessity, keep this spawn in deep freeze until he can find room to mature it.’
     ‘Don’t tell me.’ Randall leaned forward, gripping the rail. ‘They brought a couple of these vats here, built beds in which they could mature, and I torpedoed them.’ He was seeing again the jelly-like eggs on the water containing the tiny black human-like figures.
     ‘You are very quick, sir. Yes, you set back the seeded occupation of this planet by five years.’
     ‘It makes me feel sick.’
     ‘Although applauding your reactions, sir, the enemy does not share your disquiet. Although heads are rolling in the military sphere, there is jubilation in what they term the Department of Colonial Expansion. The dispatch of two more vats makes more space at home, presumably for more vats. The aliens appear to be lacking in certain emotions, sir, and life is less than cheap.’

---

     Randall climbed a small mound of churned earth by the ship and stopped. On the opposite side of the mound, sprawled on its back, was a dead alien. He sighed inwardly and looked at the alien again. So that was the species of Nerne, one of an endless chain of creatures stretching away to God knew where. Almost a factory product, come to think of it, with a vast area of storage space containing replacements. Worse, the blasted factory was still pouring its goods off the production line at maximum effort Who could hope to win against an enemy who could toss away a complete army division with the same indifference that he, Randall, would toss away a spent match?
     It isn’t quite as bad as that.’ Reener (of the Revain allies) was staring up into his face.
     ‘Are you reading my thoughts?’
     ‘No, only guessing what you are thinking. I know how I pondered these Nerne when I first saw them.’
     ‘I was thinking of their numbers.’
     ‘It is a frightening thought but it is not always decisive. One of our most resounding victories, although local, was brought about by exploiting the numerical superiority of the enemy.’
     ‘How did you do that?’ Randall was interested.

     ‘May I simplify? Call a planet an island and you will see it more clearly. You hold — what shall we call it? — North Island. North Island is equipped as a base to handle five hundred vessels and cater to the needs of half a million men. One day a report comes in that the biggest war fleet in living memory is heading straight for you. You are not to know, of course, that ninety-five per cent of this giant fleet are dummy plastic shells.
     ‘Any intelligence faced with this kind of information is apt to take panic measures. Your nearest neighbours, Eastern and Southern Islands, are too far away to lend big ship support in time, so you have to make do with what you have — the matter-transmitters. You have men funnelled through in floods, and your garrison grows from half a million to seven million in a matter of days. You can’t put a large vessel through a matter-transmitter but you can get small ones — the equivalent of your period motor torpedo boats. Before you know where you are, you’ve got more than three thousand and you’re only equipped to handle five hundred. You’ve stores for half a million men but suddenly you’ve got to cater for nearly eight. You haven’t room for the ships, nor the fuel, and suddenly it’s chaos. It’s like thirty men in a room designed for three.’
     Reener smiled, an infectious elfin smile. ‘We hit Eastern Island and Southern Island simultaneously with two small fleets. Both had funnelled so many men and ships to Northern Island that they were virtually defenceless. We wiped out both garrisons.
     ‘At this period a larger fleet, which had been sneaking in from the opposite direction to the dummy fleet, hit the congested island without warning. It was a massacre; the aliens lost almost as many ships from collisions and panic take-offs as we knocked down.’
     He paused and looked at Randall thoughtfully. ‘Now make these islands planets in the vast sea of space. For every ship multiply my figures by ten thousand; for every million men multiply one hundred thousand and you will have some idea of the magnitude of that defeat.’

     He sighed, his expressive elfin face suddenly weary and old. ‘Victory, defeat, it means nothing. We have been fighting this war for three centuries but the million we remove today, the Nerne can replace with four million tomorrow. Slowly but surely we are being pushed back. Oh, yes, yes, we both have super weapons, devices capable of wrenching apart a planet and strewing its ashes across the galaxy. We are both afraid of them: the Nerne because it would deny them the living space which means survival, and ourselves because we hold so little. We thrust, therefore, and we parry but survival forces its own laws upon us both.’
     Randall nodded but his eyes were cloudy with thought. ‘Have you ever paused to think what you’re up against, Reener?’
     ‘I do not quite understand you.’
     ‘Every time you remove one of the enemy, you do him a favour. Although, militarily, he loses a unit, it makes that much more space on the home front. You — you and I — are attempting the impossible. We’re telling the tides to go back or trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. In the long run, we, or those who follow us, are bound to go under.’

---

• 

      On the northern continent, Area Commander Folve (local Nerne commander) stared moodily from the narrow slit which served as a window and locked his six fingered hands behind his back. Had there been room he might have paced moodily up and down but since there was none, the thought did not occur to him. He was used to cramped quarters; in fact, after the claustrophobic overcrowding of his parent planet, this office was almost spacious. Here he could move his arms, even turn with moderate quickness; it was one of the very few compensations of promotion.
     Folve removed a small blue pill from a receptacle and began to chew it slowly. As he had two jaws, operating at right angles to the normal human mouth, the operation made an unpleasant grating noise.
     The pill itself served much the same purpose as human tobacco except that it included high tranquilisation properties. Folve needed those properties: his lot was not a happy one. High Command was ruthless, demanding, petty, and vacillating. It demanded that its officers conduct their affairs according to procedure but blamed the officer if procedure was insufficient for the situation. It applauded initiative if initiative produced results but condemned the offending officer for not adhering to procedure if it didn’t. There were no second chances, no hope of redemption. One failure meant not demotion but deletion. Life was not cheap; it was less than worthless.
     Folve was ironically aware that those in higher command, above the powers of the deletion courts, could receive a reprimand from the military for a defeat and a citation from Board of Expansion for the same operation. The military dealt with success and the Board of Expansion with living space. Only when one acquired living space by armed conquest did one gain citations from both authorities.

     His thoughts drifted away from his own problem to the larger one of interstellar conflict. Centuries ago his own species had evolved a technique of stellar conquest which was well suited to their prodigious powers of reproduction: send in a ship, establish a base and hold it against attack for long enough to get the matter-transmitters in operation. After that it was simple: pour in troops and weapons powerful enough to hold off a space-borne attack. Once you had done that, the planet was yours and troops could keep pouring in until it was literally flooded.
     Understandably, the Revain, with their vastly slower reproductive capacities and limited numbers, could not match this technique. They could not affordthe eighty percent casualty rate of interstellar matter-transmission so they had stuck stubbornly to their growing space fleet. The Nerne had only constructed to keep ahead, not to gain a vast lead in ships, but now, with the humans adding their weight, the Nerne would be compelled to increase their own production. The Commodore felt a twinge of unease. How? Where? They would need at least sixty more production sites to meet the allied construction threat and where would they put them? With every vacant space filled with vats, just how and where would they do it? There was no room in orbit; his home worlds had already lost sixty-five percent of their light from the vast conglomeration of orbiting repair shops, construction vessels and factories.

---

     It was, however, only a few days before the first stirrings of the coming collapse came from two newly acquired planets (Nerne planets recently captured by the Human/Revain alliance).
     The garrisons, confined to the force bubbles by the close orbital attention of allied ships, were running short of supplies. No supplies could be sent because of enemy transmission interference (which render the matter-transmitters useless) and in the face of enemy superiority in space the Nerne could not send ships.
     The alien high command woke suddenly to the need for ships. Production! They must out-build and out-produce the enemy.
     It was then that the writing on the wall became clear to them—where?

     The surfaces of the Nerne home planets were like beehives. The buildings climbed almost to the limits of the breathable atmosphere and burrowed far into the ground. They floated on the deepest oceans and extended far beneath. They could of course, delete several million of their kind, tear down the buildings and start construction, but highways, landing fields and space for research would be needed near the construction sites. They could no longer transmit matter even over short distances. An estimate provided by construction experts recommended the deletion of seventy million citizens after which, perhaps, allied ship production could be equalled but not overtaken.
     The Department of Reproduction pointed out that with stellar expansion halted the space so gained would by that time be required for vats.

     The Nerne faced one another with consternation and growing terror.
     They could delete each other but not the vats. The destruction of the spawn, the species’ ticket to continuation, was as repugnant and as psychologically impossible for them as a hungry man’s devouring his own body.
     Space construction? The allies, with their growing fleet superiority, were already making daring hit-and-run raids in the home systems.

• 

(ed note: the Kemiri are insectoid aliens who hold much of the local spiral arm in their iron grip, enslaving hundreds of alien species. As they try to conquer the Terran United Planets, the humans are driven to desperate measures)

      Set-Sixteen was a Kenmiri provincial capital, deep on the far side of the Empire from the United Planets. The Kenmiri hadn’t been expecting an attack and their defense fleet was weaker than it should have been. That fleet was still five full dreadnought battle groups and the UPSF’s Vesheron allies were getting hammered.
     Panther’s grav-shields and weapons could turn the tide of that fight—but that wasn’t their mission, and the birdlike starship plunged through the Kenmiri lines.

     “There,” Henry’s avatar said sharply. “That ship. Broos, confirm.”
     Commander Broos Van Agteren wasn’t a normal part of Panther’s crew. He was from United Planets Intelligence, their handler for Operation Golden Lancelot.
     “Confirmed,” Van Agteren told him. “That’s the evacuation ship for the Kenmorad. The queen and her consorts will be aboard.”

     The ship was the size of one of the dreadnoughts pounding the Vesheron ships behind Panther but lacked their devastating main guns. The evacuation ship had one purpose and one purpose only: to evacuate the Kenmorad population of Set-Sixteen if they felt the planet was threatened.
     A Kenmorad breeding sect could repopulate an entire planet of Kenmiri drones in a few years. They could create more breeding sects, more drones…more Kenmiri.
     The Kenmiri couldn’t reproduce without the Kenmorad.

     “Ser, that’s the last one. We can’t kill her!”
     Lieutenant Colonel Emil Tyson had been Panther’s executive officer, Henry’s right-hand man and lubricant who kept a battlecruiser working in the face of the enemy. The redheaded Irishman hadn’t raised any complaints on the day. They hadn’t known.
     “Stand by all missiles and prep the main gun,” Henry’s avatar ordered, as if Tyson hadn’t spoken. “Vela, get us in hard and fast.”
     Panther lunged across the void in a quarter of the time she had in real life. Suddenly, it was the moment of truth, the evacuation ship’s escorts making a suicide charge at the battlecruiser as Panther dove toward her prey.

     “She’s the last one, ser,” Tyson repeated, the avatar of Henry’s subconscious. The one that knew what he’d done, even if he hadn’t then. “If we kill that ship, we commit genocide. We end a species.”
     Henry hadn’t known the full scope of Golden Lancelot. He wasn’t sure if anyone aboard Panther had—he knew that Van Agteren hadn’t known when they fired. He suspected the Intel officer had guessed…but hadn’t realized that the breeding sect they were firing on was the last one left.
     “Ignore the escorts,” dream-Henry barked. “Target the evac ship with everything. Fire!”
     It had taken dozens of missiles and multiple hits from the main gun to take out the evacuation ship. In his dreams, however, there was only the single gravity-driver round that had finished her off. It flashed across space and detonated, turning itself into a shotgun blast of superheated plasma.

     “That’s it, then,” Van Agteren said, “The Kenmorad are no more. The Kenmiri will die. We are victorious!”

• 

The horror Third WatchMaster found while inspecting passenger compartments was on the manifest. He had been warned by Timmerbach that Glorious Spent carried two aliens who had boarded on the Atlantean Rim. But…

It (a Godspeaker) looked like a group-grope involving giant hydras and starfish atop a heap of exposed intestines. It was some sort of colonial, symbiotic intelligence. It was a methane breather, which explained why it had not turned out for the passenger muster.

It was revolting.

What the hell excuse was there for letting something that hideous run loose? What was Canon coming to?

---

The Godspeakers had plenty of warning, though WarAvocat used Hellspinners liberally to burrow a channel so he could reach his objective more quickly. He sent a rider force ahead to strike at two incomplete habitats Seeker feared would flee before they could be destroyed.

Strate told Klass, “Tell him to concentrate on tracking those things.” Minutes after VII Gemina’s breakaway Seeker had announced that each habitat contained a “brood mass,” a mindless superGodspeaker colony serving a reproductive function resembling that of a queen ant and the data storage function of a Starbase Core—though the brood mass could not manipulate that data itself.

“It’s a repository for genes and knowledge,” Klass said. “Without one there could be no more Godspeakers.”

“Why hasn’t he mentioned it before? He’s been holding out.”

“We destroyed the original when we hit their homeworld. He says he didn’t think they could put another one together. They’ve never had two at once, ever.”

WarAvocat knew little about the biology of the methane breathers. He did not care. They were the enemy. Their biology signified only when it could be used against them.

• 

(ed note: this is an example of the opposite: aliens have conquered Terra and want to make the human race die out. Since humans do not have queen bees, the aliens have to do it the hard way.

Marion is guilty of manslaughter. The alien conquerors have forced Terra into a corner, so Terra has no choice but to make almost all crimes punishable by death. Landon is the captain of the starship which is transporting Marion to the deadly planet. )

      Marion sighed. “A hundred years ago it would have been a manslaughter charge but today they have to look around to find laws which don’t carry the death penalty. I suppose it’s a kick-back from the armistice terms, something has to be done about the population problem.” He laughed bitterly. “Generous terms I believe they were called. They took the best parts of Earth for themselves, seven of our colonies and gave us one of their own planets in return.” He scowled suddenly at Landon. “One we can’t use.”
     “Who told you that ?” said Landon sharply.
     “You did. (You just told me that) There is an invulnerable animal called a zipcat which obviously makes the planet untenable, otherwise we should be shipping our surplus population out there for all we were worth.” He flicked ash on the floor with his finger tip and grinned wryly. “ Sounds like a tough job—killing zipcats. If our technically superior conquerors couldn’t clear them up, it seems pretty obvious that we can’t.”

(ed note: on the planet, Marion is told that all he has to do is figure out a way to kill zipcats. He is allowed any weapon he wants. Unfortunately every other person who has tried was unsuccessful and was swiftly killed by a zipcat.)

---

(ed note: Arkroyd is the current elected representative of the human race, who is regularly given impossible orders by the alien conquerors.)

     Arkroyd had been lithe but now moved like an old man. His face had been clear and smooth but in two years of office, strain and bitterness had carved lines into his cheeks and a premature senility of movement.
     “ Mousac Benik,” he said, steadily. “ If you take more of our world my people will die.”
     Benik made a gesture with a long, six-fingered hand. “ We have given you a world to which they may migrate.”
     “ You failed to colonise it.”
     “ Not failed, Arkroyd, the venture would have been too costly. Again, we were not in the desperate position which you so constantly protest. You must devise ways and means to make colonisation possible.”
     Arkroyd said: “ My God,” under his breath and watched the knuckles of his hands whiten almost detachedly. “ With a technology inferior to your own ?” he asked.
     “ I have already reminded you, your need is desperate, ours was not.” He rose, twining the orange robe tightly about his body. “ We are setting up a military base in area 67 as soon as equipment comes to hand. All buildings and power installations must be removed or demolished in this section of your world before the new year.” He paused, looking at the bent human with faint contempt. “ You understand?”
     “ I understand.” There was a world of weariness and resignation in the tired voice.

     Arkroyd sat unmoving at his desk long after the alien had gone. More land, more cities, a piece here, a piece there, taking away the peoples’ living space slice by slice. What did Williams say they were calling it? Ah, yes, a squeeze box. He had a vague recollection it was a slang term for some sort of musical instrument but was not certain. One thing he did know was that if you put animals in a cage and kept making the cage smaller, there would come a time when the animals began to eat each other. They hadn’t reached that yet but it would come.
     He looked about his office—squeeze box was right. At a push the room might hold four people and that for the race’s elected representative. A desk which swung out from the wall, bed which pulled down from ceiling, toilet and washing facilities which folded into the floor.
     Overcrowding, everyone in each others pockets, sleeping in relays, working in relays, staggered meals, rising tuberculosis and declining morals.

---

     Something had to be done and his predecessors, perhaps more ruthless than himself, had set the machinery in motion. They had re-introduced the death penalty and used it to save the race from complete collapse. It was applied at first with reserve but sheer necessity had forced the government to extend it to almost every form of misdemeanour. It was a capital offence to hoard, to steal food, to deal in ration cards, to breed without state permission, to spread rumours likely to cause alarm and despondency—
     Bluntly they had to kill people behind a facade of law and order to save the race. It was expedient that a few million should die to save the race.
     Arkroyd put his head in his hands and something deep down inside him whimpered like a child. There was no revoking the law now, no way out; to let the population increase, or even remain static, would lead only to starvation, riots and subsequent plague. This, too, was another form of expediency from which the race might never recover.

     The squeeze box. Yes, if you put animals in a cage and kept making it smaller, there would come a time when they started to eat each other. Arkroyd knew, as his predecessors must have known, that the conquerors need to install equipment and erect vast defensive devices was pure fabrication. This was a planned policy of extermination but what could he do about it? Defiance would only bring about one of the ruthless pogroms which would cut down their chances even more.
     The conquerors programme was almost childlike in its simplicity and was being applied over a period of time with ruthless efficiency. Race extermination was, after all, a messy and tiresome business. The easiest and best method, obviously was to create a situation from which the only escape was self-destruction. That way the job was done for them with the vanquished obligingly burying their own dead. It was all so simple, just make a cage and squeeze.
     Arkroyd was beating his clenched fists on the metal desk and couldn’t feel it…

---

(ed note: ...later)

     Arkroyd rose and bowed stiffly as he had been taught. He felt like a buffoon a puppet who moved when the strings were pulled. “ Yes, Mousac Benik ?”
     The alien loosened his cloak and sat down. “ I am here to inform you that our installations will require far more space than we at first supposed.” He pointed to the wall map with a long stick-like finger. “ All of this.” The finger described a circle.

     Arkroyd felt the muscles stiffen beneath his skin. “ But that’s nearly a thousand square miles.” Despite himself his voice was almost a sob. “ It’s impossible.” His mind raced insanely trying to calculate how many millions he would have to crush into the already overcrowded cities. No time to build, no time to dig, the hammocks in the dormitories already less than an inch apart and winter coming—Oh God, Oh God !
     “ Impossible ?” The alien looked at him strangely. “ What is impossible ? We require the demolition of some buildings, the removal of installations, such a task is not beyond the capacities of your people, surely?”

     Arkroyd was thinking: ‘ I could kill him now. I could reach out from here and break that pipe-stem neck with my bare hands but what good would it do? Reprisals, pogroms, more millions uprooted and some other poor devil sitting in this same chair, dying as he sat or, like many before him, fingering the gun in the desk drawer and finally blowing off the top of his head.’
     The alien folded his hands, intertwining his fingers so that they reminded Arkroyd of thin saffron-coloured worms. “The impossibility, Arkroyd, lies with you, it is a block in your own mind due to emotional disturbance and confused thinking. An application of the laws of expediency would leave your mind clear to perform the duties your position imposes. Like all your race you allow emotion and sentimentality to obscure your vision and influence your judgment.” He rose, tightening his robe. “ Demolition must be completed by the first day of the new year.”

---

     Arkroyd’s bow was purely reflex as the alien left, his conscious mind barely noticed the empty chair and the closed door. The new year ! It was fantastic. An area so large, he hadn’t the labour or the machines to do it, there was no time even to plan the demolition. Machines producing synthetic foods must come first and room made to operate in space needed for the population they must uproot. They could, perhaps, dig even deeper into the ground but that would mean splitting a labour force that was already inadequate for demolition.
     His mind became curiously numb and sluggish as if it had revolted of its own accord and refused to juggle with statistics. Perhaps it was a sort of safety factor but whatever it was, it was occurring with greater frequency each week.

     He pulled open the desk drawer and stared dully at the squat blue-black weapon lying casually on the white, never used, pre-invasion note paper. All he had to do was to put it to his head and squeeze the trigger. It was all so easy, six of his predecessors had done it as if to prove its simplicity and the suicide weapon had never been removed. Perhaps, after all, it was not a weapon at all but an instrument of mercy to be resorted to when the strain became too much. Selection for Representative was not dependent upon the mass of the people but the findings of a computer which based its selection on taped psychological information recorded at each yearly medical examination.
     When he had been selected Arkroyd had had dreams of improving the lot of his people, now his dreams were escapefantasies and he knew it. Secretly he called them “ If-only ” dreams. If only they could find a weapon powerful enough to support an uprising— If only the enemy would fall sick— If only someone would find a way to destroy zipcats—

---

(ed note: but then, the impossible happens. On the planet, Marion actually makes contact with the zipcats. And though they do not realize it yet, the alien conquerors are suddenly in hot bubbling sewage up to their eyebrows… and the human race is saved)