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“I see,” said Philippe, a little
taken aback.

“I wanted to communicate that to
you because I will not be seeing you again after today,” Brave Loyalty
continued. “The time I was assigned to remain on this station has ended. I am
returning home.”

“I am sorry that we will not be
meeting again, and I thank you very much for your help in teaching me your
language,” said Philippe. “I hope you have a safe journey home.”

“I appreciate your concern for my
safety,” the Cyclops replied. “I want you to know that as much as I can, I
intend to encourage my people to become more focused on themselves.”

Thinking back on that conversation,
Philippe wasn’t sure what to make of it. While it had always been somewhat
difficult to communicate with Brave Loyalty, Philippe had nonetheless felt like
they had a real connection. It seemed a bit out of character for Brave Loyalty
to have said something quite so rude, and it made Philippe wonder if he had
offended the Cyclops in some way.

But then again, it wasn’t uncommon
for diplomats to get suddenly disgusted with a place when they knew they were
about to leave it—although they usually were better at keeping such feelings to
themselves.

Philippe rubbed his temples. His
head was aching despite the analgesic patch, and his jaw was clenched. In
addition to the stimulant patches, he’d eaten ration bars with extra caffeine
at both breakfast and lunch, and he could feel the tightness of his muscles. He
kept seeing quick movements out of the corners of his eyes—he knew they were
nothing but the products of fatigue and too many stimulants, but he kept
looking around edgily anyway because he kept thinking that another White Spider
had crawled into his office.

He should cut back, but the simple
fact was, he needed the stimulants if he was going to do his job. He hadn’t
gotten a decent night of sleep in what seemed like weeks. Just the night
before, he had woken up from a nightmare as General Jesus’ men had chopped off
the Host’s forelimb, right below the joint. He finally managed to fall asleep
again, and the dream picked up right where it left off, with the men lopping
off the joint itself and handing it over to be nailed up on the wall, while the
Host lay, limp and bleeding, on the floor.

His memory of the nightmare was
interrupted by a ruckus outside his door. Eager for a distraction, Philippe
went out. All the SFers were running to the mess hall and whooping happily, so
he followed them in.

Shanti was standing on a chair.
“Shut up!” she yelled.

The noise died down.

“OK, as you bums know, we’ve been
due leave for a long fucking while now. It took some ass-kicking, but they
finally decided to give us what’s fucking owed us.” The soldiers cheered, and
she continued. “Two weeks! That’s two weeks total, so travel and quarantine
time is just your tough shit, don’t come crying to me about it.”

“How long is quarantine?” yelled
one of the soldiers.

“Two days on Titan—they’ll do
whatever debriefing they gotta do then, so at least you don’t gotta waste more
time on that. We’re going to do a random draw—whoever gets picked leaves with
Cheep and Pinky, who are coming in about an hour.”

She held up an open scroll. “Random
Draw!” appeared on it in colorful letters, with “start” in smaller letters
below.

“Here goes!” she yelled, and hit
start.

A colorful icon bounced around the
scroll, as the soldiers whooped and clapped. The word “Done!” appeared with a
little musical flourish.

Shanti looked at it. “And the
winner is—Baby! Get your shit packed, Baby—you’re going to—where are you
going?”

“Owens Valley! My mom’s place!”
shouted Baby, who was bouncing up and down with excitement. Five-Eighths was
standing next to her, and Philippe could see that he was far less thrilled.

She headed toward the door,
stopping when she saw Philippe. “Can you be sure to let me know if you hear
about Ptuk-Ptik?” she asked. “I’ll give you my address.”

Whoever was screening the mail was
doing a good job—the volume of messages was far more manageable, and what came
through had been sorted by importance, so Philippe knew what he had to answer
and what could wait. This batch included a memo by someone in Union
Intelligence in response to Philippe’s report that the Hosts had agreed to
allow a volunteer to undergo a medical examination.

“Well,” he said, “what do you think
we should do? The Hosts are letting us do a medical examination because they
trust us. I think it’s pretty low if you examine one of them, and then we use
that information to develop better weapons to kill them.”

George gave a sardonic smile. “To
be honest, Philippe, I don’t think you have too much to worry about. The
weapons we have now will kill them just fine. This is what the UI always does;
they’re always getting excited over a half-penny’s advantage, but it never
amounts to much in the field. Plus, you don’t know—the data we collect from the
examination could lead to some kind of major scientific breakthrough, or maybe
it will help people feel like they understand the aliens more. There’s a lot of
good that could come from this.”

“That’s true,” said Philippe, “but
it still—it just bothers me that they think like this.”

“This is how they’re paid to
think,” said the doctor. “It’s their job to be paranoid and stupid, and to make
mountains out of molehills. It’s not like everyone’s that way.”

“I hope not,” said Philippe. “I’ve
been gathering some recordings on the Cyclopes language. I was thinking that
maybe the UI would have good linguists who’d be interested, but now I don’t
think I want to give them anything.”

“I certainly understand that,”
replied George.

Philippe looked at him. “You really
don’t like Union Intelligence, do you?”

George laughed. “There is no love
lost between the UI and the SF—they’re rats, and they’re useless. So, do you
want to come with me to see the Hosts?”

“I can’t. I’ve got to finish my
report,” said Philippe. That was, technically speaking, true, although it was
also true that nowadays he only went to see the Hosts when he had to. “So, do
you have a volunteer?”

“Yeah, the merchant you gave my
translation gear to is up for it,” said the doctor, pulling on his gloves and
attaching his hood. “I just need to check and make sure that they’re not incredibly
sensitive to anything that our scanners use.”

Philippe put two stimulant patches on the inside of his
right arm and went to get his morning ration bar with extra caffeine. All
night, he had kept waking up from nightmares, and he felt like he’d been kicked
in the head by a mule. His left hand hurt, too—he’d smacked his knuckles
against the wall thrashing around in his sleep, opening up a gash that bled
every time he closed his hand.

He went back to his office and sat,
eating breakfast alone. He messaged George about the gash, which he assumed
would set off the alarms in his lonjons once he put the gloves on. He looked
again at the doctor’s report—the merchant’s physical examination had gone off
without a hitch, and there were reams of data in there regarding the Host’s physiology.

It had already gone to Earth, and
no doubt some sociopath in the UI was already going over it all. Maybe they
could modify smallpox or something—the Union was supposed to be too civilized
for germ warfare, of course, but the Union had once been too civilized for
nuclear weapons as well.

People are animals,
Philippe
thought.
The second they feel threatened, all the rules go right out the
window.

He chewed, pondering the UI and its
ilk.

He stopped, mid-chew. He could even
the scales a little bit. It would be a simple matter to go over to the Hosts’
living area and suggest—nay, insist—that they perform a physical examination on
a human.

Philippe would volunteer. And then,
whatever the UI cooked up, at least the Hosts would have had a chance to do the
same.

He quickly discarded the idea.
Things over in the Hosts’ area were just too weird. Max and Moritz were no
longer speaking to each other, and they were high-profile enough in the
community that all the other Hosts had noticed. Since they wouldn’t say what
had triggered the rupture, rumors were flying—and not just among the Hosts. A
Pincushion had stopped Philippe a few days ago to ask him if he had heard that
Max and Moritz’s wife had found out that they were fighting and had threatened
to call them home if they didn’t make up—which, considering that the
Pincushions had neither gender nor marriage, was a pretty powerful indication
of an innate gift for gossip.

Gingko stopped him before he
entered the no man’s zone and made him wait for his entourage—T.R. and Vijay
this time. Then he went outside to find a Host—this one without translation
gear—thrumming and holding a video screen. The screen was broadcasting “This
message is for the human diplomat” in universal code.

The Host saw him and hit a button.
“You guys recording this?” Philippe asked his guards.

They nodded. Ptuk-Ptik’s face
appeared on the screen.

He began speaking, and Philippe
noted that the message was transmitted both in normal sound and in universal
code. Ptuk-Ptik said that he was fine, healthy and at home. He had received
Philippe’s and Baby’s messages, and he said that they would be of great use at
his hearing, which he expected to take place soon. He hoped to see them when it
was all over and he could return to the station.

The message ended, and the Host
turned and walked away.

It was a relief for Philippe to
actually see Ptuk-Ptik, and he knew that Baby would be absolutely thrilled.
They went back inside, and the two soldiers transferred their video recordings
to Philippe’s memory station.

He decided he should look them both
over and send the better video on to Baby. He started with Vijay’s recording.

The voice and translated message
were the same, but Ptuk-Ptik looked different. He was glowing, he was gold, his
markings had changed, and his face was different.

Philippe turned off the recording.

Just ignore it,
he thought.

He went back to the beginning of
the message and played it again. There was Ptuk-Ptik, looking like he always
had, sending his greetings and warm wishes to “my friends among the humans,
including Infant and the human diplomat.”