In some ways he felt that it already bad been. The Shapieron was in high orbit over Thurien, and most of its occupants had been taken down to accommodations prepared for them on the surface. There had been no public celebrations or welcoming ceremonies; the fact that the ship had been intercepted still had to be concealed. Only a handful of Thuriens were aware that Garuth and his people existed at all.
Shilohin was waiting on the Command Deck when he arrived, studying information on one of the displays. She looked around as he approached. "I had no idea just how complex the operation to intercept the ship was," she said. "Some of the physics is quite remarkable."
"How so?" Garuth inquired.
"Eesyan’s engineers created a composite hyperport-a dual-purpose toroid that functioned as an entry port in one direction and an exit in the other at the same time. That was how they made the substitution so quickly: the dummy came out of one side as we went into the other. But to control it, they had to get their timing down to picoseconds." She paused and gave him a searching look. "You seem sad. Is something wrong?"
He gestured vaguely in the direction he had just come from. "Oh, it’s just . . . walking through the ship . . . empty, with nobody around. It takes some getting used to after so long."
"Yes, I know." Her voice fell to an understanding note. "But you shouldn’t feel sad. You did what you promised. They will all have their own lives to live again soon. It will be for the better."
"I hope so," Garuth said.
At that moment ZORAC spoke. "I’ve just received another message through VISAR: Calazar is free now and says he’ll see you as soon as you’re ready. He suggests meeting at a planet called Queeth, approximately twelve light-years from here."
"We’re on our way," Garuth said. He shook his head wonderingly at Shilohin as they left the Command Deck. "I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this."
"The Earthpeople seem to be adapting well," she replied. "The last time I talked to Vic Hunt, he was trying to find a way of getting a coupler installed in his office."
"Earthpeople can adapt to anything," Garuth said with a sigh.
They entered the room in which the Thuriens had installed a row of four portable percepto-coupling cubicles, which represented the only means of using the Thurien system since the Shapieron was not wired for VISAR, hence Calazar could not "visit" the ship. Had the ship not been in orbit and therefore in free-fall, the weight of the microtoroid contained in the communications module of the equipment would have buckled the deck at best. Garuth entered one of the cubicles as Shilohin selected another, and he settled back in the recliner to couple his mind into VISAR. An instant later he was standing alongside Calazar in a large room that was part of an artificial island floating fifty miles above the surface of Queeth. Shilohin appeared next to him a few seconds later.
"Terrans are shrewder than you give them credit for," Garuth stated after the three of them had been talking for some time. "We lived among them for six months, and we know. What is difficult for the Ganymean mind to grasp is that deception and the recognition of deception are parts of their way of life. They have a natural feel for it and will soon get to the truth. Trying to conceal it any longer will only make the situation more embarrassing for all of us when they do. You should be frank with them now."
"And besides, this is not the Ganymean way," Shilohin said. "We have told you the true situation on Earth and how we were made welcome and helped there in every way possible. Your earlier doubts were justified because of the lies reported to you by the Jevlenese, but that no longer holds. You owe it to the Terrans, and to us, to tell them the whole truth now."
Calazar moved away a short distance and turned to stand with his hands clasped behind his back while he considered what they had said. The room they were in formed an oval projection hanging from the underside of the island. Its interior comprised a sunken floor surrounded by a continuous, sloping transparent wall that looked down over the purple, cloud-flecked surface of Queeth in every direction. Outside the wall and above, the mass of the island loomed in a series of metallic contours, blisters, and prominences converging together as they curved away out of sight overhead. "So . . . we won’t be able to keep the truth from them," Calazar said at last without turning his head.
"Remember it was the Terrans who first recognized the risk that the Jevlenese could have planned to destroy the Shapieron with Earth set up to take the blame," Garuth reminded him. "The Thuriens would never have thought of it. Let’s be honest-Terran and Jevlenese minds think very much alike, and Ganymean minds think very differently. We are not predators, and we have not evolved the art of sensing predators."
"And for the same reason you might well find you need the Terrans to help get to the bottom of exactly what the Jevlenese are up to," Shilohin added. "Are you any nearer to finding out why they have been systematically falsifying their reports of Earth for years?"
Calazar turned from the viewing wall and faced them again. "No," he admitted.
"Years," Garuth repeated pointedly. "And you suspected nothing until you began receiving the communications from Farside."
Calazar thought for a while, then sighed and nodded in resignation. "You are right-we suspected nothing. Until recently we believed the Jevlenese had integrated well into our society as enthusiastic students of our science and culture. We saw them as co-citizens who would spread outward with us to other worlds. . . ." He gestured behind him and downward. "This one, for example. We even helped them to establish their own autonomously administered and completely self-governed planet as the cradle of a new civilization that would cross the Galaxy in partnership with our own."
"Well, something has obviously gone badly wrong somewhere," Shilohin commented. "Maybe it needs a Terran mind to fathom out what and why."
Calazar looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded again. "Officially Frenua Showm is responsible for our dealings with Earth," he said. "We should talk to her about this. I’ll see if I can get her here now." He turned his face away and called in a slightly raised voice, "VISAR, find out if Frenua Showm is available. If she is, show her a replay of our conversation here and ask if she’d join us when she has seen it."
"I’ll see to it," VISAR acknowledged.
After a short silence Shilohin remarked, "She didn’t strike me as being overfond of Earthpeople in the replay of the Vranix meeting."
"She has never trusted the Jevlenese," Calazar answered. "Her sentiments apparently extend to include Terrans also. Maybe it’s not surprising." After another silence he commented, "Queeth is an interesting world, with an emergent intelligent race spread across much of its surface. The Jevlenese have cooperated in bringing many similar planets into our system in the past. They seem to possess a natural aptitude for dealing with primitive races in a way that would not come easily to Ganymeans. I’ll show you an example of what I mean. VISAR, let’s have another view of the place I was looking at earlier."
A solid image appeared above the open area in the center of the floor. It was of a view looking down on a township in which blocks of hewn rock or baked clay had been built into crude buildings of strangely curved designs. They were huddled around the base of a larger and more imposing edifice of ramps and columns set at the top of an arrangement of broad flat steps ascending on all of its six sides. As Garuth looked at the structure, it reminded him in a vague way of the depictions of ancient temples that he had seen while he was on Earth. The space at the foot of the steps on one side was densely packed with figures.