Long Hand looked around her, nodding approvingly. Small Spot just sat down on the sidewalk with his long legs collapsing under him, turning his amulet, a long, thin fingertrap, between his hands. Tall Eyebrow seemed drawn and tired. His skin looked dull amid all the bright stonework.
"How has it been going?" Keff asked him in Standard, once they were out of earshot of the other delegates. Clusters of Cridi hung around the pillared entrance, signing to one another, but more than one cast a curious eye toward the strangers.
"I feel lost," the Frog Prince replied in the human tongue, with a glance at Narrow Leg. The elder Cridi up-nodded politely, after understanding that they were having a private conversation, and turned his head the other way. Keff blessed the old one's tact.
"Why?" Keff asked Tall Eyebrow.
"Technology so far beyond ours," he replied, his small face screwed up, searching for the correct words. "I am at disadvantage to show what my people have done."
"Technology isn't everything," Keff said, soothingly. "You have experience and intelligence. You have overcome incredible obstacles to survive. You've rejuvenated a planet."
"And what is that here?" Tall Eyebrow turned his palms upward. "Nothing."
He paused at the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the main thoroughfare passing the Main Bog of Greedeek, the Cridi capital city. It had been raining again, and the lanes ran with multiple streams of muddy water. Around him, delegates were taking leave of one another, gliding out or upward toward their homes. Keff could tell that the Frog Prince wished he wasn't groundbound. The taste of power over the last two years on Ozran had spoiled the globe-frog. On the other hand, the mudflow was daunting even to a human. Keff looked down and took a deep breath before raising a foot over the ooze. Tall Eyebrow, too, paused, reaching for his amulet. When he realized it wouldn't work, he glanced up at Keff with a shamefaced expression. Neither of them wanted to test the depth of the viscous goo.
"Here goes anyhow," he said. "I'd better go first."
"Power surge coming up in your direction," Carialle said. At the same time, Keff felt his feet arrested before they sank into the greeny-black mud. His right foot hovered, supported a few centimeters above the surface. He drew his left foot forward. The invisible floor beneath him held.
A shrill whistle of laughter came from behind them. Big Eyes was lifting them and herself, using her power circuitry.
"Technology is something," Tall Eyebrow said, gloomily.
"Go on, go on," the female gestured. "Wish to come to ship."
Her father, who had halted when he found that the others had dropped behind, turned to see what was going on.
"How rude of you, daughter," he said. His enormously long fingers folded together.
"I apologize," Narrow Leg signed quickly. "I forgot. I have not met outworlders before. I forgot you," and he indicated Keff, mainly to save Tall Eyebrow embarrassment, "would not have our advantages."
"Quite all right," Keff said, politely. "Your daughter has resc-offered her kind hospitality."
"You mean she has made herself the center of attention," Narrow Leg signed, with a humorous sigh. "Do you think it is easy, after seven children, to find one who stands out so?"
"I think she would stand out," Tall Eyebrow signed, without looking at either of them, "if there were a million children."
The female let out a tinkling laugh, and put her long fingertips on Tall Eyebrow's arm.
"Gallant one," she said, when he raised his head. They looked deeply at one another for a long moment. Grinning fit to pop his jaw, Keff held his breath. Big Eyes tented her fingertips and thumbtips together and dipped her chin toward them. "You're very kind. I am glad you came home to Cridi. Come, let us see the spaceship."
Tall Eyebrow, buoyed on borrowed power and love, strode proudly in the direction of the landing field with Big Eyes beside him.
"This is most impressive," Tad Pole said over and over again, as he stumped about the main cabin of Carialle's ship. "Most impressive."
Possessed of great height for a Cridi, he was able to see over the edges of the consoles from the floor. When he had paced from the food processor to the view tank about a dozen times, he raised himself on a surge of power and floated. Carialle noted the slight surges of power that rose around the old frog's form as he levitated. The homeworld Cridi had such a subtle command of their power system: as different from the Core of Ozran as a scalpel to a sledgehammer. The Cridi generators were, Carialle estimated, as much as five times more powerful. Yet with all the use the locals made of the system, the local environment seemed to show no signs of deterioration or other ill effects. She would have to question Narrow Leg on the technology when he was finished with his tour. She manifested her frog image next to him over the navigation station to describe what he was looking at.
"Thank you for the compliments, gentle-male. This indicates the benchmarking codes for this sector," she said, activating the screen to show Cridi's star in relation to the nearest blue lines. "Sector A is considered galactic center, and the others radiate outward from it."
Tad Pole had accepted the holograph without question, even addressing it directly as if it was a new acquaintance. He pointed at the numerals in the corner of the image.
"So this is where Cridi lies in your reckoning? What does this designation mean?" he asked.
Keff, with the help of IT, tried to render the musical notes for the X, Y, and Z axes. Then he whistled it, and shook his head at himself.
"Oh, fuss and bother," he said. "I can't make an accurate tone when it's important. Well, that's what IT is for." He rummaged around in an instrument locker and came out with the small external speaker that he wore when translation of an alien language was beyond his vocal capabilities. He hooked it into the IT module he wore on his chest next to Carialle's camera eye. "In Sector P, X=248.9, Y=1630.23, Z=876."
"This means nine-tenths?" Narrow Leg asked, pointing to one of the characters, and voiced a very high minor that indicated the negative logarithm.
That led to a quick lesson in Standard decimal notation, and the explanation of Arabic versus Roman numerals, which more closely approximated the Cridi system of written notation. Tad Pole, a quick learner, nodded his head several times appreciatively.
"It is quick and less cumbersome for a screen of formulae," he said. "Very neat. It may serve as your first import to our world. Although I do not want my spacers to become lazy, having an easy way to express formulae."
"None find it easy to serve Narrow Leg," Big Eyes said, from the weight bench, where she sat curled up with her hands around her thin knees, drawing her red cloak closely against her body. Tall Eyebrow hunched beside her, eyes wide like a wary animal. "He works everyone too hard. Himself, too."