creature's seemingly impassive face. It is the extraordinary gift of Naxians to be able to read the emotional outputnot the minds, only the emotions--of any life-form, no matter how alien to it. Greed, anger, lust, shame, compassion, whatever: All creatures are open books to Naxians. Even when all they have to work with is a static image on a screen. How they did it, no Erthuma knew. The various stargoing species of the galaxy had many sorts of intuitive powers that were difficult for Erthumoi to comprehend.

  The Naxian seemed to be working hard, though. Meditative ripples and quivers ran the length of its-her pink, narrow snakelike body. So intense was Blue Sphere's concentration that it-she went into flipper mode for a few moments, extruding stubby fringed grasping organs from its-her otherwise limbless form, then absorbing them again.

  "You may proceed, Captain," Blue Sphere announced after a time. "The Locrians intend no insult. Mere efficiency of communication is the most likely purpose. I suspect Ship-Commander is less fluent in Erthurnat than this one. At any rate the Locrian's emotional aura is benign. 11 "But apprehensive," offered the other Naxian, Rosy Tetrahedron. "Definite anxiety is evident. The Locrian feels strong uncertainty as to Erthuma motivations or intentions in this sector of space. "

  "Fine," Wing-Marra said. "If they're as nervous about us as we are about them, there's hope for working something out. Reciprocity is the mother of security, eh, Sanoclaro? Eh? Old diplomatic proverb."

  Sanoclaro didn't smile. But he hadn't really expected her to.

  He killed the image-stasis and the screen came to life again. The Locrian could have walked away from the transmitter while Wing-Marra's colloquy with the Naxians was going on, but it was still there. At least Wing-Marra assumed that it was the same one. He stared at it. What he saw was a fleshless angular head much longer than it was wide, a lipless V-shaped beak of a mouth, a single giant glaring eye shielded by a clear bubblelike plate hinged at

  each side, a thin tubular neck sprouting out of a flimsy, skeletal six-limbed trunk.

  'Me Locrian looked for all the world like a giant insect, a dry parched chitinous thing that would probably crunch if you hit it with the e4ge of your hand. Very likely they had evolved from some kind of low-phylum insectlike arthropods on their dry, chilly home world, which belonged to an orange K5 sun in the- Cygnus arm of the galaxy. But there was nothing low-phylum about them now. They were chordate vertebrates with tough siliceous spinal columns to support their scaly gray green exoskeletons.

  And they had tough, shrewd brains in their narrow, elongated skulls.

  The moment the stasis broke the Locrian said, "We request clarification, Erthuma representative. Do we speak with Diplomacy or Administration?" "Administration. I am Hayn Wing-Marra, captain, Erthuma of Hesperia in St. Dominic's Star system."

  The Locrian made a crackling sound that seemed like displeasure. "We request Diplomacy. It is a point of protocol. Transspecies discussions are protocol matters."

  Wing-Marra felt like screaming. The last thing he wanted was to have to conduct this discussion by way of Ayana Sanoclaro, considering the wild suspicions she had just been voicing. But the Locrian was right: Contact across species lines in open space had to follow protocol. Reluctantly Wing-Marra beckoned to Sanoclaro, who gave him a little smirk of triumph and stepped into the pale yellow glow of the communications field.

  "What we want to know, Speaker-to-Erthumoi,' ' ' she said without preamble,

  "is whether you're staking a claim to the solar system that lies adjacent to our present position. "

  "Negative," said the Locrian immediately. Though the two ships were eighty-eight million kilometers apart at that moment, the communications field--a modulated-neutrino carrier wave operating through hyperspace--permitted instantaneous communication between them. For that matter, it would have permitted communication at essentially the same response time even if the ships had been at opposite

  ends of the galaxy. "No claim to this system has been rlecor~ded. I I Wing-Marra held up both his hands. Making two circles out of his thumbs and forefingers, he moved them in an elaborate pantomime that he hoped would suggest the orbital relationship of the second planet and its huge moon.

  But Sanoclaro, without even looking at him, had aheady begun to ask the obvious next question.

  "Are you claiming just the second planet, then? Or its moon?' 9

  "Is there Erthuma interest in the second planet?" the Locrian countered.

  The Naxian who called it-herself Blue Sphere moved outside the field's scanner range and signaled to WingMarra that it was picking up increased ambiguities and uncertainties. Wing-Marra, peering at the screen, sought to detect some change in the Locrian's expression, but Speakerto-Fxthumoi's rigid features showed not a flicker of movement. An integument that chitinous wasn't capable of much movement, or perhaps of any at all. Whatever clues the Naxians used in doing their little trick, facial expressions didn't seem to play an important role.

  Sanoclaro looked to Wing-MarTa for a cue. He indicated the spectrometer screen, ablaze with drifting hydrocarbon masses.

  "We are purely a scientific mission," Sanoclaro told the Locrian. "We're here to study the molecular cloud. We have no territorial intentions whatsoever. "

  "Nor do we," said Speaker-to-Erthumoi. "We require only unhindered completion of our research. "

  Wing-Marra frowned. He was beginning to wonder if any of this was any business of his at all. If the only thing the Locrians wanted was to be left alone to snoop around the second world, and all that he wanted was to be left alone to study the molecular cloud-

  No. The directives were very clear. When an Fxthuma ship encountered a ship belonging to any of the other five races in open space, the Erthuma vessel, regardless of its own purpose, was required to file a report on the activities of the other spacecraft. Even though no one saw any

  serious risk of anything so farfetched and implausible as interstellar warfare breaking out, it behooved the Erthurnoi=_ as the youngest and least experienced of the six starfaring peoples-to keep close watch on everything that their rivals might be up to. Assuming that their activities would never be anything but benign, regardless of the generally peaceful relationships that had prevailed among the Six Races since the first Erthuma entry into interstellar space, was folly.

  He needed more information.

  Making the planet-and-moon gesture again, Wing-Marra tried to depict the orbiting Locrian ship by moving his nose in a circle around the equator of the finger and thumb that represented the planet. Sanoclaro shot him a mystified look. Abandoning the pantomime, Wing-Marra whispered angrily,

  "Try to find out what the hell they're doing here, will you?"

  Sanoclaro said, "May we inquire into the nature of your mission?"

  Blue Sphere, still out of scanner range, signaled that increased agitation was coming from the Locrian. Or so Wing-Marra thought the Naxian was trying to tell him.

  It was maddening for the captain to have to deal through this many intermediaries. Every ship carried a Diplomacy as a matter of course, but Wing-MarTa hadn't expected to need to make use of Sanoclaro's services in this remote region. And the Naxians, though they were valuable interpreters of nonverbal messages in tricky situations like this one, weren't always easy for non-Naxians to understand.

  Speaker-to-Erthumoi said after a long pause, "Our mission is exploratory also."

  Wing-Marra pantomimed drunkenness.

  Sanoclaro looked puzzled again. Then, smiling to show that she understood, she said, "But surely a high-oxygen world such as the one nearby can be of little practical use to Lociians. "

  Speaker-to-Erthumoi was silent.

  "May we inquire whether the nature of your exploration is exploratory?" Sanoclaro said. "Or is there perhaps some other purpose?"

  "Other," said the Locrian.

  "Other than scientific?"

  "Other, yes. "

  "Is its nature such that our presence here will disrupt your work?"

  "Not necessarily."

  "Then it is proper to conclude that the representative of the Galactic Sphere of Locria has no objection to our continuing to remain in this region?"

  Another long silence.

  "No objection," Speaker-to-Erthumoi replied finally.

  Both Naxians now signaled that they were picking up distress, resentment, suspicion, general contradiction of spoken statement.

  Wing-MarTa fumed. He hoped Sanoclaro didn't think that having obtained the Locrians' permission for them to stay here was any sort of wonderful achievement. This was, after all, open territory.

  He said under his breath, "I need to know what they're up to!"

  Sanoclaro said, "Our captain instructs me to obtain data from you concerning the nature of your mission.

  "I will reply shortly," said Speaker-to-Erdiumoi. There was yet another lengthy pause. Then the image froze. This time it was the Locrians who had

  imposed the stasis, no doubt so Speaker-to-Erthumoi could engage in a quick

  off-screen strategy session with Ship-Commander.

  Wing-Marra said to Sanoclaro, "If it's just a routine mapping mission, they shouldn't be as edgy as the Naxians say they are. When they come back on, see if you can pin them down about their reasons for landing scouts on that planet and its moon."

  "What do you think I'm trying to do?"

  "What I think," said Linga Hyath, "is that they probably were just on a routine mapping mission, but they found something on the second world or its moon that was way out of the ordinary, and so they're sticking around to take a close look at it, and they wish we'd get the hell out of here before we find it too."

  "Ilank you," Wing-Marra told the Cosmography. "Your grasp of the obvious is extraordinarily profound."

  Hyath glared and began to reply.

  "Save it," said Wing-Marra. The screen was alive again. Speaker-to-Erthumoi-if that indeed was who was on the screen now-looked astonishingly transformed, as though it had been wearing a mask before and now had removed it. The hard, sharp-angled gray chitin of its all but featureless face had been opened back like the two doors of a cabinet, and what was visible now was the bare surface of its great staring glassy inner eye, the immensely penetrating organ that Locrians revealed only when they needed to see with particular clarity. Facing that eye was like facing fifty Naxians at once. -It seemed to be seeing right into him. Wing-Marra felt stripped bare, down to bone and tendon. He had never seen a Locrian in full percept mode before, and he didn't like it.

  To hell with it, he thought. I don't have anything to hide.

  He met the glare of that terrible eye without flinching.

  The Locrian said, "Ship-Commander requests face-toface contact with Erthuma-captain in order to continue the discussion in a more fruitful way. He proposes stochastic choice to determine which ship is to be the site of the meeting. 11

  Sanoclaro looked inquiringly toward Wing-Marra, who nodded at once. "Agreed," the Diplomacy told the alien. "Shall we flip a coin?"

  "That method is acceptable."

  "Do you want us to flip one?"

  "We prefer to do that," said the Locrian.

  Again Wing-Marra nodded. His irritation was mounting rapidly. Let them use a coin with two heads, for all he cared. What did it matter whether the meeting took place on his ship or theirs? He just wanted to get on with his work.

  " Select your choice," said Speaker-to-Erthumoi. It held up its claw, revealing a shining six-edged coin of some bright coppery metal grasped between two of its numerous

  many-jointed fingers. One face of the coin showed some Locrian's beaky big-eyed head, and when the alien turned it over Wing-Marra saw jagged abstract patterns on the reverse.

  "I'll take tails," Wing-Marra said.

  I 'Tails?"

  "The side that doesn't have the head."

  "Ah. "

  Something happened off screen. Speaker-to-Erthumoi said, after a moment,

  "We have tossed the coin. Your selection proved to be correct. We will send a boarding party. How soon can you receive us?"

  There was more grumbling, of course. Hyath and Sanoclaro, the suspicious ones, were convinced that the whole coin-tossing gambit had been nothing but a ploy to insinuate a Locrian force aboard the ship, perhaps so that they could seize it. Eslane Ree thought that was crazy, and said so. Mikoil Karpov, too, wanted to know why the two women were taking such an alarmist position. Even MurryBalff, who usually went along with anything Wing-Marra said, thought it would have been a better idea to have sent the Diplomacy over to the alien vessel to conduct the conference. "If they're up to anything funny, better that they do it over there," Murry-Balff said. "And to her, not US. 11

  Annoyed as he was by the paranoia of Sanoclaro and Hyath, Wing-MarTa found nothing to amuse him in his old friend's frivolity. He was a cautious man but he saw no reason for fear. The risk was all on the Locrians' side. They were the ones who would be boarding a strange ship, after all. He couldn't bring himself to believe that they had anything so wild as an armed takeover in mind. No, the coin toss had probably been honest, and the Locrians could probably be trusted. Or else they were working up something so devious that no sane person could be expected to be on guard against it. Within the hour a beetlelike hypershuttle brought a fourLocrian delegation across the gulf between the two ships.

  It popped back into normal space astonishingly close to the Achilles and coasted in for a docking.

  Four Locrians came scrambling through the access lock. They were taller than the tallest of Erthumoi, but so light and frail were their bodies-six pipelike limbs and hardly any thorax--that they seemed little more than walking skeletons.

  By way of protection against the intoxicating richness of the Erthuma ship's atmosphere, they were wearing ftanslucent spacesuits that hung about them in loose, awkward folds, like old baggy skin. Anything beyond a 10 percent oxygen concentration was dizzying to them, and furthermore they preferred to breathe air that was thinned by a substantial neon component, which the Achilles was unable to supply.

  The first thing the Locrians saw was the spherical golden grille and

  trembling corkscrew antennae of the simultrans machine that Murry-Balff had set up in the center of the meeting room. They obviously didn't like it.

  "There is no real need to employ this device," said one of the Locrians

  coolly, giving the translating gadget a fiercely contemptuous stiff-necked glare. "Your language holds no mysteries for us."

  Wing-Marra had expected that. The other races were always scornful of Erdiuma artificial-intelligence gadgets, because in one way or another they were able to manage most things without such mechanical assistance. The simultrans was capable of rendering real-time translations of anything said in any of the six galactic languages into any or all of the other five. Erthumoi, notorious for their general incapacity to master the ancient and intricate languages of most alien species, found the machine extremely useful. The others didn't.

  But Wing-Marra suspected there was more to the Locrian objections to the simultrans than simple racial prejudice. With the simultrans offering instantaneous translation of anything said, no members of either species would be able to speak to each other in surreptitious asides unintelligible to the other party. Wing-Marra saw that as a distinct advantage for him, since some or all of the Locrians

  appeared to be fluent in Erthumat, but no one aboard the Achilles understood more than a smattering of Locrian. Evidently the Locrians saw things the same way.

  Smiling grandly, he said, "Ah, but we feel it is only courteous to offer you this small assistance. You are already under the stress of having come aboard a strange ship, and you are compelled to conduct this meeting clad in spacesuits that doubtless must cause you some discomfort. We would not burden you with the obligation to converse in an alien tongue as well."

  "But it is not necessary that we-"

  "Permit me to insist. I am overwhelmed by your unselfishness but I could not bear the shame of having inconvenienced you so deeply. "

  There was a frosty silence. The Locrian looked-so far as Wing-Marra was capable of telling-extremely annoyed.

  But after a moment the Locrian said, "Very well. Let us use the translator. You know me as Speaker-to-Erthumoi. I am accompanied by Ship-Commander and Recorder."

  Three names, four Locrians, no indication of what was what or which was whom. Wing-Marra didn't even try to get an explanation.

  "I am Captain Wing-Marra," he said. "This is my Diplomacy, Ayana Sanoclaro. These Naxians travel with us and will observe. They call themselves Blue Sphere and Rosy Tetrahedron. Jorin Murry-Balff, my Communications, will record our conversation. With your permission, of course."

  "Granted," said Speaker-to-Erthumoi.

  Within the helmet of its suit its head split open, revealing the great luminous beacon of its inner eye.

  Wing-Marra shivered.

  One of the other Locrians opened its eye also. WingMarra could not decide whether that one was Recorder or Ship-Commander. Did it matter? Perhaps they were all Recorder. Or all four were Ship-Commander.

  Aliens, he thought. Go and figure.

  The other two remained sealed. A safety measure, WingMarra suspected. Locrians were terribly vulnerable when their inner eye was exposed. The slightest pressure against

  it-the touch of a hand --- could blind or even kill. There

  fore they opened their facial hinges only when they deemed it absolutely necessary to do so.

  Even in normal visual mode, Wing-Marra had heard, Locrians saw three-dimensionally, penetrating into the interiors of things. With the inner eye unveiled, he imagined that they could see right into his soul.

  The two unveiled ones were watching him from opposite sides, as though trying to read all aspects of him. It was like being in the crossfire of two brilliant lasers. Wing-Marra understood now why they had asked for this face-to-face meeting. They wanted a chance to evaluate the nature of the Erthuma they were dealing with in a way that long distance conversation via neutrino wave could not provide.

  Well, let them look, Wing-Marra thought. Let them look as long and as hard and as deep as they like.