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"No. I wanted to discuss my findings of this evening with you."
"Not now, please." Keff breathed out loud as Plenna ran her teeth along the
tendon at the side of his neck.
Crossly, Carialle gave him a burst of discordant noise in both aural implants.
He winced slightly but refused to let her distract him from Plennafrey. His
thumbs ran down into the young woman's bodice, brushed over hard nipples and
soft, pliant flesh. He bent his head down to them.
Plennafrey moaned softly. "Carialle won't watch us, will she?"
"No," Keff said reassuringly. He bumped the control with his elbow and the
cabin hatch slid aside. "Her domain ends at my door. Pray, lady, enter mine!"
In the circle of his arm, Plenna tiptoed into Keffs cabin.
"It is like you," she said. "Spare, neat, and very hand-
some. Oh, books!" She picked one off the small shelf by his bed and lightly
fingered the pages. "Of course, I cannot read it." She glanced up at Keffwith
a bewitching dimple at the comer of her mouth. Her eye was caught by the works
of art hanging on the walls. 'Those are very good.
Haunting. Who painted them?"
"You're standing in her," Keff said, grinning. "Carialle is an artist."
"She is wonderfully talented," Plenna said, with a decided nod. "But I like
you better."
There was only one answer Keff could give. He kissed her.
At the end of their lovemaking, Keff propped himself up on his elbow to admire
Plennafrey. Her unbound hair tumbled around her white shoulders and breast
like black lace.
"You're so lovely," Keff said, toying with a stray strand.
"I will feel half my heart wrenched away when I have to
##-"
"But why should I not come with you to your world?"
Plenna asked, her fingers tracing an intricate design on his forearm.
"Because I'm in space eighty percent of my life," Keff said, "and when I'm
planet-side I'm seldom near civiliza-
tion. My usual job is first contact with alien species. It's very strange and
full of so many dangers I couldn't even describe them all to you. You wouldn't
be happy with the way I live."
"But I am not happy here now," Plenna said plaintively, clasping her hands
together in appeal. "If you take me with you, I would cede my claim of power
to Brannel and keep my promise to him. There is nothing here to hold me; no
family, no friends. I would be glad to leam about other people and other
worlds."
"Yes, but..."
She touched his face, and her eyes searched his. "We suit one another, do we
not?"
"Yes, but..."
She silenced him with a kiss.
'Then please consider it," she said, cuddling into his arms. Keff crushed her
close to him, lost in her scent, lost in her.
In the early morning hours, Carialle monitored her exterior movement sensors
until she heard sounds of life from the marshy area downhill from her bluff.
She let down her ramp and sent her two servo robots forth into the pink light
of dawn. The boxy units disappeared through the break in the brush and over
the edge of the ridge. Carialle, idly noting a half dozen spy-eyes hovering at
a hundred meters distant, heard clunks and high-
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pitched squawking as they reached their goal. In a little while, the servos
returned to view, herding before them a pair of globe-frogs. The amphibioids
tried to signal their indignation, but had to keep paddling on the inside of
their plastic spheres before the boxes bumped into them from behind. With some
effort, the servos got their quarry up the ramp. Carialle shut the airlock
door and puUed up her ramp behind them.
As the frogs entered the main cabin, Carialle hooked into the IT, calling up
all the examples of sign language that she and Keff had managed to record over
the last few days.
"Now, little friends," she said, "we're going to see if that sign you made was
a fluke or not." She manifested the picture of another frog on the side screen
at their level, like them but with enough differences of color and
t. 1.1 fri W iTJL
configuration to make sure they knew it was a stranger.
"Lets chat."
A few hours later, Keffs door opened, and the brawn emerged, yawning, wearing
only uniform pants. Plenna, wrapped in his bathrobe, followed him, trailing a
lazy fin-
ger down his neck.
"Good morning, young lovers," Carialle said brightly.
"We have guests."
Red lights chased around die walls and formed an arrow pointing down at the
two globe-frogs huddled together in the comer nearest the airlock corridor.
Keff goggled.
"But how did they get past Plennas barrier? She told me she warded the area.
Any intrusion should have set off an alarm."
"We're protected against magic only," Plenna said, eye-
ing the marsh creatures with distaste. "Not vermin."
'They aren't vermin and they're aware you don't like them," Carialle said
indignantly. "We've been exchanging compliments."
On her main screen she displayed an expanded image of the small creatures
staring at a strange-looking frog on the wall.
'That's my computer-generated envoy," Carialle explained. "Now, watch," The
image made a gesture, to which the native creatures responded with a similar
move-
ment. As the complexity and number of signs increased, the frogs became
excited, bumping into one another to respond to their imaginary host.
Keff watched the data string, glancing once in a while at the frogs.
"Monkey see monkey do," Keff said, shaking his head.
'They observed the Ozrans making signs and copied them.
This litde performance is without meaning."
"Beasts Blatisant," Carialle countered. Keff grimaced.
"Keff, I didn't make a subjective judgment on the frequency and meaning of
these symbols. Check ITs func-
tion log. Read the vocabulary list."
When Keff lifted his eyes from the small readout screen, they were shining.
"Who'd have thought it?" he said. "Cari, all praise to your sharp.wits and
powers of observation."
Plennafrey had been listening carefully to the IT box's translation of
Carialles and Keffs conversation. She pointed to the frogs.
"Do you mean they can talk?" she asked.
"More than that," Keff said. 'They may be the founders of your civilization."
Plennas jaw dropped open, and she stared at the two amphibioids. "Your belt
buckle-may I
borrow it?"
The belt flew out of Keffs room and smacked into
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Plennas hands. She started to extend it to him, then with-
drew it. "What for?" she asked.
'To see if they know what to do with it. Er, take it off the belt. Its too
heavy for them." Obligingly, Plenna detached the buckle and handed it to him.
Very slowly, Keff walked to where the frogs stood. They waited passively
within their globes, kicking occasionally at the water to maintain their
positions and watching him with their beady black eyes. Keffhunkered down and
held out the buckle.
Wearing a startled expression on its peaky face, the larger frog met his eyes.
Immediately, the case opened, splitting into two halves, splashing water on
the cabin floor, and the frog stretched out for the power item. Its skinny
wrist terminated in a long, sensitively fingered hand which outspread was as
large as Plennafrey s. The ends of the dig-
its slid into the five apertures. There was a nearly audible click.
"It is connected to the Core of Ozran," Plennafrey said softly.
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