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chemistry. This did not happen by chance, of course. None of these planets were actually habitable by human beings when we discovered them, and all of them had precisely the same things wrong with them. Can you comment on that?”
    Alvar was taken aback. He nearly stuttered, in fact, something that he hadn’t done since childhood.
    â€œAh … yes. The supposition is that some unknown race began forming those planets for their own reasons and then mysteriously stopped. Very fortunate for us.”
    â€œIndeed. They had superior technology, these aliens, though we must infer that. They could change planets like Venus into worlds with free oxygen and life in under a thousand years. It would take us three times as long. What they left us can be suited to our chemistries with relatively little modification, although the expense is enormous and the payoff long in coming.”
    What do you care? Alvar thought. However long it takes to pay off, you will probably live to benefit. While I decompose on some godforsaken colony.
    â€œMr. Washington, up until now, we have assumed that the original engineers who modified these planets somehow died off. We have been proven wrong. They have returned.”
    Alvar did not expect the bolt of adrenaline that surged up through his queasy stomach and thudding headache. His mouth actually dropped open as Vilmir briefly described the three enormous ships that were currently in orbit around the colony known as “Fifth World”.
    â€œAt least they were seven years ago,” the old man amended. “When our agent sent the message. You will go there with a contingent of colonial peacekeepers and determine what to do. Are you listening, Mr. Washington?”
    â€œYes. Yes. But why me? I’m no expert on these matters.”
    â€œIn point of fact, you are no expert on anything. But we cannot know what will have occurred in the twenty years between the aliens’ arrival and your own. The colonists may have come to some understanding with them. This cannot happen; either the aliens deal with us or they deal with no one. You, Sey’er Washington, were originally chosen to replace our current agent there, because with some training you can pass as a native. The colonists have accurate genetic records of all of their founding generation. A simple DNA check would show most outworlders to be just that. You, however, are descended from some of the same ancestors as the colonists, and the differing elements in your genetic makeup are not eclectic enough to be noticed. You can thus investigate upon the planet itself with some chance of success.”
    â€œThe Hopi?” Alvar blurted, before he thought better. The reference to the “Fifth World” had rung a little bell in his head, but his fascination with the idea of the alien ships had muted it.
    â€œExactly so. Though most of them had little “real” Hopi blood.”
    Alvar remembered the Hopi. His mother had spoken of them mockingly. A bunch of crazy idealists who believed themselves to be the inheritors of an ancient Native North American religion. There had been a prophecy, made as early as the twentieth century, that the Hopi people would scatter and then become revitalized, establish a “Fifth World”. It was supposed to be on earth, but with the perfection of the Drigg’s Interstellar Fusion Drive, that prophecy had been re-interpreted.
    And he was supposed to impersonate one of these fanatics? Because he had some of the old pueblo blood?
    â€œSey’er, I don’t know if I can live up to your expectations. I know nothing about the old pueblo lifestyle. I don’t speak old English­, either. That was still the major language of West America when they left two hundred years ago.”
    Vilmir smiled wanly. “They don’t speak it either. They insisted on speaking Hopi. Revived it from the dead.”
    â€œEven worse!”
    â€œMr. Washington, I have your