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years.
    Their delay had given me time to put my own plan into action. I patted the bag against my haunch, its hard bulges a combination of luck and the now-helpful sunlight. Judging from the abundance of ritual leavings sparkling around the lower slope of the mountain, Ersh had had more Tumblers visiting than I knew. I’d worried unnecessarily about having to scout closer to Edianti’s unstable rim.
    â€œAren’t there any more, S’kal-ru?” Uriel’s voice sent me ducking behind my boulder again. “These will barely suffice to start twenty cultures. Mocktap won’t accept that as payment for what’s in these containers—”
    â€œThese are enough. This strain of duras clones amazingly well, my friend, and grows even faster. We’ll have plants for a hundred ships within months, providing both oxygen and—”
    When her voice trailed away with suggestive triumph, I immediately filled in the gap. Mass. Ersh had modified these plants to produce the greatest possible amount of new mass in the shortest time. She’d picked duras over other species because they were hardy, thrived indoors, and, also importantly, were essentially inedible. No point sharing useful mass with other life. And, while the attraction was lost on me, Ersh confessed to finding their compact spirals of green leaves aesthetically pleasing. If Skalet was making sure her Kraal affiliates carried duras plants on their ships, it was for her own convenience as a web-being.
    I was lost in admiration.
    But what had convinced the Kraal? There were much easier botanicals to use as an oxygen supplement.
    â€œThe sap is even deadlier than you promised,” the Human answered as if reading my thoughts. “And, thus far, completely undetectable.”
    Poison. I wrinkled my snout as if at a bad smell. The Web revered life, especially intelligent life, but Ersh hadn’t spared me the realities of that life either. Most ephemeral species engaged in self-destructive behavior, including assassination and murder. The Kraal, for instance, granted exceptional status to those who managed to remove their rivals with the utmost finesse and mystery. A game, played with lives. I could see Skalet enjoying the strategy of it, the detached observer watching generations of Kraal worry and pick at their alliances, giving the odd push to a group that caught her interest, then abandoning them in another roll of the dice.
    We had less in common than I’d thought.
    Â 
    My plan was simple and should have worked. There hadn’t been any flaws I could see. Which had been the problem, really. Failing to see what was right in front of me all the time.
    The Human, Uriel, had taken my bait. He’d helped Skalet move the grav-sled a considerable distance around Ersh’s mountain, to the side that was more geologically stable, though still riddled with faults and caves. There, the two of them had off-loaded the sled, carrying each crate inside.
    While they’d been out of sight, I’d slipped up to the sled and quickly pried open the nearest box. Packing material blossomed out at me and I’d fought to get it all back inside before they returned. But I’d had time to see what was so important: Kraal artifacts. Art. Trinkets. My web-kin accumulated and shared memories of such things, not the real objects. What would be the point? There wasn’t enough room on Picco’s Moon to house a comparably comprehensive collection from any one species, let alone from thousands. Then there was the risk inherent in storing such hard-to-hide treasures.
    Treasure? Was that it? Had Skalet somehow become enamored of private wealth? Unlikely, since as a member of the Web she could access more than she could ever spend—Ersh having appreciated the value of economics well before Queebs could count.
    There was another possibility. Ersh-memory, Skalet-flavored, floated up. A Kraal dynasty required not only a lineage, with