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smoothed it after the fuss was over.
    I hung in through a half hour of their social mobbing. Rather than party until I dropped among them, I found Black Amber’s servant and had him show Karl and me to our room. We walked through two huge empty halls—shells just as Molly had said, steel, beams showing in the walls, a synthetic floor.
    “All hollow,” Karl said just before the little bear opened a door into a medium-size bedroom.
    The room was set with two sleeping mats. Karl looked at me as if being in the same room with Daddy but not Mommy was a bit intense. He pulled out his reader and his radio-controlled puppet—four-legged and of no determinate species—set them on a stool by his bed, and asked, “Can we go home tomorrow?”
     
    Karl and I ate breakfast in the food storage room, trying to ignore the Gwyngs who came in and sipped various liquids, talking away in Gwyng and watching us closely. Black Amber picked up more company this morning, two females in Gwyng shifts that consisted only of a neck band, a strap over the pouch hole, and a short skirt over the hips. The males we’d-seen the night before came in, still looking rumpled, and rummaged through all the coolers and cabinets before heading outside.
    Then Rhyodolite came in with a modified tossing disc, alien cousin to a Frisbee, and held it out to Karl.
    Karl said, “I don’t really want to.”
    Rhyodolite said to me, “Tell him I have to take care of him while you talk with Black Amber.”
    “Karl, maybe we can go home as soon as I talk with Black Amber.”
    Rhyodolite bobbed his head—annoyed—but said nothing more. Karl looked from Rhyodolite to me and then said, “Marianne the Linguist wants us to come home. We’ve left her with dangerous people. I didn’t want to.”
    Rhyodolite said, “Tell him that wasn’t my doing.”
    “Karl, Rhyodolite says he didn’t do it.”
    My son slowly finished his milk and took the glass to the sink. When I saw that he was about to wash it, even more slowly, I said, “Go on with Rhyodolite. I’ll wash up.” He grinned and took Rhyodolite’s long-fingered hand. Rhyodolite looked back over his shoulder at me and pursed his lips into a Gwyng smile.
    I washed our glasses and plates and put them with the other glasses in what looked just like a dish drainer on Earth, except for the broad oval Gwyng straws, wider than a human thumb.
    They grew odd muscles in their throat at the base of their tongues. Looking at the straws now, one in silver, the others in glass or plastic, I remembered what the muscles had looked like when my brother cut into a dead Gwyng.
    Black Amber came in and picked up the silver straw. Before she said anything to me, she poured out a glass of pure cream and drained it, the lump between her jawbones bouncing. Then she said, “Your linguist/mate called. Karriaagzh has turned her into a prison keeper (displeases/pleases).”
    “Displeases and pleases who?”
    She didn’t answer, but said, “We could turn inward and strengthen the relationships we have. Perhaps bring in those who rejected us the first time, but no more.”
    “We need to get to people before the Sharwani do.” I realized I wasn’t being diplomatic, but she had called me away from Marianne.
    Her hands dropped, elbows bent, and her thumbs curled back, pushed back by the anger glands at their bases. I froze and watched her hands as she stepped toward me. Her left hand seemed to float up, the gland hole glistening.
    “Black Amber, I’m sorry.”
    “You’re afraid of me?”
    “Black Amber, I’m sorry I was rude.”
    She nibbled her right gland, swallowing the secretion, but her left hand stayed up, swollen just above the wrist. Just as I thought she was going to drop that hand, it darted toward me and smeared the peppery juice down both sides of my cheeks. Then she ran the gland hole down my nose. Now I was angry.
    “So you support Karriaagzh? He wants to contact your people, give them gate technology. Perhaps the